In the grand and weather-battered City of Heaven, everything was shrouded in a bl**d-red haze, leaving only murky outlines visible, as crimson lines streamed down from the skies—a trace of terror that painted the entire expanse red.
In the heart of the celestial dome, a red and yellow crack was slowly opening.
Whether from the Celestial Race or the warriors of the Underground City, no one could discern what the swirling bl**d clouds above were hiding. All they knew was that the chilling moonlight flickered from time to time, the intent to fight soared, and soon followed was an even thicker rain of bl**d.
“This bl**d rain is off!”
Dong Ge Yu suddenly shivered.
A wave of dread coursed through her body, a sinister energy unlike any she had felt before filled her, causing her form to sh**t upward, growing a pair of horns atop her head.
Then, out of nowhere, she craved grass.
“I… have turned into a…”
Dong Ge Yu pulled out a mirror from her pocket and gasped, “A Minotaur!?”
She wasn’t alone; many were steadily transforming into demons as well.
The Celestials, however, seemed merely to have a weaker aura.
This meant that any warriors from the Underground City or mortals from the Human City that got stained by the bl**d rain would likely end up as demons!
“Aren’t you relying on the multitude?”
The bl**d God’s voice echoed ominously from the void, mixing anger with sarcasm: “Now that all the beings have been reborn as demons by my bl**d, where’s your power from the masses coming from?”
“If you refuse to leave with me, then perish with this place…”
His voice faded slowly.
It almost seemed like, before leaving, his gaze lingered deeply on Ying Bing.
The bl**d God kept silent, but the bl**d clouds and the crack still remained.
“Why is the crack still widening without any remains?”
Li Mo realized the bl**d God had entered the crack, and when he returned, it would be even more terrifying.
But he couldn’t figure out what force was stronger than the bl**d God that could tear the Heavenly Phoenix Domain apart.
He wanted to ask Ying Bing, but she had been silent, merely staring at the sun up above.
The sun, muddled within the bl**d clouds, appeared strangely eerie.
A flicker of realization flashed in Li Mo’s eyes.
Ah!
Someone was trying to trap Ying Bing in the Heavenly Phoenix Domain, but because of her appearance, their calculations were tossed out the window.
Until now.
They chose an even costlier tactic…
It was clear that despite being enemies, the bl**d God and this entity seemed to agree on one thing when confronting Ying Bing.
Destroy the Heavenly Phoenix Domain, taking everything with it!
Ying Bing turned to Li Mo, speaking softly:
“You…”
“You said Ice Chunk doesn’t lie to childish ghosts.”
“…..”
Ying Bing pursed her lips, wanting to keep it light, to assure him she wouldn’t deceive him.
But when met with his burning gaze, she realized those reassurances meant nothing.
“But your consciousness and energy are depleted, the power of the masses is exhausted, staying would only be pointless…”
“It’s fine, I still have a trick up my sleeve.”
“What?”
“Ultimate Fighting Technique.”
“Stop fooling around.” Ying Bing, unusually anxious, reached to pinch his waist but ended up being pulled into his embrace instead.
She froze for a moment and didn’t break free.
“Ice Chunk, can you pull that fire stick out and project the Little World into the outside? Is that possible?”
“It’s possible, but the Heavenly Phoenix Domain isn’t a real Little World like the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, and you’re not at the inner scene yet….”
Ying Bing lowered her head, sighing softly:
“You won’t be able to handle it.”
“What will happen?”
“If the inner scene collapses, the physical body will vanish, the consciousness will scatter. Worst case scenario, you lose all your powers and become weaker than before you ever trained in martial arts, and you’ll never be able to cultivate again. The worst-case scenario….”
Ying Bing shut her eyes, unwilling to continue.
“Then let it be.” Li Mo sighed in relief.
Ying Bing’s previously cold and conflicted demeanor seemed slightly dazed now, as if she had lost her soul, which made her oddly cute.
A suggestion for Ice Chunk’s big-headed doll to consider this expression.
“As long as we can get married, it’s fine.”
Ying Bing could only hear the lightness in his tone, but she felt herself being held tighter.
Tighter, pressed against his heart, separated by a wall yet able to hear the rhythmic beating clearly.
After a moment, she lifted her head:
“Got it.”
She departed, plunging the Heavenly Phoenix Domain into the indomitable bl**d cloud.
Li Mo watched her exquisite silhouette, wrapped in moonlight as she left, and raised a hand to touch his heart, where a lingering fragrance stayed along with a puddle of melting moisture.
It’s entirely reasonable for ice to leave behind a drop or two of water…
He let out a long breath and said below:
“Everyone, come in!”
