The sky was rent by incessant, colossal lightning, matched by a never-ending, ear-splitting roar. The entire world seemed to be buried beneath a canopy of dark clouds, as if on the verge of shattering apart.

Yet, just as everything plunged toward oblivion, a voice emerged from the very heart of the city.

It was like the first ray of dawn slicing through the deepest darkness, halting the apocalyptic spectacle in that instant.

Everything in the air froze solid.

The serpentine, flickering arcs of lightning in the heavens suddenly paused; the vicious crimson net and the colossal serpent, symbols of the ultimate power of darkness ravaging the city, became rigid.

It was as if they had been struck by some mythical spell of immobilization, every force instantly bound.

A brilliant light ascended from the tallest structure. He Yiming stared in horrified awe; within that radiant beam, he perceived a figure both familiar and utterly alien.

Franklin, the supreme authority of the Temple, wore a golden crown upon his head, a diadem that pulsed with an overwhelming, shimmering halo that seemed to float and ebb. His miraculous robe billowed like waves, streams of pure light spreading outward from its fabric, gradually engulfing everything.

In his hand, the Staff of Light was slowly raised aloft. This small, short piece of wood now seemed to possess the weight of ten thousand pounds.

As the power of light began to propagate, a profound and miraculous transformation swept through the heavens and the earth.

The ordinary folk below seemed to sense the subtle, wondrous shift; their chanting grew louder and more devout, and the immense power suffusing the space became almost unimaginable.

With Franklin raising the Staff of Light higher, the pressure exerted upon the dense layer of storm clouds in the sky increased commensurately.

Finally, when the Staff of Light was held directly above his head, forming a perfect line with the crown, an unstoppable beam of pure light shot forth from the staff’s tip, soaring toward the cloud canopy.

All sound vanished in that moment. The entire universe descended into an absolute, profound silence.

The thunderous roar persisted, yet it could no longer propagate through the air; the crumbling structures remained, but emitted no sound; everything in existence was absorbed by that continuously rising column of light, even the very ripples of the atmosphere seemed to cease.

At last, this pillar of light reached the thick cloud layer.

Like sunshine melting snow, like intense fire vaporizing ice, the layer of dark clouds immediately tore open, dissolving rapidly before the naked eye.

Intense sunlight pierced through the rupture, merging with the ascending light, and spread across the entire city with incredible speed.

Under the direct assault of the sunlight, the storm clouds offered no resistance; they were swiftly shredded and scattered into nothingness.

The crimson net and the blood-red serpent hovering above the city suddenly hissed loudly. Under the illumination of the sun, they dissolved into wisps of bloody mist and vanished without a trace.

Purification—this was the mightiest aspect of light: rejecting all dissenting forces and cleansing every trace of darkness.

In a world utterly dominated by absolute light, no other power could intrude.

White Horse Lightning let out a terrified, piercing neigh. It no longer dared to hover proudly in the mid-air but fled back in a rush. From the remaining shreds of the cloud cover flew fourteen bolts of lightning—the fourteen Thunder Disciples that were the very essence of the White Horse's luminous form.

As these Thunder Disciples emerged from the clouds, they immediately converged above the White Horse’s head, forming a massive circle, their crackling electrical energy enveloping He Yiming and the others within.

In stark contrast, the Godly Path Coagulated Blood Man appeared utterly wretched.

The black mist he had painstakingly gathered around himself evaporated instantly upon contact with the sunlight streaming from above. A piercing shriek erupted from the Coagulated Blood Man, a sound so loud it echoed into every corner of the city.

However, His Holiness the Pope, standing immersed in the light, paid him no heed, his gaze never even flicking in that direction.

He held his head high, entirely shrouded in the power of light; he was the light, the most potent force permeating the world.

The Pope's disdain seemed to provoke the Coagulated Blood Man, spurring the instinct-driven creature into a final, violent eruption.

He raised his arm, and the infinite power of heaven and earth filling the sky instantly began to concentrate upon him.

The density of the heaven and earth power currently hovering over the city was incredibly formidable, far greater than the concentration they had experienced over the ocean.

This was not solely due to the Temple’s influence, but also the actions of White Horse Lightning and Franklin.

The powers they unleashed upon their arrival were world-shattering, and a force of that magnitude easily attracted and channeled even more ambient heaven and earth power for them to squander.

At this moment, the heaven and earth power in this locale had not diminished; rather, it had grown stronger.

