Absolute Choice

“You almost killed This King!”

Tianjie’s voice sounded suddenly, filled with a sliver of alarm and fear.

The green head slowly floated up in midair, producing green, white, and red points of light. The green light began gathering beneath the head and appeared to reconstruct a body piece by piece; the white points of light connected to form a skeletal structure with strong, firm bones; and the red points of light gathered to form his blood that flowed with the Transcendence bloodline.

One-Pun wanted to stop him, but his remaining strength fell short of his desires. That single punch had drained him of all his strength, requiring him a short period of recovery before he could take action again. Even if One-Pun used whatever strength he had to slash out, the lacking sword beam would be unable to injure the head at all. It was unable to stop the Transcendent King from regenerating.

In moments, the pulverized body was restored to its original state. Tianjie’s regeneration powers were much faster than One-Pun’s recovery of his strength.

“Monster.”

One-Pun, who was always regarded as a monster, could not help but give Tianjie such an evaluation.

Transcendent King Tianjie did possess a monster’s extraordinary constitution, strength, speed, defense, tenacity, and regenerative powers. His regenerative powers were unfathomable and as long as he still had his head with one last breath left, he could create the miracle of regrowing from a corpse.

Although One-Pun was alarmed, he did not know that Tianjie was even more alarmed.

Tianjie had abandoned his body at the final moment, as he gathered all his strength to protect his head. Only then could he barely use the Transcendental Fifth Transformation to protect his head. It was evident how powerful that single punch was.

Past Transcendent Kings could only use the Transcendental Fourth Transformation, and few could use the Fifth Transformation. Only a few were recorded in the Transcendental annals; yet, the Fifth Transformation appeared worthless and weak in front of that human’s fist.

This meant that if the Transcendents had brought forward the plan to invade the human world before he was born, just this bald man could defeat the past Transcendent Kings and deliver a devastating defeat to the Transcendents.

Tianjie had often mocked the previous Transcendent Kings for being overly prudent in the past and that they were cowardly to not attack the humans. Now, he finally understood how powerful these creatures known as humans were. This was only the first human he had encountered, and he had nearly met with his demise. Thankfully, the Transcendents had held back all this while until the birth of their greatest king.

Although Tianjie was almost killed, his confidence at conquering the human world never changed. Although that punch had pulverized his Fifth Transformation, it was hard to tell how it would fare against the Sixth Transformation which was several times stronger, much less his Seventh Transformation which made him almost godlike.

Once he used the Transcendental Seventh Transformation, he was an invincible existence. He could even battle the perished ancient gods.

Without his birth, the Transcendents would have faced eternal darkness!

After this bout, Tianjie realized his mission in life. It was to lead the Transcendents out of the desolate hell and snatch back their former home from the humans. He was the only one who could do it. If he were to fail, the Transcendents would unlikely produce another true king that could reach the Seventh Transformation in the next tens of thousands of years.

He could not fail!

“This King has to admit that you are strong.”

After reconstructing his body and quickly recovering his mobility, Tianjie was clearly the winner of the battle while facing One-Pun who had lost his ability to do battle. But in a rare instance, he did not have the pride of a victor who looked down upon a weakling and instead, showed respect for the strong. This was the consistent style of a Transcendent King.

Tianjie said in a deep voice, “But that will be all. That punch from before has drained you of all your strength. You no longer have the strength to do battle. Death at This King’s hand is the fate of the strong. This King will continue hunting the strongest humans, and you will be the first prey worth commemorating. This King will remember your fist.”

As he spoke, Tianjie slowly walked towards One-Pun as he clenched his fist, prepared to return the punch to end the battle.

One-Pun lightly sighed. Facing his impending death, he was more worried than afraid. He had already witnessed the strength of the Transcendent King. From what he knew, few humans in the world could fight him. The completely rampaging Tyrant Groundless Cao was one. Marshal Red Goatee who had fought from the south to north could probably have a close fight if he were thirty years younger. The other “guardians” of the country could probably remain undefeated after a few blows… but to defeat the monster would be just too difficult.

One-Pun knew very well that his punch had caught Tianjie off-guard. Tianjie clearly had not used all his strength; yet, his punch had failed to completely annihilate Tianjie. The incredulous regenerative powers meant that unless he was completely wiped out, there was no chance of victory.

Who among the humans could do that?

The purple-haired girl’s figure with unfathomable power surfaced in One-Pun’s mind. Could she do it?

Boom!

Tianjie’s merciless punch was suddenly thrown forward. It did not bring with it any benevolence or pity. This punch was to reduce One-Pun to smithereens, so as to nip this threat in the bud.

Before his death, One-Pun suddenly had many thoughts flash past his mind. If he had not used God’s Guardian to drain half his Psionic Power and had fought using the full power of his punch, was victory possible?

Peng!

The sound of a body blasting apart did not happen. In replacement was the sound of a collision between hard objects.

When Tianjie’s fist came swinging over, a thick tree root about five meters in diameter suddenly rose up from the ground and shielded One-Pun, suffering the full brunt of the mighty punch.

The root trembled and circled around One-Pun, like an anaconda coiling around his body. It was also like a circular wall that encircled him.

“The giant tree’s roots are protecting me?”

One-Pun was astonished. He never expected the mysterious tree to protect him at the final juncture.

“How is it possible!?”

Tianjie was alarmed. He knew that this tree was one of the three Holy Trees, the World Holy Tree. It was a supreme and extraordinary existence equal to the Transcendence Holy Tree in the desolate lands. How could such an existence choose to protect a particular being?

“Leave.”

A girl’s voice suddenly sounded in his mind, one that brought a tremendous oppressive force.

Tianjie spat out a mouthful of black blood as he withstood the oppressive force.

“I see.”

Tianjie looked at the top of the Holy Tree, and the towering crown was emitting a blinding purple light. Tianjie seemed to realize something as he smirked a sneer. “It looks like the rumor of the destruction of the three Holy Trees ten thousand years ago is true. You are not the World Holy Tree, but the inheritor of its powers. In order to prevent the Transcendence Holy Tree, you stopped at no expense to create a fake Holy Tree, embedding your soul into this gigantic tree that only looks impressive but lacks real worth. However, the fake is ultimately not genuine. With your strength, how long can you last? Soon, the Transcendence Holy Tree will devour you. The day you die will be the day of humanity’s destruction!”

The girl’s voice did not sound again, but the tremendous oppression raised exponentially.

Tianjie shot a glance at One-Pun who was being protected by the root, took a deep breath, and turned to leave.

To kill the human, he needed to defeat the inheritor of the World Holy Tree. Tianjie believed that he wouldn’t be defeated if he had used the Transcendental Seventh Transformation, but victory would come at a tragic cost.

His mission was to hunt the strongest human, and the mission of destroying the World Holy Tree’s inheritor was to be left to the Transcendence Holy Tree. Even the World Holy Tree had no way of defeating the Transcendence Holy Tree, much less an inheritor. Once the inheritor died, everything else was just a matter of time.