After swallowing all the light orbs and fists in a single gulp, the Fierce Underworld King muttered an incense, opened its mouth, and spat out a wretched mass of green essence blood. The blood flickered and vanished into the ghostly face in the blink of an eye.
In that instant, the ghostly face on the shield let out a loud burp. Its body ballooned wildly, and after a few flickers, it had transformed into a mountain-sized behemoth. It opened its cavernous maw and lunged toward Han Li's position with a vicious snap.
The sky darkened at once!
Though the ghostly face's bite looked ordinary enough, it gave off a bizarre sensation — as though it intended to swallow the entire mountain peak whole.
"Devouring Heaven and Earth!"
The three-headed, six-armed giant ape's expression shifted as it cried out the name of the great divine ability the ghostly face had unleashed. But it immediately let out a low roar, all six arms raising simultaneously. Golden runes poured forth like a flood and coalesced into six radiant golden orbs, which shot outward with a hiss.
Six golden spheres blinked through space in an instant, appearing together beneath the ghostly face's gaping maw before converging into a single point.
A muffled boom!
All six golden orbs burst apart at the same time. Countless runes swirled together and merged into a shimmering golden vortex.
The vortex spun rapidly, expanding to roughly an acre in size. A deep Sanskrit chant rang out from within, and innumerable golden characters danced forth from its center in a frenzied flurry.
A thunderous crash!
The ghostly face's giant jaws clamped down on the golden vortex. Radiant light blazed between the two forces as two powers of utterly opposing natures erupted, forming a shimmering boundary of gold and black that flickered wildly between the ghostly face and the vortex.
Seeing this, a look of gravity appeared on the Fierce Underworld King's face for the first time. But then he took a single step forward, and his entire body vanished from where he stood.
The next moment, the air above the giant ape rippled, and a massive black foot wreathed in waves of bloodlight stomped down from midair with devastating force.
The giant ape's six eyes narrowed. One arm shot upward without a word, striking hard toward the sky.
A golden sunburst exploded open.
The black giant foot paused momentarily before being blasted away by the overwhelming force contained within the golden sunburst.
But in the very next instant, the void even higher up shimmered like the surface of disturbed water, and the Fierce Underworld King appeared in his thousand-zhang giant form, flashing into existence with a savage laugh. Both arms moved at once, clawing downward — two dark clouds descending like grasping talons.
Blood-flame sparks sprayed from within the dark clouds, and a nauseating stench swept outward in a suffocating wave.
"Bring it on!"
Seeing his opponent shift into a giant and rely on brute physical power to launch a direct assault, Han Li's giant ape showed no fear — quite the opposite. It let out a delighted shout, formed a single-handed seal, and its own body swelled a hundred zhang taller in response. Countless silver patterns of varying sizes surfaced across its skin, and a flash of sword-light swept across all six arms. A staff, a mace, a hammer, and three other distinct golden weapons materialized in its grasp. The ape swung them all violently, sending six torrents of golden wind howling upward to meet the attack.
A heaven-rending, earth-shattering boom echoed across the entire sky.
The giant ape's body shuddered, and all six golden weapons shattered piece by piece, destroyed in an instant, forcing it to stumble backward two involuntary steps.
The Fierce Underworld King's giant form, however, fared no better. Once the dark clouds dissipated, both of his arms had been reduced to clouds of bloody mist — he looked even more wretched than the giant ape.
But rather than retreating from such a grievous wound, the Fierce Underworld King seemed to have been driven into a berserk fury. He advanced instead of falling back, slamming one foot down with savage intent.
A muffled pop sounded as countless black lines surfaced across his lower leg. Then it detonated, bursting apart into billowing clouds of black gas that churned and coalescent into a pitch-black dragon dozens of zhang long. The dragon bared its fangs and lunged downward.
At the same time, the Fierce Underworld King shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth wide.
In the blink of an eye, every spike on his battle armor flared with brilliant light and shot outward. After a brief blur, they transformed into crimson-red conical spikes that hissed through the air on a downward trajectory.
Meanwhile, his gaping maw released a wave of blood-red mist. The mist hummed ominously before suddenly disgorging countless black insects, each as thick as a finger. They were as long as chopsticks, covered in glossy black carapaces, with scarlet wings sprouting from their backs and mandibles as sharp as scissors. Every one of them moved with lightning speed, swarming downward in a writhing cloud.
Seeing this, the giant ape let out a booming laugh. All six arms rubbed together and then thrust upward toward the sky.
Thunder cracked as six thick arcs of golden lightning crackled off its arms, rolling and surging forward to manifest as six golden serpents that shot forth, surrounding the diving black dragon on all sides.
Six serpents and one dragon tore at each other in a frenzied melee.
Meanwhile, those crimson-red spikes had already arrived, closing on the giant ape in a series of blinding flashes.
The giant ape's expression didn't change in the slightest. All three of its heads drew a deep breath simultaneously and blew outward into the sky.
A violent gale erupted. Three gales of azure-green energy surged forth, sweeping into the air and battering the crimson spikes so wildly that they were scattered in every direction — vanishing from sight within moments.