The massive hooves of the Skyshakers came down like mountains.
Tang Jie rolled to the side, and then a second hoof stomped down onto his chest, the impact so great that he threw up blood. Before he even had a chance to rise, another hoof stomped down.
Under the command of the Venomheart King, the Skyshakers were taking turns stomping on Tang Jie, just like three elephants madly stomping down on a rat. The Venomheart King heartily laughed. "Die already, you bastard!"
"As always, Third Brother is the smart one!" The Colossus King also arrogantly laughed, and then it charged forward. "Let me lend a hand!"
It joined the ranks of the Skyshakers in stomping down on Tang Jie. After being flung around willy-nilly by Tang Jie, it finally had the opportunity to repay the humiliation it had suffered.
Tang Jie tugged the Heaven Swallowing King with him under the hooves of the Skyshakers.
The Heaven Swallowing King yowled, "Don't! I'm down here too!"
But the fiend kings were innately cold and unkind, and they cared little about their toad colleague. This was a rare opportunity, and they could not permit any mistakes, so rather than stopping, they intensified the stomping.
The people on the walls clamored, "General, save him!"
The purple-caped General Gu waved a banner, and several of the cultivators who had been waiting in reserve flew out. They had been waiting to deal with the fiend kings, but Tang Jie had gotten ahead of them.
They had barely flown out when a cry came from the distance, and another pack of fiends appeared, led by two more fiend kings.
General Gu shuddered. "The Whitebrow King! The Ghostface King! How are the two of you here?"
Having fought each other for a long time, these humans and fiends were very familiar with each other.
The Whitebrow King was a White Brow Lemur and the Ghostface King was a Greenscale Ghost Serpent. These two fiend kings were under the Ironblood Fiend Emperor. As for the Colossus, Heaven Swallowing, and Venomheart Kings, they were under the Blackwater Fiend Emperor. The Violet Flame King that Tang Jie had killed was under the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor, and besides those were also the Aurora Fiend Emperor and the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, for five Fiend Emperors in all.
The five Fiend Emperors didn't exactly get along well.
While Feng Wuxiang's intimidating power had played a part in humanity's survival up to this point, as had the desire of fiends to breed humans, the most fundamental reason was that the five Fiend Emperors had their own conflicts with each other, preventing them from working together. It was precisely these circumstances that allowed humans to survive in the cracks.
This was why the fiend kings in each assault were usually under the same Fiend Emperor. No one had expected the subordinates of two Fiend Emperors to work together, but their intentions were obvious.
Five fiend kings attacking all at once made even the general of Dongjin feel an immense pressure.
The Venomheart King chuckled. "I was thinking of catching you by surprise so that we could get some good pillaging in, but Tang Jie came out of nowhere. But this is fine too. We'll first take this human that the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor has a bounty on. It's at least better than those worthless mortal farmers. Brothers Whitebrow and Ghostface, help me hold back those cultivators!"
The Whitebrow King laughed. "Of course."
It moved toward the cultivators, while the Ghostface King charged right at the general of Dongjin, Gu Pinzhang.
Meanwhile, Tang Jie continued to be stomped on by the three Skyshakers and the Colossus King, sixteen giant feet going in rotation and giving Tang Jie no chance to get up. The Heaven Swallowing King suffered with him, but as it lacked Tang Jie's tough body, the rounds of savage stomping gradually pushed it to its limit, and its body was soon falling apart, clearly dead.
The Venomheart King and Colossus King rejoiced at Tang Jie's helplessness, but Tang Jie abruptly said, "Do you really think you've won?"
The two kings froze. It just so happened that the Colossus King was stomping down again, at which point Tang Jie raised his arms up to block, stopping fast this weighty attack. Four more arms grew out from Tang Jie's back and slammed into the Colossus King's stomach.
"Awooo!" The Colossus King howled in pain from this attack that was stronger than any other attack it had received, blasting its entire body into the sky.
Tang Jie used this opportunity to jump to his feet and punch at a Skyshaker next to him, hitting it on the ear. This was the weakest part of a Skyshaker, and as the Skyshaker was blasted back, it roared as blood gushed out from its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The power of Tang Jie's punch had gone straight into its brain.
Yet this beast still wasn't dead. But a moment later, Tang Jie's six arms unleashed nearly one hundred punches in a row at the Skyshaker.
The frenzied punches coupled with Tang Jie's roars stunned the entire battlefield. Under Tang Jie's savage pummeling, the Skyshaker toppled over.
The remaining two Skyshakers backed away in fear.
The Venomheart King was also dumbfounded, staring at Tang Jie. "You… you… you were pretending!"
Despite possessing this awesome strength, he had struggled to break free. It was clear that Tang Jie had been pretending.
Sure enough, Tang Jie glanced at the Venomheart King and then lifted the Heaven Swallowing King's corpse. "If I didn't, would you have let me kill this toad?"
Fiend kings had powerful life forces, so even the Moonswallower Toad, which wasn't known for its vitality, wasn't easy to kill. Moreover, this guy was very slippery, so while its tongue had been caught by Tang Jie, it could constantly change its length, so Tang Jie was never able to deal the toad a fatal blow. Most importantly, the Colossus King and the Venomheart King were there to interrupt him.
