A torrentially savage aura roared to magnificent life within the earthen, sandy crater. A single hand impressed upon the ground generated irrepressible rumbling of the entire stretch of this world's sky and earth, shaking the entire battlefield at its core!
"Huh?" Sage Shattered Sphinx, Sage Hathor, and Sage Imentet were all stunned. What type of strength was this? It felt as if heaven itself was descending! Was this Sage Pakhet?!
"I was wondering when you'd get serious," Wei Wuyin commented lightly, his heart at ease, and his spirit soaring with unrestrained excitement. Was he not here to test his innate, natural powers? How fun was it to fight an enemy that was suppressing their strength from the onset to now? He found little enjoyment in that, repeatedly sending Sage Pakhet away with casual ease to instigate a feeling of humiliation on purpose.
"You wanted this?" A voice with the weighty majesty of the heavens asked with the gentleness of a hushed wisp, yet it penetrated the ears, heart, spirit, and soul of everyone here, who were still conscious and unsealed. A glint of bursting gold splashed from the crater, encasing that hand in a sleek sheen of gold. It clenched slightly, grabbing a handful of sand.
RUMBLE!! The entire realm vibrated as sand began to levitate into the air while the air itself was breaking down on a fundamental level, savagely destroyed by a raw, physical presence imbued with worldly pressure and flashes of heavenly radiance.
"I did!" Wei Wuyin directly admitted. "But let's keep this between us. Stay there while I deal with the others."
His words were light and airy, and completely didn't consider Sage Pakhet's intentions. His words caused the three Sages to start, immediately putting them on guard.
Wei Wuyin grinned as his muscles flexed and his scaly, glowing fists tightened. An inestimable amount of physical strength coursed through his body as the True Void Dragon Bloodline energies, his Draconic Void Astral Force, and the raw strength of his Stellar-Paragon Physique backed by the blessing of the Mortal, Mystic, and eternal was brought to the surface.
They all felt their breaths exit their lungs, suffocating them with an uncomfortable air, while the stifling, suppressing presence was unavoidable. Sage Imentet surrounded herself and Sage Hathor with three Heavenly Treasures, manifesting a Solar Star, a Lunar Moon, and an earthy, wooden planet that orbited them while unleashing a tri-colored, fused light of Laws. Faintly, a ward similar to a Galactic Layer formed protectively around her.
She was undeniably impressive after displaying her adroit mastery of three different Heavenly Treasures to emulate the fundamental principles of a galaxy's circulation and natural defenses.
Sage Hathor unhesitatingly sent all her efforts to supply Sage Imentet with mystic energies to fuel her Ascension Arts while bearing the burden of her soul energy expenditure after accessing the power of three different portions of a single Realm of Heaven's Law—Light. What very few knew was that her shield, her wooden shield, was a Heavenly Treasure connected to the Heaven's Realm of Light Law just like Sage Khepri and Sage Khonshu's Heavenly Treasures.
The Laws were not strictly linear, and accessing the power of Heaven's Law of Light did not explicitly mean you gained the right to manipulate all of the Law of Light's power. That critical difference defined the bridge between Minor Authority and Major Authority.
For example, while Wei Wuyin could be said to have grasped the Law of Time, there were still principles of Time that he had yet to fully grasp, and with each additional portion of power he gained access to, the greater his authority's natural strength.
The actualized past, present, future, and substantial past, present, and future including various other factors all defined a 'portion' of Heaven's Realm of Time's principles, and grasping them to a certain extent, enough to receive Heaven's recognition, meant gaining 'authority' over them.
Laws such as the Law of War had noticeably different categories of Soldier, Commander, and Champion, and the Law of Imperial had different paths as well. Fortunately, Major Authority didn't require one to grasp all paths, simply grasp the in-depth aspects of a single path to a sufficient degree. For example, a soldier might be able to focus on infantry and direct solo battle, then expand their field of understanding into subterfuge and teamwork to strengthen their Law of War.
That said, Sage Imentet was using multiple portions of the Law of Light, but they were through Heavenly Treasures, so her level of access was heavily dependent on the treasures themselves and what they could withstand.
Sage Shattered Sphinx's sand robe began to release intense vibrations of sound that disrupted all nearby space, flows of time, ambient mana, rays of light, and natural gravity. The sound resembled the grinding of two granules of sand, amplified a billionfold. It was grating to the ears and spirit.
Wei Wuyin stared at Sage Imentet. She had a hidden trump card, but the others were aware of this, and so they worked in tandem to bring out the most of her strength by delivering her their energies. Out of the eight Sages, only four had grasped a Minor Authority!
Sage Imentet grasped the Minor Authority of Light! Sage Shattered Sphinx grasped the Minor Authority of Wind!
Sage Nepit grasped the Minor Authority of Earth; Wei Wuyin had gone all out against him because of this, taking him out second! The Eye of Illusion was pushed to its greatest limit as he wasn't certain if the Law of Earth would stimulate him out and free him immediately, especially given the mysterious powers attained by obtaining a Minor Authority that he hadn't fully explored yet.
