"Heh-ha!" With a great shout, the brothers clasped one of their hands tightly, the energies of creation and destruction circulating within their bodies. Beneath Bannya's feet, a torrent of white, lotus-shaped energy suddenly surged, while at Mohe's feet, a black lotus continuously churned. Amidst the whistling wind, the wrathful Vajra manifestation appeared behind Bannya, clutching a vajra pestle, its entire form blazing with intense flames, spreading a profound and solemn Buddhist pressure. Behind Mohe emerged a three-eyed Hayagriva Vidyārāja, wielding a sword of white bone and a bowl of white bone, shrouded in chilling, malevolent energy.

"I despise all muscular men who lack refinement!" Siren muttered under her breath. "Idiots flooded with hormones, isn't this just suicide?"

While cursing the degenerate parents who birthed the Bannya and Mohe brothers, Siren strode towards Gu Xieding. Without a word, thirty silver-winged angels, each standing two meters tall, lined up beside Siren. These nude angels raised their long swords high, radiating a chilling killing intent that continuously spread outwards.

Aredia decisively swung the Hestia Spindle. She ascended high, enveloped in a cloud of fire, instantly soaring over two thousand meters above the Gu Corporation Tower. Dozens of colossal fireballs, each a hundred meters in diameter, manifested around Aredia. Accompanied by a dull roar of wind and fire, the fireballs rapidly compressed to the size of a human head. Every fireball was compressed to its absolute limit; the flowing flames seemed viscous, like magma, and the very core of the fireballs turned an ominous, pitch-black hue.

A piercing dragon's roar echoed from behind Aredia. A pillar of fire shot up over a hundred meters high, and nine crimson fire dragons, each a hundred meters long, slowly flew out from the blaze, beating their massive wings. Aredia gripped the Hestia Spindle tightly, her body trembling violently. She suddenly opened her mouth and spat out a stream of blood, which was entirely absorbed by the crystal-clear, branch-like spindle. With that single spittle, the light flames on the spindle flared even brighter. Aredia's red hair instantly turned white for half a month, and her delicate, lovely face dimmed. Er Peng Hua staggered back to Gu Xichen's side. He forcefully manipulated the broken ribs in his chest, accompanied by a chilling sound of grinding bone, as Siren violently forced the fractured bones back into alignment. A wisp of black, malevolent energy enveloped Peng Hua, causing the injuries within his body to rapidly heal. Immediately following this, a wave of scorching, oppressive heat surged from Peng Hua’s core. The temperature across all of Manhattan Island began to rise sharply, causing vast plumes of vapor to rise from the nearby sea surface, and the water level suddenly dropped by more than a meter.

Peng Hua stared at the skeletal God Monarch, whose expression was peculiar, and sneered grimly, "Drained essence and blood, the true legacy of the Zombie God. Heh heh, a significant portion of my body has already transformed into my true Drought Form. Heh heh, with the Drought Form unleashed, drought reigns for ten thousand miles... Although I can't affect the entire expanse now,... a mere few dozen miles is certainly within my grasp!"

The scorching heat in the air continuously converged onto Peng Hua's body. Firelight streamed from Peng Hua's eyes, and gradually, two fangs, about an inch long, protruded from his mouth. The surrounding currents of heat flowed madly like a raging wildfire, and everything within sight was a blinding crimson glare. The coastlines surrounding Manhattan Island suddenly extended forward by nearly a hundred meters.

The skeletal God Monarch looked at Gu Xichen with an unperturbed expression. He nodded in praise, "You have quite good friends, a pity... a pity..." Pointing his white bone sword, eight skeletal demon gods surrounded the skeletal God Monarch, settling into positions according to the Nine Palaces formation. The skeletal God Monarch chuckled casually, "This God Monarch shall first shatter this so-called Heaven's Net and Earth's Trap formation, and then attend to you juniors." His ferocious gaze swept over the Bannya and Mohe brothers; the skeletal God Monarch was determined to establish his might through slaughter. Undoubtedly, the Bannya and Mohe brothers looked the easiest to manipulate!

With a dry laugh, the skeletal God Monarch leaped into the air with the eight skeletal demon gods, charging into the churning Heaven's Net and Earth's Trap formation.

Chijia, who had been waiting, roared with laughter, "Well done! You fiend, this god has been waiting for you for a long time!"

Amidst his laughter, Xin Jia also leaped into the Heaven's Net and Earth's Trap formation. He swung his hands forcefully at his waist, and thick iron chains, accompanied by a dull clang of metal striking metal, flew out in all directions. One chain quickly divided into two, then three, then thousands—in an instant, all that could be seen was a sky filled with flashing golden chains dancing horizontally and vertically, weaving a vast Heaven's Net and Earth's Trap within the dense water waves above. Xin Jia, Zhao Yi, and the others anchored themselves at several critical nodes of the formation, continuously flicking their hands to unleash bolts of palm thunder.

The palm thunder vibrated Xin Jia's projected chains, causing them to oscillate and ripple. The strange oscillatory waves seemed to resonate with the cosmos, some primordial frequency or rhythm, each vibration causing the void for hundreds of miles around to tremble. Rolling thunder sounds continuously arrived from the distance, initially faint at the edge of the horizon but quickly closing in overhead. Ninety-nine times eighty-one chains roared up from the formation, stabbing directly into the relentlessly churning black clouds above. Giant electric serpents flickered within the dark clouds, and countless lightning strikes hit these chains almost simultaneously. The powerful current almost instantly shattered the eighty-one glittering golden threads, but the current was smoothly guided by the chains into the formation where the white waves churned.

