Chapter 974: Perception
“You’re asking to be killed!”
The general was shocked to see that his world projection had been penetrated. It was an insult for him to have such a hard time beating an inferior species!
“Thousand Gods Slaying Shadows!”
The general stabbed with his spear, which was wrapped in laws and the power of faith. The illusions produced by the spear suddenly filled up the sky. But then, all those illusions were combined into one spear, which came piercing down from the clouds with an unstoppable momentum!
Bang!
Su Ping was unable to dodge in time, and was squarely hit. His body exploded in an instant.
“No!” Tang Ruyan could not help but exclaim. Her face was pale, even though she had just seen him die a moment earlier.
The next moment, she heard Su Ping’s voice again as he reappeared, “Don’t worry about me.”
While he merged with the Little Skeleton and the Dark Dragon Hound, he then said to Tang Ruyan, “Just like I said, we’re immortal here. Just consider them as training dummies for us.”
Tang Ruyan was stunned. Su Ping had already told her about this before making the trip; she didn’t know he meant it.
However, everything was beyond belief, and the enemies felt so real!
Joanna’s mind also clicked; she then understood that she could also be resurrected after seeing Su Ping and Tang Ruyan come back to life again and again.
However… They were facing members of the Rain Clan!
It was a high-ranked clan with influence in the entire Realm of Gods!
The fear and awe that were deeply etched in her blood were too hard to overcome. There were Ancestral Gods in that clan—those were the top beings in the Realm of Gods!
Resistance and disrespect would bring about their obliteration!
Bang!
While Joanna’s expression contorted, Su Ping’s body exploded again. The general found an opportunity to kill him when he was talking to Tang Ruyan.
Su Ping was resurrected once more. He gazed at the general coldly; the latter was only a Star Lord, but he was even more horrifying than the Star Lords he had fought on the Divine Lord Rank’s simulations!
He has more power of faith than I do. His small world had been perfected more than mine. He’s also mastered the four supreme laws… Su Ping realized that his opponent was stronger than him in every aspect, and that he was able to beat him while merely using a projection of his small world.
But…
It wasn’t like he didn’t stand a single chance of winning!
There was a 0.01% chance that he could win!
I can be stronger than him for an instant if I unleash all my strength in one go! Su Ping thought.
He had too much power in his body; there was a tremendous amount of astral power, faith power, and many laws. Mobilizing all his power used to require a lot of time. However, his recent battles had enlightened him; he now had a way to burst out with all his power.
However, the consequence of such a method was indeed obvious. Such a burden on his body would tear his astral ocean to pieces.
Still, he was in a cultivation site.
He could come back to life as long as he had enough energy points. That was his greatest advantage.
OK. Let’s see what the Star Lord gods are capable of! Su Ping roared to himself and gazed at the general with passion in his eyes.
His body flashed forward as he unleashed the power of all five Astral Paintings; their power was combined. In parallel, the astral power in his cells was being extracted at such a fast speed that his astral ocean was almost torn apart. His skin was too set ablaze with blue flames; even his hair was rising due to the outburst.
The spear arrived again at that moment. Su Ping raised his head and slashed brutally.
He then unleashed all his power!
Bang!!
The red demonic sword released the power of a nuclear explosion, but the spear was even more powerful. Su Ping trembled and was flung back. The wind around him was as hard as a wall; his body almost fell apart when he slammed against it.
“You should have known better!”
The general seemed less scornful and more solemn as he looked at the falling and collapsing man. It was almost unbelievable, for a slave of a lower cultivation realm to push him that far.
It would have been acceptable if Su Ping were a god, but he was only a human being…
Su Ping was resurrected again, and continued charging at him from down below.
“Damn it!”
The general’s expression had a slight change. He was still unable to kill that guy.
He had seen how the man’s life aura was snuffed out. How can he resurrect over and over?
“Time Reversal!” the general roared; time and space around him quickly rolled back. Su Ping, who was rising from down below, fell back beyond his control. He immediately tried to balance himself with the power of time and space, but his opponent was much stronger, and he was pulled back bit by bit.
Soon after, Su Ping fell back to the place where his body had been torn apart.
Time was still being rolled back. The next moment, another Su Ping was resurrected from the broken body!
The scene shocked the general; it gave him goosebumps.
Su Ping was also a bit stunned by such a scene.
It was then that he also realized that his opponent had reversed the flow of time to send him back to his former dead status!
However, his resurrection wasn’t reversed!
Su Ping had originally thought that the system resurrected him by reversing the flow of time. Was it not the case?
Su Ping became relaxed soon after.
All Star Lords were able to reverse the flow of time. All the cultivation sites would have been veritable dangerous lands to him if the system’s resurrection feature could be tampered with as easily!
No longer in a rush to fight, Su Ping quickly asked in his heart, “System, what’s going on?”
He might get killed at any time, but he didn’t consider it a big deal. He could always resurrect himself by spending some energy points.
“There are many things going on. Be more specific,” said the system with a lazy tone.
Su Ping was lost for words. “You know what I mean!”
“What’s to be surprised at? I have indeed resurrected you by reversing the flow of time. However, the time and space I change isn’t the same as those which your opponent changes,” said the system casually, “In plainer terms, I cut the time and space where you’re resurrected from the real world. So, no matter how they reverse time in the outside world, the missing piece cannot be rolled back, unless your opponent is stronger than me, but that’s impossible.”
