A Year of Great Undertakings - Book 6, 71: Return
The whale also realized this, which was why it spared no expense in attempting to maintain the stalemate.
It didn’t care about personally defeating Su Chen; as long as its opponent ran out of steam first, it would win.
As both of their Origin Energy reserves reached the lowest point, their strength also decreased to the nadir. An ashen gray pallor suffused Su Chen’s face, and the giant whale believed that its victory was within grasp.
It was even prepared to let out a roar of victory.
At that moment, however, Su Chen smiled. “So you think you’ve won?”
The giant whale was stunned.
It watched as Su Chen pulled out a vial of medicine and chugged it down.
His aura suddenly surged.
Medicine!
You actually drank medicine!?
That’s cheating!
The giant whale was infuriated.
But despite its rage, Su Chen continued “cheating.”
Not only was he drinking medicine, but he was also drinking multiple kinds.
Medicine that helped him recover, medicine that increased his strength, medicine that increased his defense — Su Chen drank them all and more.
Besides drinking medicine, he was also absorbing Origin Stones. After all, Origin Stones could be used to recover Origin Energy, so absorbing a few thousand Origin Stones over the course of a single battle was a common occurrence. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been nearly as valuable as a form of currency.
In the blink of an eye, Su Chen had recovered almost all of the Origin Energy that he had expended during the battle.
The whale started panicking.
It was a Sea Beast, and it didn’t have nearly as many tricks up its sleeves. Its opponent was cheating, but it could not cheat. Thus, the only choice it had was to retreat.
The whale roared, spat out a large group of spatial storms, and then turned around and started running away.
“Trying to escape?” Su Chen harrumphed. “Did you really think that it would be that easy?”
He activated Sumeru Void.
Sumeru Void immediately restricted the Sovereign’s movement. Truth be told, this was somewhat taxing for Su Chen as well.
Even though Su Chen’s comprehension of spatial Method Power was quite deep, tying down a Sovereign was still a herculean task.
But just because he couldn’t do it under normal circumstances didn’t mean that he couldn’t do it now. The Sovereign was at its weakest state, while Su Chen had begun to recover to his peak state. Even if Su Chen spent ten times as much energy as the Sovereign to keep it in place, it was worth it.
Why would Su Chen wait until the final moment of the battle to drink all those medicines of his? It was precisely because he was afraid that the Sovereign would try to run away.
Only once all of its trump cards had been forced out did Su Chen have the confidence to forcefully keep the Sovereign in place.
As soon as Sumeru Void was activated, the giant whale felt like the space around it had turned solid.
Even though it was an extremely powerful void creature, the giant whale found it impossible to escape from Sumeru Void’s influence because of the constant feed of Origin Energy from Su Chen.
The whale struggled and thrashed desperately, but no matter where it went, Sumeru Void closely followed it and continued to restrict its motion. Su Chen also carefully followed behind it, further preventing it from escaping by unleashing a barrage of Arcana Techniques at it.
The giant whale was flying towards the exit.
Didn’t you want to leave?
Then I’ll just let you go.
But after it flew past the exit, it realized that Su Chen was still pursuing it relentlessly.
After all, Su Chen had won the fight. As long as he killed the giant whale, he would be able to enter and leave this void space as he pleased. There was no need to worry about leaving at the moment.
The giant whale fell into despair when it saw that its opponent wasn’t willing to let it off so easily.
It bellowed mournfully, and then turned around and charged in Su Chen’s direction instead of running.
It had decided to put its life on the line.
“That’s more like it!” Su Chen formed another Flaming Phoenix and sent it slamming into the giant whale’s body.
This attack was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The giant whale groaned as it collapsed, unable to bear the burden of its wounds any longer.
Before the void power eroded the corpse away, Su Chen stowed the giant whale in his spatial ring. He had gathered more than enough Void Starmetal, but he was still somewhat lacking in void beast hides, which Su Chen needed to create spatial armor.
After finally killing the void Sovereign, Su Chen was in no hurry to leave. Instead, he first activated Light Shaking Phantom and returned to the island.
After resting for some time, Su Chen completely recovered. Only then did he leave the island once again.
He flew outside of the island, and then began to slowly push it towards the exit.
Upon arriving at the exit, Su Chen collected the rest of the Sovereign statues and made sure that he hadn’t missed anything before asking, “Are you all ready to go?”
Diomedes grunted in assent, while the Void Seahorse nodded with some trepidation.
Based on what had happened to that giant whale, the Void Seahorse knew that it was no longer able to fight against Su Chen in a one-on-one battle. As such, it had no heart to threaten Su Chen anymore.
“Then let’s go.”
As Su Chen spoke, he placed his hand on the giant tree.
“Shrink!”
The constantly revolving flow of water immediately stopped as the water all flew into the body of the tree. The protective barrier around the island also disappeared, causing the island itself to start disintegrating.
Su Chen gestured, and the Deep Sea Sorrow flew into his hand. At the same time, he grabbed the Void Seahorse and teleported towards the exit.
Primordial Continent, I’ve returned!
Within the area around the collapsed Abyss.
The former entrance to the Abyss had disappeared a long time ago. Only a small black hole remained where it once stood, floating on the surface of the water by its lonesome.
Gu Qingluo gazed at the hole, her gaze filled with anticipation.
Behind her were the Boundless Sect’s eight frigates and the floating palace. They seemed to be quite busy with something, as streaks of mysterious and profound light constantly flew from the boats and into the hole. Inside, these streaks of light all gathered together to form a giant, mysterious inscription.
“Sect Master’s wife, the Origin Formation is almost done. Please, back up a little,” Jiang Hanfeng said as he flew over.
