Chapter 1033: Dark Matter Collapse, Encirclement of Chen Chu (I)

"It’s the humans’ hydrogen bombs. Suppress them!" High in the sky, Demon God Ludius roared in fury, radiating a dazzling dark-red glow.

Boom!

The power of the dark demonic region surged under Ludius’ command, and the nine mushroom clouds, which had expanded to over a hundred kilometers each, trembled violently. The dark demonic qi that had previously been scattered by the searing shockwaves began to churn once more. Like a tangible force, it rushed toward the mushroom clouds that were still releasing waves of nuclear energy.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

That qi acted like countless invisible hands, forcibly suppressing the energy released by the crystalline hydrogen bombs. The nuclear shockwaves, which had already spread across hundreds of kilometers, gradually dissipated.

Due to the suppression of the dark demonic region, the hydrogen bombs—each with yields in the hundreds of megatons, originally powerful enough to obliterate more than twenty Purgatory legions—only released half of their energy in the end.

Watching this, the Primordial King furrowed his brow slightly. "This is troublesome. These demonic regions have a heavy suppressive effect on firearms too."

"It is indeed troublesome." Qian Tian nodded slowly. "The demonic qi imbued with the power of that Primordial Ancestor is practically solid. Its suppressive strength is a hundred times greater than the qi drawn by the demon gods."

A hundred times was an understatement. Chen Chu’s expression turned grave. That demonic qi was, at its core, a manifestation of some sort of principle.

Having experienced the battle between the Destructive Dragon Emperor and the Five-Colored True Spirit, Chen Chu had some familiarity with true-spirit-level power. From how it behaved, he could confirm that the demonic qi covering billions of kilometers of the Purgatory Demon Clan's territory was, in essence, the true form of that Purgatory true demon.

At that realization, Chen Chu cast a faint look of pity toward the demon gods.

"Kill!"

"Charge!"

At the edge of the churning demonic qi, over four hundred legions, tens of millions of Purgatory Demon Clan warriors and their vassal alien forces, let out bloodthirsty howls and surged toward the tightly arrayed alliance legions ahead.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In an instant, the Purgatory Demon Clan forces, cloaked in black mist, collided head-on with cultivators, unmanned mech legions, alien troops, the Heavenly Feathered forces, and the Faeries' elites. The battlefield stretched nearly a hundred thousand kilometers, separated by two forbidden zones and several dangerous mountain regions, dividing the front into more than twenty separate warzones.

The moment the great battle erupted, thousands of kilometers behind each front, high-yield missiles and tactical crystalline nuclear bombs launched in waves of blazing fire. Above the battlefield, countless unmanned bombers took to the sky, swarming toward the demonized flying beasts that blotted out the heavens.

At the same time, more than two hundred battleships, each over ten kilometers long and shaped like spaceships, unleashed their main and secondary cannons, filling the sky with beams of blinding light that stretched over ten thousand kilometers. The Heavenly Feathered Race’s golden battleships also fired energy cannons hundreds of meters wide, their blasts landing precisely in the midst of the Purgatory legions.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Thousands of fiery explosions lit up the ground, and the earth cracked and shattered under the barrage of high-intensity energy cannon fire. Countless true demons and alien warriors screamed as they were torn apart. Immediately after, dense clusters of missiles and rockets rained down on the battlefield like a storm. Explosions echoed across the sky and earth.

Yet whether it was crystalline missiles, satellite cannons, or golden energy cannons, their destructive power was halved. All explosive energy had been suppressed by the dark domain.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

From over seven thousand kilometers within the dark domain, massive stone beasts roared. The gigantic turrets on their backs glowed with an intense light.

Boom!

Thousands of beams, each a hundred meters thick and glowing with dark-red light, swept across the sky. As they fired, they frantically absorbed the surrounding demonic qi and rapidly expanded. When those beams stretched over ten thousand kilometers and arced down upon the rear of the alliance lines, they had already thickened to over a kilometer wide, with their destructive power surging severalfold.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The massive explosions shook heaven and earth. Mountains collapsed beneath the red cannon blasts, countless unmanned mechs and missile bases were destroyed. Over a dozen golden battleships trembled violently, and two exploded outright as their energy reserves depleted.

At the same time, a thousand kilometers beyond the churning edge of the demonic qi, smaller turrets mounted on demonized flying colossal beasts behind eight battlefronts lit up with radiant light.

Just then, however, dense clusters of glowing signals flared from the human rear lines. Intercontinental missiles carrying thousands of tactical nuclear bombs plunged into the dark domain, aiming straight for the distant rear armies.

