Chapter 1242: Look Up and See the Bright Shining Moon

They were indeed draining corpses! During the three months that had passed, Xu Qing and the ascendees had learned a lot. It was generally better to drain living gods. But for a number of reasons, it was difficult to do so quickly. Therefore, they had focused their training on corpses. That was the best skill to enhance for use on the battlefield.

After all, battlefields were usually full of corpses. And if an enticing target presented itself that

wasn’t

a corpse, all they had to do was kill it and turn it into a corpse....

During the three months that had passed, their corpse-draining skills had improved a lot.

The battle on this huge planet was the first time they had acted in the open, and it left all onlookers shocked to the core. The Corpsedrainers on the mountain weren’t the only ones staring in shock. The cultivators on the battlefield were similarly astonished, and suddenly felt less pressure.

The fighting had been balanced before, so that meant that whatever pressure left the cultivators was transferred to the gods. Now, the gods not only had to worry about deadly combat with the army cultivators, they also had to worry about being ambushed and drained as corpses.

Xu Qing and the eightteen ascendees roved the battlefield like hungry wolves, or swords shaped like snakes, ready to stab anything they encountered. Wherever they went, corpses were drained dry, and weak gods crumbled. Even the strong gods had to be careful; if they weren’t, they also ran the risk of getting killed.

Naturally, the ascendees only attracted more and more attention. In fact, some of the gods, after being ambushed, forgot about the battle with the Longscale Regiment and instead focused on Xu Qing and the ascendees.

Of course, it went without saying that Xu Qing and the ascendees, given all that they had experienced and survived, were no weaklings. And they had plenty of life-saving magics. In instances where they ran into gods they couldn’t defeat, they just fled as quickly as possible. If they were in a wide, empty space, or were fighting in a dueling environment, then such life-saving magics might not have helped them escape gods this strong. But things were different on a battlefield.

The environment provided all sorts of variables. And even though such variables weren’t necessarily monumental, when they built on each other, they turned into a trend that the gods had to pay attention to.

Unfortunately... the leader of the gods quickly issued orders to try to stabilize thēir position and shore up thēir defenses. The results were middling. Xu Qing and the ascendees were too crafty and too strong. And they knew when to fall back in the face of overwhelming force.

Xu Qing was the best of all. He targeted the Godfire gods, and given that he had a Quasi-Immortal cultivation base, as well as a terrifyingly strong immortal embryo, he could kill such gods with a single blow. In any instances in which he couldn’t drain a corpse on the spot, he just collected the corpse to deal with later.

If the battlefield was a jungle, then the ascendees were predators! And Xu Qing had been developing such skills since he was young. Starfire was drawn out by the excitement of the fighting, and secretly used god magics to absorb the godly authority of the dead gods.

Little Shadow had finally woken up, and was attracted by the mutagen as well as the flesh and blood of the gods. As a result, it instinctively let out emotional fluctuations of hunger and excitement. Xu Qing gave silent approval, and a moment later, the shadow spread out onto the ground to lunge on nearby injured gods.

The leader of the Longscale Regiment took advantage of the developing situation to issue new orders.

“Longscale Regiment, let's finish this fight!” He wanted to take advantage of the variables and the chaos to mount a major offensive. He himself shot forward to attack the leader of the gods, who was a peak Altar God. “Die!”

The battlefield was descending into madness.

On the distant mountaintop, the other Corpsedrainers saw what was happening and were starting to get excited. The old man who had originally given advice to Xu Qing suddenly scowled viciously.

“Let’s go down there too!” he shouted. And with that, he blurred into motion as he headed down the mountain.

The other Corpsedrainers hesitated.

“But the rules—”

“Screw the rules!” the old man roared. “If we don’t get down there, we won’t have a thing to drain!”

The other Corpsedrainers threw caution to the wind and followed. When they reached the battlefield, they weren’t as proficient as Xu Qing and the ascendees. But it was still like

adding flowers to the brocade

, and it tilted the entire battle further in the direction of the cultivators.

