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Book 7, Chapter 44: Solo Challenge (1)

“You? You’re going to take on a Desolate Beast by yourself?”

When Su Chen said that he would fight a Desolate Beast by himself, everyone was so stunned that their jaws almost hit the floor.

He was talking about a Desolate Beast! They were on a completely different level compared to Demonic Emperors or Sovereigns.

If Demonic Emperors were equivalent to Tenth-Ring Arcana Masters, then Desolate Beasts were equivalent to Fifteenth-Ring Arcana Masters and Origin Beasts to Twentieth-Ring Arcana Masters. The gap between each tier was a whole five rings!

That was the same gap between a Light Shaking Realm cultivator and an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator.

If it took a thousand well-trained and coordinated Light Shaking Realm cultivators to defeat an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator, then it took a thousand well-trained and coordinated Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivators to defeat a Desolate Beast.

This was why the humans alway arrayed themselves in grandiose fashion every time they fought against a Desolate Beast. They simply lacked the appropriate number of Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivators, which forced them to bring in lower-tier cultivators, the Meteor Formation, and Lifesource Candles to make up for it.

Even so, their combined power was typically still slightly less than the might of a thousand Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivators. Thus, every battle with a Desolate Beast had been extremely bloody with no exception. Victories often came at a tremendous cost.

The rise of the Boundless Sect had finally pushed the human race above that thousand Ultimate Emperor Realm power threshold, which was why they had been able to defeat a Desolate Beast without paying too heavy of a price earlier.

Their strength had finally gotten up to par.

But now, Su Chen was claiming that he could challenge a Desolate Beast all on his own......

Yes, he had slaughtered a dozen Demonic Emperors with a single strike, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was qualified to solo a Desolate Beast!

Su Chen, however, nodded confidently again. “Yes, let me handle it.”

Gu Huiming said in a serious voice, “Su Chen, we all know that you are the strongest human alive right now. However, challenging a Desolate Beast all on your own is just courting death!”

The Gu Clan’s Ancestor possessed an incredible status. Even the Boundless Sect’s leader, the most powerful human currently alive, was not above his rebuke.

Su Chen didn’t take offense. He chuckled as he replied, “I’m not planning on getting myself killed. I’m just going to delay it.”

“With what?” Gu Huiming asked blandly.

Su Chen glanced off in the distance and then calmly replied, “I got my hands on some new toys recently...... Don’t worry. Even if I can’t defeat it, I’ll be able to run away.”

After saying this, he flew off into the distance, disappearing in almost an instant. By the time everyone noticed it, he had reappeared next to Hidden Cloud. The others had no choice but to believe that Su Chen wouldn’t overextend himself just to avoid losing face.

As soon as Su Chen appeared, Hidden Cloud reacted by immediately expanding its cloud form, a rolling wave of fog rushing in his direction.

Su Chen didn’t dare to let the fog envelop him and retreated at full speed. At the same time, he unsheathed his sword and unleashed a wave of sword Qi. The sword Qi passed through the fog without any resistance, leaving it completely unscathed.

But Su Chen didn’t grow agitated. Instead, with a casual gesture of his hand, the Flaming Dragon Theurgy Art emerged before him.

The violent flames rushed towards the fog. Su Chen was able to clearly see that the fierce flames were driving back the ever-expanding fog.

Su Chen’s control over fire Method Power had reached a level that was actually strong enough to dissipate Hidden Cloud’s fog.

But whereas the Flaming Dragon’s energy was limited, the fog seemed to be anything but that.

Even more fog swept out in response to Su Chen’s Flaming Dragon, swallowing it whole like the sea extinguishing a small fireball.

“Hey......” Even Su Chen was rendered speechless by this move.

Indeed, the gap in strength between the two of them was simply insurmountable in a head-on collision.

An instant later, Su Chen opened his mouth, unleashing an invisible howl.

A consciousness stab.

This kind of attack was best described as one where consciousness power was condensed into an incredibly sharp form so as to penetrate an opponent’s mind.

Su Chen was testing the waters to see how effective consciousness attacks would be against it.

Hidden Cloud seemed to sense the consciousness attack, and the fog suddenly morphed into the shape of a giant face. This gaseous face opened its mouth, from which sprang out countless hands formed from fog that rushed towards Su Chen.

“That got a pretty big response,” Su Chen chuckled to himself as he continued to fly backwards.

