Chapter 319: Not That You're Any Good, Yet You Still Dare to Shift to a Second Form

In an instant, like ten thousand arrows firing together, dense electric arcs burst outward.

The unrestrained Divine Thunder roared out, and the raging trails surging in the sky were even more dazzling than the countless ghostly silhouettes of the dancing demons.

Ji Ming is now a genuine Supreme Deity, and this place serves as the internal test arena for him as a game developer; his powers are so exaggerated that calling it a divine realm isn't excessive.

Thus, the moment Thunder Divine Light touched the Grudge Soil limbs, the Earth Grudge Demon's limbs—so sturdy they could pierce steel walls—shattered completely; the dust and broken arms from the corpses didn't even reach the ground before being melted by the heat into glowing specks drifting on the wind.

The giant monster howls, and sparks rain down.

Amid this dreamlike, ultra‑effected, gorgeous spectacle, the first thought Ji Ming had was…

"Combat—so exhilarating!"

It's like a student who's been holding it in for half a class finally bursting into the restroom and pulling the flush—this long‑suppressed, now explosive feeling is just too exhilarating!

And the Earth Grudge Demon has an entire dead zone as its power base; the few shattered limbs are but a drop in the bucket for it.

Conversely, while it rapidly recovers by drawing Grudge Soil, the blinding lightning ignites its full ferocity!

"Wuwu~"

Thus, amid the even more piercing wails, a huge mouth slowly split open on its abdomen; just as Ji Ming wondered whether this monster could still unleash a wave, a massive spiked fist suddenly sprang out.

Having and using are two different matters; although Ji Ming's divine power is boundless now, his lack of experience makes actual control still rather clumsy.

Therefore, fully aware of his shortcoming, he didn't idle to clash head‑on with the giant fist; instead, he teleported behind the Earth Grudge Demon, intending to give it a modest Supreme Deity shock.

The facts proved his judgment spot‑on: when a lightning pillar thicker than anyone else's erupted on the Earth Grudge Demon, the flying fist also triggered an equally shocking massive explosion.

It turned out that within the thick soil lurked a hysteria‑inducing curse, a dense black vapor like the dead's endless resentment toward the living; this is the Earth Grudge Demon's true killing move behind that punch.

Ji Ming isn't scared of it, but a passing water‑sprayer makes ordinary people keep their distance, let alone this lump that could be called a ten‑thousand‑year relic—any professional of equal rank touching it would suffer a huge loss, a disgusting thing.

So when the Earth Grudge Demon sensed the target behind it and tried to gather strength for another strike, Ji Ming teleported higher into the sky, converging massive thunder and holy light beneath him into a high‑speed rotating drill, and stepped down while the foe was distracted.

Electric light surged; the Earth Grudge Demon's rock‑hard shell before the drill was like paper‑mâché, allowing Ji Ming to easily drill into its body, smoothly completing a diagonal penetration.

As for why he didn't stay inside the Stone Aunt's body like Sun Wukong and cause a ruckus, it's because…

Even without the ability to think, the sensation of being pierced still made the Earth Grudge Demon shriek wildly; it extended countless limbs to seize the lightning‑fast electric insect, but the thing was too slick, only watching its agile leap as it slipped back into its own body.

…After finally getting such a great live target, and it's still in his own steady‑as‑an‑old‑dog home, if he doesn't practice his divine‑power control now, does he really have to wait until wartime to comprehend it?

Moreover, although the Earth Grudge Demon appears bulky, its fat earth like a sprouting potato and seems easy to toy with, as a product of ancient battlefields its terrifying combat instincts far surpass ordinary creatures—it's truly a formidable foe.

When Ji Ming darts rapidly outside its body attempting repeated loops, it extends dense limbs to interfere and intercept; the ones that look the most ferocious and structurally terrifying are often not the threat—instead, a single limb that silently emerges from a blind spot while Ji Ming is busy maneuvering in the air is the truly lethal one.

Of course, merely guarding against ambushes isn't enough; those feints might turn real, striking him with actual blades, so Ji Ming must stay on high alert against everything around him to complete a traversal safely.

