Chapter 919: Turning the Tide

Pang Lin's arrival alone was enough to overturn the battlefield in the Bewildering Dustlands.

The ancient God of Life, Ling Yun, could no longer do as he pleased, nor could he suppress the True Gods through sheer might.

"Darkness."

Rippling waves of darkness intertwined with countless laws surged forward, crashing through with world-devouring momentum.

The waves of darkness were like a stampede of dark behemoths.

Destructive divine power, one with the ability to annihilate, crush, and erase all vitality, condensed into titanic war chariots and weapons of war, obliterating all tangible things in their path.

Fragments of stars, terrain, meteors, and even the remnants of the fallen were all wiped away in the blink of an eye.

Pang Lin gazed calmly at Ling Yun, a hint of disdain in her eyes.

This ancient God of Life, born in the bizarre mist and famed across the starry skies, had struck fear into the hearts of those like Ling Xuan or Lin Baixiang. However, he inspired no such feeling in her. After all, she, too, had once stood among the top.

Her era of dominance over the starry skies and the bizarre mist stretched even longer than Ling Yun. She had reached greater heights, achieved greater glory, and overall surpassed him in every respect.

Ling Yun's eventual fall was because of her. She had been both the driving force and the primary cause.

"It doesn't matter what you seek to accomplish. Your schemes will come to nothing now that I'm here." Pang Lin smiled.

The boundless darkness radiating from her devoured every source of light in the area.

Her delicate frame stood alone in the encroaching night, shining ever brighter in contrast. One could almost mistake her for Sovereign Luo.

The Bewildering Dustlands dimmed beneath her presence. She alone shone brilliantly.

Narrowing her eyes, she noticed the perilous dead end that Ling Yun had forced Lin Baixiang, Mu Qingya, and the other True Gods into.

She gently lifted her snow-pale arms. Ten rays of pitch-black light shot from the tips of her ten fingers, coiling with the intricate Dao of Darkness.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

These rays of pitch-black light swept forth like obsidian swords, cleaving through the blood-colored worlds.

Lin Baixiang was on the verge of collapse in one such world. His Dharma Idol, which took the form of a towering silver-gray elephant, flailed its trunk in vain, struggling against the overwhelming tide of crimson.

Bizarre lifeforms, the likes of which he had never seen before, charged forward one after another, tearing into his elephant-shaped Dharma Idol with savage ferocity.

The giant elephant let out a mournful trumpet as it writhed in unbearable agony. Its body, forged from refined sword light and sword intent, was riddled with holes, gnawed to the brink of collapse.

At that moment, a beam of pitch-black light descended.

Destructive divine power overwhelmed the creatures within the blood-colored world, wiping them all out in a single breath.

Darkness overtook the blood-colored world.

Lin Baixiang felt as though he had stepped into a pitch black domain, charged with a maddening aura of destruction and saturated with Pang Lin's presence. It was more terrifying than the blood-colored world and its strange creatures.

Despite that, he felt no hostility whatsoever.

Lin Baixiang let out a long sigh. "I'm still alive..."

The weight of narrowly escaping death crashed down on him in a wave of bone-deep exhaustion.

His Dharma Idol, a colossal elephant, hovered in the boundless darkness, silently observing the other blood-colored worlds where Du Tianyan, Mu Qingya, and Huang Yin were fighting for their lives.

The endless darkness consumed all of Ling Yun's blood-colored worlds, rescuing each of them from the brink of death.

Unfortunately, the ancient True Gods were still left wounded, vitality nearly depleted, and Dharma Idols marred with blood. They were worse off than they had been before being healed by the World Tree.

"Ling Yun!"

They glanced up at Ling Yun with expressions of awe and dread. Only now did they truly grasp the terrifying power of this ancient Sovereign.

"That's Pang Lin? But she's clearly the Black Empyrean Phoenix of the Fey Race," Lin Baixiang muttered, shaken to the core. "How could she be Pang Jian's sister? When did Pang Qi have a daughter like her?"

He had heard plenty about Pang Jian from Mu Qingya, Li Wang, Li Zhaotian, and the others. In his heart, he had come to regard Pang Jian as the leader of the new generation in the Abyss.

Pang Lin's name, on the other hand, had hardly even come up.

That same Pang Lin had now arrived through the Illusory Void Realm, wielding the same authority and powers as the Black Empyrean Phoenix in her battle against the God of Life.

The wondrous but baffling scene before him completely overturned Lin Baixiang's understanding of the Abyss. Questions raced through his mind, leaving him dazed and uncertain of what was truly happening.

If the younger sister is already this powerful...how brilliant is her revered older brother?

A quiet anticipation stirred within him.

