Chapter 175 - 149: Gone

Chapter 175: Chapter 149: Gone

Gongye Zhou saw it.

Amidst the thundercloud, Ji Zhixing hovered in the churning black clouds, a pair of purple-gold thunder wings spread wide behind his back.

His feet rested atop the lightning, yet he remained completely unharmed. The surrounding thunder wandered around him. Not a single bolt struck him; instead, they seemed to be guarding him.

"He... controlled this thundercloud?"

A tempest of shock surged in Gongye Zhou’s heart. He had previously set his sights on this thundercloud, but the moment he got close, he was struck so violently that he had to flee in a panic. Yet Ji Zhixing was actually standing inside the thundercloud, seemingly without a scratch.

"No wonder this thundercloud kept chasing and striking us..." Gongye Zhou took a deep breath, his face darkening.

He glanced at the empty ground below. Cao Zhenxing and Yu Mengdie had already been teleported away, leaving him all alone.

"Go!"

Without any hesitation, Gongye Zhou flapped the illusory horse wings on his back, turned, and flew off into the distance. His speed was incredible. Every flap of those illusory horse wings propelled him a vast distance.

He wasn’t afraid of Ji Zhixing. He didn’t consider Ji Zhixing’s individual strength a threat. However, Ji Zhixing combined with that thundercloud was beyond what he could handle. He had personally experienced the power of that thundercloud; even he didn’t dare to take it head-on.

"Trying to escape?"

Seeing Gongye Zhou trying to flee, Ji Zhixing’s gaze narrowed. He immediately drove the thundercloud to give chase.

This black cloud Thunder Pool normally didn’t move fast, but that was when it had no one controlling it. Now, with a mere thought, the entire thundercloud rioted.

Black clouds churned and electric snakes danced wildly. Amidst the continuous ROAR of thunder, the thundercloud suddenly accelerated, chasing after Gongye Zhou as rapidly as a tribulation cloud hunting down a cultivator.

Ji Zhixing stood within the thundercloud, his Purple Gold Thundercloud Wings flapping behind him. They faintly resonated with the thundercloud’s power, boosting his speed even further.

"It’s still chasing him!"

In the distance, several students saw this scene, their mouths falling open in astonishment. That thundercloud was actually still chasing Gongye Zhou? And its speed was even faster than his?

"Wait a minute, after this thundercloud catches Gongye Zhou, it won’t come after us, will it?" someone voiced out in concern, subconsciously taking a few steps back.

"Probably not. We didn’t provoke it."

They exchanged glances, feeling rather apprehensive. This thundercloud was acting far too abnormally today, completely overturning their previous understanding of it.

"Ji Zhixing!"

At that moment, Gongye Zhou saw that Ji Zhixing was actually controlling the thundercloud to chase him—and that it was faster than him. His expression instantly changed.

His Flowing Cloud Celestial Horse genes excelled in speed. Among the four Tier Five Gene Cultivators in the Spirit Ruins Treasure Land, his speed was the fastest. Even Lu Xinghe couldn’t match him. But now, he was actually being caught by a thundercloud?

He turned his head and shouted at Ji Zhixing within the thundercloud, "What exactly are you trying to do? It’s useless even if you catch up to me. I can teleport away at any time!"

His voice was loud, echoing through the space and reaching everyone’s ears loud and clear.

Standing within the thundercloud, Ji Zhixing showed no reaction to Gongye Zhou’s words. He knew Gongye Zhou was telling the truth. With Gongye Zhou’s speed and reflexes, even controlling this thundercloud wouldn’t be enough to hurt him. Gongye Zhou could easily have the Azure Sky Divine Wood take him away before the lightning strikes could reach him.

However, his goal was exactly to make Gongye Zhou leave this place.

Otherwise, after he unleashed all the thundercloud’s power to secure the Twisted Forest treasure land, he wouldn’t retain his current level of strength. If Gongye Zhou was still hanging around nearby at that time, it would be uncertain who the treasures born in the Twisted Forest would ultimately go to.

"Damn it!"

