I have added this story to my Patreon. You can support me and read the latest chapters there. It also fed and motivate me to write more chapters!
Patreon Link: Patreon.com/NineClouds69
--- Chapter 483 ---
BOOM!
The storm had barely reached its peak when the encirclement made by the Title Douluo powerhouses fractured.
Yes, as Yun Ming and the formation of experts were preparing to descend on the designated island, a violent, high-frequency tremor suddenly rippled through their spiritual senses.
A mind-stirring alarm blared directly within their spiritual seas, sending a shockwave of sheer confusion through the weaker Title Douluos and throwing the tightly coordinated formation into chaos.
Then came the flash.
It was a streak of blinding silver-gold light that cleaved through the dark, stormy sky.
In a single, seamlessly fluid arc of motion, the divine light intercepted the forefront of the assault, colliding directly with the Red Mechas deployed by the Tang Sect.
There were no grand, drawn-out exchanges of soul skills. There was only the brutal, horrific sight of divine-grade alloys torn apart and the sudden, pressurized implosion of cockpit hulls.
Before the Title Douluo pilots could even register the breach of their own defense, the sharp silver-gold streak had passed through them, reducing both war machines and their master-level owner into a rain of vaporized, burning scrap metal.
Everything happened within a fraction of a millisecond.
Even for a Quasi-God powerhouse like Yun Ming, whose perception was fundamentally one step away from divinity, the strike was simply too fast to intercept or preemptively block.
And that single, terrifying reality spoke volumes about the nature of this counter-ambush.
When the spatial and atmospheric distortion eventually returned under Yun Ming's presence, the surrounding powerhouses regained control, all eyes locked onto the figure hovering directly in the center of the ruins.
It was a tall, metallic, silver-gold humanoid entity whose face was hidden behind an intricate, sculpted demon mask. From its back, two majestic, jet-black wings of flames grew, producing an invisible gravitational pull that caused the surrounding space to visibly warp, bend, and twist with every movement.
"What on earth... is that thing?" Tang Tian, the iron-willed Sect Master of the Clear Sky Sect, gripped his Clear Sky Hammer, staring at the silver-gold mechanical demon in disbelief.
"I can't sense a single drop of soul power or life aura from it," Chen Bofan, the acting clan head of the Sea God Clan, reported, his voice tight as his sea domain perception continuously slid off the smooth metallic frame of the entity.
"Those were Red Divine Mechas... They can take a beating from a Limit Douluo, yet were destroyed instantly!" Rong Tian's expression turned incredibly grim, a dark shadow looming over his face.
The cost and material needed to forge one Red Mecha were astronomical, and we hadn't counted the immense effort, time, and cultivation required for the Title Douluo pilots to use them. After all, Red Divine Mecha were essentially alive, merged into one's spirit.
For this unknown entity to slaughter them easily meant they were dealing with something that exceeded the standard definitions of martial power on the continent.
Only Yun Ming remained entirely silent. His solemn, piercing gaze never left the silver-gold figure, his grip tightening around the Atlas Spear as if he feared that losing visual contact for even a microsecond would allow the 'creature' to vanish from his perception entirely.
'Why do I feel I was facing a being beyond the realm of mortals?' He felt an acute sense of existential wrongness radiating from this being. 'It is like facing a divinity, a flawed one.'
At first, his instinct had assumed it was an enemy powerhouse donning a set of four-word or even the rumored five-word Battle Armor. Or perhaps a new, autonomous, high-tier experimental Mecha influenced by the odd, existential threat oracled by Shrek's Ancient Golden Tree.
Yet, no matter how deeply his Quasi-God divine sense scanned the silver-gold humanoid, he failed to detect a single organic component.
There was no heartbeat, no blood flow, no spiritual sea, and absolutely no 'human' element.
It was a flawless, cold manifestation of pure engineering.
A literal machine!
