Paragon of Sin

'It's been a while since I was injured in battle,' Wu Yu thought to himself. He heavily pressed against the stab wound at his abdomen. It profusely leaked blood, escaping through the gaps of his fingers at any opportunity. The sight was quite gruesome to behold.

However, to his opponents, this was a sight that eased their tense hearts. Wu Yu, this so-called Grand Knight of Neo-Dawn, wasn't invincible! Despite strutting around confidently, acting entirely unconcerned despite being trapped by their arrays, facing three Earthly Saints, and an entire united force of cultivators below, fueled by thousands of years of collective effort, he wasn't unbeatable! 

Wu Yu was given this reminder too, feeling nostalgic yet strangely invigorated by the prospect of going all out. As a cultivator of the Imperial Heaven Qi Method, his mental fluctuations and instincts drifted towards dominance and challenge, an indomitable will to conquer the very heavens. 

It was this desire that forced him to dominate others, not leaving with King of Everlore until he accomplished his goal of controlling the entirety of the starfield beforehand, and even then, he never considered himself a subordinate. Unfortunately, while he had accomplished this goal without those others hindering him, he later lost his body due to overreaching beyond his means. 

Now, his thoughts were more tame, realistic, and refreshed. Being Wei Wuyin's Grand Knight, experiencing all of his astonishing feats, witnessing his extreme talents, how he clashed and dominated Long Chen without deliberately doing so despite being older and having the same starting point, while not having any guidance, it allowed him to shift his thinking. It redefined his will. 

How? He couldn't quite pinpoint it, but he was fully willing to subordinate himself to Wei Wuyin. 

Despite this, his imperial will was still strong and prevalent, an integral part of his character. 

Wu Yu clenched his fingers around the wound. A surge of mystic-graded time energies were gathered, fueled by thousands of temporal-grade Mystic Runes. Wu Yu was at the 8th Runic Ascendant State, so all his abilities were further enhanced to levels that the other Earthly Saints here could only imagine. The other Runes of Mysticism also brightened, channeling their power into the temporal-grade Mystic Runes. 

Within the blink of a mortal's eye, the deep, gushing puncture wound began to slow down its sporadic and violent outpour. Then, the lingering blood that floated in the Dark Void began to return in the same manner they left. The wound soon sealed up and his clothes were repaired. It was as if one was watching a recording of the wound in reverse.

Temporal Reversion! 

The thousands of Zhang Ziyi's eyes widened in shock. "Wasn't the damage caused by your Blackgore Dagger impossible to reverse?" Her surprise wasn't solely her own, even Gong Lau was stunned witnessing this. He looked at his Blackgore Dagger with suspicion. It carried a unique aura that eradicated time and life energies, including all forces and powers that included them. It was like an infectious poison that would integrate with any and all wounds it caused.

A single stab and the victim would be halted from healing, allowing him to whittle his opponent down. 

"Focus!" Han Yuhei shouted commandingly. The thousand of Han Yuhei began to take action, each forming a different hand-seal. The two could only hold their questions, readying their next assault. The Gong Lau clones wielded their Blackgore Dagger. Then, they shimmered out of existence. Zhang Ziyi brought out a white scepter, at the top was a large, fist-sized jade pearl with a green flame burning within.

Wu Yu was fully healed through Time Reversion, but he lost a significant amount of his mystic energies to do so. Earlier, he had been caught off-guard by a trio assault. He hadn't realized that Zhang Ziyi and Han Yuhei had vanished. 

He glanced around, trying to sense the thousands of Earthly Saints, their state, and locations, especially Gong Lau who hid away in fixed space through some art. It wasn't as profound as his nor as thorough, but he clearly had spatial-grade Mystic Runes.

'Are the Ninety-Nine Pearls establishing an illusion?' His first assumption was followed by a precise, powerful sweep of his halberd to his left. A metallic cling followed by Gong Lau's figure shooting out of concealment, blazing backward at such speeds that he traveled thousands of miles with every second. Then, Gong Lau dispersed into bits of light. 

Wu Yu furrowed his brows slightly. He didn't halt his assault. With a step, he flickered across the Dark Void. Every step took him hundreds of meters, and he followed through with a stab, swing, or fist. Each strike led to Gong Lau's death by dispersion of light. Yet Gong Lau hadn't ceased. They kept striking continuously, throwing themselves to their deaths. At times, he would throw his halberd, destroying one of the ninety-nine pearls. But his actions proved futile as they restored themselves with every strike, just like before.

Within three seconds, he dealt with five hundred of these Gong Lau imitations with ease and destroyed dozens of pearls. However, Zhang Ziyi's scepter seemed to be growing in brightness with every passing second, restoring them continuously. At this point, the jade pearl at the top was like a Solar Star. Due to the radiance emitted continuously by the ninety-nine giant pearls, it wasn't very noticeable.

