Aspiring to the Immortal Path
Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 681: Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment

Tang Jie's fighting style was very simple: constantly using the Ten Extinctions Blade.

One blow, and another, and another!

He just kept charging in and swinging.

It was simple and direct, yet particularly vicious, each swing presenting an enormous threat to the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, allowing him to trade wound for wound.

Gradually, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor realized that he was in trouble.

Although each exchange ended up with Tang Jie more badly wounded, the difference in constitution meant that Tang Jie would eventually outlast the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor. More importantly, with each exchange of wounds, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor became less unable to suppress the wounds inflicted by the Devil Crushing Fist.

The Devil Crushing Fist was Tang Jie's strongest move, and while the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had managed to survive it, it had badly affected him. Even though he was able to suppress the wounds through sheer might, the endless assault was wearing him down. This was particularly because the Ten Extinctions Blade wasn't easy to deal with, all because of that insidious sliver of Destruction power. Once it made contact, it clung to him like a parasite, and he had no choice but to resort to self-harm to get rid of it. This built up into a huge burden on his body, which caused the wounds inflicted by the Devil Crushing Fist to begin acting up again.

Tang Jie was still lunging into the fray, tirelessly swinging away, and the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was losing his patience.

He knew that if he kept dragging things out like this, he might really lose, so he summoned a magnificent warship which sported eighteen heavy lightning cannons across its body.

This was none other than his Pavilion Warship.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor jumped atop his warship, and a barrier appeared over its deck. This barrier, even stronger than the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's Thunder Barrier, directly took the blow from the Ten Extinctions Blade.

At the same time, Thunder Blade slapped the deck, upon which the two forward cannons slowly turned their barrels on Tang Jie.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor laughed. "Die, human!"

Two thick bolts of lightning blasted at Tang Jie.

In terms of combat strength, he was actually a little weaker than Spirit Eyes. Even in the Astral Winds, Silver Eyes' Thousand Hands Orb had been able to resist the sword-spirit-empowered Ten Extinctions Blade, an attack which had been on par with the Devil Crushing Fist. But the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor couldn't even completely neutralize the weaker version of the Ten Extinctions Blade. When it came to forging tools, however, this fellow was publicly acknowledged as a genius among the fiends.

Of his four divine treasures, only the Profound Heavy Water hadn't been something he had made. The other three, he had gathered the materials for and personally forged himself. The best of them wasn't actually the Heaven Thunder Saber with which he had made his name, but his warship.

As a palace-type treasure, the warship couldn't merely ride the waves, but it could also attack and defend. The deck barrier was the defense, and the eighteen lightning cannons were the offense.

Two thick pillars of lightning blasted at Tang Jie.

Fortunately, when the two cannons fired, Tang Jie had already evaded them.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor slapped the ship again, and the cannons fired again, forcing Tang Jie to dodge again. These lightning cannons seemed to have locked onto Tang Jie, firing salvo after salvo. Tang Jie was forced to run around, the deck barrier preventing him from getting close. But Tang Jie refused to leave the prow area so that only two of the eighteen cannons could attack him.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor used this opportunity to recover, swearing to himself that he would skin this human alive once he had fully recovered, avenging his son. Remembering that his son had been slain by Tang Jie filled his heart with sorrow. He took out his son's head to give it a closer look, tears welling up in his eyes.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was a born tyrant, and it was only his son who he had ever spoiled beyond compare. In reality, this loss had been the greatest blow to him. In his sorrow, he noticed a glimmer in the head of the Little Thunder Emperor.

Startled, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor instinctively felt that this was something bad. He was about to throw away the head, but then he realized that this was his son's head. In this moment of hesitation, the head exploded.

A surge of spiritual power slammed into Thunder Blade's face, blasting half of it away and sending an eyeball skyward.

"Despicable!" The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor threw his head back and howled in anger. The explosion had not only undone his recovery efforts, it had worsened his injuries.

Worst of all was that the warship's defenses had also been disabled by the blast. The ship had been designed to face its defenses externally, not internally, and the explosion had ripped straight through the warship's barrier.

Tang Jie flew in and unleashed another Ten Extinctions Blade at the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor.

"Tyrant Slaying Slash!" the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor roared as he swung his saber.

Having been injured this badly, Thunder Blade cast aside all his inhibitions and began to trade attack for attack.

A blade of lightning descending from the heavens, divine and majestic, peerless and unstoppable!

A brilliant lightning bolt lit up the skies of the Sky Mount, slashing toward Tang Jie.

That lightning bolt cut through the firmament with such force that one despaired at the thought of enduring it.

But in the face of this tyrannical blade, Tang Jie continued swinging.

Thus, the lightning came down, exploding on Tang Jie's body and blasting him into tiny bits.

It's over?

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was startled, and then he bellowed and threw a punch behind him.

Bang!

Tang Jie appeared out of the void and punched back at the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor. But this time, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was no match for Tang Jie, and he was blasted away. It turned out that Tang Jie had switched out with a duplicate while charging and used the Chaoswind Step to move behind the Fiend Emperor. This was one of the more exquisite uses of the Reflections of Floating Life—he wasn't restricted to only using it to create numerous duplicates.

But the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had already activated his Divine Will, so he had immediately noticed when Tang Jie appeared.

However, while he had noticed Tang Jie, he no longer had the strength to go against him. As for that Tyrant Slaying Slash, it had only destroyed a duplicate.

