Chapter 897: Dark Star Annihilation, Reincarnation As One

"Human, I will kill you!" Chen Chu's sudden strike caught Hamdanman completely off guard. As a great demon king who longed for the prosperity of human civilization, he originally had no intention to kill when he first saw Chen Chu from afar. On the contrary, he had planned to exchange a few words, mainly to show off his procession.

Yet to his surprise, Chen Chu had dared to strike first, despite facing an overwhelming force of over two million Purgatory troops, with six demon kings and two great demon kings already gathered.

Boom!

With a single halberd strike powerful enough to destroy worlds, the procession was instantly obliterated, blood mist blooming across the sky. A pitch-black radiance, dark as a black hole, erupted and rapidly expanded into an abyssal world shrouded in endless darkness. A massive and incomplete battle axe emerged from within, slowly rising to meet the oncoming halberd.

The great demon king commanding the legions turned pale, staring at the halberd that radiated terror even across hundreds of kilometers, and at the towering black battle axe that pierced the heavens. "Be careful! All legions, raise your demonic pillars and defend with full force!"

At that moment, not only the great demon king, but all two million demons and demonized aliens felt a bone-chilling fear emanating from that apocalyptic halberd.

Boom!

The halberd, infused with a thread of supreme principle, collided with the black battle axe. In an instant, the heavens and earth across ten thousand kilometers trembled violently, deafening all beings.

Then the sky shattered like broken glass. Everything was annihilated, and a pure black shockwave of destruction exploded outward in all directions.

The first to be struck were the Purgatory legions a thousand kilometers away. The two million Purgatory soldiers were divided into over thirty legions, each under the command of advanced demons. Together, they channeled their power into demonic pillars hundreds of meters thick.

Those demonic god pillars were one of the Purgatory Clan’s core weapons, passed down through ancient secret arts. Each one was imbued with various powers: tearing open space for teleportation, unleashing legion-scale combat techniques, or concentrating the might of all demons for massive offense, defense, or bombardment.

Over thirty legions fused their pillars into one formation under the great demon king’s command. A sky-shrouding shield of demonic qi, ten thousand meters thick, rose up like a dark wall to block the path ahead.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

However, under the residual shockwaves of the two combatants, who were both near demon god level, one pillar after another shattered. The dense black shield was also obliterated in an instant, and hundreds of thousands of demons disintegrated, as if they had never existed at all.

Yet, thanks to the buffer provided by the demon god pillars and the layered shield, the destructive aftermath was partially contained. It eventually dissipated after scattering the dark demonic qi that had been accumulated in the Purgatory formation. The sheer devastation caused by just the residual force, however, left the great demon king and several demon kings visibly shaken. Their gazes turned toward the distant horizon.

There, above a crater thousands of kilometers wide, stood a figure towering more than three thousand meters tall. It had three heads and twelve arms, its body encased in thick black-and-red armor: a great demon king in true form. Unlike the lean, fierce builds of other great demon kings, Hamdanman’s form was bulbous and bloated like a massive sphere, his width also spanning over three thousand meters.

Hamdanman gripped a black battle axe ten thousand meters long with his two thickest arms, straining to block the descending halberd. Around him, the abyss churned, and his aura grew increasingly dreadful.

Boom!

A storm of abyssal chains coiled around Hamdanman, and in the next instant, his demonic qi surged wildly. His arms erupted with enough force to shatter the world, blasting apart the illusory golden-black halberd in mid-air.

Within the violent surge of explosive energy, Hamdanman now held the black battle axe, which had shrunk to about three thousand meters. His expression had turned solemn as he stared into the distance.

More than two thousand kilometers away stood Chen Chu, wielding his halberd and blazing within a golden sea of fire. The two stared each other down, their explosive auras clashing and rippling through the void.

That one strike just now from both Chen Chu and Hamdanman had unleashed power far beyond the limits of a great demon king. Hamdanman, after all, was a peak great demon king. His base strength was already formidable, and wielding a pseudo-world-level weapon pushed his combat power to the level of a demon god. That much was expected.

However, the aura radiating from Chen Chu still belonged to the beginning stage of a great demon king, yet the power he unleashed was terrifyingly vast, leaving even demons in disbelief. Most shocking of all was that single thread of an embryonic principle. Hamdanman could scarcely believe that a living being at the beginning stage of the great demon king level had managed to condense a principle.

While Hamdanman was still in shock, Chen Chu also had a flicker of surprise in his eyes. His gaze fell on the incomplete black battle axe in Hamdanman’s hands.

That battle axe was powerful. Not only did it possess immense might and an edge sharp enough to sever the world, but it was also as weighty and substantial as a true world unto itself. Upon contact, it had absorbed and carried away the majority of the force from the previous strike.

