The instant the three stepped into the valley, it was as if they had triggered some switch.
The gray-black mist surged violently. One twisted figure after another, exuding thick malice, emerged from the warped buildings.
At their head was a man wreathed in power of the same origin as Lu Jingming's, his eyes empty—Black Lu Jingming.
Behind him walked Black Castorice, bearing an eerie aura and wielding a dark flower-scythe;
Black Firefly, in black armor wreathed in fallen flames;
And Black March 7th, Black Robin, Black Jinhsi, and a host of other twisted mirror-selves.
"Act according to plan."
Gu Yuena spoke coolly, stepping forward.
"Elemental Tide."
Seven-colored elemental radiance erupted from her body like a surging tide.
Her draconic might fully unleashed, she forcibly suppressed the twisted corruptive aura before her, driving straight at Black Lu Jingming.
At the same time, a sharp gleam flashed in Firefly's eyes.
Blazing white flames shot toward the sky.
Firefly turned into a white meteor of fire, carrying the resolve to burn away everything, ramming directly into Black Firefly, who had also activated her armor and was burning with black flames.
"Boom—!"
A white and a black meteor collided head-on—fist to fist, kick to kick. Every clash burst forth terrifying shockwaves that vaporized the surrounding warped building ruins in an instant.
This was the most direct and violent duel between Melted-Fire Knights.
Castorice, meanwhile, faced off against Black Castorice and her dark flower-scythe.
"Another me, is it."
Castorice sighed softly, yet her eyes held not the slightest ripple.
"Stygian River, manifest."
Centering on her, a quiet, illusory, dark field rapidly unfolded—the Exiled Styx Domain.
Within this domain, the boundary between life and death became blurred.
As Black Castorice's dark flower-scythe swept in, its death aura, upon entering the field, seemed washed by an invisible flow of water, turning sluggish and dim.
Castorice tapped a finger. Invisible tendrils from the Stygian River reached out from the void, snaking around Black Castorice's limbs and weapon.
"Your death is false. Allow me to grant you… true rest."
On the other side, Gu Yuena and Black Lu Jingming's battle had already entered a white-hot stage.
Although Black Lu Jingming had inherited his main body's abilities, the corruption point had deliberately limited the strength of this corruption point; it could not be compared to the one that had produced Black Kevin.
Moreover, because too many negative-energy entities had been spawned, the power of any single one could not approach Black Kevin's heaven-defying might.
This was why Lu Jingming had felt at ease sending Gu Yuena with Castorice and Firefly—having the Silver Dragon King there was more than enough.
Black Lu Jingming's Black Abyss White Flower was troublesome, but Gu Yuena's mastery over the elements had reached perfection. With absolute power and control, she held him firmly suppressed.
Firefly's clash with Black Firefly was the fiercest of all.
Both of them had entered a full burn state; the white flame of will and the black flame of corruption consumed each other madly.
Power gathered in Firefly's gauntlets with each punch. Every straight blow carried the will to pulverize stars.
One heavy punch finally shattered Black Firefly's defense. White flame bored into her armor's interior, triggering a chain of furious explosions.
Black Firefly was ultimately annihilated completely in pure white fire.
Almost at the same time, Castorice's Styx tendrils had fully bound Black Castorice.
"Return… to silence."
Castorice chanted softly. The power of the Stygian River began to purify that tangled web of negative emotion.
Black Castorice's figure blurred and faded like ink soaked in water, until in the end only a wisp of pure negative energy remained, swallowed and converted by the domain.
Under the absolute suppression of Gu Yuena's god-level strength, the remaining Black March 7th, Black Robin, and other copies were all torn apart and purified by the surging Elemental Tide.
Once all the core negative entities had been eliminated, the massive corrupted energy accumulated throughout the valley lost its anchor. It began to thrash and boil like a dying beast, making a last desperate counterattack in an attempt to drag everything into oblivion.
The next moment, a dragon's roar split the heavens.
Gu Yuena soared aloft, revealing her Silver Dragon King true form.
Her immense wings blotted out the sky, and her scales, shimmering with seven-colored radiance, flowed with the laws of heaven and earth.
She opened her jaws, and a deluge of elemental power—the seven primal forces of earth, water, fire, wind, light, darkness, and space—poured down like the Milky Way, bombarding the entire valley without discrimination.
Where the elemental glow passed, the corrupted energy was forcibly torn apart, decomposed, and recombined.