A thousand Zhang Ziyi's lifted their scepter above their heads, a wave of Blazing Jade Intent was unleashed. Her preparations were nearing completion. 

Wu Yu dealt with another Gong Lau, piercing through their throat, and decapitating him with expert precision. He gave a cold glance to Zhang Ziyi and Han Yuhei, narrowing his eyes. He vanished. A sound of surprise echoed through the Dark Void, belonging to none other than the five hundred remaining Gong Lau imitations. 

Wu Yu arrived directly before one of those Zhang Ziyi. Without any hesitation, he stabbed his halberd into her head. Her eyes widened in shock, unable to react before the halberd pierced through her skull, producing all sorts of cranial fluid and blood. 

Wu Yu coldly scoffed, irritated. 

The Zhang Ziyi dispersed into bits of light, just as Gong Lau had. 

All of the surrounding Han Yuhei looked at him, holding their various hand-seals with glacial, solemn, and intense eyes. There wasn't a smile on his face, but Wu Yu felt as if there was one reflected in every one of their eyes at this moment.

'What is this?' Wu Yu kept questioning. He decided to attack Han Yuhei, who offered little resistance as he was killed off. Unfortunately, only a burst of light was left behind with each death. Whether it was the sneaky Gong Lau, the charging Zhang Ziyi, or the stationary Han Yuhei, they were all easy kills. 

However, their auras were exactly the same. He couldn't find any discrepancy. At first, he thought they were hiding amongst these illusions, perhaps he was in an illusory spiritual spell, but his spiritual senses, ocular spell, and Mystic Soul found nothing abnormal.

All of these mimics looked like genuine Avatars or Incarnations that were used by cultivators, conjured to act as messengers or decoys. But they lacked any and all sorts of power and substance, yet they could emit a frightful aura of their Earthly Saint counterparts and conceal themselves in fixed space. Was it an illusion or avatars with wisps of infused power?

He was thoroughly confused. 

After killing half of the three thousand, Zhang Ziyi kept charging her scepter, Han Yuhei kept holding his hand-seals, and Gong Lau kept striking with his Blackgore Dagger to deal another injury. He didn't dare allow that blade to come in contact with him again. 

What are they trying to do? 

Kill him, of course, but how? Their earlier assault was a well-planned tactic of disorientation and assault. Gong Lau had taken the lead, and then he lost that exchange. Shockingly, he sacrificed an arm to block his spiritual senses, and the three attacked simultaneously, with Gong Lau Blackgore Dagger dealing a decisive strike.

Right? 

But what were they doing now? Delaying? Decoys? What tactic was this? What power of a World Sect? 

"..." Wu Yu looked around, seeing the remaining versions of Zhang Ziyi and Han Yuhei. There was something odd with all this, something he missed. But what? Embroiled in his own thoughts, Wu Yu hadn't noticed that every pearl was beaming with a thin ray of light, blending with their blinding radiance, and funneling into Zhang Ziyi's scepter.

The planet Origin's Solar Star form began to increase in size, all sorts of solar flares seemed to be produced. The energy fluctuations of Origin were reaching an unprecedented pinnacle of Elemental Origin Power, clearly all originating from the Nine-Divine Elemental Star Array! 

As for Wu Yu, he was snared in a hundredth pearl, trapped within with his eyes closed, yet his body moved extremely fast. Like a treadmill, the pearl that was the size of a lunar satellite followed along, circling around Origin to accommodate all of his rapid movements and attacks.

Gong Lau was pale, blood leaking from his lips as he half-kneeled beside Zhang Ziyi. His right arm was completely gone, and his other arm was gruesomely twisted. He kept trying to revert his injuries through Temporal Reversion, but an insidiously powerful aura prevented it. If he didn't rid himself of it, he couldn't do so. But the longer he waited, the greater the cost of his mystic power and lifespan. 

"Is this the Aeternal Sky Aura? Why does his Mystic Aura have this effect?" Gong Lau was aghast, terrified as the Imperial Aura snaked its way into his body. If he wasn't focusing fully on suppressing, it would've bore into his meridians and Mystic Soul to cause all sorts of mayhem. 

Zhang Ziyi was focusing on her scepter. She was just as pale, if not even more so, "I can't keep the Jade Worldscape active for much longer! That strange World Pressure of his is so powerful! " Her fingers bled as she clenched the shaft of the scepter. At the moment, she was borrowing the power of the Paramount Jade Realm and Ultimate Elementus Realm to establish a unique Worldscape. It wasn't an illusion, per-se, but an entirely different, ever-changing world that adapted Jade Intent's innate power of reflection and the Elemental Origin Intent's power of endless permutations and transformations. 

