Every being that fuses with a Prime Origin and coexists with the Ancient Continent, upon fusing their Origin Flame to a certain degree, can draw upon the power of the Ancient Continent itself.
Each time the Ancient Continent’s power is drawn, the spellcaster experiences a surge, gaining strength far exceeding their current realm.
However, once the Ancient Continent’s power is extracted, the cost is directly paid by the continent itself: mountains crumble, oceans dry up, and energy dissipates at an accelerated rate.
Take the current situation, for instance.
Far away on the Ancient God Continent, within the Ancestral Land of the God Race, at a remote corner of the continent's edge, mountains were shattering, trees were withering en masse, and the very essence of heaven and earth was draining away.
In the last ten millennia, the Ancient God Continent experienced a peak of cosmic energy thanks to the efficacy of a single Primordial Fruit, which elevated the strength of all God Race members and propelled them to become the overlords of the starry expanse.
Heaven and earth operate by cycles. When the God Race was at its zenith, and the energy of the Ancient Continent was most abundant, it simultaneously began the cyclical pattern of gradual energy depletion—a pattern consistent with the Divine Grace Continent, the Divine Marsh Continent, and the Ancient Demon Continent.
Every time the Desolation begins, it marks the shift in the Ancient Continent's cycle from decline back towards renewal. Now, the energy of the Ancient God Continent is slowly beginning to rise again, reabsorbing residual energy drifting in the cosmos, yet it is utterly impossible for it to recover to its full prime.
This is because, this time, Heg had not obtained a Primordial Fruit.
Heg's current siphon of the Ancient Continent's primal energy is being directly mirrored upon the Ancestral Star, causing a trend of decay at the star's periphery.
Yet, the energy Heg acquired commanded the attention of everyone present!
At the cost of collapsing mountains, drying lakes, and withering forests at the edge of the Ancestral Star, the power Heg wielded in this moment stunned the ancient powerhouses from all factions. That meteor, blazing with light ten thousand zhang high, was filled with Heg’s energy; any expert below the Immortal tier who touched it would suffer severe injury or even annihilation.
This is the power possessed by those who fuse with a Prime Origin when they draw upon that Origin!
Many watching from the shadows turned their gaze toward Shi Yan, wondering if he too would choose to draw upon the Prime Origin of the Divine Grace Continent—an act that would cause the collapse of many mortal worlds' structures and manifest signs identical to those on the Ancient God Continent.
“He cannot draw the Origin yet.”
Inside a stone pavilion, Audrey whispered under her breath, letting out a sigh.
She finally understood the source of Heg's confidence; it turned out he had prepared from the very beginning to fight by extracting the Ancient Continent's Prime Origin. Among the four Prime Origin Fusers, only Heg possessed this capability because the fusion of his Origin Flame had reached this advanced level.
To this day, only Heg had attained this tier.
Shi Yan could not draw upon the Prime Origin. This monumental disadvantage meant that defeating Heg would be an almost insurmountable challenge!
“Shi Yan is defeated. Even if he breaks through to the Prime God realm, if his Origin Flame fusion isn't sufficient to borrow the power of the Origin, he will still lose. Heg is Heg, after all—the miracle of the God Race; their ten millennia of accumulation has surpassed the Blood-Thirst Lineage in sheer foundation.”
Laina’s brow was deeply furrowed, and a decision seemed to solidify in her heart.
Many shared her sentiment. This battle concerned the fate of the God Race versus the Blood-Thirst Lineage, and the course of the next ten millennia; it was arranged specifically for them to make their judgments.
The Blood-Thirst Lineage had once been overwhelmingly powerful. Back then, the God Race had to unite with various other factions just to gain victory against them; the God Race alone lacked the qualifications to contend with the Blood-Thirst Lineage.
Ten thousand years later, after millennia of accumulation and suppression of the Blood-Thirst Lineage, the behemoth that once dominated the cosmos had grown weak, while ten thousand years had forged the once-feeble God Race into a new colossal power.
Today's God Race was not the God Race of the past, nor was today's Blood-Thirst Lineage the one from yesteryear.
Watching Heg draw upon the Ancient Continent's Prime Origin, many among them secretly finalized their decisions, sighing inwardly at the helplessness of seeing a cosmic pattern so difficult to alter.
“I will destroy your soul and reclaim the Primordial Fruit! This heaven and earth will remain the dominion of my God Race!”
Heg roared. At this moment, his spirit soared, his body radiating dazzling light, like a new deity ascending between heaven and earth, poised to rule the galaxy for ten thousand years.
“The God Race must perish. This is the immutable law of heaven and earth; you are merely a tragic witness.”
Shi Yan’s eyes suddenly grew calm.
The Origin Realm he had held back finally manifested, appearing in the heavens above his head.
In an instant, an entirely new stellar void seemed to erupt. Shi Yan’s Origin Realm was dotted with stars, featuring infinite, extending voids, encompassing both life and death—like another cosmos…
Within that expanse, there were dazzling suns, cold, clear moons, stars teeming with life, dead stars, and even nascent forms of mining worlds—everything a galaxy ought to possess.
At this moment, he seemed to be birthing a new stellar system, a world strikingly similar to the cosmos around them.
Simultaneously, the seven hundred and twenty acupoints on his body instantly linked with that nascent world!
Each acupoint was a bizarre, small heaven, having absorbed countless wisps of death essence over the years, brimming with infinite negative emotions, manifesting as vortices within that fabricated realm.
The seven hundred and twenty acupoints acted as seven hundred and twenty new worlds, and the negative emotional power within them was entirely drawn out, channeled into his Origin Realm.
In that starlit Origin Realm, a black hole suddenly materialized—deep, unfathomable, like a ghastly, eerie maw. It flew directly out of his Origin Realm, following a pattern utterly inscrutable to anyone, and instantly engulfed the meteor hurtling down from the outer heavens.
