louisehourcade Chapter 659: Im's Madness
Chapter 659: Im's Madness
A pure white beam of light pierced the sky. The beam continued to expand. A strange and domineering energy wave swept outwards at high speed in all directions. The wave's propulsion exceeded the sound barrier. The long distance between the sea and sky was instantly traversed.
The energy contained within the ripples is full of contradictions. A scorching vitality seeps into frozen skin. Every cell in the body begins to relax. Beneath this vitality lies a destructive force devoid of reason.
A despairing roar echoed from the heavy, black sea. Ripples swept across. The raging waters were forcibly flattened. An unseen, gigantic hand held the surface of the sea firmly. The reaction force stirred up massive ripples. The ripples spread wildly outward.
A black wall of water, tens of meters high, was lifted up. The wall carried the terrifying force of capsizing a large warship, indiscriminately scouring the area from all directions. The vast sea resembled a small pond tossed with a giant meteorite.
The seawater violently churned. Water molecules were compressed to their limits. Ancient undercurrents deep in the ocean were forcibly severed. There was not a moment's pause.
On the main battlefield, the wind and snow were like knives. Im hovered in mid-air, like a heartless god of slaughter. He lowered his head slightly. His left hand, hidden beneath his wide robe, had already been raised.
A jet-black sphere of energy, as dark as ink, was concentrated in his palm. The energy within the sphere was highly compressed. Tiny black lightning bolts flashed and disappeared wildly. All surrounding light was swallowed up. The sphere emanated an aura of destruction. The giant below was about to be completely annihilated at the molecular level.
Just before the ball of light was about to be thrown, Im's movements stopped without warning.
The five fingers of the left hand, shrouded in the shadows of the long robe, slowly opened. The destructive power, capable of crushing everything, dissipated silently. The dissipated black lightning twisted a few times, then turned into black smoke and was blown away by the gale.
Im no longer looked at Loki, who was covered in blood and on the verge of collapse. He abruptly turned his head, his gaze from under the hood fixed on the pure white pillar of light tearing through the sky in the distance.
A suffocating atmosphere spread outwards from Im in a thick, oppressive manner.
Im made a subtle adjustment to his body. He tilted his shoulder slightly. His right hand, which had been hanging casually at his side, slowly rose. His five fingers came together in front of him. The joints made a slight grinding sound.
This is no longer a casual posture of looking down on all living beings. It is a subtle adjustment to a fighting stance. Every movement of Im's joints, every tension in his muscles, exudes a long-lost solemnity.
Within the frail, sickly body, a terrifying force accumulated over a century began to awaken. The surrounding air became heavy and viscous, like mercury. Falling snowflakes were frozen in mid-air.
On the ice below, Loki was breathing heavily. His body was on the verge of collapse. His sturdy giant armor shattered into pieces. His bones groaned in agony.
Large spurts of blood dripped from his chin, splashing onto the ice in a blinding spray. The giant war god's battle instincts remained sharp.
He caught Im's distraction.
Loki roared. His eyes were bloodshot. The last remaining strength in his body, along with his burning life force, was frantically poured into the broken battle axe in his hand.
The muscle fibers in his thick arm snapped one by one. Blood gushed from his pores, turning into a gruesome blood mist. He tried to strike his enemy with his battle axe in the instant Im turned around.
The harsh reality shattered their hopes.
The battle axe wasn't fully swung. The blade had barely torn through the air when it collided with an invisible force—an unseen barrier.
Im didn't turn around to look at him. He didn't move a single finger. The automatic defense mechanism of the invisible barrier around him unleashed an unimaginable counterforce.
There were no sparks. Only deathly silence. Not even a ripple appeared on the surface of the barrier.
A deafening roar. Loki felt an overwhelming force surge through his arms from the axe handle. The bones in his iron-hard arms cracked with a crisp sound.
His hand was ripped open. The stark white bones of his fingers pierced the skin and were exposed to the air. The battle axe flew from his grasp, tumbling through the air a dozen times before crashing heavily onto the ice in the distance, creating a huge crater.
Loki's massive body was thrown back by the force of the impact, crashing heavily onto the shattered ice. Large sections of the ice collapsed, and countless ice spikes pierced his back.
He coughed up mouthfuls of blood. His desperate gaze was fixed on Im in mid-air. He had come to realize a cruel truth. The attack Im had just launched, which had cornered him, had never used its true power. Compared to Im, he was nothing more than an insect that could be crushed at any moment.
Loki was plunged into despair. Im, suspended in mid-air, underwent another strange change.
The energy barrier surrounding Im, which even the highest level of Armament Haki couldn't shake, began to materialize. Strange, dark red patterns slowly appeared in the transparent air.
The patterns are intertwined and crisscrossed, moving like living blood vessels on the surface of the barrier.
This is an ancient seal. It is being actively activated by Im at this moment.
The moment the dark red patterns lit up, a chilling, decaying stench erupted in the air. Dark power, sealed away for centuries, was reawakened.
