On the outskirts of Folsom City. Within a lavish mansion. Peng Hua was grinding his teeth as he forced open the two-meter-thick vault door.

With a grating screech of metal fragmentation, Peng Hua violently swung both arms, finally tearing open the heavy, dense alloy door to reveal a glittering hoard of Starlight Silver within. The normally energetic Peng Hua immediately slumped in defeat. He dragged out a long, helpless whine: "Why is it nothing but Starlight Silver, that trash ore? Isn't there anything valuable here?"

Outside the vault, more than thirty richly dressed men and women were bound tightly by crimson threads, lying in a pool of blood nearly a foot deep. Hearing Peng Hua's agonizing howl, the eldest among the group cried out in terror: "Starlight Silver is the toughest hard currency in the Star Alliance! The amount in here could buy a tenth of Folsom City, what more do you want?"

Peng Hua gritted his teeth and sullenly turned around. He pulled a two-meter-diameter silver sphere from his storage ring and hurled it heavily at the men and women. A chorus of screams accompanied the splatter of gore, and the spacious chamber instantly transformed into a hell on earth. Peng Hua muttered a few displeased words, sweeping up all the spilled essence of blood and inhaling it completely. Then, with the thought that something was better than nothing, he collected all the Starlight Silver from the vault and swiftly buried a billion-ton nuclear bomb a thousand meters underground.

Like a whirlwind sweeping through the entire mansion, Peng Hua plundered everything of value clean before dipping a finger in human blood and writing a sweeping line of elegant, flowing Star Alliance common script on the main gate: Imperial Intelligence Bureau Special Operations Department, under orders to execute traitors!

Pleased with his flamboyant calligraphy, Peng Hua chuckled and turned to leave. Yet, after only a few steps, he excitedly rushed back into the mansion. From his storage ring, he produced more than a dozen gasoline drums and gleefully set the mansion ablaze. He clapped his hands together, watching with keen interest as the fire gradually consumed the grand residence, nodding with satisfaction: "When you kill, you must always set a fire; this is the supreme truth taught by our ancestors!"

The piercing shriek of an alarm drifted from the distance. Before Folsom's military police could arrive, Peng Hua leisurely leaped into the air and fled the scene.

He hadn't flown far when a sudden tightness seized Peng Hua's heart, an inexplicable sense of dread washing over him. He had abruptly lost the psychic connection with Han Wei. Normally, he could clearly perceive Han Wei's location, aura, and even the slightest shifts in her mood, but now, he could sense absolutely no information related to Han Shu. Han Wei had been barely a hundred kilometers away moments ago, but the direction where she was now emanated a chilling aura of death so profound it felt hopeless.

"My dearest grandmother, patron saint, living Bodhisattva! You absolutely must not capsize in a ditch! The gods of all heavens couldn't touch you, don't let some nobody butcher you here!"

Peng Hua broke out in cold sweat—a feat worthy of pride for a zombie. Two massive, fleshy wings unfurled behind him. Peng Hua, teeth clenched, flew directly toward the location where Han Ji's aura had vanished. However, Peng Hua was meticulous. While flying at full power, he simultaneously forwarded the situation via the fastest speed to Gu Xiechen and Dukat using a message beacon. Fearing the surveillance systems of the Polaris Empire's planetary communications might interfere or block his desperate call, he sent the message again using a Thousand-Mile Sound Transmission Talisman.

Thirty thousand miles away, Gu Xiechen was excitedly erecting a hundred-meter-tall stone stele above an ice-bound manor, carving upon it, with sword energy, a string of text meant to frame Daoist Mu.

Suddenly receiving Peng Hua's urgent distress signal, Gu Xiechen's expression shifted. He immediately transformed into a streak of white cloud, pulling a long wake across the sea as he sped toward Folsom City.

In another direction, over twenty thousand miles away, Dukat was single-handedly engaging an entire regiment of heavy mechanized infantry from the Polaris Empire.

Floating in the sky was an armed robot resembling an eight-armed octopus, over three meters in diameter. A clone of Xiao Xiao was stationed inside the robot, arrogantly broadcasting an extremely powerful jamming signal that severed all external contact for the Polaris Empire's heavy mechanized unit. Dukat was clad in a set of five-meter-tall heavy combat armor materialized from the Flowing Cloud Armor, its entire surface dotted with countless missile silos and high-energy beam emitters, making him resemble an entirely weaponized behemoth standing atop a hundred-meter-high earthen mound.

