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Chapter 192: Fighting an Immortal
🕑 Added 2023-05-16 17:37:00 +0000 UTCThree sets of hands were placed on the door. The three Lords were all human, scrawny in size and smooth of skin. The doors, on the other hand, were colossal constructions of bronze, aging back to antiquity and seemingly unmovable.
They swung open smoothly. After all, opening the door was not the Guardian. The thing behind it was the Guardian.
The large double doors opened soundlessly and easily, like they had been pushed by a giant. They crashed against the walls with a loud bang that made everyone jump, flooding the Guardian’s antechamber before streaming into the many corridors.
Behind the doors, another large chamber was revealed. This one was not empty.
A rectangular room, around a hundred feet tall, another hundred wide, and three hundred long. An ancient, dusty air suffused it, like it had been centuries since it last opened. Six thick, stone columns were spread around its length in three rows of two. A wide red line was painted on the floor, leading from the entrance to the far end of the room, where the antechamber’s light did not yet reach.
Suddenly, torches lit up on the walls. They started from the entrance and stretched to the far side of the room, arranged in orderly lines, suffusing the room with light. A throne was revealed on the back. And, sitting on it, was the king.
Bone King, Level ??? (D-Grade)
The final evolution of Bone Sentinels. As it defeats its victims and add their skeletons to its own, a Bone Sentinel gradually increases in size and power until it breaks through.
A Bone King is the apex of that process. It has devoured thousands of E-Grade skeletons, enhancing its body until it lost any resemblance to a person. It possesses extreme strength, durability, and dexterity. It usually cultivates the Dao of Bone.
This particular Bone King is the Guardian of this Trial Planet’s Labyrinth Ring.
The Bone King was a gargantuan monstrosity sitting on a throne of bare stone. From the waist up, it was a humanoid skeleton, but ten times the size. Just its palms were the size of Jack’s body, ending in sharp claws another half as long. Its face was humanoid, but red flames burned in its eyes, and its teeth were far sharper than they had any right to be, more like an animal than a human. Its skull was topped by a circle of sharp bone appendages—a crown of bone, befitting its name as Bone King.
From the waist down, however, the King’s body was that of a snake. Endless bones made up a slithering tail the girth of an ancient tree, long enough that it could wrap around the base of the throne twice.
The King sat on its throne with its head resting against a palm. As the torches around it flared to life, shedding life on its ugly visage, the red flames in its eyes flared back. The King raised its head, and the undeniable aura of an immortal spread around the room, easily overpowering the Daos of everyone present.
Jack stood in a line with everyone else behind the three Lords. Before the force of the Bone King’s Dao, he felt as brittle as a leaf, fighting just to keep the spark of his Dao alive.
The three Lords were taking the brunt of the pressure. They stood tall before this almighty enemy, weathering its storm with the weight of their souls. They truly were strong, these Lords—the very best E-Grades the galaxy had to offer.
But their opponent was a D-Grade. There was an undeniable, unbridgeable chasm between them. Thankfully, the Lords were three, and they had the support of more than a dozen other cultivators, each at least at the peak E-Grade level of power.
The King observed the cultivators. When they didn’t collapse to its pressure, it slowly stood. Its tail uncoiled under it, half resting on the ground and the other half supporting its massive upper body. Its Dao intensified.
Jack gulped. There was pressure to that Dao. It wasn’t just its depth; its nature itself was pressing against them like the lid of a coffin, burying them under the crushing weight of their own deaths.
The Dao of Bone.
It was about death. About the end of everything. At the same time, it was hard and sharp, a truth hidden under layers of lies. Brutal.
That was all Jack could glimpse of the thing’s Dao. Its finality brought to mind his own Brutalizing Aura—a skill that would never work on such a superior opponent. He brought up his status screen, which he hadn’t seen in a while, to get courage.
Name: Jack Rust
Species: Human, Earth-387
Faction: Bare Fist Brotherhood (E)
Grade: E
Class: Fiend of the Iron Fist (Elite)
Level: 94
Strength: 375
Dexterity: 375
Constitution: 375
Mental: 50
Will: 80
Skills: Ghost Step I
Dao Skills: Indomitable Body III, Meteor Punch II, Iron Fist Style II, Brutalizing Aura I
Daos: Perfect Dao Seed of the Fist (late), Dao Root of Indomitable Will (fused), Dao Root of Life (fused), Dao Root of Power
Titles: Planetary Frontrunner (10), Planetary Torchbearer (1), Sixth Ring Conqueror
Level 94.
According to what Longsword had told him en route, this creature was at the very bottom of immortals, a fledgling compared to true cultivators. The difference between 94 and 126 seemed small—but it signified an ocean of power.
If Jack faced this monster alone, he would perish instantly. Even the Life Drop could only prolong his death by a couple instants. Thankfully, however, he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t even the frontline.
“Is everyone ready?” Lady Minerva, the Lady from Hand of God, shouted. Her simple-looking leather belt shone. Three shapes jumped out of it, materializing from light into creatures. One was a yellow-furred bear the size of a buffalo. Another was an eagle, whose wings ended in sharp tips. The third was an ancient-looking turtle whose shell was wider than a dining table.
“Prepare yourselves!” Longsword shouted back, drawing his nine-foot-long sword. He looked tiny compared to Minerva’s beasts, but his towering aura eclipsed theirs. His sword aimed at the ceiling. “This is your chance to make history! This is the time when mortals kill immortals!”
