Chapter 972 Might of the Heaven and Earth Rings

“Li Mu’s leaving with me, one way or another.”

Green Ox flatly refused to bulge.

There was no need for more banter. If the Sons of Lightning wanted a fight, then Green Ox of the Sanctuary of the Way would be ready to give it his all. The Sanctuary of the Way, for all its embodiment of the ‘Do nothing, Achieve anything’ maxim, might have rarely interfered with the cares of the world but its members would never shy from a fight if the need to stick their hands into the mud so arises.

“Show us what you can do then, Green Ox.”

The Thunderbird issued its challenge in the human tongue. He unfurled its entire wingspan, its multi-hued feathers bristling with jets of lightning bolts that screamed into the air, sweeping the skies in torrents that came surging down on Green Ox.

“The Fist of Enlightenment.”

With a long-winded yell, Green Ox drove his knuckles skyward.

Boom!

The blast sent a beam of light that punched through the waves of lightning bolts surging downwards, spearing straight at the dazzling bird of lightning.

More than half of the lightning waves were still crashing down on the entire stretch of the ridge with Green Ox’s humongous bull avatar in it. Everything—the trees, rocks, and even the grass—other than the glowing image of the bull was reduced to cinders and ashes, if not molten magma.

Green Ox’s bull avatar shrunk by at least a meter.

The flames swept over every inch of the earth.

In the meantime, the beam of light hit the Thunderbird, tossing up feathers into the air like a frightened rooster squawking and flailing its wings wildly in hysteria.

Such was the exchange of blows between truly powerful figures: there was no need for feints or gambits, just the blunt trading of blows.

The Thunderbird was ranked the eighth out of the nine Sons of Lightning, but that did not matter as Green Ox easily defeated it with just one single blow. As much as it was just a brief contest, both combatants did their best to ensure their blows could maim or even kill their respective opponents. Green Ox’s turned out to be a blow that determined their life and death.

A blow that had defeated his foe.

“Hmph, I expect no less from you, Master Practitioner Green Ox of the Sanctuary of the Way. They call you ‘The Priest Who Was Once King’, don’t they? Looks like you’ve grown stronger. Try this: Stormdrake Claw!” the one-eyed Taoist priest smirked as he cast an arm forward. Jagged tendrils of lightning shot from the tip of his fingers, each of them morphing into slithery dragons of lightning. The lightning-formed beasts waved and swung their claws menacingly, every single one of them a thunderbolt that could easily lay waste to lands as far as hundreds of miles wide.

“Fists of Taoist Samsara!”

Green Ox roared as he took into the air, thrusting an arm into the skies again.

An energy bolt tone out of his arm, Shooting straight up into the air amid a chorus of Taoist chants that accompanied the blast’s skyward ascension, leaving in its wake a sparkling trail of energy dregs left by the countless thunderbolt dragons that Green Ox’s attack obliterated.

The one-eyed Taoist priest was ranked seven out of the Nine, making him more dangerous than both the Thunder Sage and the Thunderbird. Ten seconds passed since he took over the duel from his colleague the Thunderbird yet he did not show any signs of faltering. At the eleventh second, Green Ox found the opening he needed—he drove a well-placed punch into his enemy’s shoulder. The one-eyed Taoist priest emitted a painful grunt. The blow had nearly blasted his torso apart, and his magical powers had saved him from disintegrating as he crashed backward.

That was yet another testament to how deadly and powerful Green Ox really was.

“Who else is there!” the broad-faced giant of a man bellowed from the sky. Still hovering in mid-air, he glared at all three Sons of Lightning imperiously, “All three of you are too weak. Where are the rest of the Sons? Show yourself if you wish to stop me!”

“Impressive,” remarked a fourth voice.

From a distance, everyone saw a one-legged yak without horns Iimping through the air. The bizarre animal in its ochre hide would have looked like an outlandish and hilarious sight if not for the fact that with every single hop, the animal magically drew closer by leaps and bounds with the help of eldritch powers and thunders in the clouds overhead groaned as if in natural resonance to its progress.

The thunderclaps rumbled like warhorns across the horizon, the rhythmic dm threatening to split Li Mu and the other’s ears open. The effects could have been far worse if Green Ox was not around to dampen the damage with his presence, or the sonic waves alone would have already blasted them into bloody pulps.

