The Great Emperor once said:
The battle between top geniuses is not about whose killing power is stronger, because at the level of top geniuses, the killing power is actually more or less the same, with at most a difference of one hundred versus eighty.
Therefore, what really matters is who has more trump cards and stronger countermeasures.
There is the saying of mutual promotion and restraint between cultivators of different attributes.
For example, a cultivator who uses the wood attribute may never be able to defeat a cultivator who uses the fire attribute in his entire life.
This is the mutual promotion and restraint of the five elements, like a father beating his son, leaving no room for retaliation.
Only by advancing to the Quasi-Saint Realm, comprehending the Great Way of Origin, can one have the chance to reverse this mutual promotion and restraint, and achieve restraining the strong with the weak.
To be fair, Chen Xia was somewhat restraining God's Son. Deathly silence and the Great Way of Time were things he was good at and played better than God's Son. If not for the vast difference in their realms, he could have been God's Son's dad, shitting on his head.
But the difference is the difference.
After Chen Xia slashed out with that sword, he was somewhat out of breath. Crossing boundaries to borrow power from his external avatar consumed too much energy. Adding to that, the condensing of the Great Way of Time was also extremely taxing on his mind and spirit. At this moment, he was somewhat lacking in strength, unable to grip the Great Death Annihilation Spear anymore, letting it fly away on its own.
The spectating cultivators were already dumbfounded, somewhat at a loss as to how to evaluate this.
Originally, their ranking of the Thunder Sword Lord was somewhere above 60 on the Heaven Ranking, but below 30. Now, it seemed this ranking was a bit questionable and needed to be changed.
Being able to slice apart God's Son, this ranking should at least start from 30. As for whether it could enter the top 10, that remained to be discussed, after all there were simply too many fierce people in the Great Death Realm.
But starting from 30 was already astonishing enough.
There were tens of thousands of cultivators from all heavens and worlds in the Great Death Realm. The geniuses were innumerable, and those in the Heaven Mending Realm were just the starting point.
For Chen Xia to be ranked in the top 30, he was a peak existence among these tens of thousands of cultivators, a figure at the very pinnacle.
"Phew."
Chen Xia let out a breath, and discovered something else at the same time.
The Heart Devil had grown stronger again.
Or rather, he himself had become stronger.
It felt as if his cultivation base and spiritual power had increased, but his realm did not have the slightest bit of improvement, still at the 9th layer of the Sea Inversing Realm.
The gold content of his current 9th layer Sea Inversing Realm was simply too high. His spiritual energy storage was almost 300 times that of the beginning, approaching that of a 5-layered Heaven Mending Realm cultivator.
Or in other words, he could now be considered a 5-layered Heaven Mending Realm cultivator, just that he had yet to comprehend the divine ability of the small world.
The Gentleman in White stood on the little star, stunned for a while, before a deranged smile appeared on his face as he muttered repeatedly:
"It happened, it happened!"
This was like those protagonists in novels, meeting an unfathomably powerful expert on the path who would take him under his wing. When the day came that his predestined life span was exhausted, he would pass on his legacy to him.
The Gentleman in White had been waiting for a day like this.
Ma Xiaohong looked at Chen Xia worriedly, her gaze constantly on the bloodstain on Chen Xia's chest, always concerned, wanting to go heal it quickly, yet also somewhat afraid of the scene before her, not daring to step forward.
Silent starry sky.
The crimson glow in Chen Xia's eyes gradually faded away, his expression somewhat weary.
Boom!
A star 3,000 miles away exploded.
The Great Death Annihilation Spear turned around and flew away, falling into the hand of a figure, standing erect between the stars once more.
God's Son stood amidst the river of stars, his armor tattered, staring fixedly at Chen Xia as he said:
"I take back what I said earlier. You are qualified to walk among the stars with such grandeur. You are a rare powerful being, I respect the powerful, but will definitely kill you in the future!"
After being slashed down by Chen Xia, God's Son instead calmed down, knowing that with Xu Zhen present, he definitely could not kill Chen Xia now, and could only wait for the next time.
Moreover, just like what he said earlier, he respected the powerful. Being slashed down by a powerful being was no great humiliation, and would not affect his reputation.
The other cultivators would definitely not dare to take him lightly.
As the God's Son, he could accept momentary failure. And from the looks of it now, it didn't even count as failure, just a transition in between.
He was quite open-minded about it, not caring much about these things, his domineering mentality unaffected as he turned to leave.
But a clear voice suddenly interrupted his steps.
"You smelly bastard, I will definitely kill you first!"
God's Son's expression changed. The most lethal "divine ability" for him had come.
"With just your one black and one yellow fire sticks you still want to shoot and kill? Sticking them at your dad's grave to burn incense wouldn't even be enough, peh!"
Xu Zhen's vicious words rang out.
The cultivators present were all stunned for a moment. Some had not heard Xu Zhen scolding people before, only hearing that she was vicious when scolding people, but didn't expect it to be so fierce!
God's Son's expression froze, unwilling to turn his head to retort, pretending not to have seen or heard, and lifted his foot to leave again.
"What God's Son, just a tadpole pretending to be a frog, if you want to act, go act with your horse, worthless piece of shit!"
Xu Zhen's verbal barrage grew louder and louder, continuously scolding God's Son's entire family tree, to sum it up, there wasn't a single living person left.
God's Son's complexion went from grim, to gloomy, then back to grim. In the end, it became slightly helpless. He wanted to retort, but really didn't know where to start.
After Xu Zhen scolded viciously and painfully, reaching full output, she then disdainfully raised her brows. Looking at Chen Xia again, she revealed an embarrassed smile and said gently:
"Brother Chen, I was possessed by my second personality just now."
She knew how to shirk responsibility, having indeed learned Chen Xia's tricks thoroughly.
Chen Xia nodded and laughed lightly:
"I know."
He knew how to play along.
The spectating cultivators were stupefied. Could it really be a second personality?
Xu Zhen grinned cheerfully: "Hehe."
Her demeanor was completely different from when she was cursing earlier.
God's Son didn't know what to say anymore. He opened his mouth, wanting to retort, but after thinking it through, felt it was better to let it go, to avoid suffering from this. So he turned and left.
Only Chen Xia and Xu Zhen were left looking at each other.
And the conversation went back to the beginning.
Xu Zhen looked at Chen Xia closely, eyes blinking not even once, as if wanting to discern something from him. After a long while, tears first appeared in her eyes as she said in a small voice:
"I've been looking for you for 7,000 years, Brother Chen."
"Mm." Chen Xia nodded. "I was looking for you too before, after all it was the time I missed the most, and you were the person I missed the most. At first I hesitated about looking, after all, the person one misses is always the best when one is reminiscing... "
"But I couldn't forget, couldn't let go, so I still came, and also got to see you like I wished. Fortunately, it seems nothing has changed much."
The tears in Xu Zhen's eyes grew more and more. Her voice sobbed as she asked back:
"How could it possibly change a lot?"
She had been looking for Chen Xia for 7,000 years, never forgetting him from beginning till now.
Someone once said:
A good childhood can benefit one for a lifetime.
If the time in the Small World was likened to childhood.
Then Xu Zhen was looking for the childhood that benefited her for life, looking for that figure she couldn't forget.
That figure who knocked on her door at her most helpless time, smiling as he said a sentence.
"Xu Zhen, I'm your brother Chen."
She had remembered this sentence for 8,000 years.
Always remembering, never forgetting.