The entire populace of the Yafik Imperial Capital heard that colossal sound. Despite the protective barrier of the Ten Absolute Formations, every citizen of Yafik swore they heard a mighty crash followed by a dragon's roar, one that shook the heavens and cracked the earth, just as Gu Xiechen slammed a golden brick against Dorn’s occiput from behind.

The golden brick remained flawless and dazzling, not showing a single mark; Dorn’s skull, however, now bore a perfectly circular indentation two inches deep where the brick connected. Brain matter, dark blood, and other unknown fluids spurted out from the fissure between the brick and his head, hissing as they splattered the ground. Dorn’s eyes rolled back, his lips curled up, exposing a mouthful of pearly white teeth. As Gu Xiechen’s palm moved slightly and he withdrew the golden brick, Dorn’s teeth wobbled and then clattered onto the ground.

Fuya, Ming gasped in shock, then burst into sudden elation. She shot Gu Xiechen a brilliant smile and shook her head, saying, "Hitting someone on the back with a brick, that's quite a nasty thing to do!"

Dorn looked blankly at Fuya, then Ming, before whipping around in a grand vortex to glare furiously at Gu Wuchen. He roared hoarsely, "Who are you?"

With a chhh-li sound, a beam of golden light shot out from Dorn's sternum, leaving behind a thumb-thick, transparent hole in his body. His form, like a porcelain plate pierced by a projectile, began to crack centering on that hole, with small pieces of shredded flesh constantly flaking off. A stream of heat jetted from the wound; Dorn felt his strength slowly draining away, a chilling sensation washing over him, and an indescribable agony made him tremble, causing large tears to stream down his face due to instinctual nerve response.

He turned his bewildered head once more to look at Fuya, Ming, just in time to see a golden light spiraling back toward Fuya, Ming’s palm. It was a golden spike, seven and a half inches long, as thick as a finger, entirely carved with flowing cloud patterns, and faintly shimmering with countless runes. It was this bizarrely shaped, brilliantly blazing spike that had just pierced Dorn’s hardened body.

Dorn opened his mouth, wanting to say something—why would Fuya, Ming use a hidden weapon to ambush him from behind? As the Empress of a nation, wasn't such an act utterly despicable?

Perhaps the simultaneous strikes to his head and heart had muddled Dorn’s senses; he actually stood there in a daze on this deadly battlefield. Gu Xiechen would never pass up such an opportunity. He smiled towards Fuya, Ming, who held the Heart-Piercing Nail, then, bringing up his hand, summoned a treasure pearl the size of a fist, colored in solid blackish-green stone, and smashed it down onto Dorn's head with a sound like a collapsing mountain.

The Pian Ru Pearl, an artifact from the Ancient Investiture of Gods, struck with the force of thunder, shattering Dorn’s skull. Half his head bloomed like scattered peach blossoms, brain matter and blood flying everywhere.

Dorn let out a shrill, agonizing howl, his massive body shaking violently. A flicker of phantom movement around his neck revealed two long necks instantly extending, and his damaged head morphed into two huge dragon heads. Dense blue scales erupted from within his body, and two fleshy wings unfurled from his back. His form swelled monstrously, and in the blink of an eye, a dual-headed dragon, nearly a thousand meters long, stood proudly before Gu Xiechen. Though both heads were damaged to some degree, the injuries were negligible compared to his immense size.

Looking down upon Gu Xiechen from above, Dorn let out a low roar. He bellowed that he was immortal and unafraid of the insignificant attacks from Gu Xiechen and Fuya, Ming.

Immortal? Gu Wuchen threw back his head and laughed loudly. He immediately commanded the Ten Heavenly Sovereigns to open the array formations, drawing himself, all his people, and the thirty-odd giant beasts currently ravaging the Yafik Imperial Palace into the Ten Absolute Formations. Red waters surged all around; Gu Xiechen and his group were swept into the Red Water Formation by the Ten Absolute Formations. The envoys from the Viking Empire, such as Duoduomulouo, let out merely a cry before being engulfed by the vast, endless red poisonous waters within the formation, dissolving into putrid blood in an instant.

