Chapter 860: Gathering

"You detestable little beast!" Dazai was furious to the extreme; he pushed his hands forward, assuming a palm-striking stance, and thrust toward Tang Zhao.

At the distance he stood, this push could never reach Tang Zhao, and he simply stood in place without moving; he had no intention of using movement techniques to close in for hand-to-hand combat. His push even looked soft and powerless, with not a shred of fist-wind or force behind it, inferior even to the palm-pushes of some wandering Knight-Errant, at most accompanied by a sound upon the initial thrust.

"Hah!"

That sound was not the whistling of wind stirred up by a fist, nor did it sound like the collision of forces; instead, it was like a shout, a roar from a person using every ounce of their strength.

A single person's shout, though loud, was inevitably too thin; a short sound, soon to vanish into the wind.

However, this sound did not disappear.

Following this shout, as his palms pushed forward, the sound grew increasingly thunderous, gradually becoming like several people shouting together, then like a hundred people, a thousand people, until it was like a collapsing mountain, a tsunami, or the world turning upside down—a magnificent, booming sound, more powerful than thunder in every direction.

As the sound intensified, at first there was a wisp of wind, then gradually the wind grew stronger, carrying a force like surging waves; force followed force, rushing toward the opponent like a landslide or a tidal wave. Even the raging waves of the East Sea or the toppling of high mountains could not compare to such power!

"Ten thousand hearts as one! Ten Thousand Power Fist!"

With a roar, that incredible power gathered within his palms, becoming almost tangible, and then, with the motion of his palm-push, it surged outward violently!

The immense power transformed into a clenched fist; although it was only five fingers clenched, countless fine wisps of force circled it. Each wisp emitted a shout, and these sounds further fueled the ferocity of the power as it hammered down toward Tang Zhao's head!

Clang!

The power struck!

One could see that mass of Sunlight actually cave in. The originally perfect circular ball of light immediately shattered at one corner, just like an egg hitting a stone—it dented and cracked. It was not just that corner that shattered; fine cracks appeared all around it, as if the fist only needed to tap one or two more stress points for the entire sun to truly shatter and fall to the ground.

Dazai did not choose to pull his fist back to strike again, but continued forward. Amidst countless fierce roars, the fist extended longer and longer. Although the distance increased, the power did not weaken in the slightest; instead, it grew wave upon wave. The fist-Bone pressed against the indentation in the Sunlight, pushing inward, seemingly about to press a giant hole into the visible fracture.

Yet the Sunlight at the indentation followed the fist inward, just like a ball of cotton; although it had been flattened, it did not shatter. It remained stuck to the fist, and it was quite viscous, impossible to shake off, as if it intended to follow the fist all the way to the core of the Sunlight—Tang Zhao.

Dazai still did not withdraw his fist; his power was actually still expanding. Amidst the roars, the air waves wrapped around his fist grew more numerous and dense, and the power grew ever stronger. As he struck forward, he could feel the resistance growing stronger because he was getting closer to the core, and the Sunlight gathering on his fist was becoming like a shield. He was pushing against the shield to advance, locked in a contest of strength against the opponent through the shield.

At this moment, changing direction slightly to bypass the shield and attack those cracks seemed easier to break through, but Dazai did not choose to go around. He pressed forward relentlessly while his fist was covered in the Sunlight barrier, because the ten thousand roars and the hearts of ten thousand people were encouraging him, urging him, and pushing him; they would not allow him to turn back.

Either advance, or be swallowed by the sound waves!

Dazai did not want to turn back either. He had confidence; despite the shield delaying his progress, he believed that as long as his power broke through the shield, the inside would be like an egg white and yolk without the protection of the shell—there would be no room for resistance, only total defeat.

Could he break through?

He certainly could!

Dazai clearly felt that the Sunlight's tough defensive power had reached its limit, while his own power had not yet been fully unleashed; one could even say he still had plenty in reserve.

As for exactly how much power he had left, even he dared not say for sure. He had never used his full power since reaching this realm; he could only say that this power had infinite potential. If his opponent wanted to fight by mutual exhaustion, they would surely regret it too late.

Because the power of an Immortal is simply inferior to that of a God!

"Break for me—! All hearts as one!"

With a booming sound, the Sunlight in front of the giant fist exploded, turning into feathers of light filling the sky.

The obstruction vanished, and the fist drove straight in, charging toward Tang Zhao!

Tang Zhao and the boundary of the Sunlight were only a hair's breadth apart. Not to mention the fist thrusting further, even if the fist remained stationary and extended a single finger, it would be enough to poke a hole in Tang Zhao. Moreover, Dazai had driven his power to the limit, and the air waves on the fist were whipped up like ten thousand arrows shooting toward Tang Zhao. Each one was a convergence of countless shouts, each possessing the destructive power to break anything!

It seemed that in the next moment, Tang Zhao's tiny body would follow in the footsteps of the surrounding Sunlight and be smashed to pieces.

