Since the opponent who could inflict fatal damage was no longer present, Li Xi no longer dodged and weaved. If not now, when else would he ascend!
His entire body's energy surged, and the speed of his chakra circulation was pushed to the absolute limit his body could endure, like a racing car with its accelerator floored. Li Xi's body instantly vanished from the sight of all the bone dragons and knights.
A roar echoed through the sky,
"Reverse Lotus"
"Boom!"
A knight, who was searching for Li Xi, was suddenly kicked by Li Xi. His entire body couldn't withstand Li Xi's violent attack and vanished as if vaporized. Not only that, but the air behind the undead knight was blasted into a circular shockwave. The undead beside them were shaken by the violent air currents like small boats on a river.
The bone dragon beneath him tried to sweep its tail. Previously, they had batted Li Xi around the sky like a volleyball with their tails, but it had forgotten that the ancient dragons were the main force then.
Now...
Since Li Xi had unleashed the three gates of his taijutsu mastery, he would not be hit again.
"Expansion Jutsu"
"Fist of Love and Justice."
His fist, as large as a sandbag and carrying a shockwave, directly shattered the bone dragon beneath him into pieces. The soul fire was so violently shaken by the air currents that it flickered like a flame in a strong wind, almost extinguished by Li Xi's punch.
A soul shockwave struck again, and Li Xi's body vanished once more. His speed now far surpassed Galidos', and the naked eye couldn't keep up. Of course, the undead didn't have eyes and used soul fire to observe their surroundings. Although they struggled to keep up with Li Xi's movements, they didn't completely lose track.
Another explosion resounded, and the skull of a bone dragon was reduced to dust in mid-air. The Reverse Lotus could be performed after opening the third gate. The fourth and fifth gates could also perform it, and of course, the more gates opened, the greater the power of the Reverse Lotus. When fighting Gaara, Li Xi felt the third gate was insufficient and had directly opened the fifth gate in his rage.
With his dragon wings, Li Xi could already fly in the sky. Now, using the Reverse Lotus, his speed was nearing the point of escaping the control of planar gravity.
Thus, it naturally began to rain from the sky. What kind of rain? It was a rain of countless shattered bone fragments. Every heavy impact sound in the sky was like an ancient giant striking the bells of doom, and echoes even returned from the ends of the planes. This was the sound of Li Xi's attacks tearing through the air.
Compared to Li Xi's grand and powerful attacks, which were highly effective, the shadow clones were not falling behind. The sound of arrows shattering the air and preying on their targets was no less than Li Xi's Reverse Lotus. The arrows were ordinary, but the force they carried was undeniable.
The entire sky seemed to be their hunting ground, and they were openly chasing and killing bone dragons.
This wasn't to say Li Xi had become so powerful that he could face hundreds of bone dragons and knights head-on. It was that Li Xi's speed was simply too great. The ultimate martial art is speed, and extreme speed is also the truth.
The bone dragons' attacks were not weak, or they wouldn't have made Li Xi spit blood and flee. It was just that their speed was now completely suppressed. No matter how powerful an attack was, if it couldn't hit, or if it was ignored by the enemy after hitting, it was useless. This was what highlighted Li Xi's combat strength.
Another series of attacks followed, and the heavens and earth still echoed with Li Xi's explosive roars. Another bone dragon was shattered and fell.
One-third of the hundreds of bone dragons and knights had already been dealt with. Their once dense formations were now somewhat scattered.
Li Xi, at full power, began to feel a dull ache throughout his body after such a long battle. His physique was immense, comparable to a beast in human form. However, since challenging the Flame Demon, Li Xi had been in the state of the third gate, followed by over a hundred high-power ninjutsu. Such frequent circulation of chakra was not without pressure on the body. High water pressure could strain pipes; how could the human body and meridians not be affected? And then to fight so many bone dragons and dragon knights at the peak of his physical condition, Li Xi was truly struggling.
"It should be about time."
Taking advantage of the interval to create distance, Li Xi deactivated the Reverse Lotus.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Three shadow clones appeared and immediately used ninjutsu to help Li Xi hold off the bone dragons and knights behind him. These shadow clones did not attack actively; they simply dodged and weaved, like hooligans teasing virtuous young women on the street – frivolous and provocative.
