The aura of Caoyi Shen was overwhelmingly tyrannical. As he streaked across the sky, the rules of heaven and earth across the billions of li of Xinghuan Heaven fell into chaos.
The setting sun was swallowed by dark clouds that pressed straight down toward the ground.
It felt like the apocalypse, the sky collapsing, the earth caving in.
Every cultivator in Xinghuan Heaven was jolted by this presence. They looked up in panic.
“What terrifying might. It must be a great god.”
“Who could it be? Queen Bai?”
“Surely not a great god from Hell or Heaven. A figure like that arriving would shatter the balance and bring the flames of war.”
Whether gods, saints, ordinary mortals, birds, or beasts, all fell beneath the horrifying shadow of a great god’s divine might.
Countless billions of cultivators and humans prostrated themselves, kowtowing in awe.
Countless ferocious beasts and strange birds lay flat on the ground, trembling.
In a single instant, Caoyi Shen plunged into the reddish-yellow Gobi. His divine body abruptly swelled to eight thousand zhang, becoming a heaven-reaching giant. He did not deliberately release divine qi, yet the divine qi that naturally leaked from him instantly blanketed a thousand li, covering the entire Gobi.
Bang! Bang!
One after another, the divine runes Immortal Jade Dragon had left in the Gobi ten thousand years ago shattered, unable to withstand Caoyi Shen’s power.
BOOM!
With one step, Caoyi Shen crushed the various spatial forces left by Master Fangcun into utter ruin.
Folded spaces unfolded. What had been ten li now stretched thousands of li wide.
No matter how powerful Immortal Jade Dragon and Master Fangcun had been in their day, when the true body of a great god descended, their arrangements were destroyed as easily as dried weeds.
A so-called forbidden zone.
To great saints it was forbidden. To gods it might not be.
To gods it was forbidden, yet a great god could very likely come and go freely.
“Caoyi Shen’s true body arrived so quickly.” Zhang Ruochen stood beneath the gates of the Yuchen Divine Temple, gazing into the distance, his expression grave to the extreme.
Feeling the vast divine might radiating from Caoyi Shen, the Master of the Netherflower Workshop could barely breathe. “His cultivation surpasses the City Lord’s. The spatial divine arrays may not hold him.”
“The Yin-Yang Realm is a first-tier great realm under Heaven. As its lord, Caoyi Shen’s cultivation is naturally extraordinary.”
There had been too little time. The Yin Escape Nine Arrays had not yet been fully reinforced or restored to their original strength. Zhang Ruochen did not know if they could stop this peerless fiend.
Caoyi Shen’s divine power seemed limitless. Under his onslaught, the Gobi that had once spanned only a thousand li rapidly expanded to more than a hundred thousand li.
And it was still growing.
Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen and the Master of the Netherflower Workshop felt as though lightning had struck their bodies.
“He has found us. He has locked onto our position,” Zhang Ruochen said.
Caoyi Shen flew straight toward the Yuchen Divine Temple and roared, “This seat has found you. Come out!”
One palm thousands of metres long smashed through divine runes, crushed layer upon layer of spatial barriers, crossed ten thousand li, and appeared above the temple gates, pressing downward.
The palm had not yet landed, but Zhang Ruochen and the Master of the Netherflower Workshop already felt ten thousand divine mountains crushing them. Simply remaining standing became excruciatingly difficult.
“A Ji!”
Zhang Ruochen shouted. Spiritual strength poured ceaselessly from his body, flooding into the spatial divine arrays.
The first spatial divine array manifested as a circular array disc a thousand li across, hovering above their heads.
Immediately after, the second array disc appeared, perfectly linking with the first.
Two arrays overlapped, their power multiplying.
“Old sir, let me lend you my strength!”
The Master of the Netherflower Workshop circulated her divine qi, unfolded her divine realm world, and merged it with the earth.
Endless divine qi surged from her divine realm world into the spatial arrays, causing them to spin ever faster.
Third, fourth…
All nine spatial divine arrays fully revealed themselves, each connected, entwined, forming nine different spatial wonders: Star-Sea Divine Gate, Suspended Divine Palace, Spatial Black Hole, and more.
“Yin Escape Nine Arrays!”
Caoyi Shen’s strike failed. He snorted explosively. “If Master Fangcun himself were controlling them, this seat might feel some caution. With just the two of you, how much of the Yin Escape Nine Arrays’ power can you wield?”
“Annihilation Heavenly Fire!”
With a single step, Caoyi Shen crossed ten thousand li and appeared before the Yuchen Divine Temple. He opened his mouth and exhaled crimson divine flame.
The flame blazed with ultimate ferocity, capable of scorching heaven and boiling seas. In an instant it melted ten thousand li of earth, burned away space itself, revealing a vast expanse of dark void.
Space was directly incinerated into nothingness.
Only the region covered by the Yin Escape Nine Arrays and the ruins of the Yuchen Divine Temple, protected by mysterious power, could withstand the Annihilation Heavenly Fire.
Caoyi Shen cultivated the Dao of yin and yang, reaching the absolute pinnacle in both, unrivalled across the universe.
The Annihilation Heavenly Fire represented yang, reaching thirty million degrees. Even great gods whose cultivation surpassed his would struggle to produce divine fire of such terror.
And his divine body could nurture flame of thirty million degrees. One could imagine how formidable he was.
