Chapter 1309: Battling the Giant
During the battle outside the valley earlier, Profound Spirit Xu Tian had thought that he'd be powerful enough to take on Spirit Lord Huang Liang and Huan Tianqi on his own. However, to his surprise, the cultivation arts used by the two of them complemented one another, and they were able to enhance each other to a much greater degree than Xu Tian had anticipated.
As the battle wore on, Xu Tian knew that he had no chance of victory, so he didn't dare to prolong the battle any longer, choosing instead to immediately retreat with all of the other Spirit Tribe beings.
Otherwise, Huan Tianqi and Spirit Lord Huang Liang wouldn't have been able to get into the valley so quickly.
At this moment, the presence of so many people seemed to have reminded the Cyclops Giant of some kind of traumatic experience, and a vicious light appeared in its eyes as it let loose a thunderous roar. It then lowered its head as piercing light erupted from its single eye, following which countless white strands shot forth in a frenzy, enshrouding both Huan Tianqi and Spirit Lord Huang Liang.
"Hmph, I didn't think that it would've completely refined the Setting Sun Crystal already, but it's dreaming if it thinks a few mere fire strands will hurt us." Spirit Lord Huang Liang harrumphed coldly as he rustled a sleeve. That Yin-Yan mirror treasure appeared once again, swelling drastically to around the size of a fully grown man and positioning itself before him as a shield.
As soon as the white light strands crashed into the mirror, brilliant spiritual light immediately erupted from the mirror's surface, rebounding all of the strands of light toward the giant's massive body. However, the strands of light simply disappeared into its body in a flash without being able to inflict any damage.
On the other end, Huan Tianqi had also conjured up a massive mirror before him using spiritual power to reflect the oncoming strands of white light.
This method of attack was clearly proving to be ineffective, so the giant immediately stopped blasting the strands of light out of its eye as it let loose a low snarl. At the same time, it spread open five fingers on one of its massive hands before swinging it toward its two assailants with devastating force.
Prior to the palm even coming into contact with the two of them, a burst of gale-force winds came sweeping forth first.
Spirit Lord Huang Liang's expression darkened as he blasted a white paper fan out of his mouth.
He grabbed the paper fan before waving it violently toward the gargantuan hand.
All of a sudden, a gust of white wind appeared out of thin air, crashing into the gale-force winds swept up by the palm and keeping the latter at bay.
Meanwhile, Huan Tianqi rubbed his hands together, and an arc of grey lightning appeared.
The lightning gradually changed shape between his hands, manifesting into a completely nondescript-looking silver saber.
The saber looked sleek and sharp for sure, but it was completely dull and mundane.
At the same time, Huan Tianqi began to chant something, and strands of yellow fur began to sprout from his youthful face while its eyes turned into a sinister green color.
After letting loose an almighty roar, devastating spiritual pressure erupted from his body. He slashed his saber gently through the air, and a grey line immediately shot forth.
The grey line elongated dramatically to over 10 feet in length before striking the thumb of the massive palm in a flash.
The grey line was sharp to the extreme, and the giant only had a chance to shudder before its thumb detached itself from its hand.
The giant let loose a howl of agony as it reflexively drew back its hand. The single eye on its forehead bulged and instantly became bloodshot with pain and rage.
It glared intently at Huan Tianqi as an expression of thunderous rage appeared on its hideous face.
After unleashing that saber strike, the grey blade disappeared in a flash, and Huan Tianqi's face paled significantly, as if that attack had expended a vast amount of his energy.
Spirit Lord Huang Liang looked into the giant's furious crimson eye with a grim expression on his face as he said in a slow voice, "Take care, Fellow Daoist Huan; it looks like your attack has truly enraged it. Its next attack is most likely going to be rather difficult to deal with. I wonder how its regenerative abilities are, though. If it can immediately regenerate its thumb, then that won't be good news for us."
