495: Upgraded independently for five thousand years

“Boom—!”

An earth-shattering collision sounded, and a terrifying shockwave of energy spread in all directions, instantly leveling the entire Virtual Battlefield.

The joint attack of the powerhouses was actually directly cut and disintegrated by Lu Chen's single spear strike! Immediately after, the residual power of that terrifying spear light continued unabated, sweeping toward the group of powerhouses.

“No!”

Despair appeared on the faces of Haotian Immortal Emperor and the other powerhouses; they no longer had any strength left to resist this spear light. In an instant, all the powerhouses were swallowed by the spear light, their bodies exploding one after another and turning into a sky full of light specks.

Lu Chen withdrew his spear and stood still, a gratified smile appearing at the corner of his mouth: “Finally succeeded!”

After a hundred years of training, relying on death and resurrection time and time again, he had finally completely defeated the powerhouses of this entire world.

His combat techniques and combat insights had all reached a brand-new Realm.

However, Lu Chen was not satisfied with this. For him, this century of training was only a beginning.

With a thought, a mysterious power surged into the light specks of those dissipated powerhouses.

Instantly, the figures of all the powerhouses condensed again, and their power was increased ten-thousand-fold. Their strength Realm also rose directly from the previous God King Realm to the God King Peak!

The newly resurrected Haotian Immortal Emperor felt the explosive power within his body, but instead of feeling the slightest joy, he almost burst into tears.

He looked at Lu Chen, his voice filled with endless despair and breakdown: “Why is it starting again? It’s been a hundred years! A full hundred years! You have tortured us for a full hundred years! Are you just that desperate to be hit? You deliberately suppress your own strength, then increase our strength time and again, get killed by us time and again, and then resurrect time and again to turn around and crush us. Do you like being a masochist that much? Do you enjoy torturing us that much?”

The other powerhouses also showed expressions of collapse; a hundred years of non-stop fighting had long since exhausted all their willpower.

The way they looked at Lu Chen was like they were looking at a devil.

The corners of Lu Chen's mouth curled up slightly, revealing a meaningful smile: “You can't take it after only a hundred years? This has only just begun. Come, show me your full strength and spar with me properly. Otherwise, if I find out anyone is holding back in battle and not being a good sparring partner...”

Lu Chen paused deliberately, a cold and sharp glint flashing in his eyes: “I will cast your Souls into purgatory to suffer the pain of burning bodies and eroding bones, never to be reincarnated for all eternity, letting you truly experience what it means to be better off dead!”

The cold words rang in the ears of the powerhouses like a curse, making them tremble all over. They did not doubt Lu Chen's words in the slightest; with Lu Chen's strength, achieving this would be as easy as turning over his hand.

Despite being filled with despair and breakdown, the powerhouses had no choice but to suppress their negative emotions.

In this century of fighting, they hadn't actually gained nothing; through constant battle with Lu Chen, their combat techniques and insights into power were also improving.

They were also gambling—gambling that they could have an Epiphany in this endless combat, Breakthrough their existing Realm, and reach a higher level.

As long as their strength could surpass Lu Chen's, perhaps they would have a chance to escape this endless purgatory and regain their freedom.

“Fine! Lu Chen, don't be too arrogant! Today, we shall fight you to our heart's content!” Haotian Immortal Emperor took a deep breath, reigniting his fighting spirit. He knew that retreating was useless; only a fight to the death offered a slim chance of survival.

The other powerhouses nodded one after another, circulating the surging Divine Power in their bodies as their Auras climbed to the Peak once more.

Although they knew the hope of defeating Lu Chen was still slim, they still had to give it their all.

For a time, a terrifying Aura permeated the Virtual Battlefield once again.

Lu Chen looked at the powerhouses who had reignited their fighting spirit, a satisfied smile appearing on his face. Holding the dragon fiend spear, he took the initiative to charge toward them: “Very good, now this is interesting! The ten-thousandth round of combat, begin!”