Sage Pakhet...she was special! Very, very special!
It wasn't that they weren't using their Minor Laws, simply that using Heavenly Treasures that they've refined brought them an equal or greater degree of strength in tandem with the others while exhausting their soul energy would have reduced the effectiveness of and place a strain on their soul-communication network, their greatest advantage of instantaneous, uninterruptible communication, and exchange of mystic energies.
When they fought Zhan Jiangwen out there, Sage Shattered Sphinx was absent, and they had to be cautious of exerting too much power within their galaxy while threading the needle of not destroying the treasures likely in his possession or soul that knew of their location. Strictly speaking, they needed Zhan Jiangwen alive. Taking it a step further, they needed their treasures intact.
That wasn't to disregard Zhan Jiangwen's strength and say that they could rival him in single combat. He was ridiculously powerful for a Sage, and the Law of Momentum had the greatest effect in lengthy combat. Similarly, their tactics were greatly restrained by their galaxy's fate hanging in the balance.
Now? They were no longer holding back!!
Wei Wuyin accessed his purest form of physical strength within his body and felt the entire world shudder with a single flexing gesture. This time, he didn't traverse the void and simply stepped upon the void as if it were the steadiest, most solid platform in existence. The air exploded. And then his body blasted forth!
He soared across the sky for hundreds of thousands of miles, head first, blitzing toward Sage Shattered Sphinx! His speed was unrivaled. Even in their eyes, their spiritually empowered senses, he was less than a blur, and Sage Shattered Sphinx reacted instinctively, unleashing intensely vibrant vibrations of sounds laced with the Minor Wind Law's aura! He seized control over a portion of heaven's strength and then spread out his arms wide, unleashing pulsating waves of destructive sound.
Wei Wuyin ignored it.
From the beginning, the eight Sages had tried to smartly defeat Wei Wuyin by relying on Sage Shattered Sphinx's attacks that could disregard refined physical bodies and damage the internal structure, including their energies, blood, spirit, and cells at a fundamental level until they broke apart. It was an insidious attack method for sure, and when Wei Wuyin had yet to transform, he would have suffered damage.
Now?
His human cells had transformed, awakened, and thoroughly replaced by a perfect mixture of Magi and True Void Dragon, granting him an unprecedented degree of stability. The sound waves smashed against his scales and tried to invade his flesh, yet it was as if they entered a chasm of nothingness, directed into the void, and the exceedingly short period of actual contact was ineffective, barely enough to cause his scales to ripple or his cheeks to move.
He blasted through the barrier of vibrational sound and did something barbaric.
HE DIDN'T STOP!
Sage Shattered Sphinx's heart was roaring with a sensation of crisis, yet by the time Wei Wuyin breached through his waves of vibrational sound, he could only watch as the faint blur smashed against him with the force of a galaxy-bustering tackle. His body, from robes to skin to blood to bones, exploded outright!
He was stripped of his flesh and his robes, a heavenly treasure formed from tiny grains of sand, burst apart entirely, sending waves of sandstorms in every direction and were scattered. Meanwhile, Sage Shattered Sphinx was unable to cry out in agony or pain before he was sent flying backward, slamming violently into the walls of this world and leaving behind a splatter of golden-brown blood with a barely held-together frame of his glistening, cracked skeleton. Even his eyes and hair had exploded. His Mystic Soul was particularly dim, but just barely was able to keep his skeleton from falling apart.
There was an indent of his skeleton embedded into the wall of the realm, and he was stuck there as fissures of space spread out like spiderwebs.
Wei Wuyin stood a few hundred miles away from him. He halted his forward momentum just short of colliding with the wall lest he shatter this realm. There wasn't a drop of blood on his body, only a smoky aura. The acceleration and speed of his body generated an indescribable resistance against space, air, and mana, and the friction was intense.
In his wake, a long line of affected space pulsed chaotically in an oddly beautiful wave.
Sage Imentet and Sage Hathor were aghast! Wei Wuyin had just tackled Sage Shattered Sphinx and ripped the very flesh from his bones. The sight was disturbing and heart-chilling.
Wei Wuyin then turned to Sage Imentet and Sage Hathor and his Alchemic Stars of Transcendent Purity imbued with draconic intensity focused on them.
"...!!" Sage Imentet drew upon all her power, ready to fight. In truth, one could see why those who grasped Laws and those who hadn't were different. Sage Imentet's Heart of Cultivation and fighting spirit was incredibly refined. She refused to yield in the face of absolute power, ready to give it her all even if all things were fruitless. Despite suffering injury after injury in her fight against Zhan Jiangwen, she was relentless in her duty, even in the face of death.
However, Sage Hathor was not like that. When Wei Wuyin turned his breathtaking presence toward them, his feet supported by a platform of the void ready to take flight, she hastily dispersed her Mystic Aura.
"You want to fight Pakhet without disturbance, right? Then, seal us!"
