Chapter 1037: The Flame of Civilization, the Second Mythical Surge Erupts (II)

Feeling the sharp drop in his inner power, Chen Chu’s eyes narrowed. The space around him suddenly collapsed, pulling him deeper into the void.

"Chu Batian, you’re not going anywhere!"

The Demonic Saber of Darkness, which could even slice through space-time, tore through the void and appeared instantly before Chen Chu.

Boom!

The demonic saber collided with the heavy Eight Desolations Halberd, unleashing a massive burst of power. Even the golden diamond-shaped light surrounding Chen Chu was torn open with a visible rift from the invisible sharp edge.

At the exact moment Chen Chu was suppressed by Tyretis’s slash, Cardeos silently appeared behind him. All six fists clenched, and beneath them lay only pure void and darkness.

Boom!

One of those fists, containing the power to annihilate worlds, struck the black stone gate. Under that tremendous force, the gate quaked, and both it and Chen Chu were sent flying.

"Don’t hold back, Tyretis!" Cardeos roared. Dozens of dark-red principle chains appeared behind it, dancing like light bands. Its aura instantly surged several times stronger. Seeing Chen Chu still able to hold out with hidden trump cards, Cardeos burned a portion of its origin.

Witnessing this, Tyretis let out a roar as well. It spat out a mouthful of black-golden blood, which landed on the Demonic Saber of Darkness.

Hum!

The pitch-black, domineering saber trembled. Countless blood threads along the hilt connected the saber to Tyretis’s arm like veins. A powerful suction force erupted from the blade, drawing the surrounding abyssal world into it.

Boom!

In an instant, an even sharper aura burst forth from the saber. The light became blinding, as though the entire world had been reduced to nothing but the pitch-black saber.

"If it’s a fight to the death you want, then let’s go!" Chen Chu let out a long howl. At the same time, golden-white flames ignited on his body.

Not only was he burning his principle origin, he even began to burn his own life force. His aura surged tenfold in an instant, and the immense power turned into dazzling waves of flame blasting in all directions.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A more brutal battle erupted. As powers comparable to the true spirit level clashed, space-time shattered, and the void was pierced. Three radiant lights burst into the material world.

The two great demon gods had already gauged Chen Chu’s limits. They gave him no chance to breathe, their intent to suppress, wear down, and ultimately kill him completely unwavering.

The explosive power of the dorsal fin crystals in Chen Chu’s possession was indeed potent, but as long as it couldn’t instantly cripple them or threaten their lives, they were unbothered. At worst, they would just go into seclusion for ten or a hundred years to recover afterward.

However, Chen Chu’s true form was incredibly strong. In essence, it was not a pure energy body of principles, but one of blood and flesh that had undergone thousands upon thousands of evolutionary refinements. As a result, his recovery rate, life force, and resilience were far beyond normal comprehension. His life force seemed inexhaustible.

Under the joint assault of the two demon gods, his true form was repeatedly cracked and battered, yet each injury healed almost instantly. Even his principle origin remained unweakened.

While Chen Chu endured brutal injuries to pin down both great demon gods...

On the main battlefield, Qian Tian and the others, who were locked in a head-on clash with the imperial ruler Karotis, also noticed what was happening. Qian Tian suddenly let out a long howl, and the Divine Yin-Yang Wheel behind him blazed with intense light.

Boom!

With the power of a Yin-Yang world, space across ten thousand kilometers collapsed. Even Karotis was forced back under the sheer force.

Behind Qian Tian, the principles of life and death manifested. He stood on a stream of black-and-white light. "Primordial, I'll leave this place to you. I'm going over to help Chen Chu."

The Primordial King suddenly looked up. "Qian Tian, are you really going to use that power? Don’t we still have hope?"

Qian Tian’s expression was calm. "We don’t have time. The power of those two great demon gods exceeded our expectations. Chen Chu won’t be able to hold out much longer, let alone stall them for five full days."

Through the descriptions from the Heavenly Feathered Race and the Faerie King, everyone had already known that the two great demon gods were extremely powerful, almost invincible among demon gods. However, Chen Chu’s strength was formidable as well, comparable to a semi-true-spirit, and he also had a time clone of equivalent power.

Before the battle, Qian Tian and the others had believed that even if Chen Chu couldn’t defeat the two great demon gods, he wouldn’t be much weaker. Holding them off for three days seemed achievable.

By then, with the Nine-Heaven Palace as their base, they would engage the demon gods on the front lines and, with the help of the Celestial King’s God Defense System, hold out until the colossal beast army arrived.

