Chapter 263: Chapter Six: Victory and Defeat

Luo Feng had no choice; under the erosion of those nine strange forces, he could barely unleash his true power, and without using a secret treasure, he had not the slightest chance of winning the wager against Lei Ting Zushi.

Now, with the Star Tower protecting him, he could more easily handle his opponent.

Of course, hiding inside the tower forever and refusing to strike back still counted as a loss! Victory required facing the enemy directly and gaining the upper hand.

“Is that the nine-story tower?” Lei Ting Zushi knew of Luo Feng’s clash with Di Qing and was aware of the tower’s existence.

“Lei Ting Zushi, in this wager, I can only have a slim chance by using a secret treasure,” Luo Feng said. “Beware.”

“I’ve cultivated several eras longer than you—it’s already a case of the strong oppressing the weak,” Lei Ting Zushi smiled. “Use any secret treasure you have. As long as you gain even a sliver of advantage, you win.”

Whoosh whoosh whoosh~~~~

Luo Feng’s body instantly transformed into an endless river of blood, whose most basic life units remained the “multi-clawed creature form,” though its outward form had become a river of blood.

The blood river instantly engulfed Lei Ting Zushi.

“Hmm?” Lei Ting Zushi sensed the blood river’s crushing weight, forming a spatial prison designed to imprison him, while other forces tried to seep into his body and strangle his flesh.

Lei Ting Zushi stood motionless, his body’s invisible energy flowing smoothly—his form perfectly complete, impervious to all external forces.

Luo Feng had once, single-handedly, crushed eight Emperor Jun’s combined forces!

Compared to then, the fundamental energy forming the blood river had evolved from the “Twenty-Four Forms” into the “multi-clawed creature form,” and Luo Feng’s realm had surged dramatically.

“Interesting,” Lei Ting Zushi said, playfully stirring the blood river with his hand. The entire endless river shuddered violently, beginning to explode at multiple points.

“Go!”

Luo Feng, now the endless blood river, instantly released the Star Tower and unleashed his killing technique.

After obtaining the Eye of Birth and Death and gaining deeper insight into the “twelve-colored blood scales” at the edge, Luo Feng had awakened the nine branch-secret arts of the Birth and Death Dao, named “Meteor.” With the Star Tower’s secret patterns, he could elevate this technique to an utterly terrifying level.

“Boom—”

The Star Tower shot through the void of the Cosmic Sea like a meteor.

“Hmm?”

Both Lei Ting Zushi and Yan Feng Zushi, watching from afar, paled—their vast experience and insight told them: the Star Tower’s passage through the Cosmic Sea as a meteor… time had halted, space naturally split apart.

At this moment, the Star Tower was utterly indestructible.

Lei Ting Zushi could not evade it—just as he saw the meteor, it had already struck his body “simultaneously.”

“Boom boom boom~~~~” Lei Ting Zushi took the blow, his towering body staggering backward several steps. The power of the Supreme Rule acted like chains, completely restraining his strength.

Of course, the Star Tower’s power was similarly heavily restrained.

Under equal power, the Star Tower had pushed him back.

“An ultra-powerful secret treasure! Definitely the highest-tier secret treasure!” Lei Ting Zushi was certain now. “This strike froze time, split space, condensed matter to its extreme—truly indestructible! It must be a precious treasure forged by Yuan Qian and the others.”

“With such a vast realm gap, even with a secret treasure, he pushed back Lei Ting? It must be worth over one hundred thousand reward points,” Yan Feng Zushi thought.

Only treasures of this level could create such miracles.

“Hahaha…”

Lei Ting Zushi laughed, and from distant directions, eight thunderous figures coalesced—eight thunder clones.

The nine Lei Ting Zushis naturally formed a vast array; as the array activated, it swiftly suppressed the operation of time, space, matter, life, and countless other Dao principles. Luo Feng’s endless blood river grew quieter, yet the Star Tower, transformed into a meteor, kept tearing through the array and striking Lei Ting Zushi’s true body and clones.

But under the array’s suppression, the Star Tower’s counterattacks had lost much of their force.

“Without using any treasure, I still can’t suppress this nine-story little tower,” the nine Lei Ting Zushis watched the Star Tower repeatedly tear through the array and charge forward, their eyes hiding a trace of greed.

He craved such a treasure—but he knew the Silver River Sovereign would never give him the chance, never let this tower leave the Origin Continent.

Lei Ting Zushi waved his hand and threw out an ancient stone pillar.

The pillar became the core of the entire array, strengthening the nine Lei Ting Zushis’ formation even further, intensifying the suppression over time, space, matter, life, and other Dao principles.

At this moment, Luo Feng was completely suppressed; though the Star Tower could still charge, it was now lost within the array, unable to touch Lei Ting Zushi.

“He’s forced Lei Ting to use a secret treasure!” Yan Feng Zushi watched from afar, deeply surprised. Lei Ting Zushi was a semi-Hunyuan lifeform; even without any treasure, he should have easily suppressed the Silver River Sovereign.

Yet now, he’d been forced to use a secret treasure!

Clearly… this nine-story little tower was extraordinary.

“The gap is too great,” Di Qing observed. “Even with the nine-story tower, Silver River Brother can’t win. Just forcing Lei Ting Zushi to use one secret treasure is already remarkable.”

…

“Silver River, do you still have any tricks?” Lei Ting Zushi said. “If not, you might as well surrender.”