Seeing Ji Zhixing remain silent, Gongye Zhou’s face turned incredibly ugly. He knew exactly what Ji Zhixing meant; the guy just wanted to force him to leave. And he truly had no other choice.

"Lord Azure Sky Divine Wood, please teleport me back to the Dead Wood Regeneration Forest." Gritting his teeth, Gongye Zhou respectfully shouted into the empty space in front of him.

As his words fell, a spatial fluctuation enveloped him. In the next second, his figure vanished from midair.

"Ji Zhixing?"

The seven or eight students from various universities in the distance heard Gongye Zhou’s shout and immediately looked at each other in dismay.

"What does that mean? Why did Gongye Zhou yell Ji Zhixing’s name? Could it be that the thundercloud is being controlled by Ji Zhixing? Is Ji Zhixing inside that thundercloud?"

This thought simultaneously welled up in their minds, leaving them all in disbelief. Prompted by this, one of them had an idea and activated his gene ability. His eyes instantly lit up.

His gene ability could drastically enhance his vision, allowing him to see through fog and obstacles. The next moment, he faintly spotted a figure with purple-gold thunder wings sprouting from its back within the distant thundercloud.

He was incredibly familiar with that figure. It was none other than Ji Zhixing, who had gained massive fame in the Spirit Ruins Treasure Land.

"It’s Ji Zhixing! It’s actually him!" he muttered to himself, the expression on his face looking utterly priceless.

"How on earth did he do it? To be able to control this thundercloud?

"Things have escalated big time. Cao Zhenxing, Yu Mengdie, and Gongye Zhou teamed up to attack the Twisted Forest, but they were all beaten back to the Land of Origin by him alone using a single thundercloud. If this news gets out, I’m afraid no one will believe it."

"What are you saying? Ji Zhixing? Is Ji Zhixing really in that thundercloud?" Hearing his words, the others beside him immediately turned to look at him.

"Yes, it’s Ji Zhixing," the student took a deep breath. "He’s the one controlling this thundercloud."

"It’s really him! No wonder I saw Xiao Mingyue earlier but didn’t see any sign of Ji Zhixing. So that means Cao Zhenxing and Yu Mengdie were both chased back to the Dead Wood Regeneration Forest by him? How exactly did he do it? I still remember that this morning, he and Xiao Mingyue chased after Yu Mengdie all the way, only to run into Gongye Zhou. They were forced to teleport back. How much time has passed since then? And he’s already fought his way back? Forcing all three of them back to the Dead Wood Regeneration Forest?"

The group stared at the distant thundercloud, feeling an immense sense of shock. They couldn’t fathom how Ji Zhixing had managed to control a treasure land for his own use.

RUMBLE!

While their minds raced with speculation, over in the distance, immediately after Gongye Zhou’s departure, Ji Zhixing maneuvered the thundercloud back. He headed straight above the Twisted Forest.

Looking down from high above, many trees in the Twisted Forest had already been smashed to pieces by Cao Zhenxing’s trio. The ground was littered with broken trunks and shattered branches.

But at this moment, those pulverized trees were actually rapidly recovering. New branches sprouted from the severed trunks, and shattered leaves recondensed, as if the Life Force within this treasure land was endless.

As for the trees in the core area of the Twisted Forest, they were incredibly tall and practically brimming with vitality. Their trunks were as thick as ancient trees that had lived for hundreds or thousands of years, and their canopies blotted out the sun and sky.

"Strong recovery? Then let’s see which is stronger—your recovery, or my lightning."

Looking at the Twisted Forest below, Ji Zhixing willed it, and streaks of lightning poured down from the thundercloud, bombarding the Twisted Forest.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Purple-gold lightning poured down like a torrential rainstorm. Carrying world-destroying momentum, it blasted into the twisted trees.

Sensing the lightning attack, the Twisted Forest below instantly rioted. Countless branches swayed and shot into the sky like giant pythons, whipping at the descending thunder.

A green glow flowed across the surface of those branches, rendering them incredibly tough. They flailed in the air, colliding with the striking lightning.

CRACKLE!