However, no one expected the two great demon gods to be this overwhelming. The time clone had only lasted a day before it was destroyed, and Chen Chu was now being relentlessly suppressed and wounded. If things continued like this, he would be at serious risk of dying.

At the very moment his voice fell, a layer of pure white flames ignited from Qian Tian, and a vast and indescribable aura spread across heaven and earth. It contained neither domineering might nor world-annihilating divine power. It was simply heavy, ancient, and profound.

Like a scroll of history unfolding with time, the white flames on Qian Tian gradually turned into visions of mountains, rivers, vegetation, sun, moon, and stars. This sudden transformation caused all of the divine kings, faerie kings, and even the dozen or so demon gods on the enemy side to freeze for a moment.

"Stop him! Don’t let him assist Chu Batian!" Karotis roared. Sensing that Qian Tian was clearly using some sort of explosive secret art, it raised its own blood-red demonic saber, modeled after Tyretis’s weapon. The saber light surged to new heights.

Boom!

The blood-red saber light illuminated the heavens, tearing a rift over twenty thousand kilometers long into the earth. Even the principles of heaven and earth were cut apart beneath that strike.

Facing this menacing blow, Qian Tian, with his white flames burning even fiercer, merely swung the divine wheel.

Boom!

Wreathed in white fire, the Divine Yin-Yang Wheel, formed from pure black-and-white light, expanded into a colossal phantom spanning ten thousand kilometers, radiating an invisible force powerful enough to destroy a world.

Bang!

The blood-red saber light, stretching thousands of kilometers, shattered. Karotis’s face changed dramatically, and it was blasted away in a streak of dark-red light, vanishing into the rolling demonic qi.

At that moment, burning his soul essence, life essence, principle-condensed true form, and the inherited power of the entire human race, Qian Tian’s cultivation underwent limitless transcendence. He faintly stepped into another level altogether. Karotis, who had previously been suppressing him in a direct clash, was overwhelmed by the sheer force of a single strike.

However, the price paid was so immense that even the Golden-Winged Divine King and the others fell silent. After burning for only two breaths of time, part of Qian Tian had already begun to disappear. Flecks of white ash floated around him, scattering silently.

At this rate, he would soon be burned into nothingness and completely vanish. For an ancient being who had already achieved virtual immortality, such an act was incomprehensible.

Tolstoy couldn’t help but say, "Councilor Qian Tian... Is this really worth it?"

Qian Tian’s expression remained serene as he slowly replied, "It’s worth it. My duty is to protect the human race, and Chen Chu is the one I must protect. In this war, any of us may die—me, Primordial, even Celestial. But Chen Chu must survive. As long as he lives, so does the human race. Primordial, when I’m gone, it’ll be your turn."

That voice, heavy with the weight of history, echoed through heaven and earth. Qian Tian reached into the void, and his hand appeared before the Primordial King. A white flame danced at his fingertip. The moment everyone laid eyes on it, it was as if they saw a radiant, prosperous, and resplendent civilization. It touched their very souls; it was something unforgettable.

Faerie King Xuntian’s eyes flew wide open, disbelief written across his face. "How is this possible? The Flame of Civilization... the human race has actually condensed its legacy into light?"

In the past, he had once read a fragmentary account in an ancient ruin that mentioned the existence of the Flame of Civilization.

When a race's civilization became strong enough, if a powerful true-spirit-level being proficient in fate wanted to, they could extract the race’s historical essence and condense it into a light to safeguard their legacy. As long as that flame burned, the race would endure. Even if destroyed one day, they would still have hope of rising again.

That was why Xuntian was so shocked.

The human race only had three faerie-king-level powerhouses. How could they have possibly condensed the Flame of Civilization? Unless...

As that thought rippled through his mind, the white flame silently merged into the Primordial King’s body.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. After passing on the Flame of Civilization to the Primordial King, Qian Tian transformed into a sky full of white light and reappeared a million kilometers away. "Chen Chu, leave Tyretis to me."

Wielding the divine wheel and walking the path of life and death, Qian Tian was like the first ray of light in the moment of world creation. Enveloped in roaring white flames, he charged into the battlefield.

The Divine Yin-Yang Wheel, with a diameter of ten thousand kilometers and resembling a world of yin-yang, twisted space-time. Layers of phantom worlds emerged around it, as if it was surrounded by infinite multiverses.