As the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor flew through the air, his hair began to stand up, and he raised his head and howled, causing more lightning to descend from the heavens.

One thick bolt of lightning after another crashed down, lighting up the sky.

"Origin Life Heavenly Lightning Art!" the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor howled, spitting out mouthful after mouthful of blood.

This blood coiled around the lightning, making it even more powerful.

At the same time, the Heaven Thunder Saber stabbed into the air, drawing the lightning to it and having it coil around the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's body and carry him skyward. Backed by countless streaks of lightning, he appeared like a thunder god descending to the mortal plane.

He glared at Tang Jie and roared, "Human, you must die!"

He swung the saber in his right hand, sending that endless lightning rushing toward Tang Jie.

But Tang Jie simply laughed. "You should have tried this long ago! That's what makes it fun!

"Raaa!" Tang Jie shook his arms, and his body instantly grew to the size of a giant. He charged at the lightning, swinging the enormous saber created from the fusion of the Mother Cloud Essence Metal axe and Sovereign Blade at the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor.

Lightning exploded on Tang Jie's body while his saber energy stirred up the air into powerful vortices.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was like the Thunder Duke, floating in the clouds and constantly unleashing lightning while thunder rumbled around him, while Tang Jie was like a giant rebelling against the heavens, bellowing at the sky.

(TN: The Thunder Duke is the traditional Chinese god of thunder and lightning.)

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Tang Jie was by now completely immersed in frenzied battle, liberally unleashing his power and releasing the wild nature within him. But in the middle of all the wildness was a hint of cunning, savagery, and anticipation.

He looked at the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor as a hunter would look at his prey.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor clearly didn't realize this. If he had seen this, he would have understood that Tang Jie's plots had yet to cease.

But in the middle of this berserk flood of power, he had no time to sense the malice of his foe.

Tang Jie's immense strength was putting more and more pressure on the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, and his badly wounded body was reaching its limit.

He knew that he needed to deal with Tang Jie before his wounds flared up again, or else he really might have no hope.

At this moment, he made up his mind. He drew back the power suppressing his wound, and blood began to gush from his belly.

As the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor howled in pain, he threw his saber into the sky, where it became a streak of lightning.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor spread out his arms and began to draw the lightning toward him. In a flash, it had gathered between his arms into a thick pillar of lightning radiating a blinding light.

"Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment!" someone roared—not the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, but Tang Jie.

Stunned, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor saw that Tang Jie had spread out his arms and taken up exactly the same position.

A thin pillar of lightning had gathered between his arms.

This lightning was far weaker than the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's, wriggling like a little snake, but the moment the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor saw it, he cried out in fear, "NOOO!"

"Goodbye!" Tang Jie smiled as he threw his lightning pillar at the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's lightning pillar.

As the lightning bolts made contact, the lightning pillar in front of the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor exploded.

This was no small explosion, lightning devastating the surrounding area.

As the person right next to it, the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had his defenses instantly torn apart and his body blown to bits, only his head left to fly into the air. The remaining power of the lightning explosion slammed into Tang Jie and set his giant body tumbling. Half of his arm disappeared into the lightning while a big chunk of flesh was scooped out of his chest, exposing his ribs and organs, and this was despite Tang Jie having put up his defenses and being farther away from the blast.

Farther off, even Yiyi and the three fiend kings were caught up in the shockwave, but as they were farther away and had also been able to flee, they didn't suffer any lethal wounds.

But the entirety of the Sky Mount had been flattened.

"That was damn powerful," Tang Jie muttered as he looked up at the lightning still rampaging up in the heavens.

This was the power of Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment?

It really was scary. Even with his constitution, he would have been helpless against it.

Alas, the problem with such frightening strength was that it was difficult to control.

Even the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor needed to use all of his strength on this move. If some outside force interfered, it would go out of control, with the result being what had just happened.

This was why Tang Jie had been able to create such devastation with only a small lightning bolt. In fact, he had been waiting for this moment the entire time.

As the howling sea of lightning finally dispersed, a large Thunder Serpent head tumbled from the sky.

As the head hit the ground, a light shot out of it and flew toward the horizon. This was Thunder Blade's soul. As a Divine Division fiend, he had two lives.

But he had forgotten that Tang Jie had locked the area down. A moment later, a net of light appeared and repelled it.

Tang Jie strode over and grabbed the Thunder Serpent's soul. "A Divine Soul is a great treasure, so it would be a great pity if you managed to escape. Besides, I still don't have plans on revealing myself yet."

The soul wriggled in Tang Jie's hand as it howled, "How did you know? How did you know about the Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment's weakness?"

"You need to ask?" Tang Jie replied with disdain. "It was your precious son that told me, of course. Since I was going to kill you, how could I not learn about your ultimate technique? Alas, while you were willing to pay anything for your son, he completely sold you out long ago. I know everything that you have! Thus, if you can't teach your son properly, it'd be better to not have a son at all. While you can take on human form and learn how to forge tools like a human, you still don't understand how to conduct yourself as a human, only knowing how to spoil him rotten. In the end, you sought your own destruction!"

The Thunder Serpent was stunned. He had never imagined that he had been destroyed by his own son.

Tang Jie put away the Divine Soul. This was a substantialized Divine Soul, which was a supreme treasure for improving one's Divine Will.