The azure pellet was now moving at more than four times its previous speed.
Ning Ying, like a cat whose fur stood on end, felt a shiver of dread course through her entire body. It was too late to recall her Magical Treasure for defense. She ducked her head, tucking in her neck, and threw all her strength into dodging diagonally.
With a heavy thud, Ning Ying let out a blood-curdling scream.
Amidst her cries, her dodging body was sent flying. The high temperature produced a series of sickening hisses.
The chunks of flesh that flew out, now without the protection of Spirit Power, were instantly incinerated, leaving behind only the nauseating stench of burnt flesh.
Although the airborne Ning Ying had dodged the fatal blow, her entire left shoulder blade had been blasted away. None of her former captivating beauty remained; her gruesome state resembled that of a vengeful ghost.
It all happened too fast. From the moment Lin Xinghe executed the Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art to his attack, his fingers moved like the wind. Ning Ying's words still echoed in the air, overlapping with her wretched screams.
Everything was over in an instant. By the time Ning Ying's body was sent flying, Lin Xinghe had just finished speaking his last few words.
On the other side, Xue Qianzong witnessed the scene and was utterly horrified, his heart pounding with anxiety. In his previous assault, he had already unleashed his full magical power.
But although he had battered the Flame Giant until flames shot out in all directions and it roared in pain, seemingly on the verge of collapse, its body swayed as it struggled to gather the red light at its feet.
It relentlessly threw punch after punch, unleashing a rain of fireballs without ceasing.
This caused Xue Qianzong's Spirit Power to deplete at an alarming rate. He estimated he could defeat the Flame Giant in another twenty breaths or so.
This sudden turn of events caught Xue Qianzong completely off guard. He was a decisive man. A fierce light flashed in his eyes as he slapped a hand against his lower abdomen, his face immediately contorting in pain.
Then, he spat out a crystal-white object, only the size of a fingernail. Throughout their fight, any flesh and blood that spilled out would be incinerated by the cavern's high temperature in the next moment.
However, when this crystal-white object came into contact with the heat and flames of the cave, the space around it actually began to warp, yet it showed no sign of melting.
Xue Qianzong no longer cared about anything else. He unhesitatingly unleashed the Origin Power from his Demonic Core. This was a power that even he could not withstand once released. Without one or two hundred years of secluded cultivation, he would never recover.
This meant that for the next one or two centuries, his cultivation would not advance a single inch, which would in turn affect the expansion of the entire Snow Moon Wolf Clan.
In an instant, the crystal-white object struck the body of the wolf-tooth club that Xue Qianzong had summoned.
The wolf-tooth club erupted in a brilliant white light, materializing a snow-white giant wolf in mid-air. Its red eyes glowed with an eerie light as it shook its head and wagged its tail. Its four claws extended like sharp long sabers, and its bone-white teeth radiated a chilling glint.
With a long howl, it pounced on the Flame Giant. Its claws slashed through the air like the wind, and its massive maw bit down viciously.
In a flash, it was entangled with the Flame Giant, trying to tear it apart and force it back so he could go rescue Ning Ying.
But at that moment, the Flame Giant also let out a heavy, furious roar that shook the entire cave violently.
It threw its arms wide open, allowing the snow-white giant wolf's claws to tear and its teeth to rip, and wrapped it in a death grip.
The snow-white giant wolf, shocked and enraged, bit down on the Flame Giant's head again and again like a ferocious storm, tearing off a large chunk of flame with each bite.
In an instant, the Flame Giant's face was mangled beyond recognition, but it held on to the snow-white giant wolf, refusing to let go.
In a secret chamber deep within Falling Star Valley, Tianxingzi leaned weakly against the wall, only one arm still struggling to form cultivation manuals.
But the speed of his arm's movements grew slower and slower. His aura had already dropped to the Late-stage Golden Core. Looking at the scene in the cave displayed on the light screen before him, a smile touched his blood-stained lips.