The people of Ink City had also been affected by the bl**d rain, turning into demons, but their martial arts practices originated from demons.
So, not only did they retain their sanity, but they also grew stronger.
The Celestials’ faces turned pale one by one, now realizing that competing for the imperial throne was utterly meaningless.
The increasingly potent sinister aura from the crack left them with no courage to resist.
“This realm is going to perish; under one roof, there can be no complete eggs. What the result will be, I cannot know, but it will definitely be worse than now.”
Li Mo scanned the map:
“Time is limited; I’ll handle the bl**d God. I’ll leave the other burdens to all of you.”
“What do you need us to do?”
Po Jun spoke for the Celestials; they had no way out now, and Li Mo, the outsider, had chosen to stay, especially for them.
The warriors of Ink City—or rather, the demons—needed no further mention.
“Celestials, go to every corner of the City of Divine Beings and use your innate powers to maintain it, preventing it from fracturing in a short time.”
“Everyone from Ink City, do what you typically do in the places where the bl**d rain falls.”
“Oh, and wear the tags for capturing people to distinguish yourselves from actual demons.”
The brief meeting concluded, and everyone quickly headed to their designated areas.
If they didn’t hurry, the wheel of fate might turn, dragging the landscape into chaos, and this map would lose all sense of direction.
The entities within the crack would also return…
With everyone gone, the realm had quieted down considerably.
An apocalyptic scene unfolded, yet it resembled a peculiar stillness, a heavy silence enveloping everything.
Li Mo sat still, trying to recover his strength as much as possible, seizing every second.
After a moment.
He faintly sensed a wave above him, silently withdrawing a fire stick long embedded in place from Little World.
Oddly enough, this time there was no resistance; it seemed like it had been waiting for a long time.
—
—
Thud, thud—
The crack now resembled a distorted scar of the City of Divine Beings, like an ever-expanding, contracting bl**d vessel, swallowing bl**d clouds and infinite darkness.
Ke Mo could see that the opposite side of the crack was a realm akin to a paradise, reminiscent of the Otherworld, with suns, moons, stars, mountains, and rivers all exuding a thick aura of d*ath.
At that moment.
Mountains within the crack began to tremble, and they were not merely mountains, but remnants of something else—each inch closer to the crack sent ripples through space.
Its body had been dead for an uncountable duration.
Even to this day, it emanated immense pressure that could obliterate an ordinary person, who might look at it just once and fall into unfathomable despair.
When it ‘squeezed’ out of the crack, Ke Mo finally saw its full figure.
This was a beastly figure tinged with red among yellow, with a trunk that resembled a human but hair that looked dry, reminiscent of a deceased centipede, its limbs marred with horrific scars.
The face, equivalent to the size of the City of Heaven, possessed a strange, haunting beauty, with a bl**d-red hollow in the center of its brow, reminiscent of being pierced by something sharp, turning enchanting into brutal.
Limbs shifted, containing myriad twists of form, a composite of countless living beings configured into its arms.
“Now do you understand who your enemy truly is?”
“…..”
Ke Mo looked up, scratching the back of his head, letting two strands of hair fall.
Before this terrifying being, he felt like an ant, yet the burning flame in his eyes only intensified.
The Ruyi Golden Cudgel of the Little World had been drawn out, and the power of the world surged magnificently, igniting his Great Sage form behind him, blazing ferociously.
He sensed that this wasn’t enough, but…
It wasn’t merely the City of Heaven that was plunged into darkness; it also included the Heavenly Phoenix Domain, which was her world.
As its shadow stepped through the crack, the fissure began to stretch like a creeping tentacle.
Boom—
The main hall of the City of Heaven abruptly collapsed.
In the air, Ying Bing had transformed into the radiant moon that illuminated the Heavenly Phoenix Domain, gazing downwards at the shattering mountains and rivers below.
Through the apocalypse, she seemed to glimpse the silhouette that remained in the City of Heaven.
“With the Heavenly Phoenix Domain gone, Ink City will cease to exist too.”
Ying Bing sighed softly and released a portion of her power from the Heavenly Phoenix Domain towards the City of Heaven.
Then, what looked like an ordinary seed emerged from her dantian.
Moonlight poured down from the azure sky, piercing through layers of bl**d clouds.
“You were meant to perish with us; how could you return in such a way?”
Ke Mo found himself lost in confusion, hearing the bl**d God’s shriek of anger.
He beheld the moonlight, and concepts beyond his comprehension blossomed in his mind.
This moonlight constrained the bl**d God’s power to the limits the Heavenly Phoenix Domain could endure.
