Chapter 723: The Rock Devourer's Scheme

"The Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars are truly magnificent," the Rock Devourer murmured, staring at the towering pillar on the Fifth Continent in fascination. "I'm fortunate to have taken part in their creation."

A glint of greed and longing flashed in its eyes.

"But they're mine! I gave so much for them. Those pillars are the bodies I cast off. That's right, they belong to me!"

The Rock Devourer's eyes filled with resolve as it convinced itself. The fragmented lands that made up its body rumbled, trembling as they rose from their lying position.

Its massive body of fragmented lands twisted stiffly. Then, the glowing bridges that connected the fragmented lands flared with otherworldly radiance. As it shifted, its movements grew more fluid and its posture more natural.

"Why is the Rock Devourer moving?"

"It's standing up. Is it preparing to fight someone?"

"No way. Nothing less than a Sovereign can truly threaten it in the bizarre mist. Even the leader of the Nether Gods, Long Di, couldn't kill it outside the Nether Abyss!"

The Outer Gods dwelling on the Rock Devourer's body looked on in shock and alarm.

Their gazes inevitably turned toward the heart-shaped fragmented land, where the smaller, humanoid Rock Devourer and Pang Jian were. Unfortunately, that fragmented land was still veiled in a strange light that shielded it from the eyes of the Outer Gods.

Before long, the colossal Rock Devourer rose to a stand. Two gray-white boulders rotated on its massive face like twin stars. A soft clacking filled the air as they did.

Twin beams of pale gray light abruptly shot out of its rocky eyes toward the heart-shaped fragmented land at its chest, each seemingly capable of piercing time and space!

Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul was still conversing with the smaller Rock Devourer, adjusting the angle of the spatial rift, when he noticed the two beams of light descending.

A sense of dread surged within him.

"You!" Anger flashed in Pang Jian's eyes.

The heart-shaped fragmented land and Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul were once again filled with multicolored stones. His thoughts were buried beneath layers of stone, but unlike before, it was impossible to disintegrate his Immortal Divine Soul.

Space was essential for his Immortal Divine Soul to dissolve into specks of multicolored light. There had to be room for his divine sense and energies to move and reassemble.

By filling the fragmented land itself with stones, the Rock Devourer effectively prevented this from happening. There was not a single gap for Pang Jian to fragment into.

Pang Jian could also neither see nor sense anything with his Immortal Divine Soul and sea of consciousness filled with stones, causing him to lose track of the two beams of light.

His Immortal Divine Soul and his physical body in the Abyss also lost contact with each other.

***

Pang Jian's physical body in the Fifth World quickly noticed that the spatial rift was filled with stones.

Though startled, he initially assumed that the Rock Devourer had simply moved too close to the spatial rift, and that its massive body was blocking his view. When he lost connection with his Immortal Divine Soul, however, he immediately knew something was wrong.

Two massive beams of light suddenly pierced through the spatial rift, shooting out from the heart-shaped fragmented land and crossing into the Fifth World of the Abyss!

Fury surged through Pang Jian at the betrayal.

"Pang Jian, my body was used as the core material for those seven Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars! I willingly severed parts of my body and transformed them into the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars for your mother. I was willing to give up everything for her!

"But your mother is gone. I have no obligation to keep using my body to guard this world anymore! I only wish to reclaim what is rightfully mine!"

The two colossal beams of light shot toward the Fifth Continent like harpoons.

Their overwhelming force was enough to tear through mountains and rivers. Pang Jian and the True Gods below paled at the incredible power emanating from them. None of them had expected this turn of events.

"An Aberrant Spirit will always be an Aberrant Spirit!" Jiang Fan rose into the sky with a flawless jade seal floating above his palm, his body wrapped in a scroll depicting a landscape of mountains and rivers. Golden imperial aura billowed from his sleeves as he shouted, "Pang Jian, you trusted the wrong person!"

Li Wang, Li Zhaotian, and the others also flew up one after another. After this period of recovery, everyone had regained seventy to eighty percent of their strength and were ready for battle.