'Xinghe, you have done well. Xing Ming is like me, but you are more like my deceased junior brother. The Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art... you have guts, you truly have guts. I haven't even used it myself, yet you went ahead and did it first.'
On the other side, Xue Qianzong let out a furious roar. The Flame Giant before him had already forced him to use his Demonic Core, and he had even suffered a great loss of vital energy to unleash the Origin Power he had painstakingly condensed over a thousand years.
But for a short time, he still had the frustrating feeling of being unable to exert his full strength.
If it were a normal living creature, its head having been mangled so horribly, its physical body would surely be unable to fight.
But this opponent's entire body was composed of flames, and even in this state, it clung to him relentlessly.
Xue Qianzong knew that this Flame Giant must have a fatal weakness somewhere. If he could find it, he could kill it with a single blow.
But such weaknesses were always hidden by the formation's creator in the most secretive of places. They had only been fighting for fifty or sixty breaths; he had not yet been able to find it.
Therefore, he couldn't even unleash the strongest attack of his wolf-tooth club.
Besides its powerful offensive and destructive capabilities, the greatest secret of this Magical Treasure was the fur of the snow-white giant wolf it manifested.
In an instant, every single strand of fur could transform into a fine needle and be shot out. Once these needles entered an enemy's body, they would travel throughout their system with their Spirit Power and blood.
The opponent would suffer the agony of ten thousand needles piercing their body in an instant, losing all their magical power. In extreme pain, they would curl into a ball, hands and feet touching, head connected to their abdomen, and die screaming.
Such a vicious Magical Treasure was completely useless against the Flame Giant before him.
He had, of course, tried releasing some of the needles earlier, but they had passed straight through its body and struck the stone wall of the cave behind it. This was a body made of flame, without substance.
Xue Qianzong's physical body retreated rapidly while he directed his cultivation manual to attack the Flame Giant.
But in this sea of fire, the Flame Giant was like a sovereign emperor. Amid its muffled roars, it allowed the snow-white giant wolf to wreak havoc in its embrace.
Its arms continued to stretch, and wherever its long limbs passed, the surrounding flames rapidly converged toward them. Its arms grew at a rate far faster than Xue Qianzong's retreat.
In the blink of an eye, it had encircled Xue Qianzong's upper body and was pulling him fiercely into its embrace. He had a feeling that the Flame Giant was about to unleash some kind of killing move.
With a cold snort, he had already fought the Flame Giant for some time. He knew that although the person controlling it from behind could use the flames here to execute divine abilities, their actual strength was only on par with his own.
As he retreated, his originally fair hands and ten fingers suddenly transformed into two pairs of sharp wolf claws covered in thick, dark fur. These claws were nothing like the ones manifested by the distant snow-white giant wolf.
This was Xue Qianzong's true physical body. A vortex of ice and snow howled around his claws, causing the temperature of the entire cave to drop by several degrees in an instant.
Xue Qianzong's thick, furry arms swung wide, and ten sharp gusts of wind from his fingers slashed toward the closing, massive arms.
The next moment, something astonishing happened. The originally aggressive attack... the moment the ten sharp finger winds touched the edge of the arms, the long limbs disintegrated in an instant.
And in the distance, the Flame Giant, its head torn to shreds, staggered back, its massive body swaying. Its form once again grew illusory.
This phenomenon had occurred a few times before, but each time it lasted only for a very brief moment before it recovered. This time, however, it was clearly lasting much longer.
"This trick again?"
For a moment, Xue Qianzong was filled with suspicion and uncertainty, and he dared not press the attack.
Was the opponent doing this on purpose, or was the controller truly running out of strength? He couldn't be sure anymore.
On the few previous occasions, he had taken advantage of the opportunity to nearly regroup with Ning Ying, and might even have defeated the Flame Giant in one fell swoop, but those times he had also nearly fallen for the opponent's trap.