Yet even after successfully traversing back into the Earth Grudge Demon's body, he can't rest easy, because the demon randomly adjusts the hardness of any internal part based on his drilling direction, filling its interior with malice toward Ji Ming.

If it only created maze‑like reinforced plates to slow his drilling, that would be tolerable; the worst is the Earth Grudge Demon sometimes deliberately makes a section of its body unusually soft so Ji Ming can't brace in time, then leaves a huge swath of cursed resentment on the other side waiting for him to plunge in!

Cunning deceit is ingrained in its instincts; countless poisonous schemes require no thought. Just from this creature's behavior, Ji Ming can imagine how terrifying that life‑or‑death crucible was back then, how many conspiracies and betrayals were buried here, etched into every inch of the soil.

Precisely because of that. Even though Ji Ming possesses a spider‑sense‑like uncanny aura that alerts him and lets him teleport for emergency evasion, after dodging three of the Earth Grudge Demon's ambushes, he was still hit in the core by the opponent's endless, layered scheming.

"Wuu! Wuu! Wuu!"

Although it lacks consciousness, finally swatting away that annoying flying insect made the Earth Grudge Demon wave all its limbs and tentacles, emitting an excited monkey‑like screech.

The Earth Grudge Demon's strength is truly terrifying; a mere touch altered Ji Ming's flight path irreversibly, sending him flying back with a bang and crashing hard onto the ground.

"Damn, so its attack power is that strong?"

Even with layers of lightning shields absorbing damage, Ji Ming still felt his body as if Ke Li Si Ting had swung a Frost Giant at him; it wasn't life‑threatening, but it was a rare injury for the cautious Ji Ming since his transmigration.

But thinking about it, sweating a lot in daily life and bleeding little in battle—now breaking two ribs—is still better than being sliced dead by a single blow in the future…

Moreover, honestly, the one whose blood pressure should be maxed out now is the Big Earth Lump, because its celebration ceremony had just begun when it saw that tiny flying insect clutch a glass bottle, crawl out of the pit and soar again; before it could react, the creature was drilled into its own body for more play.

Even after several more fierce exchanges, Ji Ming once again failed to dodge and was struck by a fully powered ambush from the Earth Grudge Demon; but with ample SpiritGathering Liquid as logistics, this minor wound is just for fun.

Thus the Earth Grudge Demon didn't even have time to raise a tentacle in celebration; it saw the lightning flicker, slash across the sky again, and with a snap pierced its own body, emerging with a blade of light that gouged out a chunk.

The physically thinned Earth Grudge Demon roared in fury, countless limbs dropping like a huge bowl, but in this clash, Ji Ming, who has repeatedly honed his flight, has learned to execute small‑angle maneuvers, using sudden turns to foil the opponent's calculations.

The Earth Grudge Demon despaired, realizing many tricks that earlier could trouble its opponent were now, as if patched to a new version, completely ineffective; instead, Ji Ming seized the gaps in its own moves and cleaved a massive slab of mud with terrifying lightning.

Even more desperate, even if it quickly devises new tactics, employing massive dense attacks and more complex ambushes to raise Ji Ming's evasion difficulty, what good does a hit do anyway?

Whether it raises sky‑splitting dust or creates deafening crashes, that lightning always soars again, using ever faster means to slice its own flesh for sport; later it even skipped a few performances, merely wobbling a bit before resuming combat like nothing.

After all, under Ms. Buluowa's tutelage, Ji Ming was already accustomed to learning while being beaten… In battle, once he found his rhythm, he quickly entered a state of half‑effort, double‑gain, with insight soaring.

First he mastered using a lightning‑chain counterattack during high‑speed flight, then fan‑shaped electric sweeps, full‑burst light‑ball launches, lightning‑mixed delayed grenades, and even flash‑belt shock dense interference projectiles…

He felt himself evolving in high‑intensity combat into a humanoid warcraft, one that can unleash tactics against both air and ground.

Even as he kept fighting, he wondered why the ten‑thousand‑year‑old Earth Grudge Demon was getting weaker with each strike; the once‑head‑ache‑inducing saturated attacks were now just a single bolt of lightning, perhaps he was flying too fast for the old beast to keep up?

