Book 23, Endwar, Chapter 23 – Inconsolable
Lord Demonheart could still feel a tinge of fear in his heart, and he didn’t dare to be the slightest bit overconfident in facing this attack. Although he acted with bravado, when the arrow actually shot out towards him he acted with great caution.
“Hmph.” Lord Demonheart let out a cold snort, his entire body beginning to transform into an endless flood of water. It was as though his body was made of countless drops of water to begin with.
Boom!
The arrow pierced straight towards Lord Demonheart. Lord Demonheart didn’t try to block at all, allowing the arrow to pierce straight though his body. The water rippled around the arrow, which easily pierced through it then exited from Lord Demonheart’s back and continued to fly far off into the distance.
If you try to cut water with a knife, the water will continue to flow. When the arrow passed through the water, it left behind no traces of its passing.
Hissssss…
Lord Demonheart’s face suddenly turned ashen as he revealed an expression of utter terror. A hole had appeared in his chest where the arrow had passed through, and that hole was rapidly corroding and rotting away at the rest of his body, causing those drops of water to vaporize and vanish.
“Impossible. Impossible!” Lord Demonheart had a look of horror on his face. “My riverform has been perfected. I have a deathless body. This is impossible. It’s impossible to injure me!”
The major powers of the Seamless Gate began to panic as well.
As the Nuwa Alliance, Ji Ning, Daoist Three Purities, and the other major powers all revealed looks of delight.
However, none of them understood what was happening. Not even Ji Ning understood. World God Northrest had transmitted certain information to him, but there was still much that he did not know.
“This is…Godslayer?” Godfiend Witherspike and Saber were watching from far away, and Saber began mumbling to himself. “Godslayer?”
“What’s that? Godslayer?” Godfiend Witherspike was surprised. He immediately sent mentally, “What’s a Godslayer?”
“Godslayer is a type of special attacking technique which only those mysterious Heartforce Cultivators are capable of using.” The one-armed Saber sent mentally, “The are able to merge their heartforce with their divine power, then use it to attack. They will use their own divine power to wipe out the opponent’s divine power. It’s like a mutual exhaustion of divine power. The Heartforce Cultivator will exhaust his own divine power to ensure that the enemy will exhaust even more divine power.”
“This is like a strategy of sacrificing eight hundred of your men to slay a thousand enemies. Despite that, it’s a terrifying ability,” the one-armed Saber sent mentally. “Once a Heartforce Cultivator begins to use this technique, he will be virtually invincible against other Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals. However, while he might be able to slay his foes he will also badly injure himself, making it so that he’ll no longer be able to fight. Generally speaking, Heartforce Cultivators aren’t willing to use this ability unless they are in truly desperate straits. In addition, even amongst Heartforce Cultivators, this technique can be considered a fairly rare one.”
“Oh?” Godfiend Witherspike was quite surprised. Although he had gone adventuring as well, he had mostly adventured through regions that he was fairly familiar with. Saber, in truth, was an even bolder and more fearless person than him. Saber had gone to more danger zones and had learned many more things.
“This Lord of the Demonheart is about to die.” Saber stared at the distant, horrified Lord Demonheart. “He actually ran into such a terrifyingly powerful Heartforce Cultivator…and this Heartforce Cultivator is willing to sacrifice anything in order to kill him.”
“If what you say is true, then after Houyi kills Lord Demonheart he’ll probably be at the verge of death himself.” Godfiend Witherspike revealed a smile. “That means we still have a chance.”
“This Houyi must have acquired the legacy of a Heartforce Cultivator.” Saber stared at the distant Houyi. “I absolutely refuse to believe that he could come up with this technique on his own.”
There were tens of millions of heartforce application techniques. Some cultivators with fifth-stage heartforce were of average strength, but some true Heartforce Cultivators had techniques which were powerful enough to make all Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals quail in fear! Houyi’s ‘Godslayer’ technique was one such technique.
“So this technique really does work on you.” Upon seeing Lord Demonheart suffer an injury, the murderous intent in Houyi’s eyes grew even stronger. “I was worried that you might be so powerful as to completely ignore my arrows.”
Twang.
Houyi swiftly nocked an arrow, drew to a full draw, then fired the arrow in one swift motion.
Swish!
The black arrow streaked forward like lightning.
Twang! Not hesitating at all, Houyi took out yet another arrow, nocked it, drew it, and fired it.
One arrow after another streaked through the Void, transforming into a series of blindingly brilliant rainbows that shot straight towards Lord Demonheart. This was a strange, unique secret art which he had dvised over the course of countless years of tree-chopping on Mount Innerheart. Upon actually using the technique, he would use up an utterly enormous amount of divine power, but he didn’t care at all, continuing to furiously shoot out arrows.
He shot out nine consecutive arrows in one breath.
Those nine arrows all transformed into rainbows as they streaked through the Void, shooting straight towards Lord Demonheart. Despite being tremendously powerful, Houyi was only able to simultaneously control nine arrows at once.