The fate of Sage Khonshu and Sage Khepri was far less damaging than Sage Amunet's madness, Sage Nepit's descent of mental stability after falling into an illusion, and Sage Shattered Sphinx's bloody, disturbing fate. All of those things would likely affect their cultivation in the long run, especially Sage Shattered Sphinx. His physical body was all but destroyed. Likely tens of thousands of years of effort, or longer, had been depleted with a single move.
That terrified her beyond the description of words!
And it was clear that Wei Wuyin was targeting those with special qualities or higher threat potential with a peculiar viciousness. He didn't harm Sage Pakhet too heavily as he wanted to bait her to bring out her full strength, but Sage Amunet was a diviner, Sage Nepit was a Spiritual Cultivator with a Minor Law, and Sage Shattered Sphinx was a unique sound-based cultivator with a Minor Law as well! Meanwhile, she was a healer.
If common sense would dictate, she had to be put down viciously and ensure she couldn't help the others. The thought was enough to instill hellish fear into her heart.
Sage Imentet frowned. She didn't agree with that decision, but she didn't say anything while she was gathering power.
Wei Wuyin's eyes focused on Sage Hathor. Then, shockingly, he nodded. Sage Hathor had never felt such a strong relief.
Wei Wuyin's body vanished like a ghost blown by wind. When he reappeared, he had already infiltrated Sage Imentet's pseudo-ward resembling a Galactic Layer and arrived before Sage Hathor. Her eyes widened as she realized that Wei Wuyin's true speed was far greater than that dash earlier!
Wei Wuyin's finger was imbued with Alpha Origin Mystic Force and he slowly placed his finger toward Sage Hathor's globally. Sage Imentet had lost track of Wei Wuyin, and Sage Hathor was behind her, so she was unaware of this despite him being back-to-back with her.
Sage Hathor wanted to resist this finger with all her spirit, but she did her best to keep her cultivation base at the lowest. She could only internally apologize to Sage Imentet, but Wei Wuyin would never allow her to get close to either of them. When she felt the gentle touch of his finger on her glabella, her heart relaxed.
"...!" Sage Imentet spun around. She was just about to take Wei Wuyin when she saw Sage Hathor slowly grow dark and earthy. Then, within her pupils that had widened from disbelief, she saw a transformation of unsettling proportions. Her body gathered the dust and energies of the world and it was all slowly turned into an earthy, heated glow.
She watched as Sage Hathor began to rapidly gather dirt from who-knows-where and become encased in a shell of earth as her body emanated a faint, heated, almost molten light. The gravity around her intensified strangely. Her mystic energy was being consumed at startling speeds as her body expanded. In a blink of an eye, she had transformed into a hundred-meter spherical planet that spun on its axis.
Furthermore, the surface of this earthy planet gave birth to mystic-graded materials at the Mystic-Earth grade in fractions of seconds. Then, Wei Wuyin lightly patted the earthen surface. It was sent flying toward the Solar Star containing Sage Khepri and the Lunar Moon containing Sage Khonshu.
They became a trio of a celestial world. Sage Imentet's scalp began to tingle with numbness. Wei Wuyin's gaze shifted toward her.
She was one to not surrender even in a hopeless situation, yet when those eyes of his that were as intense as a true dragon's settled on her, there was a frustration within her ample chest swelling up.
"If you just want to fight Pakhet, then I won't interfere."
She said very slowly and deeply, her alluring voice was simply too attractive.
"..." Wei Wuyin's gaze remained unmoved.
"Luo Ning wouldn't want my cultivation, beautiful body, or psyche harmed, right?" She pulled out the lover card shamelessly. Battles of this level often had grave consequences and far-reaching implications. For example, Sage Nepit was out of commission due to her damaged foundation after fighting Zhan Jiangwen.
"..." Wei Wuyin looked at the three Heavenly Treasures that she wielded, then returned his gaze to Sage Imentet.
She could only sigh. She severed her connection to the three Heavenly Treasures and tossed them aside.
"You're an insidious fellow, you know?" She spat with uncontained aggrievance. Then, her Mystic Aura dispersed as she lost consciousness. Her connection to the soul network was severed too.
Wei Wuyin didn't touch her body directly, but he infused a wisp of Spiritual Strength and reinforced her unconscious state while controlling the ambient mana to have her float. Unless he willed it, she wouldn't wake up without external influence.
After dealing with that, he carefully handled her drool-inducing body and sent her into an empty Saint Ring. She was Luo Ning's lover, so he was unwilling to bring about potentially permanent harm to her anyway, and that was why she was capable of still standing despite being a greater threat than Sage Shattered Sphinx.
If she used all three Heavenly Treasures and her Minor Light Law alongside the energy reserves of multiple Sages, she would undoubtedly be the greatest threat... except Sage Pakhet.
Now that they were dealt with, the real battle can begin. The battle that was filling his heart with expectation!
How strong was a Sage with... ...a Major Authority!

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