Ashes Of Heaven Book 1 : Solar Calamity

Li Yuan and Zhu Huang, two adventurous young cultivators from the Limitless Pill Sect, were caught off guard by how enthusiastic their fast-approaching opponent sounded.

Both of them were expecting to be greeted with a violent storm of weapons and magic at this stage of the inheritance test. After all, they had been attacked twice so far; both times their opponents had used crudely created law fragments somehow.

After beating those bastards up, they had managed to extract the rules of this stage of inheritance test from their mouths.

The second stage of the test required one to show their proficiency in using the laws they had managed to learn from the first test. Both Li Yuan and Zhu Huang were from a sect that used similar law techniques to increase their ability to create better pills. So it was somewhat advantageous to them, having a large amount of past experience regarding this type of techniques and how to use them to affect somebody. This was the reason why, despite having cultivated alchemic expertise instead of battle techniques, they could steamroll their way through the battles in the second stage so easily.

Of course, they did not have the ability to use law fragments to win every battle. Even activating one law fragment was hard enough. The majority of the cultivators who had reached the second stage of the inheritance test had expended all of their qi to activate their own law fragment by now. And this is where the competition started. The second stage of the test required one to collect power sources to activate law fragments, in other words, the floating emerald orbs in this particular area of the fog.

These emerald orbs functioned differently from the red ones. The emerald orbs were like tiny banks of power sources. Whoever could collect one would be able to fuel their law fragments and easily win the upcoming battles.

Li Yuan and Zhu Huang had worked together seamlessly since then, and managed to gather two emerald orbs; approximately enough to activate at least ten law fragments. Both of them had been feeling jubilant when they had heard the shout coming from their back.

"Kowtow before daddy!"

The shout was uncannily unnerving when it came from a roiling mass of fog, each syllable increasing in volume as if to establish the fact that the owner of the voice was moving toward them fast.

Their nerves tightened to the extreme, Zhu Huang and Li Yuan stepped back and prepared to cast the law fragments they had prepared in advance. The moment the enemy revealed himself, both of them would attack simultaneously, leaving no opportunity for the other party to recover or defend themselves.

But as the fog cleared, the sight that was revealed before their eyes dazed the two young men.

A semi-naked young man wearing a very eye-catching, red loincloth was walking toward them in a lazy gait. The only other piece of accessory on his body was a tattered black mask on his face, as well as a red bandana on his head.

He looked so out of place that for a moment, Li Yuan and Zhu Huang felt that they were hallucinating. Did the fog have hallucinogenic properties as well?

The approaching young man did not seem embarrassed in the slightest by their stares. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying the exhibition of his own body, judging by his unnecessary and outlandish poses while he moved forward.

Li Yuan and Zhu Huang were too dazed to make a move immediately. But their opponent was not. He suddenly leaped at them without a warning and shot out two pieces of metal at their chest.

The two young men might have been caught off guard, but they certainly were not slow by any means. Both of their reaction came incredibly fast as they hurried aside to dodge the pieces of metal flying toward them.

They had gotten a good grip on how battles using law fragments were fought.

The power required to make a law fragment affect its surroundings increased drastically with the slightest increase of its range, which meant that one had to make sure to keep the area of effect minimum for the maximum efficiency while using the emerald orbs as sources.

This had led to a widely used battle tactic in this stage of the inheritance test. Everyone was trying their best to make their law fragments get closer to their opponents before activating them. Throwing objects with law fragments drawn on them was one of the popular strategies.

Knowing full well that if the pieces of metal flying at their chest hit them, it'd lead to an immediate knockout or something equally miserable, both of them did their best to dodge.

But their attacker did not idly watch the show. As soon as he had thrown the scrap metals, he placed two more of them in front of him on the ground. It did not matter if his first attack was successful or not, his finisher move was of an entirely different style.

Li Yuan and Zhu Huang managed to dodge the attack and immediately returned the favor by attacking back with their own law fragments.

They had an advantage of numbers. Li Yuan and Zhu Huang had practiced the drill dozens of times. They had different strategies for different types of enemies.

Without missing a beat, Li Yuan had run in a curve, avoiding their assailant and stopping a few yards behind him while Zhu Huang maintained his position ahead of the strange young man.

A two-pronged attack had double the advantages when it came to this type of battles.

