Chu Feng was suppressed — completely and utterly suppressed by the purple-clothed girl. No matter how unwilling he was, there was nothing he could do.
"Chu Feng, give your body to me. Let me win this arrogant girl for you." Just then, Eggy's voice rang out once more, and there was a tone of iron determination in her words.
"What?" Before Chu Feng could even react, he felt a powerful force surging out from within his spiritual world, attacking his consciousness and attempting to seize control of his body.
The force was immense — terrifying, even. It felt as though it came from some dark abyss, carrying with it a gloomy, bone-chilling chill. But Chu Feng did not panic, because he sensed something familiar within it. It was Eggy.
After spending so much time together, Chu Feng had grown relatively trusting of Eggy. Despite her mischievous and unpredictable nature, she would never do anything to harm him. So rather than resisting the assault on his consciousness, he surrendered control of his body to Eggy's hands.
"Hummm." In that moment, Chu Feng felt an unprecedented surge of power coursing through him. Dark, pitch-black aura erupted from his body, coiling and spiraling upward around him.
In the blink of an eye, the inky black aura shrouded the entire tomb. The earth began to quake violently. Even the hidden Spiritual Energy, Yuan Force, and Xuan Force lingering in the air let out mournful wails, as if gripped by terror.
The dark aura churned overhead like storm clouds blotting out the sun — but no storm cloud could ever carry such crushing pressure. It was as if some demon, sealed away for untold ages, had been unbound and descended into a world that was never meant to hold it. This kind of oppressive force simply should not exist in this realm.
"So this is his power? Why is it completely different from before?"
The purple-clothed girl's violet eyes flickered. She seemed afraid, because she had been shocked to discover that Chu Feng's aura had undergone a fundamental transformation. If Chu Feng had been a dazzling ray of light before, then now he was an all-consuming darkness. Most critically, the moment he erupted with that black aura, her own presence was utterly smothered.
"How does this child possess such dark power within his body?" Even the White Tiger's expression changed dramatically at that moment. The gaze it fixed on Chu Feng no longer held a shred of contempt.
"Do you think your Heaven Gifted Divine Body makes you invincible under heaven? Today I will show you a power that does not belong to your world, and teach you what it means to face an Asura."
Chu Feng was now under Eggy's control. The one speaking was not Chu Feng, but Eggy — though the purple-clothed girl and the White Tiger could not tell the difference, since Eggy was borrowing Chu Feng's body. The voice that emerged was still his.
"Asura? Never heard of it. All I know is that the Heaven Gifted Divine Body is the most powerful constitution in all heaven and earth. The Heaven Gifted Divine Body was always meant to be invincible."
The purple-clothed girl was clearly unconvinced, even incited to fury by Eggy's words. The purple bell enveloping her body rang out with an increasingly aggressive peal, the sound waves crashing toward Chu Feng one after another, several times more ferocious than before. Her rage was unmistakable.
But Eggy simply stood in place, paying it no mind. The black aura coiled around her body, impenetrable to all things. Even that bizarre and formidable bell resonance was deflected to the outside, unable to so much as graze Chu Feng's body.
"Hmph." Suddenly, Eggy let out a cold snort. The mass of dark aura overhead began to writhe and undulate, and then countless black claws descended from the sky.
Yes — claws, not hands. They were sharp and horrifying, the kind of thing that made your skin crawl with a single glance. Even if someone called them hands, they were certainly not human hands. They were the hands of demons.
Sharp black claws, trailing long arms behind them, fell from the heavens like countless demons reaching out from another world to seize the purple-clothed girl with their nightmarish talons.
"Empty threats. You think you can scare me with this?"
The purple-clothed girl's violet eyes flashed, and she struck upward with a flurry of palm strikes. Each palm tore through the air. Each palm made heaven and earth shudder. This was no longer a simple Fifth-rank Martial Art — it was a Sixth-rank Martial Art.
"A Sixth-rank Martial Art? This girl actually commands a Sixth-rank Martial Art, and has cultivated it to this level."
Chu Feng was astonished. Though his body was under Eggy's control, he could still perceive everything happening before him. He could feel how extraordinary and how domineering the martial art the purple-clothed girl was unleashing truly was.
It had indeed surpassed his Hundred Change Bow. It was unmistakably a Sixth-rank Martial Art. More importantly, the girl wielded it with absolute mastery, having clearly comprehended every last shred of its essence.
In that moment, Chu Feng came to a profound understanding of just how formidable the purple-clothed girl was. Compared to her, he truly fell short. At least in terms of their current strength, the gap between them was as wide as heaven and earth — they were not remotely on the same level.
Yet no matter how powerful the girl's martial art might be, it could not so much as budge the black claws descending from above. The claws seemed to belong to an entirely different world. Nothing could destroy them, but they could destroy everything in this one.
*BOOM!* Just then, a single black claw plummeted from the sky and slammed into the ground where the purple-clothed girl stood. Stones erupted in every direction, and a deep palm imprint was carved into the earth. The girl had failed to dodge in time and was smashed downward by the sheer force.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Countless more black claws rained down after that, striking the purple-clothed girl in a relentless, unbroken barrage.
The vast tomb shuddered with each impact, as though it might collapse at any moment. Even the formation runes inscribed on the ground had dimmed to a faint glow. A deep crater spread wider and wider, everything crumbling under the devastating force of Eggy's power.
"Enough, stop!!!" At that moment, the White Tiger suddenly roared, because it had no choice but to intervene. The situation had spiraled beyond its control, and if this continued, the entire tomb would be obliterated — and the grand formation sealing the entrance to the Imperial Tomb along with it.
Only after it spoke did Eggy relent. The black clouds overhead began to dissipate, and the dark aura coiling around her body faded away. Control of the body returned to Chu Feng's hands.
With Eggy's power withdrawn, Chu Feng's aura dropped from Xuan Martial Level Two back to Yuan Martial Level One. But when he surveyed his surroundings, he was stunned to find that the once-impenetrable tomb had been utterly ravaged.
All the elegant designs and furnishings were gone. The only thing still intact was the grand formation's rune pattern, still running — though its light had long since lost the brilliance it once had.
"Cough, cough, cough..." A ragged series of coughs came from within the deep crater. The purple-clothed girl slowly crawled out. The purple bell still enveloped her body, though it too had dimmed considerably.
And at the corner of her lips, a streak of fresh red blood trickled slowly downward. She had clearly sustained no small amount of injury. Of course, had it not been for the purple bell shielding her, she would likely have been smashed into a paste by Eggy's relentless assault.