Once Sky City crossed through the Barrier, the infiltration plan finally concluded.
The process had caused a significant amount of permanent damage to the Barrier as well. As such, the amount of time left before its total collapse was quite limited.
It was as if they had just performed another round of failed surgery on a terminally-ill patient. All they had done was shorten its lifespan even further.
Of course, by this point, none of this mattered.
Everything would come to an end long before the Barrier was fully destroyed.
Now that Sky City had passed through, Su Chen flew to the top of the city and said, “Since we’re here, we might as well begin.”
Wuu!!!
This time, instead of a bell, a shrill cry echoed through the sky.
Countless flying tools rose up from Sky City and into the sky.
The Boundless Sect’s Boundless Palace, their floating boats, the human race’s Meteor Formation, and the Harpies’ flying carriages all took to the skies, flying off in various directions. Immediately afterwards, all of the cultivators at the Light Shaking Realm and above scattered to complete their assigned responsibilities.
Every human, Beast, and Harpy had been given orders long ago. All of them knew exactly what they needed to do at this moment.
They all headed toward the locations that had been assigned to them.
“You, go to Baruth.”
“You, go to Hackman.”
“You, go to Lionheart City.”
“You, go to the Flying Rock Mountain Range.”
“You, go to Border City.”
“You, go to Thousand Bone Plains.”
“You, go to River-Parting Wilderness.”
“You, go to……”
“You, go to……”
“You, go to……”
The soldiers immediately set out to carry out their orders.
The commands of their superiors and commanders echoed in their minds.
“Remember these orders: all inhabitants of Kun’s territory are to abandon their faith immediately. Destroy all churches, tear down all statues, forbid the worshipping of any god, and ban calling on the name of their gods. Anyone who dares to disobey must be killed!”
“It’s like we’re back in our own world again.”
“This world has no need for the gods. It does not need those parasites who can only grow stronger off of our faith and vitality. Yet they insist on maintaining their lofty position and suppressing us all.”
“We don’t need a single one!”
“So let’s go and wipe them all out!”
The orders from the higher-ups had been thoroughly drilled into their hearts. There was no need to further repeat them or drive them home.
With great fighting spirit and morale, the soldiers spread throughout the territory. Large groups of mid-to-low-tier cultivators imposed a draconian set of new laws upon its inhabitants.
The strength of each group of soldiers had been precisely calculated based on the location that they were assigned to, ensuring that they would be able to easily take control of the region without wasting a single bit of manpower.
To take advantage of the gods’ temporary isolated state, they needed to quickly take control of the territory and thoroughly uproot the system of faith that the gods so desperately relied on.
The invasion was now fully underway.
The Shadowless Sky Church’s believers were completely indifferent to all this. They did not know where these people had come from, nor what their goal was.
Even if they knew, they probably wouldn’t have cared.
Because one of the Shadowless Sky God’s core tenets was that change was coming and that only those who were pious and devout to the Shadowless Sky God would survive the oncoming turmoil.
The disciples thus continued to pray diligently.
In fact, this is what they were doing when the first soldiers arrived.
In other words, by this point, they no longer had a choice.
All they could do was place their trust in their true leader, Frost.
The disciples continued to chant and pray as loudly as they could.
Frost gradually ascended to the sky along with their voices, coming to Su Chen’s side.
Su Chen glanced at the seed that he had personally sown in Kun’s territory. After so many years of maturation and growth, Frost had finally grown from a small sapling into a towering tree.
“It’s still not enough yet,” Su Chen said.
Only Frost understood this sentence, which seemingly came out of nowhere.
He and Su Chen were of the same source, after all.
Su Chen was saying that his achievements still hadn’t fulfilled his potential yet.
The peak that Su Chen was looking at was naturally the Nascent Soul realm.
“I’m almost there,” Frost replied. “I just need a catalyst to start the next breakthrough.”
“I am the catalyst.” Su Chen then reached out and placed his hand on Frost’s forehead.
A vast will spread throughout Frost’s entire consciousness. All of the divine power stored in Frost’s body was suddenly enveloped by immortal energy and then drawn out.
This divine power, however, didn’t disappear. Instead, it continued to float in the air, glowing with a pale, golden color.
The disciples below were able to clearly sense the mighty power emanating from that sphere of golden light.
They assumed that the Shadowless Sky God had shown himself, and they all kneeled and started calling out to him. The amount of divine power being supplied to the Shadowless Sky God had reached its peak.
Su Chen quickly converted all of the divine power into immortal energy and then infused it back into Frost’s body. At the same time, Su Chen supplied Frost with his own immortal energy, causing Frost’s immortal energy to surge wildly. It clashed against the golden light of divine power in his body, forming two massive waves that crashed into each other.
Even the Blood Ancestor was amazed by the sight.
“What kind of power is that?”
Su Chen didn’t answer, but Frost’s power continued to soar seemingly without limit.
Finally, the gold and white beams of light dissipated. Even though Frost was just a single person, he now gave off a feeling of being larger than life.
