I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 870: Reversal Tactics
The behemoth before him still had a body made of ceaselessly shuddering spatial waves, yet the pressure it exerted was not in the least weaker than Jie Ming's own.
If anything… because it had no solid body, that half-there sense of its presence was the more unnerving.
Jie Ming's three vertical eyes all contracted slightly at once.
“This really is… beyond all reason.”
The behemoth opened a mouth that did not exist and roared without sound.
It came on without hesitation, its huge transparent forelimb driving straight through layer upon layer of space and slamming down.
Jie Ming advanced rather than retreated, the Dharma Form's arms crossing, the Return to Ruins Armor appearing directly ahead of him as a shield.
Boom!!!
In the instant the steady-state field covered the Dharma Form's arms, the giant claw struck the defensive field head-on, and a terrible force of impact swept out in every direction.
A rift valley tens of thousands of kilometers long was torn straight through the spatial island, and grey turbulence came pouring madly in through the crack.
By casting the Return to Ruins Armor over and over without a break, Jie Ming just barely blocked the blow.
But the Dharma Form's vast body was still driven bodily backward, skidding tens of thousands of kilometers.
With the brief span of time this bought him, though, Jie Ming completed his second round of enhancement.
He steadied his footing abruptly, and from his eyes blazing white light erupted.
“Hah!”
Boom!
The second stage of enhancement.
Light God Transformation!
In that instant the power inside Jie Ming began converting madly, and the Dharma Form, dark golden before, lit up completely.
This time, though, he did not use the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light he knew so well.
As his level had risen, Jie Ming had gone on refining the Light God Transformation as a technique.
He had injected an entirely new power into it to serve as the energy carrier.
That power was the strongest means of attack Jie Ming possessed at this stage: the Terminus Ray.
And so white radiance began to bloom.
It was the white of finality, pure to the utmost degree.
The Dharma Form, two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers tall, was swallowed whole by white flame, and the entire chaotic interlayer lit up at a stroke, as though a white star had been forced bodily into this stretch of chaotic space.
Those churning grey currents scattered wildly under the white glare, and even the spatial fold beast's huge transparent body froze for a single instant.
Even the wizards in the other separate spaces were drawn one after another by that blinding light.
“What is that?”
A sixth-level wizard in the thick of a death struggle with a spatial fold beast could not help letting his attention wander, and for it was very nearly killed by the enemy in front of him.
On another battlefield, Viola, who had just canceled out an attack with the Law of Pain, could not help turning her head either.
“Jie Ming?” Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“That fellow. This power of his really is outrageous…”
Clark, for his part, spared it no more than a glance before drawing his gaze back.
He knew his disciple had begun to take this seriously.
…
…
With his battle preparations complete, Jie Ming did not choose to repair the puppet that had been utterly destroyed.
As things stood, he had no attention to spare for tending and working a puppet that would serve no purpose.
Boom!
The spatial fold beast showed not the least intention of pausing. It charged in once more, its giant claw slamming savagely into Jie Ming's chest.
Riiip!
White radiance burst outward at once. A tear tens of thousands of kilometers long was ripped bodily across the Dharma Form's chest, and the streams of light coursing within were plainly visible.
But in the blink of an eye the tear began contracting swiftly, a skeleton blazing with white light grew anew, and the white light of finality spread over it.
In the space of a moment the wound had gone back to what it was.
“Again.”
Jie Ming barked the word low, and both fists smashed out together.
Boom, boom!!
The two colossi crashed straight into each other.
The spatial fold beast's giant claw came hammering down and Jie Ming raised a fist to block it, a terrible shockwave sweeping a million kilometers across in an instant, a vast hollow blasted by force through the grey turbulence.
The next instant the transparent behemoth's other arm reached out of space itself. Jie Ming turned side-on, the giant claw grazing past his shoulder, and the white Dharma Form's shoulder promptly burst open.
But Jie Ming seized that transparent arm in his grip. Both hands bore down.
“Come… here…”
The Dharma Form, two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers tall, put out its strength in one violent surge, and the spatial fold beast's vast body was actually swung bodily off the ground!
“Out!”
The immense behemoth was flung bodily into the air, and Jie Ming seized the chance to smash out a punch.
Bang!!!
The edge of the fist struck the behemoth's chest, the transparent spatial waves compressed to their utmost, ring upon ring of spatial ripples visible to the naked eye detonating in an instant, and the behemoth's body flew tens of thousands of kilometers backward.
But before Jie Ming could press the attack, it had steadied its body again, had even corrected its posture and come sweeping in with another claw.
This time Jie Ming did not take it head-on but turned aside to evade.
The giant claw swept past, grazing the Dharma Form's waist.
Hissss…
Space was sliced straight open in an enormous gash, and through it the pitch-black depths of a dimension showed faintly.
Jie Ming's gaze hardened.
No wonder his defenses might as well not have existed. This was no longer merely ordinary spatial cutting; the move most likely carried within it concept-level power of the collapse or ruin category.
Still, that shoulder throw had squeezed out a little more time at least.
Watching the behemoth swing yet another claw at him, the white radiance about Jie Ming surged violently. Both hands formed seals at once, and grey-white ripples spread out from around the Dharma Form.
Ash Return to Origin Hand!
A ring of fluctuation covered the space ahead in an instant, and the spatial fold beast's body abruptly stalled.
The next moment its huge body was hauled forcibly back to where it had stood before.
The attack it had just completed was directly “taken back” as well, so that the spatial fold beast's movement was forcibly cut short.
Jie Ming, however, had not let the Ash Return to Origin Hand affect himself, and remained in mid-charge.