“Sage Awestruck,” Green Ox addressed the newcomer by his name which instantly revealed his true nature— the one-legged mythological beast otherwise known as the Kui Yak. “You too wish to thwart me?”

The Kui Yak and Green Ox, as both fellow members of the Bovidae family, once shared a friendship. But as one of the mythological sacred beasts, the Kui Yak possessed an affinity towards the element of lightning. Its every movement could send the cumulonimbi overhead quaking. Somehow, the Kui Yak had joined the Sanctuary of Lightning where he was able to master the skills to harness his lightning-based abilities, becoming known as one of the deadliest of the Nine.

“I’m afraid I’m here on orders, my friend,” Sage Awestruck remarked, his voice eliciting more peals of rumble. But what was otherworldly was the fact that the thunderclaps were becoming more rapid. They eventually overlapped, becoming one long litany of groaning thunder as if the separate bits had come together to reach a certain frequency where they achieved resonance.

The rumbling din from overhead that mimicked the rallying poundings of war drums magically amplified not only Sage Awestruck’s own attacks but even the lightning elemental attacks cast by his fellow colleagues as well.

An unamused Green Ox snorted. “Six Paths of Samsara: the Hammers of Virtue!”

Realizing that the situation wasn’t developing in his favor, Green Ox knew that he needed to go all-in to end this fight as soon as possible. Blows delivered using the Hammers of Virtue discipline contained power drawn from the Samsara dimension. Anyone hit with a Hammer of Virtue blow would be discombobulated for part of their soul would be torn off and banished straight into the Samsara realm.

And its rhythmic noise could weaken the effects of Sage Awestruck’s incessant thunderclaps overhead.

“Together!” the Thunder Sage of the Nine Heavens rallied his fellow brothers.

The lightning colossus opened its eyes and swung its arms at Green Ox, its hands crackling with thunderbolts that could easily incinerate anyone or anything into ashes.

“Together!”

The Thunderbird flapped its wings and sent forth torrents of lightning that enveloped Green Ox and drowned him in a sea of electricity.

“Stormdrake Claw!”

The one-eyed Taoist priest joined the fray, swinging his purple horsetail whisk. He conjured a horde of amethyst-hued lightning dragons that swept all over the skies overhead. The beasts bared their fangs at Green Ox and charged at him, overrunning him with extreme prejudice and not an ounce of mercy.

All four Sons of Lightning attacked as one.

“Goddammit! Do they have no shame at all?!”

An anxious Li Mu felt helpless and distressed.

The proportions of this battle had gone well out of his league.

The Nine Sons of Lightning were figures whose names and prestige could easily invoke fear and respect. This was the first time they had to fight side-by-side against one single enemy.

There was no choice; this battle would determine the future and survival of the Sanctuary of Lightning and the lineage of the Sons of Lightning.

Lightning-dragons, lighnting-flames, lightning bolts, and also thunder—a magnificent and imposing carnival of lightning elemental magic of the highest order—filled the entire sky. Just one shockwave alone could destroy any man and anything.

There was no doubt; a fight of this proportion could have easily caused permanent damage to the world if this were Earth. Go on for another half-hour or so and Earth would have crumbled apart already. Somehow, this Chaos Battlefield dimension was able to withstand all the abuse. God-like figures could wage war on each other without worrying that the world would be torn apart and the shock waves from this leviathan exchange of blows spread no further than a thousand miles.

And there was no one around for thousands of miles. Nothing except a vast expanse of wilderness.

Green Ox’s bull avatar diminished with every blow that he sustained, its luminescence waning rapidly.

He might be one of the most powerful beings Li Mu has ever seen. But that did not make facing four Sons of Lightning simultaneously any easier. More so, since he needed to divide both attention and effort to keep Li Mu and the others safe.

“Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”

Li Mu thought sardonically.

He might appear alone prior to Green Ox’s appearance, but he had not encountered anyone—except Zhou Wen, the elderly member of the Sons of Lightning who came riding a goat—strong and dangerous enough to threaten him. Even with Zhou Wen, Li Mu was still confident that he would be able to escape freely on the off-chance that he failed to defeat him. But Green Ox’s intervention had clearly begotten enemies more powerful and deadly—the Sons of Lightning whom Li Mu doubted that they would be able to escape if and when Green Ox loses.