Twenty thousand elite soldiers of the Polaris Empire, wearing individual combat armor and wielding various high-energy weapons, driving assorted vehicles and aircraft, attacked Dukat like a surging tide, wave after wave. The destructive power of these soldiers' weapons was immense; the energy beams they fired carried the destructive force equivalent to the main cannons of heavy main battle tanks produced by the Earth Federation. As for their vehicles and aircraft, their power matched the full firepower of a standard Tier-One battleship from a Four-Star Civilization.

Such a heavy mechanized force could easily destroy all defense capabilities of an administrative planet belonging to any Five-Star Civilization and occupy it effortlessly.

But facing the monster that was Dukat, this elite force of the Polaris Empire was rapidly losing the will to fight.

The relentless barrage of high-energy beams and ultra-high-speed missiles struck Dukat thousands of times per second, yet Dukat stood utterly unmoving on the hillside. Even though the aircraft were completely drained of energy, and the muzzles of the high-energy cannons glowed red and softened from the extreme overload and high-frequency firing, Dukat's armor hadn't even sustained a scratch.

Conversely, every missile Dukat fired struck a vehicle or an aircraft. These missiles were not loaded with conventional high-explosive or armor-piercing warheads, but rather encased in a ball of pure Yang Fire, refined by Dukat himself. The flame, crimson with a faint blue tail, erupted from the missile, behaving like a spark dropped into an oil barrel, swiftly engulfing the vehicles and aircraft, turning them and the Polaris Empire soldiers inside into ashes in the blink of an eye.

Countless high-energy rays constantly shot from the emitters on Dukat's armor. The pale-purple beams swept in all directions. Each strike precisely hit the brow of a Polaris Empire soldier, blasting a transparent hole through their heads and armor. In less than fifteen minutes, over four thousand dead Polaris soldiers lay collapsed on the field.

The morale of this army was on the verge of collapse. Their commander incessantly queried Dukat's identity over the public communication channel, demanding to know why he was attacking them.

Dukat responded to the enemy commander's questions in a cold, formulaic tone: The Imperial Intelligence Bureau Special Operations Department is under orders to eradicate traitors. All those associated with traitors will be executed.

The Polaris Empire soldiers had lost their courage to fight. They began a slow retreat, but under the harsh reprimands of their officers, the soldiers summoned their last vestiges of spirit and charged toward the hill where Dukat stood, screaming and howling. They were met only by irresistible death. Dukat effortlessly crushed their last reserves of strength.

With a crash, the Polaris Empire soldiers routed on a large scale for the first time in their history. Every soldier dropped their weapons. Those operating vehicles and aircraft simultaneously utilized the Shi Sheng system to abandon their posts, fleeing frantically and aimlessly in all directions.

Bang. A dull gunshot echoed over the public communication channel. The commander who had been hailing Dukat committed suicide.

Dukat soared into the air. He circled the battlefield with lightning speed, unleashing torrents of massive fireballs, each over two meters in diameter, from his hands toward the fleeing Polaris Empire soldiers below. Each fireball exploded like a heavy-duty thermobaric bomb, annihilating everything within several hundred meters with its devastating explosive force. Not a single one of the twenty thousand elite Polaris Empire soldiers escaped; all died by Dukat's hand.

With a cold snort, dazzling silver lights flashed around Dukat, and large numbers of fully armed robots poured out of the glow. Wielding sharp alloy blades, these robots charged forward, severing the heads of all the Polaris Empire soldiers and piling them into a menacing Jingguan (a mound of skulls) atop the small hill in the center of the battlefield. The bodies of the soldiers were neatly stacked by the robots across the ravaged terrain into a straight line: Imperial Intelligence Bureau Special Operations Department, under orders to execute traitors!

Having completed this series of grim tasks, Dukat signaled Xiao Xiao to cease the jamming. Just as they were about to move toward the next target for massive destruction, Dukat's communicator buzzed urgently. A three-inch transmission talisman, trailing a streak of green fire, descended from high altitude and hovered precisely before Dukat's face.

Snatching the talisman and crushing it, Dukat paused briefly, then let out a cold laugh. Two enormous metal wings erupted from his back, and blue flames several meters long and a meter thick jetted from his feet, propelling him skyward. He rapidly flew toward Folsom City.

Unlike Gu Xiechen's silent movements, Dukat's unrestrained flight created too much disturbance. In moments, Folsom Star's defense system locked onto Dukat’s silhouette. But before the automatically activating defense weapons could turn their barrels to aim, a bizarre wave of radio frequency invaded the defense system, beginning to interfere with the control authority of the Folsom Star Domain Defense Super-Brain. This wave was so powerful, its encoding patterns so complex, that it temporarily forced the master super-brain controlling all automated defense weapons across the Folsom Star Domain onto the defensive. In less than fifteen minutes, it seized forty percent of the control of the Folsom Star Domain.

