Chapter 898: Crushing All Resistance, Burying the Ancestral Grounds (I)

As Hamdanman's true form disintegrated into black powder, annihilated by the power within the Mark of Temporal Reincarnation, a scarlet and dazzling Blood Moon rose high into the sky. It was dozens of times larger than those conjured by demon kings, resembling a real celestial body suspended thousands of kilometers above, before slowly descending.

Instantly, the dense power of laws collapsed, surging outward in all directions. Such phenomena that accompanied the fall of beings at the mythical level and above were formed by the collapse of their internal laws merging back into the world. It was a kind of return to the origin of all things.

Cracks spread across the silver river-like wings surrounding Chen Chu. With a sharp snap, the wings shattered into a cascade of silver lights and vanished completely. That last strike had instantly exhausted all of the temporal reincarnation power contained within his divine ability.

Phew!

Chen Chu exhaled slowly. As the silver radiance dissipated, the silver winged mark at his brow dimmed, and his long hair returned to its original black.

He had expended the nine marks to slay a foe who was half a step into the demon god level, whose true strength rivaled that of a beginning-stage demon god. In the grand scheme, it was a worthwhile trade. After all, those mythical-level marks would eventually be consumed anyway. Holding onto them would only waste precious "skill slots."

Given Chen Chu’s current strength, even in his ordinary humanoid form, he matched a peak heavenly king. Once he manifested his true form, he could break through the limits and step into the supreme level.

Of course, this step only made him equivalent to a typical beginning-stage demon god. Although all ancient-titan-level beings were extraordinary, whether cultivators or colossal beasts, differences in talent still existed among them.

The Time Dragon, for instance, was an entity that wielded a supreme law. Once it stepped into the ancient titan level, its power under the principle of time could easily contend against middle-stage ancient titans.

Thus, for the present Chen Chu, the previously condensed time clones had become somewhat redundant. It was better to use them up and condense new time marks. Each new clone condensed would essentially equal the combat power of a beginning-stage demon god. To condense the full amount meant nine extra such combatants. Just imagining it was enough to strike fear into the heart.

Of course, that remained a distant dream. The stronger his main body became, the more time power it required to condense a new clone. Now, creating one consumed almost as much power as all nine before combined.

This was a foundational principle of the mythical world and even the endless space-time itself. Not even top-level divine abilities could fully defy it.

With the battle over, it was time to clean the battlefield. Towering over two thousand meters tall, Chen Chu stood like a colossal mountain. He lowered his head slightly, gazing down.

There, in a dark pit over a thousand kilometers wide, the incomplete black battle axe left behind after Hamdanman’s death had returned to a thousand-meter size, slowly sinking amid rolling demonic qi.

It was a pseudo-world-level weapon forged from the fusion of principles; naturally, Chen Chu wouldn’t let it go. In a flash, he appeared deep within the dark pit, hundreds of kilometers below. A massive arm extended from behind him, seizing the axe in its grasp.

Boom!

The moment Chen Chu gripped the black axe, his body sank slightly, as if he wasn’t holding a weapon, but the crushing weight of an entire falling world. A tremendous recoil followed, filled with dark, frenzied killing intent, violently resisting Chen Chu.

"Courting death!" A cold glint flashed in Chen Chu’s eyes. An empty, illusory eye slowly emerged at his brow, and in the next instant, a black void blade slashed out, striking the battleaxe.

Boom!

The incomplete black axe trembled violently. Several fine cracks appeared along its wheel-shaped blade, making it look even more fractured and dim.

With the upgrade of the Blade of Void rune into the Gaze of Void divine ability, its property of annihilating nothingness became even more potent. With a single strike, the residual imprint of Hamdanman within the axe was completely erased.

At once, the axe ceased resisting, though it still felt unimaginably heavy. After all, this was a weapon containing an entire world within it, capable of wielding the force of that world. In terms of grade, it even surpassed the Eight Desolations Creation Halberd in Chen Chu’s other hand.

World-level weapons were a special type that fused with a world, forming a powerful armament blessed by a second layer of principles. Similar to an external incarnation, the difference between a demon god with a world-level weapon and one without was staggering. Still, this black axe was only a pseudo-world-level weapon. It was far inferior to the true world-level weapons wielded by the rulers of the three Purgatory Empires.

Even so, it remained extremely valuable. Chen Chu could choose to merge it into his Creation Halberd, enhancing its power, or he could shatter it and integrate it into the planar worlds. The final choice would have to wait until the war ended.

With that thought, Chen Chu lifted his gaze toward the horizon. Far off, more than a hundred thousand kilometers away, Heavenly King Zhenwu was engaged in a fierce battle against Zuo Mo. Their every movement stirred devastating shockwaves that rocked the surrounding tens of thousands of kilometers.

In another direction, eighty thousand kilometers away, Heavenly King Xuanwu led the orbital battleships against another Purgatory legion, and their clash, too, was earth-shattering.

After pausing for only a brief moment, Chen Chu, wielding both the Eight Desolations Creation Halberd and the black battleaxe, soared toward the orbital battleships, rather than go to assist Zhenwu.

There seemed to be some hidden truth surrounding Xiao Tianyi. It was possible that Zuo Mo wasn’t an enemy after all; otherwise, An Fuqing wouldn’t have been traveling alongside him.

***

Boom! Boom! Boom!

At the heart of the Eternal Divine Region, the Divine King of Light, having fused with the Eternal Divine Tree and entered the ancient god level, was fighting alone against seven demon gods.

The battle shook space-time across a span of hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Massive golden roots, each stretching tens of thousands of kilometers long, pierced through heaven and earth, sending demon gods flying.