Firefly pushed SAM's output to maximum, transforming into a pillar of world-cleansing flame that connected heaven and earth, helping to burn away and refine the corruption.
Castorice maintained the Exiled Styx Domain at full strength, acting like the most precise of filters. She guided the energy flow that had undergone initial purification, stripping away the last traces of madness and impurity.
This process went on for a long time. The whole valley seemed to endure a great baptism.
When the last wisp of gray-black mist had transformed into gentle, lustrous white motes and sank into the earth like a shower of stars, heaven and earth turned clear.
The suffocating pressure vanished, and the ambient energy of the valley and surrounding region became clearer and richer than ever, carrying even a faint sweetness.
From the once dead, blackened soil, tender green shoots began to sprout at a speed visible to the naked eye, brimming with vitality.
The gloom in the sky was swept away. Long-lost warm sunlight poured down, banishing all chill.
From deep underfoot came a barely perceptible, yet incomparably joyful and relieved pulse.
The origin of Douluo Star had once more gained a precious strengthening and nourishment.
Gu Yuena, Firefly, and Castorice exchanged glances and saw the same trace of exhaustion in each other's eyes.
"At last, it's all cleared," Firefly said, releasing her armor and letting out a long breath. Beads of sweat dotted her brow.
"The death here has returned to tranquility," Castorice murmured. The illusory Styx Domain slowly faded. At her fingertip, a white flower quietly bloomed, no longer holding any sorrow.
Gu Yuena reverted to human form and turned toward the City of Slaughter. Sensing the faint yet now-stilled horror of the energy fluctuations there, her lips curled a fraction into a cool arc.
"Looks like things are settled on his side as well."
She withdrew her gaze and looked at the valley reborn before her.
"Let's go back. It's time this continent welcomed a new order."
With the two greatest corruption points—the City of Slaughter and the Heaven Dou Valley—completely cleared, it was as though the most malignant tumors clinging to Douluo Star's surface had been cut away.
The pall of gloom and chaos hanging over the continent lifted. The world's spiritual energy became more active and pure than ever.
The immediate effects were obvious.
Soul masters' cultivation speed generally increased; bottlenecks that had stymied countless geniuses loosened. The once unreachable boundary separating mortals from the divine domain seemed to silently lower.
This heaven and earth could now support god-level experts residing in the world without forcing them to ascend.
This was a key part of Lu Jingming's plan.
The fixed rule of the God Realm—that those who became gods must ascend—ran counter to his blueprint.
So, from the very beginning, he had instructed the Herta to use technical means beyond the comprehension of this world to quietly block direct contact between the Douluo Continent and the God Realm.
This was why the Asura God's divine sense in the Asura Demon Sword, and the Sea God's divine sense on Sea God Island, although aware of the island's great upheavals, had no response whatsoever from their true bodies in the God Realm—the information was completely cut off.
Combined with the difference in time flow—one day in the God Realm equals one year in the lower realm—by the time the God Realm Committee noticed something was wrong, the Spirit Empire under Qian Renxue would already have grown powerful, and Douluo Star itself would have birthed enough native god-level combat power.
By then, offense and defense, primary and secondary, would be completely reversed.
With these great matters resolved, it was time for Lu Jingming to withdraw after his success.
He planned to take his core group—Firefly, Castorice, Jingliu, Cerydra, Hysilens, and the others—leave this world, and return to the universe that truly belonged to him.
But before leaving, he still needed to find those guests"who had likewise been accidentally swept into this world.
By relying on the authority of the World Tree, he quickly locked onto his targets.
When he found Miyabi, this Section 6 chief was standing beneath a remote, rarely visited waterfall, swinging her blade upward against the crushing weight of the falling water.
She had taken this accidental journey as a rare training trip to another world, calm in bearing and even enjoying herself.
When he found Artoria, the scene was markedly bloodier.
Her golden Sword King was stained red. She had just wiped out a band of mountain bandits who had been tyrannizing the locals.
After reining in these two, who had been roaming the world—one practicing with all her might, the other travelling as a righteous knight—Lu Jingming then found Aglaea, Jeanne, Ma Xiaotao, Han Ruoruo, Ning Tian, Ning Fengzhi, and the others in turn.
Their reactions to Lu Jingming's unexpected visit were varied.
Ma Xiaotao and Han Ruoruo, who were on good terms with him, were naturally overjoyed.
Ma Xiaotao went straight up to him, clapped him on the shoulder without the slightest ceremony, and laughed:
"I knew it, you bastard. I knew you'd have a way to get us back."