Tang Jie didn't forget the Venomheart King's claw from when he had seized the Colossus King.
While Tang Jie had seemed relaxed and unstoppable, a body cultivator had to face a lot of risks in battle.
As had been noted before, whether or not they could actually win, a body cultivator had to be bold and brash in battle. If they couldn't even make it seem like they had an advantage, then there was no need to fight—what future did a warrior have if they were being chased around by the spells of a mage?
For this reason, Tang Jie wasn't actually having as easy a time as it seemed. After all, these were three fiend kings, three Soul Transformation experts. Quantity had a quality all of its own, and while Tang Jie had seemed very impressive, it was actually hard for him to kill any one of them.
But the Venomheart King's scheme had given Tang Jie an opportunity.
The Venomheart King was infamous for its shameless and poisonous heart, willing to even sacrifice its allies for the sake of victory. If it intended to stomp Tang Jie to death, then it would have to give up on the Heaven Swallowing King.
What Tang Jie had to do was very simple—he just had to last longer than the Heaven Swallowing King under the hooves of the beasts.
This wasn't difficult at all.
Once the toad was dead, Tang Jie borrowed the power of the Herding Yang Pearl to break free.
Tang Jie opened his mouth and spat out the pearl.
This thing had been damaged in the battle against the Blood River, and as Tang Jie continued to get stronger, it placed more burden on it, so it was impossible to use it for very long. Thus, after using it at the key moment, he spat it back out again.
He threw out the corpse of the Heaven Swallowing King, and the toad arced through the air and landed next to Zhao Qing.
"Mine," he said.
In truth, nobody was going to try and take it from him. Everyone could see that he had been the one to kill it.
Turning to the Venomheart King, Tang Jie scornfully said, "Trying to scheme against me? You're not even close to my level."
The Venomheart King trembled in rage. It was well known among the fiends for its intelligence and schemes, and through its countless plots, it never gave the humans the opportunity to fight a proper battle, with numerous powerful foes falling at its hands. But to its surprise, Tang Jie had turned the tables and used it to kill the Heaven Swallowing King.
Removing one of the three fiend kings wasn't simply removing a third of their power. One also had to consider how closely they worked with each other and their ability to offer each other support.
Savagely smiling, Tang Jie began to walk toward the Venomheart King.
The Venomheart King was aghast. It had just experienced Tang Jie's terrifying strength, and it did not dare to let him get close. As it hastily retreated, it waved its hand, ordering the two Skyshakers to charge at Tang Jie. The Colossus King also bellowed, shooting its tusks at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie shook his arm, producing the axe made of Mother Cloud Essence Metal, blocking the tusks, and then he chopped at the Skyshaker on his right. This axe was perfect for dealing with huge beasts like the Skyshakers, a single chop causing blood to fountain from the beast. Tang Jie then raised the axe and instantly unleashed hundreds of blows, leaving the Skyshaker howling and forcing it to back away.
But after blocking the Colossus King and the Skyshaker on the right, he had no means of evading the Skyshaker on the left. This massive beast rammed into him, a sharp horn stabbing into his body. If Tang Jie hadn't been in his giant form, this strike would have pulverized his body. Having pierced through Tang Jie, the Skyshaker lifted him up.
Tang Jie's left hand flashed, and a golden weapon appeared in it.
The Sovereign Blade!
The Sovereign Blade was bigger than before, and with a shake of a hand, he had it transform into a saber and swung it down at the horn, slicing it off. The Skyshaker howled in pain as Tang Jie changed the saber into a sword and stabbed it into the Skyshaker's body. As the Sovereign Blade entered the body, it unleashed a blinding light that extended forward, piercing through the Skyshaker and out the other side, continuing its destructive path.
The Skyshaker collapsed with a howl, dying on the spot.
The Skyshakers were famous for their power, and that one on the right had taken several hundred blows from the axe and was still alive. But the one on the left had died from a single sword strike, causing the remaining two kings to back away in shock.
Tang Jie pulled out the Sovereign Blade and smiled at the Venomheart King.
The Venomheart King's heart grew cold, and it shouted, "Colossus King, hold him off while I use my Peerless Heaven Claw Divine Connection to kill him!"
Divine Connections were powers that only those at Violet Palace or Divine Division could use, but the Colossus King accepted the suggestion without hesitation, clearly not doubting that the Venomheart King had such power. It lowered its head at Tang Jie, and a powerful torrent of air shot out of its snout, moving toward Tang Jie like a tornado—it was clearly no longer bold enough to directly attack with its trunk.
Tang Jie jeered, "Idiot!"
He pulled out the Skyshaker horn embedded in his body, causing blood to gush out, and used the horn to block this attack. At the same time, he said, "Why don't you look and see if your comrade is really using that Divine Connection?"
Alarmed, the Colossus King looked back and saw that the Venomheart King really was exerting all its strength into casting the Divine Connection rather than using the opportunity to run.
Startled, it realized that something was wrong and turned to see Tang Jie's enormous body coming down on it. "I said you were an idiot, actually looking back when I told you to!"
Boom!
A giant elbow slammed into the mammoth's head, causing the mammoth to bend its forelegs and prostrate before Tang Jie.
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