They did not hesitate to leap skyward to join the fight when they realized that the Rock Devourer harbored ill intentions.

The two beams of light sliced through the azure barrier shielding the Fifth Continent like blades, aiming for the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar standing tall in the wilderness.

Jiang Fan froze mid-charge.

He had assumed the Rock Devourer planned to attack Pang Jian before turning its sights on the rest of them.

Pang Jian was their bridge to the outside world, their lifeline for future supplies, and their guide to the Seventh World. They could not afford to let anything happen to him.

Thus, at the first sign of danger, Jiang Fan surged into the sky to protect him. Unexpectedly, the Rock Devourer was not targeting Pang Jian, but the azure barrier they had futilely tried to break through.

"We don't need to get involved with this kind of dog-eat-dog nonsense!" Jiang Fan huffed, signaling Li Wang, Li Zhaotian, and the others to hold back and observe the situation before making a move.

The Rock Devourer, Luo Hongyan, and the Black Empyrean Phoenix were all foreign anomalies from outside of the Abyss, and their internal rivalries were not something Jiang Fan felt compelled to interfere with.

Seeing this, Li Wang and the others halted mid-flight. Only Li Zhaotian flashed past the others and appeared at Pang Jian's side.

"How could you carelessly lead that thing around when you don't even know if it's a friend or foe?" he scolded. "Aren't you afraid it could get you killed?"

Pang Jian, however, was fully fixated on the two beams of light and did not respond to Li Zhaotian.

An ethereal silhouette abruptly appeared above the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar, hovering in the sky over Eight Trigrams City.

It was a tall, slender woman, with her features shrouded in haze. She pressed her hands together, and a blinding radiance erupted from her palms, so brilliant that none dared to look directly at it.

The light, carrying the aura of cold and death, rapidly elongated into the shape of a longsword. It then surged toward the two beams of light.

Pang Jian sensed the laws governing the Fifth Continent breaking apart from the force, only for the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar to reconnect them. He was finally witnessing firsthand the pillar's fabled ability to stabilize the continent.

Without the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar, the laws governing the continent would have reconnected. The collapse of the Fifth Continent would have been inevitable if that were to happen.

The Rock Devourer had clearly been aiming to damage the laws of the continent, trying to tear them apart to extract the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar.

The surface of the Fifth Continent rippled like a carpet being shaken. Mountain ranges trembled and collapsed from the violent tremors.

The blinding sword clashed with the two beams of light, giving rise to breathtaking celestial phenomena in the skies above.

Tiny fragments of stone scattered like radiant sparks from the impact. These fragments then swelled and expanded, transforming into mountains, fragmented lands, stars, and stone figures. Each manifestation was etched with the Rock Devourer's insights into his Heavenly Dao.

A chilling radiance swept through the sky, carrying profound insights into the Dao of Death, the Dao of Cold, and the Dao of Light, and imbued with Luo Hongyan's killing intent.

The Rock Devourer's mountains, fragmented lands, stars, and stone figures crumbled into ash and dust.

Stones and light fell like rain, but were destroyed before they could even reach the ground.

The Rock Devourer's divine power clashed repeatedly with Luo Hongyan's across the sky of the Fifth Continent. At last, the prolonged strain proved too great, and parts of the continent were ripped apart.

The Fifth Continent held the ruins of Golden Plume City, the sacred ground where Fey Emperor Jin Yu ascended to godhood through the Dao of Metal. It was the toughest, most durable continent in the Fifth World and had a core rich with rare mineral veins.

Despite this, it still could not withstand the clash of two supreme powers.

If forces of similar magnitude were to strike the other six continents, they would surely shatter instantly.

A lofty voice echoed from the silhouette above Eight Trigrams City.

"Rock Devourer, I'll go look for you in the bizarre mist soon."

Her eyes met the Rock Devourer's through the spatial rift. It was a gaze cold enough to freeze time itself.