Xiao Xiao’s clone, clinging tightly to Dukat’s back, shouted excitedly: "Finally, I've encountered an equal! Although it hasn't generated life, hasn't generated an electronic soul, it's still a lifeless machine, but its core is tens of thousands of times stronger than my own! Ha! Its core is actually hollowed-out from a small planet used to store its main modules! I must seize it! I absolutely must seize it!"

Like a lecher gazing upon the ultimate beauty, every light-emitting component on Xiao Xiao's clone flashed a blinding red light. He had thrown all his strength into the battle against the Folsom Star Domain Defense System Super-Brain.

The next instant, Dukat's brainwaves and Xiao Xiao's electric signals successfully connected as Dukat rapidly flew toward Folsom City. Their combined immense computational power instantly generated a miraculous effect where one plus one was greater than one hundred. They immediately crushed the outer defenses of the enemy super-brain, arriving at the threshold of its core computation unit.

Chaos erupted across the Folsom Star Domain. Countless warships patrolling in space lost guidance signals from the mother star and froze stupidly in the void, only regaining control when their bewildered commanders manually overrode the fully automatic mother-star navigation system.

Amidst this chaos, Peng Hua rushed frantically to the outside of the palace complex where Han Wei was trapped.

The original palaces had vanished without a trace. Far in the distance, there was only a crater several li in diameter, unfathomably deep, constantly emitting rolling black gas. This gas was strange; it only diffused within a few li radius above the ground, rising perhaps a hundred zhang high, making it inconspicuous from afar. Yet, within the black mist, spectral figures shimmered: demons with rattling white bones, some bearing sharp horns, others with wings, and still others entwined by colossal bone pythons.

Amidst the surging, sinister energy, these terrifying specters with glowing ghost-fire in their eyes were all sitting upright on lotus thrones formed of black gas, slowly chanting the Diamond Sutra. Every word they exhaled solidified into flashing green, ghost-fire characters about a foot square, swirling and soaring within the black gas. Gradually, the area around these deities was filled with the spinning characters of the Diamond Sutra, lending an inexplicable air of sacred solemnity to the boundless evil aura.

Peng Hua drew a sharp breath. He retracted his wings and cautiously circled the black smoke, finding no place to strike.

After hesitating for a long time, Peng Hua finally gritted his teeth. He shook his hand and tossed a Five Elements Corpse-Gathering Yin Thunder into the black mist—a secret art inherited from the Nine Nether Dao Corpse Cultivators. This Yin Thunder was forged using a thread of the ultimate yin and fierce corpse energy harvested from Five Element Zombies found in lands representing Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. After refining it with a secret method, the energy was merged with the power of celestial lightning. Once the seed of the Yin Thunder was condensed within the body, it could be continuously nourished by the Five Element spiritual energy, gradually cultivating countless Five Elements Corpse-Gathering Yin Thunders. Many Nine Nether Dao Corpse Cultivators practiced this method; the most profound, like the Corpse Emperor—an ancient, aged zombie—could reduce an area of a thousand li to fine dust with a single thunder strike.

Peng Hua’s cultivation hadn't reached that level, but one Yin Thunder could blast the surrounding ten li into a barren wasteland.

He formed a thunder seal with both hands, carefully condensing a ball of Corpse-Gathering Yin Thunder the size of a fist, and launched it toward the black mist. The lightning, glowing green and wrapped in a layer of black corpse energy, shot into the mist like a flash. Just as it was about to detonate, it was suddenly grasped by a massive, skeletal hand, several zhang wide, covered entirely in sharp barbs.

A demon, bearing a single horn and a black spike growing from every vertebra, reached out, caught the Yin Thunder, and casually tossed it into its mouth. After chewing a few times, it swallowed the powerful thunderbolt, which transformed into wisps of dark smoke. The demon floated slowly toward the edge of the black mist. First, it chanted a few lines of the Diamond Sutra, then, with a look of solemn serenity, it clasped its hands in greeting toward Peng Hua: "Namo Amitabha, Benefactor, throwing such cruel Yin Thunder indiscriminately—are you not afraid of accidentally harming the sentient beings of heaven and earth?"

Exuding an air of compassionate benevolence, this fierce-looking bone demon spoke in a gentle tone, advising: "Even if you don't harm those creatures of flesh and blood who can move, accidentally injuring some flowers and grasses is also regrettable. All things in heaven and earth possess sentience; how can the flowers and grasses of this life not be the incarnations of your future rebirths?"

