Amidst the ecstatic smiles of the three Cardinals, Gu Xiechen’s claws met the celestial Holy Light Slash head-on. The smiles on the Cardinals' faces instantly froze, replaced by simultaneous screams of terror. The unthinkable had happened: the Holy Light Slash—a beam of immense light and heat, traditionally regarded as unstoppable—was grasped in Gu Xiechen's hands!

The essence of the Holy Light Slash was light itself, light transmuted by reaching a certain extreme. How could light be held? Yet, in Gu Xiechen’s grasping claws, there was precisely such a blinding, writhing longsword. Dozens of individual Holy Light Slashes had converged to form this nearly tangible blade, emitting a faint, heavy clang with every twist. As Gu Xiechen violently swung his right hand, threads of light rain erupted from the sword. Following the arc of his throw, the sword transformed into a concentrated beam of white light that shot forward.

Two towering figures, nearly two meters tall, each trailed by the faint illusion of a winged angel and shrouded in thick white radiance, were battling a few young monks from Tiefan Temple. Initially, all the Dao Alliance disciples assumed the angelic illusions behind these Church Knights were some form of auxiliary divine art. However, upon contact, the Tiefan Temple monks discovered that these two—these Church Knights—were merely low-tier fighters of the Jupiter level!

With every movement, torrents of white light, scorching like molten iron, whistled forth. Their blows carried the weight of mountains, imbued with the piercing, domineering penetrative power unique to Holy Light. The dozens of monks from Tiefan Temple, despite possessing cultivation at the peak of the Saturn level and bodies as solid as metal, were being systematically pushed back. Several bore deep fist imprints, their bones cracked.

Gu Xiechen, in combat, possessed true omniscience—seeing everything, hearing everything. Using the Ruyi Gloves, he had forcefully absorbed dozens of Holy Light Slashes and condensed them into a white blade of light. The sheer energy vibration surging through his hands exceeded what his fingers could bear. He intended to casually flick this uncontrollable sacred light at one of the Cardinals, when his attention snagged on the two imposing Church Knights.

With a flick of his wrist, the Holy Light, accompanied by a faint, almost inaudible hymn, shot out. Gu Xiechen and the two Knights happened to align in a straight line, and the beam pierced directly through the body of one, coming from slightly behind and to the side.

Holy Light was intensely hot and carried lethal power against cellular tissue. The full-force strike unleashed by the three Cardinals was forcibly contained in Gu Xiechen's hand; one could imagine the raw power embedded within that single Holy Light Slash. The white beam, thick as a forearm, effortlessly incinerated one Church Knight, his upper body dissolving into a wisp of smoke due to the intense heat. The other Knight, hearing his companion's final, agonizing scream, whipped his head around in stark terror.

The Holy Light sliced through his Holy Light Shield, tore through his armor, and reduced his upper body to dust as well.

The young monks of Tiefan Temple cheered, "Namo Amitabha, thank you, Brother Gu, for your aid!" As they shouted, the monks’ bodies suddenly grew uniformly taller by nearly a foot. Their delicate, fair features shifted, becoming like wrathful Vajra warriors, their muscles knotted and their bearing formidable. They hitched up the hems of their robes, drawing heavy bronze Vajra pestles from their storage pouches, and began a sweeping frenzy against the surrounding Church Knights, like a fierce autumn wind stripping leaves.

Gu Xiechen let out a hearty laugh. "No need for thanks!" He stamped his feet, and the air beneath him cracked with a sudden boom. A small burst of white energy waves exploded outward. Using this leverage, he flipped his body mid-air, plummeting toward the ground headfirst. His claws danced like a raging storm, showering the area with unstoppable Snow Soul Divine Claw energy, throwing the nearly one hundred uninitiated Church Knights on the ground into panicked retreat. Occasionally, a stray palm strike from the Cloud-Slicing Palm would shoot out erratically, and invariably, one or two unfortunate souls would be struck, their chests caving in as they spat blood and died.

The Church formations dissolved into chaos. Andre, who had just been hit in the head by a stray piece of flying rock, struggled to regain his footing, bleeding heavily.

Watching dumbfounded as the combined forces of the Church and the Pantheon Alliance fought the disciples of the Asian Dao Alliance to a standstill—and were even beginning to shake their foundation—Andre stared blankly at the swirling melee. Driven by some sudden, wild impulse, Andre gritted his teeth and pulled three scrolls radiating intense magical fluctuations from his sleeve.

Three level-nine area-of-effect divine spell scrolls. Each scroll held destructive power equivalent to a nuclear bomb exceeding 100 kilotons!

Little Daoist Zhang, weaving hand seals to direct his ancient bronze sword, which carved a two-meter-long trail of yellow light slicing and hacking through the air, was battling a Church Knight of roughly Uranus-level fighter strength and his dozens of subordinates, forcing them backward. Suddenly, he spotted Andre's movements in the distance.

Terrified beyond measure, Little Daoist Zhang shrieked, "Fellow Daoists, flee quickly!"

Before Little Daoist Zhang's words had fully faded, Gu Xiechen, who was sweeping his claws through the air, noticed Andre's action. A thought flashed through his mind with the speed of lightning. Gu Xiechen threw his head back and laughed maniacally. The Cloud-Rumbling Bell shot out of his Lesser Qiankun Pouch. Gu Xiechen roared at Peng Hua, "Peng Hua, assist me with all your might!"