The decisive final moments of the battle had arrived. Booms rang out. Screams filled the air. Gods were being killed, and corpses were being drained.

Within all that chaos, Xu Qing was like a specter, flitting about here and there, attacking ruthlessly and leaving behind no survivors. Starfire and Little Shadow were extremely excited.

Xu Qing stopped in front of a peak Godfire god. The god’s face fell, and hē prepared to fall back. But then Xu Qing’s right hand clamped down onto the top of hīs head. The power of his immortal embryo swept forth. Starfire unleashed a god magic. Little Shadow began to devour hīs flesh and blood.

A god that would have been the subject of devout worship in the Revered Ancient mainland was wiped out in an instant, hīs godly authority seized and hīs corpse half-eaten by Little Shadow. Xu Qing took the remains to drain further at a later time.

Having accomplished that, Xu Qing licked his lips. He had benefited a lot so far, and yet, he still wasn’t satisfied. Godfire gods weren’t enough for his needs. Turning, he looked down the battlefield, his eyes shining with mysterious light.

He was looking to where the peak Quasi-Immortal was fighting the Altar God. Both were going all out trying to kill the other. To fight the leader of the Longscale Regiment, this god was pulsing with a godly aura, and was unleashing god magics that could change the face of heaven and earth.

The ringsource fluctuations... were very enticing.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed as he projected a message to Starfire and Little Shadow. Then he blurred into motion, heading in the opposite direction and disappearing into the chaos of battle.

Starfire sent out mutagen to cover Xu Qing, causing his immortal aura to disappear. It was replaced by mutagen. His aura was completely hidden. Next, it was Little Shadow’s turn. The shadow covered Xu Qing, making his fleshly body invisible. At the same time, Xu Qing used his space-time to cover himself. Now even his soul was invisible. Using those methods, he made it so that he hardly seemed to exist. In the end... he completely disappeared from the battlefield.

Soon the fight between the two leaders was reaching a critical point. The peak Quasi-Immortal and the peak Altar God were both attacking each other ruthlessly. The Altar God just wanted to get out of this fight. Whether doing so would ultimately change the course of the battle, or whether hē just escaped, it didn’t matter.

But the leader of the Longscale Regiment wanted the opposite. The cultivators had gained the advantage of the battlefield. If he could keep the Altar God leader locked down for long enough, things would tilt even further in their favor.

The battle intensified. Injuries mounted on both sides. Deafening booms rang out, and the blinding light of god magic and immortal techniques rose high. Casualties mounted. Everyone was resorting to trump cards.

As for the Altar God’s trump card, it was a peak eruption of godly authority, which caused a white sun to form. Instead of emitting heat, however, it emitted frigid coldness and death. Close examination of the sun would reveal that, shockingly, it had innumerable faces on it, and all were distorted and screaming.

As both parties went all out trying to kill each other, an invisible figure crept across the field of battle toward them. It got closer and closer. Soon it was only about 3,000 meters away.

That was when the peak Altar God, who had a humanoid torso but a lower half made of black smoke, turned hīs head, eyes shining with cold apathy. Lifting hīs right hand, hē split the trump card hē had just unleashed, causing a pair of deathly pale suns to appear.

The first blocked the leader of the Longscale Regiment, while the other shot toward that spot 3,000 meters away. All of it happened too quickly.

The terrifying white sun crossed the 3,000 meters in an instant, then exploded. White light spread out, destroying the void, shattering magical laws, and distorting everything.

It also forced the invisible figure out into the open. It was none other than Xu Qing. He tried to fight back, but it did no good. An eruption of godly authority from a peak Altar God was too terrifying. The white light shredded everything to pieces.

Xu Qing writhed as his flesh and blood was ripped apart, as if it might peel off him. At that critical moment, Xu Qing’s eyes shone with determination. Separating his soul, he fell back, hoping to avoid the danger.

