Jieyin and Zhunti, leading all their disciples, shattered their golden bodies and charged into the Heavenly Tower. The Three Pure Ones followed close behind and rushed in after them.

Gu Xiechen frowned, preparing to pour his own primordial spirit into the Heavenly Tower to fight them to the finish, when two great formations belonging to the disciples of the Three Pure Ones suddenly bore down upon him from afar. The disciples of the Jie School had actually manipulated the sword formation of the Heavenly Lord of Primordial Beginning, surging forward with boundless sword energy. The disciples of Taishang Laojun and Yuanshi Tianzun maintained their original Taiji formation, unleashing infinite binding power upon Gu Xiechen.

"Only you have disciples?"

Staring coldly at the endless throng of immortals under the Three Pure Ones, Gu Xiechen hooked a finger at the Three Consecutive Cities. "Children, advance!"

With a dull thud, hundreds of Three Consecutive Cities simultaneously met the disciples of the Three Pure Ones head-on. These colossal cities, each spanning millions of li in circumference, housed countless immortals, demons, and all manner of strange and powerful beings. They formed various esoteric arrays such as the Myriad Immortals Formation, the Ten Ultimate Formations, the Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation, and the Heavenly Net Earthly Snare Grand Formation, clashing directly with the forces of the Three Pure Ones.

Breaking formation with formation, the power of the Heavenly Dao was utterly shredded by the conflicting arrays. Where the grand formations collided, innumerable immortals could not withstand the immense recoil, and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of immortals exploded and perished with nearly every passing instant.

When facing them head-on, Gu Xiechen discovered with a start that sixty to seventy percent of the fallen immortals were his own subordinates.

The Three Pure Ones were, after all, the veteran Saints; the Heavenly Dao formations they devised were far superior to his own. Especially their disciples—nearly every one possessed one or several Innate Treasures. Consequently, the disciples of the Three Pure Ones possessed extremely potent offensive capabilities and terrifying defenses. Gu Xiechen's own disciples, even when fighting one-on-one, were no match for them.

Even when their cultivation levels were equivalent, if the opposing side possessed Innate Treasures for protection, a single strike from a Dharma treasure often meant that three or five of Gu Xiechen’s disciples combined were still inferior to one of theirs. Though the grand formations remained locked in a stalemate, in localized battles, Gu Xiechen’s forces were steadily being routed.

Gu Xiechen watched with growing ire. He gathered the Pangu Primordial Chaos Divine Thunder in his hands and launched a single bolt toward the Jie School’s sword formation.

Countless strands of chaotic sword energy howled in response. Before the Pangu Divine Thunder could even near the sword formation, it was detonated by the sword energy. The chaotic lightning flashed, causing the formation to tremble, but since it didn't strike the formation directly, it caused no actual damage.

With a cold snort, dozens more bolts of Primordial Chaos Divine Thunder descended. But the disciples operating the Jie School formation sent up a dense curtain of sword energy, either detonating the divine thunder bolts Gu Xiechen cast prematurely or deflecting their trajectories. Some divine thunder bolts were even bounced directly back toward the Three Consecutive Cities. When these bolts exploded, several cities were engulfed in flames, nearly causing them to shatter mid-air.

"Good, truly worthy of the Jie School disciples!"

With a great laugh, Gu Xiechen casually reached into the far reaches of the void and seized eighty-one stars. He rubbed them between his hands until they coalesced into a fireball the size of a human head. One thousand and eighty bolts of Pangu Primordial Chaos Divine Thunder were simultaneously injected into the fireball. Gu Xiechen moved, instantly arriving inside the Jie School sword formation. Laughing loudly, he hurled the fireball, saturated with destructive energy, into the array, then instantly warped away.

With a flash of fire, the power of one thousand and eighty Pangu Primordial Chaos Divine Thunder bolts combined with eighty-one stars detonated simultaneously.

The Jie School disciples controlling the formation cried out in unison. As the formation spun, various rays of strange light circulated, and the fireball Gu Xiechen had thrown was forcibly shifted away by the sword formation. It traversed half the universe, and in the void of an extremely distant region, the destructive fireball erupted, instantly annihilating a whole stellar domain.