Under Peng Hua's stunned gaze, the demon formed a Vase Seal before its chest and sighed earnestly: "Kill a chicken in this life, you become a chicken in the next; kill a duck in this life, you surely become a duck in the next. If you kill a person in this life…"

Peng Hua sighed. He drew a heavy, double-sided battle-axe and gripped it in his hand, channeling all his strength to cleave down upon the bone demon: "Killing a chicken makes a chicken, killing a duck makes a duck. If I kill people, then in the next life, this master will definitely still be a person! Hmph hmph. This time I've killed hundreds of thousands of people; I'll be a person for all my subsequent lives!"

The battle-axe carved a hundred-zhang-long cold streak across the void toward the bone demon. The hundred-zhang-tall bone demon merely sighed lightly upon hearing Peng Hua's nonsense. It didn't move to block the attack, instead manipulating its lotus throne, lightly sliding backward. A cold light erupted. Peng Hua's full-force strike shattered a vast expanse of the black gas ahead. His body staggered as he was sucked into the dense blackness.

Once inside the gas, the surroundings spun wildly. Peng Hua had no idea where he had been transported.

The next instant, Peng Hua was teleported into a pitch-black space devoid of all light. In this space, a statue of a demon, entirely black, sat cross-legged. In the palm of this demon’s hand, a black ball of light slowly undulated. Within the transparent sphere, Han Wei lay asleep on a black lotus platform, threads of black gas continuously seeping into her seven orifices. Black runes flickered across Han Wei’s body, becoming increasingly distinct as the black gas invaded.

Peng Hua, driven by panic and rage, surged toward Han Wei's location. But no matter how he flew, the distance between him and Han Wei never changed.

The three-headed, six-armed demon suddenly opened its eyes and roared in a booming voice: "The sea of suffering is boundless; turn back to the shore! Get out!"

Peng Hua let out a series of harsh laughs. He threw his head back and roared: "Your master played these god-playing, ghost-faking tricks hundreds of years ago! Stop the nonsense and release my woman!"

The demon fell silent for a moment, then slowly asked after a pause: "She is your woman? What is your name?"

Peng Hua became amused again. He pointed at the demon and roared with laughter: "Idiot, you want to ask for this master’s name? Do you think this master has been wandering for nothing all these years? In this kind of formation that clearly follows a crooked, evil path, telling you my name while inside the array would make me a fool! What if I say my name is Gu Xiechen? Would you believe me?"

The demon snorted coldly. All six of its arms spread open, its six hands forming six bizarre seals. It then fiercely shouted Gu Xiechen’s name.

Silence reigned all around; not the slightest movement occurred. Peng Hua was laughing so hard he nearly choked, pointing at the demon and unleashing a barrage of frenzied mockery, cursing the demon's ancestors for eighteen generations.

Slight black light shot from the three-headed, six-armed demon’s eyes. It suddenly raised one arm and clawed down toward Peng Hua’s head. As this arm extended, it elongated to thousands of zhang, and the palm became as large as an acre, thick fingers entwined with wisps of black energy, faintly carrying the sound of ten thousand Buddhas chanting scriptures. This single strike churned the surrounding void until it shattered inch by inch; every fractured piece of space was crystal clear like a mirror, reflecting countless images of Peng Hua.

Startled by this immense power, Peng Hua quickly threw the high-grade Immortal Artifact battle-axe in his hand toward the space where the demon was striking. The axe was instantly swept away and swallowed by the spatial fragments in a vortex of grinding and tearing. A wisp of Peng Hua’s soul essence attached to the axe was consumed by the space, causing a sharp, stabbing pain in his Sea of Consciousness that nearly forced a scream from him.

The giant hand continued its descent toward Peng Hua. The surrounding space was subtly locked down, and an invisible force of restraint crushed Peng Hua until he could barely breathe.

In desperation, Peng Hua suddenly spread his wings wide, two streaks of bloody light flashed, and his body transformed into a streak of blood light, rapidly traversing the void to escape at high speed. However, the gigantic hand pursued him like a shadow, its control over Peng Hua absolute, never leaving his head. No matter how fast he flew or how unpredictable his trajectory became, he could not escape the coverage of the demon's great hand.

Far in the distance, within a small white-winged spaceship hovering thousands of meters above the ground within a white cloud, Yan Wu Ashura suddenly reached out and tore open the void, retrieving a double-sided battle-axe that had been stained black by the corpse energy. He lightly flicked the axe and praised, "Good technique, fine weapon! Hmm, not inferior to the divine artifacts I hold!"