The stench was overwhelming and nauseating. It smelled like blood that had dried for a hundred years mixed with a moldy throne. The surrounding air hissed and crackled upon contact with this stench, corroding large black holes.
The howling blizzard turned into murky, black, poisonous rain. It dripped onto the ice, corroding deep, bottomless pits.
The dark red patterns continued to spread, accelerating rapidly. They expanded outward from Im's body, forming a massive circular array several meters in diameter in mid-air.
The intricate patterns flow across the array. Each flow is accompanied by a deep hum.
The sound came from the ancient abyss, striking directly into the depths of the soul of every creature on the battlefield. The sound was mingled with the wails of countless desperate souls. It was the endless evil accumulated during Im's century-long reign over the world.
Below, Loki's dying body began to tremble violently and uncontrollably. Loki clenched his teeth tightly, until they shattered. He tried to fight off this humiliating trembling with sheer willpower.
It was futile. This wasn't a weakness of will. It was a biological instinct reacting with fear when confronted with a higher being. Every cell was screaming, urging him to flee. He had lost even the strength to stand.
The wind howls like knives at an altitude of 10,000 meters.
Chen Ye stood atop a sea of clouds, like a cold, aloof deity overlooking all living beings. His immense Observation Haki, like an invisible net, locked onto the core of the battlefield below.
He ignored Loki's miserable state. He ignored the celestial chaos. He focused all his senses on Im.
Through the raging wind and snow and the dark red, decaying barrier, Chenye precisely captured Im's lips, hidden beneath the shadow of his robe.
Im's lips parted. He murmured a few syllables.
The raging wind and snow were too loud. The explosions were too numerous. Im's whispers were completely swallowed up. No one else could hear them.
Chen Ye didn't need to listen. His Observation Haki etched every subtle movement of Im's lips into his mind.
By comparing and identifying lip shapes, Chen Ye pieced together which characters.
"Joey Boy, are you back?"
A chilling glint flashed in Chen Ye's usually calm eyes. His brows furrowed slightly. His dark golden aura fluctuated violently.
He knew all too well the weight of that title. Joy Boy was the name of the only nemesis from eight hundred years ago who could face Im head-on and instill a deep-seated fear in the King of the World.
The fact that Im called out that name at this moment meant that he had completely confirmed the identity of the owner of the pure white pillar of light.
This is no longer a war to suppress a rebellion. It is a fateful duel spanning eight hundred years.
As Chen Ye's thoughts raced, Im below made an extremely unusual move.
The moment the words left his mouth, Im jerked his head back. The hood of his wide robe slipped back.
The face, hidden for centuries and shrouded in endless darkness, revealed its outline. Though the features were indistinct, the sheer depth of the darkness was enough to cause one's soul to crumble.
Im opened his mouth.
"Hahahahahahahahahaha"
A heart-wrenching, maniacal laugh erupted from the darkness.
The laughter was shrill, like countless rusty iron saws grinding against each other in a frenzy. Extreme emotions were intertwined within the laughter.
There is a fear of the power of pure white. There is a morbid excitement at finally encountering an opponent after a century of silence. There is a deep-seated hatred that has been suppressed for eight centuries. There is a morbid ecstasy at the possibility of personally destroying a nemesis who has reappeared in the world.
A maniacal laugh pierced through the blizzard, through the explosions and carnage, echoing across the crumbling ice plains. A destructive storm of the mind indiscriminately assaulted everyone's eardrums and reason.
The laughter triggered a terrifying resonance on a physical level. The rubble on the ice below was suspended and shattered.
The white-bearded man, who was fighting the blackwater monster in the distance, suddenly stopped his Murakumo-giri. His brows furrowed, and his gaze pierced through the snowstorm towards the main battlefield. A rare solemnity flashed in his eyes.
The mindless blackwater monster, upon hearing the laughter, collapsed to the ground in terror, trembling uncontrollably. It had completely lost its will to attack.
Directly below Im.
Loki knelt on one knee on the shattered ice, listening to the maniacal laughter coming from above. His eardrums felt like they were being torn apart.
He gripped the broken handle of the battle axe tightly. His knuckles were white as paper from the excessive force, as if he were about to crush his own bones.
He used all his strength to forcefully lift his blood-soaked head. Blood flowed down his forehead and into his eyes, turning his vision blood red.
His bloodshot eyes widened as he stared intently at the figure in mid-air, enveloped in dark red patterns and laughing maniacally.
Loki gritted his teeth and forced out three words through gritted teeth.
"Are you crazy?"
His chest heaved violently. Under the combined pressure of Im's aura and laughter, the remaining organs inside his body ruptured completely. A large mouthful of dark red blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed out.
Blood splattered onto the broken ice. A horrifying sight. Loki swayed violently. His vision blurred completely.
He stood at the feet of this maddened monster. His life force was dwindling, on the verge of being extinguished.
Im's laughter in mid-air grew louder and louder. The dark red sealing array operated more and more frantically, like a terrifying black hole about to devour the world, silently awaiting the arrival of that pure white figure.