Of course, to squander this power required innate, monumental strength.

Even powerhouses like He Yiming, Franklin, and Jimo Fanshu—those who had reached the pinnacle of the Human Path—though they could wield a sliver of divine energy, manipulating the fundamental power of heaven and earth was utterly impossible for them.

To command heaven and earth was not a feat achievable merely by using a modicum of divine strength.

Only the Godly Path realm could truly master the world’s fundamental forces. Among the combatants present, only White Horse Lightning, by utilizing more than half of its Thunder Disciples, had achieved the great feat of attracting this power; and only the Godly Path Coagulated Blood Man could genuinely wield it.

The colossal power instantly coalesced around the Coagulated Blood Man. He tilted his head back, the peerless force of heaven and earth transforming into his weapon, which he swung toward His Holiness the Pope.

It manifested like a massive scythe, a gigantic blade capable of reaping life, instantly arriving just beyond the sphere of light.

The immense power permeating the heavens and the earth converged and erupted, unleashing an unimaginable surge. This force was so potent that it surpassed even the Godly Path energies that had split mountains and cleaved seas in the ocean.

However, at this critical juncture, Franklin, enveloped in light, performed an action that stunned all onlookers.

He raised the Staff of Light once more. The light emanating from its tip suddenly burst forth, radiating outward to meet the vast, boundless power of heaven and earth.

Two forces, beyond verbal description, collided violently.

A colossal explosion ripped through the sky, a sound so earth-shattering it seemed as though the firmament itself was collapsing, echoing into every corner of the city.

Everyone who heard it felt their bodies stiffen, their minds reeling with thunderous noise; those with weaker constitutions collapsed unconscious on the spot.

The collective willpower hovering above the city instantly weakened considerably, but to He Yiming’s astonishment, at this stage, the power of intent seemed incapable of exerting any further additive effect on the light that had engulfed the entire realm.

Franklin, completely sheathed in radiance, did not even blink.

Powerful shockwaves radiated outward like gale-force winds. Countless structures collapsed into dust, the very ground began to shake violently, and spiderweb-like fissures erupted across the earth, spreading outward in every direction.

The earthquake—the consequence of the collision between the forces of heaven and earth and the power of light—reduced nearly half the city to rubble.

Compared to this devastation, the earlier cataclysm wrought by the vast electrical discharge was utterly insignificant.

Once the ground stabilized, the Coagulated Blood Man flashed, descended abruptly, and vanished into the concealment offered by the lightning barrier.

Within a hundred-mile radius, every trace of heaven and earth power had been utterly expended.

Yet, what made He Yiming unable to believe his eyes was that Franklin, suspended in the sky, still possessed an inexhaustible reserve of luminous power.

After withstanding the immense surge of heaven and earth energy, the light surrounding him remained as formidable as ever, seemingly infinite and endless.

He Yiming’s gaze locked onto the crown atop Franklin’s head. He sensed it—this light originated from within the city itself, and the mechanism converting the city’s illumination was precisely this golden crown.

Faintly, a flicker of realization crossed He Yiming’s mind. He seemed to grasp that fleeting thought, his mind suddenly flooded with countless insights.

The light Franklin projected was not his own inherent power, nor was it the fundamental heaven and earth power wielded by the Coagulated Blood Man.

Even bearing the Crown of Light and holding the Staff of Light, Franklin could not command the boundless energy of heaven and earth directly.

But within this city resided the origin of the light power. This power had existed for countless eons, much like the millennia-old divine trees of the Grotto-Heavens, or the fathom-deep volcanic caldera of Glazed Island—powers that had accumulated over eons before reaching their current scale.

In this world where fundamental heaven and earth energy was sparse, only these primordial sources, condensed over millennia, possessed the capacity to be squandered at will.

This was why Franklin, having gained control over the entirety of the city’s light essence, could utterly disregard the assault of the heaven and earth power, and after neutralizing that massive wave, still possess equal, overwhelming strength.

As long as this accumulated light remained, Franklin here was effectively invincible, unless the city's eons-long reservoir of power was entirely drained.

He Yiming drew his gaze back, recalling the Sea of Light from which he had departed the Boundary of Life and Death.

Finally, a strange, inscrutable smile touched his lips. His body began to ascend slowly toward the high heavens. He left the protection of White Horse Lightning, rising into the open air to meet the gaze of the god-like, powerful Franklin, standing opposite him in the vastness above…