260 Facing Peyton Eluard

Peyton's gaze landed on the five heads that rolled through the grass and flowers on the meadows, his brown eyes quivering faintly when they landed on the heads of Mordred and Ardet. They had been his dearest friends and greatest mental support while he fought his way up the ranks in the Merged Heaven clan. And now they were dead, their heads rolling towards him with blank eyes and open mouths. Peyton took a quick deep breath, his gaze returning to Yao Jun as he gave a somewhat low laugh.

"Quick, simple, and appropriately gruesome. I guess it can be considered quite appropriate and fitting for a monster like you. Well then, come, Yao Jun, let us see which of us is the greater monster!"

Peyton's entire body started to swell after he finished his sentence, which ended with a thunderous shout that caused the grass and flowers around him to bend downwards. Streaks of various colors started to spread through his ashen hair as his body started to grow, only stopping when Peyton had grown to be four meters tall. His previously brown eyes were now changing color and shape continuously, looking like a goat's eyes for one second and then suddenly looking like a snake's eyes before then changing to look like a hawk's eyes.

His hands actually split open and widened, two new claw-like fingers growing out from the middle of both his hands. A slight change also happened to his shoulders, they rose up slightly and then grew almost 10 centimeters thicker, the back of Peyton's robe bulging out slightly as something seemed to grow out of the thickened shoulders. The entire transformation only took about half a second, Yao Jun tilting his head slightly while looking at the changed Peyton.

"This should be your Chimera King Physique, no? It's changed quite a bit compared to what I saw in the memories of Ardet and the others."

In truth, Yao Jun had actually already heard about Peyton's Chimera King Physique years ago, the servant he met on Four-Peaks Planet, the one that had caused Peyton to learn almost everything about him, had mentioned it once while he was spying on them. Peyton clenched his fists, his eyes glowing with a faint light as he spoke up.

"I've been quite lucky in this competition, not as lucky as you, but still enough to increase my strength by a decent bit, I've even managed to kill a Demonic beast with the strength of a strong cultivator at the middle stage of the Earthly Deity realm like this. Now then, Yao Jun, let's see if your myriad of laws or mine will be the ones to come out on top."

The Chimera King Physique was the top technique of the Merged Heaven clan, it was also what Peyton used to make up for the fact that his Supreme Law fragment was ill-suited for attacking. By merging parts of different Demonic beasts into your own body, you could gain access to a fragment of the power that the parts hold. The larger the part, and the stronger the Demonic beast it came from, the more of their power you could use for yourself.

Of course, with most such great techniques it had some drawbacks. Cultivating any of the laws you had acquired through this technique would be far slower than if you trained in a law you personally gained insight into the technique was tremendously painful to cultivate, to the point that some cultivators killed themselves rather than suffer the pain. And the main drawback was that there was always a chance that your body would reject the Demonic beast parts you used to cultivate. In the best cases, your body would simply expel the parts that it rejected, but in the worst cases, the rejection would cause both your body and the part to become so unstable that both exploded from an overload of energy.

Yao Jun lowered his outstretched arm and his sword, suddenly vanishing from the area. Peyton spun around so quickly that his movements blurred, clenching his right fist and punching at the empty air a short distance behind him. A ripple appeared in space just as he punched out, Yao Jun coming out of the ripple, already leaning backward and dodging the attack. But Yao Jun could feel the blood in his face move erratically just as the first blew past his face, it felt almost as if his blood was trying to burst out of his veins.

Yao Jun flooded all three types of energy at his disposal into his veins, his blood calming down but still leaving his veins slightly bruised. Peyton didn't look surprised that Yao Jun had so easily dealt with his first attack, on the contrary, he looked pensive. He could see Yao Jun's right hand, but he couldn't see his sword, his eyes darting around and looking for it while he simultaneously raised his senses as high as he could.

And then he noticed it, a faint sliver of movement within the shadow that his own robe cast on his arm. The movement was in the shadow on his right arm, which was currently still moving past Yao Jun's face. He quickly stretched out with his left arm but it was already too late, a black sword grew out of the darkness and stabbed towards Peyton's right wrist.

There was at best four centimeters between his skin and the tip of the sword, but Peyton still managed to somewhat react in time. Brown scales that seemed to ooze with sand grew on his right arm just as the sword reached his wrist, but as the scales didn't have enough time to grow properly, the sword ended up slightly piercing through them and digging a little into Peyton's arm.

Peyton quickly counterattacked, the earth and grass beneath Yao Jun turning into sand that pulled at his legs and dragged him down. Peyton changed the direction of his left hand at the same time, changing it so that it didn't head for his right wrist but instead reached towards Yao Jun's face, fleshy spikes extending from his palm.

Incandescent flames burst forth from Yao Jun's feet, the sand around him melting and releasing his feet. A gust of wind hit the front of his body and aided him in leaning backward, the fleshy spikes going just over his face. Peyton tried to take control over his blood again, but now that Yao Jun was ready he managed to stop it just as it started. On the contrary, it was Peyton who found himself attacked from within.

