Wayfarer

Chapter 461: Recovering the Martial Aspect's Body

In the capital of Yin, Xiao Nanfeng, wearing a suit of arhat armor, struck Yin down again and again. Firelight and the sound of broken bones intermingled as Yin was beaten bloody. The tiger-headed humanoids that crowded around them were unable to rescue Yin; Xiao Nanfeng easily sent them flying.

"Xiao Nanfeng, take off your suit of armor and fight me if you dare!" Yin bellowed.

"Are you crazy? I'm all but assured victory at this point. Why would I choose to cripple myself? Die!" Xiao Nanfeng roared.

He smashed Yin into the ground with his fists, causing furrows to form all around Yin.

Yin's bones were all badly broken, with blood seeping out of his body. He seemed to have lost all ability to continue fighting.

Xiao Nanfeng rapidly closed in on Yin and caught his physical body with a gauntleted arhat hand

"I once studied a demonic spiritual cultivation technique with the side effect of damaging one's physical body. However, this Martial Aspect is already dead, and that drawback is irrelevant. I suppose I'll try it on your body, then!"

The palm of the golden arhat glowed with golden light that shot straight into Yin's body. The golden light blazed like an intense flame, scorching Yin's cursed spiritual avatar.

Yin shrieked in pain.

The next moment, the specter of a mighty tiger emerged from Yin's mindscape, penetrated the golden arhat's defenses in a sinister fashion, and homed in on Xiao Nanfeng's physical body within.

"You intend to possess me? As if you could!" Xiao Nanfeng shouted.

With a slash of his blade, the specter of the mighty tiger was cut in two.

The cut didn't cause the specter to die. He howled, "What sort of blade is this? How can it cut my cursed spiritual avatar apart so easily?"

"A blade that will kill you," Xiao Nanfeng replied, executing another slash.

The two halves of the mighty tiger's specter fled from the arhat armor in fear, then reunited. The specter attempted to return to its original physical body, only to find that Xiao Nanfeng had already kept it within his arhat armor.

"Yin, it's time for you to die," Xiao Nanfeng announced.

The golden arhat grabbed onto the specter of the mighty tiger, its palms radiating with light.

The mighty tiger's specter screamed as its body began to sizzle, badly damaged.

Just then, a black shadow suddenly appeared behind Xiao Nanfeng's back and struck at it with a palm.

"Who's there?!" Xiao Nanfeng blanched.

He hastily defended himself with the arhat armor, but his opponent boasted incredible strength. The palm smashed him into the ground in a billowing cloud of dust.

"Tiger Yanluo?" Xiao Nanfeng exclaimed.

The Tiger Yanluo's main body had appeared and launched a sneak attack on him.

The Tiger Yanluo opened his mouth wide and swallowed the tattered remnants of Yin's cursed spiritual avatar, regaining part of his power.

"Xiao Nanfeng, weren't you having a fun time beating me up? Let's try that again, shall we?"

The Tiger Yanluo flashed over to Xiao Nanfeng's side and threw a punch, sending him flying again.

He struck at Xiao Nanfeng with a vengeance, attacking so quickly that he had flashed over to the golden arhat before it had landed on the ground and hit it once again.

He launched a furious barrage of attacks on the golden arhat, quickly causing the armor to crack.

"Hegemon's Fist!" Xiao Nanfeng barely found an opportunity to counterattack.

However, the Tiger Yanluo's main body was simply too strong. Hegemon's Fist let out dull thunks when it hit the Tiger Yanluo's body, unable to penetrate his defenses. With another punch, the Tiger Yanluo sent Xiao Nanfeng flying once again.

The golden arhat smashed into a pit in the ground.

"Against my main body, this armor is useless," the Tiger Yanluo said, sneering.

"In that case, I won't use it."

Xiao Nanfeng stepped out of his golden arhat and stored the armor. With a wave of his hand, a bright moon rose into the air as he established his deific domain. Snow began to fall.

"Xiao Nanfeng, you really don't know what you're doing, do you? Without your armor, you'll only perish even more quickly," the Tiger Yanluo cried out.

He flashed toward Xiao Nanfeng once more, punching at him.

"Harmonize!" Xiao Nanfeng shouted.

The Tiger Yanluo's punch struck nothing but air. Xiao Nanfeng had vanished.

"You fool. Do you really think I can't do anything to you just because you've reached True Yin? I'll destroy your moon and see how you intend to harmonize then!"

He had spent quite some time searching for traces of the Peach Buddha in the forests outside the city with no success, during which time Xiao Nanfeng had been torturing his avatar. He was fuming mad.

Although he knew that there was something strange about Xiao Nanfeng's spiritual moon, he still flashed up to it and punched it.

"Explode!" the Tiger Yanluo roared.

A huge fist shot toward the silver moon, as though about to shatter it.

Just then, the silver moon suddenly opened its mouth wide, revealing sawtooth-like teeth, and bit down on the Tiger Yanluo's fist.