"Those are the human race's missiles. Some of them are extremely powerful. Fifth and Seventh Legions, target and intercept them—"

"Bronze Wrath, Everlasting Divine Judgment!" Behind the Faeries' formation, a vast voice thundered across heaven and earth. One after another, massive azure array patterns lit up in the skies above the battlefield. At the center of each hundred-kilometer-wide array, enormous bronze swords tore through the void. Radiating world-ending might, they shredded the black mist and came crashing down.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Tens of thousands of four-armed Rampage Apes, each over a thousand meters tall and radiating a brutal aura, raised their heads and roared toward the sky. In each of their hands, they cradled massive black boulders over a hundred meters wide. The black stone spheres in their grasps ignited with black flames, and the demonized battle apes launched them into the sky at several dozen times the speed of sound.

Boom! Boom!

The stone spheres tore through over two thousand kilometers before crashing into the battlefield. The ground shattered instantly as searing black flames erupted, engulfing several kilometers in every direction. Each of them packed destructive power equivalent to that of a high-yield crystalline energy missile explosion.

After firing one "shell," the battle apes bent down, all four arms plunging into the earth. Using their innate ability, they condensed another black stone sphere from deep underground.

At the very moment of contact, the clash between two transcendent-level legions reached the climax. The entire blood-red night sky blazed with firelight from explosions. War cries thundered through the heavens and earth. The land was littered with nuclear flashes, mountain ranges crumbled, and rivers were severed.

High above, king-level combat also broke out explosively. Over two hundred demon kings rode their castles into battle, facing off against more than twenty human kings, over thirty Heavenly Feathered deities, more than forty faerie generals, and over twenty deities from the Alliance of Gods. In terms of numbers, the demon kings held overwhelming superiority, often engaging in two-on-one fights that left the Alliance struggling to keep up.

Above, at altitudes over a thousand kilometers, heavenly-king-level battles erupted as well. The human alliance had deployed twenty-seven heavenly kings and chief-god-level powerhouses. The Purgatory Demon Clan sent even more. Over forty great demon kings launched assaults right at the outset.

Outside the hundred-thousand-kilometer-wide main battlefield, within the rolling demonic qi on either side of the Nine-Heaven Palace, more than a hundred million Purgatory soldiers advanced under the command of a hundred demon kings and great demon kings. From afar, it looked like two dark tentacles slowly converging, attempting to completely surround the Human Alliance.

Ten thousand kilometers above the sky, more than a dozen demon gods floated in formation. Cardeos, like a sovereign of the abyss, let out a low chuckle and coldly said, "Did you think a single weapon from the Faeries could stop me? If that thing were truly effective, the Faeries wouldn’t have been wiped out by my hand. Withdraw now, and perhaps you still have a sliver of hope. But once the dark demonic region envelops the entire world, suppressing you all will be effortless."

However, as peak beings of their respective races, such words did little to shake the will of Qian Tian and the others. Qian Tian calmly responded, "We’ll see whether it works or not in battle. Besides, do you really think you already hold the winning hand?"

As Qian Tian spoke with serene composure, both Tyretis and Cardeos instinctively narrowed their eyes. Something felt off. Before they could probe further, Qian Tian softly added, "If I’m right, the time has come."

Sixty thousand kilometers away, at the entrance to the forbidden zone that stretched over a hundred thousand kilometers in width, hidden within the mountain slopes beyond the ruins of more than ten flattened human bases, something stirred. Hundreds of meters below the surface, in the dark soil, fifteen massive nuclear bombs, each over five hundred meters long and forty meters in diameter, sat silently. Within each, mechanical timers ticked faintly with a subtle click.

The area had already been corrupted by the dark demonic region. Saturated with dense demonic qi, it had become fully contaminated and demonized. Even the power of the Celestial King could no longer penetrate it. Thus, when those bases were destroyed, the mechanical detonation systems inside these apocalyptic nuclear weapons had been activated, set to a precise countdown.

As Qian Tian's voice fell, the dials inside the fifteen apocalyptic weapons reached their final mark.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Fifteen blinding red-and-white lights, thousands of times brighter than the previous crystalline energy nuclear bombs, erupted across the land. Each blast unleashed searing brilliance that instantly dispelled the demonic qi over a radius of ten thousand kilometers. Streams of incandescent lava were hurled thousands of kilometers into the sky.

The ground collapsed, space twisted, and the entire battlefield of the forbidden zone was nearly split apart. Over ten million Purgatory soldiers who had just entered the battlefield were vaporized in an instant. A blazing storm swept across a range of more than twenty thousand kilometers with unstoppable force.

Such devastating explosions nearly reached the destructive level of ancient titans, stunning over a dozen demon gods. However, even an ordinary demon-god-level strike would, at most, annihilate a few transcendent legions, wipe out some demon kings, and wouldn’t be enough to fully shift the tide of battle.

