Worlds’ Apocalypse Online

Badum! Badum! Badum! Badum! Badum!

Gu Qing Shan's heart was racing.

The divine armor managed to activate [God's Order] moments before his death.

Time stopped.

The monster's figure could clearly be seen suspended in the air.

It was a humanoid monster.

Aside from its limbs that were too muscular and sharp claws, as well as having a huge tail, it was very similar to a normal human.

It was hard to tell just how it exactly did that------- being able to get so close to Gu Qing Shan without him noticing it at all.

Its sharp claw was only a millimeter away from piercing Gu Qing Shan's eye.

Gu Qing Shan didn't even have time to breathe.

It was a moment of survival.

A blink of an eye before his possible death.

He forgot to breath, forgot everything else and simply swung the Earth sword with all his might!

Secret Art, [Swallow Returns] buffed by 12 [Iaido], performed with the Earth sword's weight of 86,370,000 tons, infused with all of Gu Qing Shan's concentration, slashed towards the monster's soft neck.

This attack would lop off the monster's head!

-------but only a dull 'bam' was heard.

The Earth sword was blocked by the monster's skin.

All that appeared at the monster's throat was a faint white slash mark.

Bam!

Another dull sound.

[Swallow Returns]'s characteristic had manifested, creating a sword phantom at the monster's back, attacking it again with the same power.

But it still did nothing!

Only two white marks appeared on the monster's neck.

Gu Qing Shan's expression changed.

Even such a powerful attack couldn't pierce through the skin of the monster's vital spots.

What kind of defensive capability is this!?

At the same time, the monster's presence began to rise.

Almost as if some sort of defensive power was being activated inside the monster's body.

At this time, two breaths had already passed.

The flow of time would resume in one breath's worth of time.

With this monster's offensive capabilities, even one of its attack could drive Gu Qing Shan to his death

If [Time Stop] were to end…

During that moment of crisis, the Earth sword suddenly spoke: 「 Gu Qing Shan, give me all of your Divine power! 」

"Got it!"

Gu Qing Shan spoke without hesitation.

Originally he had over 500,000 Soul Points, but with how much he used [Even a sea of suffering shall pass] in the recent battle, he only had about 300,000 Soul Points left.

And he infused all 300,000 Soul Points into the Earth sword at once!

Oom!!

The Earth sword began to vibrate intensely.

Various mysterious runes appeared on the blade of the sword.

An ancient air of vicissitudes from passed ages drifted around the sword.

Clear howling and screams could be heard coming from the Earth sword, almost as if countless daemons were crying out.

It had completely turned into a different sword!

---------or perhaps this was the Earth sword's true form!

「 Again! 」

The Earth sword's mountainous heavy voice rumbled.

"HHHHHaaaaahhhhh!!"

Gu Qing Shan shouted as he once again activated the hand seals for his Secret Art and swung at the monster's neck.

The sword phantoms flashed and sliced through the void of space.

Sha!

A head flew.

It was beheaded!

At the same time, three breaths of time were up and [Time Stop] ended.

The monster's body fell to the ground.

With a swing of the sword, the remaining blood was scattered below.

All of the Earth sword's paranormal phenomena stopped.

Gu Qing Shan breathed out heavily, his entire body trembling.

He had been through a lot of near-death experiences.

But this feeling of inevitable death that would've already happened according to the flow of fate was still fresh to Gu Qing Shan.

"It's fortunate that you're here, Earth sword" Gu Qing Shan said.

But the Earth sword didn't reply.

Gu Qing Shan looked down at the Earth sword.

When all the paranormal phenomena faded, a crack began to spread along the sword's body.

Soon enough, the entire sword was covered in cracks as the shaft turned ashen grey.

The Earth sword's exhausted voice came.

「 My wounds haven't fully healed even after all this time, now that I've used my full power, I already can't hold on anymore and have to enter a dormant state 」

「 Find Ling Er, she'll know what to do 」

The Earth sword said before thoroughly falling silent.

Gu Qing Shan gently lifted the sword without daring to act irrationally.

He could already see various metal chips peeling off from the sword, even with the smallest movements he made.

He was afraid that if he made any sudden movements, the entire sword itself would break apart.

If that was the case, with the sword body gone, the Earth sword couldn't be saved anymore.

"Earth sword…"

Gu Qing Shan sighed sorrowfully.

He carefully took out a long box made of spirit jade and placed the Earth sword inside.

With how the Earth sword was currently, he could only look for Shifu's help to repair it.

At this time, a hurried voice came from the hovering piece of scale that came off from the armor.

"Hurry, your sword can still be saved, but now we have to hurry up and deal with this corpse!"