Faced with these true-spirit-level tree roots, only the three emperors of the Purgatory Empires, each armed with world-level weapons, could resist them.

Among them, the most formidable was Tyretis. His True Abyssal Demon God Form, towering tens of thousands of meters, stood in front of the Divine Tree. Even as his head and arms were blasted apart time and again, he showed no fear.

Another great demon god wielded a fearsome dark magic blade infused with overwhelming demonic might, powerful enough to slice through the Divine Tree’s thinner branches.

Boom!

A golden root, over a hundred thousand kilometers long, swept across the sky, shattering vast swaths of void and sending Tyretis’ true form hurtling into the depths of space.

Yet moments later, Tyretis, his half-shattered form already restored, returned from the endless darkness. Holding a dark saber wreathed in abyssal power, he coldly said, "Metast, give up. The moment you chose to fuse with this divine tree, the Heavenly Feathered Race lost all hope. I once thought you’d abandon the tree, take your elite kin, and escape. With you, a pinnacle divine king, presiding, the Heavenly Feathered Race might still have had a sliver of revival left. But I never imagined you’d be so foolish as to merge with the tree.”

His tone was unexpectedly tinged with disappointment. This adversary who had stood against him for centuries had, in the end, chosen such a reckless path. Even a demon like Tyretis felt let down.

Atop the Divine Tree’s crown, a towering phantom of the Divine King of Light, stretching ten thousand kilometers high, slowly opened his mouth. His ancient voice echoed across the realm. "Foolish? Perhaps to beings like you. I was born in this world. I witnessed the rise of the Heavenly Feathered Race from an ordinary people to a mythical civilization. This place is everything to me. I have existed for over ten thousand years, and my consciousness has roamed the river of time for millions. Life and death mean little to me now. To be buried alongside my homeland is, in truth, not a bad ending. But before that happens, are you prepared to fall?"

Boom!

In an instant, the Divine King of Light’s many radiant wings blazed brilliantly behind him. Dazzling white light burst forth, illuminating the entire world. Demonic qi that blanketed the sky began to dissolve beneath the holy glow.

Witnessing this, Tyretis and the other demon gods made no attempt to stop him. In fact, they even halted their attempts to condense the abyssal principles, letting the Divine King of Light consume his origin principles to empower the domain.

From above, one could see the enormous Eternal Divine Region splitting into three great battlefronts.

The human legions, the Heavenly Feathered army of over twenty million, and the Purgatory army of over two hundred million were mostly concentrated in the northern sector of the region, engaged in brutal combat.

Several Heavenly Feathered legions, each commanded by a chief god and numbering in the millions, had already been surrounded by endless waves of demons. Their annihilation was only a matter of time. Even with the blessing of the white light that shone across the Eternal Divine Region, they were still being overwhelmed.

However, the most frenzied battlefield lay in the southern part of the region, where four Heavenly Feathered divine kings had joined forces to besiege two demon gods, tearing the sky and earth apart. Both sides had entered a state of explosive fury, burning their principle origins. Their attacks were destroying everything within a million-kilometer radius.

The most frenzied of them all was a divine king with ten silver wings. Eight light wheels spun around him as he burned his origin and even his divine soul to lock down a demon god in a deadly grip, yet all of this unfolded far away from humanity.

"Right flank fleet, there is enemy firepower concentrated at left sector coordinate 168. Prepare twelve main cannons for simultaneous volley."

"Requesting micro energy nuke bombardment. Target is the beast regiment on high ground at coordinate 1779."

"Requesting aerial strike. The number of flying beasts and skyborne aliens is overwhelming. Our air superiority is compromised..."

On a vast plain broken only by a few rolling hills, over a million-strong human army had formed a triangular sky-ground combat formation centered around thirteen airborne battleships.

On the ground perimeter, massive melee mechs, supported by high-level cultivators, clashed head-on against the advancing legions of the Purgatory Demon Clan.

Above, the decks of more than a dozen orbital battleships were bristling with missile launchers, rune-guided rocket systems, and heavy-caliber artillery capable of razing mountains. All unleashed firepower in torrents.

Every moment, unmanned fighter jets and energy bombers launched from the decks, coordinating with the battleships' main and secondary cannons to suppress the flying Purgatory forces in the air.

A violet ring of battle patterns, spanning a thousand kilometers, surrounded them to amplify their defenses and combat capabilities. Even when facing over three million Purgatory troops, the human army showed no sign of being overwhelmed.

Far above the battlefield, space shattered as the colossal Black Tortoise, ten thousand meters long, roared at the sky, engaged in a duel against a pinnacle great demon king radiating an oppressive force.

Off in the distance, Heavenly King Jiuyou suppressed a middle-stage great demon king. The two flashed back and forth in streaks of black and violet light, while their surging laws shook the heavens and earth.

Even the massive black-and-red mech, standing eight hundred meters tall, was currently being held back by the combined might of four demon kings and one great demon king, unable to break into the front lines and massacre the Purgatory legions.

This was the normal rhythm of a war between civilizations. Kings fought kings. Generals clashed with generals. Mythical-level and above powerhouses pinned down their counterparts, while ordinary transcendent legions formed battle arrays to empower their side’s mythical beings.

To demon kings, great demon kings, and especially demon gods, the Purgatory legions were simply extensions of their own power, manifestations of their laws and will. With power stemming from the same source, the more demons and demonized aliens they commanded, the stronger their abyssal and dark laws became.

This was precisely why the Divine King of Light dared not allow too many demons into the southern sector of the Eternal Divine Region. Once the balance among high-end combatants was broken, the transcendent legions below would be slaughtered, just like the two million Purgatory troops who had been wiped out by Chen Chu earlier.