Chapter 770: The Severely Wounded Primordial Ancestor and the Expansion Roster (I)

The mythical world’s fabric of space was incredibly durable; king-level power could only tear open small rifts, and it would take heavenly-king-level strength to truly crush it.

Yet even crushing only destroyed the surface layer. Behind that lay a dimensional rift filled with raging storms—a place where even a king-level existence would suffer injuries or fall if they lingered too long.

Pushing deeper into the rift led to the region of chaotic time-space currents where Chen Chu now drifted, where spatial storms and turbulent time currents raged with even greater ferocity.

In this place, time overlapped and tangled, and only complete and advanced law powers could provide defense. The chaotic time-space currents here also served as a barrier, isolating the deeper, darker void beyond.

Although heavenly-king-level beings could penetrate this far, under normal circumstances, no one stayed long. A single misstep risked being shredded by a space-time storm or swept away by a level 1 turbulent current into an unknown, perilous region.

Even demon gods could easily become lost if they entered without anchoring themselves to coordinates from a material world.

A massive silver butterfly wreathed in ripples of time emerged from the currents. Its silhouette was hazy, as if it stood anchored in another time altogether, silently watching Chen Chu.

This Silver Time Butterfly was extremely cautious. Having witnessed Chen Chu's strength back in the Ancient Arena, comparable to a middle-stage titan, it dared not attack lightly, even though Chen Chu now appeared critically weakened.

Because the Time Butterfly existed in a different time segment, Chen Chu couldn’t activate the Inherited Battle Order. All he could do was continue to feign death, floating within the chaotic currents.

Or perhaps, more accurately, he truly had been weakened to the brink of death.

With the two demon gods returning, Chen Chu had already achieved his goal of easing the pressure on the frontlines. He could have withdrawn at that point without forcing himself into such a desperate situation.

As for the information about the Purgatory Clan’s strength that Tarorya had revealed to persuade him to surrender, there was much truth, but also plenty of exaggeration.

The existence of a being above demon gods, the Primordial Ancestor, and the presence of six even mightier empires were matters both Chen Chu and the higher ups of the human race were already aware of.

Furthermore, because of their contact with the Heavenly Feathered Race, humanity had gained some information about the three empires that warred against them—such as the fact that among the three, there were nine demon gods, one of which was even a great demon god.

The term “great demon god” referred to a supreme powerhouse who had reached the peak of an ancient titan’s strength, standing far above ordinary demon gods in combat prowess. With the support of an imperial treasure, their battle power was unbelievable.

One of the two terrifying demon gods Tarorya had mentioned was likely this great demon god. However, much of the other information she provided seemed grossly exaggerated.

While one of the three empires fighting the Heavenly Feathered Race was commanded by the great demon god, the other two empires' overall strength were only marginally superior to that of the Dark Demonic Morkaya Empire.

The claim that a single one of those empires equaled the combined strength of both the Morkaya Empire and the Greeta Battle Demon Empire was pure hyperbole.

Moreover, although the Purgatory Clan had existed for a hundred thousand years, their internal structure was brutal. Within each empire, all power was monopolized by the demon gods.

Even if one’s cultivation was higher, with superior strength—for instance, a middle-stage ancient titan attempting to kill a beginning-stage counterpart—it would still be a deadly endeavor, inflicting irreversible principle-level wounds upon even the victor.

One example was how the Destructive Dragon Emperor, despite suppressing the demonic dragon in overall combat power, still had to burn its origin to inflict principle-level damage, disregarding the enemy’s desperate counterattack.

Killing one’s enemy often came at the price of wounding oneself severely. When it came to the ancient creature, at the beginning stage of the ancient titan level with even greater defense, it had taken three full days of fierce battle to exhaust it.

Therefore, whenever the Purgatory Empire faced a powerful civilization guarded by supreme beings, they always chose to weaken the enemy first through prolonged attrition before delivering the final, coordinated killing blow to devour their principles.

It would have been foolish for the demon gods to engage in reckless, all-out battles. They were the masters of life and death for billions of transcendent beings. Their goal in establishing these empires had always been to accelerate their cultivation, not to risk it needlessly.

Thus, whether it be high-tier demon kings, middle-tier advanced demons, or even low-tier forces, the cost of warfare for the eight empires had always been staggering.

In the war against the Heavenly Feathered Race, records showed that the three empires had lost over seventy demon kings, five great demon kings, and countless advanced demons.

Of course, the Feathered Race had suffered even greater casualties. Once a mighty civilization that could rival these three empires, their middle- to high-level forces were now even weaker than humanity.

If not for several supreme god kings of the Feathered Race repeatedly burning their principle-level origins within forbidden zones to defend themselves, they would have long since faced total annihilation.

As for the supposedly invincible Primordial Ancestor—that, too, had been exaggerated.

