Chapter 98: Nine Sea Gods Trial 5 (part 2), GoodBye
Chapter 98: Nine Sea Gods Trial 5 (part 2), GoodBye
Word count = 3510 on 10/18/2023
With all members being ready. SeaGhost is the first to make a move as his manta ray-like martial spirit turns him into a literal ghost since he teleports behind Xue Tie, yet strangely Sea Spear is also there. It seems he was able to bring him along for the ride. At which point the Sea Spear Douluo stabs out with his martial spirit spear into Xue Tie's back but it is blocked by the dense scales on his draconic armor.
"Rampant Echo" Xue Tie retorts by slamming his foot down on the water surface to cause a shockwave that repels sea spear and sea ghost away. This skill is another that would have come from his trident's 5th skill, earthquake. This means it originated from the trex like earth dragon spirit beast. While he is dealing with those two, Sea Dragon charges in while Sea woman boosts his power with her musical number in the form of her spirit rings. The Sea Dragon Douluo's martial spirit increases in size and power which then collides with Xue Tie but leather like straps manifest and wrap around his body.
This is his original skill of Immutable which still takes the original leather like shape but if one looks closely then they may notice the smooth scale like texture with black flames imprinted on it. This indicates that only its function works like leather but this is truly the dragon martial spirit skill.
Xue Tie is pushed deep into the ocean due to his own weight as well as the force of the collision. He takes but a moment to escape the water with a pair of draconic wings that manifest from the back of his armor just like his previous state except these wings are leathery and spiked at the ends rather than completely feathery.
Sea Horse douluo unleashes multiple bubble-like structures that trap Xue Tie inside with him having trouble breaking out through his physical force. As such his body begins to emit a green gas inside the bubble which is quickly filled. In fact the green gas takes on a liquid state from being compressed in such a small bubble. The acidic property pops the bubble and the 'turbulent air' spreads out over the top of the ocean. Bo Saixi waves her hand to summon a wave of water to cover the enter green gas area as well as Xue Tie.
In response, Xue Tie snaps his fingers which causes a spark to ignite the green gas and dismiss the watery wave. While he was dealing with the wave, Sea ghost and Sea spear came back for another attack after being buffed by the power of sea Star Douluo. Sea woman is more of a generalized supporter while Sea star is more focused on aspect boosting. In a way he essentially has the 7 glazed tile pagoda but without its deficits of the pagoda serving as the limiter to the owners spirit power.
The result of the boost is sea spear Douluos martial spirit is able to pierce into Xue Tie's body, as he blocks it with his arm. The spear goes a few inches in. Xue Tie had already dispelled immutable which is how the current situation arose. Strangely enough, Xue Tie does not bleed because of this, instead more gas sprouts as and if the Sea Spear martial spirit was a proper weapon instead of a spirit then it would have melted under the condensed gas flowing out of the hole in the scales.
Xue Tie looks at the spot where he was stabbed and finds that it has already naturally recovered. He shrugs and summons a bright orange red flame in his hand before slamming it into his chest.
Xue Tie then disappears from the sight of all the 7 pillars and Bo Saixi barely summons a water wall behind Sea Ghost Douluo as Xue Tie slashes out with his claws glowing deep red. The water explodes which knocks the Sea Ghost Douluo away. Xue Tie stabs his hand towards Sea Spear who meets the stab with his own spear. Meanwhile SeaHorse summons more water orbs that he shoots at Xue Tie, Sea Fantasy finally makes a move since Xue Tie is distracted from his own attack as well as the soon to collide effect of the sea bubble spirit skill.
CLANG
Sea Spear is knocked back after colliding with Xue Tie's scale covered hand. The bubbles then collide with his body while Sea Fantasy stabs Xue Tie with his arm spike.
Xue Tie finds himself stuck in an illusion but just as he breaks out as he still has his 2 skull bones (external/internal), he finds that Sea Dragon is coming down on him from above, Sea spear is attacking with his 8th and 9th ring activating. The other pillars use their 7th rings which are the martial spirit manifestations. Their collective power increases while Xue Tie summons a flaming tornado to deal with the drop charge of Sea Dragon.
