While a battle of epic proportions erupted in the thunderstorm ring, the massive region just past the thunderstorm was undergoing some earth-shaking changes as well.
In this world where there was always a dense concentration of clouds in the sky that blocked the sun, three moons, and stars of Arcadia, a massive white moon and a massive crimson sun climbed into the clouds side by side.
As one rotates clockwise while the other rotates counterclockwise, a subtle connection of mutual dependence formed between the two, while the multicolored energy within hundreds of miles began to dim in capacity with every passing moment.
Six illusory halberds split from the body of the original as they began to rotate within the body of the crimson sun, exponentially expediting the speed of its revolutions and in turn, affecting both the moon and the rush of worldly energy all around.
Deep inside the mountain belly, the cocoon of pure thunderforce began to crack and split, intense vibrations pulsating off its surface. These vibrations pulsed outside and seemed to cross the distance of hundreds of miles, reaching the border of the 81 Divine Pools before settling as a thin membrane, a dome reaching far into the heavens and entrenched deep into the earth.
Each of the external 81 Divine Pools seemed to become a pillar that melded into this transparent pulse of pure thunderforce, ejecting the worldly energy from the underground energy veins directly into the barrier. Then, the same phenomenon repeated with the core 36 Divine Pools.
The external pillars worked to prevent the invasion of the chaotic energies whilst the core pillars cleansed and purified the remnants within the formation. Moreover, with the energy veins directly supplementing energy to the formation, this was even better than what Leonardo had expected.
RUMBLE!
BOOM!
The crazily spinning sun suddenly ejected the bloodthirsty armament, leaving behind but a group of lingering silhouettes while the original was thrumming with so much residual energy that the space around it twisted.
Before Wendy could even react to the change, nine feet tall halberd struck the cocoon of pure thunderforce, resulting in an explosion that shook the mountain peak, the sky, and the earth.
Shocked, Wendy quickly raised her hand to form a dense membrane of multicolored worldly energy that eroded most of the stray shockwaves, but the remnants still sent her reeling back dozens of miles after blasting through the crumbling walls of the mountain.
Shocked, she looked up to see the naked Leonardo suspended in mi-air, his once short hair now stretched to his waist, flapping wildly with its silver sheen. However, what caught her eye was the nine feet tall halberd that plunged into his chest, seemingly piercing his heart.
However, Leonardo's vitality hadn't diminished the least. On the contrary, it exploded, rising exponentially as the bloodthirsty armament melted into streams of dense blood that rushed into Leonardo's heart.
Leonardo's heart began to beat wildly, each beat injecting this new blood into his veins, whilst his old blood kept gushing out from the cracks in his skin that was yet to recover after the tempering of the body.
When the bloodthirsty martial intent sensed the threat of immediate assimilation, which was Leonardo's previous idea as he truly had no skills for polearms, it instinctively began to resist.
The clash of such a high-tier martial intent and an Immortal Scripture resulted in the former phenomenon, but the bloodthirsty armament still managed to escape the bindings of the Immortal Scripture nonetheless, initiating a premature evolution from the weapon form to the full body armor instead.
This should have only been possible once Leonardo advanced to the realm of a divinity. However, due to the tempering of his body, it might have become just about enough to use a rudimentary form of the bloodthirsty armament's armor form.
Thus, as more of the halberd flooded into Leonardo's heart, the dark red blood gushing from his split skin suddenly began to shine, slowly transitioning into a glimmering, beautiful crimson that wove like silken threads around Leonardo's figure.
Within moments, a set of luxurious crimson robes, high boots, fingerless gloves, and a long black cape appeared on Leonardo's body.
On his right shoulder was the image of a slowly spinning moon, on his left shoulder was the image of a slowly spinning sun, and in his eyes was a dimly lit river of stars. As the phenomenon of the sun and the moon above began to fade into Leonardo's body, dull grey inscriptions surfaced across the crimson robes, similar to the ones that covered the surface of the bloody halberd in the past.
Suddenly, the river of stars in Leonardo's eyes and the long black cape disappeared simultaneously, leaving Leonardo in a set of red and grey robes marked by a silver moon and a crimson sun.
