Chapter 1150, An Intense Exchange of Blows

Translator: Silavin

 

Jiang Baishen’s wrist snapped forward, and two more Talismans streaked through the air.

 

In appearance, they were identical to everything he had released before.

 

And yet Lu Fan felt it, the power compressed within them was on an entirely different order of magnitude from every previous Talismans.

 

As they spun through the air, they caught the wind and expanded, swelling to hundreds of times their original size, as enormous as small mountains. Their surfaces were alive with rampaging lightning that carved intricate, winding patterns across them. Those patterns unmistakably recalled the cursive script of some Ancient Dragon Country character, and within them pulsed the very source of the Elemental Power itself.

 

The two Talismans merged, just as before, into a single unified mass. Then the lightning within them found its outlet, crashing down upon Lu Fan in a roaring cascade, creating a torrent so vast and thunderous it seemed to swallow the sky.

 

Lu Fan did not dodge. He flew straight into it.

 

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

 

The crushing weight of this Heavenly Lightning struck him again and again, rolling across his body in ceaseless waves.

 

His golden scales blazed brighter with every impact, gleaming beneath the assault as though he were an ingot of the finest metal being hammered and purified in a forge. This lightning carried a force that would wound even Divine Beings if they were immersed in it. Even Lu Fan, in his Golden Dragon King Form, could feel that these strikes were carving out his flesh, dealing True Damage.

 

But True Damage was a very different thing from meaningful Damage. An attack of this scale was nowhere near enough to truly injure him.

 

He was armoured with the Little Blade Armour Dragon King and his Golden Dragon King Form was the most defensively supreme body in existence. Jiang Baishen’s Skills were impressive, but it was entirely within Lu Fan’s limits to pull through.

 

He ploughed upward through the lightning cascade like a blade through water, splitting the torrent clean down the middle.

 

In the next breath, he was in front of Jiang Baishen. He turned, and a Dragon Tail swept wide.

 

Jiang Baishen crossed both forearms and braced for impact.

 

*Bang!*

 

The impact flung him backward, hundreds of metres in an instant.

 

But rather than use the distance to retreat, Jiang Baishen curved through the air in a wide arc and came straight back, moving toward Lu Fan, apparently resolved to engage in a direct melee.

 

Lu Fan could not help a faint, inward acknowledgement of respect. The man has genuine courage. To want to brawl with a Golden Dragon King face to face, if this was not courage, what was?

 

But courage was not something Lu Fan lacked either. He drove forward to meet him, and in a heartbeat the two collided again.

 

In his Golden Dragon King Form, there were many Skills available that Lu Fan could not cast while in his Human Form. A weapon like Refined Ashless was, of course, entirely out of the question.

 

But Lu Fan had long since mastered the art of wielding his own body as the weapon: claw, tail, and fang had become his instruments of destruction. With so many Pet Dragons at his side over so many months of battle, he had watched countless times how Dragons fought with their bodies, and had internalised those lessons until they were second nature to him.

 

Transforming and fighting in his Form was no different from everything else he had already learned.

 

Beyond that, his combat experience had been forged in Ye Wuxian’s gruelling training and tempered across countless battles until it had reached a formidable depth. That foundation meant he found the rhythm of fighting in his Golden Dragon King Form with remarkable speed. His effectiveness in this Form was no less than in any other.

 

And above all else, he had the Little Blade Armour Dragon King with him.

 

Chain hook after chain hook launched from his back, striking at Jiang Baishen from angles so ruthlessly precise and unexpected that there was simply no adequate defence. At times the chain hooks coiled around Jiang Baishen’s ankles and hurled him bodily overhead, smashing him into the ground hard enough to shatter the earth in all directions.

 

In close-quarters combat, the advantage was entirely Lu Fan’s.

 

Yet what astonished him was just how difficult Jiang Baishen refused to die.

 

The man’s entire body was enveloped in that blazing golden light, and it did more than multiply his Attributes. It rendered his Physique tougher than even the Golden Asura King.

 

Lu Fan struck repeatedly, landing blow after blow that should have been devastating, and yet Jiang Baishen absorbed every single one through sheer Defence without so much as flinching.

 

Lu Fan even found himself wondering, half-seriously, [Does Jiang Baishen secretly carry some Dragon Bloodline of the Golden Dragon King inside of him? Nothing else really explained this absurd level of toughness.]

 

Beyond his monstrous Defence, Jiang Baishen’s Talisman Skills was a masterwork that commanded genuine awe. He was not limited to the Five Thunder Talisman and its lightning. He commanded the Departure Fire Talisman, unleashing pillars of roaring flame. He commanded the Underworld Water Talisman, threading strikes with biting cold. He could even paint a single Talisman that conjured an entire mountain from nothing, hurling it at Lu Fan’s head.

 

That mountain carried weight enough to be a genuine threat, Lu Fan had to spend real effort shattering it into rubble.

 

As for Talismans that sealed abilities or inflicted Negative Status Effects, Jiang Baishen had those in abundance. But he abandoned them quickly enough when he confirmed that Lu Fan was completely Immune to every Negative Status Effect in existence.

 

After that, the Mountain Summoning Talismans and those oriented toward raw Damage became his tools of choice. The ones outside the realm of Crowd Control, capable of applying pressure even against an opponent who could not be Debuffed.

 

When close, Jiang Baishen could trade physical blows with Lu Fan. At range, he could summon Talisman after Talisman, manifesting every form of Element imaginable.

 

The longer the exchange continued, the more Lu Fan felt the weight of his opponent’s true power. It was on an entirely different tier from someone like Ye Xiu.

 

And that, he supposed, explained why Ye Xiu was merely a core member of the Sacred Jiang Family while Jiang Baishen stood as its Deputy Sacred Master. A position like that was not handed to a man because of his Bloodline. It was earned.

 

The clash between the two was a spectacle of devastation.

 

The shockwaves of their Skills could not be contained. They radiated outward, washing over everyone nearby. Around them, the other members of the Sacred Jiang Family had already locked in combat against Jian Ying and the rest.

 

More than a few of the Sacred Jiang Family’s fighters were wounded. Some were killed simply by the overflow of force from Lu Fan and Jiang Baishen’s exchange.

 

Jian Ying and the others, by contrast, had been smart enough to read the signs. They knew full well that when Lu Fan chose to fight, Heaven tended to fracture so they had kept their distance, escaping the fallout.

 

For them, the battle was proving to be a lot more manageable than they had initially thought. Those from the Sacred Jiang Family were undeniably formidable by any standard, but against opponents wielding Ancient God Power like Ouyang Bai Ge and her companions, they simply lacked the leverage to pose a grave threat.

 

The allied formation operated with disciplined precision.

 

The Golden Asura King took the frontline, shield raised, pouring out Water Element Skills to keep all those who tried to push forward mired in Slow Effects, denying them any path into the backline. With its staggering Defence, the Golden Asura King stood immovably beneath the barrage of dozens of Skills. It did not take a single step backward.

 

Han Ke’s supporting Buffs were upon it like a second layer of skin, elevating the Golden Asura King already fearsome Defence to something approaching that of a War God.

 

Ye Wuxian burned through the enemy ranks like a living typhoon of fire, reaping lives with each pass. Whatever that flame touched, it could not be extinguished, and Ye Wuxian herself, having transformed her body entirely into flame, was effectively invincible within it, leaving the Sacred Jiang Family members trapped between the impossible choices of fighting a woman they could not touch, and not fighting a woman who was freely slaughtering them.