“Martial Uncle, this is bad. The Annihilation Heavenly Fire counters the Yin Escape Nine Arrays perfectly. The spatial inscriptions are already melting. We may not hold much longer,” A Ji’s anxious voice rang in Zhang Ruochen’s ears.
Zhang Ruochen’s eyes were icy. “If we truly cannot hold, we will lure him underground.”
Deep in the abyss lay the unfathomable old corpse ghost. Even Immortal Jade Dragon had perished there.
No matter how strong Caoyi Shen was, he might not surpass the Immortal Jade Dragon of a hundred thousand years ago.
BOOM!
In less than half an hour, the reddish-yellow Gobi stretching hundreds of thousands of li became a sea of fire.
The ground melted into lava.
Across hundreds of thousands of li of molten world, no living creature could survive.
Some gods and saint-realm cultivators who had stealthily entered the Gobi to investigate never managed to escape. They were refined to ashes by the Annihilation Heavenly Fire.
The divine fire ignited the Yuhong Mountain Range, spreading toward First Divine Maiden City thousands of li away.
It reached the city walls before finally being halted by the protective grand array.
The fire spread in the opposite direction, entering the ocean, causing tens to hundreds of thousands of li of sea to boil. Trillions of aquatic cultivators perished, their corpses floating on the surface.
Within First Divine Maiden City, cultivators were in an uproar, speculating about what earth-shattering event had occurred.
Yet no one dared step beyond the protective array to investigate.
“Is a great god fighting? Has war already spread to Xinghuan Heaven?”
“Once great gods battle inside a realm, a great world is not far from destruction!”
“Not necessarily. Xinghuan Heaven was arranged by Tianzun Xinghuan himself; it will not be destroyed so easily. But the slaughter of living beings is inevitable.”
Divine Queen Hall.
Queen Bai’s voice was cold and grim. “Has Caoyi Shen gone mad? To attack so recklessly, is he afraid Hell does not yet know he has come to Xinghuan Heaven? Does he not understand what consequences will follow if he draws great gods from Hell?”
Lord Blackheart Demon knew Caoyi Shen had been too rash this time. “The Seven-Source Multicoloured Robes are a sub-divine supreme sacred artefact, the foremost treasure of the Yin-Yang Realm. They absolutely cannot be lost.”
“If the Twelve Divine Maiden Workshops are destroyed in a divine war, that benefits none of you.”
With those words, Queen Bai turned and left the Divine Queen Hall.
Lord Blackheart Demon asked, “What does Heavenly Sun think? Should this seat go stop Caoyi Shen?”
Shang Hong’s gaze was cold yet profound. “No need. Xinghuan Heaven conceals too many secrets, and Queen Bai and Bai Qing’er are women of deep scheming. Caoyi Shen is powerful; let him force those secrets into the open. With Fourth Uncle stationed in Xinghuan Heaven, everything remains under control.”
…
Inside the Yin Escape Nine Arrays, the spatial inscriptions began melting in large patches, holes appearing.
Within the arrays, stars plummeted, divine palaces collapsed, strands of Annihilation Heavenly Fire seeped through, landing around Zhang Ruochen and the Master of the Netherflower Workshop. The array structure suffered severe damage.
Her divine qi nearly exhausted, the Master of the Netherflower Workshop turned pale. Her old injuries flared, causing her delicate frame to tremble. “Caoyi Shen has probably reached the Taibai Realm!”
“Retreat into the temple.”
Zhang Ruochen seized her slender, jade-white wrist and charged out of the Yin Escape Nine Arrays into the ruins of the Yuchen Divine Temple.
Only then did she realise his hand was not aged or wrinkled. Turning her head, she stared in shock. The white-haired old gentleman had become a young, strikingly handsome man with flowing black hair, a jade-like face full of godly charm, radiating boundless vitality and elegant masculine allure.
Unconsciously, she was entranced.
Unlike many gods who cultivated in seclusion, the Master of the Netherflower Workshop had trained amidst the world and knew nearly all the heavenly prodigies of the new generation.
In an instant she recognised Zhang Ruochen.
“So it is him!”
Her heart pounded wildly, her emotions a chaotic tangle. She felt inexplicably flustered and did not dare look at him again. With sixty thousand years of experience, she had seen every kind of strange event, yet now she was utterly disconcerted.
The sun vanished completely beyond the horizon. Xinghuan Heaven passed from day into night.
Caoyi Shen sensed the Yin Escape Nine Arrays weakening and prepared to destroy them in one final push.
Suddenly, a chill that made his blood run cold descended from above.
He looked up.
The sky had turned blood-red. Vast clouds gathered into an immense sea of blood.
The heavens pressed down.
Not one layer of heaven, not one sea.
Five.
Above the blood sea came a sea of fire, a sea of lightning, a sea of death-mist, a sea of darkness. Five heavens, five seas, all crushing down together.
“Fivefold Seas! How is this possible? Blood Absolute, how can you be in Xinghuan Heaven?” Caoyi Shen cried out in terror, then immediately fled toward the edge of the Yuhong Mountains.
He could not escape. The Fivefold Seas slammed onto him.
ROAR!
Caoyi Shen bellowed. His eight-thousand-zhang divine body blazed with light dozens of times brighter than a constant star. He raised both arms, manifesting a divine realm world of alternating yin and yang to resist the Fivefold Seas.
He held for only three breaths before his divine realm world began to crack, and even his divine body started to fracture.
