Chapter 801: Withered Lotus

As the Ironsteel Peak erupted once more, the countless artifacts that made it up seemed to awaken, as if imbued with life and sentience.

It was as though countless Gods had poured their divine consciousness and insights into each and every artifact. Compared to the last time, Pang Jian added spirituality transformed the attack into something that now existed on an entirely different level.

The swarm of artifacts deftly navigated the blood-drenched worlds above.

The stunning sight shook all the Outer Gods watching to the core. When they looked again at Pang Jian, something in their eyes had changed.

A burst of radiant light laced with streaks of lightning lanced through the area, briefly lifting the bizarre mist.

A sword shattered a blood-drenched world, instantly obliterating the Fey Gods within, reducing their souls to scattered dust.

A spear, wreathed in the razor-sharp Dao of Metal, pierced through another blood-drenched world, severing all traces of life within it.

A massive cauldron shrouded in flames descended into a blood-drenched world, setting it ablaze and reducing everything within to ash.

A silver ring pulsed outward with waves of freezing light, reducing the sigils surrounding it into glittering fragments.

Various Heavenly Daos and fundamental laws collided above Pang Jian. Radiant light and foreign energies clashed and roared, shaking the hearts of everyone around.

The colossal ancient ape clutching the Celestial Fey Warhammer, its damaged palm found its barely-healed wounds torn open once again beneath the barrage of violent forces.

Its blood-red eyes burned with fury. With a roar, the ancient ape raised the warhammer high once more and swung it down in a thunderous arc.

As the warhammer descended upon Pang Jian, it felt as a blow that could shatter the very fabric of reality.

More of the sigils, each containing the essence of his divine techniques, morphed into blood-drenched worlds, transforming into ancient Fey Gods that coalesced into mountains of corpses and seas of blood, radiating overwhelming vitality.

The twisted vitality was brimming with corruption as it tried to invade Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul.

The ancient ape bared his teeth and let out a chilling laugh. "Even an Aberrant Spirit can be tainted by my aura!"

The Yuan Yi fixed his blood-colored eyes upon Pang Jian; crimson ripples surged within his pupils, each wave attempting to forcibly brand Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul with his blood essence.

"Your internal organs..." A malevolent sneer covered Yuan Yi's face.

He had sharply sensed something peculiar within Pang Jian's liver—a verdant, self-contained world brimming with vibrant life. Trees flourished, life energy flowed in quiet harmony, and the mysteries of life pulsed at its core. However, the mysteries of the Dao of Life were his specialty.

Ignoring the artifacts, the ancient ape activated his bloodline secret technique through his eyes, channeling his vast blood essence toward Pang Jian's liver.

"Go!"

Pang Jian was struck by a strange phenomenon beyond his comprehension as nine blood-red rivers suddenly manifested within Pang Jian's verdant liver world.

Within those blood-red rivers floated shimmering blood crystals, and within each crystal crouched a gray ape, every one of them bearing the rare, ice-blue eyes. Every ape glared at Pang Jian in chilling silence.

Then, in an instant, every gray ape began to shift, transforming into phoenixes, dragons, qilins, unicorns, and black turtles, each one a former high-ranking Fey God.

The ancient Fey Gods within the rivers let out a thunderous roar in unison, "Blood Begets Myriad Fey, Celestial Fey Spiritlock!"

Chunks of blood crystal drifted out from the blood-red rivers and exploded into bursts of light.

Dozens of savage Fey Gods emerged within the verdant world of Pang Jian's liver and leapt through his body, occupying his heart, spleen, chest cavity, and even into his bones.

Yuan Yi had used the small world full of life energy within Pang Jian's liver as a coordinate to channel his monstrous blood essence. Once it had been transferred over and those beings forged from his blood essence had taken form, they began to wreak havoc, attempting to tear Pang Jian apart from within.

"Break," Pang Jian whispered.

In the next instant, his towering, multicolored Immortal Divine Soul splintered into countless streams of radiant light, scattering in all directions.

His divine powers, divine sense, five viscera, and bones all dissolved into thousands of fragments. In a single breath, his Immortal Divine Soul reconstituted itself to be identical to the state he had been in moments before, except for one crucial detail.

The bloody Fey Gods had been left behind. They now hovered aimlessly beside the nine blood-colored rivers, uncertain where to strike.

In the next instant, a pitch black veil descended, engulfing the Fey Gods and the blood-colored rivers in one sweep. Within that churning veil of dense demonic energy, figures of mid-ranking Demon Gods surged forth. Compelled by an unseen force, they tore into the invading Fey God and destroyed the nine rivers of blood.

Oblivion,

Pang Jian called out inwardly.

Within that pitch-black veil, the demonic characters representing Luan Ji shone with a sinister red light. Those two characters condensed into twin blood-hued vortexes, slowly turning in silence.

Wielding the Celestial Fey Warhammer, the savage ancient ape exchanged blow after blow against the storm of artifacts when a flicker of confusion surfaced in his eyes.

Unbidden, his gaze drifted toward the pitch-black veil overhead, where two swirling blood-red vortexes turned slowly in the dark.

With each rotation, a piece of his memory slipped away. One by one, he began to forget about recent events and his insights into his Dao.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Who is he?

