Goddess Lakshmi laughed boisterously amidst the seven-colored rainbow light, pulling Poritivi with her left hand while grasping a slightly damaged Lingzhi immortal herb with her right.

Having captured Poritivi, Goddess Lakshmi had already incurred the wrath of the great chieftains of the Dharma Protector Heavens. Having lost face, she could only risk entering the Spiral Nebula during Gu Xichen's Grand Assembly of Ten Thousand Immortals to rescue Poritivi.

Unfortunately, her injuries had not yet healed. With the Grand Array of the Spiral Nebula operating at full power, coupled with the pursuit of the Sun Primordial Spirit and Fuya? Ming, Goddess Lakshmi was chased to the point of utter disarray, narrowly escaping disaster several times under the immense power of the Sun Primordial Spirit's Solar Profound Pearl.

Especially in the recent decade, the Sun Primordial Spirit's cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds, as if having taken a powerful medicine. Initially, Goddess Lakshmi could easily contend with the Sun Primordial Spirit for days, but eventually, a single casual strike from the Sun Primordial Spirit could severely wound her, causing her to vomit blood. Sensing great peril, Goddess Lakshmi hurriedly dragged Poritivi and fled in disarray. However, the Heavenly Star Array sealed all space, and with her severely injured body, how could she possibly break through the confinement to escape?

It was also her good fortune that several months prior, while fleeing the Sun Primordial Spirit's pursuit, she had returned to the Imperial Capital of Yafike. In her panic and unfamiliarity with the paths, Goddess Lakshmi plunged directly into the core of the Nine Nether Dao sect in the Yafike Imperial Capital, bursting into a secret cultivation ground prepared by Fuya? Ming for his important confidant disciples.

The Undying Lingzhi Herb that Gu Xichen had obtained from the Huashan Mountain Range on Planet Vol immediately caught Goddess Lakshmi's eye. With her innate divine abilities, she easily broke through countless layers of restrictions to seize the herb, consuming one petal, and her injuries quickly healed.

This also cured Poritivi's injuries. With her divine powers fully restored, not even the restrictions placed by the Saints of yesteryear could hold her, let alone the current Star Array? Just as Gu Xichen rushed back to the Spiral Nebula, she lightly nudged open the restrictions and escaped to safety. As she was laughing triumphantly, Gu Xichen had already fixed his gaze upon Goddess Lakshmi.

With a cold snort, Gu Xichen reached out from a distance. A brand new power, just condensed from the Yin and Yang energies within his body, erupted forth. Without any brilliance or sound, the void around Goddess Lakshmi abruptly shattered, and a power so immense it caused her beautiful face to change drastically materialized out of thin air.

With just the force of that single grasp, Poritivi was the first to succumb to this terrifying power. She let out a tragic scream as the bones within her body burst, her muscles instantly mashed into a paste, and numerous talismans materialized out of nowhere, embedding themselves deeply into her dark skin.

Poritivi’s body crackled as if being burned, the talismans seeming like solidified flames, scorching her skin until it was charred and foul-smelling, penetrating fully three inches deep into her flesh. The talismans, shimmering with a strange spiritual light, instantly sealed off all of Poritivi's magic power, leaving her unable to move even a little finger.

Goddess Lakshmi was greatly alarmed and reached out for Poritivi. However, the moment her fingers touched Poritivi’s body, a terrifying heat erupted, instantly setting her delicate fingers ablaze. The burning rapidly spread from the tip of her right finger up to her elbow. The viscous, black flames, like molten iron, adhered to her arm and burned silently. In the blink of an eye, the skin of her arm dissolved into a wisp of smoke.

Goddess Lakshmi shrieked in terror, hastily withdrawing from Poritivi, and immediately transformed into a streak of rainbow light, fleeing away.

Unleashing her innate divine abilities to the fullest, Goddess Lakshmi instantaneously traversed ten star domains, revealing herself behind a desolate and uninhabited nebula.

Gu Xichen extended his divine sense, instantly sweeping across the entire Mortal Realm, simultaneously covering eight parts of the Nine Heavens and Nine Hells. Even the Thirty-Three Heavens above the Mortal Realm and the Yellow Springs Nine Nethers hidden beneath the earth were covered by sixty to seventy percent of his divine sense.

Within the range covered by his divine sense, the moment Goddess Lakshmi’s body appeared with a rainbow streak, Gu Xichen smiled faintly and casually reached out another grasp.