The lightning struck the branches, letting out a series of explosive CRACKS. The branches were blasted into charred fragments that scattered everywhere. Their dark green sap was vaporized by the electricity, issuing HISSING sounds.

But right after those branches were shattered, new ones immediately sprouted from the trunks, continuing to whip upward. If one branch was destroyed, ten more would take its place. If ten were destroyed, a hundred would take their place.

The entire Twisted Forest seemed to come alive. Countless branches wove into a massive net in the air, crazily clashing against the lightning falling from the sky.

"Interesting."

A glint flashed in Ji Zhixing’s eyes as he looked down at the dense swarm of branches rocketing skyward. He didn’t stop. Instead, he intensified the lightning output.

The electricity within the thundercloud surged madly. Bolts of lightning struck down continuously, resembling violent electric pythons baring their fangs and brandishing their claws as they pounced on the branches. The lightning and branches clashed frantically in midair. The non-stop explosions shook the ground, making the earth tremble.

In the distance, the students from the three universities were left dumbfounded by the sight.

"Under Ji Zhixing’s control, that thundercloud is actually this terrifying?"

"And that Twisted Forest! It has this much power when fully unleashed? When Cao Zhenxing’s group was attacking just now, those trees weren’t this crazy."

"That’s just because Cao Zhenxing and the others didn’t reach the core area earlier. If they had, they probably would have found out just how tough this Twisted Forest really is. The recovery power of these trees is practically abnormal. They grow back as much as they’re destroyed. It’s impossible to finish them off."

"That thundercloud is shrinking!"

Suddenly, a student’s expression shifted as he noticed that as the thundercloud continuously unleashed lightning downwards, its size was gradually shrinking. At the same time, it wasn’t just the thundercloud that was shrinking. The Twisted Forest’s recovery speed below also started to slow down more and more.

Especially the trees on the periphery. After being blasted apart by the lightning, they stopped recovering altogether, as if they had died completely.

"The thundercloud is expending energy, and so is the Twisted Forest. This is... a war of attrition?"

"Who do you guys think will win in the end?"

"I don’t know, but no matter who wins, this scene is just too spectacular."

They discussed among themselves, their unblinking eyes glued to the distant battlefield.

Meanwhile, situated within the thundercloud, Ji Zhixing also sensed this. He could clearly feel the Thunder Power within the thundercloud rapidly depleting.

Although this thundercloud was powerful, its strength was not infinite. Every bolt of lightning that struck down consumed its accumulated Thunder Power. Yet he wasn’t worried in the slightest, because his goal was exactly to unleash all the power within this thundercloud.

He didn’t care even if it weakened the thundercloud. After all, only when the thundercloud’s power weakened and shrank could he store it inside his Genetic Melting Furnace and refine it—to completely make it his own.

"Keep going!"

Without a pause, Ji Zhixing continued to drive the thundercloud, endlessly striking the Twisted Forest below with bolt after bolt of lightning. The branches of the Twisted Forest continuously shot into the sky to clash with the lightning. But as time passed, the recovery speed of those branches grew slower and slower.

The trees in the peripheral regions had died completely, showing no further reaction. The trees in the middle zone also started to wither, their trunks charred black and their foliage withering away. Only the trees in the core area were still putting up a stubborn resistance, but their recovery speed was nowhere near what it had been.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The lightning continued to strike. Violent electric pythons clashed with the twisted branches shooting towards the sky, bursting into a flurry of debris and electrical arcs that filled the air.

Time ticked by, minute by minute, second by second.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Finally, after half an hour, the thundercloud Ji Zhixing was in had been reduced to a mere ten meters in radius. And the Twisted Forest below it had been utterly decimated.

The trees in the peripheral and middle zones were all gone, leaving behind only scorched earth and a ground littered with debris. Only the largest tree right in the center remained, but its trunk was completely charred and all its leaves had fallen off. The entire tree looked like a burnt wooden stake.

Even as bolts of lightning continued to fall upon it, it remained motionless, as if it had already died.

"It’s finally... over?"

Watching this scene, the students observing from afar all held their breath. That Twisted Forest, which had left so many helpless, had been entirely obliterated by Ji Zhixing using a thundercloud?