Chapter 967: The Dao Source of Darkness!

The Black Empyrean Phoenix's body burst apart, and her Dao of Darkness dissipated in streams of black radiance.

The Sovereign of the Fey Race had always been the strongest among them. She had stood above the other four Sovereigns in the hierarchy of the Hall of Gods until the day she disappeared into the bizarre mist.

She was the oldest and most enigmatic of existences, having ascended to Sovereignhood time and again through different Daos. Her presence had spanned the long river of time.

God Kings rose and fell, but she alone remained eternal.

As the ultimate master of the Dao of Light, Luo Hongyan had exhausted every means to slay the Black Empyrean Phoenix and seize her Dao of Darkness, hoping to become the most powerful God King in history.

Luo Hongyan had never succeeded.

Yet, after all this time, the Black Empyrean Phoenix unhesitatingly gifted up her Dao of Darkness to Luo Hongyan!

No one understood why she would do such a thing. She could have hidden in the Illusory Void Realm, waiting for Luo Hongyan to lose all sense of self as the supreme will descended.

Had she not intervened, Luo Hongyan would have ended up like the God Kings of the past, dying at her peak.

The Illusory Void Realm emerged from a spatial rift. Pang Lin stepped out from within, one hand holding the Eye of Destruction, the other gripping the Spear of Ruin.

Her human body was as small as a mote of dust compared to the colossal beings around, but she remained composed.

Layers of deep-black radiance surrounded her. Her human body harmonized seamlessly with the three supreme divine artifacts. The aura she released was notably restrained, stirring no earth-shaking upheavals.

She stared calmly at Luo Hongyan, lips curving into an expectant smile. It was evident that she was looking forward to seeing Luo Hongyan grow strong enough to break free from the shackles of the supreme will—to exist with true freedom.

"You—I..."

Luo Hongyan did not know what to say or feel.

As she absorbed the Dao of Darkness, black slowly dyed the crimson gown of the figure deep in her eyes. Blossoms of darkness bloomed along the hem of her dress, strikingly beautiful and dangerously alluring.

The Black Empyrean Phoenix's absolute darkness flooded Luo Hongyan, saturating her Divine Persona and seeping into her crystalline heart.

A violent aura erupted from her body.

Light and darkness clashed, laws roared, and her surroundings fell into utter chaos. Rings of black radiance formed in layers around her.

That aura swelled, shielding her from the invasion of the supreme will and empowering her with newfound strength.

Her Divine Persona, heart, and body transformed.

Some of her many pairs of wings sparkled with dazzling brilliance, as clear as a luminous diamond, interwoven with the Dao of Light. Others turned as dark as obsidian, laced with the Dao of Darkness, in perfect opposition to the light.

One of her eyes blazed like a scorching sun, while the other mirrored an abyssal hole.

Light and darkness coexisted within her. Threads of pitch-black lightning condensed in her crystalline heart, giving birth to a substance equal in essence to the Dao Source of Light.

It was something she had never seen before, yet it felt profoundly familiar.

The Dao Source of Darkness!

Luo Hongyan realized.

Specks of inky crystals gleamed in the darkness coursing through her body. If magnified a millionfold, each crystalline speck revealed the profound truths of the Dao of Darkness.

It really is the Dao Source of Darkness!

The Black Empyrean Phoenix had refined and fused with the Dao Source of Darkness long ago. Moreover, this had been before Luo Hongyan had even started gathering the fragments of the Dao Source of Light.

Unlike the Dao Source of Light, which existed in a fractured state in her heart, the Dao Source of Darkness in the Black Empyrean Phoenix's body was whole and flawless.

The Black Empyrean Phoenix of the Fey Race discovered and refined the Dao Source of Darkness long ago! She could have ascended as a God King far earlier if she had wished to.

A storm of emotions overwhelmed Luo Hongyan, and she found herself caught between laughter and tears.

The Black Empyrean Phoenix she had struggled so desperately to destroy had always been on a far higher plane. Neither she, Fu Ya, Tian Yu, nor even Yi Hao could compare.

It truly lived up to the title of the strongest Sovereign in the starry skies.

"I actually thought I could seize your Dao of Darkness. How foolish of me. I-I'm nothing but a colossal joke!" Luo Hongyan shook her head with a despairing smile. "Black Empyrean Phoenix, you could have chosen not to perish in the bizarre mist. You could have slaughtered us instead!"