Su Ping was still a bit puzzled, yet he finally understood something by the time he heard the last sentence. To put it simply, there was nothing to fear should an enemy return him to a dead status.
This is me from a moment earlier…
At that moment—Su Ping saw himself as he was resurrected after the reverse of time. That other self was looking back at him. Their eyes met; Su Ping was then certain that it was really him.
Two instances of me exist at the same time. He and I are not in the same time and space, but we seem to be in the same place. He is me from the past, and I am me in the present. Is this how the Six Lives Buddha summons his future selves? Su Ping suddenly gained a deeper understanding of the time and space path.
He tried entering another time and space in the future, to summon a Star Lord version of himself.
Su Ping detected resistance soon after.
He had already found it impossible to go on after only going forward three months to find his future self. His expertise on time and space wasn’t good enough yet.
Su Ping detected that he would still be in the Star State three months after.
It seems that I can only summon my future self in the Star State. I can’t summon anything ahead of that with my current understanding of the law of time, unless I gather the sixth Astral Painting. The Pendulum Astral Painting should be able to perfect my path of time. Not even this general would know the path of time better than me by then! Su Ping thought.
Unfortunately, he was still unable to condense the Pendulum Astral Painting at the moment.
He stopped trying after learning the way to summon his future self and seeing his current limitations. He returned to the old method—he had to burst out all his strength in order to defeat the general.
He had already tried it earlier, but he wasn’t fast enough!
It’s too hard to concentrate all my astral power on the Blood Cloud Sword. My hand is the fastest. My other body parts have to transmit the power as fast as my hand does.
Su Ping frowned as he considered the paradox. His astral power was stored in all of his body parts. The hand was closest to the sword and would be the fastest to deliver the power. The feet, on the other hand, were the farthest, and could be 0.0001 seconds slower when delivering the power.
The general stopped reversing the flow of time while Su Ping pondered over his options. The Su Ping from the past who had just manifested then collapsed and disappeared. He simply stared at the current Su Ping without a word.
Su Ping understood himself. Nothing needed to be said. The Su Ping in the past trusted the Su Ping in the present, and believed that he could beat his opponent!
“Why can he come back to life?”
The general was at a loss. The two gods next to him were equally stunned.
They had thought that Su Ping had been revived by reversing the flow of time, but that was not the case.
What else could bring him back to life again and again?
Even though they were knowledgeable, high-ranked gods, they had never seen anything as weird as that!
“Even if he reversed the flow of time, he was already dead earlier on, and it would be impossible for him to bring himself back to life, unless someone else did it for him, but that’s impossible…” mumbled the general. He felt that he was onto something, although he was still baffled by the implications.
He gradually came back to himself. He stared at Su Ping with a weird brilliance in his eyes. “However you managed to do this, the Major God will find out soon!”
“Ant, come here!” he roared, and a splendid world reappeared around him. This time, he made use of the real world. A brilliant, golden world appeared; it had mountains and rivers which contained a vast amount of power. They were about to surround and confine Su Ping.
Su Ping woke up from his absentminded state and realized his opponent’s intention. He hated being imprisoned the most while visiting cultivation sites, particularly because it would be a huge waste of time.
“Get lost!!” Su Ping roared and unleashed his power again. This time, he made use of the Eight Nine Astral Painting and changed his body structure. The two astral oceans were transferred to the hand holding the sword, and the veins transmitting astral power were broadened too.
His body became as straight and smooth as a chute.
Such an arrangement would enable a high efficiency output of the astral power stored in his cells.
The consequences were also obvious. His organs, such as his eyes and nose, would malfunction for a moment.
However, Su Ping didn’t mind such a brief malfunction when he was concentrating his strength.
Bang!!
A glowing, blue sword aura burst out. The power of laws and faith, boosted by a tremendous amount of astral power, exploded like a nuclear bomb and illuminated the entire world.
Boom!!
The organs inside Su Ping’s body were restored after unleashing the power, allowing him to hear the deafening explosion and see the hole he had created in the general’s world. The power surrounding him now had an opening.
Su Ping quickly flashed and escaped from the world, before he detonated his body.
Bang!
His body exploded. The next moment, he was resurrected on the spot in his best status.
The method was good, but I failed to concentrate all my strength. I only gathered 70% of it!
Su Ping remembered his previous attack after the resurrection. He was fascinated by the horrifying outburst, and considered it as a newly created move; coming up with a name for it would come later.
I wonder what will happen if I perform the Heavenly Fall Sword while in that mode. Su Ping pondered.
The Heavenly Fall Sword was a technique that focused the power of the sword, giving it a boost with multiple laws. Su Ping was excited by the idea of combining the new outburst trick with the Heavenly Fall Sword, and instantly gave it a try.
The general roared in shock and disbelief when Su Ping unleashed those exuberant flames of astral power. He could not believe that his world had been shattered by that human!
He had just killed him with the projection of his world moments earlier!
But then his real world was penetrated by Su Ping!
“He’s just a Celestial God. How can he be that strong? It’s impossible! Absolutely impossible!” The general could not believe that he was fighting against a being with a lower realm.
The other two gods were just as appalled; they both found the scene surreal.