The giant corpse's voice was worried.

Gu Qing Shan asked: "It's already dead, what else do we need to deal with?"

He stared at the monster's body in confusion.

If the situation wasn't as dangerous as it was, he really didn't want to kill that monster right away.

He wanted to try asking why it knew who he was.

Gu Qing Shan was sure that he hadn't met that monster before, whether it was this life or the last.

But it recognized him.

How is that possible?

The giant corpse had confirmed that this monster was definitely a creature that hadn't come from any world of the 900 million World Layers.

It didn't belong to the 900 million World Layers.

But… it recognized me.

Gu Qing Shan couldn't think anymore.

The monster was full of sudden mysteries that even if he wanted to, he didn't have any leads to follow for deduction.

The giant corpse's voice came: "If we don't take care of the body soon, even more unknown creatures might be led here"

"Are you sure?"

"There are too many methods to determine where a body is, so we need to destroy it as fast as we can, furthermore not leaving even a single trace left of it!"

While they talked, the monster's head suddenly moved.

A milky white string came out from its head and connected to its body.

Right after, the head floated up and slowly flew towards its body.

"Don't even think about it" the giant corpse spoke.

Several more scales came off its armor and turned into various attacks that struck the head.

But they were all ineffective.

Without being even bothered by the attacks, the head kept flying towards its own body.

Apparently this monster had a secret technique to reattach its head to its body.

The corpse's voice became panicked as he shouted: "If you still have a trump card, now's the time to use it and stop the revival!"

Gu Qing Shan retorted: "If you can't even do anything to it, how could I!?"

During that moment of crisis, his mind quickly moved.

He suddenly drew the Six Paths Great Mountain sword.

A sword phantom was swung from it and severed the milky white string that connected the monster's head and body.

[Law Breaker]!

The monster's head once again rolled to the ground.

It opened its eyes, looking at Gu Qing Shan inexplicably.

Gu Qing Shan also stared at it.

"Pitiful…" the monster said.

As it said these words, it closed its eyes and thoroughly fell dead.

Pitiful?

Me?

Gu Qing Shan was stunned.

The corpse's voice shouted like mad: "No way! No way! It's fortunate that it wasn't on the bronze pillar, I'll be using everything I know to dispose of this corpse"

Following his words, hundreds of black scales came off the giant corpse's jet black armor.

One of the scales flew down first onto the monster's body.

The scale turned into a green mist that completely covered the corpse.

A few moments later, the mist scattered, the corpse was unscathed.

Another scale came down, turning into incandescent magma that covered the entire corpse.

But the results were the same, unable to do anything to the corpse.

A third scale came down, turning into various animals that tried to eat the corpse.

A fourth scale came down and turned into a large hammer that struck the corpse.

A fifth scale turned into various little people that all carried various tools and tried to dissect the body.

A sixth scale…

A seventh scale…

Spell after spell, technique after technique appeared from the scales one by one.

But the monster's body was still fine.

"Damn it! Damnit! We need to hurry up!"

The giant corpse's voice became more and more panicked as time passed.

Following his voice, more and more scales came off his armor.

Time quickly passed.

The 398th scale came down, turning into trillions of silver ants.

These ants began to eat the monster's body.

As they did, the monster's body visibly shrunk.

"Very good! That's the way" the giant corpse said.

A few dozen seconds later, the monster's body was completely gone.

The silver ants all gathered where the corpse originally was and stood still.

"Is it done?" Gu Qing Shan asked.

"Wait a minute, let's see the results" the giant corpse said.

They waited.

Abruptly, all the ants scattered.

A black skeleton rose from the ground and mindlessly walked away.

"Done!"

The giant corpse said.

Apparently, a large weight was lifted off his shoulders.

Gu Qing Shan looked at the black skeleton.

It quickly joined the group of several hundred other skeletons crawling on the ground, not at all distinct from them.

"Wait a minute, this sea of black skeletons is…"

"Yes, as you can see, these are all creatures that tried to eat my body. Normally, I would be able to cause them to die by themselves without actually attacking them, but I couldn't handle the monster that appeared this time at all"

"What was that monster exactly?"

"I don't know either"

"You said it doesn't belong in the 900 million World Layers?"

"It definitely wasn't"

"Then why did it know my name?"

"You don't have to think too much about that, there are many spells and techniques that allow someone to know another person's true name, for example [Void Peek], [Dreamscape Divination], [Death Prediction], [Mark of the True Name]------- there are too many magical skills of this type that you don't even need to think about it too much"

Gu Qing Shan went silent for a while.

"…No, I felt like that monster simply knew who I was" he suddenly said.