Hovering above the boundless red water, Gu Xiechen stared coldly at Dorn, shaking his head mockingly. Immortal? To say such a thing after his heart was pierced by the Heart-Piercing Nail had a certain logic to it. However, this fellow was still worlds away from true immortality! He turned back and spoke gently to Fuya, Ming, giving a few instructions. Then, Gu Xiechen enthusiastically rolled up his sleeves, grabbed the golden brick used for the surprise attack, flicked his wrist, and transformed it into a large golden slab, perhaps ten feet long and over three feet wide, and cheerfully charged toward Dorn. Dorn took several deep breaths; the wound near his heart was healing at an astonishing speed. If the soul and body of the Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin weren't so tightly fused, if his soul merely ‘resided’ in the flesh like ordinary creatures, the previous blow would have annihilated his physical form and forced his soul to flee. But the descendants of the Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin were different: no matter how severe the physical injury, as long as the soul remained intact, they could gather energy to repair the body! How could it be so easy to kill a truly pure-blooded descendant of the Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin?

Looking down at Gu Xiechen charging at him, swinging the massive golden slab, Dorn let out a cold, mocking sneer. Once he reverted to his true form, his combat power was at least five times greater than in his human shape, and his defense and vitality had increased a hundredfold. How could this frail, little human possibly defeat him?

Opening his massive mouth, Dorn spat two viscous, greenish-yellow liquid spheres at Gu Xiechen. The spheres ignited fiercely merely by moving through the air, and a foul stench washed over him with the flames. The odor was exactly like the accumulated decay of thousands of years from rotting corpses in a deep mountain grave—stinking to the heavens and carrying a chilling aura of the grave. Gu Wuchen roared with laughter. A black light shot up from above his head, and a torrent of Pure Yang energy, accompanied by billowing flames, surged out, burning away the chill and the stench. He casually flicked his sleeve, batting away the two burning spheres, and raised the golden slab to smash down upon one of Dorn’s heads. Gu Xiechen moved like the wind; before the two repelled spheres could even be swallowed by the surrounding boundless red water, the golden slab struck Dorn’s head with a piercing whistle.

With a dull patta sound, one of Dorn’s dragon heads, large as a truck, was smashed into pieces, bone and flesh scattering everywhere. A long section of his neck shattered, and a white, fifteen-meter-long section of spine flew off, spinning as it went. It traveled only a hundred meters before being instantly swallowed by the red water.

Wang Tianjun, the master of the Red Water Formation, suddenly materialized from a red wave, raising his sword and laughing uproariously, "My honored one, send more flesh and blood! This fiend's flesh and bone can greatly enhance the power of my Red Water Formation!"

Dorn’s flesh and blood had such a marvelous effect? Gu Wuchen laughed a few times, then spun around, grabbing the golden slab again, and brought it down on Dorn’s other head, which was spraying tears from the pain.

Before the golden slab could connect with Dorn’s head, a crescent-shaped green light flashed and vanished. Dorn’s last remaining large head was sliced off with a chrr-la, soaring into the sky. A column of blood as thick as a water vat erupted from his elongated neck, propelling the severed head hundreds of meters high. Piercing, desperate howls issued from Dorn’s great mouth as he stared at his massive, now decapitated body, unable to comprehend why his defeat had come so quickly.

It happened in a flash: Fuya, Ming, who had just attacked Dorn with her Wu Gou Sword, pointed a finger. A cluster of five-colored strange light flickered at her fingertip, suddenly bursting into thousands upon thousands of five-colored stones the size of fists, shooting out into the air. They streaked like meteors, crashed like thunder, and swarmed Dorn’s body. A rapid barrage of thunderous noise followed as the five-colored stones battered Dorn’s enormous body until it disintegrated into chaos, dissolving into a mess of gore swallowed by the Red Water Formation in the blink of an eye.

Wang Tianjun let out a few cheerful laughs, bowed deeply toward Fuya, Ming from afar, shouted, "Thank you, Mistress!" and then plunged back into the vast, surging waters.

The light inside the formation flickered, and a monstrous nine-headed dragon, ten thousand meters long, with two claws beneath its belly, a huge paunch, a short tail, and covered in black scales, appeared out of thin air. The creature was covered in gruesome wounds meters deep, exposing bone, from which thick cold air constantly poured. It was clear the beast had just endured the ordeal of the Ice Formation, having been tormented by the mountain-sized forests of blades formed by the icebergs within.

Suddenly realizing the environment had changed to surging red water, the nine-headed dragon roared angrily toward the sky. A light flowed across its body as the wounds inflicted by the Ice Formation’s blade walls healed rapidly. Large chunks of ice slag were forced out, falling into the red water as snow and ice. The nine-headed dragon glared at Gu Wuchen and Fuya, Ming, who wore faint smiles, and all nine mouths roared continuously, as if maddened, without even announcing its name, lunging to devour Gu Xiechen.