What was I doing?

Who are they? And who am I?

Unbidden, a series of questions flooded Yuan Yi's mind.

To the ancient ape, Pang Jian and various Gods that had followed him into battle suddenly seemed unfamiliar, as though he had never met them before.

Yuan Yi looked around in a daze, clutching his weapon for security. He no longer swung it or even thought of anything at all.

This shift had immediate consequences. The blood-drenched worlds and myriad sigils birthed from him and his warhammer began to collapse, overwhelmed by the onslaught of artifacts infused with Pang Jian's insights into the Heavenly Daos.

Among the swords, spears, and blades, a pool of thunder hurtled straight toward the ancient ape's massive forehead.

The thunderclap shook the void, shaking the divine consciousnesses of the World Gods and divine beings from various abysses.

The divine artifact left behind by the Duke of Thunder finally revealed its true might. The Dao of Lightning manifested itself as a series of majestic palaces that slowly rose one after the other from within the Thunder Pool. The chain of palaces was brilliant to the point of being blinding, impossible to look at directly.

The palaces slammed into Yuan Yi's forehead, sending the ancient ape staggering backward again and again.

Fine threads of lightning arced across from the corners of his eyes to his nostrils as they wormed their way into the ancient ape's sea of consciousness. There, in his vast, blood-hued sea of consciousness, the arcs of lightning scattered and surged in chaotic bursts.

"Oblivion... Oblivion... Luan Ji!"

Body and soul under relentless assault, Yuan Yi suddenly came back to lucidity.

Mid-retreat, the ancient ape suddenly snapped his gaze toward the pitch-black veil above, where Luan Ji's name took the form of two crimson whirlpools spinning ominously.

In that instant, Yuan Yi realized that a Great Demon God had intervened.

Other than the Sovereigns, there were only a few Gods within and beyond the bizarre mist that he deemed worthy of concern; Luan Ji was one of them.

He had long heard from Fa Ji just how terrifying Luan Ji was. Through the Dao of Oblivion, that Great Demon God had the potential to become a Sovereign.

He knew Luan Ji was extraordinary, but they had never crossed paths. He never imagined Luan Ji would target him in the midst of his battle with Pang Jian.

After all, he could not believe that Pang Jian could possibly sway someone of that caliber with a name alone.

Regardless of Yuan Yi's disbelief, he knew that he had been ambushed by Luan Ji!

"I'll deal with you after I've crushed this little bastard, Luan Ji! I'll make sure your name is wiped from the ranks of the Great Demon Gods!" Yuan Yi howled furiously.

Amid the storm of artifacts hurtling toward him, a single pure silver feather suddenly erupted with a blinding, terrifying radiance. That feather shone with such brilliance that it struck fear into every soul who laid eyes on it.

The feather radiated more than just light. It also carried a chill of absolute stillness, a deathly silence that seemed capable of freezing all things into unmoving ice.

Yuan Yi's expression changed instantly.

Despite being struck several times by Pang Jian's Thunder Pool, despite confronting Luan Ji's Dao of Oblivion within his mind, Yuan Yi had remained composed. Not even the grievous wounds to his body, nor the lightning tearing through his sea of consciousness, had truly shaken his confidence in his strength.

That feather was something else entirely. The light from that single silver feather terrified him.

The radiance penetrated his body without resistance, seeping into the depths of his soul and heading straight for his heart. There was no way to stop it; no way to resist. Against his will, the light rapidly flooded his being, turning his massive body into a radiant source of light, one that began shining outward.

"Sovereign Luo!" Yuan Yi roared furiously at the sky.

Nothing could be heard in the outside world; his body had been sealed off, so his cries only echoed within his glowing body.

"Sovereign Luo! Sovereign Luo! Sovereign Luo—"

Trapped within his glowing body, his desperate cries rattled hollowly as they tried to escape. A merciless light devoured the strength in his veins all the while and snuffed out the vitality he was so proud of from within.

At the same time, the aura of death and the will of death formed a sea of withering white lotuses, blooming endlessly within his monstrous frame.

A single drop of his blood was a blood-colored world, each of his bones held countless more, and his organs formed vast, boundless crimson worlds.

Within Yuan Yi's body, over nine thousand blood-colored worlds, large and small, had once thrived. Now, nearly a third of them bloomed with wilting white lotuses. Every deathly lotus had been fueled by the death of a world.

This savage ape, who once dominated the bizarre mist, a being so feared that even the four Sovereigns were unwilling to face him, was now in a sorry state. Every white lotus that bloomed was another step down the slow and irreversible path of decay and death.

A storm of unwillingness raged within Yuan Yi, yet no words could escape his mouth.

He had not expected that, after Great Demon God Luan Ji intervened, even the Sovereign who wielded the Dao of Light would strike against him so ruthlessly. What frightened him more was that he did not even understand what medium or method the Sovereign had used to attack him.

It truly chilled him to the core.

He called out with his soul and summoned the World God Pendant, which had been sealing off the Nether Abyss and suppressing the spatial laws, in a flash. It shrank a thousandfold in an instant and flew beneath his diminishing body, speedily carrying him away.

His towering bestial frame shrank into a thin, stooped old man once more. His hunched figure receded into the bizarre mist, desolate and defeated.