Returning to the Mysterious Era-Chapter 674 - The Slaughter Ends, The Meal Begins

"Five palms... Is that your limit?"

Wind howled as a shockwave visible to the naked eye radiated outward. A shattered war machine was embedded in the earth, its left half completely broken to pieces. Only the right half of its body still stood. Its entire lower half had sunk into the ground, exposing a burly yet battered upper body. A steel right arm propped it up at an angle. A grating screech of metal on metal rang out as its massive head lifted. Two red points flickered beneath a heavy, silver mask.

"Xiadu, this is no longer your era..."

Bang!

A steel palm slammed into the ground. The Golem's massive body, that had been wedged into the earth, pulled itself free with ease. Black soil broke free of the cracked armor surface, tracing an outline of blood and iron.

Cassius raised his head to gaze at the sky. At that very moment, a shaft of blood-colored moonlight shone down, forming an oval pillar that happened to envelop the Golem's body. Crimson light flowed across the ferocious armor's surface as if it were blood.

"Heheh... this is the second time, though it's only a projection..."

There, in the sky, the heaven-shrouding giant hand grown from the intersection of the twin moons could no longer move at all, like a machine that had lost power. Its five fingers were spread, and the center of the palm was marred by a huge hole from a fist mark.

In that final exchange, the Golem had been grievously wounded, but the heaven-shrouding palm was likewise in a sorry state. When two titans clashed, both suffered. However, one side's injuries were the most worthless of all.

Hoo... hiss...

Enormous exhalations and inhalations whipped up gales around the Golem. At the same time, the cracks all over the Golem's armor, and even the severed cross-section of the entire left side of his body, started to glow a scorching white. Life vibration energy surged like a tsunami. Suddenly, the Golem’s wounds were recovering at an astonishing speed.

On another battlefield, a mad hurricane shredded the clouds. A black smoke figure and a blood-colored meteor tangled wildly, battling in every corner of the sky like two flickering stars. They were unimaginably fast. Each move was impossible to see clearly. There was only a blur of shadows tearing at each other.

Bang, bang... boom!

Thunder roared as the black smoke figure exploded in midair, then rewound as if time itself reversed, repeatedly returning to the previous imprint point. Xiadu's bizarre imprint ability was nearly unsolvable and far too terrifying. While the fifth palm from the overlapping twin moons clashed with Cassius, Blood Vulture Dominator Fist erupted ferociously, crazily killing Xiadu hundreds and thousands of times, yet still to no avail. And now, he seemed about to repeat the same failure.

Buzz...

The twin moons, which had fused into a single dome, suddenly split into two. That terrifying Will began to frantically wane and weaken like moonlight before a sunrise. Correspondingly, the blood-red moonlight dimmed rapidly, and the activity of calamity energy in the air plummeted.

Xiadu's figure, locked in a life-and-death struggle with Blood Vulture Dominator Fist, suddenly blurred and faintly showed signs of collapse. An arm wreathed in flames shattered Xiadu's smoky figure, killing it again.

Black smoke was recondensing at the previous imprint point, but its color was much darker and its speed much slower. The phantom of a blood vulture flashed by, and Xiadu was blasted apart midair again by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist before he could re-form his figure.

Bang, bang...

Five explosions in a row rang out as Xiadu was killed five times more. At the seventh imprint point, the black smoke gathered but only barely formed a head. Xiadu's face floated in midair with a ferocious expression.

Its aura was already extremely weak, and had even fallen below the level of an Ultimate Dark Form. It was the sort of small fry Blood Vulture Dominator Fist could swat casually. All of this stemmed from the frenzied decline of the true body's Will.

Looking up, the heaven-shrouding giant hand with the gaping hole in its palm was rumbling as it shrank. It was as if a black-hole at the intersection of the blood-red twin moons was sucking its energy away.