Believing that the hidden controller, Tianxingzi, had suffered a relapse from his severe injuries, Xue Qianzong attacked when he saw a flaw in the Flame Giant.
Just as he was about to succeed, his heart filled with excitement, the Flame Giant immediately launched a deadly and fierce counterattack, which nearly got Xue Qianzong killed.
Now that the Flame Giant was acting this way again, Xue Qianzong no longer believed it. He would only be confident once he had personally dispersed it.
This was the perfect opportunity for him to turn back and regroup with Ning Ying. He didn't go immediately, afraid of leaving his back exposed to the enemy and being grievously wounded by the Flame Giant.
But he wouldn't let such a chance slip by. He just needed to handle it with caution.
Xue Qianzong's claws glowed with a blinding silvery-white light. He gave a fierce push toward the staggering, retreating Flame Giant, and ten ice spikes radiating a cold light shot forward with a howl.
The moment the ice spikes appeared, they clashed intensely with the surrounding high temperature, and a loud hissing filled the air.
This time, the ice spikes had the upper hand. A great swathe of coolness appeared in the unbearably hot cave, like a refreshing breeze on a summer day.
Then, to Xue Qianz's somewhat stunned expression, the ten ice spikes pierced into the retreating Flame Giant without any fanfare.
The ice spikes did not pass through it like the fine wolf hairs, but remained lodged within the Flame Giant's body.
The Flame Giant let out a pained roar. Ten transparent holes appeared on its body, and the cold energy from within them spread rapidly.
The Flame Giant's crimson body quickly dimmed and, in the blink of an eye, began to look illusory.
Xue Qianzong quickly reacted, but after his previous experiences, he still couldn't be sure if this was a deeper trap set by the opponent.
Thus, he pointed a finger at the snow-white giant wolf. With a fierce "Awooo!", the wolf's body spun, its massive tail lashing toward the Flame Giant with the force of a thousand tons.
With a loud bang, flames scattered.
To Xue Qianzong's delight, the Flame Giant, which had already become somewhat illusory, was split in two by this blow and was dissipating at an even faster rate.
All of this happened in less than a breath's time. Lin Xinghe, who was rapidly catching up to Ning Ying, suddenly paused as he felt the strange disturbance behind him.
When his Divine Sense swept over the area, his expression changed drastically. At that moment, Tianxingzi's incredibly weak voice echoed in his mind.
"Xue Qianzong is... desperate. I... I... I no longer have the strength to control the... the formation. You... ten breaths. I... I'm going to use the 'Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art'..."
His words came to an abrupt halt.
Deep within the inner valley, Tianxingzi tremblingly raised a finger. Though unwilling, he knew that he and Lin Xinghe had reached a dead end.
After Lin Xinghe used the Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art, Tianxingzi knew that the final opportunity had arrived.
But just as he was controlling the Flame Giant to hold Xue Qianzong at all costs, Xue Qianzong recklessly unleashed the origin of his Demonic Core, making a desperate gamble.
With the snow-white giant wolf's attack power multiplied, Tianxingzi was forced to deal with it with all his might. But at that very moment, he suddenly felt as if ten thousand knives were churning in his Dantian.
In just an instant, he lost seventy percent of his strength. What flowed from the corner of Tianxingzi's mouth was no longer blood, but a thick, green substance.
The last trace of his Essence Blood had been squeezed out. Cracks had appeared on his Golden Core, and it was beginning to show signs of shattering completely.
If he were to forcefully draw out any more power, his Golden Core would shatter within five breaths. With his Essence Blood nearly depleted, he would be unable to recover through cultivation and would surely die.
Tianxingzi also knew that doing so would be meaningless. Five breaths was too short a time; it wasn't enough to kill the enemy.
Thus, he forced his Divine Sense to transmit a message to Lin Xinghe.
His words were fragmented and disjointed, but he knew Lin Xinghe would understand.