Unfortunately, this moment of distraction was enough for Bo Saixi to unleash a water drill that was hidden behind Xue Tie.
Squelsh
The drill pierces through Xue Tie's body and draconic armor. The drill is stuck in his guts. Xue Tie coughs up some blood as it seems the edges of his lungs were also torn. Xue Tie grunts and the drill is broken, leaving a gaping hole in his body. Xue Tie uses a second primal burst to boost himself as well as burn his new injury to prevent bleeding.
"Tectonic " He slams his foot down upon the water and the water massively shakes to the point that the ground at the bottom of the current ocean splits in two which drops the water before it comes back up for a tsunami. Yet that isn't the end of it. In truth, this is the martial spirit fusion technique, Volcano. After the water rises, lava follows and immediately touching the water solidifies it into a small island that Xue Tie lands on. Slowly the range of this island expands as time goes.Bo Saixi summons water spears from all directions to attack Xue Tie who simply slaps them away.
They assumed that this was enough to distract Xue Tie, but they would be wrong as both Sea Spear and Sea dragon charge at him once more after receiving their newest set of enhanced buffs from Sea Star and Sea Woman. Sea woman also tries to release a debuffing musical number from her rose flute but his only response is to release a bomb.
Green gas rapidly spreads from his body and unfortunately the 2 close range pillars are infected with the hefty poison. Xue Tie follows up with another tornado that both expands the nearby land as well as blows up the poisonous air within 30ft of him. Sea Spear coughs up blood as the poison inside him blows up while Sea dragon is safe as he is within the body of his own water dragon martial spirit. The explosion is still enough to stop whatever the Sea Dragon Douluo had planned.
Xue Tie once more disappears but this time behind Bo Saixi. He stabs his hand out but is blocked by Tang Chen's Clear Sky hammer.
"Old man, Why are you intervening? You shouldn't be using your spirit energy so much."
Tang Chen clears a bit of blood from the edge of his lips as he was a bit rushed to block the attack just now.
"As someone who is on the edge of his life, I naturally don't want to die with any regrets. I cant let you hurt her, even if that means I have to participate in this trial too." He responds with a solemn expression.
Xue Tie frowns and shakes his head "crazy old man" and he disappears once more to appear behind Sea Woman but his attack is blocked by Sea Horse douluo who uses a water bubble as a shield.
Xue Tie backs off and he strangely reaches out, clenching his fist. The gut injury then begins to heal. It seems that the vampirism effect is only active now. Akin to a reserve that builds up as he damages his enemies, he has to clench his fist like so to activate it and heal. Unfortunately, the only real damage he has done was just now to sea Spear with the poison bomb.
The whole is almost closed as there is still enough room for 2 fingers to fit in. Witnessing his healing ability, sea dragon, sea spear and sea fantasy rush toward. As for Sea Ghost, he appears first behind Xue Tie and hits him with one of his ring abilities, manifesting the manta rays fin to slap him towards the other three.
"Sea Devil", The three pillars glow before they merge as one. The final result is a gigantic 300 ft tall water dragon with a purple glow. The dragon opens its mouth releasing an earth shattering roar that then releases a power-hose of water at Xue Tie. Who quickly notices that the water jet is augmented with hundreds of tiny sea Spears. He activates Immutable once more to take the hit head on but it suddenly diverts at the last minute.
"What?" Xue Tie says confused but not before he is slammed up into the air by a jet of water from the ocean under him. He assumes that it was caused by the merged water dragon's tail that is inside the water. The initial water breath comes back around and splits into 5 that then attack Xue Tie from all directions as they act like buzz saws instead of outright piercing into him like he assumes. The saws cut through layer after layer of leather like wrappings that make up immutable. Once the last strap is cut down, the breath reforges to slam him back down into the sea.
He is struck down just next to where the lava is seeping out of the crack he made. The collision with the water and then the ground breaking a few rib bones as well as his right forearm bone.
"Purgatory" A few bubbles of air are released into the sea as Xue Tie mouths out the combination of all his fire related abilities. The ocean rapidly begins to boil and turn into a vortex before more lava splits out from the top, the heat is so high that it's impossible for the water to cool it down. The fused water dragon is dispelled to reveal the three pillars again. Everyone including Bo Saixi and Tang Chen retreat from where Xue Tie is to not get caught in whatever he has planned.