Before the dragon’s heads were even a thousand meters from Gu Wuchen's body, nine noxious black liquids sprayed from their mouths. Upon contact with the air, these liquids transformed—some into black wind, some into black sand, some into black fire, others into black lightning; there were also hailstones, toxic gas, black mist, and endless varieties of attacks.

However, every attack carried a putrid stench, reminiscent of the foul corpse odor emitted by the green liquid Dorn had sprayed earlier. It was unclear what these Kin had been consuming to fill their stomachs with such noxious contents.

Fuya, Ming recoiled a few steps in disgust, clutching the Heart-Piercing Nail and the Five-Colored Stones in one hand, and the Wu Gou Sword in the other. She smiled and beckoned Gu Xiechen forward to fight the monstrous beast.

Gu Xiechen made a strange sound, sighing toward the sky. He put away the golden slab, rolled up his sleeves, and eagerly lunged toward the nine-headed dragon, swinging his fists. A black wind descended upon him; he shattered it with one punch. The surging punch force unleashed black and yellow lightning bolts that scattered everywhere, instantly neutralizing the noxious black wind. Black sand rushed towards him; another punch pulverized the black sand. Black fire erupted from below; Gu Xiechen stood firm, allowing the black fire to scorch him, his body faintly glowing with golden light—not a single hair was singed. The black lightning, hailstones, toxic gas, and black mist simply swirled and twisted around Gu Xiechen’s body, utterly incapable of harming him in the slightest.

After forty-nine years of arduous cultivation, enduring daily torment from Yang Jie and that Monkey, Gu Wuchen’s Profound Yellow Indestructible Body divine ability had been honed to a point where Immortals below the Fifth Grade of Golden Immortal could do nothing to him. Even Golden Immortals of the Fifth Grade could not harm a single hair on his head without wielding ancient exotic treasures or high-grade immortal artifacts. Although this nine-headed dragon was fierce and terrifying, the destructive power of the poison it spat was comparable only to that of an early-stage Golden Immortal. How could Gu Xiechen take such a creature seriously?

In the blink of an eye, he delivered thousands of punches, smashing all the attacks from the stunned nine-headed dragon into dust. Gu Xiechen rushed to the dragon’s side and abruptly seized its tail with both hands. With a slight grunt, no muscle seemed to bulge on his arms, yet an immense, monstrous strength surged forth. He hoisted the dragon’s body, swinging it around the air like a windmill, whipping the hundred-meter-long beast. The nine-headed dragon let out continuous cries of terror; this brute force was so tremendous that it had absolutely no room to resist.

A piercing cold light suddenly erupted from within the Red Water Formation. Wang Tianjun manipulated the formation, drawing forth a stream of ten-thousand-year-old chilling energy from the Ice Formation, freezing a hundred-mile radius of red water into a block of ice as hard as tempered steel. He laughed at Gu Xiechen, who was whirling the dragon about, praising Wang Tianjun for truly understanding his intent. Gu Xiechen gave a powerful shake of his hands and hurled the nine-headed dragon straight toward the ice block. With a muffled thud, the ice block, hundreds of times harder than Vajra and over ten miles thick across its hundred-mile surface, shattered. Along with it shattered eight of the dragon’s great heads and more than half of its body. The sheer force of Gu Xiechen’s swing was too much for the dragon to withstand such abuse.

A piercing dragon shriek came from the dragon’s single remaining head. The beast trembled with pain, shedding large tears, yet it remained stubbornly defiant, roaring upward, "You are doomed! All of you will die today! How dare you harm the pure bloodline of the great Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin—you are finished! Roar!"

The dragon turned its head to glare at Fuya, Ming, roaring, "Woman, if you dare refuse the decree of the Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin, your fate will be utterly miserable! You will become the matriarch for our descendants; you will—"

Fuya, Ming snorted, and an imposing, inviolable aura of killing intent erupted. Countless crescent-shaped green lights swirled violently around the dragon’s massive body, chopping it into countless shreds that fell into the red water.

Gu Xiechen shrugged, about to say something to soothe the angered Fuya, Ming, when the Ten Absolute Formations began to shake violently. Gu Xiechen couldn't help himself and quickly demanded an explanation. A patch of red water, several miles wide, rose from the Red Water Formation, transforming into a smooth, mirror-like wave floating ahead, projecting the scene inside the Golden Light Formation of the Ten Absolute Formations.