The nebula stretching for thousands of light-years around Goddess Lakshmi violently shattered, countless stars exploding like massive strings of colored bulbs bursting simultaneously. The chaotic impact from the stellar explosions swept everywhere, countless shockwaves colliding in the void, splashing dazzling rainbow light. The void was filled with rolling, destructive energy. Standing motionless in the void, Goddess Lakshmi stared at the suddenly erupting nebula in disbelief.

She had only just fled here; how could the enemy have tracked her down already? This must be a coincidence, she thought, perhaps this region of space was inherently harboring a great crisis, causing this inexplicable massive eruption.

But just as Goddess Lakshmi was busy consoling and persuading herself, the void surrounding her body shattered once more. Countless ghastly white ice energies roared forth, transforming into giant dragons that rushed toward her. These dragons, some stretching tens of thousands of miles long, opened their mouths and frantically sucked inward. The immense gravitational pull caused Goddess Lakshmi’s graceful figure to suddenly tilt, nearly being swallowed whole by one of the dragons.

With a startled cry, Goddess Lakshmi flickered away, activating her innate divine abilities. The combined pull of the countless dragons could not restrain her; she easily slipped away, fleeing to a tiny, picturesque planet in the distance in the blink of an eye.

The location of this planet was extremely remote; the distance from where Goddess Lakshmi was previously was more than ten times further than the distance she had fled in her first instantaneous shift. The panicked Goddess Lakshmi appeared beside a small stream. She cautiously surveyed her surroundings, then let out a long breath, gently patting her high chest. "I shouldn't be discovered here. Unless it’s a Saint, otherwise, with my innate divine abilities, he couldn't possibly discern my escape trajectory and current location."

Goddess Lakshmi was very confident in her innate divine abilities. Even the divine power of the two Buddhist Saints of the past could not fully trap her; they were forced to reveal their true forms and utilize the power of Origin Laws to seal her.

Aside from the Saints, no other Immortal or Buddha could track Goddess Lakshmi’s movements. She arrived without a shadow and departed without a trace; wherever her thoughts went, her true body followed. Even the Saints couldn't grasp the method of Goddess Lakshmi’s escape; they could only find her because their divine senses spanned the entirety of the cosmos.

Recalling the advantage of her innate abilities, Goddess Lakshmi laughed again. She gently rubbed her soft and proud chest, speaking to herself with a touch of vanity, "There are no Saints in this world anymore; what do I have to fear?"

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the crystal-clear water of the small stream beside Goddess Lakshmi began to churn violently. The water level rose slowly, and soon, a completely transparent water figure rose from the stream. Although it was a water figure, its surface was encrusted with a foot-thick layer of Golden Bird Celestial Fire.

The water figure looked at the dumbfounded Goddess Lakshmi with a chuckle, murmuring softly, "Akshmi, why are you rubbing your chest? Has your husband perhaps refused your intimacies? Well, I have a few brothers here who wouldn't mind taking his place for you!"

Goddess Lakshmi shrieked as if she had seen a ghost, flickering away instantly. The next moment, she had fled beyond the reaches of the star system once controlled by the Star Alliance, arriving at an area so desolate that for millions of light-years in every direction, there wasn't even a speck of stardust.

Panting heavily, Goddess Lakshmi gazed around in terror and roared, "I refuse to believe you can chase me here!"

Just as she finished speaking, a faint, thin white vapor rose silently in the void, forming a hazy, indistinct human shape. It casually threw a punch directly at Goddess Lakshmi, who was extremely close. Terrified to the core, Goddess Lakshmi cried out, but before she could even use her divine powers to flee, the heavy fist tore through the void and slammed violently into her lower abdomen. "Damn it!"

Goddess Lakshmi cursed furiously. This heavy punch felt like a red-hot iron stake brutally driven into her lower abdomen, causing her internal organs to convulse with pain. Goddess Lakshmi felt her vision darkening, and the True Fire of the Three Flavors erupted from her seven orifices; this single blow almost knocked her unconscious.

She counter-attacked, throwing several spatial rifts toward the hazy human figure formed of water vapor. Forcing down the pain in her abdomen, Goddess Lakshmi flickered and instantly arrived in the Sea of Blood Purgatory in the Nine Heavens and Nine Hells.

In a state of utter panic, Goddess Lakshmi muttered to herself as if driven mad, "You can't catch me now, can you? You can't catch me, can you? Who do you think you are? Are you Daoist Zhunti or Daoist Jieyin? Huh? You are neither; how could you possibly catch me?"

Before her words faded, in the boundless ocean of filthy blood in the Sea of Blood Purgatory, a small island spanning ten thousand miles roared and lifted into the air. It seemed as if a giant hand in the void was kneading this island. The massive island was crumpled into a ball in just three or five passes, then a burst of white ice flame erupted. This large ball was forcibly frozen and compressed into an ice pellet the size of a thumb, which then shot toward Goddess Lakshmi with a piercing sonic boom.

