Standing on the opposite side, Jiang Chen could clearly sense the change in his opponent. His powerful divine consciousness told him that the brown-cloaked man was about to unleash his ultimate technique.
"Three moves left — is this guy going to bring out his strongest attack early?" Jiang Chen didn't dare let his guard down. After all, he was facing a half-god-level cultivator, not an ordinary opponent. Against such an enemy, Jiang Chen absolutely could not afford to be careless.
With that thought, Jiang Chen rallied his focus to the fullest.
The Golden Physique of Gods and Demons roared to life. The Ice Fire Demon Lotus, the Elemental Magnetism Golden Mountain, the Earth Treasury Origin Pearl, and that golden bell — everything that could be summoned was primed and ready.
He even activated several formation discs on the fly, setting up a number of protective arrays. On top of that, he inscribed a few Void Seals.
These Void Seals were something Jiang Chen had only recently begun learning. He had obtained the technique for inscribing them from Old Man Danfu and had put in some effort to practice, but his progress so far had been modest.
Still, in a battle of this magnitude, every additional tool was welcome. For defense, Jiang Chen intended to use virtually everything at his disposal.
On the offensive side, he was no less prepared. When the moment called for it, he would naturally switch to an aggressive defense. The Holy Dragon Bow, the Taiji Twin Fish Swords — these were all devastating weapons.
And of course, there was also the Cloud Summit Golden Dipper Formation.
This sword formation was equally lethal.
The brown-cloaked man, for his part, had evidently noticed Jiang Chen's preparations. He let out a sinister laugh. "Kid, take a good taste of this next move."
The brown-cloaked man knew that Jiang Chen had taken up a defensive posture and had surely set up every manner of protection to weather his strongest strike. The two of them were tacitly aware of each other's intentions. But the brown-cloaked man was sneering inwardly. If his opponent's defensive focus was entirely on blocking the physical attack, he was in for a rude awakening.
Because his ultimate strike was not merely a physical blow — its most lethal component was a soul attack. In other words, the core of this technique lay in using a frontal assault to distract the opponent. If the physical attack landed, that was ideal.
But even if the physical attack was thwarted, it didn't matter. The true essence lay in the soul attack that followed, a direct assault on the sea of consciousness.
Once the soul attack succeeded, it could instantly obliterate the opponent's sea of consciousness.
The sea of consciousness was a cultivator's most vital area. If it was destroyed, there was no hope of survival.
The brown-cloaked man began forming hand seals. Within moments, wisps of mist began swirling around him — dark, black fog that billowed out continuously, one tendril after another, giving off an unsettling aura.
With a sweep of his cloak, he planted a small black flag into the ground. Then another, and another, one after another, the small black flags appearing at various positions across the terrain.
At first glance, the flags seemed to be arranged haphazardly, with no discernible pattern whatsoever.
But as the black fog spread and thoroughly engulfed the entire area, the surroundings became shrouded in dense mist, and the atmosphere turned utterly sinister.
The next instant, a bone-piercing cold wind swept through, as though blown straight from the depths of hell, plunging the surrounding air into a desperate, bone-deep freeze.
Jiang Chen noticed that the ground beneath his feet was freezing over at a rate visible to the naked eye, spreading outward at an alarming pace.
Yet this didn't seem to be any ordinary ice-type Divine Ability.
Jiang Chen remained calm. He activated the Heavenly Eye Divine Pupil, piercing through the void and seeing straight through to the essence. His gaze shot directly into the dense wall of fog.