Suddenly the swirling pool rapidly expands: 5 ft, 10 ft, 20ft, 40ft, 80ft, until it stops at 100ft as all the nearby sea water, the makeshift island and all the nearby wildlife is burned away due to the flame like barrier that has manifested from the bottom of the sea. Around Xue Tie there is just lava spewing out from both the crack as well as his body as the fires heat is melting the sand around him for more lava as well as all the salt that was burned from the fire tornado being expanded.
Xue Tie clenches his fist to punch the ground which causes a pillar of fire and lava to shoot up into the sky. The volcanic tide spreads out in all directions but primarily towards the 7 pillars and high priestess. Bo Saixi steps forward to drag the ocean water from nearby to collide with the lava tide. Meanwhile, the 7 pillars release various attacks or buff their teammates as they shoot at where they last saw Xue Tie which is the origin of the lava pillar.
"No, don't" BOOOM. Tang Chen tries to warn but is too late as the water attacks collide with the pillar base which opens up space for some green gas to come out. The combination skill had hidden turbulent air inside the lava tide so that it only exploded on Xue Tie's mark. With the pillars being right next to each other, they are all nice and bundled together so that when the pillar is blocked by the Sea God Douluo, the green gas would spill out which is how Tang Chen noticed it. The water wasn't able to do much against the thick gas this time around as it spread out thinly around them.
Xue Tie detonated the pillar as the pillar's attack struck him. This caused a widespread explosion that was barely blocked through SeaHorse Douluo, summoning a massive barrier with all his might. His own body suffered the explosive force which left him heavily injured and unconscious. He didn't have enough time to create a barrier for himself as he too participated in the attack just now.
"NOOOOOOOO" Sea woman Douluo rushes towards Sea Horse Douluo who has collapsed on the arena like zone. She quickly finds out after pressing her head against his chest that he is alive but unconscious. Xue Tie appears next to her to chop her neck and she falls unconscious as well.
"2 down, 6 to go" Xue Tie comments as all the pillars are breathing hard from the energy expenditure so far, less so on sea fantasy and Bo Saixi is still doing well. Mostly because Sea Fantasy has been waiting for opportune times to strike and his heaviest energy expenditure but the martial spirit fusion. Something that they restart as the only other pillar left is SeaStar douluo who buffs the giant sea dragon which exhausts him. The high priestess supports the martial spirit fusion by dragging in water for them to use while also channeling more water drills at Xue Tie.
He is naturally more wary of the drills now that he has experienced it once before. The Draconic devil rushes at Xue Tie with it's claws that glow bright and seemingly grow 'pointier' as the sea spear is manifested inside the water dragons' claws.
Xue Tie flaps his wings to dodge the attack before he rushes at the mixed dragon. His foot collides with the dragon's chest before he mutters 'Earthquake'. From his foot, the martial spirit dragon begins to tremble and break apart before it dissipates into light, revealing that all 3 pillars are badly injured all over due to the category 16 earthquake originating in their chest cavity.
Xue Tie kicks all 3 down into the ground where they go unconscious as well. Now it's just the 3 of them: Xue Tie, Sea Star Douluo who is very nervous and Bo Saixi. Xue Tie dashes at the Sea star Douluo but he throws out his martial spirit and it turns into a ninja star that is then cloned into over 100 of them but Xue Tie can tell that all but one is an illusion. He smacks away the real one which dispels the rest until he gut checks the Sea Star Douluo who is sent flying off into the sea, past the flame vortex arena.
He looks to the High priestess as well as Tang Chen who is flexing his muscles as he holds his hammer before him Blocking Xue Tie's view of the sea gods representative.
"Old man, you know how this has to end. It's not like i've killed anyone here" Xue Tie states which makes Tang Chen close his eyes before he reopens them. His eyes resolute.
"Ill fail the test if i fight you. Because all of my techniques go for the kill, only my death rune can stop you without killing you" He continues speaking.
