Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

Shin Xuanji's aura was torrential and vigorous. A surging wave of sanguine and white-ash color erupted from his powerful body. Yan Zaizen's eyes narrowed. The Shin Xuanji of before was barely present. The current him stood at a height rivaling his own, while his musculature was defined and epic. He seemed like an Immortal of legend, forged from blood and slaughter.

Yan Zaizen felt slaughter within his aura as well. It was fearsome and heart-throbbing, and it faintly rivaled his own peerless tyrannical aura. It was as if he lived and ruled the battlefield. 

A God of War.

This was the feeling he exuded. Furthermore, his face that was already handsome was clearly more matured yet the contours were clear and sharp along with his eyes. He had grown from the little boy who escaped the slaughter of his clan to becoming an existence that dominated his world. 

"Come." Shin Xuanji's voice was deeper than before, rippling with force and daunting momentum. 

Yan Zaizen smiled. His aura was not the slightest bit weaker on intensity. While the Immortal Herculean Method did not focus on vital energies, his vital aura was abundant and terrifyingly explosive. 

He didn't wait a single moment more.

Boom!

He stepped forward, the space beneath his feet compressed and exploded, and his body turned into an extreme shadowy figure as he sped forward. Even space keened at his movements, his every action putting pressure on everything. His momentum was endless, roiling into his fist as he launched it forth.

This fist was like a planet, at least capable of shattering one. 

Shin Xuanji calmly stood. He didn't even move. With his palm outstretched, he intended to meet Yan Zaizen's fist. In the time it took a spark to leave a flint, flesh met flesh, fist met palm.

BOOM!!!

A chaotic wave of pure force exploded with the two figures as the epicenter. Yan Zaizen's large fist was held firmly in Shin Xuanji's palm. Shin Xuanji's fingers were wrapped solidly around Yan Zaizen's fist, and violent light of multiple and nearly indistinguishable colors started to rapidly flash and flood the world around them.

In the world below, it was as if a star had just ignited and covered tainted the skies with its colorful brilliant.

Yan Zaizen felt as if he met an unbreakable wall. His blood seethed and his bones trembled. Now that he was directly before Shin Xuanji, he felt a better understanding of his cultivation base. "Fourth-Floor? Blood Heavenly Shrine and a Bone Heavenly Shrine? Furthermore, you're a Fiendgod?! Rank...Five?" 

He was swift in his analytical determination. Shin Xuanji had not only reached the Fourth Floor of the Heavenly Genesis Realm with two separate Heavenly Shrines, but he had cultivated the Fiendgod Path to the Fourth Rank.

Shin Xuanji had similarly felt Yan Zaizen's cultivation base with that clash. Within his eyes that radiated bloody slaughter, confusion flashed. He couldn't comprehend how Yan Zaizen could be so physically strong without a Fiendgod Cultivation Base. 

Those who cultivated the Fiendgod Path typically had specific types of vital energies. Such as fire, sword, or space that typically correlated with the Heavenly Laws. They cultivated refining their bloodline powers and thus required this. Yet, Yan Zaizen's vital energy was pure, unfathomably pure.

However, this confusion lasted for but a moment. He didn't simply block, but struck. His leg was like a whip as it violently whistled through space, kicking high up to hit Yan Zaizen's skull. 

Bang!

Yan Zaizen used his free hand to block the kick. The sheer pressure nearly caused him to move a millimeter away, but he held his own, refusing to budge any distance. 

Woosh!

He retaliated with his own kick. A spartan kick as he struck fiercely at Shin Xuanji's torso. The force behind this kick could topple mountains in mere moments. Shin Xuanji didn't dare to neglect this strike at such a close-range, but with white-ash and sanguine light effusing from his eyes, he refused to bulge also.

His heavenly shrines revolved as boundless heavenly might roiled endless around his body. Before long, his entire body was coated in bloody bone-like materials. It was as if a larger skeletal frame of himself was tightly hugging his body, with ribs protecting his torso. They dripped with liquid blood that seemed to emanate from the harshest hell. 

Those protruding ribs met Yan Zaizen's kick. Outside of a slight shift in their alignment, the bones held. Furthermore, the ribs started to pulsate a surging cylindrical beam of light that shot towards Yan Zaizen's chest.

Yan Zaizen smirked. With a twist of his body, he forcefully pulled his fist from Shin Xuanji's fist and simultaneously pushed away his leg. He was like a whirlwind as he swiftly rotated, a spinning kick was unleashed during that and collided with the skeletal skull that protected Shin Xuanji's head.

Crack!

The bones shattered instantly. 

