Outside the boundary of Zhangfeng Prefecture.
"Whooosh..."
The land lay cloaked in blackness. Fierce winds lashed through forests and meadows, flattening all life beneath their invisible weight.
The oppressive might of the Saint descended like a mountain, so heavy, so terrifying, that birds fell silent and insects ceased to chirp.
Suddenly, Su Huaiying straightened her back atop the stone, narrowing her eyes, she had keenly caught the distant sound of warhorses screaming.
And not just that, she could also hear the clashing of armor, the heavy breathing of men moving in formation, the uniform rhythm of marching steps.
That was the sound of an army silently arrayed, moving forward.
Su Huaiying had spent six hundred years in military service within the Great Void Illusion Realm. Every time she dreamed of war horns and military camps, those sounds lingered in her ears without fading.
Those six hundred years felt like a fleeting dream, yet they had transformed her from a delicate princess who would vomit helplessly from a moment's bump on horseback into a seasoned female general adept with bow and blade, and eventually, she ascended the ultimate throne of sovereignty.
Every sound from the battlefield had long since been seared into her soul.
Because of this, she could tell immediately, among all those warhorses, there was one Heavenly Steed.
Heavenly Steeds possessed the bloodline of demon beasts. In a single breath, they could travel a thousand li. They were true divine warhorses, only commanding officers in the army could possibly be riding one.
Which meant: the troops approaching were elite soldiers of the Yang Kingdom!
First came the Saint's divine hand, and now came the encircling army.
Su Huaiying couldn't help but think, Chen Kuang really had become the target of all under heaven.
Then again, she shook her head slightly, when was he ever not?
In hindsight, back when General Huo chose Chen Kuang to escort them, he must have already known that the Elixir of Immortality was with Chen Kuang.
National Destiny, the Elixir of Immortality... The young princess began to have a vague idea.
General Huo Hengxuan had sent Chen Kuang to accompany her and her mother, but perhaps not to protect them, but to use them as a cover.
The one he truly wanted to smuggle out from under everyone's nose was Chen Kuang alone from the very beginning..
And combined with the words of Su Yu, it wasn't hard to guess that the mastermind behind it all was none other than the final Emperor of Liang.
Su Huaiying raised her head to look at the sky, now completely shrouded by the Saint's descending finger. Her heart was filled with complex emotions.
Su Yu was her biological father.
Even if he was neither a worthy man nor a capable ruler, in Su Huaiying's brief childhood memories, he was still a father who could sometimes smile as he shook a rattle-drum to amuse her.
But now, that face, always marked by exhaustion and shadow, had been replaced in her mind by the image of an Emperor seated high upon the dragon throne, his gaze cold and impenetrable, watching everything below with indifference.
Su Yu, most likely, never cared about the lives of his wife and daughter.
He had only used them as shields, as bait, to draw enemy attention.
His one miscalculation, perhaps, was that he failed to realize that his wife... was the incarnation of a primordial great demon.
The National Destiny of the Liang Kingdom had not disappeared at all, it had merely been transferred.
Within the Great Void Illusion Realm, Su Huaiying had come within reach of reviving the Liang Kingdom multiple times, yet each attempt ended in failure due to inexplicable circumstances.
Initially, she believed that her failures stemmed from poor luck or insufficient ability.
Only now did she realize the truth:
Liang's National Destiny was elsewhere. Without it, how could the kingdom be restored?
Only by returning that destiny to its rightful place, awakening the Dragon Veins, could Liang rise again.
Just thinking that she had failed over and over again for this reason left Su Huaiying boiling with frustration. If she could, she would have dug up her already dismembered father and torn him apart again.
Su Huaiying couldn't help but think: if the Liang Kingdom's National Destiny was now within Chen Kuang, and she wanted to restore Liang without allowing Chen Kuang to claim the throne...
Then... would she have to make Chen Kuang her "Queen of Liang"?
A mental image suddenly flashed into her mind, Chen Kuang dressed in extravagant palace robes, dignified and elegant...
The little princess jolted in deep disgust, shaking her head violently with a shiver.
And just then, her eyes caught sight of a white streak of radiant light shooting up from the very heart of Zangfeng Prefecture!
That white light looked like the prelude to fireworks, or like a sharp letter-opener, cleaving through the darkened sky in a clean, straight cut.
"What is that?"
Before the thought could fully form, Su Huaiying's eyes widened in shock, she saw the figure at the tip of that radiant stream.
"It's Chen Kuang!"
Su Huaiying's pupils constricted. She leapt off the stone in alarm:
"He's going to fight the Saint head-on?! That's his death tribulation?!"
Is Chen Kuang insane?!
That kind of death Tribulation, who in the world could possibly save him?
Su Huaiying nearly burst out laughing in disbelief.
But her hand instantly pressed against the ancient bell at her waist, her expression turning solemn as she prepared to act at any moment.
Zhang Zhizhou took two steps back and shook his head:
"This is not his death tribulation, Your Highness. Please... look behind you."
Su Huaiying spun around.
"Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh!"
