Chapter 165: Revealing His Sharpness

"Battle!" Zhou Yi's roar pierced the nine heavens, his hand forming seals swiftly, drawing afterimages.

The aftershock of the two supreme beings' clash tore open the firmament; geysers of earth fire from cracks in the ground intertwined with falling star fragments, weaving an apocalyptic scene.

The watching powerhouses held their breath, recalling that they had last seen such a heaven‑shattering, earth‑destroying duel only in the ultimate war of the witch and demon clans.

Observant ones had already noticed the battle's trend; Zhou Yi's robes gradually stained gold‑red, while Taiyi Shen remained composed, standing calmly at the center of the blazing inferno.

This innate deity, born at the sun's core, now had three thousand six hundred fire‑traced patterns floating around him forming a dao diagram, each pattern recording the laws he comprehended while listening to the dao in the Purple Cloud Palace.

"Crack!" The sound of breaking bone pierced the battlefield's roar; Zhou Yi's right arm instantly turned into drifting crystal dust.

Relying on the ancient inheritance's "Zhe" character secret art, he could always reforge his golden body at critical moments, but the reconstruction speed had slowed by half a breath compared to the start.

Taiyi Shen brandished the illusory Chaos Bell; where its toll rang, space froze, and nine chains entwined with solar true fire suddenly pierced Zhou Yi's chest.

Just as everyone thought the outcome was settled, Zhou Yi's shattered body suddenly burst forth with chaotic mist.

The azure dragon and white tiger's phantasms emerged from the mist, intertwining into a five‑colored altar that lifted him up.

Tens of thousands of Great Dao runes flowed over his surface, condensing into a semi‑transparent crucible of law, within which a faint roar like the sound of heaven and earth being split echoed.

In this mysterious and unpredictable battle state, Zhou Yi's inner secret art produced a strange resonance, erupting every three breaths with tenfold power that could move heaven and shake earth.

Whenever the bronze ancient bell, bearing stellar power, came crashing down, he could always activate the dark‑golden runes within his body, condensing his essence blood into a blood blade to counter‑attack against the flow.

Taiyi Shen's Chaos Bell hummed in his hand; for the eighth time it shook the opponent's body into a blood mist, yet those scattered flesh and blood suddenly recombined in midair.

This demon race supreme's pupils contracted slightly; even having fought the Twelve Ancestral Witches in the past, he had never seen a physique capable of instant recovery within the waves of the Chaos Bell's toll.

"Three‑Light Divine Water? Not…" Taiyi gazed at the solar‑lunar‑stellar radiance flowing around Zhou Yi, then suddenly sensed that the world's spiritual energy was gathering in a strange manner.

The distant observer Zhenyuanzi suddenly unfurled the Earth Scroll, realizing that the power of the earth's meridians was being drawn by an invisible vortex; the waist‑worn magical treasures of all the present powerhouses trembled uneasily.

Sui Huang clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened; he noticed that each time Zhou Yi shattered and reformed, a never‑before‑seen purple‑gold dao pattern would appear on his forehead.

The Great Dharma Master Miaole's horsetail whisk moved on its own without wind, the Taiji diagram flickering in his pupils; the foremost disciple of the Ren Sect finally realized that whenever Taiyi Shen's assault approached, fine fractures would appear in the battlefield's spacetime.

"He's actually using the Chaos Bell to forge his dao body!" the demon master's Great Peng Bird behind him spread its wings wildly, and the Northern Ice chilled a thousand miles of cloud layers.

The Nether River Sect chief's twin swords were drawn half an inch, the twelfth‑grade karmic fire red lotus in the Sea of Blood churned violently, and the two titans simultaneously realized that what seemed a sorry cycle of breaking and reforming was actually the operating trajectory of some heaven‑defying secret art.

When the ninth rebirth of flesh and blood was completed, Zhou Yi suddenly plunged the Xuanyuan Sword into the void.

Brilliant golden light burst from the sword's tip, actually outlining the contours of the Mountains‑Rivers‑State‑Altar map upon the firmament.

In Taiyi Shen's furious shout, the Chaos Bell was shoved back three zhang for the first time, and seven of the stars etched on its surface dimmed out.

"What a clever ploy to hide heaven and cross the sea!" Immortal light of the Jade Pure came from beyond the thirty‑third heaven, and the auspicious cloud manifestation of Yuanshi Tianzun flickered faintly in the heavens.