Lightly swinging the heavy axe in a circle, Yan Wu Ashura said, intoxicated, to the stunned Goloman: "Governor, may I have this trophy?"

Goloman stepped toward Yan Wu Ashura to take the axe for a closer look. Yan Wu Ashura smiled maliciously, gently placed the axe into Goloman's hand, and then suddenly let go.

Crack. The immense weight of the battle-axe crushed Goloman’s hands, forcing the axe from his grasp. It plummeted with vicious force toward the sole of his foot.

Yǎnwǔ Asura’s small hand shot out just before the axe shattered Goloman’s foot, seizing the haft firmly. She smiled tenderly at the screaming, mute Goloman. “This big fellow is heavier than a small mountain. Though the Governor possesses ability, he is still far, far away from freely commanding such a divine weapon!”

With a casual flick, she tossed the battle-axe into her storage artifact. Yǎnwǔ Asura leaned intimately toward Goloman, gently soothing him. “However, Governor, do not worry. Just cultivate the Yuanyang Demon Nurturing Art diligently, and you will soon possess mighty divine powers. Then, Yǎnwǔ and you can truly enjoy yourselves!” Two tendrils of inky black energy pierced Goloman’s body, instantly mending his broken arms. As the injuries on his arms healed, an uncontrollable heat surged from below his waist.

Yǎnwǔ Asura pinned Goloman onto the command couch, unfastened his belt, pulled down her own short skirt, and mounted him with a beaming smile.

Goloman’s body convulsed violently. He cried out, caught between ecstasy and terror. In a short while, his skin withered again, and his frame seemed to have shrunk by another measure. The twelve ship officers in the command cabin watched the rapidly aging Gējiémàn in horror. His body trembled violently, replaced by boundless dread for Yǎnwǔ Asura.

Within the grand formation, Chóuhuá suddenly spat out a gout of vital blood. The blood essence split into two streams, adhering to his massive wings. Instantly, his wings vibrated intensely, tearing through the surrounding black mist at that very moment, carrying him through the boundless darkness as if teleporting him a great distance in a flash.

The colossal hand swept past Pěng Huá’s body with barely an inch to spare, tearing his close-fitting tailcoat to shreds. Fragments of cloth and various small items Pěng Huá carried fluttered wildly through the air. A deep, bloody gash was ripped across Pěng Huá’s back, exposing his golden-hued bones and several writhing internal organs. The hand violently retracted, drawing some of Pěng Huá’s blood back toward itself.

The three-headed, six-armed Demon God revealed a strange, eerie smile. He delicately pinched a few drops of the blood drawn near him and flicked his fingers lightly.

Several wisps of black smoke burrowed into the blood. The blood rapidly melted and dissolved, rising as a faint plume of cyan smoke. Within the smoke, Pěng Huá’s true visage appeared: a naked form, where every single hair was perfectly discernible. Pěng Huá, who was currently fleeing rapidly, whipped his head around, cursing in indignation. “You pervert. You enjoy watching men naked?”

The Demon God ignored Pěng Huá’s tirade. He waved one arm through the void, and a sharp white bone spike materialized between his fingertips. He glanced sideways at Pěng Huá, slowly raised the bone spike, and deliberately thrust it into the thigh of the true visage image, piercing right through it.

Pěng Huá suddenly let out a shrill, ghostly shriek. A mass of black vapor erupted from him, and a puppet figure, about a foot long and constructed from human skeletons, manifested upon him. Crack. A transparent hole suddenly appeared on the thigh of the puppet. Pěng Huá laughed triumphantly. “You fool! This malicious puppet technique—your great ancestor Pěng Huá has vast knowledge! Five hundred years ago, I prepared a natal primordial spirit substitute puppet. Go ahead with your vicious evil magic; you’ll never trap your ancestor!”

The Demon God, who was preparing to insert the second spike, stared blankly at Pěng Huá, then let out a strange, eerie cackle!

Pěng Huá had just finished a few curses when his face instantly turned deathly pale! In this ‘vicious, heretical formation,’ he had inadvertently spoken his own name!

But it was too late for any defensive measures. The Demon God swept all six arms simultaneously. Six towering banners, tens of feet high, made entirely of jet-black human skulls, human ribs, human leg bones, human tendons, human skin, and human hair, suddenly appeared in the Demon God’s hands. The six long banners swept and swayed across the void, and the Demon God’s three great mouths simultaneously spat out sharp shrieks. He incessantly called out Pěng Huá’s name; his voice shattered the surrounding void, throwing the pitch-black space into chaos!