Just as Tyretis narrowed its eyes and prepared to invoke the dark domain to suppress the continually expanding shockwaves, a power emerged, one that sent chills through the hearts of every demon god present.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The fifteen nuclear fireballs, each over three thousand kilometers in diameter, suddenly collapsed inward. The force of the implosion shattered space and distorted time. In the blink of an eye, fifteen black holes formed. Compression reached its extreme, becoming pure destruction.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

From the center of each black hole, endless ink-black energy erupted. Under the force that resembled both matter and pure explosive light, all things crumbled—laws of heaven and earth, foundational space, even the foundational principles of the world.

The dark forbidden zones flanking the entrance, already riddled with temporal rifts, shook violently from the pressure of this annihilating force created from dark matter.

Countless Purgatory legions screamed in despair as the waves of destruction surged. Among them, six demon kings and one great demon king who had been stationed there were unable to flee and were instantly swallowed by the black tide.

"What is this power! Your Majesty Karotis, save me! Save me!" In the collapsing darkness, the great demon king let out a maddened scream. The law domain that surrounded it disintegrated in an instant, and its true form rapidly corroded and dissolved in the black energy.

It could not resist. It could not escape. That power was like a natural predator to all forms of life, erasing and devouring everything in its path.

Yet even as it destroyed all things, that dark matter slowly neutralized itself. In the end, it left behind fifteen dark voids, each over ten thousand kilometers wide, nearly severing the entrance to the forbidden zone and forming a massive rifted sky curtain between dimensions. Even the dark domain had been cut off by this force; only a few passages hundreds to thousands of kilometers wide remained.

Immediately, the overwhelming momentum of the dark tide that had surged for hundreds of thousands of kilometers weakened. It was as if its spine had been snapped.

"The humans... The humans actually wield such power. We can’t delay any longer. Attack!" Tyretis roared in furious alarm, heart gripped by a deep sense of dread.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Terrifying demonic force erupted from the eighteen demon gods. Thirteen of them drew surging waves of dark demonic qi, charging toward the Nine-Heaven Palace. The remaining three split off. Two of them crossed space, descending to bypass the right side of the Nine-Heaven Palace and penetrate deep into the humans’ rear lines through the demonic region. The third, Constantine, descended on the left flank, commanding several great demon kings, over twenty demon kings, and tens of millions of Purgatory soldiers.

In that instant, a full-scale demon-god–level battle broke out. Qian Tian and the others joined forces to confront the thirteen demon gods, their radiant principle light tearing the night sky apart.

Amid the raging shockwaves of destruction, Chen Chu calmly looked at Tyretis and Cardeos, who stood tall amid the rolling demonic qi. In a quiet tone, he said, "Your Excellency Tarodell, I’ll leave those three who tried to bypass us to you."

Tarodell cast a deep glance toward the two great demon gods clearly waiting for Chen Chu, then gave a slow nod. "Leave them to me."

As he spoke, Tarodell, seated high upon his divine throne, suddenly rose and split into two. One figure, exuding the pressure of the middle stage of the ancient titan level, lunged toward Constantine tens of thousands of kilometers away. The other, cloaked in the aura of the peak ancient titan level, twisted space and rushed toward Karotis and the other demon god.

In the blink of an eye, the windswept skies, split by gales, were left with only Chen Chu and two great demon gods.

Hovering in mid-air, Chen Chu faced them alone. A horrifying aura radiated from Tyretis, causing the entire world to tremble violently. It reached into the void with a black-and-red scaled hand and slowly drew out the Demonic Saber of Darkness, a weapon it had refined for over ten thousand years. "Human, I once said I would kill you."

Tyretis had not forgotten how this human had forced it to retreat on the Heavenly Feathered Battlefield with a single summoned breath despite only being at the heavenly king level. It was a humiliation.

So what, though?

"Is that so?" Chen Chu’s voice remained indifferent. Behind him, a translucent river over three thousand meters long appeared. Atop it stood a figure clad in a black imperial robe.

Boom!

As another Chen Chu descended, space-time shook violently. A powerful temporal rejection force exploded, making the transparent river quake.

"To force the two of us to join forces... Human, take pride in that," Cardeos said. Its colossal true form, towering over a hundred thousand meters, radiated endless darkness, and a world of shadow took shape behind it. It was an abyssal city, a manifestation of the abyssal world.

It was the Supreme Abyss itself.

"You’re wrong. It is you who should feel honored. Honored to have once fought beside each other against me." As he spoke, Chen Chu let out a thunderous roar. He expanded rapidly, revealing his ten-thousand-meter-tall True Demon God Form. Behind him, the Nine-Fold Heavenly Gate crumbled. In an instant, endless dark-golden vitality surged forth, transforming into a dragon shadow that surged into him.