Only now did the immortals realize that the battlefield's center had at some point become a crucible of heaven and earth; Zhou Yi's shattered bones were being tempered in the furnace fire to emit chaotic qi, each rebirth bringing him closer to some perfect dao body than before.

At the fiery core of the law crucible, Zhou Yi's body flowed with three thousand dao patterns, radiant immortal mist forming a luminous cocoon around him; the ancient gods' whisper‑like dao vibrations shook the void, their sound deafening yet ever impossible to discern the true meaning.

Faced with Taiyi Shen's assault capable of burning heaven and annihilating earth, Zhou Yi's flesh was continually torn apart by solar true fire.

But whenever everyone thought he was about to lose both form and spirit, seven‑colored dao patterns would burst from his ruined body, reforging tendons and bones like a phoenix rising from nirvana.

In this near‑self‑destructive cycle, his qi ever more approached the origin of heaven and earth, as if he were an innate deity born at the dawn of chaos.

As Taiyi Shen had said, Zhou Yi seemed liable to fall at any moment, yet he could always rebuild his body at the brink of destruction.

What shocked the watching powerhouses even more was that this human cultivator's combat power increased geometrically after each rebirth, as if undergoing a qualitative transformation that touched the Great Dao.

"If one does not dare to live by facing death, what talk is there of contending with the demon sovereign?" Zhou Yi's proclamation shook the eight wilds; he, cultivating madly with his body as a furnace, now revealed his sharpness in this life‑and‑death extremity.

The "Myriad Laws Crucible" concept Miaole comprehended while lecturing on the dao originally required a millennium of accumulation to settle.

Yet Taiyi Shen's sudden arrival turned that painstaking effort into a blazing tempering of gold.

Under apocalyptic pressure, Zhou Yi poured all his lifetime's comprehended imperial scripture secret arts into his heart furnace, forging his dao foundation as a divine artificer would hammer a heaven‑opening treasure.

As the dao‑pattern furnace shot forth nine‑colored divine light, the laws of all heavens began to wondrously resonate.

The inheritances of past emperors were no longer distinct; divine arts and mysteries merged like rivers into the sea, gradually coalescing into some unknown entity transcending the existing dao system.

This cultivation method of taking the self as embryo and myriad laws as fire, if slightly careless would lead to the dissipation of dao and soul, but if successful…

"Excellent!" Taiyi Shen's eyes first flashed with an unusual hue, "An ant's body dares to dream of melting the heavenly dao; such spirit is worthy of this emperor's serious attention."

Before the words faded, the toll of the Chaos Bell came from beyond the thirty‑third heaven, and the meridians of the Honghuang continent trembled.

Towering golden flames spewed from the demon sovereign's true form, and the nine heavenly vaults instantly became a molten lava purgatory.

When Taiyi Shen fully displayed the peak pressure of a quasi‑sage, the fierce radiance bursting from his body made even the true sun star pale, as if the Great Dao itself had descended a world‑ending heavenly punishment.

Taiyi Shen's sleeves flew, his ten fingers weaving profound seals like dancing butterflies, while primordial unseen chaotic true qi surrounded his body.

This ancient demon sovereign, at this moment, was exhibiting the primordial forbidden art he had comprehended while guarding the Heavenly Court for a million years.

Following three cries that split metal and stone from beyond the nine heavens, the entire firmament suddenly turned into a sea of crimson‑gold fire.

The three‑legged golden crow that blots out the sky beat its wings and broke through space; sparks of its heaven‑burning golden flame scattered from its feathers, turning the clouds into lapis‑liquid hues.

All onlookers covered their eyes with their sleeves; that myriad‑zhang divine light almost scorched their divine sense.

"Today I will let you witness what annihilation means." Taiyi Shen roared like thunder.

The golden crow's dharma aspect, wrapped in the scorching stream that refines stars, swooped down; wherever it passed, space twisted and cracked, clearly intending to burn Zhou Yi—body and soul—into calamitous ash.

Zhou Yi had now shed seventy percent of his old body, his newly formed flesh gleaming with a jade‑like luster.

Faced with this killing move that had once slain a Great Luo Golden Immortal, he no longer met it head‑on as before.

Only then did a bronze ancient bell leap from his celestial altar, its inscribed innate dao patterns wandering like living things, weaving in the void into a Taiji formation.