The members of the Boundless Sect had only ever experienced this sensation once before.
“Nascent Soul.” Li Chongshan gazed at Frost with envy.
So Su Chen’s clone had reached the Nascent Soul realm as well now.
Li Chongshan had been cultivating for a similar amount of time as Frost, but he had only just reached the Foundation Establishment stage. On the other hand, one of Su Chen’s clones had already reached the Nascent Soul realm. Some amount of envy from him was unavoidable.
Thankfully, he didn’t need to feel envious for very long.
A moment later, Su Chen and Frost glanced at each other, and then simultaneously began walking towards each other.
The two bodies suddenly merged into one.
Su Chen had expended a great amount of energy to nurture Frost. Now, he was attempting to merge with him in the hopes that combining two Nascent Souls would allow him to break into the next cultivation realm.
An instant later, an incredibly majestic scene unfolded.
The Shadowless Sky God appeared!
Of course, Su Chen was not actually the Shadowless Sky God. However, the might and glory that he radiated while he floated in the sky made him shine as brightly as the sun.
Even the Blood Ancestor was stunned by this scene.
“This is the path of the immortal? The body is a world of its own, capable of providing for all things? Developing the self? Humans…… How could they possess such incredible latent potential? How is this even possible?” The Blood Ancestor was at a loss for what to think.
The newly emerged sun in the sky intensified in brightness until it suddenly began to constrict, forming a ball of light that was somewhat shaped like an egg.
An egg brimming with life.
Everyone wanted to see what would come out of the egg.
Unfortunately, nothing happened.
The egg disappeared.
The beginning had been so awe-inspiring, but the ending was quite anticlimactic.
The giant egg simply disappeared, leaving behind a single Su Chen, who stood there alone.
Frost had disappeared and melded back into the main body.
Su Chen’s expression, however, was sour.
Li Chongshan, Gu Qingluo and the others all rushed forwards towards him.
Zhu Xianyao asked with great interest, “Did you successfully ascend?”
Su Chen shook his head. “No, I failed.”
Everyone’s hearts sank.
“But it wasn’t a total failure. At the very least, I reached the peak Nascent Soul realm. I will probably need another catalyst, as well as a deeper understanding of the next realm, before I will be ready to ascend again,” Su Chen replied.
Unfortunately, his plan of merging two Nascent Souls together to break into a higher cultivation realm had failed.
This was not because the amount of power resulting from the combination was not enough, but rather because Su Chen did not know what path to take.
He had no choice but to carefully feel out the path forward for himself. In that sense, failure was inevitable.
The combination of two Nascent Souls had indeed brought him great power, but it had not resulted in a tangible breakthrough.
A catalyst!
Su Chen needed a catalyst!
He could afford to be Frost’s catalyst, because he had both power and understanding.
But he lacked a catalyst to reach the next cultivation realm.
Hopefully, he would gain some comprehension from the upcoming battle.
“This is already quite good,” Li Chongshan said in a comforting manner.
Regardless of what happened, Su Chen’s strength had increased yet again. Now, no one knew exactly how strong he was anymore.
Could he take on a Desolate Beast by himself now? Li Chongshan wondered to himself.
Unfortunately, since the Desolate Beasts were their allies, this fight was doomed to never happen.
It seemed that he could only test his strength against the gods.
While the human and Harpy soldiers went off to carry out their missions, the Beasts remained stationary.
They were not suited for missions that involved managing the populace. If Su Chen sent them to control a certain territory, they would definitely just slaughter all of the people living there.
As such, the Beasts were not responsible for conquering.
They were responsible for fighting!
Sky City continued to float peacefully in the sky. It was manned by some of the mid-to-low-tier cultivators, and a majority of them were at the Thought Manifestation realm and above.
They, along with the Beasts, would become the most important cornerstone of the front lines against the gods.
The gods’ self-isolation would only last for a limited amount of time. They would soon realize what had happened and rush over to attack.
This place would be their first line of defense.
At the same time, a furious conquest of Kun’s territory was unfolding.
The Origin Realm invaders spread through the entire territory like an unstoppable tidal wave.
They moved so quickly that fights sprung up all over the place. Sometimes, they would even start killing without introducing themselves.
In order to uproot this long established system of faith and destroy the gods’ foundation as efficiently as possible, the invading forces chose to attack and destroy every single church, temple, and divine statue that they came across.
With the Barrier’s fissure as the epicenter, Kun’s territory was rapidly engulfed in conflict.
Scenes such as the one described below could be found unfolding all across the territory.
A group of cultivators flew in a certain direction until they were above a certain city. They descended from the skies and immediately began to attack any religion symbols even as other troops flew overhead to continue the purge elsewhere.
Millions of cultivators swept through each and every city without any mercy in the slightest.
The gods’ foundation began to shrivel at an impossibly fast rate.
Long before the period of isolation came to an end, the gods realized that something very wrong had happened.
“Hm? Why is my faith disappearing?”
The Moon Goddess was the first to voice her suspicion.
