With every movement, Zhu Zhuqing had to use her divine power to forcibly push through the solidifying spatial medium, as if swimming through thick, viscous glue. Her divine power consumption was more than ten times higher than in any previous battle.
"I can't let this continue..."
A look of resolution flashed in Zhu Zhuqing's eyes. She came to a halt, her hands forming seals in front of her chest. The mark of the God of Speed appeared on her forehead—a streak of pitch-black lightning.
"Divine Skill: Instant Prison Shadow Kill Array."
She finally unleashed her trump card. Zhu Zhuqing's figure instantly split—not into mere illusions, but real clones. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand... within just three breaths, exactly 108,000 figures of Zhu Zhuqing appeared within the Ice and Snow Domain.
Every single one was real; every single one possessed one percent of her strength. This was the manifestation of the God of Speed pushing speed to its absolute limit—within an extremely short duration, her true body existed in 108,000 positions simultaneously. Every clone could launch an attack, and every clone could take damage, until all clones were destroyed or her divine power was exhausted.
The 108,000 dark shadows moved in unison. They transformed into streaks of black light, piercing toward the Snow Empress from every conceivable angle—above, below, left, and right. Every trajectory was precise, sealing off all possible escape routes for the Snow Empress. Wherever the light passed, even the solidifying space was forcibly torn apart—a testament to the destruction of spatial structure itself once pure speed reached its zenith.
For the first time, a solemn expression appeared on the Snow Empress's face. She thrust her ice sword into the frozen ground at her feet and clasped her hands together in front of her chest.
"Ice Pole Divine Rings."
Centered on her, nine ice-blue light rings expanded layer by layer. Every ring contained terrifyingly low temperatures approaching absolute zero, and the temperature gradient between the rings reached a staggering level—the temperature of the innermost ring infinitely approached theoretical absolute zero.
The 108,000 black streaks crashed into the ice rings. The first ring shattered, but the clones that struck it were instantly frozen and pulverized. The second, the third, the fourth...
The black streaks were like moths to a flame, crashing into and shattering the ice rings one after another. With every ring that broke, a sub-zero storm swept through the entire domain, freezing hundreds or thousands of clones at once.
The Ice and Snow Domain shook violently. Cracks appeared in the ice canopy in the sky, and the profound ice layer on the ground fractured over a wide area. This was a collision of two laws—Speed and Extreme Cold—both attempting to rewrite the physical laws of this world.
By the time the eighth ring shattered, Zhu Zhuqing had lost ninety percent of her clones. But she still had 10,800 left, and... her true body hidden among them.
"Now!"
Under the cover of her clones, Zhu Zhuqing's true body quietly appeared thirty meters behind the Snow Empress. This was the optimal attack distance she had calculated—close enough to ensure a killing blow, but far enough not to trigger too strong a reaction from the domain.
Her hands transformed into two pitch-black light blades, wrapped in black threads capable of slicing through space. Into this strike, she poured seventy percent of her remaining divine power, seeking to heavily wound the Snow Empress in a single hit.
"Hell Double Stabs: God-Slaying Blade."
The twin blades thrust out silently, yet faster than time itself could perceive. The Snow Empress seemed unaware, remaining in her clasped-hand posture as the final ice ring rotated slowly around her.
However, just as the blades were about to touch the Snow Empress's back, the corner of her lips curled into a faint arc.
"You fell for it," she said softly.
Then, Zhu Zhuqing discovered to her horror that the temperature of the space surrounding her was dropping at an exponential rate. No, it wasn't just dropping—it was hitting zero.
"Sigh of the Ice and Snow Goddess."
The Snow Empress turned slowly. Her eyes had turned completely ice-blue, and the depths of her pupils reflected the coldness and silence of the universe's birth. Centered on Zhu Zhuqing, the temperature within a ten-meter radius dropped to absolute zero within a thousandth of a second.
Not near it, but true absolute zero. This was a theoretical limit forcibly simulated by the Snow Empress, using the core of the Herrscher of Ice as a power source and her divine position as a medium.
Inside this cage, all molecular motion ceased, time lost its meaning, spatial structures froze, and even the flow of divine power was forcibly solidified. Zhu Zhuqing's twin blades stopped just three inches from the Snow Empress's chest.
It wasn't that she didn't want to strike, but that she couldn't—her arms, her divine body, and the divine power flowing within her were all frozen in that instant. This wasn't merely being encased in ice; it was a far more terrifying state. Every cell, every wisp of divine power, was as if a pause button had been pressed, held at the exact moment before the attack.
