Chapter 672: Zhu Ji

Pang Jian's physical body hung motionless in the dark ocean of murky energy.

The Heaven-Earth Cosmos Chest was still on his back, and both divine artifacts, Ghostflare and Five Thunder Annihilation, stayed in his grasp. However, his control over his body had been severed.

He had once ensnared Qi Xu's ethereal soul with soul-related divine techniques to bend her to his will. Now, Yan Lie was subjecting him to the same treatment.

Tiny motes of flame flickered within his dantian, bones, sinews, organs, and even his sea of consciousness, each no larger than a grain of rice.

Pang Jian counted thirty-six in total.

Each mote of flame represented a world in the starry skies under Yan Lie's control.

These thirty-six fiery worlds manifested in Pang Jian's body through Yan Lie's unfathomable divine techniques.

Life stirred in each world. The Dao of Fire wove profound truths through mountains, rivers, and nations, as if embodying the cycles of birth, aging, sickness, and death.

The Dao of Fire governed each world, symbolizing Yan Lie's dominion as a high-ranking God. These were the territories under his rule, and the wellspring of his divine power.

These fiery worlds in the starry skies resonated with Yan Lie and, in battle, became his greatest source of strength.

Fortunately, Yan Lie could not truly connect to them while in the Abyss, and the manifestations in Pang Jian's flesh, organs, bones, and sea of consciousness were only projections.

What manifested within Pang Jian's body were not the actual worlds themselves, but representations of the Heavenly Daos modeled after them.

As a high-ranking God, Yan Lie's comprehension of the Dao of Fire was naturally far beyond Pang Jian's own.

Yan Lie had used a single drop of his blood to replicate thirty-six fiery worlds under his dominion, crafting them as anchors to drag Pang Jian back down into the Sixth World.

A high-ranking God...

Such power truly defies belief.

Unable to command his own body, Pang Jian could only study the miniature fiery worlds within him, attempting to comprehend the nature of Yan Lie's technique.

The closer he analyzed it, the more profoundly shaken he became.

Even a glimpse of these fiery worlds was enough for him to grasp the vast might of Yan Lie's divine power.

With this one move, Pang Jian could easily envision the unimaginable power the high-ranking God wielded beyond the Abyss.

Those thirty-six fiery worlds under his dominion teemed with life, including many low-ranking Gods and a dozen more mid-ranking Gods.

Yan Lie could summon this vast congregation of forces alongside the overwhelming fire energy in the worlds under his dominion as he pleased, channeling it into his body through temples, altars, and other means.

Nobody in the Abyss could stand against him if he were to unleash the full extent of his power.

This understanding of the terrifying scope of Yan Lie's strength brought with it a comforting realization. Yan Lie would never reclaim the might he wielded as a high-ranking God while in the Abyss.

The divine power that once belonged to Yan Lie had been dissipated with his death.

If he wished to reclaim his power as a high-ranking God, he would need to draw on many fiery worlds to replenish his vast reservoir of fire energy.

Even all the fire energy within the Abyss would not be enough for him to recover his strength. The Abyss was simply too small.

Yan Lie would have to return to the boundless starry skies, plundering fiery worlds, seizing volcanoes, and draining seas of magma if he ever hoped to rise to his former peak again.

Despite this lack of resources, Yan Lie's experience as a high-ranking God, his insight into the Dao of Fire, a sliver of divine power, and his masterful techniques were enough to suppress Pang Jian.

Pang Jian needed an equal depth of insight into a Heavenly Dao to break free from Yan Lie's suppression.

You Kui had been a mere mid-ranking God of the Ghost Race, and his insights into the Dao of Soul were confined to that level.

The insights into the various Heavenly Dao Pang Jian obtained from the Fey Emperors across the seven continents of the Fifth World could only be classified as the insights of low-ranking Gods at best.

If he continued cultivating, fighting, and refining his Heavenly Daos, Pang Jian could eventually elevate the insights of those low and mid-ranking Gods to the standard of a high-ranking God. However, that would take an unimaginable amount of time.

After much consideration, Pang Jian realized that the only Heavenly Dao at his disposal that was powerful enough to contend with Yan Lie's Dao of Fire was the Duke of Thunder's Dao of Lightning.

The Duke of Thunder was also a high-ranking God and had forged the Divine Court of Thunder to command the Thunder Gods across the starry skies, intending to use it as the foundation for his ascension as a Sovereign.

The Duke of Thunder stood above Yan Lie in rank. In other words, his Heavenly Dao could match Yan Lie's as well.

Pang Jian turned his focus inward, sensing the mysteries of lightning within his body as he earnestly comprehended the profound insights of the Duke of Thunder's Dao of Lightning.

As he did, he noticed the greenish-black shroud of demonic energy above the seven fragmented lands within his dantian.

Mysteries of the Dao of Demon were branded within this demonic sky. Among them were the Primordial Demon and the Abyssal Demon's Primeval Demon Fusion Art, as well as the profound insights of many other mighty Demon Gods.

The Primordial Demon, long hailed as the progenitor of all demons, also sought to ascend as a Sovereign.

