Despite Fang Ming's desperate attempts to intervene, Blood Kin King and Nannan clashed once more.
Having reverted to his ferocious form, Blood Kin King's power surged. Each punch carried the might to shatter mountains and rivers. Nannan, unwilling to yield, floated into the air, her numerous slender hair strands lashing out at Blood Kin King like a shower of steel blades.
"Boom!"
As they engaged, the shockwaves of their battle rippled outwards like waves.
Nannan and Blood Kin King retreated several steps. Their exchange had ended in a stalemate!
"Ha!" Nannan's hair transformed again, writhing like venomous snakes as they lunged at Blood Kin King.
Upon seeing the attack, a gaping maw on Blood Kin King's chest spewed forth a torrent of magma. The lava burned with ferocious flames. The instant Nannan's hair-snakes touched the fire, they let out a pained hiss and instantly turned to ash.
"Wretch, you are no match for me!" Blood Kin King roared.
Nannan retracted her hair, the tips of a few strands singed by the flames.
"Nasty bad guy," Nannan said, an edge of anger in her voice as she glared at Blood Kin King, her cheeks puffed out.
"You burned my hair! You really want a beating!" Nannan snarled.
"Hmph! Burning your hair was just an appetizer. Next, I'll burn you!" Blood Kin King sneered.
"Ba Yu Fang!" Blood Kin King bellowed, looking up at the sky.
An ancient aura suddenly descended upon the starry expanse. In the distant darkness, a pair of colossal eyes snapped open, each eye at least the size of a football field!
"Boom!" The colossal beast in the starry sky took a step, causing the entire space to tremble. As the oppressive presence drew nearer, everyone finally glimpsed the true form of this behemoth.
A four-legged ferocious beast, as large as a mountain! This beast resembled a colossal elephant but had an alligator-like head and was covered in rock-like scales. From a distance, it truly looked like a mountain.
"What is this..." Fang Ming's pupils contracted. Could this be Blood Kin King's symbiotic fiend? Did that mean Blood Kin King's strength had reached the level of a Nether Fiend?
"Roar~" Ba Yu Fang let out a deafening roar that echoed across the starry sky.
Blood Kin King leaped upwards and landed atop Ba Yu Fang's head, looking down at Nannan from afar.
Nannan's petite form was as insignificant as a speck of dust in the desert compared to them.
"Kill!"
Blood Kin King roared. Ba Yu Fang opened its massive maw and spewed a river of molten lava, pressing down on Nannan with overwhelming force. Nannan found herself with nowhere to retreat!
However, she had no intention of retreating!
"Resentful Water Blade!"
Nannan cried out. A large amount of water vapor began to condense in the void. In the blink of an eye, a water blade as clear as a mirror appeared in Nannan's hand. This was her mother's innate talent, though she rarely used it.
"Break!" Nannan leaped forward to meet the river of lava and cleaved it with her blade.
"Hiss~" A massive amount of white mist vaporized as the river of lava was forcefully split open, creating a gap. Nannan sprang through, narrowly escaping the lava's reach. The water blade had also vaporized in the intense heat, leaving only its hilt.
On the surface, this clash was a battle of water against fire. In reality, it was a confrontation between the quality of resentment energy within Nannan and Ba Yu Fang.
They were evenly matched!
"Boom!" The river of lava crashed into the void and quickly spread, filling the entire space with molten rock, leaving no solid ground to stand on.
Qing Mian quickly pulled Zheng Zhu Liu into a mirror dimension to take cover. Fang Ming, on the other hand, had to expend a significant amount of his internal resentment energy to create a barrier against the surrounding lava, continuing to observe the battle between the two fiends.
After cleaving the lava river, Nannan rapidly extended several strands of hair, which pierced into Ba Yu Fang's scales like steel nails. With a powerful tug, she leaped onto Ba Yu Fang's body, facing Blood Kin King once more.
"I didn't expect you to dare come up here?" Blood Kin King laughed instead of getting angry. Fiends were fiends, lacking any real intelligence!
"Ba Yu Fang, assist me in attacking her!"
Blood Kin King ran across Ba Yu Fang's body, drawing two bone spurs from his back to use as blades, which he crossed and attacked Nannan with.
Simultaneously, Ba Yu Fang controlled the scales on its body, sending them flying to attack Nannan. Fortunately, once detached, Ba Yu Fang's scales were no harder than ordinary stones, making it not too difficult for Nannan to cleave them with her hair.
However, Ba Yu Fang was merely a distraction; the true enemy was Blood Kin King!
While Nannan was being held back by Ba Yu Fang, Blood Kin King closed in, enduring the flying scales. His dual blades moved up and down, disrupting Nannan's attack rhythm.
"Crack, crack, crack..." Piece by piece, the stone scales were shattered by Blood Kin King. Nannan had no opportunity to attack and was forced to retreat while fighting. Seeing Nannan fall back, Blood Kin King pressed his advantage and continued his onslaught.
"Boom!" Blood Kin King's blade struck Ba Yu Fang, sending stone fragments flying. Nannan narrowly dodged, losing a few strands of hair to Blood Kin King's blade.
"Resentful Water Blade!" With no other choice, Nannan conjured another water blade and engaged Blood Kin King in close combat.
"Bang, bang, bang..." Blood Kin King wielded his dual blades with formidable power. Coupled with his immense speed, he struck so fast that afterimages filled the air, and sonic booms echoed incessantly.
Nannan held her ground, her water blade and hair strands working in tandem. Countless hair strands blocked Blood Kin King's attacks from all angles, while also counter-attacking him. Her water blade constantly sought an opening to strike Blood Kin King's true form.