An invisible malevolent force descended from above. Pěng Huá screamed, “Damn it!” and a wisp of his soul was violently dragged from his physical body, pulled into the boundless black mist.

Ten beams of black light flashed in the void. Pěng Huá’s spirit rushed headlong into one of them.

The Demon God roared fiercely, “The Ten Directions Hell God-Trapping Formation! Cold Ice Hell, Immortal Gods Scatter!”

A blinding shard of ice-light pierced through the void. In the blink of an eye, this ice-light spread rapidly outward. In moments, an icy world spanning a hundred li appeared in the pitch-black void. A thread of azure cold air, as thick as a thumb, shot out from nothingness, continually injecting into this icy world, sustaining its expansion in all directions.

A Pěng Huá, only the size of a sesame seed, appeared within this profound ice world. Countless freezing winds and ice shards, like steel blades, rushed towards the naked Pěng Huá, tossing him about wildly. The faint black smoke enveloping him was continuously chipped away, and the crimson ghost-fire in his eyes gradually dimmed.

Pěng Huá let out a heart-wrenching shriek. “Junior Brother, save me quickly! What kind of hellish place is this?”

The Demon God roared triumphantly. “This is the projection of the Cold Ice Hell, the First Hell among the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, projected into the lower realm! Heh heh heh, as a cultivator from the lower realm, you are lucky to die amidst the boundless, bitter cold ice knives of the Cold Ice Hell! Hahaha! Remember, I, Liè Dùn, the Eighteenth Dharma Emissary under Venerable Xuánmíng of the Cold Ice Hell, am the one who killed you!”

Before the words faded, a beam of red light suddenly erupted from Hánshù’s body, which was rigidly bound by black runes. Her voice, full of frantic rage, boomed out: “I thought you were someone of consequence. A mere lackey from the weakest First Hell of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths! A foolish little Celestial Immortal! You dare provoke this grandma with only a projection in the lower realm?”

A dazzling red light pierced out from Hánshù’s brow. Hánshù’s sharp, grating roar made even the Demon God Liè Dùn frown. One could hear Hánshù screaming crazily: “Release this grandma obediently, and then have your master—that so-called Venerable Xuánmíng—come here and kowtow an apology to me! Otherwise, once I recover my full strength, I will personally go to the Cold Ice Hell and exterminate your entire lineage!”

Accompanying this manic yelling were Hánshù’s unbearable curses and insults, encompassing all the national abuses collected throughout the history of the Earth Federation—every word struck to the heart. Liè Dùn’s eye corners twitched violently, and his body trembled with rage!

“Silence!” Liè Dùn roared. He sneered: “Originally, given your fine flesh and excellent cultivation, I intended to take you as my cultivation vessel. But you are so uncooperative! Heh heh.”

The six-sided great banners waved again. Hánshù’s true spirit shrieked as it was violently extracted from her body and flung by Liè Dùn into the Cold Ice Hell, which had already expanded to an area of two hundred li. Liè Dùn snarled, “Then die together with that boy! Without a primordial spirit and true spirit, I can do whatever I wish with your body! Heh heh. In a couple of days, I’ll find the soul of a peerless beauty and forcibly seal it into your flesh. This way, I’ll still have a vibrant, fragrant, and obedient cultivation vessel!”

Hán Kuí was furious and cursed wildly. Her true spirit struggled fiercely but could not escape the control of the six banners. Helplessly, the true spirit was cast into the projection of the Cold Ice Hell.

Hánshù shrieked sharply, “Good, good, good. The Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner! Someone actually forged such a low-grade heretical immortal artifact? Very good! Grandma now knows your origins!”

Liè Dùn’s expression turned cold as well. He roared, “So what if you know our origins? Can you bite off a piece of this lord? You foul woman, since you’re so arrogant, I’ll show you what happens now!”

Liè Dùn stepped outside the bounds of the Three Realms, beyond the Five Elements, into the Domain of the Ten Earths of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. The Nine Heavens and Ten Earths were two distinct systems. The Nine Heavens were inhabited by immortal masters who transcended the Three Realms and Five Elements, adhering to quietude and non-action—like the ancient immortal Lord Tàiyīn Zhēnjūn, who appeared at the beginning of the Primordial Chaos, whose immortal cave dwellings were opened within the Nine Heavens. The Ten Earths, however, housed all the formidable demonic grandmasters who defied the Heavenly Court’s indoctrination. Besides the demonic leaders existing since the creation of heaven and earth, most of the devils, demons, and ghosts who dared to cause trouble in the Three Realms were exiled by the Heavenly Court to the Ten Earths.