The consciousness stab was weaker than the Flaming Dragon Theurgy Art in terms of raw power, but it seemed to have a greater effect on Hidden Cloud. In other words, it seemed that using consciousness power to attack it was indeed the best tactic.

But that didn’t necessarily mean that Su Chen would do so.

He had a limited amount of consciousness power. Even if his reserves were ten times greater, he would still probably be incapable of fully killing a Desolate Beast with just consciousness attacks.

As such, he continued to look for alternative ways to attack Hidden Cloud.

At the same time, he was also dodging the thousands of fog hands constantly swatting at him. Hidden Cloud had been classified as an assassin, but the way it was currently fighting made it seem much more like a berserker.

Each of the thousands of fog hands snapped through the sky like wicked whips, churning up the air around them. The commotion was so great that it almost seemed as if Su Chen was being herded around by a group of violent clouds.

Su Chen attempted using his sword to slice through the fog hands. The Lightless Blade actually passed cleanly through one of them, severing it from its host.

Through this attack, Su Chen realized that even though Hidden Cloud possessed an innate resistance to physical attacks, that only applied while it was in an illusory state. When it attacked, it would no longer be in an illusory state, which meant that it would be vulnerable to physical attacks while it was attacking.

Surprisingly, however, Hidden Cloud was able to maintain multiple states of existence at the same time.

Its body remained ethereal while only its hands were tangible.

In other words, only the part of its body that was attacking Su Chen would possess physical substance, while the rest would remain in an intangible state.

This Beast was truly a pain to deal with!

Su Chen couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. The humans would have had a much harder time dealing with this creature than the golden falcon.

The fog hands continued to swat at the fly that was Su Chen.

Even though he could cut the hands down, Su Chen had no choice but to retreat again and again when faced with a veritable flood of them.

Without the support of any other cultivators or a powerful formation, Su Chen genuinely felt like a mortal sinking into the stormy ocean without a life preserver in sight.

Even so, the more intense the storm, the more Su Chen wanted to brave it.

Truly courageous individuals would not fear danger.

Su Chen watched the giant Desolate Beast continue attacking him as countless fog hands snaked through the air towards him. He really was dancing on a knife’s edge.

“Su Chen!” Gu Qingluo clenched her fists as she worriedly watched the battle unfold in the distance.

“You have to believe in him!” Li Chongshan firmly grasped Gu Qingluo’s shoulder. He knew what she was thinking, so he said, “If you go now, you won’t be able to help him. At worst, you’ll only be a burden to him.”

Gu Qingluo knew this as well. Her appearance would most likely distract him instead of help him, so she could only grit her teeth and say, “I know. What are we waiting for? Finish off these two bastards so that we can go help out the Sect Master!”

At this moment, the only thing they could do was slaughter the other two Desolate Beasts to help alleviate some of the pressure on Su Chen.

Hopefully, Su Chen would be able to hold on until then!

At that moment, all of the human soldiers shared the same thought.

“Hiss!”

A hair-raising hissing sound suddenly gushed out from the fog.

At that exact moment, Su Chen suddenly felt a wave of pain overtake him. He froze in midair as blood spurted out from his nose.

Not good!

Su Chen knew that he had fallen prey to Hidden Cloud’s consciousness attack.

Even though Hidden Cloud was best classified as an assassin, its proficiency in consciousness techniques was equally astonishing. In fact, its three most impressive qualities were its incredible speed, ability to ignore physical attacks, and powerful consciousness attacks.

Unlike Towering Clam’s illusions, however, Hidden Cloud’s were more geared towards assassinations.

Thankfully, Su Chen’s consciousness was incredibly powerful. Any other Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator would most likely have been seriously wounded if not killed on the spot.

As soon as Su Chen was affected by the consciousness technique, all of the fog hands quickly began to snake towards Su Chen.

Just as they were about firmly wrap themselves around him, a faint light suddenly shone out from Su Chen’s body. The fog hands ended up hitting nothing but empty air — in that brief moment, Su Chen had escaped from the Beast’s control.

Naturally, he had done so by relying on his immortal energy.

This was also the reason why Su Chen had been confident in being able to challenge a Desolate Beast on his own.

Unlike when he had faced the large wave of Demonic Emperors, Su Chen had stockpiled much more immortal energy today, which also passively increased his recovery abilities.

Even though his increased amount of immortal energy didn’t meant that he could defeat a Desolate Beast all on his lonesome, he was still capable of holding out for some time.