Chen Chu’s voice was low and overlapping as it echoed across heaven and earth. "You’re strong. You’ve earned the right to know my name. Remember it. On this day, the one who kills you shall be Chu Batian of the human race."

Hamdanman stood tall, clutching the battle axe, his demonic force surging sky-high. All three of his heads let out a cold laugh in unison. "Chu Batian of the human race! I will remember you. But if you intend to kill me, you're not strong enough just yet."

Both sides had combat power hovering around the beginning stage of the demon god level. In such a situation, even if Chen Chu’s strength slightly surpassed his, at most Chen Chu could suppress him.

Once combatants reached this level, touching upon the power of principles and beginning to condense their own worlds, fights became wars of endurance. If neither side retreated, they could battle across dozens of day-cycles without a victor.

Defeating or injuring an opponent with the life force of a demon-god-level being was extremely difficult, let alone killing one. That was the source of Hamdanman's confidence, even after being momentarily suppressed.

Yet right when Hamdanman, who had already manifested his abyssal world and was wielding the full power of his black battle axe, believed he had seen the full extent of Chen Chu’s strength...

Hum!

Behind Chen Chu, a transparent river over a thousand meters long began to emerge, winding through the void. Above that river, nine figures appeared, each cloaked in black imperial robes and adorned with the Imperial Crown of the Twenty-Four Heavens.

Every one of these figures possessed only middle- or late-stage mythical cultivation. Yet the invisible pressure radiating from them caused even Hamdanman and the other demon kings to turn pale.

"Time-based divine abilities!"

"Nine clones? Impossible!"

"I know who he is! That human killed Bardi and the others!"

"Run!" In that instant, every demon king’s expression changed drastically. They recalled the legend that had spread across the frontlines, of a human at the mythical level who had suppressed seventeen demon kings and two late-stage great demon kings, sweeping across the battlefield and slaughtering tens of millions from the Purgatory legions.

However, it was already too late. Now that Chen Chu had revealed his true power, preparing to end this quickly, how could he possibly let them escape?

Boom!

The nine time clones appeared in all directions around the Purgatory army, each manifesting a five-hundred-meter-tall true form and wielding a phantom of the golden-black Eight Desolations Halberd.

Seven clones immediately targeted the fleeing great demon king and six other demon kings. The remaining two surged toward the 1.2 million-strong Purgatory legions.

Boom! Boom!

Two colossal golden suns fell into the Purgatory formation, detonating like crystalline hydrogen bombs of unimaginable yield. Blinding light engulfed everything as twin mushroom clouds rose high into the sky.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

In just a breath’s time, the six demon kings’ true forms were shattered. The great demon king was also struck down like a falling black meteor, slammed into the ground by a three-thousand-meter-long halberd.

Boom!

The earth within several hundred kilometers collapsed. Countless tons of dirt and rock blasted skyward like a tsunami, forming a shockwave that swept across more than a thousand kilometers.

Meanwhile, as Chen Chu activated his Mark of Temporal Reincarnation, he flashed forward, crossing vast distances in a single step and appearing directly above Hamdanman. Behind him, a golden gate slowly materialized.

Crack! Crack!

Rifts began spreading across the enormous golden gate, each crack seeping with heavy dark-golden light. The aura pouring from them made even Hamdanman’s heart tremble.

Shit, that wasn’t all of his power earlier!

"Kill!" Stunned, Hamdanman roared in fury. Scarlet flames erupted from his body, his aura skyrocketing severalfold in an instant.

Facing what was clearly an ultimate move from Chen Chu, Hamdanman made a decisive choice and burned twenty percent of his origin. As his power surged, the black battle axe in his hands blazed with dark radiance.

Boom!

The shadow of a ten-thousand-meter-long black axe rose into the sky, its invisible edge slicing through the laws of heaven and earth and rending open space itself. It created a massive black curtain that extended for hundreds of thousands of meters, baring its edge against Chen Chu.

At the same time, the golden gate behind Chen Chu exploded. The dark-golden dragon-shaped chains coiled around it shattered, and the world trembled once more. From behind the gate, endless torrents of dark-golden vitality surged forth like a heavenly river in reverse, pouring into Chen Chu. His form expanded to two thousand meters tall, now shining with dazzling dark-golden light.

In an instant, an unimaginably heavy pressure filled all of heaven and earth. The surrounding space cracked and burst apart with thunderous roars, like a mirror shattering across the sky.

At the same time, a dark-golden halberd, ten thousand meters long, descended from the heavens. Under its tyrannical, unmatched might, time and space themselves shattered.

Boom!

Hamdanman, burning his origin and drawing upon the full power of the abyssal world while wielding his pseudo-world-level weapon, unleashed his black curtain of destruction, but it was utterly crushed.

The dark-golden halberd didn’t lose momentum. It fell like a sacred ten-thousand-meter tall mountain, bearing down with an unthinkable weight and colliding directly with the black battle axe.