Within the formation, chains danced everywhere, channeling the powerful current drawn from the sky rapidly along them, resembling electrical dragons flying amidst the white waves. Caught off guard immediately after entering the formation, before even discerning the formation's core, the skeletal God Monarch was instantly enveloped by at least a hundred chains. Clang-clatter-rumble! With a deafening roar, countless currents surged rapidly from all directions along the chains, fiercely striking the skeletal God Monarch's body.

A blinding, dazzling light erupted from within the formation, accompanied by the skeletal God Monarch's enraged screams, which shattered several large waves into fragments.

"What kind of damned formation is this?"

Following the skeletal God Monarch's furious roar, a massive banner, hundreds of feet wide and long, woven from human skin, hair, and tendons, flew whistling out from his sleeve. This glistening, pale banner was covered with countless bizarre talismans painted in human blood. As the flag appeared, green clouds spontaneously materialized around it, and amidst wails of ghosts and howling wolves, a large sheet of blood rain fell from the sky. The dense rain was like concentrated sulfuric acid, corroding Xin Jia's chains until they became dull and dispersed piece by piece, resembling scrap iron left in damp, dark conditions for hundreds of years.

Countless currents struck the banner simultaneously. With a massive crash, the screams of countless vengeful spirits burst forth from within the flag. Thousands of plumes of black smoke surged from the banner, within each plume faintly visible the twisted faces of hundreds of the deceased. The powerful electric current squeezed, and all the black smoke simultaneously dispersed like streaks of light.

The skeletal God Monarch roared, "Damn it! Nearly ten thousand of my invincible evil spirits, painstakingly collected from dozens of battlefields during the Second World War, have been annihilated by a mere junior like you!"

With a wave of his white bone longsword, the eight skeletal demon gods roared and lunged forward, furiously tearing at Xin Jia's chains. The blood rain constantly falling from the sky had already corroded the chains to a brittle state. The eight ferociously powerful skeletal demon gods, possessing immeasurable strength, viciously tore hundreds of chains to shreds and charged roaring toward Xin Jia and the others, faintly visible amidst the churning white waves.

"Heh heh heh!" Xin Jia laughed several times. With just a flash of cloud-light beneath their feet, he and Zhao Yi and the others shifted their positions within the formation. Dozens of massive waves, condensed from Water Elemental Force and heavy as Mount Tai, crashed down, leaving the eight skeletal demon gods dazed and disoriented. A gigantic vortex, several miles in diameter, materialized out of thin air. The eight skeletal demon gods shrieked as they were sucked in, and countless golden blades, flying swords, colossal stones, small mountains, azure wood lightning, and raging flames erupted within the vortex.

The Five Elements' elemental forces mutually generated and restrained each other endlessly. The eight skeletal demon gods were like beans in a grinding mill, crushed with a creak-crunch sound as the massive whirlpool ground them. Countless elemental attacks struck them, sparking massive showers of fire.

However, the eight skeletal demon gods were avatars of demonic gods forged by the skeletal God Monarch's millennia of painstaking effort; the body of each demon god was extraordinarily sturdy. No matter how the Heaven's Net and Earth's Trap formation tried to grind and kill them, they were unable to move, yet they remained completely unscathed. The skeletal God Monarch stood still for a moment, then nodded vigorously. "This formation is somewhat interesting. Heh, no wonder those young punks said this kid has a subordinate named Zhao Yi who is proficient in all sorts of esoteric formations. Seeing him today proves the rumors true..." Those shameless old fogeys, they must have had their reasons for this...

"Hmph!"

The menacingly evil banner shielded his entire body. Waving his white bone longsword again, a Nine-Petal Lotus Pedestal, pieced together from the skull beads of a billion people, surged forth beneath the skeletal God Monarch's feet. This Nine-Petal Lotus Pedestal was stained with blood, and every skull bead emitted a chilling, bloody light. The chains shot out by Xin Jia could not approach the skeletal God Monarch’s body; they were forced to retreat continuously by the bloody light emanating from the Nine-Petal Lotus Pedestal. No matter how Xin Jia manipulated his hand seals to control the chains, the bloody light grew stronger, and the chains moved farther and farther away from the skeletal God Monarch.

The white bone longsword was waved again. With a chant from the skeletal God Monarch, a delicate bone bow, six inches long, materialized above his head. An exquisitely crafted bone arrow, barely three inches long, was nocked onto the bone bow. As the skeletal God Monarch let out a fierce cry, the bowstring was drawn back, and the bone arrow was loosed—a streak of arrow light, shrouded in gray, malevolent energy surging skyward, aimed directly at the vortex that trapped the eight skeletal demon gods.

Crack-crunch! Countless streaks of grayish-white Yin thunder erupted from the arrow light. The thin, inconspicuous arrow light decisively struck the vortex, and innumerable Yin thunders violently cascaded down. A continuous barrage of explosions followed, and the vortex, several miles in diameter, disintegrated amidst a colossal roar.

The skeletal God Monarch laughed triumphantly. Just as he was about to command the eight skeletal demon gods to attack Xin Jia and the others, the formation shifted again. Xin Jia glared angrily at the skeletal God Monarch, shouting in frustration, "If this god’s magical power and divine abilities were still intact, what is a mere little monster at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage? Waaah! How many immortals ascending to the Heavenly Court in those days had to respectfully call this god 'Senior Officer'! Today, I am a tiger fallen into the plains, toyed with by you little curs!"

Zhao Yi and the others also had blood surging into their eyes. Having their formation broken by the skeletal God Monarch was an intolerable blow to their pride; after all, they were all once...

Gritting his teeth, Xin Jia bit off the tip of his tongue and spat out a stream of pale golden essence blood. Zhao Yi and the others followed Xin Jia's example, spitting out their vital essence blood and merging it into the formation.

Don't say that little Gu classmate is too pure and naive...

On Paradise Star, he did gain some rewards...

Well, how much exactly, will be detailed slowly later...