Tsk tsk, I thought I could train a bit longer, but after just a moment it gave out.

With that thought, he simply condensed all surrounding lightning into a high‑speed rotating saw blade, effortlessly cleaving the already sweat‑soaked Earth Grudge Demon at the waist, sending its heavy upper body crashing to the ground like a mud doll broken by a child.

…

My god, was I too ruthless? That's almost pitiful.

"Big Earth Lump, are you alright or not? If not, I'll go hard and make you die on the spot!"

Earth Grudge Demon: I'm testing…

It may not know what the lightning insect is saying, but it knows it's been deeply despised!

The wailing turned into genuine cries; massive resentment was drawn from the earth by the Earth Grudge Demon, and even the land that seemed eternally black turned back to its proper brown.

No, not just the soil—the Earth Grudge Demon's very body also changed!

Its entire lower half reverted to ordinary mud, while the upper half clumped like a mass of clay being sculpted, clearly concentrating its energy.

—Second Form!

But…

"Chunk, do you know why many BOSSes have a period of invincibility when they switch to a second form? You really think it's just to finish the character animation?"

In the next instant, all the Earth Grudge Demon's external defenses were ignored, and Ji Ming teleported directly into its continuously converging core.

Of course it's because the BOSS is extremely weak at this moment; the players will have ten thousand ways to strike first!

Having said that, endless lightning boiled again, linking together into sheets, forming a shell larger than them; the bulk of the Earth Grudge Demon's resentment was thus sealed within this divine‑power cage.

The remaining trace outside can no longer become climate; a stream without its source is merely stagnant water, only to be chased by hound‑like lightning along its track, all being shattered into void.

Ji Ming had used this move before against Lao Yang Tou, and now it's just a repeat of an old technique.

The Earth Grudge Demon truly hadn't expected Ji Ming to have such a method; the trump card it had hidden for so long turned out to be an absurdly huge clown nose, a self‑entrapment indeed.

"Wrong. A clown nose is red; this thing is black when compressed."

Within the pale‑gold transparent film, black swirled repeatedly like smoke clouds, resembling the night sky over Sunlight City; if one listens closely, a faint wailing seems to drift.

Moreover, even at its peak as a level‑60 aberration, the Earth Grudge Demon still produced a size not small, about the size of a basketball.

"Nice shot!"

Ji Ming pinched it, finding the thing actually had a bit of elasticity, then clumsily tapped it twice, and tossed his own light ring for a three‑pointer.

... Right, as expected it missed.

But that didn't stop him from picking up the Earth Grudge Ball to brag.

"Chunk of Earth, I declare you truly have more strength than Lao Yang Tou!"

"The bead it turned into is useless, can only hang in the game shop as an unsold ornament, while the ball you made can at least be handed to Brother Kun, who has two and a half years of practice, for the all‑people producer to show off!"

But just as Ji Ming called Cloi, urging them to rush in and clean up the arena, the system suddenly alerted him that a high‑intensity signal had appeared here again.

And... inside the ball he was holding?

The next second, amidst the endless black, a streak of dark red emerged.

It turned out that the thing sealed in the Divine Power Ball wasn't just the Earth Grudge Demon; rather, its core already contained something else.

Now it sensed the outside change and revived, and after a brief confusion, quickly sent a friendly signal to the being before it.

"Great deity, your divine power is astonishing, yet with a slight..."

"A piece of tattered cloth?"

"???"

The dark‑red tattered cloth, whose voice was oddly magnetic, was stunned by the words, looked left and right with a personified "bow", and emitted a terribly embarrassing sound.

"Ah, where did my body go, ah!!!"

At this moment, the prisoner brigade that had been waiting outside finally arrived at Ji Ming's side, marveling that Lord Envoy truly lived up to the title, having fought the Earth Grudge Demon so fiercely that the whole ancient battlefield trembled, the commotion so great that even the outside could feel it, yet they remained unflustered, not breathing, as if nothing...

Chatting with a screaming black ball?

"Ahem, the affairs here are now yours; work hard, and perhaps this will become your base in the future."

He casually sketched a grand promise, and Ji Ming hurriedly took the black ball loaded with contraband back behind the curtain.