"But then again, it cannot use its full power as it is, right?" The flying Noah suddenly stopped and reappeared on the spot he was before abruptly. The body in the air vanished into a burst of butterflies as if it had never been there in the first place.
Hes's expression tightened, not because of what Noah did to reappear in his place but because of what he said when he did.
"Are you curious why I said it?" Noah asked with a smirk, amused by the shifts in his expressions. "The reason is this."
A burst of qi energy shot out of Noah's hands like small needles in the shape of a sword and shredded the clothes covering the body.
The body of a person who had been dead for a long ti but had been refined as a puppet to maintain its physical prowess even after the death of the cultivator.
Everyone was astonished to see a dead body hovering in the middle of the air. Noah noticed a golden bracelet glowing at the hands of the body, which allowed him to stay airborne.
"You… you… you!" As soon as he saw the body's face, Liang Chen's breath got stuck in his throat. He pointed his finger at Hes while looking at the corpse of his dead brother hovering in the air before him with livid anger on his face. "YOU DARE!"
He could no longer control his anger and lunged at Hes. His true Dharma body had now turned completely red, and the sadness on its face had been replaced by rage.
The aura of the body was no longer as pure as it was before, but its power seed to have increased a lot.
But as he was halfway through, the body of the previous abbot, dressed in a black kasaya, appeared before him, using its re palm to break Liang Chen's montum.
"I should have used Master's body against you from the start; that would have saved a lot of trouble." Hes comnted without any sense of remorse on his face.
"Forgetting soone?" Noah appeared behind the demonic Dharma idol and slashed his hand down like a sword.
"Not at all." Hers replied calmly and turned to block the attack with a mirror in one of his hands.
Clank!
The sparks flew into the air as Noah's transford arm collided against the mirror of lost souls in the idol's hands. Noah saw so vague images of ghastly souls moving in and around the mirror.
Creak!
Hes, confident in his power, underestimated transford Noah's power, and the mirror in his hands started to bear the strain of the collision. Cracks started to spread around the mirror before it shattered into oblivion, leaving nothing behind.
The souls inside the mirror freed and lunged at Hes all at once. Caught off-guard, he shrieked in pain once the souls latched on to his body.
Hes did not seem to be out of luck just yet, as a gust of dark energy from his body erupted from his body and annihilated the souls.
"I will kill you." Hes now glared at Noah with a haggard look on his face. The most straining things to deal with in the world were souls; not even dead bodies give you that much trouble unless you have a proper way to deal with the souls.
"You can try…" Noah smirked and charged once more; this ti Hes used his own dharma body to bear the impact of his strikes. One mistake from his side cost him a lot; Noah started to gain the upper hand in the battle as Hes found his power equal to his own.
'How is that possible? How can such a monstrous genius be there in this world'? While doubting reality inwardly, Hes kept a cool facade on his face. "Martial uncle would not be able to handle master on his own; once he is done, you will be all alone—"
"Why do you still address them with their titles as if you are still part of the temple? You have already chosen to discard the temple, so isn't that a bit hypocritical?" Before Hes could even respond to that statent, Noah's gaze beca piercing. "And what makes you think that Abbot Liang Chen is alone?"
Surprised, Hes snapped his head backwards and saw a figure standing beside the old monk. It was a woman, dressed in a tight outfit that highlighted her curves. A black battle outfit with icy blue lines moving all around it, spreading like veins.
Xin Yan held the dead abbot back without even breaking a sweat. She was not even using her qi, but the air trembled under her fist. The space around her twisted and extended as if it was too fragile to keep her body in place.
"A body cultivator." A grim realization dawned on Hes, but this was the second mistake he made. Getting distracted in front of Noah, who could move right beneath his nose without even him realizing…
Woosh!
A normal sword, conjured of soul intent, appeared behind the general of the Red Dawn Cult without him even realizing until it was too late. A deep sense of fear crept up on his heart when the sword whistled through the air and appeared behind his back, striking him in the back.
Splash!
Hes coughed a mouthful of blood as the sword punctured his right lung, missing his heart by a foot as he moved at the last second. Panic started to cloud his judgnt as the pain started to take over his mind.
He saw the puppet he brought being toyed around by Xin Yan, his body limping from the unbearable pain coursing through his body.
In his panic he did the first thing he could think of. With a twist of his hand, a black mask with a deep orange-colored sun painted over it. At his command the sun ca to life, and Hes soared into the sky, looking down at Noah warily, and used the power of his mask to control him.
"In the end, you are nothing but a toy to be played by !" He bellowed in rage and used his full power to take control of Noah's actions, but once more sothing unexpected happened.
The intangible energy shot towards Noah from the mask, entered his body, and was instantly crushed by Noah.
"Cough!" Combined with his injuries and the unsuccessful attempt, Hes suffered a backlash and coughed another mouthful of blood.
"What's happening?!" He could not even think straight anymore and turned around to run away, leaving everything behind, but Noah did not allow him to do so and appeared before him.
"Where are you going?" He asked softly, and Xin Yan appeared beside him with a body hanging down from her hands, tied in ropes. Liang Chen also followed suit and chased after them.
"Get out of the way!" Seeing their line-up, Hes gritted his teeth; his eyes shone with a cruel light, but a sharp pain suddenly made him hold his head tightly.
"Looks like I have no other choice." Mumbling to himself, Hes turned back and ran once more, but this ti his destination was inside the temple, not away from it.
Noah chased after him, trying to stop him once more, but the man suddenly paused.
Realization dawned on Noah's face when he saw a crowd cowering in the corner, protected by the two elders and the four arhats. "Not good!"
Noah imdiately tried to stop him, but it was too late. Hers's mask shone once more, and everyone on the ground suddenly lost the light in their eyes. Those who were in the core formation realm and could fly launched to the skies at the sa ti and charged at Noah and Xin Yan.
Hes turned around to look at Noah and Xin Yan; the mask on his face slowly faded away. He glared at them as if etching their images in his mind. There was no look of a victorious person on his face.
"We will et again…" He mouthed those words as Noah and Xin Yan were sward by people from all sides, and a portal appeared behind him, taking him away.
Noah gritted his teeth in annoyance as he watched his target disappear in the distance. But he could not harm the innocents around him in the process.
"What's going on?" Liang Chen, the only sane person apart from the two of them, looked baffled at the developnt. He blocked the attacks coming towards them from the ground, launched by those who could not fly but still could use long-distance skills.
"What do we do? They keep coming like endless zombies?" Xin Yan asked with a frown on her face; she had just broken through a while ago and was having trouble controlling her power. She did not want to injure anyone.
Noah took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He spread out his arms, and suddenly a golden light shot out from his body. A soul avatar appeared behind Noah, close to Liang Chen's Dharma body in size.
The soul avatar opened his eyes, and everything went blank!
The blinding light reached the far ends of the forest; even Hes, who appeared several hundred kiloters away from the area, could see the light from afar. Giving the light one last solemn look, he stepped into an array formation circle hidden in the ground, and it ca to life.
The space shifted, and his figure vanished from the forest.
Back at the temple, the light faded, and everyone affected by the controlling powers of Hes beca unconscious and slowly fell down on the ground under Noah's control.
Abbot Liang Chen looked around in confusion, dread, and worry. "I have so many questions."
His whisper echoed through the silent mountains, his eyes moved from every unconscious body to his dead brother's body, and finally landed on Noah. "And I believe you have the answers to them? Can you tell what just happened here?"
Noah paused and looked the man in the eyes for so ti before responding with a heavy and thundering voice, "A war is coming!"
"And if we don't prepare everyone, the whole world will be wiped from the universe!"
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