A few seconds later, even the robes disappeared, leaving Leonardo by his lonesome, suspended and naked.
A moment later, some clarity returned to his unfocused eyes. A quick inspection on the inside delighted him as he was already at level 51, every cell in his body thrumming with boundless power.
Each cell was like a crystalline black pearl with the sun, moon, and stars revolving across its surface. Occasionally, ink-black streaks of lightning would flash by, revealing that the suns were in fact clusters of boiling blood.
This frightening change to Leonardo's cells shocked him as they no longer conformed with his understanding of the human body and its biology or physiology, but his attention was quickly drawn to the heap of destruction all around him on the outside world.
More accurately, after he landed on the ground, what shocked him most was Wendy's transformation. Particularly her long multicolored hair, glimmering eyes, and the boundless feeling of danger her body gave off.
With a hint of doubt, he reached out to grab her wrist as his spiritual strength buzzed, spiritual energy channeling through his desolate martial intent and pouring into her body for an inspection.
What he found even shocked him to the core.
Her cells were actually evolving!
The process was slow, but the multicolored energy was steadily invading, deconstructing, and eventually reconstructing them. This process was very familiar to Leonardo as he was subjected to the same reconstructing process in the Exiled Paradise.
This made him doubt his understanding of the middle realms, or perhaps Arcadia, or perhaps the origins of this multicolored energy…
"Is there anything wrong with this disciple, master?"
After watching Leonardo's expression change over a hundred times in a split second, while he stood there naked holding her wrist, Wendy couldn't help but ask while tilting her head curiously.
"What?!" Leonardo jumped in shock at her question.
Master? He seemed to remember something, his expression growing odd.
"I've already gained so much from you, and although you're reluctant to, I'm still willing to be your disciple," Wendy spoke her thoughts seriously, calculating indifference had long since replaced the curious playfulness in her once innocent gaze.
Leonardo even suspected this to be the sentimental passivity of her anti-matter martial intent, which is something only she can solve after going through her own trial of the heart.
Just as Leonardo sighed and was about to say something, his expression changed.
Both Leonardo and Wendy looked in the direction of the thunderstorm ring, feeling a boundless aura brewing and on the verge of eruption.
"Cultivators?" Wendy raised her eyebrows, confused.
"This is bad!" Leonardo cursed, his body flashing ahead with inconceivable speed.
"Master, you're not wearing anything!" Wendy also rushed after him, her cold voice echoing in the air.
A few seconds after their departure, the sonic blasts from the sound barrier breaking finally echoed, but their figures had long since disappeared.
Although Wendy seemed very powerful, that was in fact a misconception resulting from her powerful physique that was now on par with a divine artifact, but her cultivation base was still in the borders of the initial mortal cycles.
Her constitution was still undergoing its transformation, so she couldn't actually start accumulating energy as it would all be swept by her multicolored energy in the process. Thus, within a few seconds, she could no longer spot Leonardo's back as he was relying on both his now powerful physique and cultivation base to tear through space while bolting ahead like a streak of white light.
Wendy could only grit her teeth and run across the high mountains and flat lands in an attempt to catch up with her master.
…
Explosions filled the dark cloudy sky and the dry, cracked earth.
At the beginning of the battle, the saints were caught off guard and didn't know the particular laws of this region of absolute lightning. However, as soon as they did, they activated the formations of the spacecrafts which erected a massive chain of barriers isolating the lightning outside while trapping the hidden tribe's warriors inside.
Since then, the battle became even more bloodied as the long-distance assaults were no longer useful, and the warriors desperately tried to close the distance between themselves and the saints of the opposing army.
No one knew how many people had died on either side, but ultimately, the battle finally disturbed one of the high saints into making a move.
A domain of sharp sword intent enveloped the entire battlefield as the image of a massive sword climbed into the sky, blasting apart the clouds.
This was a sword that merged with heaven and earth, causing the thunderstorm to grow dim and the laws in this domain to fall meek before its presence, it was a sword that planted seeds of despair in the hearts of everyone present.
"Die!"
A cold snort resounded as the sword descended slowly, though the spiritual and worldly energy contained within seemed to lock down space itself as the strike landed on a dense formation of hidden tribe warriors.