Stretching across dozens of star systems, everything was utterly reduced to chaos in that single strike, vanishing into nothingness, leaving behind only the most basic chaotic Primal Qi. The destruction of this star system instantly provoked a reaction from the Heavenly Tower; a small fragment, about the size of a sesame seed, of the tower's structure violently fractured.

Every primordial spirit inside the Heavenly Tower and everyone outside noticed this event.

Except for the Primal Demon who was frantically slaying the primordial spirit of Hongjun, the other primordial spirits roared in fury. "Gu Xiechen, how dare you!"

The disciples of the Three Pure Ones outside the Heavenly Tower drove their grand formations toward Gu Xiechen with reckless abandon, preparing to trap him at any cost.

But Gu Xiechen possessed the Pangu True Body; how could he be so easily confined?

The Jie School disciples enveloped Gu Xiechen with boundless sword light. Gu Xiechen simply shook his fists, and the myriad sword lights were instantly pulverized. He laughed loudly, his figure streaking away like a fiery meteor, returning to the battlefield in the blink of an eye, dragging thousands of enormous stars behind him.

He grabbed these thousands of stars and mashed them into a fireball the size of a human head, injecting three thousand six hundred bolts of Pangu Primordial Chaos Divine Thunder into it. Then, he hurled the fireball toward the Taiji Formation set up by the disciples of Taishang Laojun and Yuanshi Tianzun.

The disciples arrayed in the formation cried out in alarm. Instinctively, they spun the grand formation, sending up a surge of Taiji power that shifted the fireball away. With a dull thud and a ripple of spatial distortion, the fireball suddenly reappeared in the void not far from a Starlight Abyss. Its power of absolute annihilation erupted ferociously.

Hundreds of star systems were pulverized on the spot, reverting to chaos to reenact the primordial age once more.

A piece of the Heavenly Tower, the size of a little finger, cracked off. All the primordial spirits inside the tower simultaneously spat out a mouthful of vital essence. Except for the Primal Demon, every other spirit suffered injuries of varying severity.

The Buddha of Life and Death roared. Under the command of Jieyin and Zhunti, the Buddha of Life and Death led thousands of Buddhas shooting out of the Heavenly Tower. They materialized in the void, recreating their golden Buddha forms. The Buddha of Life and Death manifested a golden body soaring ten thousand li high, raising his twin fists and smashing down fiercely upon Gu Xiechen’s head.

"It's you!"

Gazing at the Buddha of Life and Death, Gu Xiechen sighed deeply. He met the attack with a punch of his own.

Fists collided, unleashing the peerless, immense power of the Pangu True Body. The Buddha of Life and Death shrieked, his golden body shattering once more. A single Sarira flew upward. As the Buddha of Life and Death prepared to flee, Gu Xiechen snatched him up. He captured the Sarira—and within it, the faint, ethereal shadow of a woman—imprisoning them both and sealing them within his Sea of Consciousness.

The thousands of Buddhas roared in anger, mimicking the Thunderous Wrath, and threw all their divine power against Gu Xiechen.

Unexpectedly, before the thousands of Buddhas could even strike, the Jie School sword formation swept upward, trapping all the Buddhas within its confines.

The furious roar of the Heavenly Lord Tongtian echoed from inside the Heavenly Tower. "Jieyin, Zhunti, you schemed against Amitabha Buddha; do not blame this Daoist for calculating against your disciples! Jie School disciples, kill!"

The Jie School disciples shouted "Kill!" like thunder, and the sword light surged within the formation. The thousands of Buddhas were instantly caught in an endless torrent of sword light. No matter how desperately they struggled, they fell one by one in that killing array.

The Primal Demon suddenly let out a sharp, joyful laugh. His body disintegrated, transforming into countless figures of primeval demon gods, each the size of a thumb. These myriad shadows darted lightning-fast throughout the Heavenly Tower, piercing in and out of the Heavenly Dao Wheels that constituted the tower’s structure. Wherever they passed, the Heavenly Dao Wheels dimmed, resembling silver tarnished by black smoke.

Gu Xiechen drew a massive breath toward the heavens. His body instantly inflated, soaring to a thousand li, then ten thousand li. After a quarter of an hour, he had become so immense he towered over the sky and earth; even using all their divine senses, the myriad immortals and sages could not gauge his true height.

He raised both hands and exerted force toward the void, tearing two colossal holes in space.

