pjbooks Chapter 69 Jiang Chen won, the desperate Third Apostle!
Chapter 69 Jiang Chen won, the desperate Third Apostle!
As thousands of blades pierced Astra's body time and time again, everyone couldn't help but hold their breath.
It felt as if countless tiny particles were vibrating in the air, and the atmosphere on the entire battlefield instantly became grim.
The space around Astra began to distort and deform.
Countless phantom swords coalesced in the air, each radiating a sharp edge. Some of these blades were ancient and heavy, some slender and sharp, some dazzling, and some concealing deadly intent. They floated in the air, like a sea of swords.
The blades began to hum, their surfaces shimmering with the light of various elements. Fire, lightning, ice... the power of all attributes flowed along the blades.
Above the horizon, radiance filled the air.
The vortex is closing in.
The speed at which the millions of swords spun increased rapidly, until the gaps between them completely disappeared, until the entire sea of swords transformed into a pure, boundless silver light. That light enveloped Astra at its center, and every instant, countless swords pierced through his body.
His fingertips were turning into dark golden specks of light that drifted away. The drifting was so slow that he could clearly see the outline of his fingertips blurring little by little, merging into the surrounding silver light.
He attempted to invoke the laws. Reversal, his core law, the power that had kept him immortal for three hundred years, the power that had placed him at the pinnacle of all apostles. He sensed the law still existed, still operating deep within his core, still trying to reverse the shattered parts of him. But this time, the speed of reversal couldn't keep up with the speed of being shattered.
Every time he reversed back an inch, the vortex of swords ground him down by a foot.
He raised his head.
The silver light shone on his face, casting a play of light and shadow on his cracked features.
He looked at Jiang Chen.
The boy remained standing. His right hand was raised, fingers loosely clenched, controlling the entire vortex of sword energy. His school uniform fluttered gently in the wind of the sword, the deep blue fabric without a single extra mark. His expression remained calm, as calm as if he were doing something he had done countless times, as calm as if he were waiting for a cup of water to boil.
There was no murderous intent in those eyes.
Astra looked into those eyes and suddenly understood something.
From beginning to end, Jiang Chen did not regard him as an opponent.
He thought he was the first enemy Jiang Chen had encountered who could make him take things seriously. He believed that his immortality, his laws of reversal, and his absolute domain had at least forced Jiang Chen to reveal a portion of his strength. He thought this battle was a duel between two beings standing at the pinnacle of their respective worlds.
He was wrong.
From beginning to end, he was just a whetstone. A whetstone that Jiang Chen found "somewhat interesting." A whetstone that was slightly harder than his previous opponents, so it needed to be sharpened more. But that was all.
"impossible....."
Astra's voice came from the center of the vortex of swords. It was hoarse, broken, and intermittent, like the last few syllables of a radio whose signal was about to be cut off. His vocal cords had been half-ground by the blade, and each word he uttered was accompanied by bursts of dark golden light.
"impossible....."
He repeated it. This time, his voice was louder, no longer like talking to himself, but a tremor that surged from the depths of the laws, a tremor born from the crushing of all his knowledge over three hundred years.
"My reversal... is a law etched into the very essence of the void... the very foundation of the Thirteenth Apostle's Temple... an absolute rule of immortality and indestructibility... How could it... how could it be shattered by your sword..."
His arms had completely vanished below the elbows. Dark golden light continuously poured out from the severed ends, cut into finer specks of light by the silver sword light, then swept up by the sword wind and drifted into the depths of the void. His legs were also dissipating, starting from the soles of his feet, his calves, knees, and thighs, turning into specks of light inch by inch, being peeled from his body by the sword vortex.
He tried to struggle.
He mobilized all the remaining power of the laws within his body—reversal, spatial folding, absolute domain—all the rules he could use erupted simultaneously at this moment. Dark golden light surged from his core, attempting to carve out a space of his own within the sword vortex, attempting to reverse the shattered parts, attempting to use all the accumulation of three hundred years to tear a crack for escape in this silver vortex of death.
The vortex just spun a little faster.
Millions of swords simultaneously emitted a clear, ringing sound, so sharp it transcended the range of human hearing, transforming into a pure, physical vibration. The dark golden light, sliced by the silver sword light, shattered like glass thrown into a shredder, crumbling and disintegrating from its edges into nothingness.
He felt his reversal law breaking at its very root. The absolute rule etched into the origin of the void, granting him immortality for three hundred years, finally showed its first irreversible crack under the continuous grinding of countless sword blades. The crack began at his core, spreading in all directions, passing through his torso, through his dissipating limbs, and through all the legal connections between him and this void.
"impossible!!!"
Astra's voice transformed into a roar. The roar, emanating from his half-shattered throat, carried the distinctive metallic, tearing sound of laws breaking, exploding throughout the void. His long, silvery-white hair danced wildly in the sword wind, its ends severed by the sword light, turning into specks of light that scattered. His golden pupils—eyes already cracked with dark red and fading at the edges—stared intently at Jiang Chen, and for the first time, fear appeared deep within them.
Most of his body had vanished. His legs disappeared completely below the knees, his arms turned into specks of light below the shoulders, and the edges of his torso were peeling away. Dark golden specks of light, like blood, oozed from countless wounds, being sliced into finer dust by the sword light. His head—that once unrealistically handsome face—had completely disappeared on the left side, leaving only the right half of his face and a cracked golden eye.
He looked at Jiang Chen with his only remaining eye.
The sword light illuminated half of his face, making the crack that stretched from the corner of his eye to his jawline clearly visible. Dark golden liquid seeped from the crack, flowing along the remaining contours of his jaw, gathering at his chin, and then being swept up by the sword wind, turning into specks of light that scattered.
"Impossible...impossible...impossible!!!!"
His voice echoed in the void, again and again, growing weaker and weaker, more and more broken, like the final cry of a person trapped in an endless abyss.
"I am Astra... the Thirteenth Apostle... an immortal being... my Law of Reversal is an absolute rule etched into the very origin of the void... I cannot be killed... I cannot be crushed... I cannot be denied by any force..."
"What...are you...?"
His voice was so weak that it was almost inaudible.
These words were his final, desperate cry in this world.
How could Jiang Chen, a person without any abilities, a so-called human, defeat him?!
Until the radiance faded, people continued to search for Jiang Chen's figure in the void.
"Jiang Chen is still here!!!"
"But where's Astra? Where is he? What happened to him?!"
"Could it be...?"
An idea arises in people's minds: have they really won?
The legendary, invincible Thirteenth Apostle was killed by humans just like that?
Therefore... the result was thus achieved.
"Jiang Chen, he won!!!"