Ning Fengzhi, the former Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect Sect Master, after hearing Lu Jingming's purpose, exchanged a look with Ning Tian. In his eyes there was complicated nostalgia for his homeland, but even more relief and resolve.
He bowed with practiced grace, speaking calmly yet firmly:
"Master Lu, this world is already under the Spirit Empire's rule. My Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect may submit, but we would still be living under another's roof. Please, take us with you."
At Ning Fengzhi's words, Lu Jingming nodded. He did not refuse, though he did not tell Ning Fengzhi that the other world was not as beautiful as he imagined.
When Lu Jingming contacted the Herta in Haiyuan City and prepared to activate Cosmic Juggernaut to open a stable space-time channel and send Ma Xiaotao, Han Ruoruo, and the others away from this parallel world, Han Ruoruo spoke up in a mixture of anxiety and pleading.
"Lu Jingming, please wait. Could you… could you help us find Elder Xuan and Junior Brother Xu Sanshi? We were separated from them."
At her words, Lu Jingming swept his gaze over the group and only then belatedly realized that the two were indeed missing.
He nodded slightly. "I can."
Borrowing the World Tree's link to the planet-wide leylines, his perception spread out like an invisible net and quickly locked onto those two faint auras.
However, when he saw Xuan Zi and Xu Sanshi's condition, even Lu Jingming's brows knit ever so slightly.
The next moment, he raised his hand and slit open a crack in space, taking everyone directly to a barren mountain hollow.
The scene before their eyes weighed heavily on everyone's hearts.
The former Taotie Douluo, Xuan Zi, lay on a boulder, emaciated and withered. His aura was like a dying candle-flame in the wind, so weak as to be almost imperceptible.
He had lost an arm. At the stump, it was not a mere physical wound—dark-red killing intent and viscous malice continuously seeped out. These forces were like a malign tumor clinging to bone, persistently corroding his life origin and soul.
This was the wound left by the Asura Demon Sword.
How could the power of a super-artifact be something a mere rank-98 Title Douluo could withstand?
Xu Sanshi stood guard by his side, his face deathly pale, his eyes bloodshot and full of helplessness.
He had tried using the water-attribute soul power of his Xuanwu Shield to moisten and purify the wound, but in the face of the Asura God's slaughter law, that feeble power was a drop in the ocean. He could only watch as Xuan Zi's life slipped away bit by bit.
"Elder Xuan!"
Ma Xiaotao and Han Ruoruo both blanched at the sight and rushed forward.
Sword Douluo Chen Xin, who had come along, carefully inspected Xuan Zi's condition. After a long moment, he withdrew his hand and shook his head, his tone heavy.
"The slaughter law has already invaded his heart meridians and soul, nearly merging with his origin… He's beyond saving."
Even Jeanne, a saint, tried to summon her sacred purification. Yet when that merciful, radiant power touched the dark-red aura, it melted away like snow under the sun, forcibly repelled.
She sighed helplessly. "This slaughter and malice are of an extremely high order, far beyond the scope of what I can purify. I'm sorry—I can do nothing."
At her words, the last trace of hope in Ma Xiaotao and Han Ruoruo's eyes shattered. They turned as one toward the only person present who might still work a miracle—Lu Jingming.
Facing their pleading gaze, Lu Jingming only spread his hands, speaking with a helpless regret that seemed sincere:
"The Asura God is a God King who rules over slaughter and judgment, one of the gods of malice like the Rakshasa God. The power of his super-artifact carries the most fundamental malice and slaughter law. Wounds on that level—unless a life-element deity personally intervenes, or someone with a directly countering authority acts—are truly incurable."
His explanation was reasonable and perfectly concealed his true unwillingness to save Xuan Zi.
If he deified himself with another god seat, he could indeed play the role of a life-type deity. But he had no intention of doing so. Keeping Xuan Zi alive brought him no benefit.
Xuan Zi was the last of the old generation at Shrek Academy. Once he died, Shrek Academy would truly be finished.
And a newly reborn Shrek Academy was exactly what Lu Jingming needed.
He was only a Title Douluo. That he could not save Xuan Zi was something no one could fault. He had no obligation to try, either—he and Xuan Zi were not related in any way.
Cerydra, who had accepted the Asura God's inheritance, could also have saved Xuan Zi. But she was not here, and Lu Jingming would not bring it up himself.
Ma Xiaotao and Han Ruoruo, though grief-stricken, understood what harm done by a super-artifact meant. They could only accept this cruel reality.