Gu Xiechen casually reached into the breaches in the void. Boundless chaotic energy surged out, condensing in his hands into a gigantic chisel and a massive axe. He swung the great axe wildly around, and thrust the chisel into the surrounding void, stabbing and poking everywhere. The void shook, and galaxy after galaxy collapsed, section after section of space being instantly reverted to primal chaos.

Pangu’s creation of the world brought forth the manifestation of Chaos, opening up a new heaven and earth.

Gu Xiechen's Pangu True Body, however, was bent on destruction, forcing heaven and earth to return to Chaos.

As Gu Xiechen and the Primal Demon acted, the Heavenly Dao Wheels within the Heavenly Tower winked out one by one, and the main body of the tower began to crack and fragment.

The primordial spirits inside the Heavenly Tower frantically scrambled to seize control of the various Heavenly Dao Wheels, attempting to govern the tower and prevent the Primal Demon and Gu Xiechen from destroying this cosmos. But destruction is always infinitely easier than construction. No matter how hard they tried, they could not stop the pair.

Especially since these spirits remained deeply suspicious of one another, they could never unite to halt the Primal Demon and Gu Xiechen effectively.

With one slip, Hongjun’s primordial spirit suddenly lunged out, severely wounding the Three Pure Ones and devouring several dozen disciples brought by Jieyin and Zhunti.

Jieyin and Zhunti simultaneously unleashed Buddhist incantations, not only kicking the Three Pure Ones while they were down but also launching the Buddhist Demon-Subduing Curse at Hongjun.

The Three Pure Ones were equally unwilling to suffer losses. They joined forces once more, merging into one great Taiji vortex within the Heavenly Tower, grinding countless disciples of Jieyin and Zhunti to dust, and even causing Hongjun, Jieyin, and Zhunti to vomit vital essence from their primordial spirits.

The Primal Demon and Gu Xiechen, however, worked in unison, continuously shattering the cosmos and destroying the Heavenly Tower.

Days turned into time. The disciples of the Three Pure Ones and the subordinates of Gu Xiechen were almost entirely annihilated. In the blink of an eye, ten thousand years passed. Gu Xiechen’s Pangu True Body had already destroyed more than half of the cosmos, and the Heavenly Tower was also more than half disintegrated. The once magnificent and vast tower had become nothing more than a dilapidated brick kiln.

The numerous primordial spirits within the Heavenly Tower, after prolonged periods of devouring and contention, were now reduced to only Hongjun, the Three Pure Ones, and Jieyin and Zhunti.

Of the many disciples Jieyin and Zhunti brought into the tower, a small portion were swallowed by Hongjun, another small portion were destroyed by the Three Pure Ones, and the remaining large majority were quietly absorbed by the Primal Demon into himself.

At this moment, the survivors confronted each other near the Axis of Heaven and Earth within the tower. Most of the tower was shattered; only the Axis of Heaven and Earth remained intact, still emitting a faint green light that illuminated the ruined structure.

Hongjun gazed at the other primordial spirits and roared hoarsely, "Why could you not grant me this one step? I was once your master!"

The others laughed in unison. At this juncture, what use were such words?

Jieyin cried out mournfully, "The deed is done. If we do not settle this now and quickly control the Heavenly Tower, heaven and earth will collapse back into Chaos. Let one move decide the victory... the victor claims this heaven and earth; the loser returns to Chaos."

The Primal Demon shouted in exhilaration, "Good, excellent idea! Quickly, quickly, let us fight with all our strength!"

The minds of all present raced, and almost simultaneously, they struck. The vast power accumulated by everyone through countless eons of arduous cultivation was unleashed at once, clashing together in an instant. However, what was surprising was that nearly half of everyone's power was directed toward the Primal Demon.

Suspended in Chaos, Gu Xiechen sensed every movement within the Heavenly Tower and sneered coldly.

Not one of these Saints was simpleminded; they had indeed remained wary of the Primal Demon all along.

But alas, no amount of caution mattered. With the surging resentment accumulated over the ages by three hundred and sixty million demon gods, the Primal Demon was their nemesis.