The Snow Empress exhaled a breath of cold air, which condensed into pale blue ice crystals the moment it left her mouth. Maintaining the "Sigh of the Ice and Snow Goddess" was an immense drain on her; even with the support of the Herrscher core, she could only hold it for three breaths.
But three breaths were enough. She raised her right hand, her index finger gently tapping Zhu Zhuqing's forehead.
"Sleep eternally, God of Speed."
Ice-blue light surged from her fingertip into Zhu Zhuqing's divine soul.
Meanwhile, the battle on the other side had reached a fever pitch. After taking the Demon Empress's "Thunder Punishment: World Destruction" head-on, Dai Mubai's divine armor was shattered, and his divine power was heavily depleted.
But he was, after all, the God of War, seasoned in combat. The moment the Demon Empress condensed a thunder spear to pursue him, he made a startling decision—instead of retreating, he advanced.
"White Tiger Sky-Rending Strike!"
Dai Mubai roared. He voluntarily shattered his broken golden divine armor, turning the shards into countless golden spots of light that merged into his body. His figure expanded again, reaching a height of fifteen feet, as ancient and ferocious White Tiger divine patterns emerged on his skin.
He abandoned all defense, pouring all his remaining divine power into his right fist. The moment that punch was thrown, heaven and earth lost their color. Where the fist passed, space wasn't just torn—it was crushed. A black void a hundred meters in diameter appeared in front of the punch, a temporary vacuum formed by the total collapse of spatial structure.
At the edge of the void, where reality met the vacuum, the golden divine power of the God of War rubbed violently against the chaotic energy of the void, erupting into a shockwave capable of annihilating everything. This was one of Dai Mubai's trump cards—burning the source of his divine body to gain destructive power comparable to a First-Class God for a short time.
The Demon Empress's pupils contracted. she could feel the terror of this punch—if hit directly, even her divine body would be heavily wounded. But she didn't dodge. Not only did she not hide, but a crazed, cruel smile appeared on her face.
"Come then! Now this is more like it!"
The Demon Empress spread her arms. The phantom of the Deep Sea Demon Whale behind her roared at the sky, and the elemental energy from dozens of miles around converged toward her like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.
But that wasn't enough. The Core of the Herrscher of Thunder within her operated frantically, and the Honkai energy from the Imaginary Space flooded into her body like a bursting dam.
"Electromagnetic Manipulation: Universal Pull."
She gripped the air with both hands, aimed not at Dai Mubai, but at the depths of the earth below. Beneath the wasteland lay rock layers thousands of meters thick, and beneath those lay the slowly flowing mantle. Deep within the core existed a massive, rotating liquid iron-nickel center—the source of the planet's magnetic field.
At this moment, the Demon Empress's Herrscher authority penetrated the crust, directly touching the planet's magnetic field itself.
"Rumble—!!!"
Across the entire Douluo Continent, every living being felt the anomaly. Compasses spun wildly, birds lost their sense of direction, and soul beasts grew agitated. On the wasteland battlefield, the ground shook violently as countless cracks hundreds of meters deep spread like spiderwebs. Deep within the fissures, the light of dark red magma shimmered—a sign that the mantle material was being forcibly pulled upward.
But this was only the prelude. The true killing move was the Demon Empress using electromagnetic force to control all metallic elements within a hundred-mile radius.
The soil of the wasteland contained trace amounts of iron. Under the pull of electromagnetic force, this iron was separated from the soil, converging into countless fine grains of iron sand. The sand gathered in the air into dozens of black metallic torrents, circling around the Demon Empress like dragons. Simultaneously, the iron, nickel, and other metallic elements within the molten magma pulled from deep underground were forcibly extracted, bursting through the ground as searing metallic streams.
Sky, earth, and even the dust in the air—all substances containing metal were controlled by the Demon Empress in that instant.
"Heaven and Earth Devourer—Magneto Thunder Prison."
The Demon Empress slammed her hands together. The dozens of metallic torrents, the searing metal streams from underground, and her own purple lightning merged perfectly. A terrifying domain with a diameter exceeding a thousand meters was formed.
Inside the domain, it was no longer simple lightning, but a perfect fusion of lightning and metal. Controlled by electromagnetic force, countless grains of iron sand spun frantically at tens of thousands of revolutions per second, forming billions of micro-metallic storms. Every grain of sand was wrapped in purple electric arcs; they collided and rubbed against each other in their high-speed rotation, generating a cutting force capable of shredding a divine body.
