Chapter 333: Chapter 302: Slaying the Nascent Soul_1
“Die!”
The body of the young man was completely covered by green vines, and his whole person swelled up to a height of ten zhang. His palm strike fell as if the sky was collapsing.
Whoosh!
The tier nine Phoenix Wings spread out from Xu Mu’s back. What covered it were purple lines of patterns. With a gentle move, it reached several dozen feet away, just narrowly avoiding the youth’s transformed attack.
Xu Mu kept evading while occasionally launching close-range attacks. But sadly, his attack landing on the thick vine was like tickling it. Under the layer of vines, his attacks could hardly harm the opponent.
“Either break through his defense and attack from inside, or destroy this outer layer of bark armor. Otherwise, victory is impossible!”
Xu Mu quickly increased the distance, casting a spell with his fingers. Numerous purple fire dragons coalesced behind him and then roared towards the tree-man avatar. The moment they made contact, they erupted into violent explosions.
Boom!
The purple flame rapidly covered the tree-man, vigorously burning and turning him into a purple fire man.
The youth was fearless, with the vines growing rapidly, putting out the flames quickly and launching another attack at Xu Mu. Each strike was earth-shattering, like a mountain collapsing.
“Your tricks, they’re useless against me!”
The young man’s voice rang out from the vine transformation, thundering like a thunderclap.
Xu Mu remained silent, dodging and attacking continuously.
But the flames burned and were immediately extinguished by the vines. It was as if the fact that fire counters wood was obsolete here.
Indeed, it was not entirely ineffective, but the gap in cultivation level between them was too great, making it seem useless.
While it was not ineffective, trying to play a war of attrition in this manner was clearly impossible.
With his spiritual power far exceeding that of the Golden Core Stage, Xu Mu was still far too inferior when compared to the Nascent Soul Stage.
What’s more, the recovery rate of the Nascent Soul Stage was incomparable to the Golden Core Stage, making it more likely that he would be at a loss in the end if they continued this depletion war.
After several failed attempts with the fire, Xu Mu decisively chose to give up.
“If all you have are these tricks, prepare to die! To have endured for such a long duration against me is creditable enough! I concede you as the best below the Nascent Soul level!”
The youth’s transformation swelled once again to the size of a mountain. The whole formation was on the verge of falling apart. His palm strike hardly spared any place for Xu Mu to hide.
Faced with nowhere to dodge, Xu Mu quickly considered his options.
“Breaking the formation and fleeing is not an option. His flying speed is definitely superior to mine. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for him to block my path.”
Although his own pace had been slow, he was elusive, and it would be impossible for the opponent to catch him unless he had set up a blockade way earlier.
“It seems that I overestimated myself. I thought I could manage a match with the Nascent Soul stage with my abilities, but it seems there’s still a gap!”
He had indeed reached the fighting strength of the Nascent Soul stage under normal circumstances. He wouldn’t have lasted this long otherwise. However, it was clear that he was just managing to hold on, barely defending himself, let alone defeating the opponent.
“If I continue to resist stubbornly, it will only put me in a more disadvantageous position. There’s no point hiding my trump card anymore!”
With a firm resolution in mind, Xu Mu slapped his waist storage. A beam of white light flew out and transformed into a gigantic white fox.
“Attack!”
The white fox opened its mouth wide, spitting out a huge blue beam, striking the puppet’s chest fiercely.
Crack-crack!
The chest of the vine transformation rapidly crystallized at an extremely fast pace.
Compared to before, the attack of the white fox now was more than ten times stronger. The reason for this drastic improvement was Xu Mu’s repair work over the years using the Corpse Puppet Skill. It could now automatically absorb nature’s spiritual energy and its power had greatly increased, reaching the tier ten level.
It was during the research of the white fox puppet that he discovered that it was originally a tier ten puppet. But due to some damages, it had fallen to tier nine.
That’s why its defense was comparable to a tier ten Nascent Soul.
With Xu Mu assisting in its recovery, it had regained its true power of tier ten, becoming Xu Mu’s biggest trump card and secret.
“What kind of Divine Skills is this?!”
The young man inside the vine incarnation was struck with immense panic, because the speed of the crystallization was too fast, he couldn’t stop it at all.
At the same time, Xu Mu’s body swiftly inflated and transformed into a terrifying half-human, half-whale form and charged towards the crystallizing vine incarnation.
“Shatter!”
In Xu Mu’s hands, the Sky-splitting Halberd now seemed like a hand-axe, viciously cleaved on the crystallized vines incarnation.
Crack!
A large amount of blue crystal shattered instantly, revealing a significant gap as if a portion of the total vine mask had been hollowed out.
With a mighty flutter of his feathered wings behind him, Xu Mu sped up, slashing toward the core of the vine incarnation.
Thunk!
Layers of vines were cut to reveal the young man’s body.
Fear filled the young man’s eyes by now; he felt the threat of death.
“Die!”
Xu Mu slashed without hesitation. His attack fell unimpeded on the young man’s chest, slicing his entire chest open to expose the beating heart within.
“No! No! No!”
Seeing Xu Mu raising his Sky-splitting Halberd, preparing for another strike, the young man was gripped with extreme terror. Now, he truly felt the breath of death.
Just as he prepared to escape from the incarnation while grievously wounded, a pillar of blue light struck his chest, and his body started to crystalize.
Xu Mu’s attack landed, cracking, the young man’s entire body was shattered.
“Bastard! I’ll never share the sky with you!”
A little spirit man holding a piece of bamboo within his arms flew out from the young man’s shattered body. He gave Xu Mu a resentful glance, but he didn’t launch an attack. Instead, he prepared to cast a teleportation spell to escape.
He couldn’t kill Xu Mu even when he had his physical body, and now he was only left with his Nascent Soul. He didn’t dare to instigate Xu Mu.
All he could do now was to retreat first, then seek assistance for a joint attack.
This man was extraordinarily powerful, a Golden Core Stage cultivator who could defeat those at the Nascent Soul Stage. He must have some big secrets hiding within him. He wouldn’t worry about not being able to get help.
The young man had already thought of a hundred ways to torture Xu Mu, to take revenge and wash away the humiliation.
His physical body had been destroyed. Therefore, even if he tried to seize a body, it would be pretty challenging for him to advance his cultivation in the future. Xu Mu had essentially cut off his path. How could he not be furious?
“Thinking of leaving? In your dream!”
A magic light enveloped the young man’s Nascent Soul, and the young man who was about to teleport was suddenly held in place.
The young man struggled desperately but was still too slow by a split second.
And this split second represented the difference between life and death!
Thunk!
The young man’s Nascent Soul was directly sliced open and then exploded in mid-air, turning into a sky full of spiritual light. In the end, only a piece of green bamboo was left floating in the air.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! It shattered?”
Xu Mu was extremely frustrated; he had initially wanted to collect it into the God Refining Tripod.
The destructive power of this Sky-splitting Halberd was too potent, especially against spiritual bodies and souls.
“Never mind that for now. Let’s deal with the people setting up the formation first!”
With no time to regret, Xu Mu immediately teamed up with the White Fox puppet, attacking the several Golden-Core Stage practitioners who were setting up the formation.
He had exposed too many of his cards this time. He couldn’t allow these people to live and return.