Therefore, the renowned figures in the Nine Heavens were absolute giants of the immortal path, like Lord Tàiyīn Zhēnjūn, whom no one dared provoke.

Among the Ten Earths, those who established their names, claimed territory, and recruited forces included demonic leaders equal to Lord Tàiyīn Zhēnjūn, as well as numerous other demons and monsters. Even those with the weakest cultivation, perhaps only at the Celestial Immortal level, could establish a foothold in the Ten Earths. In essence, demonic cultivators favored chaotic order; the messier the Ten Earths became, the more comfortable they felt!

Consequently, Liè Dùn’s true body possessed only Celestial Immortal cultivation, and this three-headed, six-armed Demon God projection cast into the lower realm was only at the peak of the Void Realm. However, his tyrannical temperament inherited the consistent tradition of all the fiends in the Ten Earths; there was nothing he dared not do!

Several wisps of black light flickered and enveloped Pěng Huá and Hánshù within the Cold Ice Hell, keeping their primordial spirits staring blankly in Liè Dùn’s direction. Then, Liè Dùn stretched out a large hand and grabbed Hánshù’s physical body, eagerly moving to strip off her clothes. What made Hánshù shriek in alarm was that Liè Dùn’s hundred-zhang-tall body was rapidly shrinking, about to become the size of a normal person. Moreover, two of his six arms were frantically undoing a piece of black cloth wrapped around his own waist.

At this point, even a pig would know what Liè Dùn intended.

Hán Kuí sprang up in a rage. She pointed at Liè Dùn and roared, “I will annihilate your eighteenth generation of ancestors! Every single demon, great or small, in the Cold Ice Hell—I won’t spare a single one!”

Liè Dùn, while frantically tearing at Hánshù’s clothes, called back dismissively, “Have some proportion when you boast! You think you can wipe out all the Demon Gods in the Cold Ice Hell? Who do you think you are? A Primeval Star Lord from the Ancient Heavenly Court? Hey, even a Primeval Star Lord would need to be a freak like the legendary Hán Kuí, the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady, the Southern Dipper, or the Northern Dipper to dare say such a thing. Who do you think you are?”

Hán Kuí almost spat blood from sheer fury, even in her true spirit form. If her re-condensed physical body were defiled by a mere nobody like Liè Dùn, she might as well have committed suicide by slitting her own throat and letting her soul dissipate—it would be better than being ridiculed for eons after infinite kalpas!

Furious yet utterly terrified, Hán Kuí bit down hard on Pěng Huá’s primordial spirit, roaring, “Think of a way for me! Don’t let that guy’s filthy hands touch this grandma! If you manage this, this grandma will reluctantly marry you!”

Pěng Huá’s eyes instantly turned red. He stared furiously at the clumsy Liè Dùn, who was laboriously trying to undo the complex robes on Hánshù’s body, and suddenly screamed to the heavens, “Junior Brother Xié Chén! Save us quickly! For the sake of your sister-in-law, come quickly!”

Liè Dùn burst into wild laughter. He had managed to slip off the outer skirt of Hánshù’s body. Looking gleefully at Pěng Huá, he laughed out loud, “Shout! Go ahead and shout until your throat breaks! No one is coming to save you, hahahaha!”

The moment his words fell, the entire Ten Directions Hell God-Trapping Formation suddenly trembled. Eighty-one consecutive bursts of grayish-white Tàiyīn Divine Lightning, heavily saturated with innate Tàiyīn energy, exploded across the formation.

Gǔ Xié Chén, holding the True Magnetic Two Forms Light-Splitting Sword in his left hand and the Five Waters Dragon Whisker Fan tightly in his right, with three Tàiyīn Spikes above his head emitting brilliant, vast light, and a circle of cyan light—transformed from the Green Lotus Ring—releasing a despair-inducing spatial pressure around him. He looked at the God-Trapping Formation, which now bore a massive hole blasted open by the Tàiyīn Divine Lightning he had manufactured by depleting his own vital essence, and roared fiercely, “Whoever you are, release Pěng Huá and Hán Wēi, or else—in the Three Realms and Five Elements, the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths—no one will be able to protect you!”

After these three pronouncements, Gǔ Xié Chén casually took out a remote detonator and pressed the button.

A blinding flash of light shot up from the distant edge of the continent. A three-hundred-million-ton nuclear warhead was remotely detonated. The shockwave from the explosion stirred up a tsunami thousands of meters high, which slammed against the air with supersonic force, sweeping madly toward the interior of the continent. The air ahead of the tsunami crest was compressed by the supersonic wave, turning white, and accompanied by a deafening roar of breaking air, it shattered all structures and life forms within hundreds of meters, rapidly pressing toward the continent like the arc of death wielded by the Grim Reaper.