Her laughter was steeped in bitter mockery of herself and of the self-important Tian Yu and Fu Ya. The sound echoed in the desolate starry region.

Light and darkness continued to fuse within her. The vast torrents of energies from the myriad starry regions flooded toward her without end.

The Black Empyrean Phoenix's full bequest, including the Dao Source of Darkness, had granted her the strength to resist the will of the starry skies.

She was on the path toward becoming an unparalleled God King.

But none of this had been achieved through her own means.

It felt...hollow.

She had once believed that the Black Empyrean Phoenix's fall in the bizarre mist and her completion of the Dao Source of Light meant she had claimed the title of foremost among the Sovereigns. Looking back, she realized she could not have been more wrong.

"The Dao Source of Darkness!"

"The Dao Source of Darkness was inside the Black Empyrean Phoenix all along!"

A great uproar erupted in the Ruin Realm and the Abyss.

The Sovereign of Fate, Yi Hao, wore a grave expression, his gaze incomparably complex as it fixed on Pang Lin. He regarded her as the most fearsome anomaly.

Why has it come to this? When did she obtain the Dao Source of Darkness?

Did she already have the complete Dao Source of Darkness when the other Sovereigns ambushed her? If that were the case, she would not have remained sunken in the bizarre mist.

Had she so desired, she could have ascended as a God King when Fu Ya, Tian Yu, and Luo Hongyan joined forces to strike her down. As a God King, she could have reversed the battle and slaughtered them on the spot.

Instead, she deliberately concealed the Dao Source of Darkness and willingly lay dormant in the bizarre mist for years, allowing those three Sovereigns to continue ruling the starry skies.

What was she plotting?

Yi Hao's thoughts became increasingly tangled as he pondered the matter. The ancient Black Empyrean Phoenix had to be orchestrating some unfathomable plan that he could not begin to guess at.

"Hongyan, stop overthinking it. Just keep what I've given you well," Pang Lin advised serenely. Baring her teeth in a facsimile of a smile, she added, "Those who rebel cannot live? Is that what it told you? Well, it's not entirely wrong. No one in the endless river of history has ever lived peacefully after defying it.

"Even I have died many times. Every single one of my roads to nirvanic rebirth has been paved with defiance. But does that not count as living too?"

Yi Hao jolted violently. Pang Jian, atop the colossal God King's skull, felt it too.

Her words had prompted a bizarre transformation from the Primordial Chaos Starry Region!

The restriction that the supreme will of the starry skies had laid over this starry region had shattered!

The boundless bizarre mist crept into the Primordial Chaos Starry Region from below!

It rose like a gray tide, mending the shattered starry region as it surged. The nourishing embrace of the bizarre mist was restoring the scarred fabric of space, reverting it to its primordial state.

The stars rekindled their dazzling brilliance one by one. No longer bound to Pang Jian's will or the supreme will of the starry skies, they drifted back to their original spots.

The moon followed as well.

Even the extinguished sun reignited with brilliant flames as it returned to its rightful place.

Once the celestial bodies were back in position, the spatial rifts closed one after another. It was as though the catastrophic battle between Sovereigns had never happened at all.

Shimmering fragments of light suddenly burst forth from the bizarre mist, gathering like a waterfall in reverse. A searing radiance, wrapped in blazing flames, erupted from that flowing light.

It was a brand-new sun!

A second resplendent sun blazed into existence in the starry region above the bizarre mist.

Shards of cold silvery radiance also shot forth from the bizarre mist, condensing into two brand-new full moons.

The emergence of new celestial bodies was truly a divine miracle beyond comprehension.

Throughout the ages, even beings as mighty as Luo Hongyan or Tian Yu—Sovereigns capable of obliterating entire starry regions—had never had the means to create them.

Even God Kings did not wield such unfathomable power.

A force greater than Sovereigns and God Kings had reshaped the Primordial Chaos Starry Region, birthing suns and moons anew, and restoring every wandering star to its rightful place.

Two blazing suns and three luminous moons.

The many battles waged here during campaigns against the bizarre mist had destroyed one sun and sundered two moons.

Those dwelling within the bizarre mist had only ever seen one sun and one moon when they looked up. In their eyes, this was the natural state of things. They had never known the truth.

This was the true primeval state of the Primordial Chaos Starry Region.