The cultivators behind him roared in response. Jack couldn’t see Longsword’s face, but he knew the man was grinning.
Lady Priya of Exploding Sun didn’t speak. Her open palms were suddenly clad in fire and light so bright Jack had to look away. Their power was enough to shake the air, coloring it yellow.
The Bone King stepped off its throne, signaling the start of the battle.
Priya, Longsword, and the three beasts charged at once. That was the plan. They would go first to weaken it, so the other cultivators could attack without dying instantly.
The Bone King fell low. Its upper body was now parallel to the ground as it slithered forward at great speed, becoming a blur like a moving train. Its sharp claws opened wide to tear the Lords apart.
It fell on them hard. Claws flashed through the air. Bone glistened in the torchlight. The clang of metal on bone filled the room, along with the beasts’ roars and cries.
In that brief instant, Jack caught Longsword’s sword meeting a claw head-on. Priya blocked its other hand, burning like a sun between its fingers. The turtle jumped into the King’s mouth, sharp teeth rending its shell, while the bear and eagle fell on the King, striking with all their might. The bear smashed a paw into its side, cracking a layer of bones. The eagle carved a long line into its back, sending bone shards flying, but the King was made of many, tightly packed layers of bones. These attacks weren’t enough to bring it down.
All those things happened in an instant. Time seemed to freeze as Jack observed everything. Then, the world returned to motion.
Longsword was sent flying. He smashed hard into a column, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Before he could recover, the Bone King came after him. Longsword jumped. He used his sword to climb the column. The King climbed with its tail around it, claws tearing deep grooves into the stone. Longsword reached the top and leaped into the void. The King jumped and bit down on him. The eagle swooped in from the side and picked up Longsword, barely saving him from the King’s jaws, which clamped shut just behind him.
This battle was not easy. Everyone here was risking their lives, including the Lords. But what cultivator wouldn’t?
The King landed on the ground and leaped to the side, aiming at Priya. She flew back like an arrow. Suns blossomed on her palms, and she threw them at the King, who took the strikes like they were nothing. To Jack, it looked like she was throwing bombs.
Longsword descended from above, released by the eagle. He fell with his sword pointed down and pierced clean into the King’s back, eliciting a scream that threatened to burst Jack’s eardrums.
The King turned and swatted behind him. Longsword jumped away, dodging the blow, then pulled back his sword and used it as a lever to pull himself to the ground, dodging yet another swipe.
The bear rammed into the King, shoving it aside. Both lost their balance. The King stumbled before its tail coiled around the bear, squeezing it tight and keeping it in place. It turned and prepared to strike.
Priya was there. She had arrived at the King’s side like a shadow. Twin suns blossomed in her palms, growing in size until they were larger than her body, then she slammed them into the bone.
The explosion was deafening. The released heat was enough to burn the skin of any normal person, even where Jack was standing. Bones flew everywhere. An inhuman scream came from the flames as a claw of bone tore through them, splitting the fire like it was water. Priya had already dodged.
A gaping hole now lay open on the King’s side, but it wasn’t enough. The claw completed its motion, tearing into the bear and cutting through its rock fur like it was nothing. The King’s palm slammed against the bear’s back as the five claws tore into its body, destroying its insides.
The Bone King then grabbed the bear from the inside, raised it into the air, and tossed it at the entrance, where every other cultivator was waiting.
They scattered like flies. One guy got clipped and flung at a wall. The bear’s large body rolled on the floor through everyone, spraying blood and innards before colliding with the far wall and staying there, unmoving. It was already dead.
A cry tore through the battle. The eagle and turtle were angry at the loss of their comrade, laying into the King with wild abandon and little regard for their lives. Lady Minerva’s belt shone again, and a new beast appeared. This one was a white wolf, which instantly jumped into the fray.
The Bone King roared. The sound shook the stone columns and rocked the labyrinth. Its Dao burst out at full power to sweep everyone, making them falter. In that split-second, its jaws bit at the turtle again, cracking and denting its shell. It wouldn’t last another blow.
The King’s claws swiped at the eagle, but it managed to recover from the stun and barely dodge.
Longsword was there again. His sword cleaved halfway through the King’s body, cutting through bone like it was butter. The King roared, losing some control over its body, but its tail came swinging from the back, slamming into Longsword and sending him flying into the stone throne.
Priya flashed next to the wound Longsword had opened. Her palms became suns that slammed into the broken bones, infiltrating the Bone King’s body and incinerating it from the inside. The King roared as it burned.
Again, it tried to hit her, and again it missed. Priya dodged two strikes, moving in ways that defied gravity and common sense, then hurriedly retreated and kept her distance, panting.
The wolf was there. It fell on the King’s back jaws-first, grabbing hold of its spine and refusing to let go. The King squirmed and tried to reach behind its back, but it couldn’t. It then crashed back against a column, dislodging the wolf, and backhanded it away right as the eagle swooped by, carving yet another deep line into the King’s short throat.
The King tried to roar, but its voice came broken.
“Now!” Minerva shouted from the entrance.
Jack and everyone else—with the exception of Brock, who was too weak to participate—had been waiting for that signal. They rushed in. Jack felt his adrenaline spike. His body was on fire. His skills were at the tips of his fingers, just waiting to be unleashed.
The King roared again, a caricature of its former, mighty sound. Despite its large size, it had been injured.
Its Dao, however, remained whole. It was like a blade hanging over Jack’s neck.
He charged.