An entire world that shifted perfectly with the outside world. Wu Y wasn't inside an illusion, he was inside an exact, ever-evolving imitation of his perceivable world. The ninety-nine pearls were like recording devices for the environment. As for their clones, they were just reflections of themselves.

"Is it ready?!" Gong Lau asked Han Yuhei who was cycling through several hand-seals at astonishing speeds. Their trump card wasn't the Paramount Jade, Ultimate Elementus Array, but the Nine-Divine Elemental Star Array. It was the only true offensive formation, forged and infused with the continuous power of the True Element Sect's Earthly Saints for millennia, including all the available power of their army below.

Even the Imperial Clan would be terrified of this death star. There was a reason their main planet was Origin. 

Han Yuhei's veins were popping out of his temples. "Close," he said through gritted teeth. He couldn't just use a tenth of the Nine-Divine Elemental Star Array's power, he had to use all of it to ensure no survival. Unfortunately, it had a heavy strain and enormous charge time to reach full power. Of course, this 'enormous' was relative to Earthly Saints.

In real-time, only nine seconds were required. 

But with it, even a Worldly Saint might not survive the resulting attack.

"Get ready to halt the pearl!" Han Yuhei warned. There was five seconds that had passed already

"Argh!" Zhang Ziyi shouted in agony. Her fingertips exploded in jade-colored blood. "Damnit!" She exclaimed as she exhausted more of her mystic power, tapping into more energy of the two secret realms, draining the Elementus Domain's planets' core even further. Only after reinforcing herself did she keep up with Wu Yu's antics. 

Wu Yu, on the other hand, had slayed the last strange copy. Then, three thousand more copies appeared. He looked at Han Yuhei and said: "Little Yu, your struggle is incredibly cute. I wonder what your nanny is up to?" 

"..." Han Yuhei's expression remained the same, containing that smile within his eyes. Wu Yu frowned, realizing that his instincts were right. Han Yuhei wasn't here. These were illusions, but they felt real. 

"Maybe they are real…" He frowned, blocking another strike from a Gong Lau copy. A cold light flashed in his eyes as he looked around the world. "This is beyond me. Maybe a World Sect truly is terrifying, but I don't think its enough." 

Wu Yu tapped into his refined Imperial Heaven Aura. He was already in the 1st Grand Transformation, unleashing his Imperial Pressure empowered by mana-grade Mystic Runes, but he decided to no longer hold back. A sensation of impending crisis kept rising within him, so he decided to forego any playful delays.

2ND GRAND TRANSFORMATION!

He exhausted his refined Imperial Heaven Aura, elevating his innate energies by a notch, elevating his overall power to another level. In this state, he was almost fifty percent stronger than before, including his Mystic Aura and Imperial Pressure. 

The copies of Zhang Ziyi, Gong Lau, and Han Yuhei were blown away as a tempest of Mystic Aura stretching for tens of thousands of miles tore them asunder, eliminating them all in a second. However, he frowned as he felt a strange response from the ninety-nine pearls. They were seemingly unaffected. While he didn't expect them to explode, he at least expected them to move. 

Suddenly, three thousand more copies formed. If he could hear outside the Worldscape, the cry of agony from Zhang Ziyi had reached full-blown screaming levels. 

Wu Yu's eyes frowned for a moment, and then, like a bolt of lightning, the light of enlightenment flitted through his eyes. With a grin, he formed a hand-seal. 

He had never activated this state in live combat! 

3RD GRAND TRANSFORMATION!

"No! I can't hold him! USE IT!!!" Zhang Ziyi cried out as her scepter exploded in her hands, eviscerating her arms. As soon as the scepter exploded into pieces, the ninety-nine pearls shot beams of concentrated light toward the pearl trapping Wu Yu as it came to screeching halt. From within, Wu Yu's intense aura caused the surface of the pearl to experience cracks all over, seemingly on the brink of total collapse, only sustaining itself from the reinforcements from the ninety-nine beams of light. It was unknown how long this last-ditch attempt of Zhang Ziyi would be able to hold Wu Yu in place. 

This was their chance! Zhang Ziyi had fought hard, using almost all of her power to achieve this single moment. She was incredibly exhausted, losing both arms, and her aura dropped to the absolute abyss. 

Han Yuhei gritted his teeth. It was only seventy percent charged! But hearing the explosion from the scepter, he could only end it all here and now. With a slam of his two palms forward, Origin's surface blazed wildly. 

Shhhhrrrrrrrr!

SZOOOOOOOM!!!

A fiery beam of concentrated elemental origin power several miles thick shot out of Origin at hellishly unimaginable speeds! It was all focused on Wu Yu!