And this period of time was more than enough for Su Chen to do plenty of things.

The fog surged in his direction once more, and this time, it emitted an extremely corrosive aura that caused the very air to sizzle dangerously.

Su Chen continued to retreat until his back met a mountain. Suddenly, he turned around and struck at the mountain with his palm.

The mountain trembled violently as chunks of rocks began to fall from the sky. As they fell, they took the shape of ears, eyes, a mouth, and a nose which then gathered together to form a giant human face. As more rocks continued to descend, the rest of the body and legs also appeared, eventually forming a giant, mountain-sized statue.

Su Chen struck out with his palm once more at the statue. Shockingly, the statue opened its eyes before suddenly unleashing a punch that collided with the thousands of fog hands wriggling in the sky. The hands began to pop one after another.

This was Su Chen’s God-Sealing Method Power, which allowed him to confer consciousnesses upon inanimate objects.

Even though he was still incapable of making the statue a god, he was more than capable of giving it a consciousness.

This mountain giant was not necessarily stronger than an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator, but its physical strength was extraordinary, which made it the perfect meat shield. Somehow, it had managed to stop Hidden Cloud’s vicious attack in its tracks.

However, there seemed to be no end to the fog hands. After the mountain giant’s punch destroyed a swathe of hands, more surged forwards to replace them, causing the mountain giant’s fist to only penetrate a few layers of hands before running out of steam. Eventually, all of the momentum of its punch was consumed.

The mountain giant roared with rage, but it was incapable of extricating its arm from Hidden Cloud’s grasp. Hidden Cloud’s thousands of hands had firmly grasped the mountain giant’s arm and it started dissolving apart as the corrosive fog went to work.

Hidden Cloud was not planning on waiting for the mountain giant’s arm to completely dissolve away. After a few seconds, the fog hands made a sudden, jerking motion, cleanly twisting the mountain giant’s arm from its body and sending it flying through the air.

The mountain giant took advantage of its sudden freedom to unleash a punch with its left fist instead.

The outcome, however, was exactly the same.

Bang!

Its other arm was summarily broken.

The mountain giant roared in anger as it opened its mouth to bite down on Hidden Cloud. Unfortunately, the fog hands wrapped themselves around its neck, slowly but surely tightening their grip.

With a sudden bang, the mountain giant’s head came tumbling off as well.

This caused the mountain giant to finally fall motionless, turning back into a mountain peak that looked like a statue without arms or a head.

“Hoho.” Su Chen didn’t seem particularly surprised by this outcome. He chuckled, “Desolate Beasts are truly able to move mountains and fill oceans. However, I want to know just how many mountains you can move, and just how many oceans you can fill!”

As he spoke, he continued to retreat, placing his palm on yet another nearby mountain as he did so.

Actually, the location that Sky City had stopped at was quite particular. It was surrounded by tall forested mountains, and some peaks even pierced through the clouds. Since this particular stretch of territory had never been explored by the Intelligent Races before, it was unnamed. Even so, it was definitely as large as an entire country. The tallest mountain peaks here were nearly a hundred thousand feet tall, and those mountains possessed an immense majesty of their own.

Su Chen had no way of giving those mountains their own consciousness, but he could animate the mountains that were only a few thousand feet tall.

With a rapid succession of palm strikes, three mountains came to life and began lumbering towards Hidden Cloud.

Hidden Cloud casually sent out its fog hands once more.

Even though the three mountain giants were quite strong, they were nothing more than cannon fodder against Hidden Cloud.

The disdain that Hidden Cloud felt for these mountain giants was extremely evident in its actions.

Its pride at being at the apex of the food chain was clearly expressed even though it could not speak.

Su Chen chuckled. “I know that just these guys won’t be enough to take you on, but I wasn’t counting on them to do much damage in the first place. They are only a shield; I am the spear!”

Suddenly, Su Chen’s figure flickered forward as he reappeared above the cloud of fog, with the Lightless Blade raised high into the sky.

As the Lightless Blade descended, a white glow suffused the blade. This strike had been augmented with the power of immortal energy.

“You can’t be hit with physical attacks, huh? Why don’t you try this one on for size.”

Kacha!

The blade pierced Hidden Cloud, slicing through it like a hot knife through butter.

“HISS!”

Hidden Cloud let out its first cry of pain since the start of the battle.