The Primordial Demon and the Heavenly Dao he had comprehended were likely of a higher tier than Yan Lie's, making the Dao of Demon a compelling alternative for unraveling the Fire God's divine technique.

With that in mind, Pang Jian split his focus, turning some of his attention to the Dao of Demon imprinted within the greenish-black sky within his dantian.

He no longer paid attention to the conflict in the Fifth World, wholly devoted to deciphering the means to break free of the suppression imposed upon him.

Meanwhile, Qi Xu continued toward him, drawn by Yan Lie's aura.

***

The Black Dragon King let out a low, ragged breath in his domain of darkness.

Blazing meteors surged across the shroud of darkness, searing his body and scorching his soul, leaving him unable to break free.

He thrashed within Yan Lie's bounds, a stranded dragon in a scalding mire.

From the outside, it looked as though Yan Lie had merely flicked a few embers, and an entire world of raging flame descended, sealing both the Black Dragon King and his domain of darkness within it.

Bolts of fiery lightning intermittently tore through the darkness. Each time, they were met with the Black Dragon King's anguished roar.

Although Yan Lie had yet to regain his full power, he was still the only Outer God to descend into the Abyss with his true body. This overwhelming gap in power allowed him to suppress the True Gods and the Fey Gods with little effort.

An orange flame hovering a hundred zhang in front of Yan Lie's chest abruptly extinguished.

Any flame Yan Lie unleashed, be it a spark or a streaking blazing meteor, almost never went out once ignited.

Yan Lie's divine power and fire energy would sustain any flame he birthed for as long as he lived.

That extinguished orange flame had been conjured to wear Zhu Ji down, forcing him into a relentless defense.

Before Li Zhaotian's rise, Zhu Ji was hailed as the strongest True God of the human race.

Unexpectedly, Zhu Ji had simply summoned his towering Dharma Idol and clasped the orange flame in his palm, forcefully snuffing it out.

Yan Lie was taken aback.

Casting Zhu Ji a more serious look, he asked, "What Heavenly Dao did you comprehend to ascend to godhood?"

Yan Lie had never shown much interest in the human race's ascensions to godhood before this.

In his eyes, none of them were worthy of his attention, not even Li Zhaotian with his barrier.

In his eyes, they were merely fledglings. They never broke free from the confines of the Abyss to soar through the starry skies beyond and endure the trials of continuous breakthroughs. Such beings had no right to his regard.

The loftiness of their Heavenly Dao and the profundity of their divine techniques did not matter. Low-ranking Gods were still low-ranking Gods.

They were destined to be buried in the Abyss. Yan Lie had no reason to waste a second of thought on them.

In the starry skies, Yan Lie was on par with other high-ranking Gods like Zi Mo and He Motian.

Even those high-ranking Gods would have to pay a heavy price if they wished to kill him.

Moreover, he had the protection of a Sovereign. Nobody in all the starry skies dared to raise a hand against him.

By extension, none dared to extinguish his flames, though few were capable of such a feat in the first place.

Despite his renown, Zhu Ji had always kept a low profile and never flaunted his strength. Even the true nature of his Dao was not common knowledge.

Thus, Yan Lie was caught off guard when Zhu Ji extinguished the orange flame.

Zhu Ji looked at him with faint surprise. "The Sovereign you serve, did she never tell you why she sealed me away? Why she merely cast me into the Sixth World instead of killing me?"

Zhu Ji's Dharma Idol was short and stocky with no notable aura. There was none of Li Zhaotian's domineering presence, Gui Mu's eerie mystique, or Su Wanrou's terrifying toxicity.

Most only knew Zhu Ji as one of the True Gods, nothing more than a name with a vague title of the strongest among them.

Few truly understood where Zhu Ji's strength lay. The vast majority did not know the reason he was unanimously acknowledged as the strongest in battle among the True Gods.

Even peak Immortal Realm cultivators knew nothing of Zhu Ji. Naturally, an Outer God like Yan Lie would not know either.

"You were sealed and used as bait to lure in Li Wang and Gui Mu. Wasn't that just a ploy to trap more True Gods?" Yan Lie asked in mild disbelief.

Zhu Ji simply shook his head, his unremarkable face as expressionless as ever.

Then, without warning, he retracted his Dharma Idol.

Unarmed and unarmored, he stepped forward toward Yan Lie with bare fists and steady strides, no divine artifacts in sight.

Yan Lie flicked his fingers.

Streams of embers transformed into blazing meteors, each ten thousand zhang long and wide as rivers.

It was the same divine spectacle he had used to trap and suppress the Black Dragon King.

Zhu Ji remained expressionless as he raised his fist and struck forward, aiming straight for the blazing meteors.

That single punch held an unshakable divine will, a force capable of shattering all things. Even more astonishingly, it carried the overwhelming presence of the Fifth World's murky energy.

Zhu Ji, in his regular human form, stirred the tides of heaven and earth with his strike, destroying the oncoming blazing meteors.

The blazing meteors were infused with Yan Lie's fire energy and inscribed with his insights into the Dao of Fire.

Even so, all of them crumbled beneath Zhu Ji's blow, exploding in streaks of blazing light and scattering like a fiery rain across the sky of the Fifth World.