Three dark saber lights that had been slashing toward Chen Chu trembled as they tore through these layered illusions. Eventually, they collided with the Divine Yin-Yang Wheel, erupting in dazzling light and destructive shockwaves.

Boom!

The heavens quaked. In the sky ten thousand kilometers above, rings of black and white light exploded, sweeping across more than a hundred thousand kilometers.

Chen Chu was taken aback. "Qian Tian!"

Floating in the void, flames rising tens of thousands of meters from his body, Qian Tian turned his head with a faint smile. "Compared to us fossils, you’re far more important. And don’t forget the Secret Sea of the Void."

Watching Qian Tian walk calmly toward death, exuding divine majesty and carrying a vast, sacred aura, Chen Chu’s Eight Desolations Halberd flared with radiant light.

Boom!

Now wielding the equivalent of two world-level weapons and burning his life essence to unleash his ultimate power, Chen Chu’s combat strength nearly rivaled that of Cardeos. The pressure on him lessened significantly.

As for the fact that Qian Tian would perish from burning, thanks to the Secret Sea of the Void, it wouldn’t be true death. He would transform into a void-level ancient creature, which was something Chen Chu, the Primordial King, and the others could accept.

In truth, the situation hadn’t yet reached the brink of hopelessness. Otherwise, Chen Chu would have already summoned the Dragon Emperor’s true form and annihilated the two great demon gods on the spot.

He couldn’t, however. These demon gods were drawing on the demonic domain to wage a war of extinction. If the Dragon Emperor, whose strength was equivalent to the middle or late stage of the true spirit level, descended now, it would most likely awaken the Primordial Ancestor. Even if it didn’t awaken from the pressure alone, under the threat of death, the demon gods would surely offer sacrifices to forcefully rouse it. They had to wait for the colossal beasts to arrive.

While Chen Chu and Qian Tian joined forces to clash head-on with the two great demon gods, their battle’s aftermath had already torn apart a stretch of land over a million kilometers across on the right side of the Forbidden Zone Battlefield. On the front lines, the demon gods launched a frenzied counterattack.

"Unable to delay for five days." From this sentence, the demon gods immediately sensed that the humans still had some trump card hidden. It seemed that if they could just hold out a little longer, the humans might actually have a chance to reverse the outcome.

The Nine-Heaven Palace, spanning nearly two hundred thousand kilometers, shuddered violently from the impact of thirteen demon gods drawing on the dark demonic domain, issuing a thunderous roar under unbearable strain. With Qian Tian’s departure, the eight remaining divine kings and faerie kings, whose combined strength had diminished, all turned pale as the pressure on them surged dramatically.

Just as the battle grew ever more brutal beneath the blood-red moonlight, with billions of living beings locked in a frenzied slaughter, a roar of indescribable majesty erupted from the depths of the mythical world. It shook the entire realm, and heaven and earth boomed in response. An invisible shockwave swept across the depths of the mythical world, rousing countless ancient and powerful lifeforms under its supreme and commanding presence.

High above the mythical world, in the outer sky, dozens of stars flared brightly, illuminating the night. Even farther, in unseen corners of the heavens, more stars flickered briefly in response.

The silver moon, once veiled by the Blood Moon, now shone with radiant brilliance. Then, several more terrifying roars echoed across the mythical world, filled with a vast, primordial aura. As they rang out, three blazing suns—golden, red, and blue—rose from the eastern horizon, lighting up the night sky.

Three suns crossed the heavens, two moons hung in the sky. With such unimaginable phenomena unfolding, the laws of heaven and earth began to tremble. The very principles of the world fell into chaos, and countless living beings raised their heads in alarm, overcome by an inexplicable sense of dread. A formless pressure radiated from above the sky, blanketing the entire mythical world. Even the rolling dark demonic domain that covered billions of kilometers suddenly contracted.

The Primordial King wore a bitter expression. "How can this be? The second mythical surge... is erupting now?"

For humanity, the threat was not only the Purgatory Demon Clan, but also the looming disaster of the second mythical surge, which could tear apart the Blue Planet at any moment.

If they failed to withstand this second surge, then even if the strongest among them held back the Purgatory Clan’s assault, the human race would suffer devastating losses. Their world would fall, their numbers would be decimated, and their future vitality would wither. Humanity would decline into an ordinary civilization. They had spent decades preparing for this, but never imagined it would erupt now, of all times.

With all their forces locked in battle against the Purgatory Demon Clan, what did they have left to resist the second surge? Would they really have no choice but to stand by and watch as the Blue Planet was destroyed?