The Crimson King, his robust frame exuding a metallic sheen, his fiery red hair cascading over his chest and back, towered with an overwhelming presence.
Once a titan of a foreign realm, even after his nirvana was interrupted and he suffered grievous wounds, he did not perish but gradually recovered.
His current expression spoke volumes of his shock, revealing the gravity of the situation!
“So it’s you!” Shi Hao suddenly realized, piercing through the haze to understand the profound karmic bond between them.
Upon closer reflection, their entanglement ran deep, their karma immense—no wonder their reunion in later times had been marked by strange events.
“You truly became a force to reckon with!” The Crimson King’s scarlet hair blazed like fire, swirling with dazzling glyphs as his oppressive aura intensified.
In an instant, his divine form expanded, towering into the cosmos, stars orbiting around him as he revealed his ultimate form!
“Back then, you failed to kill me. Today, we settle this!” Shi Hao’s voice was icy as his own form surged, standing tall in the universe.
“Unthinkable, truly unthinkable!” The Crimson King sighed repeatedly, his expression darkening.
Long ago, during Shi Hao’s time at the Celestial Academy, he had ventured into the ruins of the Immortal Ancient battlefield. There, he had drunk from a flask containing the essence of Immortal Ancient—glyphs and creation itself—triggering a great karmic event that alarmed a titan upstream in the river of time.
That being, terrifying beyond measure, had peered across the ages to strike at Shi Hao, seeking to erase him from existence.
Who could alter the flow of time?
Intervening across eras was forbidden, carrying catastrophic consequences that could obliterate the meddler.
Yet, the Crimson King dared.
He and several Immortal Kings had once divined the future, seeking to avert calamity—only to discover Shi Hao.
Master of the time domain, the Crimson King acted decisively, striking from upstream to erase Shi Hao, having glimpsed a dire future.
“What I never expected was a woman in white emerging downstream to thwart me,” the Crimson King said grimly.
That day, he paid a heavy price yet failed to eliminate Shi Hao, a failure that haunted him, for he had nearly perished.
Rumors claimed the Crimson King had subdued a peerless Immortal King to steal his Dao fruits and transcend his limits.
In truth, he had fallen into slumber to recover from the karmic backlash of meddling with time.
Yet, he turned near-death into an opportunity, using that Immortal King as fuel for his rebirth.
Had he a choice, he would not have slept for an entire epoch.
Shi Hao pondered the woman in white—where was she now? Like an empress from the future, she had wounded the Crimson King downstream.
He had seen her before, stepping through epochs in the time vortex where he obtained the Indestructible Scripture, yet too distant to speak.
And at the Kun Peng’s nest, the woman folding paper boats—it was her!
What trials awaited her and her companions in the future?
“Fate is inscrutable. After my intervention in the past epoch, all memory of you vanished until today,” the Crimson King mused.
This proved the futility of altering time—even at the cost of one’s life.
If the mighty could freely reshape the past and future, what chaos would ensue?
None had ever succeeded.
Those who dared were either dead or lost to oblivion.
The Crimson King, once a peerless Immortal King, stood as proof.
“Now I see clearly—you are the one in that future fragment, a dire threat to my realm. You must die!”
Though he saw but a glimpse, the devastation Shi Hao would wreak was undeniable.
“Repay the karma of crossing time to kill me!” Shi Hao sneered.
“What karma? I sought to change fate and paid the price,” the Crimson King retorted coldly, though inwardly he acknowledged their deep entanglement.
Fifty millennia ago, Shi Hao had severed his nirvana form—perhaps karmic retribution for his past interference.
The more he pondered, the more unsettled he grew.
“Pity the woman in white saved you,” the Crimson King lamented.
Shi Hao laughed coldly. “You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“No one needed to save me. You could never have killed me.”
The Crimson King’s gaze sharpened.
“Your interference in time invoked the backlash of the cosmos. Even without her, fate would have thwarted you—through madness, death, or karmic annihilation.”