Goddess Lakshmi let out an angry hiss. She looked around in terror and struck back at the ice pellet with the palm of her hand.

With a crisp snap, the small, unremarkable pellet actually contained a sliver of incomparably sharp blade energy. Goddess Lakshmi's delicate, fair hand was pierced by the ice pellet. The pellet whistled past and struck her waist and abdomen, easily punching a transparent hole the size of a bowl through her body. "Impossible—"

Goddess Lakshmi screamed hysterically. This terrifying sense of being relentlessly pursued immediately after escaping to every location brought back the memory of being suppressed by the two Buddhist Saints back then.

But the two Buddhist Saints were honorable foes; they always confronted her openly and honestly before engaging her with Buddhist divine arts.

This enemy was completely different; he didn't even dare to show his true face, constantly resorting to sneak attacks from the shadows!

Possessing the means of a Saint yet resorting to such shameless and vile ambush tactics—this kind of person was the ultimate rogue, yet also the most terrifying.

Just as Goddess Lakshmi was about to curse him vehemently, a rocket formed of flame shot in from the side, aimed directly at the vital point in her lower abdomen.

With an angry roar, Goddess Lakshmi transformed into a rainbow light and fled rapidly. The rocket pierced her body but could not cause any damage to her form, which had already turned into light. This time, Goddess Lakshmi decided to commit fully, transforming into a rainbow light and fleeing toward the Yellow Springs Nine Nethers, which had been left unattended since the great change in heaven and earth.

At the bone-chilling edge of the Yellow Springs, on the isolated Head of the Bridge of Oblivion, Goddess Lakshmi looked around gasping for breath. "Heh heh heh, you certainly can't chase me here this time, can you?"

Goddess Lakshmi still held a glimmer of hope, praying that the terrifying, rogue opponent had only managed to track her down by sheer luck in the previous few escapes.

This was not impossible. An opponent at the peak of the Daluo Golden Immortal realm, if willing to shed all pretense and engage in sneak attacks, combined with exceptional luck and a few rare treasures, might possibly manage such sudden tracking and pursuit.

But the Yellow Springs Nine Nethers was a peculiar place within the Three Realms. Its rules were vastly different from those in the Heavenly Realm or the Mortal Realm; this was the world of the dead, the realm after death. It was saturated with the Qi of the Yellow Springs Netherworld, something ordinary cultivators, even Daluo Golden Immortals, dared not easily touch. Due to her innate divine abilities, Goddess Lakshmi could enter and exit the Yellow Springs Nine Nethers Purgatory freely. But her pursuer, the one sneaking up on her—surely he wouldn't dare to follow her into this place?

Smiling smugly, Goddess Lakshmi gritted her teeth and fiercely brought down her left palm, severing her right arm, which had already been burned down to nothing but a dry bone stick. Her body shuddered slightly, and a stream of glazed rainbow light surged from the severed arm, regenerating a right arm in the blink of an eye.

She lightly toyed with her hair, her slender, soft fingers slowly tracing the contours of her face, sliding down her neck inch by inch until they reached her lower abdomen. She deliberately employed demonic arts to repair her damaged limbs, before chuckling, "If you can chase me here, I'll admit defeat, no big deal.

After a few dry laughs, Goddess Lakshmi narrowed her eyes and smiled, "If you truly are an existence comparable to a Saint, offering myself as a concubine might still be worthwhile... better than being hunted across the Three Realms. I certainly don't want to suffer those hardships again." Gu Xichen appeared silently behind Goddess Lakshmi.

It was true that when Goddess Lakshmi suddenly plunged into the Yellow Springs, she had successfully evaded Gu Xichen's divine sense coverage. His divine sense had not yet fully encompassed the entire cosmos and still had blind spots. However, Goddess Lakshmi lingered here for a bit too long. Gu Xichen’s divine sense swept rapidly across the various worlds, easily capturing her silhouette.

Overhearing Goddess Lakshmi's self-muttering, a trace of playful amusement surged in Gu Xichen's heart. He casually wrapped his left arm around Goddess Lakshmi’s slender, graspable waist and chuckled softly, "Oh? The Heavenly Maiden offers herself? Hmm, if you can get my wife’s permission, I wouldn't mind taking a concubine!"

Goddess Lakshmi's body instantly stiffened like iron frozen for ten million years. She screamed hysterically, "How did you actually follow me here?" Gu Xichen chuckled lightly, "Why shouldn't I be able to follow you?"