"What am I even hesitating for..." Yun Ming finally shook his head, clearing his mind as his aura exploded outward, forcing the ocean waves to flatten beneath his sheer weight. "If I simply erase you from existence, there will be no need to overcomplicate things."
"Everyone... fall back immediately."
"The shockwaves of this fight will be beyond your tolerance. And I cannot guarantee your protection while fighting this anomaly-!"
"Erase... me?"
The silver-gold humanoid, who was none other than Xu Deming using his newly synthesized, first-tier Divine Mechanical Body, slowly and lazily tilted his demon-masked head.
"Hah! You pathetic, primitive bunch of domestic dogs actually possess the gall... to dream of terminating me?!"
"ME?!"
A digitized, heavily modified laugh echoed through the storm, carrying an incredibly jarring, synthetic resonance upon hearing the Pavilion Master's words.
Xu Deming was, by his very nature, an exceptionally arrogant pioneer of the mechanical ascension path.
The only reason he had behaved with any cordiality and restraint around Han Yuan was not merely because the boy had acted as his savior, but because even Gnosia's advanced quantum processing matrix had been incapable of estimating the true, incomprehensible depth of Han Yuan's power.
But how could a man like Yun Ming, who was fundamentally shackled to the corrupt, stagnant force of a decaying plane, ever hope to compare to an anomaly like Han Yuan?
In the broken archives of the Glory City Xu Deming had retrieved from his previous timeline, several corrupted visual data logs displayed Han Yuan's terrifying feats, records showing the silver-haired young man destroying a fully manifested Divine Domain with his own superior domain, and even a Divine Tool with a single, illogical strike.
Even now, simply recalling the spatial fractures left by that strike sent a shiver through Xu Deming's very core. So, Han Yuan was someone who could easily butcher a God while retaining his human form, a feat that earned Xu Deming's ultimate, undying respect.
So, compared to a monster like Han Yuan?
These self-righteous powerhouses standing before him were nothing more than obsolete, inferior biological waste!
Xu Deming wouldn't even need to sweat to break them. Of course, given his lack of sweat glands in his current glorious form, he couldn't break a sweat even if he wanted to.
His optical sensors flared a brilliant, predatory crimson behind the demon mask.
"Gnosia, release the energy dampening fields," He commanded internally, his frame humming as millions, if not billions, of core arrays began to glow in perfect unison.
"Let us show these fools of the world exactly what happens when flesh attempts to contest the supremacy of the Machine!"
RinG—!
A sharp, high-frequency ringing noise suddenly vibrated across the vast ocean. A terrifying domain expanded outward from Xu Deming's metallic frame, covering not only Yun Ming and the gathered Title Douluos but also rapidly stretching out to thousands of miles of open sea.
Then, time itself came to a halt.
The brilliant colors of the ocean storm, the crimson fire of the shattered mechas, and the blue of the sea were instantly bleached away. Everything within the domain became cold, black, and white.
Crack! Boom!
Yet, before the monochromatic domain could fully lock down the reality, Yun Ming reacted with the instinct of a Quasi-God expert. A white-gold boundfield burst from the tip of the Atlas Spear as nine spirit rings—six crimson red and three deep orange-gold—manifested around his body, casting a heavenly light that defied the colorlessness of the machine.
Both domains immediately collided with tremendous force, attempting to overwhelm each other's conceptual laws and gain absolute dominion over the world.
Sparks that set the sky ablaze and threw the laws of the world into chaos fell on the spot.
Xu Deming narrowed his crimson optical sensors slightly, a digitized hum vibrating from his artificial vocal chord. "Hoh... You are actually not bad for someone bound to the limits of this plane, after all."
"The Sea God Pavilion Master, Atlas Douluo, Yun Ming."
"Well, then... Let me show you what true despair looks like!"
"Hmph! Try me!" Yun Ming responded indifferently, thrusting the glowing tip of the Atlas Spear directly at the mechanical demon.