Nevertheless, Li Mu was fully aware that this was merely just wishful thinking on his part. None of this had anything to do with Green Ox and Li Mu has not the slightest intention of blaming him.

The Sons of Lightning had made their stance clear right from the start. His defeat of Ming Yu—otherwise known as Master Ming—was what brought Zhou Wen to his doorstep. With or without Green Ox, once he had defeated Zhou Wen, more powerful figures like the Thunder Sage and the Thunderbird would still be hunting him whether he liked it or not. Doon was unavoidable either way.

“What can I do now? Think!”

Li Mu was not giving up just yet. Frantically, he combed and raked his mind for ideas.

“But if the Sons of Lightning could come for Zhou Wen, surely the Sanctuary of the Way has other people? Some other than Green Ox? Is there no other help at all?”

“Surely, if there’s any help at all, now’s the time to step in?”

Li Mu activated his third eye. To his dismay, he could find no traces of anyone lurking nearby at all.

No more waiting.

“Green Ox, sir, I have something that might help!”

Li Mu channeled his power through the Heaven and Earth Ring and then it. The Rings easily plowed through the ripples of shock wave; a hot knife slicing through butter as the Rings flew towards a heavily beleaguered Green Ox struggling to hold his own against the relentless barrages of attacks.

The idea of attacking the Sons of Lightning directly with the Rings had occurred before, but knowing the vast difference between his prowess and theirs, Li Mu ultimately decided that Rings would be more potent in the hands of a more superior champion like Green Ox where its true potential could be unleashed to its fullest.

“It’s all right! I’m—Wait!”

Green Ox was about to decline the offer when he caught the Rings. That was when he was instantly amazed by its weight and its awesome power, which was enough for him to understand that the rings were no mere ordinary weapons.

A champion of his caliber immediately knew how to use the Rings. Upon activation of the Rings, Green Ox truly comprehended what potent weapons they were and he burst into a peal of triumphant guffaws.

“Marvelous! Who would have thought that you’re in possession of a weapon of this might!? Let no one stand in our way today!” What was just an instrument as crude as a caveman’s club that Li Mu had been using to bludgeon his enemies had their true magical splendor in full display at the hands of Green Ox. The Rings blazed with a dark, ominous glow of blackness, its obsidian rays spreading in long, multitudinous shafts as each of the Rings grew a double, then a triple, followed a quadruple, before finally bursting into a massing throng of innumerable Rings that swarmed straight through the still ongoing fusillades of lightning elemental attacks.

“Arghh!”

The first volley of Rings caught its bullseyes M the Thunderbird, hitting its chest squarely and caving in its ribs. A long trail of blood gushed out of its beak, spattering the sky red as if it was on fire.

“Arghhh!”

The one-eyed priest was the next in line; one of the uncountable hordes of Rings clipped the priest in the arm, smashing his right shoulder. Part of his avatar dissolve ed into nothing and the purple horsetail whisk he wield got flung out of his grasp before it finally snapped into half.

The swam of Rings came after the Thunder Sage next. The Rings blasted his lightning colossus into bits of energy dregs, revealing his true form: a crooked-backed old man as wizened as a gnarly tree. Terror and fear teemed on his face as blood dribbled out the corner of his mouth. Blood that gleamed with glowing runes and glyphs…

“What the hell—!?”

Sage Awestruck gasped with disbelief at What happened to his colleagues and he hectically sped away to safety.

The four Sons of Lightning could barely take their apprehensive glares and stares off the jet-black Rings in Green Ox’s grasp. Each of them except the Kui Yak had taken only just one hit from the Rings, but it was enough. There was no doubting it: the Rings were a pair of Emperor-class weapons!

“How is this possible!? Li Mu has not only the relic of destiny Godbreaker but this too?! An Emperor-class weapon?!”

“Talk about some massive miscalculation!”

All four Sons of Lightning—four of the Sanctuary of Lightning’s finest champions—retreated at once. Putting as much distance between Green Ox and then all as much as possible was the single most important thing of all. Green Ox could easily slay each and every one of them without much difficulty so long as the Rings remained in possession. The domains of Man in the Chaos Battlefield had seen enough of the terror and might of Emperor-class weapons and the Sans of Lightning needed no more confirmation.