Chapter 963: An Ant Shaking a Tree
The five Sovereigns were between the fourth stage and sixth stage in their cultivation levels. It almost felt like they were overreacting by moving against an Emperor with all five of them. But if one saw how this Emperor could stand up against five Sovereigns, one would not feel that they were overreacting.
Xiang Shaoyun moved like a gust of wind and pa.s.sed through the Sovereigns, not giving them the chance to surround him. As he moved, he used Havoc Dance constantly, allowing him to read all their moves. He was able to stop all incoming attacks before the attacks could be fully released, and he forced all the attackers away. He attacked in an unpredictable manner and gave them no chance to do anything to him.
As he fought, he gained more insight into the Havoc Dance technique. Havoc Dance could be cla.s.sified as a tactical technique, and a tactical technique was akin to a chess technique. Using this technique was akin to playing a game of chess. With each move an opponent made, one would be able to see 100 moves in advance.
One also needed to be able to accurately break the incoming attacks. Only then would this technique be considered a true move prediction technique. And only then would one be able to eliminate all opponents with it.
Xiang Shaoyun danced amid his enemies, moving like the drifting wind, his sabers swinging out in a seemingly chaotic pattern, moving in all directions and making it hard for one to defend against him effectively.
In fact, he was doing more than what the Havoc Dance technique was supposed to do. This was a new technique he had created on the spot, a technique he named Enemy Sealing. With this technique, he could defeat his opponent before they even had a chance to launch an attack.
He injured two Sovereigns, and they were forced to retreat with looks of indignation.
"Everyone, stop wasting time on him. Take out your soul foundations and directly crush him to death," shouted a sixth-stage Sovereign. A soul foundation with six layers appeared above him as a boundless power crushed down on Xiang Shaoyun. The terrifying power sealed Xiang Shaoyun"s surroundings, making it impossible for even a fly to leave and enter the sealed s.p.a.ce.
The other Sovereigns did not hesitate. They each took out their respective soul foundations. Some soul foundations looked like a mountain, while some looked like a lake. Alongside numerous sword, saber, and spear attacks, the soul foundations pressed down on Xiang Shaoyun as though the sky itself was collapsing upon him. Their bombardment seemed impossible to avoid.
Xiang Shaoyun was under such a powerful pressure that he was suffocating. Death crept nearer and nearer, but it served to increase the clarity of his mind. His desire to live grew, and his desire to kill them also increased.
Facing such a combined a.s.sault, he only had one option left if he wanted to defeat them. He had to release his soul clone, but that was a trump card he did not wish to reveal. He wanted to reserve that trump card for the enemy leader, so he had to extricate himself with his main body alone.
Wind and Lightning!
Lightning Calamity Fiery Star!
Two of his stars erupted, creating a storm of wind and lightning that destroyed everything around him. b.a.l.l.s of fire fell from the sky, raining down destruction in all directions. Even the released soul foundations were on the verge of breaking apart, and their weapon attacks were directly destroyed.
Abruptly, a sudden insight hit Xiang Shaoyun"s mind. He had a sudden feeling that the powers of wind, lightning, and flame could be merged to create something even more terrifying.
At that thought, he started madly pulling energy out of his wind, lightning, and flame stars. With the lightning star as the core, the wind star as the strength, and the flame star as the soldiers, the three powers coursed through his meridians. Three energies of silverish purple, gray, and silver mixed together to form a unique storm. The storm erupted with a terrifying destructive power that seemed comparable to even the primal inception energy.
Prior to this, Xiang Shaoyun was able to fight fourth-stage Sovereigns using two stars. Now that he was a late eighth-stage Dragon Ascension Realm cultivator, his combat strength had increased even further. He was entirely capable of fighting a peak fourth-stage Sovereign. In fact, he might even be able to face a fifth-stage Sovereign.
Now that he had combined two different techniques to utilize three stars at the same time, he could unleash an even more terrifying strength. He could now instantly kill a fifth-stage Sovereign and match a sixth-stage Sovereign.
Of the five Sovereigns, four of them had their soul foundations damaged. If it wasn"t for the sixth-stage Sovereign blocking off a large part of Xiang Shaoyun"s attack, the four Sovereigns would have died by now.
The more Xiang Shaoyun fought, the more ferocious he became. Even so, that did not mean that he could kill the Sovereigns without paying any price. A heavy attack from the sixth-stage Sovereign hit his waist, a stab from the fifth-stage Sovereign struck his calf, and several different energy attacks blasted his body. Without the armor he wore and a body strengthened by the Limit Stimulation Technique, he would have been cut into pieces by now.
Xiang Shaoyun spewed a large amount of blood, but he clenched his teeth and persevered. If he was defeated, the morale of his subordinates would drop, and they would all be ma.s.sacred. For them and for himself, he had to cut a path of blood out of this predicament.
He continued squeezing more energy out of the three stars as he clashed with the six Sovereigns. He swung his sabers unceasingly as his battle intent surged, sending a torrent of attacks powered by boundless saber intent.
At this point, Xiang Shaoyun was fighting with no thought to his own safety, and he was displaying the vigor of a young prodigy. Even the sixth-stage Sovereign was greatly astonished and found it hard to believe that an Emperor was doing what was essentially equivalent to an ant shaking a tree.
"I don"t care what you"re doing to be capable of fighting us, but you will die!" roared the sixth-stage Sovereign. He was furious because he felt humiliated by the fact that an Emperor was putting up a fight against him. He swung his broadsword with all his strength, and his soul foundation shone brilliantly and resonated with his stars, powering his sword strike to send a terrifying sword energy toward Xiang Shaoyun.
The fearsome sword energy was powerful enough to destroy more than 10 mountains at once. The other Sovereigns hurriedly moved out of the way so as to not get hit by the shockwave of the attack, which could be fatal.
The gap between a sixth-stage Sovereign and an eighth-stage Emperor was too big. The gap was so wide that not even a prodigy with an excellent physique could cross. With Xiang Shaoyun"s nine-star physique, if he focused on a single power, he had a chance to cross this gap. Unfortunately, he cultivated nine powers, something widely regarded as a path to failure. He wasn"t supposed to be able to face this opponent at all.
However, Xiang Shaoyun did the impossible. He fused the nine powers to form the primal inception energy, allowing him to bridge this wide gap.
Cosmos Dao Destroying Fist!
He put his sabers away and threw out his fists. His torrential battle intent, unending fist intent, and unfathomable primal inception energy created a river of stars that blasted straight toward the six-layered soul foundation and the sword energy.
A deafening explosion erupted, a mushroom-shaped cloud formed, and a ma.s.sive shockwave swept throughout the area. The many soldiers felt their knees go weak from sheer shock after witnessing the might of this collision. The wrath of a Sovereign was enough to create a field of corpses.