"The projection of my true body unleashed a total of five palms and consumed a massive amount of energy. Furthermore, that final clash actually damaged my true body... That damned fellow..." Xiadu's head gnashed its teeth and turned to look down. Cassius seemed to sense its gaze and turned to look over.

Two powerful gazes crossed a distance of thousands of meters, meeting from afar yet colliding as if inches apart.

Rumble.

The giant hand fully retracted into the moons and vanished, signifying the inevitable retreat of Xiadu's Will.

This also caused the head confronting Cassius to blur as it struggled to keep itself from disintegrating. Even though it was about to collapse, Xiadu's eyes stayed locked onto Cassius.

"I will remember you, Cassius!"

Cassius shed his mask, revealing a cold, indifferent face. A savage smile tinged with delight and provocation slowly bloomed. His chainsaw-like sharp teeth were ghastly and white.

"Then remember my face... Never forget it! Hehehe..." The Golem chuckled in a low voice as he raised his hand and drew it across his own neck with ruthless force.

"Krak."

A sound like a neck being twisted rang out, but it came from Cassius's mouth. He had mimicked how the other would be killed cleanly by him.

"You!!!" The blurry head of Xiadu roared.

"Heheh... hahahaha!" Cassius threw his head back and laughed wildly as Xiadu's head unwillingly disintegrated with a soft hiss.

That vast Will capable of stirring wind and cloud receded completely. The battle was over!

The siege led by Xiadu, mustering a double-digit number of Ultimate Dark Forms to encircle and kill Cassius and Blood Vulture Dominator Fist, had come to an end.

The victors were Cassius and Blood Vulture, and the defeated dark creatures paid a heavy price. All the Ultimate Dark Forms that took part in the siege were heavily injured, with Southern Dipper Force rampaging inside them. It would take decades to purge.

Moreover, some Ultimate Dark Forms had even died during the battle. Wild Coiling Bull and the Demonic Blood Tyrant had been taken out by Cassius, and another Ultimate Dark Form had been torn apart midair by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist. In other words, three Ultimate Dark Forms had fallen.

Besides that, some bodies and limbs of Ultimate Dark Forms were smashed and scattered across the land. It was good stuff for Cassius's Golem Covert Martial Arts to absorb. Lastly, Xiadu's losses were by no means small. Its Will had crossed realms to arrive, only to return damaged. Who knew whether Xiadu could still suppress White Bird's mark on its true body? If it could not, that would be no joke!

***

In the surface world, at an ice abyss far north, where day and night were long.

A vast, thoroughly enraged Will returned from beyond the heavens. A sweeping gale passed, and wind and snow emptied away. An eerie silence fell, such that even a single snowflake landing could be heard.

After the silence came a cracking din like a meteor striking the earth.

Boom boom boom...

The earth quaked and mountains swayed, causing the entire north to tremble. Thousands of meters of heavy ice fractured, and icy seawater surged into the sky from the cracks. The ice cap collapsed as a giant hand of black smoke thrust out. It gripped the rim of the ice abyss.

Crash!

Scales cracked on the surface of the giant hand, and a black liquid leaked and flowed out like blood. On the back of the hand, a bird-shaped imprint of steel feathers lit up, burning with pure white flames.

Sizzle...

Black smoke billowed, counteracting and contending with the pure white flames. However, the sacred flames were too fierce, erupting with the power to purify everything. In the blink of an eye, they had covered nearly two-thirds of the scaled giant hand. A moment later, the white flames had forced the ominous black smoke into just the little finger. The white fire and black smoke were caught in a stalemate around this area.

Terrifying roars and crisp birdsong alternated back and forth over the icy snowfields. Even day and night swapped under the clash of the two forces. At one moment, it was a sacred day, and the next a night of calamity.

Then, the struggle ended and the energies fell silent. In the ice abyss, a scaled giant hand burned pitch-black and fell away into the magma. It was now nearly unrecognizable.