The shadow clone holding the Guardian War Bow handed the weapon to Li Xi and then, like the other shadow clones, continued to circle the opponents behind them in the sky.
Li Xi's true body, without looking back, flew towards Herne and the others.
It didn't take long to reach the original spot. There were no major problems. The undead were still struggling with the labyrinth. Although some of the walls created by the Earth Style Wall within the labyrinth had been destroyed, it was not a significant issue.
"Release!"
Li Xi, who had already reverted from his dragon form, dispersed both the Heavenly Descent Veil and the Earth Style Wall that were protecting Herne. Galidos and Herne, who had been trapped for a while, saw daylight again.
Before Herne, a fist-sized, unseeable white flame burned fiercely. The fuel for this flame was the spatial barrier. The space revealed after the white flame burned was a pale blue sky, and sweet air drifted in – the appearance of the main world's sky!!!
Herne had stopped casting and was now fighting the undead alongside Galidos. Seeing Li Xi return, he reported, "It will take ten breaths to burn through enough space. We can leave here immediately."
"Good."
Ten breaths, that was soon.
Hathaway looked at Li Xi, wanting to speak but hesitating. She knew Li Xi had gone to face her ancestor, an eighth-level ancient dragon. How could he have returned with only a weakened aura? And in less than a single sandglass of time.
Her meaning wasn't that Li Xi was injured, but that he could retreat completely from facing an eighth-level ancient dragon. That was an eighth-level ancient dragon.
Eighth level! What kind of existence was that? Destroying a small country would take no more than a day or two. How could Li Xi have returned so easily, and without any concern about pursuers?
What kind of person doesn't worry about pursuers after a battle?
You win, the enemy is either dead or fled, and you won't worry about pursuers.
So, would the undead flee?
Even a three-year-old child knew the answer: no. Undead only clung to you like a persistent rash, fighting to the death – either you die, or they die.
Thinking this, Hathaway quietly took two steps back. She didn't dare to think any further. This guess was too unbelievable. Eighth level! That wasn't the realm of potatoes and cabbage. Even a Grand Magus fighting an eighth-level ancient dragon would be extremely cautious. How could it be so insignificant for Li Xi?
"Nine breaths!"
Everyone was easily dealing with the undead. With the multilayered Earth Style Walls blocking them, killing them was incredibly simple. There was still no news from the shadow clones, meaning none had died yet. Good news.
"Eight breaths!"
Still, nothing happened. The hope of returning to the main world was in sight. No one held back, so no undead could stand before them for even a second.
"Seven breaths!"
"Six breaths!"
The sizzling white flame had already burned a hole in the spatial barrier as large as a rice cooker, large enough for a child to pass through.
"Five breaths!"
The burned space continued to expand. Li Xi suddenly felt a prickle of unease, his eyelids twitching uncontrollably, as if something bad had happened.
"Four breaths!"
The shadow clones sent a message, verifying his guess from the previous breath. It was bad news. Four shadow clones died simultaneously. The last scene they saw before their deaths was a colossal undead rising from a vast ocean of bones on the ground.
Its height was twice that of an ancient dragon, meaning two hundred meters. Each bone was a combination of countless undead. Within its humanoid skull, a small but golden soul fire burned as if alive.
The moment this two-hundred-meter undead appeared, it merely looked with its empty eye sockets at the Li Xi shadow clones in the sky, who were flying, dodging, and playing with the bone dragons.
Golden rays shot out from its eye sockets. No matter what incredible aerial maneuvers the shadow clones performed, they were still caught by the golden light. Their bodies instantly exploded in the sky without any resistance.
The last scene before the shadow clones died was the two-hundred-meter undead spreading a pair of bone wings that could truly blot out the sun, flying towards Li Xi and the others.
The immense impact from the shadow clones' message made Li Xi stagger, almost losing his balance. This was definitely Gigaron making a move. Without delay, he shared the intelligence with the others, "Not good! A two-hundred-meter undead with golden soul fire is coming from afar!"