Wham—
A hammer’s strike accompanied by thunderous sounds erupted, igniting immense divine power as he struck a falling star surging from the ground.
This strike aimed to merge seven realms into one, and with his hammer mastery, there was no longer any need for the seven consecutive strikes beforehand.
Falling star flames intertwined with karmic fire, dragging a trail of blazing light that scorched the demons swirling within the bl**d clouds into even more twisted forms.
“What a pity…” the bl**d God narrowed his eyes, bringing his hand down.
The intent to collapse spread like water, without any tricks—the palm descended as if the end was nigh.
This palm raised a rolling surge of energy.
Just the gust from the palm made Ke Mo feel his bl**d and qi grinding to a halt, the flames surrounding him flickering like a candle on the verge of expiring.
Boom—
Hammer and palm collided, causing Ke Mo to feel for the first time an overwhelming sense of powerless before the might of the world, his perfectly formed weapon starting to show cracks like porcelain.
Just one strike, and he was defeated?
Before the bl**d God could even let out a mocking laugh.
Whoosh—
The bl**d clouds behind him roared to life, and even though the bl**d God’s body had perished, he retained an instinctual feeling of danger.
What’s more, before him, the ‘Ke Mo’ had already experienced a hair-raising transformation.
He suddenly turned around.
What met him was an ethereal silken fabric drifting down, revealing a more vigorous figure that surged forth, swing a staff that transcended the world, stirring the winds and clouds with unmatched ferocity.
…
In the farthest reaches of the heavens, what appeared to be the night sky was merely a myriad of scenes from the chart of the empire, reflected in starlight.
The most vibrant was that great sun, the anchor point of the chart in the Heavenly Phoenix Domain.
Removing it would enable this world to break free from the control of the fate apparatus.
The roots of the Bronze Tree were nurtured within the Taiyin, extending towards the great sun, aiming to pull it into the Taiyin, hungry to devour the sun.
Only the fate apparatus could counter the fate apparatus.
“Hmm?”
With the Bronze Tree seed cradled in her palm, Ying Bing raised her gaze and seemed to sense something.
Within the great sun, a face suddenly emerged, too far to be seen clearly.
Cloudy hair entwined with phoenix hairpins, bright teeth shining like jade, delicate nose, glistening red lips, and skin a dark shade of crimson, resembling an exquisitely eerie deity.
Her pupil-less eyes pierced numerous distances, catching a glimpse of the City of Heaven.
“Sending a little brat to the bl**d God to d*e, your heart hasn’t changed, has it?”
Ying Bing replied quietly, “He won’t d*e.”
“If he doesn’t d*e, then…”
“He can be married.”
“?”
The face of the woman on the sun stiffened momentarily; if it weren’t for the familiar feeling sending shivers through her soul, she would have doubted her identification.
“Wait a moment…”
The face of the Empress Chuge bore a look of confusion.
After a while, her eyes shifted:
“…There are nine, not ten. Where did he come from?!”
Her voice brimmed with incredulity.
Just like a programmer who had been up all night, running the final checks on their code only to find a bug that erupted when everything seemed perfect.
After a brief silence, she regained her composure, muttering as if entranced:
“It’s okay; you and he will stay here together.”
“Everything will return to the right path…”
The sky outside fell into darkness, where stars began to shine.
But it wasn’t that they were growing brighter.
They were merely getting closer.
…..
The Great Sage’s armor and Ruyi Golden Cudgel still sparkled brilliantly, but Ke Mo didn’t feel quite as good. As the cudgel neared the bl**d God, the collapse of his Little World sped up perilously.
Despite outward appearances, he still retained an unstoppable momentum, sustained by divine will.
Ding—
The staff struck the bl**d God’s head, unleashing a tempest.
The bl**d God’s head exploded, but he had no vital points.
His body had long since ceased to conform to conventional logic; his thoughts resided in every droplet of bl**d, coursing throughout him, meaning a blown-off head was hardly fatal.
In fact, he could still raise his hand, the wrathful fist reminiscent of a dragon, its aura of destruction spreading like a web.
Boom—
The assaults collided in the void, fiery brilliance and violent energy striking out in all directions.
“Hmm?”
The bl**d God exclaimed in surprise, but suddenly chuckled coldly:
“You seem to be a martial enthusiast, still analyzing my divine form. My body is the magic of myriad forms, enduring through countless tribulations; every motion holds the finesse of divine skills. In this world, no one can outdo me.”
“Since you’ve begun to discern the path, you might as well d*e content!”
The bl**d God refused to give Ke Mo even a moment to breathe.
He reached out a hand and caught Ke Mo in one grip.
