The fireb.a.l.l.s whizzed through the air as they traveled. The fireb.a.l.l.s Bai Yunfei had shot looked similar to Ta Shan’s stone spike attack from earlier.
The only difference was that the one who was attacking and the one who was defending was reversed.
Ta Shan was kneeling on the ground with his right palm propping up his body. A small crack could be seen running through his right arm with blood streaming from it. With a grunt of pain, Ta Shan made his elemental earth staunch the bleeding as it flowed into the ground. The ground coiled up his arm, fully reforming the Terra Armor.
Now that all that was done, he could focus on the incoming barrage.
Narrowing his eyes, Ta Shan didn’t look as though he would be moving from his spot. Slapping his hand against the ground, his palm transmitted some soulforce into it. The soulforce erected a dirt wall three meters tall, ten meters wide, and one meter thick!
Bai Yunfei had seen this move before some time ago by Lü Fang, but the wall Lü Fang had made wasn’t nearly as strong as Ta Shan.
“Booom!!!”
The fireb.a.l.l.s impacted the dirt wall in a series of mini-explosions. With each fireball that hit the wall, a cloud of dirt flew up, robbing the area of visibility.
Not discouraged by the failure of his first attempt, Bai Yunfei launched a second round of fireb.a.l.l.s to attack the wall.
Once again, the sound of fireb.a.l.l.s striking the wall could be heard. The sounds had been loud enough to startle even the birds in the faraway trees.
Once this second hundred fireball barrage was over, Bai Yunfei’s hands flew forward, throwing the items in them. A blue ray and a violet ray of light streaked through the cloud of dust before the area could resituate itself. As the two rays of light disappeared into the dust, Bai Yunfei’s eyes continued to stare warily at them.
“Bang!!”
Following the wave of orange light that a.s.saulted the area, the cloud of dirt began to blow this way and that. When visibility was restored, the very first thing one would notice was that the wall Ta Shan had erected earlier was nowhere to be seen. All that was left was the base of the wall with him standing where it used to be. Both his arms were crossed over another in an ‘X’ formation to safeguard his head and face. He looked as immobile as a stone statue, and he glowed bright orange due to his cracked Terra Armor.
The armor looked dilapidated, and two handles of violet and blue could be seen stabbed into the parts protecting his arms. They were the Flying Bolt Dagger and Glacial p.r.i.c.ker.
However, he wasn’t the most conspicuous part of the scene. Three meters ahead of him—where the base of the wall was—were fragments of the wall .
It was precisely these fragments that were the most conspicuous because they were floating in the air!
A cloud of orange light covered each and every fragment so that they were suspended in the air like water droplets. Big or small, the amount of individual pieces surely had to be well over a thousand.
If one were to look closely, one would be able to tell that a change was occurring in the fragments. The fragments were slowly thinning out in front and widening in the back while they remained suspended in the air. They then s.h.i.+ned a bright orange in color, undergoing some sort of hardening process…
“Hmph!”
Things were already at a standstill by this point. The dust cloud had settled onto the ground. The air was calm, but that was when Ta Shan made his move.
His arms gradually lowered to reveal his eyes. As shocked and angry as he was, a vicious light emanated from behind those two emotions as he harrumphed. As if obeying an order, the one thousand plus fragments spun frantically, aiming at Bai Yunfei. They then shot toward him as if had been fired from a thousand invisible bows!
“Dammit, even that didn’t work!!”
Clenching his fists in anger, Bai Yunfei observed the objects coming at him with equally angry eyes. Flicking a finger up from his right hand, Bai Yunfei ordered, “Cataclysmic Seal!”
“Bzz…” Obeying his summons with a vibrational buzz, the Cataclysmic Seal flew at him as though it had been aided by a strong gale. Crossing the distance between it and him in practically the blink of an eye, the Cataclysmic Seal started to grow exponentially in size. By the time it flew past Bai Yunfei, it was already the size of a small mountain, directed to slam into Ta Shan!
Now wasn’t the time to make use of the Cataclysmic Seal’s barrier, but the +13 effect instead. The ability to grow in size wasn’t limited to just defending, it could be used as an extremely strong attack too!
He wanted to use this attack a lot sooner, but Bai Yunfei couldn’t use it because of a factor completely out of his control. His soulsense told him that Tang Xinyun was hidden just a few hundred meters behind Ta Shan, which meant she hadn’t immediately been sent away when he found Ta Shan.
Fortune and misfortune were two sides to the same coin. While this meant Tang Xinyun was safe and nearby, this also meant Bai Yunfei couldn’t use the Cataclysmic Seal to grow several hundred meters in length and crush his enemies flat.
The beginning of the battle was an attempt to sound out how Ta Shan fought so that he could attack appropriately. Whether by design or by pure bad luck, Bai Yunfei had failed to act on his plans up until now.
Even now, Bai Yunfei was still afraid to make the Cataclysmic Seal too big in fear of making Tang Xinyun an unfortunate target of friendly fire.
“Thwok thwok thwok thwok thwok!” The concentrated barrage of one thousand stone spikes pelted the Cataclysmic Seal, but what use was rain drops to a mountain? They did nothing, turning from stone back into sand and dirt once more.
Without any obstructions, the Cataclysmic Seal continued on to strike Ta Shan.
“It can get even bigger!?” Ta Shan’s eyes dilated in surprise. Not expecting such a thing to happen, Ta Shan took one step back before realizing that that wouldn’t help him escape.
After half-second of considering the incoming ma.s.s, Ta Shan’s eyes s.h.i.+ned furiously with light. Soon elemental earth from all over started to flow and be absorbed into his body.
“Brat… you should be proud that you managed to push me this far!!” Ta Shan roared.
His left leg rose into the air before coming back down onto the ground with a heavy stomp. The elemental earth that was gathering in his body flowed into the ground before rocks and stones started to congregate around him as if they were alive. Crawling up his right leg, they coiled around his body, up to his waist before finally stopping around his entire right arm.
The Cataclysmic Seal was already fifty meters away by the time the stones traveled to Ta Shan’s right arm. In just moments, the stones were hardening while growing in size!
When the Cataclysmic Seal was just twenty meters away, the right fist of Ta Shan was already ten meters wide and ten meters long. With a grunt, he heaved his heavy fist forward as he lashed out!
“You can f.u.c.k off!!”
With a heavy collision, the fist smashed against Bai Yunfei’s Cataclysmic Seal!!
“Boom!!!!”
A cacophony of sounds erupted in the area as the two objects collided. Ta Shen’s feet sank deep into the ground as he tried to maintain his footing, but the fist that was so heavily backed by elemental earth and stone was already starting to crumble. Due to the inner turmoil of his body, his face was a dark shade of red, and his mouth was already starting to dribble with some of his blood.
Despite the state he was in, his eyes were filled with glee.
He had… repelled the Cataclysmic Seal!!
Whistling as it traveled, the Cataclysmic Seal flew over Bai Yunfei’s head before coming to a stop on the ground just ten meters away.
Bai Yunfei was completely bewildered by what had happened. From when Ta Shan slammed the brick back to when the brick smashed into the ground, he didn’t react.
It was only when he felt the vibrations of the brick that Bai Yunfei snapped back to awareness. Turning his head back to look at the half-submerged Cataclysmic Seal, he tried his best to rationalize the events in front of him.
“Im… impossible!!”
The Cataclysmic Seal had been invincible during every single thing it had done so far, but it was the loser in this bout!
This… this was the strength of a Soul Exalt!!