For the first time in a long while, he found himself looking forward to the future. If Pang Jian was truly as extraordinary as Mu Qingya and Li Wang claimed, then perhaps there was still hope for the beings in the Abyss.

Perhaps the human race could yet give rise to a God King.

***

Pang Ling's tangible body in the World Tree appeared drowsy. Her body, intimately connected to every branch and leaf of the World Tree, bore the same signs of decay. The edges of her form blurred, as though she would soon dissolve into nothingness.

Her thoughts and will had become increasingly scattered, drifting further as her life energy and the Dao of Life flowed into Ling Yun.

Without outside intervention, she would soon be reduced to nothing more than a stepping stone for Ling Yun.

Unfortunately, she also knew that there was no possibility of outside intervention in the distant and desolate Bewildering Dustlands. She no longer had the heart to hope for a miracle.

Instead, she quietly accepted her fate, prepared to perish.

Suddenly, her fragmented consciousness snapped back into clarity. Her dimming gaze sharpened into focus.

Glancing up, she saw a colossal mirror blocking the entire sky. Beneath it was a radiant figure in the endless darkness.

"Pang Lin!"

***

High above, the cry of a phoenix echoed from the boundless darkness behind Pang Lin.

A black phoenix, forged entirely from darkness, unfurled its wings as it emerged, its cold eyes sweeping over the gathered Outer Gods below.

Pang Lin's petite human form stood atop its head and looked over at the World Tree with a soft smile.

"You bear my brother's surname and even regard him as a father. You will not die here today."

This was her promise.

"I happened upon this rare item by chance. As you carry the Pang surname, I'm more than happy to give it to you. No need for thanks."

A radiant crystalline star drifted up from her palm, glowing with dense life energy as it gently flew toward the withering World Tree.

The star, no larger than a fist, appeared to be a fragment of an extraordinary item, its interior flashing with light and lightning.

As it drifted toward her, Pang Ling, long shackled by Ling Yun's Dao of Life, felt a euphoric freedom washing over her.

Buried memories and information about that object flooded back to her in an instant.

"The Life Crystal!"

"A shard of the Dao Source of Life!"

Pang Ling and Ling Yun cried out at the same time.

Even a fragment of the Life Crystal was an unparalleled treasure beyond compare, especially for those attuned to the Dao of Life.

Ling Yun coveted it. So did she.

If Ling Yun were to obtain even a single shard, he would not even need to refine Pang Ling for his future ascension to Sovereignhood[1]!

Moreover, with enough Life Crystal fragments, it was possible that Ling Yun could simply skip past Sovereignhood and overtake Fu Ya in becoming a God King!

For Pang Ling, a single shard of Life Crystal could likely propel her to Rank Thirteen.

Rank Thirteen was equivalent to a Sovereign in the starry skies and the Exalted God Realm among humans. At that level, she would have the strength to stand against Ling Yun.

"You have a shard of the Life Crystal?!" Ling Yun exclaimed, his greedy eyes tracking the crystal as it slowly drifted downward.

The Outer Gods watching from the sidelines felt a chill run down their spines at the blatant desire on his face.

The Dao of Life and life energy contained within the World Tree could at best patch the flaws in his Dao and help him return to eventual Sovereignhood. A shard of the Dao Source of Life, on the other hand, could elevate him to the next realm.

"I was once a Sovereign of the Fey Race," Pang Lin said calmly. "Before my fall, I stood at the pinnacle of all Sovereigns. The Fey Race has long been the strongest in the starry skies, and I have reigned for eons. It's only expected that I have a shard of the Life Crystal in my possession."

This was the truth. There was no treasure in the starry skies that she had not at least seen. Even the Illusory Void Realm, the ancestral artifact of the Void Race, had been sealed away in her palace on the Dark Star.

"What's so strange about me having a shard of the Life Crystal?"

Mythical artifacts had long since become mundane to her.

"It's not strange, no—not strange at all. I forgot who I was speaking to," Ling Yun said, flicking his sleeve.

A jade-green tunnel suddenly emerged in the Bewildering Dustlands, rumbling thunderously as it released waves of mysterious runes and otherworldly spirits.

Ling Yun pointed his finger at the shard.

"Go."

The tunnel charged toward the Life Crystal, attempting to swallow it whole.

"The Spirit-Nurturing Hollow, an artifact of the Spirit Race. I didn't expect Fu Ya to hand that over to you," Pang Lin murmured. "The Spirit Race only made three of these. Since she ceded one to you, I imagine you made a promise in return."

Pang Lin paused in thought, eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Did you, perhaps, promise to help her enter the Nether Abyss and refine that Soulstream?"

1. The word "future" was added to reconcile the contradiction between the author's world-building—having one Sovereign per race—and this plot point. ☜