"So close... Just a little bit more... All my efforts have come to nothing!" A slightly weakened Will echoed from the bottom of the abyss. "But even having withstood it, the losses are immense. More than a century of recuperation from the lifting of a Gate of Heaven's seal until now has been completely burned away. My current state is very poor..."

This was the third most unforgettable failure since Xiadu gained awareness. The first was its true body being sealed into the Gates of Heaven. The second was a partial escape of the true body, only for the White Bird Holy Fist to disrupt its plans, forcing it to rest in the ice abyss. Now, the third time was a battle of Wills across worlds. Sadly, it slipped up and nearly caused its true body backlash from internal injury.

"Blood Vulture... Cassius!!!" A terrifying Will shook with intense killing intent.

The taunt Cassius left at the last moment still lingered before its eyes. It absolutely would not let this mockery go!

However, Xiadu needed to recuperate. Its losses were too great and its condition was too unstable. It had to suppress its injuries first!

"To the end of heaven or down to hell, I will not spare you... Cassius!"

The immense Will slowly sank into the darkness and gradually fell silent.

***

In the World of Calamity, at the border between the Pitch Black Mountains and Crystalline Sand Sea

The ground was a mess, with craters everywhere. There was no creature left alive. In fact, nothing capable of movement remained within a large radius.

Only two figures stood amid the thunderstorm, while clouds from other regions were drawn in. A storm swept through, barely moistening the ruined ground. Unusually, Cassius and Blood Vulture Dominator Fist did not use their abilities to ward off the water. Instead, they let the droplets splash upon their shoulders.

After the great battle, a rare tranquility settled in their hearts. Strands of delight and surging heroism gradually ebbed away, leaving only their undisturbed Wills.

"Xiadu has lost..." Blood Vulture Dominator Fist raised his aged palm and let the rain drip upon it.

"We won." Cassius's voice was deep and powerful. It was as if no matter the situation or the difficulty before them, he would be their rock.

"Haha..." Blood Vulture Dominator Fist chuckled softly and turned his head. He asked with slight hesitation, "Your injuries?"

"It's fine. The wounds are rather serious, so I'll need a bit longer to recover." Cassius's body was still strong and nimble, but the left half was covered with streaks of cracks, like shattered yet perfect porcelain. Yet those blood-red fissures were slowly shrinking, venting white steam.

"Mm, everything should be considered over for the moment."

"What a pity... Our clash with Xiadu was too fierce just now, and we couldn't fight more Ultimate Dark Forms. They all withdrew..." Blood Vulture Dominator Fist sighed. "Today, we fought to our fill, but we didn't kill to our fill."

He paused slightly, then continued. "Next, we will begin your Ultimate Fist training. To achieve the Ultimate Fist path is actually harsher than the Dominator Fist and the Holy Fist. The difficulty is about the same, but the Ultimate Fist road focuses more on tempering oneself and digging out one's own strength..."

"You cultivate the three Southern Dipper fist arts together. It's a road I have never seen and never even imagined. This great path beneath your feet belongs only to you, so I can't offer much advice. I can only guard you to prevent disturbances during your training. From here on, tell this old man whatever you need. As long as I can do it, it will be done..." Blood Vulture Dominator Fist's words were calm and firm. He never went back on what he promised and never failed to accomplish it.

Cassius slowly turned and took the first step into the downpour. "No rush yet. I'll collect the spoils of our battle, raise my strength, and then undergo the training."

Some time later, the flesh and blood of various Ultimate Dark Forms were piled before Cassius and Blood Vulture Dominator Fist like mountains. There was a complete Ultimate Dark Form that had been torn apart alive by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist.

The corpse of the Wild Coiling Bull had not yet been fully absorbed. The torn-off torsos, limbs, and flesh of the various Ultimate Dark Forms that fled in disarray also contained a portion of their life vibration energy.

Cassius’s large hand reached out, itching to begin.

"These might push the progress of my technique to 85%... Don't let me down..."