The truth was, that Ancestor was currently slumbering. Reportedly, tens of thousands of years ago, they had fought a terrifying being and had been so severely wounded that they had yet to recover.

The Purgatory Clan itself had nearly been wiped out in that same battle, and the current eight empires had only been reestablished afterward.

However, since this information came from the Heavenly Feathered Race, humanity’s higher-ups hadn’t fully verified its accuracy, and thus didn’t place complete trust in it.

Moreover, the so-called Demon God Empires were actually eight different demonized races. Some of these races were mortal enemies, making true cooperation among them practically impossible at the foundational level.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Had it not been for the Primordial Ancestor suppressing them, the empires would have already collapsed into chaos.

Thus, the pressure humanity currently faced remained within manageable limits. Even if two empires erupted into an extinction war, the human race, with its deep foundations, would still be able to endure for a long time.

Especially now that the Abyssal Battlefield had been isolated, and only the relatively narrow Sky Battlefield remained. The technological weapons humanity had prepared over more than a decade could finally play a massive role.

For the sake of secrecy, and to avoid provoking excessive fear and violent reactions from the two empires, humanity had so far only revealed low- to middle-tier technological weaponry.

Examples included rune-engraved rocket launchers, missiles, hydrogen and nuclear bombs with yields of hundreds of millions of tons, drones, unmanned mechs, orbital battleships, and super electromagnetic cannons.

The high-end strategic-grade weapons had only been deployed twice—specifically, the Celestial Annihilation Satellites. Other weapons, such as individual Deathline Satellites, Apocalyptic Hydrogen Bombs with billion-ton yields, and Apocalyptic Tri-Phase Thermonuclear Bombs, remained sealed away.

This information had been passed to Chen Chu when he returned from eliminating the Demon Cult Alliance, during which time the Primordial King had ordered him to remain stationed on the Blue Planet.

These high-yield weapons had long been stationed in outer space. Even though demon cultists had infiltrated the Blue Planet and manipulated some upper echelons of various nations, they still failed to uncover this secret.

Even when the Purgatory Clan abducted advanced cultivators for interrogation, using secret arts akin to soul-searching, they still couldn’t obtain any related information.

The more Chen Chu learned about the Federation’s hidden reserves, the greater his admiration for the First Councilor and the other leaders grew.

Under such grim circumstances, not only had they managed to block the Purgatory Clan’s invasion, they had also been silently accumulating strength, preparing for the coming extinction war and the second mythical surge.

Originally, based on the analyses of the human think tanks, the extinction war triggered by the Purgatory Clan had been expected to erupt in about half a year, coinciding with the second mythical surge. Yet, the war had broken out ahead of schedule.

Chen Chu suspected that the reason lay with him. As arrogant as this thought sounded, the talent he had displayed had indeed become increasingly outrageous.

According to Purgatory Clan intelligence, he had cultivated to the mythical level within a single year—an utterly terrifying rate. Moreover, he had already grasped four high-level laws and even one supreme law.

Such monstrous talent had caused the demon gods to feel a deep and growing sense of danger.

One Blue Planet year equated to ten day-cycles in the mythical world—in the perception of these demon gods, it was merely ten days.

In just ten days, a human had cultivated to the mythical level. If given another ten or twenty days, would he not ascend to the demon god level? At that point, with his battle prowess, who could oppose him?

Thus, Chen Chu had summoned the true form of the Dragon Emperor and burned his life origin with all his might to confront two demon gods head-on, hoping to severely wound one and buy precious time.

Even if he failed, it didn’t matter. Should he be defeated and forced to flee after exhausting his life origin, the demon gods would simply view him as a cripple, no longer a threat.

After all, once one’s life origin was burned out and their true form damaged, just healing would take years, let alone advancing further.

In this way, the enemy’s fervent desire to annihilate humanity would likely diminish, and Chen Chu could then rely on the Little Purple Dragon’s power of creation to recover swiftly, temporarily laying low.

If given another month or two, once he broke through to the heavenly king level, he would be able to fight beginning- and even middle-stage demon gods without needing to summon his avatar.

If enough time passed for him to secretly break through to the supreme level, then with the powers he mastered, he would be able to suppress all demon gods and sweep away every obstacle.

Only, he hadn’t expected that even with so many cards in hand, he would still nearly fail. He hadn’t foreseen the summoning of an additional demon god, nor the unleashing of four powerful seals.

The power that transcended the demon god level had directly sealed his Space-Time Summoning Secret Art, his supreme law, and the Hell's Eye, as well as severing his fate.

However, Chen Chu didn’t care about the last one. He knew very well that everything he had achieved thus far had come not from luck, but from relentless effort.

After all, if luck alone could bring strength, everyone would simply compete to see who was luckier, without the need for painstaking cultivation.

Even the sealing of the Hell's Eye mattered little to him. After all, it was a power originating from the supreme planes, not his own.