The Primal Demon was successfully slain by the combined might of the group, transforming into a mass of sorrowful, misty, bloody energy that permeated the entire Heavenly Tower. The bloody mist suddenly contracted and rapidly adhered to the primordial spirits of Hongjun and the other Saints. Howls of intense malice soared to the heavens as the Primal Demon frantically roared the hatred of the three hundred and sixty million demon gods toward the lineage of Hongjun, roaring about the grievance they had carried for millions of years.

The surging, malevolent energy even caused Gu Xiechen’s body to ache faintly. He shook his head, galvanized the full might of the Pangu True Body, gathered all the power from the surrounding chaotic void, concentrated it in his great axe and chisel, and struck the Heavenly Tower with all his remaining strength.

Hongjun and the other Saints let out chilling, piercing shrieks. As soon as the blood mist—formed from the Primal Demon—entered their bodies, they realized this mist was impossible to dispel or separate. It was the most vicious curse cast by the three hundred and sixty million primeval demon gods, who shared their origin, at the moment of their death—an immeasurable karmic debt the lineage of Hongjun was doomed to bear forever.

Their primordial spirits began to burn rapidly, and then, all the Saints’ spirits erupted simultaneously.

Gu Xiechen’s attack landed on the Heavenly Tower precisely at that moment.

With the combined force from within and without, the Heavenly Tower disintegrated, and the remaining sliver of the cosmos was also utterly annihilated.

The Heavenly Tower shattered inch by inch, and all the Heavenly Dao Wheels slowly dissolved into nothingness.

The binding force that imprisoned Gu Xiechen, preventing him from leaving this universe, immediately dissolved.

Only the Axis of Heaven and Earth still shone, emitting a fierce light too brilliant to look upon directly. This was the foundation of the cosmos, the core of all Heavenly Dao, and it remained perfectly intact. Given sufficient power and time, it could still absorb the chaotic spiritual energy and recast an entirely new universe.

Gu Xiechen seized the Axis of Heaven and Earth in one grasp. Immediately, the immense destructive explosion caused by the total collapse of the universe erupted. Even with the Pangu True Body, Gu Xiechen was thrown into a daze, spitting blood as he was blasted away.

In the void, a figure spanning ten thousand li tumbled nearby. Gu Xiechen rushed to seize her, carefully transferring her into his Sea of Consciousness. This was the Sage Nuwa, who had never participated in the battle. When the universe disintegrated, she too was powerless to resist the terrifying force of world destruction. She was flung into the chaotic space by the massive explosion and suffered severe injuries, nearly perishing.

Spitting blood, Gu Xiechen cautiously shrunk his body back to a normal size, and dragging his almost shattered frame, he slowly vanished into the boundless Chaos.

Several years later, in the universe originally belonging to Gu Xiechen and his peers.

In a certain ocean on the Human Source Star Earth, which had expanded a million times, Nuwa coiled around a small island, watching contentedly as a group of Innate beings sailed and fished on the sea. The joyful singing of the fishermen drifted all the way to the Ninth Heaven.

In a secluded small mountain valley at the southern foot of the Himalayas, the Buddha of Life and Death, stripped of all divine power and magic, sat at the entrance of a neat, exquisite stone cave.

Wearing a ragged sheepskin cloak and rolling his eyes, the Buddha of Life and Death muttered greetings to someone, clearly unhappy. He occasionally punched the ground fiercely, but each time, only his own fists were lacerated, while the ground remained utterly unscathed.

His wife, whom he had forcibly taken—the mother of Prajna and Mahā—the woman of the Roman tribe, was leading a group of spirit maidens to pick fresh fruit on a distant hillside. They laughed joyfully, their laughter like the chirping of small birds, echoing throughout the valley.

At the far end of the valley, in a clearing, Prajna, whose muscles were tightly knotted, was chopping wood with an axe, stroke after stroke. Not a single fluctuation of spiritual power emanated from his body; he had voluntarily abandoned all his divine abilities and become an ordinary person.

He chopped firewood and stacked it neatly beneath a rock formation. Occasionally, he would lift his head, wipe the sweat from his brow, and gaze at the streams of disciples of the Nine Nether Dao flying past on clouds overhead. He suddenly laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh, feeling no envy or jealousy toward those soaring disciples.

This was the life he chose, and he was content with his current existence.

Right at the exit of this valley, built against the edge of a cliff, was a massive, magnificent, golden and splendid temple clinging to the mountainside.