The endless blood river instantly coalesced into Luo Feng, who regarded Lei Ting Zushi with deep admiration: “Lei Ting Zushi, your realm is far beyond mine, so I must now use a forbidden technique.”

“Forbidden technique?” Lei Ting Zushi was surprised, then laughed. “Go ahead—use whatever forbidden technique you have.”

Luo Feng nodded, and in an instant, his mind entered the interior of the Star Tower. His third eye—the Eye of Birth and Death—opened.

Peering into the Star Tower’s inner “twelve-colored blood scales,” Luo Feng saw no weakness, no destruction point—only perfect, overwhelming strength.

Yet he could see the point of greatest vitality within these scales—he had tried before, over countless eons.

“Though I don’t fully understand it, with the Eye of Birth and Death, I can activate a sliver of the scales’ true terrifying power.” Under the Eye’s observation, Luo Feng swiftly activated the deeper-level secret patterns within the Star Tower. Previously, he had only used shallow patterns—he had never understood the deeper ones.

But with the Eye of Birth and Death revealing the point of greatest vitality, and after countless trials over the ages, Luo Feng had finally figured out how to activate even a sliver of its power. This was why he dared to wager against Lei Ting Zushi.

“Hum.” As he activated it, a thread of crimson extended from the “twelve-colored blood scales,” beginning to stain the entire Star Tower.

The Star Tower turned crimson.

“Hmm?”

Lei Ting Zushi and Yan Feng Zushi, watching from afar, felt a growing sense of oppression as they saw the nine-story tower change color.

“I’ve heard that treasures worth over one hundred thousand reward points are sometimes forged from World-Level Hunyuan Lifeforms as material, or even from the corpses of Hunyuan Ancestors,” Lei Ting Zushi stared at the Star Tower now—its terrifying aura was a trace of something far more fearsome than the Cage’s boundaries. “This tower must be such a treasure.”

“Go.”

The Star Tower shot through the void of the Cosmic Sea again.

This time, everything it passed through was pierced—time, space, the array—all torn open. It struck Lei Ting Zushi’s true body instantly, sending him flying backward in disarray.

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“Lei Ting World, Ten Absolute Array!” Lei Ting Zushi could hold back no longer—he threw out his most powerful array.

As a Source-World cultivator, if his external clone died, he could simply send another clone over.

Thus, he kept many of his most precious treasures in the Source-World. For instance, Lei Ting Zushi’s strongest “Lei Ting World Ten Absolute Array”—he possessed two sets: one carried with him, one stored in the Source-World as backup.

Now, he spared no effort.

He had never imagined he’d be forced to use his strongest array on the Origin Continent.

“Boom boom boom~~~~”

Ten thunderous figures coalesced around him, each commanding one great array. The ten arrays fused perfectly into a single Lei Ting World, which operated under its own rules, suppressing all foreign forces.

“Suppress!” Lei Ting Zushi poured all his strength into crushing the Star Tower.

“Boom boom~~~~”

The crimson Star Tower still tore straight through the array—the array could not suppress it.

“This ten-array formation is a labyrinth,” Luo Feng frowned. The Star Tower crashed through one array into another, yet still could not touch Lei Ting Zushi.

“The realm gap is too vast. Even with the Star Tower’s strength, I can’t reach him,” Luo Feng thought.

He immediately used the Eye of Birth and Death to observe the Lei Ting World closely.

Under the Eye’s gaze, the structure of time and space, the flow of energy, the fusion of the ten arrays—all became clear. Dozens of weaknesses in the array’s operation stood out at once.

As the array operated, these weaknesses shifted constantly.

“Go.”

Luo Feng, having seen the array’s structure, instantly shifted his intent.

The Star Tower flashed.

Instantly, it pierced through the array’s weaknesses, cutting across multiple spatial barriers, and slammed into the body of Lei Ting Zushi, who hid deep within the Lei Ting World—striking him hard enough to send him staggering backward.

“How is this possible? How did he find me?” Lei Ting Zushi refused to believe it.

Though he was a Hunyuan-blood cultivator, this array had been forged for him by a semi-Hunyuan Dao-seeker. Breaking this array was no simple feat.

Lei Ting Zushi stepped forward and vanished to another location within the Lei Ting World.

“Huff.”

Resisting the Lei Ting World’s suppression, the Star Tower pierced the array’s weakness again, striking Lei Ting Zushi’s body.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Repeatedly struck.

Under the Origin Continent’s power restrictions, neither could truly harm the other. The wager was decided by who held the upper hand—and now the situation was clear.

“I lose,” Lei Ting Zushi said, dissolving the array, his expression complex as he looked at Luo Feng.

He had claimed aloud that Silver River Sovereign had a slim chance—but deep down, he never believed he could lose. In his view, even with an ultra-powerful secret treasure, Silver River Sovereign could not defeat him.

“A mere youth who never left the Source-World, using a secret treasure, can now overpower me?” Lei Ting Zushi’s heart churned.

“Under the Origin Continent’s power restrictions, only when our powers are equal can I gain a slight advantage,” Luo Feng said. “If we fought outside, I wouldn’t even be able to fight back.”

One force crushes ten techniques.

Luo Feng knew well: if the power gap were too vast, even the Star Tower might be seized from him.

“You won—you won,” Lei Ting Zushi shook his head lightly. “I can accept defeat. Lan Duo—I’ll deal with her myself.”

With that, Lei Ting Zushi stepped forward and departed.

(End of Chapter)