"Ba Yu Fang! Restrain her!" Seeing that the attack was not yielding immediate results and recognizing Nannan's strength, Blood Kin King shouted to Ba Yu Fang again.
A heavy sensation suddenly descended upon Nannan, severely restricting her movements. Blocking Blood Kin King's attacks became increasingly strenuous.
From a distance, Fang Ming let out a sigh of relief seeing that Nannan had not been at a disadvantage for so long. It seemed this "Ba Yu Fang" was not Blood Kin King's symbiotic fiend, and Blood Kin King was not a Nether Fiend. Otherwise, Nannan would have been instantly annihilated by now.
But just as Fang Ming relaxed, Nannan was struck by Blood Kin King's blade!
She was flung from Ba Yu Fang's body and fell into the magma!
"Nannan!"
Fang Ming cried out, disregarding Blood Kin King. He rushed towards Nannan, but the distance was too great to intervene in Blood Kin King's next move!
Seeing Nannan struck and fall into the magma, Blood Kin King let out a hearty laugh.
"Ba Yu Fang, stomp down on her location!"
Ba Yu Fang raised a colossal foot and stomped down viciously on the spot where Nannan had fallen.
"Boom!" Lava splashed everywhere, but the smile on Blood Kin King's face gradually vanished as he looked down at the magma in surprise.
A suffocation-inducing fluctuation emanated from the magma. Ba Yu Fang also looked down at its foot in terror. Its massive foot was being held back by a terrifying force, and then a blood-red colossal serpent, twice its size, emerged.
"Roar~" The blood-red serpent let out a furious roar, flinging Ba Yu Fang violently aside. Blood Kin King reacted swiftly, leaping into the air to evade, thus avoiding the same fate as Ba Yu Fang.
"Boom—" Ba Yu Fang hit the ground, causing the entire space to tremble. Then, the blood serpent raised its upper body, and a woman with an aloof expression at its head looked down at Blood Kin King, as if regarding an ant.
Blood Kin King was shaken. This woman... was that little girl fiend from earlier? How had her strength suddenly increased so drastically?
"I never imagined such a monster existed in this world..." Blood Kin King murmured. His gaze then sharpened, filled with killing intent. He absolutely could not let this woman return to the real world, or all living beings would suffer!
Nannan's expression was icy, devoid of emotion. She looked down at the Blood Kin King below, who was like an ant, his eyes filled with murderous intent.
"Die." Nannan uttered a faint word.
"What have you done to me?!" Blood Kin King exclaimed in alarm. He suddenly felt something within him trying to break free. He quickly stabbed his bone spurs into his own body, attempting to stop this change.
But it was futile. The wounds even became the fuse for his destruction. A massive hand snapped his bone spurs and then, following the wound, tore Blood Kin King apart piece by piece. Blood Kin King tried to attack the monster within him, but it was useless!
"Witch!" Blood Kin King roared, brandishing his bone spurs to fight Nannan to the death. But after only a few steps, his body stiffened, and then he collapsed.
A blood beast, comparable in size to Blood Kin King, emerged from within him, only to be swallowed by the blood serpent in one gulp.
Blood Kin King was dead!
On the other side, Ba Yu Fang, witnessing this, trembled. Its four legs buckled, and it knelt on the ground, daring not to move, awaiting Nannan's judgment.
Fang Ming finally arrived at this moment. Seeing that Nannan was unharmed, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Nannan, are you alright?" Fang Ming approached the blood serpent and called up.
Nannan's previously cold expression instantly melted upon seeing Fang Ming. She quickly had the blood serpent retreat into an unknown space, then flew into Fang Ming's arms and nuzzled him.
"Fang Ming, you don't know how scared I was just now! That big guy suddenly increased the gravity around us..." Nannan's small mouth chattered like a machine gun, recounting the battle. The image of the ice-cold goddess was completely gone.
Ba Yu Fang cautiously observed the two of them. How could this man, merely a fiend seed, be associated with such a terrifying female fiend? Its simple mind could not comprehend it.
"It's alright, it's alright. The important thing is you defeated the opponent," Fang Ming said, stroking Nannan's head. He then asked, "Can you maintain this state for long?"
Nannan shook her head, tilting it upwards to estimate. "I can probably maintain it for about half an hour, but after that, I'll have to sleep for a very long time to recover. So, I don't really want to use this form."
As she spoke, Nannan remembered and shed her transformed state, returning to her little loli appearance.
"What should we do with this big fellow?" Nannan asked, pointing at Ba Yu Fang.
"Perhaps... kill it?" Fang Ming tentatively suggested.
Upon hearing this, Ba Yu Fang's front legs immediately went limp, nearly causing it to fall headfirst. It quickly prostrated itself and begged for mercy.
"Oh, it's quite intelligent," Fang Ming remarked in surprise. He hadn't considered that, after all, it was a top-tier fiend, and of such a large size, its species must not be simple.
Ba Yu Fang nodded vigorously, indicating its high level of intelligence, of the adaptable kind.
"Can you shrink?" Fang Ming asked.
Ba Yu Fang nodded again. Its body rapidly decreased in size, quickly becoming the size of a pug, resembling a high-legged crocodile with a broken tail.
"Not bad. In the future, people will see it and say it's a crippled crocodile with a broken tail," Fang Ming mused, stroking his chin, marveling at it.
Seeing that Fang Ming intended to keep it, Nannan planted a seed of power within it. If it ever harbored any disloyalty, Nannan could kill it from thousands of miles away!
Qing Mian and Zheng Zhu Liu also emerged from the mirror dimension. However, seeing the lava-strewn ground, Qing Mian had to conjure resentment energy to protect himself and Zheng Zhu Liu.
The two chapters that were delayed will be made up slowly. Apologies, apologies. I didn't expect these two days to be so busy.