"Get on with it. One Final Hurrah" Tang Chen states which causes Xue Tie to pause. He takes a deep breath, sadness evident on his face. After a minute, he sighs as a third primal burst is slammed into his own chest. This is followed by a 4th and 5th. The continuous boosts cause his veins to burn up and glow. Parts of his skin start to blacken due to the burning effect which still remains even after being merged into his death core.
"Great Sumeru Hammer!!! Ring Explosion. Asura Domain" Tang Chen declares as each ring explodes one by one to its fullest capacity with no capacity to recover the rings.
The large hammer grows to the point where Tang Chen himself is shorter and smaller than the hammer. He needs both hands just to properly grab the handle. Afterwards a deep purple aura begins to spread from him covering up to 100 ft wide
Xue Tie has a dark expression as the domain covers him but barely even affects him as Xue Tie activates his own.
"Blood Gods Domain. Augmentation" A thick red aura manifests around him that boosts his power greatly, to the point where the Asura domain is actually struggling to maintain its own form under his pressure.
Xue Tie lifts his head to clearly look at Tang Chen's face which is also darkening but more so due to the strain of all his abilities.
"Discorder Splitting Wind Hammer, First rotation" Tang Chen announces as he rushes forward, bringing the hammer down upon Xue Tie. He brings it down for a decisive crash that splits the very ground that they are standing on. Xue Tie sinks an entire foot into the ground due to the sandy earth splitting from the pressure. Xue Tie had retaliated against the strike with his claw attack but the explosive force did little to mitigate the whole force.
"Second Rotation" A second hammer strike comes down as there are 81 hammer strikes in total but a master can condense it to a total of 8 rotations with the 9th being the pinnacle of the technique.
"Third rotation" Xue Tie is buried deeper, he has learned to use the earthquake force to displace the rotational force
"Fourth Rotation" Xue Tie climbs out of the hole he was in and equips immutable to enhance his own power as he punches out with the earthquake force.
"Fifth Rotation"
"Sixth Rotation" Tang Chen keeps declaring each cycle but with this one, Xue Tie's arm is actually crushed under the force. His immutable fibers were shredded by the shockwave alone while his flesh and bone were crushed into paste under the total force. Xue Tie is shocked since he was able to survive against the divine Sight on the Nimesis trial grounds (pyramid). Yet his arm was broken now. With the damage he inflicted to the pillars, he slowly heals up but he has to use his other arm to block the strike.
"Seventh Rotation" Xue Tie responds by mixing the explosive claw with the quake for an end result that broke his arm but not into paste.
"Eighth Rotation '' Tang Chen's body is also breaking down from the force. His leg has already been streaming blood as his blood vessels pop from the force he is wielding. Xue Tie has recovered his right arm at this time and strikes out with both, using the fire quake technique.
"Ninth Rotation", Xue Tie summons the 6th primal burst and now his body is actually on fire and steaming as his body is actively burning his blood into mist through his pores. (imagine 8 gates Might Guy from Naruto). Xue Tie also uses the volcano method to hold off the world breaking collision. A large amount of dust gathers up as a result of the collision.
Cough cough
The dust settles after a few minutes to reveal Tang Chen just barely on his feet as both hands are bleeding, his own bones broken from the force of the hammer. His body is wobbling as his last bits of will keep him standing.
As for Xue Tie? He is standing right next to Tang Chen. He is missing both arms and blood is flowing out of his mouth as his body looks noticeably skinnier with his ribs and many other bones crushed from the force. Except, unlike Tang Chen, his body is recovering slowly.
"Damn…ed old man. That hurts you bitch. Hehehe ah" Xue Tie says while spurting out more blood from his many injuries. He laughs a bit at the only to stutter in pain.
"Haaaa haaaa haaaa. Did I do good, kid?" Tang Chen asks
"Poseidon is likely shitting himself at the moment. You have surpassed the power of his tower, this is truly the toughest challenge yet"
"Only the best for a future god of death. Hehehe COUGH" he throws up blood and almost falls over if not for leaning on Xue Tie's chest.
"Hehehehe" Xue Tie responds with his own giggle as his left arm is able to finally reform.
Xue Tie takes a deep breath, even if it hurts him. He stabs his new arm into Tang Chen's chest. Ripping out his heart. Blood gathers in his mouth as he finally collapses in Xue Tie's arms.