The two colossal hammers expanded to a hundred zhang in size, each one resembling a small black mountain. Under the driving force of mana incantations, they spun like the wind, transforming into two black hurricanes that hammered against the city wall defenses with savage force, threatening to bring them crashing down.
"Hmph — this lord will personally test you, Demon Venerable!" Azure Dragon Elder watched the scene with a cold expression. Without pausing to address Han Li and the other three, he formed a single-handed seal. A pillar of azure light surged from within his body and shot into the air. With a flash, it coalesced into the spectral image of a five-clawed Azure Dragon, over a hundred zhang long.
The apparition let out a clear cry as it coiled once, then dove downward, enveloping Azure Dragon Elder's body within its form. Claws bared and fangs flashing, it surged straight toward the black-armored giant.
The black-armored giant had been wearing a wild grin, but at the sight of the Azure Dragon's furious momentum, he faltered for an instant. A cold smirk crossed his face, and he abruptly pointed at the two black hurricanes.
Immediately, a rumble echoed from within the storms. The gales abruptly died down, revealing the original hammers within.
Then both hammers blazed with light. They flickered once and merged into a single titanic weapon — a colossal mass hundreds of zhang long — that smashed viciously toward the Azure Dragon apparition.
Azure Dragon Elder, still wrapped within the dragon's spectral form, narrowed his eyes into slits. His sleeve flickered, and seven small black swords appeared in his hand, each one shimmering with a sinister, malevolent aura that pierced the heavens.
His palm blurred as he swept the blades toward his own body.
Puff — puff — puff — a rapid succession of sounds.
All seven black swords plunged into seven acupoints on his chest, leaving only a sliver of blade exposed.
Simultaneously, Azure Dragon Elder let out a low growl and spat out a mouthful of essence blood. His ten fingers formed seals as he chanted under his breath. The essence blood burst with a muffled bang, splitting into seven streams of blood mist that drilled like serpents into the seven black swords.
The seven swords instantly hummed with a deafening buzz, their entire bodies radiating an eerie crimson glow. With another flash, they plunged on their own into Azure Dragon Elder's body.
A long, piercing howl erupted from Azure Dragon Elder's mouth. Seven beams of blood-red light shot from the points where the swords had sunk in, shimmering as they merged with the Azure Dragon apparition.
A breathtaking transformation followed.
The five-clawed Azure Dragon — once only a faint apparition — suddenly blazed with countless blood-red veins appearing throughout its body, interweaving in a dense web.
In the span of a single breath, Azure Dragon Elder vanished entirely. A living, breathing true Azure Dragon materialized out of thin air in the void above.
At the same time, an aura of terrifying power exploded across heaven and earth, so overwhelming that anyone who sensed it was compelled to bow in reverence!
One of the dragon's claws rose and swept toward the mountain-like hammer descending from above — a light, almost casual grasp.
A thunderous, heaven-shaking roar!
An enormous azure claw materialized in midair and caught the black hammer with ease, trapping it so it could only spin uselessly in the void without descending a single inch.
"Blood Forge Soul-Crafting Grand Art! Good — good — I underestimated you. I didn't expect you to know even a thing or two about such an ancient great divine ability. But let me see how much essence blood you can waste on this. Once your blood runs dry, that will be the hour of your death!" The black-armored giant froze for a moment in the sky above, then seemed to recall something. A look of wariness crossed his face, followed by a savage laugh.
He abruptly rubbed his palms together, then thrust them downward. Countless silver lightning-fire bolts rained from the sky in a cataclysmic torrent.
At the same time, the black hammer blurred — splitting from one into two, two into four, four into eight — conjuring eight slightly smaller black hammers that battered the Azure Dragon from every angle.
The city wall defenses, already extraordinarily resilient, flared to double their former brightness in an instant.
But the five-clawed Azure Dragon simply lashed its tail. A wave of invisible force swept through like a gale, scattering the eight hammers and the descending lightning-fire as though they were leaves in a storm.
The dragon itself vanished with a swoosh, disappearing from its original position and reappearing high above the black-armored giant. It opened its jaws and sprayed a stream of azure flame.
Whether it was some unknown divine ability, the black-armored giant's expression shifted. He dared not take the blow head-on — with a fierce stomp, he too vanished into the void.
The next instant, spatial ripples surged. A pitch-black colossal blade slashed out from beside the Azure Dragon without the slightest warning, its ferocity suggesting it intended to cleave the dragon clean in two.
But the Azure Dragon's reactions were impossibly agile. The very instant the black blade appeared, an azure claw shot back to meet it. The five digits blazed with azure light, elongating into five azure swords that hacked at the black blade in rapid succession.
Clang — clang — clang — the sound of metal rang across the entire sky.
Even though the black-armored giant was a late-stage Integration-realm Demon Venerable, he found himself unable to overcome his opponent under the barrage of the Azure Dragon's bizarre and unpredictable divine abilities.
The two clashed furiously, their battle raging on with no clear victor in sight.