What shocked Tianming even more was that the specter’s face was identical to his own! If it weren’t for the difference in physique, Tianming would have thought he was fighting himself, though Xiao didn’t become a complete copy as his expressions were clearly different.
“Why did you turn into me?!” Tianming said.
“Stop playing the fool. This is just a face reveal, a trait of our people.”
Apparently the face reveal involved turning their face into the opponent’s, but what was the point of that? As Tianming was mulling it over, white fog suddenly came out of Xiao’s face. After the face change, he seemed stronger than before. The fog immediately surrounded Tianming and seemed like an ability. Eventually, many cloudy faces could be seen within the fog, up to a thousand of them surrounding Tianming. Every one of them was Tianming’s own face, save that each one stretched tens of meters across. They were able to emote as if they were alive.
“What in the world is this?” Tianming wondered as he looked at the confusing sight.
“Thousand-face Prison!” Xiao growled as he glared at Tianming, sword in hand. Clearly, the thousand fog faces were connected to Xiao’s own face.
“Well, I don’t care what this is. I’ll just destroy it.” Tianming used even more force and charged in for the kill. This time he used all six divine hazard sword ki strands in his body, embodying the Silverdragon, Whitedragon, Blackdragon, Blazedragon, Blooddragon, and Fienddragon! The six dragons fused together as the strikes blended together and formed the Sixdragon Tribulation.
“Die!” This was the strongest strike he could muster without his totems and lifebound beasts. He rose into the sky and slashed, causing six dragons to come bearing down.
“Ugh!” Almost instantly, Xiao pulled back the thousand faces and put them between Tianming and himself. Then their eyes projected white sword light as their mouths opened up to unleash a loud scream. Fog came pouring out of their noses, all of them trying to stop Tianming’s attack with their own. Xiao wielded the faces like he would a thousand shields; his sword also emitted divine hazard sword ki.
“Break!” Tianming’s strike was furiously fierce. When his sword fell, the overwhelming sword ki neutralized the attacks from the thousand faces and directly struck them. The sound of shattering glass rang out as the faces crumbled.
“Huh?!” This time around, Tianming saw Xiao’s surprised expression.
“Die!” The chaos of elements cared nothing for any defense Xiao put up. The Grand-Orient Sword immediately smashed into his head, tearing his mimicked face apart.
“You!” Xiao raged, but Tianming had completely crushed him and turned him to dust. He was killed right then and there! The Thousand-face Prison also vanished, causing the fog to recede, though Xiao’s groan of unwilling rage still lingered in the air.
Tianming shrugged, basking in his victory. “Interesting technique you have there. But in the face of absolute strength, not even your tricks can do much.”
Though the battle had been really short, the nineteen-year-old third-level solarian had left a deep impression on Tianming. “If he’d been older, possibly around thirty and a level or two higher, then he’d be hard to deal with.”
Not to mention, Xiao had underestimated Tianming and didn’t go all out before Tianming defeated him, though his trick did seem rather intriguing.
“So there are some races that can stand at the peak of the food chain. Looks like there’s a good reason why they rule a deific-class nova source world.” Tianming recognized their formidability. He couldn’t even imagine having such a backing and legacy. Even so, that didn’t dampen his fighting spirit; defeating Xiao was only the start of his rise in the Astraldome.
“The folks from Skyway Tristar must be accusing me of bullying someone much younger than me by using my age advantage… but they’re far away and have nothing to do with me. It’s good enough that my fans know how strong I really am.” He wanted to see what it was like in his hometown’s wondersky realm right now. Even so, the fight had left him a little dissatisfied.
“Xiao was far too young to be a good match, and I can’t use my totems nor lifebound beasts here, so it’s pretty pointless.” He looked up at the hole in the sky, the pathway toward the fourth level. “Let’s hope there’s others on the level of Xiao there, but older. Hopefully an absolute genius of my age! If I defeat a few more, I’m sure I’ll be able to ask for another manna imperius, right?”
With that in mind, he put away his sword and entered the hole above. He had heard that most disciples under the age of thirty wouldn’t be able to enter the fifth level. In other words, the strongest of those under thirty would be gathered at the fourth level. That would be a most exciting battlefield!
Naturally, he would first have to collect his reward before going there. As Tianming expected, the audiences from Skyway Tristar and Violetglory had different reactions. In the former, many supported Xiao and complained about the injustice of the alleged age difference. Xiao had wanted to go to the fourth level to prove himself as one of the best disciples under thirty. Many absolute geniuses from peak clans shone there, some of whom were his elder siblings. He had prepared for quite a long time to make his advancement, only for Tianming to cut him off right before he had achieved his goal. That wasn’t even the worst part. People had been expecting him to teach the bumpkin a lesson, only for the exact opposite thing to happen.
“Those fools know nothing but showing off in front of young folks like you. Don’t worry, Xiao. Those of us on the fourth level will utterly trash him!”
That instant, all the faceless specters within their age bracket entered the fourth level of the Tranquil Battlefield.
There was a completely opposite reaction among the Violetglorians. The seniors who were aware of the status of the faceless specters were all stumped when they saw Tianming crush Xiao.
“If this goes on, he’ll really be on par with the absolute geniuses of his age across the entire astralscape!” It was a stifling thing to consider. Then again, that was assuming that all of the best people in the universe had access to the Astraldome, something that was still in doubt.
