Chapter 173: Clash of the Titans

In a matter of moments, all the long-haired apes lay sprawled on the ground in disarray, their luminous spirits drifting upward from their lifeless bodies. The few remaining apes, standing at a distance, witnessed the carnage and fled in desperate panic toward the horizon. Being demonic beasts endowed with a degree of intelligence, they knew better than to court certain death recklessly.

High above, the King of the Forest was enraged. With a thunderous roar, it shattered the lingering shockwave of the black radiance, its colossal, mountain-like body suddenly rising to its full height before leaping off the cliffside.

Thickly coated in long fur, it generated a crushing wave of pressure that exploded across the path ahead of Heiyu. Its massive fists slammed squarely into the mountainside, triggering a cataclysmic tremor that fractured the earth and sent gravel flying in all directions.

The instant the debris hurtled toward him, Heiyu scooped up Ling Xiaolei into his arms. Riding the upward currents of wind, he unfurled his dark wings and soared vertically into the sky along the sheer precipice, gently placing her down upon a safe, open ledge.

"This Forest King looks formidable. Find a place to hide for now; I will handle it myself."

With those words, he flapped his wings, pulled away from the cliff edge, and whirled back to face the beast.

"We agreed to cultivate together, yet you always end up fighting alone."

Ling Xiaolei pouted, her heart gripped by anxiety yet powerless to offer aid. She sought out a secluded boulder to conceal herself, summoned the Greed Wolf and the three dark ravens, and commanded them to absorb the scattered spirits lingering across the battlefield.

Driven into a frenzy by unbridled rage, the King of the Forest roared continuously, flailing its massive fists as it tracked Heiyu's movements in the sky above. Heiyu's figure flickered repeatedly, his trident flashing with dark brilliance. Relying on spatial shifting, ordinary adversaries could never hope to catch him.

However, his Demon-Slicing Blade proved inadequate for the task at hand. Striking the colossal, fur-covered face of the Forest King, the arcs of dark light appeared utterly insignificant, their impact no more tickling than a gentle breeze, leaving not even a scratch behind.

"As expected, the power tier of such a demonic beast is simply too high... It seems I have no choice but to deploy a higher-tier skill to deal with it."

Deciding to cease his evasive maneuvers, he descended into a forest on the opposite side of the mountain. Touching down, he prepared to unlock the third seal. Tempered by the trials of the Magic Tournament, his strength now approached the pinnacle of mastery; unlocking the third seal was effortless for him.

Searching frantically in every direction, the Forest King whipped its head from side to side. Its sweeping arms uprooted tracts of trees, hurling them into the air. With hot breath pluming from its nostrils, its gargantuan visage drew ever closer. Soon, it locked onto his position and unleashed another deafening roar.

The sheer concussive force of the howl snapped the timber standing before Heiyu, sending splinters and branches flying horizontally. Heiyu barely managed to steady his stance, only to see the beast raise its twin fists, intent on pounding him into dust.

High upon the mountain, Ling Xiaolei could no longer make out Heiyu's figure, swallowed as he was by the dense canopy below. Catching sight of the Forest King raising its fists, she broke out in a cold sweat on his behalf.

"The Third Seal—Release!"

At that very moment, Ling Xiaolei watched from afar as an entity of even more monstrous proportions rose from the forest before the beast. The silhouette of the towering demon stood astride the earth against the dark night, its massive hands catching the twin giant fists of the Forest King.

When fist and palm collided, another immense shockwave rippled outward, causing the trees in the forest to list and buckle as wild beasts fled in terror.

Heiyu’s true form lifted its head from the black shadow beneath the towering demon's bulk, his entire being emanating the suffocating aura of the Grim Reaper.

With Ling Xiaolei safely out of range, he was free of restraint and could fight without reservation. The entirety of his power erupted instantly, the surrounding vegetation withering into dust under the overflow of his surging darkness. Fortunately, this was the Forest of Destruction, far removed from any town; the leakage of such dark energies mattered not here.

"Demonic Fist!"

Heiyu’s voice carried the ecstatic thrill of battle, the brimming power within his body bringing him profound exhilaration.

Normally forbidden from unleashing his full might, he had always felt suppressed, his movements heavily restricted during the Magic Tournament. This, however, was his true self; he poured all his strength and his innate craving for combat into this release.

Under Heiyu’s command, the demon launched its assault. A heavy blow slammed into the Forest King’s face, instantly followed by a second, causing the colossal beast’s massive frame to stagger and stumble backward.

Provoked into equal fury, the King of the Forest mounted a counterattack. Its mountain-weight palm descended, forcing Heiyu and the demon before him to retreat repeatedly, flattening a swath of woodland in their wake.

To Ling Xiaolei’s eyes, this no longer resembled a battle between mortal mages; it was unmistakably the clash of two primordial behemoths. Standing on her high vantage point, she watched in dumbfounded awe. The forest, relentlessly trampled by the frantic engagement, erupted into churning dust and smoke within seconds as the combatants traded blow for crushing blow, neither willing to yield an inch.

"King of the Forest, you say? Nothing special—just a thick hide. You’ll do nicely as a sandbag for me to practice my pugilism!"

With a fierce shout, Heiyu brought another devastating blow downward, the Demonic Fist driving straight toward the beast's chest.

The King of the Forest thrust out its chest, actually opting to take the strike head-on with its physical body. Simultaneously, it roared, drawing its arms inward before executing a violent pectoral contraction that forcefully repelled the demon's fist. Heiyu, too, was knocked back several paces by the recoil.

The roars of the Forest King showed no sign of abating. It seemed that until now, the beast had not even exerted its true strength; thoroughly enraged by Heiyu, it unleashed its latent power to the absolute limit.

"Roar—!"

The shockwave bent the surrounding trees at grotesque angles, kicking up gales so fierce that Ling Xiaolei could not keep her eyes open as sand, stone, and dirt swept across the landscape. The eyes of the Forest King burned crimson, and a pillar of brilliant light erupted from its form, soaring straight into the heavens as its power ascended to an entirely new echelon.

The muscles across its chest and arms swelled, turning hard as iron. Heiyu felt as though his eardrums might rupture from the sonic fury, the hurricane-like winds carrying a cutting edge that slashed against his skin like blades. Under the immense pressure bearing down on him, his boots began sinking into the earth.

The surrounding trees and those behind him were swept backward by the sheer force of the soundwave, snapped branches hurtling into the distance. Only after a long while did the howling subside. This—this was the true visage of a demonic beast boasting a million years of cultivation.

Aside from its exponentially magnified strength, when Heiyu raised his head once more to survey the Forest King towering before him like a dark peak, a sudden sense of dread caused his knees to tremble involuntarily—an emotion he had never experienced during any of their prior exchanges.

Heiyu understood that this was the innate prerogative possessed solely by supreme beasts or fiends: the ability to induce shivering terror in all lesser creatures standing in their presence.

Heiyu’s own Demonic Eyes possessed a similar property. Yet at this moment, his Demonic Eyes proved utterly ineffective against the King of the Forest.

From this, he deduced that the beast before him undoubtedly possessed a deeper cultivation and superior might compared to the One-eyed Giant of the Red Sea. Because its aura surpassed his own, it could not be subjugated by his Demonic Eyes.

Perhaps the King of the Forest had simply never believed that anyone would dare set foot in this domain to challenge its authority, which was why it had withheld its true power until now.

"If I continue fighting it like this, trading blows for days and nights on end is entirely within the realm of possibility..."