The exchange took mere moments, but in that time, Cha Ming wasn’t just on the defensive. He’d retracted his combat formation, and now it formed dozens of blades that struck out and attacked the weaker blood masters. Though each blade felled three, those three stood up almost immediately. These weren’t qi cultivators like the imperial tutor, but body cultivators like Cha Ming. They were born for battle.
Cha Ming blocked another saber blow, this one headed toward his chest. At this point, the transcendent didn’t bother targeting any specific body parts. He’d guessed that Cha Ming was like him, someone who could be reborn from a single drop of blood. As such, the best way to fight was collateral damage, destroying as much as he could with every blow.
Cha Ming resisted, and despite blocking the saber blows, his bones cracked and shattered, his flesh evaporating to nothingness from the spatial cracks they generated. Lightning surged around the blood master like a storm. Despite being covered in a charcoal-like substance, the insane blood master still grinned evilly. It was like he didn’t care that at any moment, his vitality stores could run out, and the storm would end him.
I can’t keep going on like this, Cha Ming thought. Time to change tactics. He hadn’t expected to be fighting a transcendent, which meant that he was likely a new addition, someone from outside their monastery here to deal with the incoming creature. He dodged a few hammer wielders, but this movement was enough to allow the transcendent’s blade to strike true, cutting Cha Ming in half. It was a surreal sensation, being in two places at once, but his body instantly formed a connection and came back together. Such was the power of divinity and vitality.
If I can’t kill them with swords, I’ll grind away at them until they’re dead, Cha Ming thought. He recalled his combat formation, which immediately changed shape and became an agonizing ball of fire and blades. It surged toward a late-marrow-refining cultivation and ground into him. As it cut and burned, his body tried to regrow, only to be cut down again. The ball ground away for a second before the blood master finally didn’t grow back. Nodding, Cha Ming sent out the ball of fiery spikes to find another target.
“Keep attacking,” the now-ebony-skinned man said, still grinning. “If he kills you, you never stood a chance of escaping anyway.”
The words egged on the clearly insane blood masters. Many began burning their blood essence, boosting their power and movements until finally, their attacks began to connect with Cha Ming, clipping at his skin and chipping his bones. Though he regenerated with every blow, his vitality stores were limited. In fact, he’d already exhausted a quarter of them.
It finally dawned on Cha Ming that picking off the small fries wouldn’t cut it. He simply didn’t have enough time, not with the transcendent attacking him with that freakishly huge sword. No, he would need to take the initiative and hope that the plane was doing more damage than it appeared to be doing. Decision made, he flew through the blood masters, withdrawing his combat formation once again and forming a new one.
A giant mountain appeared above Cha Ming and the transcendent blood master, increasing the gravity around them a hundredfold. He then threw out a blue talisman, a half-step-transcendent Flow Talisman. The air around them thickened, slowing down everyone within the immediate area while speeding up Cha Ming’s movements. He sent out a second talisman, a half-step-transcendent Matter Talisman. It landed on the surprised blood master’s charcoal-covered body, causing it to seize up and crumble. His muscles became stiff, and his bones became brittle.
Then, a third talisman appeared, then a fourth. The third one was golden, and it shone with a sharp light that immediately surrounded the Clear Sky Staff. The half-transcendent Shape Talisman greatly boosted Cha Ming’s offense, to the point that even a casual swipe of his staff caused space to crackle, and the heavens to rumble in displeasure. Fortunately, he wasn’t a transcendent and was only abusing loopholes. He struck the shocked blood master with staff after staff, breaking down his body before he could even react.
As Cha Ming attacked, a warm light began to glow around him. The Energy Talisman, the fourth talisman he’d activated, wasn’t a normal one. It was a transcendent talisman. His body grew faster and faster, his every strike filled with even more energy. It poured into his staff, which began to burn brightly. It didn’t just cut into the beleaguered blood master’s body, but seared everything around him, burning at the energy stores within his void network.
Three seconds, Cha Ming thought. He only had three seconds at this peak level of power. His attacks intensified, and he unleashed Crushing Chaos, Splitting Heaven and Earth, and even Origin Strike in quick succession. Each hit caused the grin on the blood master to falter, and also caused the lightning’s attacks on what barely looked like a man now to intensify.
Two seconds. Frightened by what was occurring, the blood master shouted an order. The dozens of remaining blood masters rushed into the constricted area without concern for their safety. Their movements were slow and sluggish, but Cha Ming had no time to spare for them. They hacked into his skin, their blows glancing off his bones but piercing his flesh, regenerating almost instantly as he redoubled his efforts. One second remained, but his vitality stores were at less than half, their depletion increasing drastically.
The talisman’s effects would soon run out, so Cha Ming gathered half of his qi. He gathered his nascent domain, withdrawing it from his body and urging it into the only thing that mattered—his staff. He held on with two hands and unleashed the most powerful Origin Strike he’d ever executed. By now, the Energy Talisman had filled him with an unbelievable burning power that coursed through every inch of his body.
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