This Origin Formations genius was now quite well-known amongst the human race for his skilled work. Even his demeanor had changed to reflect this.
Gu Qingluo softly asked, “Hanfeng, do you...... do you think that it’ll work this time?”
Hanfeng fell silent.
He knew that Gu Qingluo wasn’t questioning his skill in creating Origin Formations. It was just that there were some things that took more than a perfect Origin Formation to accomplish.
This lone entrance led to a realm filled with incredible destructive power, and there was even a Sovereign guarding it on the other side. Unsurprisingly, this gap seemed virtually insurmountable.
So much time had passed, and the Boundless Sect had done their best. However, all of their operations so far had ended in failure.
Jiang Hanfeng could only ensure that his Origin Formation was sufficient, but he could make no guarantees about the end result.
Gu Qingluo understood what his silence signified and gently said in resignation, “It’s alright. I know that you all are trying your best.”
“Sect Master’s wife.” Lin Xiao walked over and gently said, “The Origin Formation is ready to be activated.”
Gu Qingluo nodded before turning around and retreating.
This Origin Formation was a forbidden one that would form a massive seal, send it through the entrance to the void, and seal the void Sovereign on the other side.
There was no other alternative.
Something needed to be done no matter how dangerous the void was.
However, that Sovereign had foiled every one of their previous attempts.
If they wanted to enter the void, then they first had to take care of that Sovereign.
But because the Sovereign lived in the void, it was impossible to overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Most of the soldiers present couldn’t even enter the void, so they could only do their best to deal with the Sovereign from their side.
The conflict between the Boundless Sect and this Sovereign had been going on for some time now.
The Sovereign didn’t dare to cross over, because it would definitely die against the sheer might of the Boundless Sect. The reverse held true for the Boundless Sect as well.
As such, both parties were caught in a stalemate.
The Boundless Sect had thought of many possible ways to break through this stalemate, but none of them had managed to succeed.
There was nothing that could be done about this. Not only were the two parties in separate realms, but the opposite end of the tunnel was even a void space, rendering many of their conventional tactics useless.
Today, they were trying out one of the final ideas that they had come up with. They were attempting to send a giant seal through the entrance that would seal the Sovereign on the other side, at least temporarily. Then, they would send some powerful individuals through to the void to slaughter that Sovereign.
Even though the soldiers had prepared many items to kill this Sovereign as quickly as possible, it was likely that many of them wouldn’t return alive even if the mission was successful.
The Boundless Sect really was putting it all on the line for Su Chen!
Whenever Gu Qingluo thought about how much the Boundless Sect’s disciples were going to suffer, regardless of the operation’s success, her heart trembled involuntarily.
At this point, the Origin Formation had been completed. All that remained was to wait.
To wait for the Sovereign to inevitably swim past the entrance.
After all, the Sovereign was always patrolling the entrance, and it would never stray too far from it.
And the Boundless Sect had long since developed an Origin Formation that could pinpoint the location of the Sovereign at any point in time.
After waiting for a moment, one of the Boundless Sect’s disciple’s monitoring disks began to glow red.
The disciple yelled, “It’s here, just outside the entrance.”
“Activate the Origin Formation!” Jiang Hanfeng commanded loudly.
After the Origin Formation was activated, the outline of a giant sealing character appeared in the sky.
At the same time, another Origin Formation was also activated, and with it came a strange, low cry that echoed through the air.
This low cry simulated a noise that the whale Sovereign found enjoyable. The Boundless Sect would use this sound to keep the Sovereign near the entrance so that the seal would be more effective.
“It’s not leaving!” the disciple monitoring the disks reported excitedly. “Our attempts to attract it seem to be working.”
Everyone simultaneously sighed in relief.
The sealing Origin Formation was still gathering energy, and the seal itself was gradually solidifying and taking shape.
“It’s coming our way!” the supervising disciple suddenly called out.
What?
Everyone was stunned by the report.
“It’s heading for the entrance!” the disciple blurted out anxiously. The disk in his hand began to blare with alarm.
“It’s coming at us, very quickly!!!” the disciple cried out as panic began to seep into his voice.
The Sovereign was coming out?
Everyone was stunned for a brief moment before their surprise gave way to joy.
They were happy because the Sovereign was essentially sending itself to its death, and they were merely surprised because they didn’t expect this to happen. It was still very possible for them to sustain significant losses even with this windfall.
“All cultivators at the Light Shaking Realm and below, retreat! The rest of you, to me. Hanfeng, how’s your formation looking?”
It was Li Chongshan who gave the order this time.
At this critical moment, it was only fitting for the most veteran to take command.
“Almost ready!” Jiang Hanfeng yelled back. “Tell me when it’s about to come out.”
“Right now!” the supervising disciple cried out urgently.
Boom!
The character for the seal had finished materializing at this point, and with the supervising disciple’s signal, it began to descend towards the entrance.
At the same time, a figure emerged from the hole.
“Sect Master?” all of the disciples cried out in shock.
That wasn’t the Sovereign at all — it was Su Chen!
Everyone was surprised and jubilant, but they immediately realized something and cried out in fear. “No!”
But it was too late.
Boom!
The sealing Origin Formation descended.
In order to deal with the Sovereign, they had set up an extraordinarily powerful Origin Formation. Even though its purpose was merely to seal, if the target was too weak, then the immense pressure from the seal would be more than enough to crush the target to death.
What was this?
Su Chen had only just emerged from the exit when he saw a giant golden character emanating an extremely powerful aura descend upon him. More shockingly, this character appeared to have some spatial sealing properties, making it impossible for him to teleport away.
In that moment, Su Chen was incapable of escaping.
There was only one thing he could do.
He unleashed a punch!
A punch that shattered the sky!