Chapter 1222: Kicking Over the Turbid Calamity

The aura of world-ending calamity fully erupted. Beneath the writhing fleshy root, all surrounding light was swallowed. At first glance, it seemed as if the entire sky had merged with the root, pressing down ominously.

A fierce gale raged!

Chen Ling struggled to ward off the roaring aura of the Calamity of Filth. As the root rapidly expanded in his vision, a deathly threat surged into his heart.

What could he do? Was there any other way?!

Chen Ling's mind raced. In an instant, he considered almost every possibility but found no path to survival. He had already returned to the Integration Faction that morning, and with only a few hours left until the end of the current era's save file, escaping by leaving the archive was impossible.

Just as Chen Ling tensed his entire body, a hand slowly rested on his shoulder.

Chen Ling was startled. He turned his head and saw a figure in a Tang suit standing beside him, though he hadn't noticed when they arrived. Sun Bumin's hair was being whipped about by the strong wind, and his eyes behind the small round sunglasses silently gazed in the direction of the Calamity of Filth.

Not only Chen Ling, but Ying Fu also hadn't noticed when Sun Bumin appeared. Both of their gazes were filled with surprise.

Sun Bumin turned his head to look at Chen Ling, his gaze meticulous and serious, as if searching for something special about him... but he found nothing.

"Sun Bumin, what are you doing?" Chen Ling noticed the subtle change in Sun Bumin's expression and asked, bewildered.

"Honestly... I don't understand that old man's intentions," Sun Bumin sighed. "Please make way, you two."

Chen Ling didn't know what Sun Bumin was talking about, but he and Ying Fu instinctively stepped aside.

Sun Bumin slowly took off the small round sunglasses from his nose, shedding his usual playful demeanor. The hem of his Tang suit fluttered in the strong wind as his ring-nested pupils gazed at the colossal shadow that seemed to drag the sky. He slowly walked forward.

Seeing Sun Bumin's receding back, a thought he himself couldn't believe surged into Chen Ling's mind...

Was he going to fight the Calamity of Filth alone?

Chen Ling opened his mouth, about to ask something, when a white glow emanated from beneath Sun Bumin's feet.

The moment Sun Bumin's foot touched down, a white domain rapidly expanded, almost covering half of Mount Wu. Simultaneously, countless nested rings rippled outwards from him in the white light, like pebbles dropping into a lake, densely spreading across the ground.

"Master... is this the final move you taught me?" Sun Bumin looked down at the ripples beneath his feet, muttering to himself.

Others could only see the ripples emanating from his feet, but only Sun Bumin knew that each ripple represented a version of himself from a past reincarnation.

After millennia of accumulation, how many times had Sun Bumin reincarnated?

From prosperous eras to times of war and chaos, to rebuilding nations, and then to renewed prosperity... eras changed, but Sun Bumin was always a part of them. Yet, in those ancient times, before materialism became rampant and everyone prayed for happiness, he had reached the eighth rank so many times that he himself couldn't remember.

As his Master had said, each of his reincarnations was a form of accumulation...

And the key to unlocking everything lay within a single thought of Sun Bumin's.

"Just one root, it won't take too much," Sun Bumin muttered to himself, calculating like a miser, as he looked at the various versions of himself from his reincarnations.

He took another step forward, and several rings within the white light beneath his feet slowly floated up, nesting themselves beside him like the rings in his pupils. At the same time, one after another, phantom images of Sun Bumin appeared behind him.

In every reincarnation, Sun Bumin's appearance remained unchanged; only his attire differed slightly: some wore simple coarse cloth, others fine silk, and some fluffy fur... but his simple and pure gaze was constant through the ages.

Eighth Rank, Eighth Rank, Eighth Rank, Eighth Rank, Eighth Rank...

These phantoms stood behind Sun Bumin, and one after another, surges of Eighth Rank aura erupted. As their forms ignited with the colorful flames of the Awakened Lion, gradually fading away, Sun Bumin's own aura began to climb at an astonishing speed!

"That is..." Chen Ling watched this scene, utterly shocked.

Rumble—!!

The root of the Calamity of Filth, along with the oppressive dark sky, crashed down with a deafening roar!

The Calamity of Filth could devour light; the moment it approached, Chen Ling's vision turned almost completely black. He could only feel the root plummeting with earth-shattering force amidst the howling wind. If this strike landed, everyone here would be reduced to a bloody pulp, and all surrounding mountains would be leveled.

Just then, a streak of colorful light illuminated in front of them.

BOOM—!!!!

It was as if Pangu had split the heavens, and chaos suddenly divided.

Above the pitch-black sky, a dense, web-like pattern of colorful lines instantly fractured, and amidst the blinding brilliance, a sun-like lion's shadow streaked across the darkness, letting out a deafening roar.

The next moment, the devoured light returned to the world. Everyone looked up and saw that the fleshy root, which had obscured the sky, had been shattered!

Chunks of bloody rain fell, but they were purified by Chen Ling's starlight.

In mid-air, a young man with wide, lion-like eyes was bathed in flames, his hair dancing in the wind. The aura emanating from him was no weaker than the terrifying pressure of the world-ending calamity that had just struck!

"Bro... Brother, is this..."

"A true god?!"

Brother Pao and the others, seeing Sun Bumin, who was almost like a deity in the sky, nearly prostrated themselves in worship.

Chen Ling was equally astonished beyond words. He had known Sun Bumin for so long during the Nine Sovereigns era, yet he had never seen him possess such a trump card. One must know, the combat power Sun Bumin was now unleashing was almost that of a demigod!

Sun Bumin in mid-air, his lion-like eyes fixed on the rift before him. The root, severed in half, was writhing frantically, even more violently than before.

The Calamity of Filth seemed enraged, constantly trying to break through the rift, attempting to extend more of its body to kill Sun Bumin. However, perhaps due to the unstable convergence of the two realms, the rift not only failed to expand further but was slowly contracting.

"This place does not belong to you..." Sun Bumin's voice was incredibly low.

He slowly raised his leg, and fierce, colorful flames rapidly converged on it, like a burning sun. He took a deep breath, mustered all his strength, and powerfully kicked forward!

"Get lost!!!"

CRASH—!!!

A sky-obscuring, colossal foot of an Awakened Lion swept forward like a divine pillar, directly kicking a massive hole into the still-healing root. Terrifying colorful flames surged within it, and the aftermath of the force, transmitted beyond the rift, directly struck some gigantic entity...

A furious roar echoed from behind the rift. The figure of the Calamity of Filth had been forcibly kicked back into the depths of the Corrupted Flesh Forest by that single blow!