Jie Ming did not waste the chance. A fist smashed out.
Boom!!!
The behemoth's chest caved in on the instant, huge ripples rolling out layer upon layer through its transparent body.
Yet the effect of the blow was truly limited. The behemoth showed almost no intention of giving ground, and came lunging in again.
He took two more claws, and beyond any doubt Jie Ming was pushed onto the back foot once more.
Jie Ming worked the reversal again.
Fight again!
Reverse again!
Fight again!
It was by reversal as unreasonable as this that Jie Ming barely held on.
Jie Ming and the behemoth collided again and again in the chaotic space, and every impact was enough to chill a sixth-level wizard to the bone.
Even with its interior expanded to the limit, the spatial island within the stretch of space Jie Ming occupied had long since failed to hold together and had broken apart completely.
There was no longer any “ground” beneath the two of them in any true sense; the whole battlefield had become chaotic void entirely.
Countless fragments of space shattered and reassembled without cease as the two of them fought, and small storms of spatial turbulence were blasted apart by their power the moment they formed.
Grey spatial turbulence came surging in from every side like a tsunami, and in that flood of destruction Jie Ming and the spatial fold beast fought each other with abandon.
…
…
There was no telling how much time had passed.
Jie Ming could feel clearly that things were growing easier and easier for him.
At the outset, every attack the spatial fold beast made had been extraordinarily dangerous; even with the Return to Ruins Armor assisting, each one had opened no small wound in the Dharma Form.
Later, he was able to take them head-on with the Dharma Form.
Later still, when the spatial fold beast's claws landed on him, they could leave only shallow wounds.
And by now its attacks could no longer easily break through the surface layer of his Dharma Form at all.
Taking another of the behemoth's blows head-on, feeling the enormous force travel up his arms, Jie Ming showed a dangerous smile:
“At last… I've adapted!”
Because he had deliberately kept the Ash Return to Origin Hand off himself the whole time, his rate of recovery was somewhat the worse for it, but the speed of his self-adaptive evolution could run at full.
Every collision, every erosion by space, every stretch of damage at the structural level was driving the Body Forging Method into targeted evolution.
Law resistance, spatial stability, bodily structure, even the manner of connection between soul and Dharma Form: all of it was rising, bit by bit.
Jie Ming was not the only one improving in this fight, though. On the other side, as he grew stronger, the spatial fold beast was raising its own power madly to match.
But little by little, it fell further and further behind his rate of improvement.
It was like a man on foot chasing a war chariot that was still accelerating.
At last.
The opening appeared.
The spatial fold beast swung a claw once more. Jie Ming did not defend; he even took a step forward of his own accord and let that giant claw slam into his chest.
Boom!!!
A spray of sparks blew out of the white Dharma Form's chest on the instant, but Jie Ming had hold of its arm.
“Got you.”
The transparent behemoth thrashed violently, but it was already too late.
With one hand Jie Ming yanked it hard toward himself, and with the other fist he put out his strength in a thunderous surge!
Dense rows of runes glittered along the edge of that fist.
They were part of the Echo Shell's runes.
Jie Ming had folded the element-stacking logic inside the Echo Shell into the Dharma Form's attacks!
The first punch.
The spatial fold beast's chest shuddered faintly.
The second punch.
The free elements around it began to be drawn forcibly in.
The third punch.
Boom!
With every punch that landed, the number of elemental particles grew at an outrageous rate.
More and more elemental power lent itself to Jie Ming's fists, making the damage of each successive attack heavier and heavier.
The spatial fold beast finally recognized the danger. It writhed frantically, and countless spatial ripples erupted all at once.
Boom!
The arm with which Jie Ming held its claw was jolted loose, and the Dharma Form was shaken back.
But grey-white fluctuation spread out, and both of them were reversed together, back to the state they had been in before they were shaken apart.
The vast Dharma Form crossed the intervening space in an instant and stood before the behemoth once more.
This time Jie Ming let go of his grip before the thing could tear free.
Then, in the gap while it was exerting its power, another punch!
Boom!
Space began to tremble.
His free hand caught the behemoth's other claw and hauled it back again, and then… another punch!
Boom!
This punch, at last, was different.
In the instant the fist's edge came down, the surrounding space was crushed outright.
Rumble!!!
A terrible roar detonated soundlessly through the endless void.
On the body of that spatial fold beast, which all this while had seemed unconquerable, a wound in the true sense of the word had finally appeared.
Beginning where the fist had made contact, a crack appeared.
Jie Ming's eyes lit up, and without the slightest hesitation he kept hammering away with wild punches!
Boom, boom, boom…
Countless spatial fissures spread madly in every direction like a spiderweb.
The transparent behemoth's huge body shuddered violently, like an enormous pane of glass struck square on by a heavy hammer.
At last…
Crack… Boom!!!
The whole behemoth shattered with a roar, countless fragments of space flying off in all directions.
But before those fragments could melt into the chaotic void, the Terminus Ray inside Jie Ming's Dharma Form erupted in full.
White radiance swept out on every side, and every fragment of space annihilated swiftly in the light of finality.
Jie Ming hung in the chaotic void, his Dharma Form two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers tall, still holding the Light God Transformation state.
The pure white light of finality spread slowly outward from his surface in all directions, as though he were a giant made of light.
Jie Ming looked at the empty chaotic void and was silent a moment.
“A pity.”
Dangerous though the thing was, it was in itself an exceedingly rare and peculiar form of life.
If he could catch one alive and bring it back to study, the value would be anything but small.
Soon enough, though, Jie Ming smiled again.
At the very least, this fight had carried his Body Forging Method through a quite respectable round of adaptive evolution.