"I know that much without you having to tell me, Fellow Daoist Huang Liang. That attack was only to test its true power. The fact that its finger was cut down by me so easily suggests that it's just an ordinary giant. Looks like we have nothing to worry about now," Huan Tianqi replied in a calm voice.
However, before he'd even finished his sentence, a layer of green light suddenly surfaced over the cross-sectional wound on the giant's thumb.
Amid the green light, bone and flesh grew in a frenzy, creating a brand new thumb that was identical to the previous one in the blink of an eye.
The giant then moved the thumb experimentally, and it appeared to be just as agile as it was before, thereby rendering Huan Tianqi's prior attack essentially completely ineffective.
Huan Tianqi faltered initially upon seeing this before drawing a sharp breath.
"An immortal body!" Spirit Lord Huang Liang's pupils also contracted drastically.
At this moment, the giant violently slammed its two gargantuan hands into the ground, causing the entire Chaotic Valley to tremor and quake.
Its height suddenly doubled as it finally stood up from the ground.
What came as even grimmer sight to Spirit Lord Huang Liang and Huan Tian was that as soon as the giant stood up, it dug a black stone club out from the soil underfoot.
The club was extraordinarily big, spanning almost half the giant's height in length. From the hints of azure light glistening over its surface, it appeared that this stone club had been constructed from the legendary Azure Spirit Sand.
This type of rare material was even heavier by mass than fine iron.
If such a fearsome weapon were to crashing down at full force, there would be very few beings even at the mid-Spatial Tempering Stage that would dare to take an attack from it head-on.
"It has a weapon as well; looks like things really are getting troublesome. We'll have to fight at full power now." Spirit Lord Huang Liang's face twitched.
"I'm well aware of that, Fellow Daoist Huang Liang. Let's take this thing down together; we can't allow it to live!" Huan Tianqi declared expressionlessly before opening his mouth to let loose a low cry.
Iridescent light flashed almost immediately thereafter in the sky, and a fist-sized moth appeared.
It was none other than Huan Tianqi's spirit insect, the mature Illusionary Flame Moth!
The moth fluttered its wings before its body instantly swelled drastically within the mesmerizing iridescent light, reaching around 10 feet in size in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, yellow beastly fur that several inches in length sprouted in a frenzy from Huan Tianqi's body, and his nose and mouth also began to take on feral beastly characteristics.
In the blink of an eye, he had transformed into a half-human and half-demon being.
Spirit Lord Huang Liang sat down with his legs crossed and laid a hand over the top of his head, upon which a burst of yellow light surfaced, carrying a Nascent Soul that was around half a foot in size.
The Nascent Soul's appearance was completely identical to Spirit Lord Huang Liang's, but it was wearing a suit of shimmering silver armor and wielding a small green sword in one hand, as well as a white jade seal in the other.
Furthermore, the Nascent Soul appeared to be completely concrete without the insubstantial quality most Nascent Souls possessed.
The Nascent Soul abruptly opened its eyes before raising a hand to hurl the seal through the air. The seal immediately swelled to around an acre in size before crashing down directly toward the giant's head with devastating force.
Meanwhile, Huan Tianqi shot forth as a streak of light while swinging his claws through the air.
A series of translucent claw projections surfaced in mid-air, tearing through space as they hurtled toward the giant.
Immediately thereafter, Huan Qianqi himself somehow disappeared into those claw projections.
The giant let loose a thunderous roar of rage as beams of crimson pillars of light began to blast out of its eye. At the same time, it swung its stone club toward the oncoming seal with ferocious power.
It also made a grabbing motion toward the ground down below with its other hand, drawing a massive clump of soil into its grasp. Yellow light flashed as the soil transformed into a massive rock that was several tens of feet in diameter.
The giant drew back its arm before hurling the rock toward Spirit Lord Huang Liang with unerring accuracy.
At this moment, the claw projections struck the crimson pillars of light amid a series of rumbling explosions. Following an even louder boom, the stone club slammed into the massive seal...