And yet, at that exact moment, a host of gods appeared around him. They pounced, unleashing all of their power. The rumbling booms caused many to look in that direction.

Observers on both sides of the conflict saw Xu Qing’s soul and fleshly body ripped to pieces! Zhou Zhengli and the ascendees howled in grief, their eyes bloodshot as they rushed in that direction. Little Shadow became visible. Erupting with emotional fluctuations of madness, it lunged toward the peak Altar God. Starfire did the same, eyes radiating madness. Shē became a stream of god light that shot directly toward the Altar God.

The leader of the Longscale Regiment took advantage of the moment to unleash an immortal magic. It turned into a red moon, which cast a red glow that turned into a gargantuan cloud of sky-obfuscating, land-enshrouding moths. Looking extremely gruish and sinister, they dropped down toward the Altar God. In the blink of an eye, blood-red light filled the battlefield thanks to the never-ending moths.

A sensation of imminent danger filled the Altar God’s heart. Glaring at the Longscale Regiment leader, as well as the cloud of moths, hē suddenly shot backward, all while thrusting hīs palm out in front of hīmself numerous times to unleash a secret magic.

Hīs body quickly withered, becoming very weak. That was the price to pay to use that magic. Latent power erupted, converging in hīs core as sunlight spread out. It was as if hē was transforming into a sun!

Hē was now at his weakest, but by temporarily transforming into a sun, hē could inflict a grievous injury on the leader of the Longscale Regiment. By exhausting hīs strength, hē could create the time and opportunity hē needed to escape. White light shone as hē replaced hīs god body with a sun.

However, that was when something extremely dramatic occurred! The void behind hīm suddenly folded in on itself like a piece of paper. Fluctuations spread out, filling the dome of heaven and causing wild colors to flash.

They were ripples in space! They were flows of time! They were overlapping space-times!

A hand appeared, gripping an iron skewer. And it moved with incomparable speed, in a very gruish fashion, as it stretched out from the overlapping space-time! It appeared right in front of the weakened Altar God’s throat! With blinding speed, unmatchable accuracy, and fluid skill, it slashed through the god’s throat!

What a show of ability!

The god’s skin was flayed. The flesh was opened up. The bones were severed. The skewer came out the other side! In addition, the tolling of a bell echoed out, like a death knell. It happened so quickly that the leader of the gods couldn’t react quickly enough to fight back or put up a defense.

The skewer was incredibly sharp and was made of spectacular materials. In the hands of a skilled wielder, it could unleash incomparable power. Most importantly... the person wielding the skewer, though weaker than the god, was not

that

much weaker than hīm. And that meant that this sneak attack... was all the more effective!

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Hīs eyes went wide as hē looked at hīs own body underneath the shadow of the red moths. For some reason, that body had no head! God blood spurted out of the neck, like a fountain connected it to the red clouds above. The god soul inside the body had been slashed by the skewer, cutting it into two parts.

The red moths smashed down into the body, burrowing into the flesh and destroying it! And then all of it, including hīs will and hīs senses, sped off into the distance. However... what was going off into the distance wasn’t the body. It was the head only!

Hīs head had been grabbed by someone who was racing away! As hīs consciousness faded, hē finally saw who had grabbed hīs head.

It was a young man in a black robe, splattered with god blood. He had violet hair and beautiful facial features. His eyes were incredibly cold. He was... the very same Corpsedrainer that he had just killed!

“You—” hē said hoarsely, but an instant later, hē was sealed. Hīs world turned dark.

The battlefield went quiet.

Xu Qing, who had just escaped with the head of the Altar God, looked completely composed as everyone looked at him. What had been destroyed earlier was only a space-time version of himself. His true form had been in hiding. The gods on the battlefield were astonished. The cultivators were shaken. And then Xu Qing stopped and held up the sealed head. He said nothing. The red glow behind him looked like a moon.

Down on the battlefield, cheering erupted. And then... the cultivator army flowed toward the gods like a mountain-toppling, sea-draining flood.