On the White Winged Battleship, Goloman, who had already coughed up blood three times and felt his marrow nearly drained, roared in terror: “What is that? These bastards, they did—”

The blinding flash shot straight into the high sky. A gigantic mushroom cloud erupted from the deep sea at the edge of Wò’ěrsūòmǔ Star’s largest continent. The continental and oceanic plates shifted slightly relative to each other by about ten centimeters, triggering a magnitude 10 earthquake.

Gǔ Xié Chén, his long hair flying and the blood-light flashing in his eyes, roared hoarsely, “Release my people! Or else—”

He pressed another button.

In a dense forest on the outskirts of Tà’ěr Suǒ Mǔ City, the one-billion-ton thermonuclear warhead detonated.

The explosive force instantly annihilated all surface structures of Wò’ěrsūòmǔ City. The several million Polar Star Empire citizens within vaporized into streams of smoke under the intense heat and brilliant light. Facing this sudden attack at close range, the active defense system of Wò’ěrsūòmǔ City failed to react at all. None of the three powerful energy shields, capable of protecting the entire city, were activated.

Of course, this was not the fault of the engineers who built Wò’ěrsūòmǔ City’s active defense system. It was because Dūkǎtè was rapidly flying toward this location. He and Xiǎo Xiāo had simultaneously dealt a severe blow to the city’s defense systems; the supercomputer controlling the three powerful energy shields was being so thoroughly interfered with that its core computation module could practically fry an egg—it had no capacity for a timely reaction!

Goloman screamed in despair, “These lunatics! I will file a lawsuit against Mùshā Duō’ěrtèluó before the Emperor! Even if Duō’ěrtuō is the oldest noble family in the Empire, he is finished! He is absolutely finished! Slaughtering his own citizens—he is finished!”

Yǎnwǔ Asura’s face also showed unconcealed panic and despair, for after Gǔ Xié Chén issued three further warnings that went unheeded, a terrifying golden light, so intense it was impossible to look at, shot out from his shoulder. Within the circular golden light, several li in diameter, a majestic Three-Legged Golden Crow beat its wings, frantically striking down countless balls of intensely high-temperature flames resembling molten glass.

This was the full-power strike equivalent to that of a Celestial Immortal Realm Clear Bright Child, which was a third-rank Celestial Immortal master!

The Ten Directions Hell God-Trapping Formation, which Liè Dùn’s projection had established by borrowing a sliver of the source power of the Ten Directions Hell through the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner, instantly shattered.

Liè Dùn’s projection, gaping in shock, was exposed to the sunlight. The countless bone demons around him were pulverized and evaporated into smoke under the scorching flames.

Gǔ Xié Chén descended gracefully on a white cloud beside Liè Dùn. After baring his teeth, he decapitated Liè Dùn with a single sword stroke.

Liè Dùn’s head flew high, and torrents of black mist poured out from his neck.

His head shrieked, “I will return! You are all finished!”

Gǔ Xié Chén sneered. He formed a strange hand seal, silently reciting an evil incantation secretly transmitted in the Great Desolation Scripture, and violently plunged both hands into Liè Dùn’s heart.

A mysterious restriction instantly tore through the void along the mystical connection between Liè Dùn’s projection and his main body, transmitting itself to some distant, mysterious location.

A muffled groan seemed to come from the distant horizon, exploding into Gǔ Xié Chén’s ears.

Gǔ Xié Chén grinned sinisterly. He swung the True Magnetic Two Forms Light-Splitting Sword and hacked Liè Dùn’s body into pieces. This time, faint traces of blood actually seeped out from Liè Dùn’s fragments, indicating that his main body, located somewhere unknown, had been injured by Gǔ Xié Chén due to the projection’s plight.

The golden light faded across the sky. The Fire Crow returned to its usual dull, bird-like demeanor, standing foolishly on Gǔ Xié Chén’s shoulder. If one didn't deliberately part Gǔ Xié Chén’s hair to look, no one would know that a monster with the strength of a third-rank Celestial Immortal was hidden on his person!

With a cold snort, Gǔ Xié Chén grabbed the true spirits of Pěng Huá and Hán Wēi with one hand and poured them back into his own body.

Then, his demonic, crimson eyes glared fiercely toward the white cloud where Yǎnwǔ Asura and Goloman were hiding in the distance.

Yǎnwǔ Asura was scared out of her wits. She shrieked, “Flee! Run!”

But a stream of Kui Water Yin Thunder silently traversed the void and slammed heavily onto the battleship.