Chapter 290: Chapter 147: One Sword Breaks Ten Thousand Techniques, King Buddha Is Slain

The next moment, the towering Divine Monarch, riding clouds and mist, charged straight at Cheng Lv.

During his charge, he also glanced at Yuan Rong.

SWOOSH!

However, Yuan Rong knew the danger. Possessing abilities related to space, she had already teleported away the instant Zhong Ming looked at her.

Meanwhile, Cheng Lv didn’t die instantly.

"Hundred Heads·Life Replacement!"

At the cost of destroying more than ten of his own heads, he stripped away the Purifying Flame.

And so, the deadly battle between Zhong Ming, Cheng Lv, and Yuan Rong unfolded within the Star Secret Vault.

The entirely golden Divine Monarch rode the clouds and mist, wielding a forty-meter-long Dragon Sword of the Morning Star. Like the Pursuing Fate Yama, he relentlessly hounded Cheng Lv and Yuan Rong.

Cheng Lv and Yuan Rong, on the other hand, bombarded him with all kinds of Remote Magic while constantly using Escape Techniques to flee for their lives.

However, Zhong Ming, who possessed the One Sword Breaks Ten Thousand Techniques, truly shattered everything with a single longsword.

Furthermore, the Morning Star Sword in his hand could transform into a beam of light and shoot forth. These kinds of strikes made Cheng Lv’s life a living hell.

Although he held on for a while with his Life Substitution Technique, the number of heads on his body was finite.

Not to mention, his power diminished with every head he lost.

And Zhong Ming’s slashes were imbued with the Breaking Evil Golden Light, the Purifying Flame, and amplified by Sword Intent. A single head was nowhere near enough to substitute for his life.

In less than a minute, over seventy of Cheng Lv’s heads had been destroyed. With only thirty heads remaining, he couldn’t even maintain his Foundation Establishment Realm, and his aura weakened to an extreme degree.

This sight caused him to break down.

"Damn it, why?!" Cheng Lv roared, his eyes filled with despair and confusion. "How can you, a mere Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator, summon such a massive Divine Monarch Dharma Aspect and maintain it for so long!"

"Is your Magical Power endless?!"

"And Liu Yu! You useless piece of trash! Why was your Plague Qi useless against him?!"

He couldn’t understand how a Qi Cultivation cultivator could possess such terrifying combat power and endurance.

He wasn’t the only one who found this scene unbelievable. Yuan Rong had lost all trace of her earlier confidence; the smirk on her face had vanished completely.

You have to understand, she had still been in the mood to smile when Cheng Lv called for help.

Back then, she had held the same belief as Cheng Lv: no matter how powerful Zhong Ming’s outburst was, his low realm meant his Magical Power was limited. They just had to stall for a little while, and they could wear Zhong Ming down to his death.

And as someone skilled in the Power of Space, she was the best at stalling for time.

However, that firm belief had been obliterated in the recent battle.

Zhong Ming, despite fighting for so long, showed no signs of weakness whatsoever.

What terrified her Heart Spirit even more was that Zhong Ming wasn’t conserving his Magical Power at all during the fight.

He recklessly manifested one forty-meter-long Morning Star Sword after another.

It was precisely this profligate display of power that had brought Cheng Lv and Yuan Rong, two Divine Heir candidates working together, to the brink of collapse in less than a minute.

Zhong Ming, of course, had the answers to their questions.

’Magical Power exhausted? Heh...’ Zhong Ming sneered inwardly. A trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth, but it didn’t affect his movements in the slightest. ’My own Magical Power is indeed limited, but that doesn’t matter when I have a mountain-like reserve of Elixir Pills.’

Of course, even with an abundance of Elixir Pills, an ordinary cultivator couldn’t maintain a state of limitless Magical Power.

It took time for a cultivator to perform Refinement on Elixir Pills. Moreover, consuming an excessive amount would lead to an accumulation of Erysipelas, which would damage a cultivator’s foundation.