At the core of this domain was a gravitational singularity created by the Deep Sea Demon Whale's talent—a black sphere that continuously devoured all surrounding matter and energy. On the surface of the sphere, purple lightning and metallic streams intertwined into patterns of destruction.
Dai Mubai's world-destroying punch crashed into this domain. Then, a scene occurred that shocked everyone.
The punch capable of crushing space began to decelerate sharply the moment it entered the Magneto Thunder Prison. The golden divine power on the fist was peeled away layer by layer by the billions of spinning iron sands. The sands themselves were constantly being destroyed by the fist's force, but for every grain destroyed, ten more were replenished from across the domain.
This was not a confrontation of strength; it was a war of attrition between the finite and the infinite. By the time Dai Mubai's fist advanced to within a hundred meters of the Demon Empress, its power had decreased by fifty percent. At fifty meters, it had decreased by seventy percent. At twenty meters, the punch's power had almost completely dissipated.
Yet the Demon Empress's Magneto Thunder Prison continued to operate frantically. As iron sand was destroyed, she drew more metallic elements from the depths of the earth. As lightning was neutralized, the Honkai energy from the Imaginary Space was continuously converted into new bolts of light.
"Impossible... this is impossible..."
For the first time, despair appeared in Dai Mubai's eyes. His strongest strike had been ground down to nothing by this bizarre domain without even touching the corner of his opponent's clothes.
"Nothing is impossible," the Demon Empress's voice echoed through the thunder prison, cold and cruel. "You are still looking at the world with eyes from ten thousand years ago. The times have changed. Your ways are long obsolete."
She raised her right hand, and the Magneto Thunder Prison began to contract inward. The countless iron sands, metallic streams, and purple lightning acted like a giant millstone, slowly grinding toward Dai Mubai at the center.
"Now, feel the power of a Herrscher."
"Magneto Thunder Prison: Millstone of Heaven and Earth."
The speed of the domain's contraction grew faster and faster. Dai Mubai released his God of War Domain with all his might to resist, but the golden domain melted as quickly as snow under the sun under the pressure of the Magneto Thunder Prison. His divine body began to crack, and golden divine blood seeped from the fissures, only to be instantly evaporated into a bloody mist by the electromagnetic field. More terrifyingly, the gravitational singularity began to produce a horrific suction, threatening to swallow him whole.
"Mubai!"
Just then, Zhu Zhuqing's cry of alarm reached him. Dai Mubai snapped his head around and saw a scene that made his eyes nearly burst—Zhu Zhuqing was frozen by the Snow Empress's "Sigh of the Ice and Snow Goddess," and a finger was currently pointing toward her forehead.
"ZHUQING—!!!"
Dai Mubai let out a beast-like roar. Golden divine blood poured from his seven orifices, and every remnant of divine power in his body ignited. This wasn't consumption; it was combustion—exchanging the permanent damage of his divine source for the strength of one last struggle.
"God of War Forbidden Art: White Tiger God-Burning."
Dai Mubai's body began to burn, not with fire, but with pure golden light-flame. This was the sign of his divine source, divine soul, and divine body burning simultaneously. Within the light-flame, his aura began to climb frantically, instantly breaking through the limit of a Second-Class God and briefly touching the threshold of a First-Class God.
"BREAK FOR ME—!!!"
He punched the inner wall of the Magneto Thunder Prison. The power of this punch was at least three times stronger than before. The iron sand storm on the inner wall was forcibly blasted open, creating a ten-meter gap, and the suction of the gravitational singularity briefly fell into disorder.
Now was the time.
Dai Mubai turned into a golden meteor, charging out through the gap and heading straight for the Snow Empress. He was going to save Zhu Zhuqing, even if it meant mutual destruction.
The Demon Empress's expression changed. She hadn't expected Dai Mubai to be so resolute as to burn his divine source. By the time she reacted and wanted to stop him, Dai Mubai had already burst out of the thunder prison's range.
"You seek death!" Enraged, the Demon Empress turned the Magneto Thunder Prison into a purple lightning dragon, pursuing Dai Mubai from behind.
But Dai Mubai was too fast. The burst of power from burning his source gave him speed that was not inferior to Zhu Zhuqing's for a short duration. Three hundred meters, two hundred meters, one hundred meters...
He drew closer and closer to the Snow Empress and Zhu Zhuqing. The Snow Empress sensed the terrifying aura approaching rapidly from behind. She frowned slightly, and her finger pointing at Zhu Zhuqing's forehead paused.
It was this pause that allowed Zhu Zhuqing to seize her chance.