Before his voice had even faded, Lu Chen's figure had already turned into an afterimage. The dragon fiend spear, carrying a sharp spear light, pierced directly toward Haotian Immortal Emperor. Haotian Immortal Emperor no longer hesitated, urging the God King Peak Divine Power in his body to perform the Haotian World-Extinguishing Seal, meeting Lu Chen head-on.

Powerhouses like the Five Directional Emperors and the Five Great Heavenly Venerables also struck one after another, pouring all sorts of terrifying attacks toward Lu Chen once again. On the Virtual Battlefield, the sounds of booming rang out again as a new round of purgatory trials began—and this time, the intensity of the battle far exceeded any before... In the endless slaughter and tempering of the Heavenly Dao Workshop, five thousand years passed by unknowingly.

During these five thousand years, the Virtual Battlefield never ceased. Chaos currents repeatedly tore apart and reorganized, and Law fragments drifted within the energy storms.

Lu Chen raised the Realm of all the powerhouses in the training world to the God Emperor Realm.

One must know that between a God Emperor and a God King, while it seems like only a single Realm's difference, there is actually a Great Chasm of power over a hundred million times wide. It is like the difference between clouds and mud; they are simply not existences of the same dimension.

But what Lu Chen wanted was precisely this extreme pressure.

He still maintained himself at the God King Realm, facing the joint siege of a hundred God Emperor Realm powerhouses with his own strength alone.

This act, which would seem no different from seeking self-destruction to any practitioner, became the best furnace for Lu Chen to improve himself.

For the first thousand years, Lu Chen spent almost all his time in a cycle of near-death and resurrection.

A single strike from a God Emperor Realm powerhouse was enough to bring his Divine Soul to the brink of collapse.

But Lu Chen treated every death as an opportunity for insight. At the moment his Divine Soul reorganized, he would review every detail of the battle: the trajectory of the opponent's Law operations, the nodes of energy bursts, the flaws in the connection of killing moves... The Cultivation Techniques within his body began to evolve frantically under this extreme pressure.

The original Six Paths Chaotic Heaven Art, after integrating the insights of a hundred God Emperors into the Six Paths of Heaven and Earth, transformed into the even more profound Heavenly Dao Chaotic Heaven Art.

This technique draws upon the Heavenly Dao Origin power, mobilizing the energy of heaven and earth for one's own use. Even in places lacking energy, one can borrow the momentum to exert force, completely breaking the technique's dependence on the environment.

The Nine Heavens Dragon Vein Art, after absorbing the experiences of the powerhouses regarding dragon veins, earth veins, and heavenly veins, evolved into the Myriad Veins Returning to Dragon Art.

Cultivating this art allows one to draw upon the world's myriad veins of wind, fire, thunder, lightning, and more, condensing them into an indestructible Dragon Vein Battle Body. Not only does defensive power skyrocket, but one can also pour the power of myriad veins into weapons, making every attack contain the world-destroying might of the dragon veins.

And the original Four Symbols Cultivation Technique, under Lu Chen's deduction, transformed into the Taiji Four Symbols Eight Trigrams Cultivation Technique.

This technique contains the ultimate principles of heaven and earth, with the core being Taiji generating the two poles, the two poles generating the four symbols, the four symbols generating the eight trigrams, and the eight trigrams determining fortune and misfortune, deriving a series of extremely practical techniques and skills.

The Taiji Spear can both attack and defend; as the spear light flows, it forms a Taiji light screen that can block a full-strength strike from a God Emperor.

The Two Poles Slash divides the Yin and Yang Qi, and the blade light it slashes out can tear through space and cut through Laws.

The Eight Trigrams Array is even more mysteriously infinite; once laid down, it can trap, defend against, or kill enemies. As the eight trigrams rotate within the array, they can continuously weaken the enemy's power while simultaneously boosting one's own combat strength.