However, Zhong Ming was different.

After his physical body achieved Breaking the Norms and he gained the power of the Demon Lord Tai Sui, his body had long since shattered the shackles of ordinary cultivators.

His unshackled body allowed Zhong Ming to digest Elixir Pills a hundred times faster than an ordinary person.

As for absorbing too much and causing his body to collapse?

He had the Purifying Flame for that.

And even if the Purifying Flame couldn’t clear all the residual toxins, he wasn’t afraid. At worst, he could just cut away the damaged flesh and use the Demon Star·Tai Sui Power to form new tissue.

’A person’s physical attributes have various leanings: strength, agility, resistance, Life Force... For me, with the Demon Lord Tai Sui, my body’s breakthrough didn’t focus on strength. Therefore, I don’t have the innate divine strength of some, and I can’t crush a Foundation Establishment cultivator with my raw physical body at the Qi Cultivation Stage. But what I broke the norm in was Life Force, and that is far more terrifying than mere strength.’

’In the future, I’ll be able to regenerate from a single drop of blood. Even now, my physical body is incredibly difficult to kill!’

His body Breaking the Norms had truly allowed Zhong Ming to shatter many limitations. Right now, the only thing he feared were abilities that directly attacked the Divine Soul.

If his consciousness were to be erased, it wouldn’t matter how strong his body’s survivability was.

’Oh, right. My Divine Soul also broke the norms—and even earlier than my physical body. So, never mind.’

The breakthrough of his body, specifically his Life Force, allowed Zhong Ming to recklessly devour Elixir Pills. As the immense medicinal power flowed through him, his unshackled cells greedily consumed it, converting it into a continuous stream of Magical Power to sustain the consumption of his Divine Monarch Dharma Aspect and the Dragon Sword of the Morning Star.

At this moment, Zhong Ming was like a sports car that never stopped. As long as he had enough "fuel," he could maintain his peak combat strength indefinitely.

And thanks to the full support of Princess Qingyue and Prince Qinghe, his reserve of Elixir Pills was vast. Very vast.

Vast enough to sustain a long, drawn-out war!

...

Cheng Lv’s indignant words gave Zhong Ming much to think about, but naturally, he wasn’t about to reveal his abilities.

Faced with the man’s grief-stricken accusation, Zhong Ming just sneered.

"Why so many questions? You’re just too pathetic!"

The moment his voice fell, Zhong Ming’s Divine Thought stirred, and an invisible sword shadow quietly coalesced—the Heart Soul·Morning Star Sword!

As their eyes met, the sword shadow followed his line of sight, piercing directly through Cheng Lv’s physical body and stabbing into the very source of his Divine Soul.

SIZZLE!

Before Cheng Lv could react, the Purifying Flame spread wildly along the cracks in his Divine Soul, engulfing both his soul and his body.

"AHHH—!!!"

A heart-wrenching scream echoed through the sky. The pain of having one’s Divine Soul incinerated was tens of millions of times worse than any physical torment.

Cheng Lv struggled frantically in the flames, his eyes filled with endless regret and despair. In the final moment before his consciousness faded, a deep sense of remorse washed over him. "I shouldn’t have... come here..."

As his final wail faded, Cheng Lv’s body was reduced to ashes in the Purifying Flame. Only a few broken heads remained, rolling a few times on the ground before losing all their spiritual light.

Having dealt with Cheng Lv, Zhong Ming’s gaze slowly turned to Yuan Rong.

SWOOSH!

Yuan Rong’s face was now pale as paper, and she trembled uncontrollably. When Zhong Ming maneuvered the Divine Monarch to face her, she fled in a panic like a frightened rabbit, scrambling to where Liu Yu and the others were.

But even after reaching her companions, sensing Zhong Ming’s aura, which remained as powerful and undiminished as ever, her anxiety did not lessen. Instead, it grew even heavier.

’If we team up with Liu Yu and the others... can we really defeat that monster?!’

...