The battle had officially commenced! Han Li spectated the battle from up above with tightly furrowed brows.
As expected of a battle between Spatial Tempering cultivators and a legendary primordial giant; even the simplest of their movements were causing the world's origin Qi to tremor violently around them.
In particular, after Spirit Lord Huang Liang's Nascent Soul had left his body, the massive seal that it was using absorbed a vast amount of spiritual Qi from the surrounding environment prior to every single attack, thereby significantly enhancing its power. Otherwise, despite the astonishing power of the seal itself, it would've never been able to withstand a few strikes from the stone club of the giant.
Meanwhile, Huan Tianqi's body was still one with the claw projections he had unleashed, and he was like an unfathomable vortex, constantly absorbing the spiritual Qi around him.
As for that Cyclops Giant, every time it opened and closed its mouth, it was unintentionally inhaling and exhaling a vast amount of Spiritual Qi of far greater quantity than what Spirit Lord Huang Liang and Huan Tianqi could summon, but the degree of purity was inferior in comparison.
This was the first time that Han Li had witnessed a battle between Spatial Tempering Stage beings at such close quarters, and he was unconsciously deriving insights and observations from the battle to assist in his won cultivation.
It was quite a bountiful process for him.
Just as Han Li was looking on with rapt focus, his expression suddenly changed as he turned his gaze toward a certain spot.
There was clearly nothing there, and his spiritual sense couldn't detect anything, either, but his spirit eyes that had been cleansed countless times by the Brightsight Spirit Water was able to identify a faint transparent shadow standing in mid-air, also spectating the battle down below.
"Xu Tian!" Even though Han Li's spirit eyes were unable to identify exactly who it was, it appeared that the only being capable of lurking here without being noticed would be this Profound Spirit.
Han Li was ecstatic upon seeing this.
To him, the more tumultuous the situation became, the better.
Just as Han Li was observing the transparent shadow, the latter abruptly raised his head, and also cast a glance toward Han Li's direction.
Han Li's heart stirred upon seeing this.
Thankfully, the shadow then immediately lowered his head again, leaving Han Li to wonder whether his cover had been blown or Xu Tian had merely cast an errant glance his way as an unintentional gesture.
Han Li's eyes narrowed and an indecisive look appeared on his face.
The fierce battle down below raged for half a day. The landscape in the Chaotic Valley had been ravaged so severely by the giant and the two Spatial Tempering Stage beings that it was now completely unrecognizable. The terrain was completely riddled with massive craters, and the grey mist in the valley had been swept clean long ago by the enormous spiritual pressure emanating from the bodies of the three combatants.
Furthermore, due to the drastic changes in the world's origin Qi that the three had effected, the sky was filled with dark clouds and pelting with heavy rain at times, yet bright and scorching with sunlight during other times. There were even stretches where wind, snow, and hail were interspersed with storms of mud and rocks.
Aside from the young woman in palatial robes and a few other Deity Transformation cultivators who could still spectate the battle from afar, everyone else had left the Chaotic Valley long ago in fear of dying as collateral damage during this battle for the ages.
The Cyclops Giant was just as ferocious as ever, and it appeared that he was completley indefatigable. However, Han Li could see that Spirit Lord Huang Liang and Huan Tianqi were intentionally employing guerilla warfare tactics to wear the giant out, and even with the world's origin Qi replenishing its body, the giant was still approaching the stage where it would soon be a spent force. All of its attacks had slowed down drastically, and it was only a matter of time before it was defeated.
Sure enough, as Spirit Lord Huang Liang was distracting the giant with one attack, Huan Tianqi took the opportunity to slice off one of its toes. The giant bellowed in fury once again, but its severed toe was unable to regenerate on this occasion.
Both Spirit Lord Huang Liang and Huan Tianqi's eyes lit up in unison upon seeing this. Thye knew that it was finally time for this battle to draw to a conclusion.