Shin Xuanji's eyes constricted as he retreated a meter of distance away. Luckily, the skull had delayed Yan Zaizen's kick long enough for him to do so. When he did, his eyes were sharp and suffused with slaughter might.

Yan Zaizen regained his casual stance, his aura still erupting endlessly, but his smirk remained. 

"I win," Yan Zaizen declared.

Shin Xuanji didn't deny. After a nod, his protective skeletal frame merged into his body. Those who spectated would think he had given up, but that was far from the case. In this close combat exchange, Yan Zaizen had forced him to retreat. This was his victory, albeit a small one.

When the skeletal frame entered his body, his aura started to rapidly intensify to extreme limits. The Mortal Laws of Bone and Blood started to be manipulated intricately with his Heavenly Might. In a single blink, Shin Xuanji seemed to exude the king of all blood and bones in this world, in any world.

"Sovereign-level?!" Yan Zaizen was now taken aback. Shin Xuanji had merely constructed Fourth-Floor Heavenly Shrines, but he had the comprehension to easily become a Heavenly Commander. His eyes revealed a tinge, just a tinge, of grimness. As a person who comprehended the Heavenly Laws of every Mortal and World Law to the utmost peak, he knew the capabilities of a Sovereign-level Law, even a Mortal Law.

Furthermore, Shin Xuanji had two. 

"If it wasn't for the lack of materials in this world, perhaps the Xiantu Realm would've had its first Heavenly Commander," Yan Zaizen commented.

Shin Xuanji seemed unbothered. He was gathering his power as he seemed to be executing a very powerful Heavenly Art. Yan Zaizen realized that the delay was due to his insufficient Heavenly Might. He had to repeatedly gather and refine to execute it. 

If it was anyone else, Yan Zaizen would've interfered with a deadly blow. This time, he wanted to see Shin Xuanji's strongest state. Therefore, he waited. However, he didn't remain idle while Shin Xuanji powered up.

Instead, he started to gather the Herculean Path's power stored within his cells, blood, and heart. The Immortal Herculean Art had a single art. It was an art that he had used before to dominate the lands. 

Herculean Avatar Art!

He tapped into all his power within his body. A deep, powerful explosion erupted causing space itself to bend, twist, and fluctuate beneath his aura. With every breath, the heavens trembled!

Herculean Avatar Art: Mimic Form!

When he executed the art, he started to shake violently. His eyes constricted as he felt his heart throb endlessly, infusing his entire body with power, yet his body experienced no change. 

"What is…" he was confused for merely a second before his eyes brightened with inspiration and realization. Then, he connected with his heart and the herculean power within his body.

Herculean Avatar Art: Life, Death, and Soul Form!

While this unfathomable change was taking place, Shin Xuanji's Heavenly Art had finished. He merged his vital energy, bloodline power, and heavenly might as one. This feat was only something an absolute genius could only hope to accomplish.

Shin Xuanji similarly erupted with vast, boundless, torrential, and ferocious power. His entire bearing changed as his body was surrounded by raging rivers of blood and bones. Strange esoteric markings emerged on his face, particularly his glabella had the image of a white demonic skull with crimson blood leaking out of its sockets. It was incredibly vivid! 

When one focused on it, the skull seemed to be sad...no, mad! Yes! It cried while manically chattering its jaw bones in insane laughter. The sounds of this laughter echoed in the soul!

Heavenly Fiendgod Art: Bloody Slaughter of The End!

His body had reached its absolute maximum of power. In this state of his, even Heavenly Commanders, those at the Seventh Floor of the Heavenly Genesis Realm, might be killed with a single fist!

Yan Zaizen and Shin Xuanji stood before each other, their aura and powers clashed as space suffered.

Shin Xuanji's bloody yet bone-ash white eyes honed onto Yan Zaizen's ever-changing aura that seemed to be intermingling with three profound types of power. He calmly said, "My Dao."

These words caused Yan Zaizen to lift his eyes and meet his gaze. 

"Dao of Sovereign Slaughter!" Shin Xuanji's words sounded malevolent and devoid of warmth. The immense killing intent emitted could kill mortals where they stood.

Yan Zaizen nodded in response. He hadn't just influenced Lin Feilin to create a Sovereign's Dao, but Shin Xuanji had used his Dao of Sovereign Ascension to hone himself and refine his own Dao, one no less than his. He had respect for such otherworldly talent and even admiration.

However, he knew the next clash of theirs would make short exchange from before seem like kids playing. Therefore, he focused his energy towards gathering power. When the soul, life, and death-type vital energies were mimicked and merged, his body faintly trembled.

His eyes opened, no longer containing amber-gold light. A new light replaced it. One that carried a new world. A new Samsara.