The fist stopped short, frozen in mid-air.

"What?!" the Tiger Yanluo exclaimed.

The frost surging from the silver moon froze his fist technique and shattered it. The force spread all the way up the Tiger Yanluo's body, forcing him back and causing blood to spray from his fist.

His eyes grew wide as he stared at the silver moon in astonishment, shocked by its strength.

"Your moon's a cursed king too? What incredible cursed spiritual power. Xiao Nanfeng, you're playing with fire!" the Tiger Yanluo exclaimed.

However, the surprise had allowed him to calm down.

Outside the city, the Peach Buddha was likewise taken aback. "The superior yin pearl has merged with Xiao Nanfeng's silver moon. He must have even more secrets that I'm unaware of. I have to secure his body at any cost."

Xiao Nanfeng released a deep breath. Fortunately, his silver moon seemed able to defend itself against the Tiger Yanluo. Everything could proceed according to plan, then. He would have to lure the Tiger Yanluo toward the formation that Blue Lantern had established.

He flew out of the city with his moon in tow, his domain shifting alongside him.

"Stay right here!" the Tiger Yanluo demanded. "My domain of paper money will arrest you!"

With a wave of his hand, paper money sprung up from all over, enveloping Xiao Nanfeng's domain and making it difficult for him to move.

"I was worried that you had handed your four Yanluo Courts to the Peach Buddha, but I understand what's going on now. Even if you're allied with the Peach Buddha, there's no way you're on such close terms. Otherwise, why would you bother showing yourself? In other words, the four Yanluo Courts are still in your possession. It doesn't matter if I can't find the Peach Buddha. I just need to find you. Xiao Nanfeng, I'm not going to let you leave today."

"You can't stop me!"

Xiao Nanfeng's domain was rapidly expanding. He continued to fly toward the outskirts of the city despite the paper money's best effort at stopping him.

"I'm not letting you leave. Formation, arise!" the Tiger Yanluo shouted.

A hundred rivers of black smoke gushed out of his Yanluo Court, spreading all over along the ground. When the rivers of black smoke reached the borders of the capital of Yin, they rushed straight up into the sky in an arc, forming a huge hemispherical dome.

Xiao Nanfeng's domain was forced back when it struck the dome.

"A formation?" Xiao Nanfeng frowned.

He immediately manipulated his moon and sent it crashing into the barrier of black smoke, but even the moon couldn't do anything.

"Don't bother struggling. You won't be able to make it out. This is a formation I devised specifically for the Peach Buddha, and is constructed out of the natural law of my Yanluo Court. No one within the Netherworld Palace will be able to break out. Let's see how long your domain can last—once you're out of spiritual power, you'll be done for."

Paper money swirled around Xiao Nanfeng's domain, causing clumps of snow to fall all around him. The Tiger Yanluo was doing his best to sap Xiao Nanfeng of spiritual power.

Outside the city, the Peach Buddha exclaimed in shock, "The Tiger Yanluo has been plotting against me? Thank goodness I was cautious. This is a strong formation, but it's useless against Xiao Nanfeng. His candleflame powers can bypass even a Yanluo Court, let alone this barrier formation."

Indeed, a spark of candlelight could be seen from Xiao Nanfeng's silver moon as it hovered around the barrier of black smoke. It was unassuming and barely visible, as though it were about to be extinguished in the blizzard. The Tiger Yanluo clearly didn't think much of it, if he even noticed it at all.

Xiao Nanfeng's silver moon was gradually shrinking, as if he had drawn on too much spiritual power too quickly. Where the candle flame illuminated the barrier of black smoke, it suddenly turned scorching-hot. The silver moon quickly darted into the flaming region and, shockingly, appeared outside the barrier of black smoke and the capital of Yin. Then, the blizzard within the barrier vanished as well, leaving only a rain of paper money behind.

"What? You escaped from the formation? Impossible! This formation is so strong that even I would be trapped within. How could you have escaped?!" the Tiger Yanluo demanded.

"Just because you can't get out doesn't mean that I can't," Xiao Nanfeng replied coolly.

Outside the barrier, a cloud of snowflakes drifted into his form. His silver moon vanished within his body as he reined in his domain and melded with his battered suit of arhat armor once again. He fled.

"Hold it right there!" the Tiger Yanluo thundered.

He deactivated the formation and began to chase Xiao Nanfeng.

"Tiger Yanluo, just you wait. The Peach Buddha and I will show up again. We'll kill you then!" Xiao Nanfeng continued to provoke the Tiger Yanluo from afar.

"You won't get away today!" the Tiger Yanluo roared.

He suddenly grew many times faster, not just because he was enraged, but because he mistakenly believed that Xiao Nanfeng was now working together with the Peach Buddha once again. A sense of crisis overwhelmed him; he had to take down Xiao Nanfeng at any cost.