“Ahhhh! AHHHH!!” The partial face lost its mind. Power from the suppressed dao beholders in the kingdom of Ruina concentrated on the altar and made the face whole. A body filled in the gap beneath the face—a graceful one covered with tiny scales. It was… a woman with long blue hair.
She was neither a shark spirit nor human, but a divine! The altar was her foundation; she was the divine spirit that’d formed from the altar. [1] Her appearance was roughly the same as a human’s, but her hair was deep blue and scales of the same color covered her body. Profound patterns ran through each scale, forming a bizarre image when they were viewed in tandem.
She glowed with black light; all of sea dao and Ruina bolstered her strength, creating a vortex just as massive as the one in the seas.
Lu Yun’s hell dao operated at full force and he compelled the Tome of Life and Death with it, using the treasure to poke the realm monster awake. As strong as the altar and its divine spirit might be, they couldn’t contend against the book.
“Lu Yun!!” the woman shrieked. “I will grant you your wish since you want to die so badly!”
Bam!
She annihilated his replica in Ruina with a single punch, then swept through Myriadsea World with its frightening power. Since she couldn’t find Lu Yun’s true self, her only option was to destroy everything, kill all life in the world, and start over.
It would be a disaster incarnate for the goddess if the realm monster awoke. She could and would rather have all of the daos on Myriadsea World shatter and life wither. She could start anew with a completely blank slate, but the realm monster could not be allowed to wake up.
Only she knew the realm monster’s background and what would happen when it was conscious again. She’d brought the altar to Ruina not to refine land for her own uses, but to turn the realm monster into Ruina so she could suppress it once and for all!
Only when the realm monster became Ruina could it be killed. Any number of living beings could be sacrificed for this end.
Nothing she’d said to Lu Yun before had been true, whether it was to claim immortal dao, formula dao, the Tome of Life and Death, or to break out of the cycle of reincarnation. It’d been complete bullshit spouted for the purpose of determining Lu Yun’s weakness and eliminating this unstable factor.
She’d never imagined that Lu Yun would be so crazy as to use his strength to awaken the realm monster!
……
“You want to kill me? Sure.”
Rumble.
A purple-golden pagoda appeared in the void with a rumble—the Army Pagoda. Curtains of light trailed down from it to pummel the rampaging power from Ruina. The Soldier King and his men manifested around the pagoda. With the goddess deploying Ruina’s strength against Lu Yun, that freed the dao beholders trapped in the kingdom.
Their jaws dropped with shock when they re-emerged in the world and saw an epic battle taking place before their eyes.
Lu Yun after Lu Yun walked out of the void, each of them calling upon hell dao and the Tome of Life and Death to defy the altar. His primary body sat beneath the pagoda, protected by one hundred and eight soldiers. Ruina could not break the pagoda’s defenses!
The dao beholders gaped for a split second before they rushed back to their worlds and utilized their great dao to protect their denizens. They had no desire to participate in the fight, even if they had the right to. Now that they knew about the goddess’ existence and what they were about to face, it was the best outcome if Lu Yun, the immortal dao, and the goddess were all heavily injured after their clash.
Piercing cold rose from an unknown source and formed a chilly wind, howling through the world. One drop of seawater slowly froze in the arctic blast, causing a chain reaction that froze the sea and then the entire world.
Color drained from the goddess’ face and she stood dazedly on the altar, uncertain of what to do.
“Do you know what you’re doing… I sacrificed myself to suppress the realm monster. Half of a face and a fragment of soul is all that is left of me…” she murmured.
Lu Yun arched a brow but didn’t still his movements. He continued using the Tome of Life and Death to stimulate the realm monster’s thoughts.
Wintry gusts stabbed into the air and snowflakes drifted through the void. Myriadsea World was encased in ice as a terrifying presence ravaged the land. A pair of enormous eyes slowly opened and piercing shrieks echoed beneath the heavens.
Even the void around the world began to ice over.
“You’ve done well, Lu Yun. I was right to use the last bit of my strength to summon you.” A resonant, ice-cold voice pierced through bone and reverberated throughout Myriadsea World. “I knew you would succeed and awaken me.”
The world was silent. Most people didn’t understand what’d just happened. Weren’t they in a world of sequence? Why was it alive? Who was talking??
“Cretin!!” shrilled the goddess and concentrated Ruina’s power on the altar in a violent motion, diving down onto Myriadsea World.
Craaaaaack.
Her altar shattered and she was encased in ice.
Lu Yun’s heart pounded painfully.
“You’re the one who sealed away the overlord of Ice,” he said slowly.
“The overlord of Ice?” the realm monster blink. “You must speak of the little guy who found his way to time dao from his ice dao… Indeed, I sealed him away.
“He is the undisputed main character of this reincarnation, the first among geniuses. He might’ve gotten a hint of the truth if I didn’t freeze him. He’d then break free and suppress me like Qinglin.”
Qinglin was the goddess now frozen in ice.
“Lu Yun, I bequeath to you Qinglin’s kingdom since you have awoken me. You will be able to complete hell dao and become the strongest of this cycle, overseeing the life and death of all.”
Whoosh!
The shattered altar abruptly rematerialized and smashed toward Lu Yun. It was Qinglin’s core essence and the basis of her command over the kingdom of Ruina.
“Death art,” Lu Yun suddenly murmured. “Judgment. Of. Life! Or! Death!”
He pointed at the boundless world beneath his feet, the true form of the realm monster.
Boom!
Blazing hellfire set the world aflame amid a cacophony of agonized shrieks.
1. Reminder: there are two types of divines. She’s one of those formed by the worship of other beings instead of being born as one. ☜
