Any master who had achieved the Martial Saint realm possessed an innate sense for danger, let alone a powerhouse like Fang Jiuyou. While Hu Yanqi was capable of firing four Sunset Divine Arrows, he couldn't be certain of instantly slaying Fang Jiuyou, so he settled on targeting the mechanical beast beneath him. That mechanical beast, despite its formidable power and immense intelligence, could not possibly possess the human premonition of impending doom, could it?

Hu Yanqi pondered this, yet he kept his sights locked firmly on the mechanical beast's chassis. Waves of strange energy constantly surged from his body, pouring into the black bow that resembled deadwood. The obsidian-hued arrow clutched in his hand also began to shimmer with faint, ethereal black light...

“No, we can't let him succeed!” On the other side, Ye Jingyu and the other two shouted out almost simultaneously. They all felt that devastating power rapidly coalescing within Fang Jiuyou...

The three figures darted forward at once. Ye Jingyu unleashed the Heavenly Punishment Palm, Liang Xiaoke swung the Myriad Demon Divine Fist, and Huangfu Buyue, holding nothing back, summoned the Dragon's Roar Shakes Nine Heavens and Shatters Wind and Cloud...

Three forces capable of instantly eliminating any Martial Saint were hurled entirely toward Fang Jiuyou. “Hmph…” Fang Jiuyou merely sneered, and the blue light enveloping him flared brilliantly, instantly manifesting as layers of impenetrable barriers. In the blink of an eye, nine hundred and ninety-nine shields materialized before him...

“Crack, crack, crack…” The sound of shattering shields rang out incessantly. In mere moments, over eight hundred energy shields were blasted into dust, yet the assault from Ye Jingyu and his companions was successfully repelled. Meanwhile, Fang Jiuyou’s power continued to surge...

Seeing that he was on the verge of fully integrating the Blue God's power, the trio grew frantic. Liang Xiaoke even contemplated whether Gongsun Lu should self-detonate for a mutually assured destruction...

Just then, a streak of black light flashed across the void, a black meteor shooting out and slamming violently into the blue light shield. Instantly, fifty or sixty shields shattered, and the black light resolved itself into a black arrow that fell away. Then came the second black light, its force more than double that of the first. All remaining shields were utterly obliterated—it was another arrow. Before the Blue God beneath Fang Jiuyou could erect new defenses, the third black light shot forth. This projectile carried an even greater power than the previous two, actually piercing through the Blue God’s incredibly resilient steel armor...

“Roar…” The Blue God emitted a massive roar, as if it, too, felt immense pain. The blue light that had been flowing toward Fang Jiuyou flickered precariously, seemingly on the verge of snapping...

Fang Jiuyou was inwardly horrified, sensing something profound. He could no longer bother absorbing the Blue God’s energy. His body shot upward, instantly soaring thousands of meters into the high sky. Inside the Blue God, however, the core detonated. The colossal energy tore its frame into fragments, and the resulting blast wave swept over everything nearby. A mushroom cloud more terrifying than a nuclear explosion billowed upward, shaking the very earth as if a massive earthquake had struck...

Ye Jingyu, Liang Xiaoke, and Huangfu Buyue retreated at full speed, but the energy was simply too terrifying; within moments, it reached their position.

Liang Xiaoke vanished into the ground with a flicker, and Huangfu Buyue utilized Light Shadow Flutter, disappearing in just a few steps. Ye Jingyu, however, snatched Xiao Taotao with one hand, silver light flashing beneath his feet, propelling him a thousand meters away in a single stride...

The massive explosion continued to rage, relentlessly consuming the surroundings. The blue radiance shot high into the heavens, visible even from Miaocheng on the riverbank, and even from Yuncheng in the distant Western Chu Empire. The entire sky was drenched in blue...

The immense blast lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour before slowly dissipating. When Ye Jingyu and the others looked back, they saw a colossal crater—over ten thousand meters in diameter and a hundred meters deep—pitted into the ground. Within the pit, faint metallic fragments glittered...

In the night sky, Fang Jiuyou, his entire body suffused with pulsing blue light, stared blankly down at the massive pit, at the pieces of gleaming metal, his face etched with disbelief...

How was this possible? This was the Heavenly-rank Mechanical Beast his father had gifted him upon his coming of age! The energy stored within it was equivalent to a Fifth Heaven Martial God. How could it be destroyed just like that? It was impossible!

Rage, an uncontainable fury, completely engulfed Fang Jiuyou. This was the very first gift he had ever received, an intelligent mechanical beast crafted with painstaking effort by his father. To contain such immense power, countless Earth-rank masters had their energies siphoned off. Now, it was utterly ruined. How could he face his father?

“I will kill you…” Immediately, Fang Jiuyou locked onto the distant figure of Hu Yanqi. He felt that it was that man’s arrows that had struck...

Roaring his condemnation, Fang Jiuyou lunged toward Hu Yanqi, but an even more terrifying streak of light ripped across the sky, aimed directly at his heart...

Fang Jiuyou scoffed, waving a hand. Blue light materialized before him, condensing into over a hundred shields. That black meteor struck the blue defense, destroying only about a hundred layers...

That was the archer's strength—indeed enough to slay a Martial Saint, perhaps even a Martial God. But with that level of power, there was no way he could have killed the Blue God! If the Blue God hadn't been simultaneously channeling its energy to Fang Jiuyou while fending off the trio’s attack, how could his meager power have been enough to destroy the Blue God?

The more he considered this, the more wronged Fang Jiuyou felt, and the hotter his murderous rage burned, his killing intent growing exponentially...

“Die, Soul-Seizing Finger!” Fang Jiuyou roared, launching a finger strike hundreds of feet before he even reached Hu Yanqi...

Having just fired four arrows, Hu Yanqi was already utterly exhausted; even moving a finger was a struggle, let alone deflecting that terrifying strike. He could only watch helplessly as the beam of soul-snatching light flew toward him...