Gu Xiechen primarily cultivated internal Zhenqi, leaving him somewhat unfamiliar with the nuances of spells, divine power, and other techniques. Though the Cloud-Soaring Bell was a superior magical artifact, he could not unleash its true potential. Hearing Gu Xiechen’s cry, Peng Hua immediately repelled the three enemies before him with a single punch, flying to Gu Xiechen's side and pressing a claw onto his back. "Let the Zhenqi within your body heed my command!"

A cold torrent surged through Gu Xiechen’s back. This flood contained no trace of malevolence; it was Peng Hua’s core essence of Primal True Vitality. Just as extreme Yin gives rise to Yang, the most sinister corpse energy, though merely chilling, held an immense vitality, much like Gu Xiechen's Primordial Dao Fetus. Peng Hua’s Primal True Vitality permeated Gu Xiechen’s body without resistance; instead, it subtly trended toward an infinite creative cycle of Yin and Yang mutual generation with Gu Xiechen's own Zhenqi.

Stimulated by Peng Hua’s Primal True Vitality, the Primordial Dao Fetus caused Gu Xiechen's heartbeat to surge to the limit his body could endure—thump-thump-thump-thump. Amidst the dense drumming, Gu Xiechen lost count of how fast his heart was racing. The colossal energy stored within the Dao Fetus, derived from the three drops of early essence blood, was smoothly activated. A tsunami-like surge of power roared out from his heart, instantly flooding Gu Xiechen’s entire frame. Threads of searing, malevolent energy seeped out of his pores, and his physical functions improved linearly with every passing moment.

The Qi vortexes in the one hundred and eight major acupoints spun madly, spewing torrents of innate Gang Qi. This, combined with the pure Zhenqi erupting from Gu Xiechen’s Dantian, channeled the massive energy upward through the broad, tough meridians, following the path of Peng Hua’s ingress.

From the Sea of Qi, up to Shenque, into the Middle Courtyard, past the Twelve-fold Tower, straight to Huagai—the incredibly refined, mercury-like innate Gang Qi surged toward the Purple Mansion Sea of Consciousness. However, with every stage it ascended, the Gang Qi thinned slightly, much like rainwater evaporating into vapor as it rises. By the time this immense force pierced into the Purple Mansion Sea of Consciousness, the condensed Gang Qi had transformed into a sphere of lively, ethereal mist.

Vast quantities of purple mist in Gu Xiechen's Sea of Consciousness swept in from all directions. The purple mist and the ethereal mist rushing into the Sea of Consciousness engaged in a cosmic exchange of Yin and Yang, and a completely new power burst forth. With a buzz, Gu Xiechen felt as if his spiritual aperture had suddenly opened. Powerful mental force was channeled into this new power, which he directed with the ease of an extension of his own will directly into the Cloud-Soaring Bell. Gu Xiechen suddenly understood: this new force was what cultivators called "Magic Power" (Fali).

In an infinitesimal fraction of a second, thousands of people nearby clearly saw a burst of bright purple radiance explode from Gu Xiechen’s hand. In the blink of an eye, this purple light vanished into the Cloud-Soaring Bell. Nine crisp, melodious chimes sounded in the air. A powerful gust of wind swept through the dense forest for over ten kilometers, and threads of white mist began to rise from the ground. Within mere seconds, the wind carried the steaming mist upward—it spread out like millions of misty veils opening simultaneously—covering the entire forest within a dozen kilometers completely in white clouds.

Zhao Yi leaped into the air next to Little Daoist Zhang and grabbed him fiercely. "Six Harmonies Flag Gate, quickly!"

Little Daoist Zhang’s eyes lit up. He suddenly burst into laughter. "Andre, you idiot, don't blame me, Little Zhang, for being ruthless. You walked right into this death trap yourselves!" Shouting, Little Daoist Zhang deftly flipped up his Daoist robe and produced six flag gates, shimmering like clear water, handing them to Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi snatched the flags and tossed them toward the sky. His hands moved through rapid finger seals, pointing toward the six directions: east, south, west, north, up, and down. In the middle of the day, starlight suddenly flickered in the sky. Six large stars, about the size of a bowl, spun for a moment in the air, and six extremely faint beams of starlight shot down, integrating into the six flag gates. If one were to view the entire cosmic map, these six newly appeared stars were the six principal stars that on Earth are known as the "Southern Dipper Constellation."

Having each received a weak infusion of stellar energy, the six flag gates simultaneously spewed vast amounts of azure and colorful light that merged into the white fog blanketing the sky.

Gu Xiechen gasped heavily. He pulled out the remaining two scrolls—taken from Andre—from his Lesser Qiankun Pouch. Communication by speech was too slow now. With a flash of thought, Qin Jia strode up to Gu Xiechen’s side, snatched the two scrolls, and plunged them into the ground.

The surroundings were enveloped in white mist. Bobbi could only see a haze of white; apart from the subordinates closest to him, he could see nothing else.

Especially with the intervention of the Six Harmonies Flag Gate, where Zhao Yi had hastily set up a simplified version of the Six Harmonies Strange Gate formation, the white mist gained an added layer of strange power that distorted direction and confused the five senses. Bobbi shouted in alarm, "Everyone rally to me! Everyone rally to me!"