"Two hundred meters?"
Hathaway looked at her proud twenty-three-meter dragon form, nearly ten times her height. How had she never realized how short she was before?
"That must be Gigaron's undead clone. We are absolutely no match for it. We still need three breaths to leave here," the learned Herne the Archmage instantly provided the most professional analysis.
Three breaths. She could only cast level-five spells at best. This level was only enough to brush the dust off Gigaron's undead clone. No, in this undead plane, she couldn't even do that.
Galidos could barely hold his two short swords steady. Would Gigaron's undead clone need half a move to deal with them? Or half a breath?
In just these two sentences, the two-hundred-meter Gigaron undead clone had appeared in their vision. At first, it was just a small black dot, and in the next moment, they could see its face clearly.
Its speed was even faster than Li Xi's. With each flap of its sky-obscuring bone wings, the undead clone advanced thousands of meters. The pressure of the entire plane seemed to eman normally from the undead clone. All the undead, upon sensing its aura, stopped their movements and knelt down in fervent worship, as if primitive humans witnessing a god.
Li Xi took a deep breath. If the ancient dragon he had faced earlier had a combat power of one hundred, then this undead clone's combat power was two hundred. The ancient dragon itself couldn't be killed and needed the weight of the Rashomon to suppress it. What about this undead clone?
Li Xi had no doubt that in this plane designed for the undead world, this undead clone could unleash one hundred and thirty percent of its strength!
"Two breaths!"
Facing such an enemy, Herne could only pray that her multiple magic defenses would work as intended. Offense was impossible.
Galidos's eyes remained firm, and his dual blades steadied again. If only his legs weren't trembling so much; with that kind of sway, he'd be a perfect candidate for a retirement disco endorsement.
Hathaway had completely turned into a domestic dog encountering a king of beasts, lying on the ground, not daring to move, leaving herself to the mercy of the undead clone.
Cameron stood beside Hathaway, his seven-meter-long dragon lance shaking rapidly like a treetop in a storm. His eyes kept glancing back at the spatial barrier that was being burned through, and a sense of unease brewed within him.
The undead clone did not speak. Perhaps it had no interest in speaking to such insignificant insects that it could crush with a casual flick, just as one wouldn't speak of humanitarianism to an ant before stepping on it.
Five golden rays shot out from its eye sockets. With the experience and fate of the shadow clones, Li Xi knew this attack could only be endured, not dodged.
He bit his finger, and a steaming blue flame erupted from his body. This was the effect of his chakra overflowing. He placed his hands on the ground, and ancient script appeared.
"Ninjutsu: Summoning Technique: Triple Rashomon!"
This was the second time Li Xi had used this defensive ninjutsu today. The first time was because the weight of the Rashomon had suppressed the ancient dragon. This time, it was entirely for the Rashomon's defensive power.
With the appearance of three fifty-meter-tall Rashomon gates, marking the border between life and death, the wind chimes rang clearly as they moved, bringing a sense of peace to all who heard them.
"Boom!"
The golden rays struck the first Rashomon. It only offered slight resistance before the first Rashomon was shattered and vanished into the plane, returning to the border of life and death.
However, due to the first Rashomon's obstruction, the five golden beams began to dim. The slightly dimmed golden rays continued forward, and the second Rashomon blocked their path.
"Boom!"
The second Rashomon was also blasted back to the underworld with slight resistance. By then, the golden rays had become faint.
The third Rashomon collided with the golden rays.
"Boom!"
The third Rashomon was struck with five deep dents. The explosion's violent vibrations made the Rashomon tremble three times, shattering who knew how many bones on the ground. However, the Rashomon still firmly stood before them, and the golden rays had disappeared.
"Hoo!"
Li Xi, with his powerful Tailed Beast chakra, summoned three Rashomon gates to block Gigaron's undead clone's fatal attack.
"We succeeded! We can leave here!"
Herne, who had been extremely tense, didn't even notice that her voice had warped. The once mature and steady successful woman now sounded like an old witch with a strained voice, loudly screaming the good news of their escape from death.