Barely had the young man straightened his back after placing the scrap metals on the ground when Zhu Huang took out his own law fragment, written on a piece of jade, an action that was mirrored by Li Yuan dozens of meters away behind their opponent.

Both of them clutched one emerald power source in their hands and one piece of jade in the other.

"Activate!"

All law fragments are limited by thousands of natural laws. But as long as one was creative enough and had the spirit to experiment fearlessly, making the best use of these natural limitations could bring astounding results. For example, the law fragment that both Li Yuan and Zhu Huang had used just now...

The emerald orbs that fueled the power of laws were all a part of one giant source. Li Yuan and Zhu Huang had come up with a law fragment that used this particular connection among all emerald orbs and intensified the connection by a hundredfold. It was the maximum amount they could reach without consuming too much power per activation, as well as not violating the natural laws behind the technique that created this entire inheritance ground. They had paid quite a price to avoid all sorts of restrictions in this artificial world fragment and make a cost-effective law fragment that did not have loopholes to be exploited.

As soon as their law fragments activated simultaneously, a strange magnetic field connected the two pieces of jade on their hands and trapped their opponent within it. The power source in their opponent's hand was rendered completely stagnant as two opposing magnetic fields suppressed any sort of movement it could make, regardless of its owner's mental commands.

In this stage of the inheritance test, the first and foremost priority in duels was to render your opponent unable to use any type of law techniques. Li Yuan and Zhu Huang had found an excellent way to accomplish this.

Trapped between their law fragments, their opponent couldn't muster a single iota of the emerald orb's power source.

A triumphant grin spread across Zhu Huang's face as he slowly advanced toward their opponent in practiced rhythm, with Li Yuan approaching from the other direction.

The constant pull and push from two directions made the opponent's power source completely unstable and useless. Even if their opponent's skills in the language of laws far surpassed their own, he wouldn't be able to regain control over it now.

Only the physical type of attack was left now, and neither Li Yuan nor Zhu Huang was going to back down from a two-to-one duel.

However...

Their opponent suddenly dropped the power source from his hand. Their eyes followed its downward fall.

Was he going to try and battle them with other types of techniques?

Zhu Huang's eyes met Li Yuan's and both of them readied themselves for a brawl.

Their opponent took out a broken blade of a spear he had been carrying around, tied to his loin cloth and hidden on his back till now.

Zhu Huang imperceptibly took out a blinding pill and a paralyzing pill, a movement that was mirrored by Li Yuan.

But their opponent did not charge at them like they had expected him to. Instead, he aimed the spearhead above his head and brought it down on the ground in full force.

For a brief second, Zhu Huang noticed some familiar engravings on the broken blade.

A sudden thought appeared to him. Was this guy trying to use his own qi and comprehension of the language of laws to activate and fuel the law fragment on the blade? He didn't have any usable power sources on him!

What a joke! If it was some sort of small usage like moving a tiny object, that plan might be feasible. But defeating two full-fledged cultivators was out of the question.

Their opponent muttered an inaudible sentence. The engravings on the side of the blade lit up dimly. One end of the blade had penetrated the ground. The crisscrossing light entered the ground through it.

Zhu Huang was almost about to throw his pills at the kneeling young man when he felt it.

A tremor shook the ground beneath his feet. Barely a second later, the loose soil turned into a hard, rocky substance and caught his feet in an iron grip.

Zhu Huang almost lost his balance while Li Yuan stumbled. They couldn't move their feet anymore, not even with their supernatural strength that came with cultivation.

How was this possible? Without an external source, this young man had executed such a powerful law?

No one in the physique transformation realm could do anything remotely similar! It was impossible! Affecting such a large area and changing the soil into a whole new type of substance was something even soul reformation realm elders from their sect could only hope to accomplish.

But their opponent was not finished. A wide grin played on his face as he crossed his arms and suddenly pushed them outward.

"Astral Heatwave!"

Zhu Huang felt like his very existence had been struck by a giant war chariot. Briefly, he saw the back of his own head, a visage that made no logical sense before his vision darkened.

Just before he lost all senses, he heard footsteps coming from behind. Was someone coming to intervene? Zhu Huang's heart was filled with hope suddenly.

But then the newcomer shouted.

"Boss?! Why are you naked? There are no girls here to show off to!"

Zhu Huang fell unconscious while his brain was nearly overloaded by the puzzling turn of events.