Goddess Lakshmi stomped her foot fiercely, and her body instantly transformed into a streak of seven-colored rainbow light, soaring upward.

But this time, a heavy, bizarre-shaped bell, tens of thousands of miles wide, materialized above Goddess Lakshmi’s head. Within the bell, infinite illusions of chaotic space manifested, and Goddess Lakshmi almost willingly plunged headfirst into the Chaos Bell. Goddess Lakshmi, being an innate divine being born of heaven and earth, her innate divine abilities allowed her to evade all restrictions and arrays in the cosmos.

However, Gu Xichen's Chaos Bell originated from a new, foreign universe. All the restrictions and laws within it were entirely different from this universe, and the levels of restriction were higher, the power greater. The Chaos Bell, having recovered a little over half its power, flashed brightly. The manifested chaotic space resonated with ceaseless bell tolls, instantly making the scattering Goddess Lakshmi dizzy, causing blood mixed with the True Fire of the Three Flavors to spurt from her seven orifices.

The Chaos Bell rang again and again. The soul-shaking divine sound emitted by the foreign Chaotic Laws completely stunned Goddess Lakshmi into unconsciousness.

In the endless chaotic space within the bell, a small patch of void suddenly broke open, and a circular landmass spanning a hundred miles appeared in the void. This landmass rapidly transformed its appearance, shifting in the blink of an eye to resemble a beautiful, picturesque Jiangnan garden, full of green willows and bright flowers.

In the center of this landmass, a thirty-three-story pagoda, built entirely of golden bricks, stood tall and proud. Goddess Lakshmi was drawn into this pagoda, which was carved all over with statues of numerous innate great sages from that foreign land, and was suppressed on the very lowest level.

A strand of chaotic spiritual light firmly enveloped Goddess Lakshmi, sealing her seven orifices and vital points, completely severing her connection to the spiritual energy of the outside world. The chaotic spiritual light continuously siphoned her magic power from Goddess Lakshmi’s body, making her weaker and more powerless by the moment.

Gu Xichen sneered proudly, casually summoning the Chaos Bell back to his Sea of Consciousness. With a step, his figure appeared outside the Spiral Nebula. The Sun Primordial Spirit transformed into a monstrous flame that lunged toward Gu Xichen, instantly merging into his body. Fuya? Ming also flew over, settling into Gu Xichen’s embrace like a light, soft flower. Smiling, Gu Xichen put his arm around Fuya? Ming’s waist and teleported before the imprisoned Poritivi.

Glancing coldly at Poritivi, whose face was pale and whose spirit was shattered by fear, Gu Xichen said flatly, "I said I would kill you to raise my banner, and I will. Poritivi, today, under the Heavenly Dao, all trace of you shall vanish."

With a wave of his hand, a hazy, bronze-colored blade wheel flashed rapidly behind Gu Xichen's head, and Poritivi’s head flew into the air.

A flash of starlight passed through the void, and Poritivi's body and soul instantly shattered and disintegrated, utterly annihilated.

A hasty, furious roar echoed from afar. Po'ya, a colossal figure ten thousand feet tall with a hundred heads and a thousand arms, rode a black bull, galloping rapidly while shouting, "Spare her life!" But as fast as Gu Xichen struck, Po'ya was still a considerable distance away when Poritivi was already cleaved by his blade. Po'ya stared dumbfounded as Poritivi’s body disintegrated, then let out a fierce roar toward the sky.

Staring angrily at Gu Xichen for a long time, Po'ya finally sneered, "Saint Lord Wu Long, originally, the Dharma Protector Heavens' Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu wanted to negotiate peace with you, hoping to resolve our dispute completely. But you actually killed Poritivi..."

Gu Xichen coldly interrupted Po'ya, stating plainly, "Poritivi is dead, and Goddess Lakshmi is in my hands. Don't talk about negotiations; whatever you intend to do, this Lord will accept it all... As for your other conspiracies and schemes, what do they have to do with me?"

Glaring coldly at Po'ya, Gu Xichen snorted word by word, "Tell your three leaders: do not provoke me, do not provoke my Nine Nether Dao!"

Po'ya trembled with rage, and suddenly, a tall figure appeared silently before him.

This person was disheveled like a savage, wearing only a loincloth made of leaves, and holding a crude bow and arrow made of branches.

This person looked calmly at Gu Xichen and spoke softly, "Saint Lord Evil Dragon, release Lakshmi, and I will spare your life." He looked arrogantly at Gu Xichen and stated calmly, "I am Shiva!" He was Shiva, the God of Destruction among the Dharma Protector Heavens.