None who sought to alter time had succeeded.
The Crimson King fell silent, then nodded. “True. My actions birthed her intervention. Futile… No one can rewrite the past or disrupt the future.”
His efforts had only brought ruin.
“Settle this karma now!” Shi Hao advanced.
“You think you can escape the hunt of the Immortal Kings?” the Crimson King challenged, not out of fear but resolve—he knew the destruction Shi Hao would bring.
“Crimson King, time is not yours alone. My second Supreme Bone touched its domain!” Shi Hao laughed, having severed the space to delay reinforcements.
Their dialogue had unfolded in near-frozen time.
“Our battle will shake the heavens, exposing you!”
Boom!
The Crimson King struck, a crimson furnace spewing boundless flames that melted the cosmos, revealing the sea of realms and the churning river of time.
A titan of old, his power was unmatched.
“Die!”
Shi Hao unleashed his full might, aiming to slay the Crimson King before others arrived.
This was no protracted duel but a clash of ultimate techniques.
With sword-wings from Ao Sheng and the heavenly halberd of Taishi, Shi Hao struck.
Clang!
The crimson furnace, tempered with an Immortal King’s essence, erupted with cosmic symbols, shattering the void as the river of time entwined them.
A battle of legends!
Shi Hao sought a decisive kill, but the Crimson King evaded, shielding with his furnace.
“Eternal as time itself!”
The Crimson King slashed his wrist, blood morphing into temporal blades aimed at Shi Hao’s neck.
Shi Hao’s sword-wings repelled the assault as he roared, cycling his supreme techniques into a single fist.
Boom!
The power of Samsara and time engulfed the Crimson King as Shi Hao’s fist, blazing with thunder and primordial truth, struck true.
Clang!
The crimson furnace blocked again, but the Crimson King smirked, unveiling a small bell.
Its chime shattered time, drowning Shi Hao in temporal tides.
“Now, unshackled, none can stop me!” the Crimson King bellowed, his fury unleashed.
Shi Hao’s hair whitened, his body aged by the bell’s power—the Crimson King’s ultimate weapon, refined over eons.
Yet Shi Hao smiled.
His six realms blazed, severing time’s grip, restoring his youth.
His form shifted—a bell, a pagoda, a cauldron—embodying infinite Dao.
Boom!
A pool manifested beneath him, brimming with esoteric glyphs as visions unfolded:
Layers of heavens elevating Shi Hao, cosmic lotuses blooming, time’s river nourishing them.
Flames wreathed him like sacred raiment, phoenix cries echoing as his fists split the universe like Kun Peng’s wings.
His strike fused Thunder Emperor’s law, Kun Peng’s truth, Phoenix’s rebirth, Primordial Scripture, Indestructible Essence, and Grass Sword Art—perfected into one blow.
Unstoppable!
The Crimson King, drowned in visions of lotuses and celestial figures, could no longer evade.
Clang!
Shi Hao’s fist shattered the furnace, blood spraying from the Crimson King’s lips.
Had this failed, Shi Hao would have been spent.
“Ahhh!”
The Crimson King roared, morphing into his true form—a draconic lion clad in crimson scales—and spat the bell at Shi Hao in desperation.
Chaos erupted.
Shi Hao weathered temporal erosion, blood trickling from his lips—a first in his battles against Immortal Kings.
“Die!”
His fist, radiant with immortal light, repelled the bell despite its aging curse and smashed into the Crimson King.
The beast’s maw snapped, but golden lotuses surged, celestial figures above striking in unison.
Boom!
The Crimson King vomited blood as Shi Hao mounted him, fists raining down.
Amidst the carnage, the Crimson King’s head was torn free, his body sealed away as Shi Hao fled with his trophies.
“Who dares?!”
“Kill him!”
The Immortal Kings arrived—a colossal palm struck Shi Hao’s back, a golden spear aimed for his skull.
The hunt was on.
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