Boom!

The void beneath Hamdanman's feet collapsed. In the same instant, both he and the halberd descending from the sky slammed into the ground, and the earth tore open. A gaping rift appeared, over ten thousand kilometers long with an unfathomable depth. The heavens shattered, the land ruptured, and everything was pulverized by the tearing force.

Had this blow landed on the Blue Planet, where the fabric of space was far weaker, it would have shattered the entire world.

Forged with the runes of the Dark Star, Nine Dragons, and Heavenly Gate, along with the essence of the Innate Demon God Body, the Nine-Fold Heavenly Gate was a sealing-type ultimate technique that condensed the martial essence of Chen Chu’s entire life.

Behind the Heavenly Gate was sealed the World-Ending Dragon, infused with the essence of the heavenly-tier Dragon Emperor. Breaking open the first Heavenly Gate and tearing free one dragon chain would double the user’s strength, defense, and attack power, stacking progressively with each breakthrough.

Though Chen Chu’s strength had only doubled for now, a full-spectrum doubling allowed him to drive Hamdanman more than two thousand kilometers deep into the earth with a single halberd strike.

This was Chen Chu’s power after fusing with the Dark Star. His incredibly formidable true form, aligned with the supreme Law of Power and his divine abilities of strength, made his might tyrannical and devastating.

"I refuse to yield!"

Boom!

With a furious roar, the shattered abyss below erupted. The ground caved in, forming a crater over a thousand kilometers wide. From its depths surged endless demonic qi. Thick and dark, viscous as liquid, it radiated evil and corruption, corroding all in its path.

From within the churning darkness, a massive figure slowly stepped forth. Hamdanman’s form had changed again; two of his heads and ten arms were now gone, leaving behind bloody holes on his shoulders and back. The remaining head still dripped with mangled flesh and blood. His body had swelled to over five thousand meters, an enormous form stretched to its limit. His armor had burst open, revealing skin and scales bloated to near rupture.

The black battle axe in his hand, though still incomplete, was now stained with dark-red blood, radiating an intense crimson glow. A complete world had formed within the blood light, but it was broken—the land cracked and pitch black, devoid of life, drowned in endless demonic qi.

Standing atop the abyss, Hamdanman erupted with extreme force, his demonic might surging to the heavens. He raised his head and roared at Chen Chu above, "I refuse to believe you can kill me today!"

"Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re about to die." Chen Chu, like a god cast in dark gold, stared down coldly. His kilometer-long black hair billowed wildly behind him, and under the radiance of the spinning golden wheel behind him, he appeared utterly terrifying.

The nine clones reappeared behind him, having already slain the beginning-stage great demon king. The 1.2 million Purgatory troops had long since been annihilated. With no power of equal level to stop two clones whose combat strength rivaled late-stage great demon kings, over a million Purgatory demons had been utterly helpless to resist.

There were no more words. The moment the nine true forms appeared, divine silver runes shaped like wings manifested on either side of Chen Chu’s brow. They spread and extended backward, enveloping the nine clones and forming a pair of silver wings ten thousand meters long behind him.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Each clone became a node embedded within the silver wings. Then, they abruptly folded inward, linking together into a great silver river that enveloped Chen Chu. Endless light erupted, and silver cracks spread outward in all directions. In Hamdanman’s eyes, and within his sensory perception, the world itself slowed to a crawl, solidified and frozen in place.

With the Mark of Temporal Reincarnation, the combined power of nine clones from the past pushed Chen Chu’s strength to a terrifying level. This wasn’t just a simple sum of energy; under the might of time, his laws, abilities, divine abilities, and true form all briefly reached a state from the future.

He had temporarily condensed a fragment of authority, breaking through the limits of the world.

Splat!

As Chen Chu swept his halberd, now nearly a streak of silver light, the void below collapsed. The abyssal world around Hamdanman shattered instantly. His body, which was pushed to its limit, at a level comparable to an ordinary demon god, was crushed by that tyrannical power from the future. It disintegrated like weathered sand, falling apart into black dust.

All traces of life were erased, obliterated by a power that pierced through time itself. In that moment, Chen Chu was like a world-ending demon god wielding the power of destruction itself, the arbiter of all life and death.

The invisible force he released drew the attention of the nine demon gods and five Heavenly Feathered divine kings locked in battle in the Eternal Divine Region. All of them instinctively turned to look, eyes filled with shock.

Is that kind of power truly something a being at the beginning stage of the great demon king level should possess?

The great demon god Tyretis turned slightly, his dreadful gaze spanning a million kilometers to fall upon Chen Chu. He let out a soft sigh. "That human... must die."

Even Tyretis, who had always favored peerless prodigies of alien races, could now feel a powerful threat radiating from that human.