Out from the pitch-black forests all around them, torches rose up in waves, flickering brightly, illuminating shining armor and countless glaring eyes.
Thousands upon thousands!
A chill ran down Su Huaiying's spine. She sensed something deeply familiar taking form.
Like a slumbering beast drawing heavy breath... on the verge of waking.
This was..
A Momentum Formation!
...
In Chen Kuang's vision, the world was racing past him, the darkened sky growing closer and closer.
But once all fixed reference points vanished, space itself lost meaning.
Because the sky above... was simply too vast.
So vast that the naked eye could no longer judge whether one was drawing near or remaining stationary. Even though he was speeding upward, it felt like he hadn't moved at all.
In that moment, Chen Kuang felt like the monkey king trapped beneath the Five Elements Mountain, forever leaping, yet never escaping.
"Heh..."
Chen Kuang suddenly let out a low laugh.
The immense pressure had caused all the fine cracks in his skin to rupture completely. His flesh split open. Blood gushed across his entire body, turning him into a man bathed in red.
And those were just the surface wounds.
Every part of his body, bone, flesh, blood vessels, meridians, was being crushed, hammered, pulverized and disintegrated.
The scorching heat intensified the agony. Sparks ignited across his limbs. His skin turned red, then black, and then began to char and burn.
But having broken the seal, his passives had reactivated.
His flesh began regenerating at an astonishing rate. Spiritual Energy surged wildly through his body, pouring into every wound, sustaining his cultivation and warding off the blazing heat.
That finger descending from the heavens, was no different from an enormous meteorite.
Its surrounding pressure and heat alone could instantly reduce an ordinary human to scattered ashes.
Just standing there could lead to total annihilation.
Let alone colliding head-on with it.
But Chen Kuang forcibly broke through layer upon layer of resistance until he was close enough to see the massive whorls of skin etched onto that fingertip.
The hand continued to press down.
Boom!
Chen Kuang's Spiritual Energy finally reached a critical threshold, shattering a certain internal balance as his entire body ignited into a blazing inferno.
He hung suspended midair, half of his body instantly blasted apart, falling backward.
At that moment, as his head tilted upward, Chen Kuang's thoughts momentarily drifted into a strange suspension.
He truly felt, for the first time, the perspective of an ant.
And he couldn't help but muse, so for a Saint, everyone else really is a literal insect...
But ants... can bite.
And a monkey... can still swing its staff at the heavens and stir up a world-shaking storm.
On his nearly unrecognizable face, Chen Kuang revealed a silent smile.
Crack!
The other half of his body shattered as well.
This time, it wasn't due to external force, but because he deliberately let the remaining Spiritual Energy tear apart his own flesh!
At the razor's edge of life and death, his passive "Last-Second Reversal" leveled up again!
His Spiritual Energy surged anew!
At this instant, Chen Kuang's strength surged infinitely close to the Upper Third Grade Profound Realm!
"HAAAA-!!"
His face contorted with rage, Chen Kuang forced his half-functional right arm upward and, wrapped in surging Spiritual Energy, swung his fist toward the Saint's descending divine finger!
That white stream of flowing light, frozen in midair, once more climbed upward, pouring every last ounce of strength into it!
A single finger versus a single fist.
It was like the entire world... against a speck of dust.
High in the heavens, a cold, disdainful snort seemed to echo.
...
Wangshu, the female Saint, felt a nearly imperceptible prick of pain on her fingertip, her expression remaining indifferent.
That tiny prick of pain, was no more than a splinter left behind on an unsanded table. It didn't even count as a needle's stab.
By Chen Kuang's own strength, he shouldn't have been able to cause even this minor sensation. The pain was in fact a backlash from the passive effect of "Shifting Flowers and Grafting Trees."
To think he could challenge a Saint with such pitiful power, truly the height of ignorance and arrogance..
Wangshu, her interest thoroughly lost, murmured:
"This world is... unbearably dull."
She ceased holding back and with the full weight of power sufficient to crush all ants beneath her, she pressed her finger downward again.
But it did not move.
The expression on the Yang Kingdom's female Saint suddenly froze, along with the rest of her body!
In her heart, a flash of disbelief passed.
Immobile...? How could that be?
What just happened?!
She quickly turned her divine sense inward, and immediately sensed something amiss.
Her fingertip was now glowing with brilliant five-colored light, leaking outward through the map on her white silk sleeve, illuminating the entire Ancestral Temple.
And beneath her, there was no shadow.
...
The moment Chen Kuang threw his punch, the last of his garments disintegrated from the force.
Revealing what had been hidden beneath all along:
A jade lamp, its top sculpted in the shape of a blooming lotus, one could also call it:
The Glazed Image-Freezing Lamp.
A gleam of fierce intent flashed through Chen Kuang's eyes as he exhaled and spoke:
"Still!"
From the moment he discovered this lamp could project two shadows from his body, Chen Kuang had known, it wasn't some simple artifact.
Especially given its link to that mysterious filthy Taoist with the shaved head.
This entire go board laid by the Liang Kingdom... had even accounted for Saints.