Inside the Golden Light Formation, Mother of Golden Light held the Golden Light Shuttle, constantly emitting streams of lightning to vibrate the twenty-one treasure mirrors within the array, sending countless golden lights dancing and attacking the giant beasts trapped inside. Streaks of golden light spun in the air, enveloping the trapped beasts, but these few beasts had formed a bizarre arrangement, constantly spewing massive amounts of black energy from their small formation, stubbornly blocking the flying golden light, preventing it from approaching their bodies. There were six three-headed, four-winged flying dragons, nearly identical in appearance; even the number and shape of the horns on their dragon heads were the same. Save for a slight difference in the color of the few diamond-shaped reverse scales on their chests, Gu Xiechen might have mistaken them for six avatars of a single flying dragon. The six creatures, each ten thousand meters long, stood tail-to-tail, their wings raised high to shield their tops. Their wings and contorted bodies formed a huge, complex demonic rune, from the center of which black energy continuously poured out.

The golden light vibrating from the treasure mirrors held by the Mother of Golden Light spun everywhere, slicing the black light into fragments, yet it could never approach the bodies of the flying dragons.

On the contrary, these six dragons were constantly gathering their strength, gradually concentrating it within the body of the dragon whose chest scale was a purplish-black hue. After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, this dragon suddenly opened its central head and roared, spewing a bolt of black lightning that covered several miles, hurtling toward the Mother of Golden Light. The Mother of Golden Light dared not be careless; she hastily vibrated all her mirrors simultaneously, unleashing countless beams of golden light to form a protective barrier against the lightning bolt.

With a great crash, even the hazy golden mist in the Golden Light Formation dimmed slightly. The expanse of golden light was blasted into shatters, and the Mother of Golden Light jolted violently, causing the Golden Light Formation to destabilize momentarily. This disturbance consequently affected the other nine formations of the Ten Absolute Formations, making the entire interconnected array tremble involuntarily. The Mother of Golden Light’s face turned pale; after panting heavily for several breaths to recover her energy, she was able to resume vibrating the mirrors to attack the enemy with golden light.

The Heavenly Sovereigns in the other formations sensed the trouble facing the Mother of Golden Light. In an instant, with Gu Xiechen's divine sense as the core, the divine senses of the Ten Heavenly Sovereigns became tightly linked. After a brief discussion, everyone gained a clear understanding of the strength of these six flying dragons and the difficulty the Golden Light Formation was experiencing.

These six flying dragons were the strongest among the invading Demon-Transcending Dragon Kin, each possessing power equivalent to a Second Grade Golden Immortal. If that were all, the Golden Light Formation could still contain them. However, these dragons employed the strange combined attack technique they were currently using. The demonic pattern they formed secretly aligned with the Heavenly Dao, continuously drawing energy from the outside world to form protective black energy barriers, and moreover, constantly injecting this energy into the dragons, evolving it into black lightning that converged for a unified attack.

The lightning bolt unleashed by one combined attack was equivalent to the full strike of a Sixth Grade Golden Immortal. If the other formations in the Ten Absolute Array had not shared the pressure on the Mother of Golden Light, and if the Golden Light Shuttle, a congenital supreme treasure, was not currently anchoring the core of the Golden Light Formation, the Mother of Golden Light would have already been defeated by that terrifying attack, and the formation would have collapsed long ago.

Seeing a worthy challenge, Gu Xiechen burst out laughing and hurriedly asked Wang Tianjun to transport him into the Golden Light Formation. As for Fuya, Ming, the Red Sand Formation was also facing some trouble—three giant beasts had formed a combined attack pattern against the formation’s assault. Gu Xiechen asked her to quickly go there to assist Zhang Tianjun in eliminating those beasts and then come to support him.

Knowing that Gu Xiechen wanted to test his current capabilities against these six flying dragons, Fuya, Ming gave him a reminder and was swept away by a torrent of red water into the Red Sand Formation. The next instant, red waves surged around Gu Xiechen, and his vision was suddenly pierced by dazzling golden light as he arrived within the Golden Light Formation. Just then, a bolt of black lightning was spewing from the dragons' mouths, heading directly for the Mother of Golden Light. Gu Xiechen laughed heartily, deployed the Mirror Flower Water Moon Taiyin Escape Technique, and several afterimages flashed, easily catching up to the lightning bolt. He swung his hand sideways and slammed a punch down onto the lightning.