Liu Xing's brain rattled, his vision darkened, and he flew toward the other side of the wall. Before he could hit another wall, though, in a fraction of a second, he saw the former emperor suddenly appear behind him and punch him in the back, sending him flying in the opposite direction. From there, Liu Xing felt like a ball being thrown around hundreds of times in less than ten seconds. His body was encased in stable qi, yet the damage was severe: his nose was caved in, the bones in his left hand were broken, and his spine felt terribly wrong.

As Liu Xing desperately tried to summon his shield and use it to dodge, he finally understood why Prince Yang Jinyan said to be careful when the former emperor was at a distance. It was pretty crazy. The greater the distance, the faster and stronger the emperor's next attack would be, like an accelerating train. He also realized the time between each strike was relatively uniform, as if distance wasn't a factor. This made sense since the farther the enemy was, the faster the emperor's movement, so whether Liu Xing was ten meters away or a kilometer away, the former emperor could cover the distance in roughly the same amount of time.

The sheer power of his speed and attacks made Liu Xing imagine that if he were to stand on a mountain several kilometers away, the emperor's punch could probably destroy the entire mountain. The concept of this technique was simple, yet he was quite sure that there was a complex mechanism behind it, such as how the technique judged the distance and calculated the power of the attack, as well as the total amount of qi used to maintain this technique. This also meant the attacks would be weaker if his enemy stayed close, but that was a trap since the former emperor was a close-quarters specialist.

It was a simple yet elegant combat style, not that Liu Xing had time to appreciate it. After all, he was the one who had to deal with it.

Liu Xing desperately tried to escape. He cycled his qi faster, sharpening his senses and making sense of the blurry world around him.

He was in the sky now. Then, his back hit something, forcing the air out from his lungs. He looked back and saw that he'd just hit an orange barrier like a fly hitting a window. Looking down, he saw the giant meatball rotating like a cultivation core. The hole where they fight Lihuo's army was quite wide, and Liu Xing could see a giant twelve-headed bird made entirely of fire rampaging around, sending out barrages of fireballs, torrents of fire, and thousands of firebirds swarming it. He didn't know the distance between himself and the former emperor, but he knew that if he were hit by another attack, he would die!

An explosion sounded in the distance, and Liu Xing saw a small dot moving rapidly toward him. In less than a second, the former emperor would arrive!

Liu Xing cycled his qi, pouring more and more into his Lightning Cloak Technique, slowing the world down a little. In this brief window, he tried to think, but only the obvious came to mind: he couldn't be too far from the emperor.

The former emperor arrived. Now, his body was bathed in a pure dark light, like black ink. He unleashed a punch straight at Liu Xing's face, and Liu Xing, with all his might, gritted his teeth and tilted his head to the side. Miraculously, the punch didn't hit him. It was mere centimeters from his ear, but the explosion when the fist hit the orange barrier made the air explode, throwing Liu Xing to the side and causing the barrier to reverberate like a gong.

Liu Xing summoned his shield below his feet and landed on it. His breath was harsh, and seeing the Royal Barrier reverberating loudly, an idea struck him. This idea wasn't about defeating the former emperor but using him to his advantage.

His eyes snapped down. The spinning meatball was right below him, its two eyes sizing him up as if trying to read his mind.

"It's all coming together," Liu Xing muttered, his heart hammering in his chest, eager with the anticipation of realizing his plan.

Inhaling deeply, he reined in his excitement. While he would allow the emperor to help him destroy the rotating meatball, there was a possibility that the emperor had some internal restriction preventing him from attacking it. Still, there was no harm in trying.

As he thought this, the former emperor rotated his body and kicked the Royal Barrier to lunge at him. The speed wasn't too great, and his punching power was probably lower than before, but the former emperor still arrived in less than a second and unleashed a punch at his chest.

Liu Xing gripped his stone blade with both hands and ducked. The fist passed right over his head, rustling his sweaty, bloody hair. Liu Xing jumped to the side and landed on his shield again. The former emperor created fireballs below his feet, exploding them to propel himself toward Liu Xing, who once again focused all his mind and ordered his body to dodge to the side.

Their movements were swift, one shrouded in blue lightning, the other in inky black aura. They flew in the sky like streaking lights, two falling stars with peculiar colors chasing each other.

Liu Xing's mind was as sharp as a knife, he tried to discern the former emperor's rhythm and attack patterns, and carefully planned his positioning. After several moments of skillfully dodging a dozen attacks, Liu Xing finally saw an opportunity to put his plan into action.

Their positions were like this: the meatball on one side, the former emperor in the center, and Liu Xing on the other. Liu Xing needed to swap positions and place himself in the center and the former emperor on the other side. He also wanted his enemy as far away as possible and himself as close to the meatball as possible. To do that, he needed time, time he could probably buy with his gun.

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Liu Xing stood atop his shield and licked his lips.

Truth be told, after being thrown to the Royal Barrier, he'd lost his gun. But luckily, it was soul-bound to him. He dismissed it and resummoned it in his left hand. Liu Xing aimed with his left hand, filled it with bullets made from the qi he'd saved in the Ethereal Pearl, and readied himself.

The emperor kicked fireballs below his feet, flying at him with tremendous speed, the meatball with eyes behind him. Liu Xing flooded his Lightning Cloak Technique with qi to enhance his speed, and then, with precise aim when the emperor was only several meters away, he pulled the trigger six times.