“No…no…” The Lord of the Demonheart stared in horror as the arrows shot towards him from across the Void.
A single arrow had already injured him badly. How could he possibly survive if all nine of these arrows connected?
The arrows were too fast. Not even the Lord of All Fiends was as fast as these arrows, much less the Lord of the Demonheart.
“I won’t die. I won’t!” A berserk look appeared in Lord Demonheart’s eyes.
Whoosh.
Lord Demonheart’s body suddenly split apart in half, resulting in more than a hundred of him appearing and fleeing in every direction.
Bang! One rainbow arrow pierced directly into the body of a Lord Demonheart. After piercing into his body, its power was slightly weakened, but it was still powerful enough to go straight through it and shoot towards the other Lord Demonhearts. As for the first one to be struck, his body was instantly annihilated.
The nine rainbows continued to streak through the air at high speed, shooting towards the various Lord Demonhearts.
“It’s useless.” The distant Saber shook his head. “Every single arrow is filled with an enormous amount of Houyi’s divine power. Until his divine power is exhausted, the arrow won’t come to a halt. That’s why splitting up your body into multiple clones is a completely ineffective way to avoid this terrifying attack.”
How could an attack known as the ‘Godslayer’ be easily overcome? If it could, it wouldn’t be so famously deadly.
Lord Demonheart also quickly came to realize that this ‘solution’ wouldn’t work. He quickly willed his still-existing 106 bodies to roar in unison as they transformed into a raging river of vast proportions. The vast river transformed into a giant palm of water that struck directly at one of the arrows.
BOOM!
A frontal collision!
The arrow was knocked flying, but the bizarre divine power which had been infused into it still instantly ate away at the gigantic palm of water, depleting an enormous amount of divine power.
“Dodging doesn’t work. Neither does blocking. What should I do!?” Lord Demonheart let out another sudden howl, causing the vast river to suddenly tear an enormous rift into the Void before him. The river quickly shrank in size as it flew straight towards that enormous rift.
Swoosh!
The arrow chased after him, making it to the rift right after he did.
BOOM! The Void was once more torn open. The raging river was blasted out from the other side through the new rift, reforming into the Lord of the Demonheart.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! I don’t accept this! I can’t accept this! I WON’T ACCEPT THIS! GRAAAAAAH!!!” Lord Demonheart had gone completely berserk. As he stared the arrows streaking towards him from afar, the sense of absolute despair he felt began to drive him insane.
He had waited for so long! Had schemed and planned for so long to regain his freedom!
Finally…he had succeeded in escaping the Heavenly Daos.
He had thought that he would be able to easily subjugate the Nuwa Alliance. He was planning to leave the Three Realms to the major powers of the Seamless Gate, then lead a small group of people to voyage out into the vaster world outside of the Three Realms. He believed that the vast primordial chaos was where he truly belonged! Even Nuwa had become a World God; Lord Demonheart felt certain that he could become a World God as well.
Lord Demonheart had many plans for the future, many ambitions, many dreams.
But now…
He was going to die.
Those arrows were utterly terrifying, and there was no way to block them at all. He felt true despair as he stared at them come towards him.
“I really can’t accept this. I really can’t.” Lord Demonheart’s mutters echoed throughout the vast Void. “Well…if I’m going to die…then let’s have everyone die. All of you shall die as well!!!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Lord Demonheart instantly transformed his body into a series of raging rivers once more. Every single one of the six rivers flashed with white light as they surged violently towards the Nuwa Alliance. By now, he didn’t care about Houyi’s arrows at all. The only thing he wanted to do was kill. If he was going to die, then all of them were going to die as well.
The Lord of All Fiends could only watch as this happened, powerless to stop it.
He was many millions of kilometers away from Houyi. Although he was faster than the speed of light, which could move three hundred thousand kilometers in a second, he himself could only move five hundred thousand kilometers per second! Houyi was more than capable of maintaining his distance as he continued to fire off arrows.
As the power in each arrow was depleted, Houyi would continue to shoot out new arrows, intending to slay the Lord of the Demonheart as quickly as possible.
“Hold.”
“Hold for just a bit longer. This is Lord Demonheart’s final, desperate attack.”
“Block!”
Ji Ning and Buddha Jueming had powerful divine bodies, and so the two of them valiantly charged to the forefront, seeking to block this last-ditch attack. However, two of the six raging rivers were enough to completely tie them down. In fact, Ning could sense that Lord Demonheart’s attack seemed to be a bit stronger than it was earlier. He understood that in his berserk madness, Lord Demonheart had certainly drawn upon every single scrap of power he possessed to deliver this final attack.
“Suiren!” Ning suddenly realized that the distant Suiren was in extremely dire straits, having been completely surrounded by two of those rivers. Suiren was roaring with rage, his body blazing with flames as he swung his wooden staff around to defend. His aura initially towered to the heavens, but as the raging rivers continued to surround and suffocate him his aura slowly and gradually began to weaken.