The law of death moved from Yao Jun's sword and into Peyton's body, focusing its assault on his right arm. The fleshy spikes started to age and wither as all the lifeforce within them was eaten away by the law of death, the spikes turned into little more than wrinkly and limp lumps of flesh after only a split second, the law of death starting to assault the rest of Peyton's right arm.

Yao Jun's law of death was quickly crushed before it could start weakening Peyton's bones, an overwhelmingly heavy energy flooding Peyton's right arm, the air around his arm vibrating slightly because of the energy. But by the time he crushed the law of death, Yao Jun had already finished leaning backward.

He placed his palms against the ground and raised his body into a cartwheel, kicking up a thick glob of molten sand in the process and launching it directly at Peyton using a bit of wind. A triangular piece of metal appeared in the air in front of Peyton, stretching towards the molten sand and attempting to engulf it.

It was at this moment that Yao Jun's feet touched the ground again as he finished his cartwheel, a bright orb of deep blue flames spawning into existence in front of him. The light from the orb caused the metal triangle to cast a shadow that covered Peyton's body, the molten sand suddenly vanishing as Yao Jun's own shadow stretched out and swallowed it.

Peyton narrowed his eyes slightly, the shadow covering his entire body starting to wriggle as every inch of it prepared to turn into thick spikes to attack him, preventing him from knowing just where the molten sand would appear from again. He suddenly felt the shadow on his left knee heat up slightly, his lips curling into a thin smirk.

"I'm not that naive!"

Peyton suddenly spun around, silver fur that seemed to be made from metal growing to cover his entire body. The molten sand did indeed appear from the shadow on Peyton's left knee, but Yao Jun's sword stabbed out of the shadows on Peyton's chest. At the same time, the rest of the shadow covering Peyton's body also moved, parts of it growing sharp spikes while other parts turned viscous and coiled around Peyton's body like vines in an attempt to bind him.

The silver fur actually managed to resist most of the molten sand and the various spikes, it even managed to weaken Yao Jun's sword enough that it only managed to stab one or two centimeters into Peyton's chest. But Peyton completely ignored all of these attacks, finishing spinning his body around and punching down at a small shadow located at his side.

A strange scene took place when his fist touched the shadow, the shadow started to crack and then shattered, dissipating and vanishing. Peyton's attack had done what he wanted it to, but his brows still furrowed. He thought he could catch Yao Jun off-guard by attacking the place where he was hiding and using his law of shattering to destroy the shadow, with Yao Jun in it. But now he was unable to sense Yao Jun, the shadow he shattered had felt completely empty.

Peyton then suddenly felt the force that Yao Jun's sword exerted on his chest grow dramatically, a foreboding feeling flooding his mind. He quickly turned his head, and sure enough, Yao Jun had appeared in front of him, grabbing onto the handle of his sword and pushing the tip deeper into Peyton's chest.

Peyton took a deep breath and pushed out his chest just as Yao Jun felt the bone at the center of Peyton's chest start to crack beneath his sword. The fur on his chest grew nearly three times as thick when Peyton pushed out his chest, the shattering bone even started to rapidly heal and grow, pushing Yao Jun's sword back and giving Peyton the chance to step back, his entire body turning into a blur as he pulled back several tens of meters. Yao Jun didn't chase, looking at Peyton with an almost indifferent gaze.

"I tire of this pointless charade, I'm not stupid enough to let down my guard enough to give you a chance to hit me with an attack where you unleash all your hidden strength. Peyton, stop holding back and bring out all your strength, I want to finish this already."

If this was all the strength Peyton had, then there was no chance for him to have reached his current position. As such, Yao Jun could only think of one explanation, he was hiding his strength so that he could catch Yao Jun off-guard. Sadly, Yao Jun did not make it a habit to underestimate his opponents, he would always remain perfectly vigilant, no matter how easy the fight seemed. Peyton's lips twitched slightly but he quickly regained his composure by shrugging his shoulders.

"Heh, impatient, aren't you? But I guess you're right, you don't seem dumb enough to grow arrogant just because you seemed to have the upper hand."

Peyton took another deep breath, his body swelling once more and growing to five meters tall, the robe covering his back splitting open as two metallic and bug-like wings grew from his back. A black scorpion-like tail grew out behind him, the sharp hook moving rhythmically in a somewhat hypnotic pattern. The silver fur started to melt and latch onto Peyton's body, covering his entire body in a silver carapace that glimmered beneath the sun, the air around Peyton starting to vibrate from just the pressure his body unleashed. Peyton looked at Yao Jun with blazing eyes, his now quite a bit deeper voice resounding forth.

"All cards are on the table now, Yao Jun, show me that which you have been keeping hidden, affirm my fears and sleepless nights!"