Lightning bullets shot at the former emperor, hitting him in the face. The six bullets encased him in lightning as thick as ropes. While the bullets didn't hurt him, they still imparted force, shifting his trajectory slightly to the left. With his body paralyzed, he couldn't correct his course.

Liu Xing leaned to the side and allowed the former emperor to rush past him and away from the meatball. His heartbeat was racing, and his black damp hair was rustling in the wind created by the former emperor's passage.

Everything began lining up, and so Liu Xing kicked his shield and accelerated toward the meatball. Its red eyes shifted toward Liu Xing and narrowed slightly as if it knew he was planning something.

When Liu Xing was only a dozen meters from the meatball, he summoned his shield in front of him and kicked it to kill his momentum. He then resummoned the shield below him and turned around in time to see the former emperor launch himself from quite far away. The Emperor's muscular body rushed toward him, the mad smile on his face never faltering, as if carved from stone, his lips stained red with Prince Yang Jinyan's blood.

When he was close, Liu Xing hit him with six Lightning Palm bullets, encasing him in thick ropes of lightning and shifting his trajectory slightly to the left.

This time, when Liu Xing dodged, the emperor rushed like a jet plane toward the meatball, his punch still cocked. When he collided with the meatball, a rumble reverberated, like an avalanche, and the meatball's shape distorted like a soccer ball kicked by the best player in the world. Surprisingly, it didn't move from its initial position as if tethered by invisible threads.

Seeing his simple plan successfully executed, Liu Xing smiled and prepared to repeat his strategy.

The former emperor, while strong and dangerous, had a simple attack pattern. He would rush toward Liu Xing and, upon arrival, try to punch him. It had been like that from the start. While he could dodge the stone blade, the Lightning Palm bullets were harder to avoid because his gun is invisible and he always timed his attacks moments before impact.

Since the former emperor's speed was relatively uniform regardless of distance, predicting his movement and timing his own was actually kind of easy. If the former emperor were still a thinking human, he might use bait, tricks, or feints, but the longer they fought, the more Liu Xing realized his movements were robotic and repetitive. He suspected that if he were closer to Lihuo or Wei Yi, the situation would be different since they could command him, either verbally or through some technique. Luckily, this fight was far from Yang Hongyin, Prince Yang Jinyan, and the rest of the Yang clan versus Lihuo.

And so, the meatball became the former emperor's punching bag. Not every attack made the meatball rumble or groan, but each made a loud sound like a hammer hitting a corpse. Below its left eye, a large blue bruise pulsed as if giant blue worms were wriggling under its skin. One of its eyes is now red, and its formerly round shape was now uneven, as if dotted with many bruises. Liu Xing sometimes slashed at the meatball, creating several large gashes. One of the biggest, about ten meters long, was on the back of the meatball, gushing blood.

At first, Liu Xing was confident. If things continued like this, the meatball's destruction was just a matter of time. But after more than a minute of flying around it, his confidence wavered, and anxiety began to eat at him. Despite taking many hits from a Sun Refining abomination, the meatball remained intact, meaning its durability was through the roof. The fact that it was still coated by a gigantic amount of qi was also worrying. Liu Xing had no doubt that the situation wouldn't remain ideal forever. Soon, Lihuo or even Wei Yi would catch on to what he was doing, and even a stupid enemy would realize that letting Liu Xing do as he pleased was bad and that he needed to be stopped.

A punch from the former emperor made the giant meatball stagger to the side, its eyes widening like a man punched in the stomach, tears welling up, and a pained expression on its eyes. Then, as if it could no longer hold it in, a horizontal slit suddenly appeared on the meatball, opening wide to reveal hundreds of giant tongues trembling like seaweed in a chaotic current. A loud wail, like a sorrowful whale song, echoed from its large mouth. The sound had a deep tone, like a giant baby crying for help.

Upon hearing this wail, Liu Xing's fear skyrocketed. It was clearly calling for help, and Liu Xing feared that something might actually come to answer this call.

Then, in a terrifying confirmation of his anxiety, a loud rumble could be heard. At first soft, it grew louder and louder, like a mountain collapsing. Another wail, this one full of anger yet also deep and sorrowful, could be heard. Its source was not the giant meatball but from below.

Standing atop his shield, Liu Xing's heart began to beat faster, and he looked down like a man on a small raft seeing the silhouette of a giant shark below.

A giant white hand suddenly emerged from the ground. Its sheer size was mind-boggling; it could hold the large meatball in its palm. Another hand emerged, rising higher and higher into the sky. Then, a moment later, a huge face emerged from the underground levels where they had been fighting Lihuo's enemy. It was pale, like a corpse, with hollow eye sockets revealing only pink holes. This face emerged from the ground like a zombie rising from a grave. From the sky, he could see Yang Hongyin's qi construct, in the shape of a twelve-headed fire bird, fleeing while escorting a group of cultivators running for their lives. They were tiny compared to that face, almost like fleas fleeing a normal-sized human.

Seeing this, every strand of Liu Xing's hair stood on end. His stomach lurched as if a boar were dancing inside. Fear surged through him like a tornado sweeping away a tiny house, and Liu Xing's eyes and mouth opened wide, as if he couldn't comprehend what he was seeing.

"What the hell," Liu Xing muttered.

A giant emerged from the ground.