That meteor was condensed from Heg’s power, born from drawing the Prime Origin of the Ancient God Continent, capable of obliterating experts below the Immortal tier!
But in that moment, the meteor vanished into the black hole, as if devoured!
The meteor flashed and disappeared in a blink. The black hole merely writhed once, then dissolved into a wisp of light smoke.
Looking again at Shi Yan’s Origin Realm, within it, a single, brilliantly dazzling star had suddenly appeared. That planet was unmistakably the Gold Planet belonging to Heg, which the black hole had just consumed! That Gold Planet had been nurtured by Heg’s own Origin Realm, yet now it appeared to serve as the core of Shi Yan’s Origin Realm!
The black hole departed from Shi Yan’s Origin Realm, swallowed the meteor, and returned to the Altar, while simultaneously, a Gold Planet was added to Shi Yan’s Origin Realm.
It was utterly bizarre!
“The profound mystery unique to the Blood-Thirst Lineage!”
“The Devouring Profound Mystery!”
“The most terrifying, horrifying profound mystery in this world—he… he actually comprehended it!”
“A profound mystery capable of devouring everything nurtured by an opponent’s Origin Realm! This is indeed unique to that individual!”
For a moment, from every corner, from within every stone pavilion, came surges of energy laced with extreme dread.
The experts from the Thousand Illusions Sect, the Shattered Palace, the Heavenly Water Palace, and the Nether Emperor Clan held their breath, watching Shi Yan’s Origin Realm, watching the Gold Planet—inherently Heg’s—manifest within it. In a daze, they felt as if they could glimpse the Blood-Thirst Lineage itself.
Ten thousand years ago, the vision of that Origin Realm—a chaotic black hole capable of swallowing everything nurtured by the Altar Origin Realms—the peerless demonic figure seemed… right before their eyes.
Fear and unease gripped every heart.
At this point, Heg’s spirit rapidly withered; he seemed to age instantly, his hair turning silver.
“Recall the profound mystery!”
Starfire roared, pointing toward the firmament. The four planets Heg had released immediately returned to his Origin Realm, and his Origin Realm retracted into the Soul Altar.
Then, Starfire glanced sharply toward Shi Yan and suddenly shrieked. A Profound Yin Celestial River materialized within his Origin Realm. This icy river contained an Immortal will, the very essence of Starfire, possessing its own nascent consciousness. It suddenly rushed toward Shi Yan.
“Old man will see if you have truly grasped the Blood-Thirst Profound Mystery! If you can swallow the artifact born from my Origin Realm, then I will genuinely admit defeat!”
The Profound Yin Celestial River roared out, surging directly into Shi Yan’s Origin Realm. Its Immortal spiritual will connected with heaven and earth, sending out earth-shattering ripples.
“Bullied by the superior!”
“An Immortal's trace of profound mystery against Shi Yan—the God Race is losing face in their anger!”
“Shameless!”
Many muttered secretly, yet none felt compelled to intervene.
Laina restrained the anxiously distraught Cecilia, saying, “Shi Yan’s current Devouring Profound Mystery cannot possibly swallow an artifact from an Immortal’s Star Sea Origin Realm. He will not be a match for Starfire; the difference in tier is too vast. However, since the Blood-Thirst Lineage sent him, they surely have a contingency plan.”
“It’s time for the Blood-Thirst Lineage members to show themselves,” Jila hummed disdainfully.
As the Profound Yin Celestial River approached, threaded with Immortal spiritual will, Shi Yan’s sea of consciousness seemed frozen, and his Origin Realm appeared on the verge of collapse, his mind violently shaken by the invasive will.
He roared internally.
The energy in Starfire’s attack was less than Heg’s, but the profound mystery imprint and spiritual will embedded within it were far beyond what a first-level Prime God like Heg could muster. That imprint and spiritual will were of the Immortal tier—this was the truly terrifying power.
He could contend with Heg, but under Starfire’s Immortal spiritual will, he couldn't even conjure the thought of resistance.
This was the vast gulf of realized realms.
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
Just then, the corpses scattered around the manor, held in various bizarre postures, suddenly shot up into the sky like electric currents, hundreds of thousands of bodies tightly fusing together as if guided by a giant hand!
In an instant, the hundreds of thousands of corpses transformed into a single colossal corpse, taller than the surrounding stone pavilions, vaguely taking the form of a Corpse Giant, towering into the heavens.
A consciousness pierced down from the extreme outer heavens, directly settling upon the massive corpse. The body immediately seemed imbued with life, resembling the progenitor of the Corpse Race, radiating an intensely dense Corpse Qi. A stream of this Qi broke free from the body, transforming into streaks of stark white bone blades, instantly slamming into Starfire’s Profound Yin Celestial River.
Poof!
The Profound Yin Celestial River was cleanly severed into sections, shattering into pieces, and flowing back into Starfire’s Origin Realm. Starfire’s face instantly turned pale, and he let out a piercing shriek toward the heavens: “Phillett!”
After that cry, Starfire snatched Heg and, shooting a sinister glare at the hidden observers in the stone pavilions, suppressed the lingering Corpse Qi churning in his chest. Daring not to linger, he transformed into a streak of light and shot toward the outer void.
The massive corpse remained still, seemingly watching Starfire coldly, taking no further action.
“The leader of Corpse Power, Phillett!”
“Phillett!”
“It was Phillett secretly standing guard!”
“No wonder those corpses appeared—it was one chain reaction after another; the corpses… were prepared for Phillett’s soul to descend!”
“The Blood-Thirst Lineage truly had arrangements in place early on!”
Many in the stone pavilions gasped secretly.
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