If this Glazed Image-Freezing Lamp could pierce such illusions, then at minimum, it had the power to stand against even Upper Third Grade cultivators.
Its potential... had no limit.
In that instant:
At his command, the Glazed Image-Freezing Lamp erupted in radiant brilliance, illuminating the entire heavens above.
Five-colored light coalesced on the Saint's fingertip, flowing like auspicious clouds or a starry river.
Or perhaps... like a stunning firework exploding into bloom.
Everyone below was struck dumb, their pupils reflecting this breathtaking spectacle.
The immense pillar-like finger paused for a moment midair.
And Chen Kuang, riding the momentum, lightly collided with that celestial column.
By rights, with the power in that finger, Chen Kuang should have exploded into bloody mist the moment of impact, his body annihilated.
But now, in that brief pause, he merely... bumped into it.
BOOM!
His skeleton shuddered violently, nearly falling apart.
But, he didn't.
His ever-regenerating flesh and blood... bought him one more breath.
"Destruction and Rebirth" triggered.
Tower Ascension, Eigth Realm!
Thump!
In that moment, Chen Kuang heard the heavy, resonant thud of his own heartbeat echoing in his chest. Heard the creeping squelch of flesh knitting back together.
He heard the cries and struggles of the mortals below, the soft sound of sprouts breaking through soil.
That was the myriad forms of heaven and earth.
He heard the open vastness of the sky, the hollow expanse of the void, and the explosive implosion of a distant star collapsing.
That... was the primordial vastness of the universe.
It was like dropping a pebble into still water, ripples fanned outward in all directions.
A profound and strange sensation arose..
The "Heavenly Demon Mimicry" passive... triggered.
It was mimicked..
The "Mountain and River Diagram..."
Chen Kuang murmured instinctively: "Unfurl."
BOOM...
Above Zangfeng Prefecture, within the Saint's outstretched finger, amidst the swirling five-colored light:
A massive map slowly unfurled in the void.
...
The gathered Demon clan members stood frozen in place, their mouths agape in disbelief.
Cang Xing tilted his head back, stunned and speechless:
"Truly worthy of the Martial Saint's disciple... he had this move too? I wonder if I could learn it..."
Huangfu Yan stared up at the scene, just as shaken. But after a moment, he quietly muttered:
"Such a shame..."
...
In truth, Chen Kuang could no longer clearly see what lay before him.
But he knew, his fist was pressed against one place.
The Ancestral Temple of the Yang Kingdom.
And within that temple, stood only one person:
The Yang Kingdom's female Saint, Wangshu Yuanchun.
The immobilizing effect of the Glazed Image-Freezing Lamp had already passed. Yet she remained frozen, staring upward at the sky above her.
Hovering over the Ancestral Temple, a colossal fist pierced through the clouds, suspended in midair.
Lady Wangshu had almost forgotten when she last felt such emotion.
Surprise. Shock. Bewilderment. Even... a flicker of fear.
She was certain, the Mountain and River Diagram was her exclusive Divine Ability.
In this world... only she should have been capable of using it.
But now, there was another..
And that "other"... was a bug beneath her feet!
Wangshu suddenly curled her lips: "At last, something interesting-"
But before her words were finished-
The fist above suddenly unfurled its five fingers, and slapped down!
Wangshu's smile didn't fade as she calmly said:
"You can't possibly think that some shoddy imitation... can defeat a Saint?"
Chen Kuang's voice echoed down from above, calm and steady:
"Of course not."
"But, if you add in National Destiny, then what?"
Wangshu's expression finally changed as her pupils shrank and she snapped:
"You dare?!"
A voice echoed from outside the Ancestral Temple.
"Why wouldn't we dare?"
It was Wen Xian.
Lady Wangshu looked up with a snap, her eyes landing on that bloated, heavyset figure, utterly different from his younger brother.
Wen Xian's face was grim and malevolent. In his hand, he held the Imperial Jade Seal of the Yang Kingdom.
"Grandma Wangshu, the moment you aided Wen Zhai, you should have known that this moment would come."
His expression turned solemn as he raised the seal high.
"I invoke the National Destiny and suppress the Saint!"
At first, it seemed as though nothing changed.
But in that instant, Wangshu realized, her strength had vanished.
An invisible yet majestic force, like the rules of the heavens themselves, had descended and locked her in place.
Shocked and furious, she bellowed:
"Wen Xian! You dare invoke the National Destiny?! Once the Destiny weakens, without me, the Yang Kingdom cannot survive!"
Wen Xian sneered coldly:
"Ever heard the phrase 'Man can triumph over Heaven'? the Yang Kingdom has no need for a Saint who sides with traitors."
From above, the palm had already descended.
BOOM!
Chen Kuang slapped the temple flat, smashing Wangshu deep into the earth!
The next instant, the Saint's finger dispersed, the Mountain and River Diagram shattered.
The sky, once cloaked in darkness, burst into boundless light. Chen Kuang's body slackened as his Spiritual Energy scattered, he closed his eyes, and tilted backwards with a smile..
Falling from the sky, hundreds of zhang in freefall.