Everywhere there were enormous Buddha statues, but every statue shared one identical face—the face of Mahā!

Worshippers, both male and female, made the long kowtowing pilgrimage from distant lands to this temple. They raised their incense and devoutly entered to worship the True Buddha.

Mahā, clad in a bright red kasaya, paraded among the devotees. From time to time, he would approach a female worshipper, touch her head to bestow a blessing, and then smile sunnily, "Benefactress, you have a connection with our Buddha. Come, proceed to the backyard to receive the Buddha's grace!"

But when a demure young woman in a kasaya silently appeared beside Mahā, Mahā's smiling face instantly changed. He violently pushed away the devout worshipper, turning away and muttering, "No connection, no connection, you and I have no connection... oh, wait, you have no connection with the Buddha!"

Leaving Earth, in the endless void, on a highly advanced high-tech civilized planet, a gang of bikers roared past in hovering vehicles, closely pursued by a squadron of traffic patrol vehicles loudly and angrily ordering the audacious riders to stop.

In the lead hovercraft, Siren, Zhenghua, and the core disciples of the Nine Nether Dao were laughing heartily. They were gulping down wine and shouting insults as they sped through the high skies.

But abruptly, several light screens flashed before Siren and Zhenghua, and the voices of several women suddenly cut through.

"The children are crying! Aren't you coming back quickly to soothe them? This life is impossible to live!"

Two hovercrafts exploded with a roar, and two figures shot into the sky, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

In the void, only the wild laughter of the remaining core disciples of the Nine Nether Dao remained.

At the Earth Federation Headquarters, the Corpse Emperor and Poison Wolf were frantically feeding milk to two infants each. A severely battered and bruised Heavenly Dragon lay panting next to the headquarters building. Yan Jiang, accompanied by several Nine Nether Dao disciples, was roughly extracting milk from the female dragon's body. If the dragon dared to utter the slightest complaint, she was immediately struck with a fist.

Gu Daoyuan, now a young man, strode into the Federation Headquarters, accompanied by Gu Yuru and the other direct descendants of the Gu family. He cheerfully took the two babies and happily teased them.

The two children gesticulated wildly, stroking Gu Daoyuan's face, and vaguely called out "Brother."

Gu Daoyuan sighed, shaking his head. "Where do you think those two irresponsible parents of mine have run off to enjoy their private time? They won't even look after their two younger brothers? Hmm, Yuru, we need to step up production tomorrow. Sell another batch of main battle cruisers to those two warring nations. Dad said competition breeds vitality and stimulates their development and evolution!"

This current universe had expanded more than ten times since the era when Gu Xiechen resided there.

Excluding the Earth Federation and the Afeck Kingdom, in the newly opened star systems, countless large and small civilizations had risen. These included nations established by the Romans, as well as the Asura, Shura, Gandharva, and Garuda races.

These nations sometimes allied, sometimes warred, turning the entire cosmos into a chaotic mess.

Although chaotic, the chaos was filled with boundless vitality. Gu Daoyuan inherited Gu Xiechen's grand vision and happily became the universe's largest arms dealer, endlessly dumping all kinds of weaponry onto these disparate nations.

The arms dealer ranking immediately after him was the Mechanical Empire established by Ducart and Little Xiao. The Mechanical Empire was composed entirely of highly intelligent, self-aware mechanical life forms. They were nestled at the far end of the universe, focused entirely on self-development, and communicated with the outside world only when selling arms.

Beyond these people and affairs, at the edge of the universe, Gu Xiechen, having transformed into the Pangu True Body, labored to carve out the chaotic space.

One swing of the axe brought forth a domain of stars. One thrust of the chisel stabilized the newly appearing cosmos completely.

A gleaming Axis of Heaven and Earth followed closely behind Gu Xiechen; it was gradually integrating into this new universe.

With it, this cosmos possessed infinite potential for development, a potential that Gu Xiechen had to carve out axe-stroke by axe-stroke.

Gu Yechen cleaved the void with axe stroke after axe stroke.

Behind him, Fuya Ming followed closely in a small warship.

Now and then, Fuya Ming would leap from the warship's cockpit to hand Gu Yechen a cup of fine wine, or a glass of juice...

The two exchanged glances, smiles blooming between them, everything understood without a word. ----The End (!)D