However...

It did not hit... it still hadn't hit?

It was not that another obstruction had appeared in front, nor had Tang Zhao nimbly dodged the attack. It was just that the fist was still extending forward, on its way to crush the enemy.

Dazai clearly saw Tang Zhao right before his eyes, only a finger's distance from the fist, and he felt the fist extending forward, as if it had already stretched hundreds of yards, and it was still advancing, yet it simply did not hit Tang Zhao.

He saw the giant fist suspended in front of Tang Zhao, appearing to the naked eye to make no progress, only trembling slightly. But he clearly felt the fist moving forward, incessantly moving forward, yet it just could not reach Tang Zhao's side.

"Is this... the ends of the earth?"

Dazai was, after all, knowledgeable and experienced; in a moment of shock, he suddenly understood.

Near at hand, yet far as the ends of the earth—Tang Zhao had likely employed a spatial Sword Technique, or Sword Momentum.

Although he was not of the Sword Guest lineage, he had very rich experience fighting Sword Guests and almost immediately guessed the mystery: this little thief had likely covered his surroundings with a layer of space; his own fist had entered that space and was extending infinitely within the different dimension, but it could not hit Tang Zhao, who was in this space.

"As expected, once one reaches a certain realm, everyone plays with space. You Sword Guests are indeed crafty. But... in the face of absolute power, even space cannot block me!"

He roared, and the phantoms of the ten thousand people around him became increasingly solid. At first, it was just the sound of roars accompanying his punch, but gradually, the ten thousand people behind him also began to clamor and shout. They cheered and roared behind Dazai, as if the roars were coming from the mountains, the oceans, the forests, and all things in nature.

Amidst the roars, the fist suddenly expanded, and even the arm outside the Sunlight grew more than a circle thicker. That overflowing power flooded the surroundings like a flood, and the surrounding graveyards were shaken, churned, and even shattered!

Those Turtle Bandits hiding in the grave mounds heard the commotion and scrambled up. Those with the fastest reactions had already seen the great battle before them and realized this was not a fight they could participate in or even approach, so they fled rapidly. Those who fled earliest saved their lives; those who were slow to react were already too late. They ran out screaming; the lucky ones had their Spirit Image escape their bodies, saving half a life, while the rest were crushed alive by the power halfway through their escape. The most miserable ones never even crawled out of the graveyards, turning directly into fine powder along with the grave soil.

It could be said that the power the Turtle Bandits had stored in this base suffered heavy losses under the impact of Dazai's power. The Turtle Bandits would undoubtedly suffer a massive decline in strength. If it were in the past, Dazai might have cared for them a little, but at this moment, he completely abandoned these people: forget it, the Emperor is gone, the Great Wei has fallen, who can still care about you?

At this moment, he only had the enemy before him in his heart. His power had been driven to its peak; even space could not block it!

Just at this moment, he saw it!

He saw a point of black appear in the space.

Was that a crack? The space could no longer support itself and was beginning to shatter!

He saw that wisp of black grow larger and longer, looking exactly like a fissure.

However... what initially appeared to be a fissure gradually stopped looking like one. A fissure would inevitably be an arbitrary crack, with a curved and irregular shape, splitting outward, but that patch of black was concentrated together, possessing a clear outline.

That outline was...

A hole?

A black hole... a Black Hole?

Dazai would not have any special recognition of the term "Black Hole"; he just thought of it that way. His extraordinary realization of this Black Hole began at this very instant.

When the Black Hole blocked the front of his fist, all his power vanished.

Swallowing... no, it could only be called a Disappearance!

He did not feel any process of swallowing; it was neither the biting of a bloody maw, nor the Absorption like a whale drinking water. There was no process of eating, and no metaphor could describe it—it just vanished in an instant.

If this were called swallowing, the only explanation was that the power condensed on the fist was simply too insignificant compared to the Black Hole, not even enough to fill the gaps between its teeth, and it was swallowed in one gulp!

"But... how can there exist something in this world that ignores such power? That is the power of all living things, the Humanity Power!" Dazai was incredulous. In an instant, he weighed his options: should he charge forward with the momentum of the power of all living things, gambling that his power could burst this Black Hole, or should he withdraw first and then reconsider?

His weighing took only the blink of an eye, and then he no longer needed to weigh anything!

He saw that indestructible fist seemingly gripped by a giant pair of pincers, squeezed outward, bent to its limit in an instant, and then shattered in a single moment.

Shattered, then crumbled into even finer powder, and then, not even the powder remained, with no trace left behind; that was complete... annihilation.

At this moment, the earth-shattering shouts from just before were gone from the world, and even the Dazai was struck dumb. He looked up, looked toward Tang Zhao, saw the expression on Tang Zhao that had not moved a single bit, and saw those pitch-black eyes, just like a pair of Black Holes.