Blood-red light shone upon the snow of the high mountains, lending them an eerie enchantment.
The North Sea was an azure expanse where water met sky, its green ripples gently swaying.
In the Endless Forest, lakes connected in an unbroken chain, where dragons slumbered beneath the waves.
Over the course of a single day, Qi Yuan accompanied the Holy Mother of Inedia on a whirlwind tour of the Mortal Heart Realm.
Standing in the sunlight, Qi Yuan gazed out at the dusk-veiled snow on the thousands of distant peaks. "It looks like I really did come here just for sightseeing this time. My cultivation didn't increase at all, though my state of mind... seems to have broadened quite a bit."
In his games, Qi Yuan never took a moment to rest, playing with utmost seriousness at every second.
This was the very first time he had taken things so easily, relaxing and touring about like this.
"To be honest, this is probably the first time in my life I've gone on a trip in the strictest sense. Even if it was just a fleeting glance, it felt pretty meaningful," Qi Yuan said.
A faint smile appeared in the Holy Mother of Inedia's beautiful eyes. "To look upon this land with you one last time is quite nice as well."
"You have already reached the pinnacle of Great Venerable. What kind of realm lies above True God?" Qi Yuan couldn't help but ask.
He had always been filled with curiosity regarding the Yang God realm.
Unfortunately, he had never seen a Yang God.
The Holy Mother of Inedia was the foremost figure of the Mortal Heart Realm throughout the ages, and she was the closest person to the Yang God realm.
"Above True God..." The Holy Mother of Inedia fell silent. "I do not know either."
She had walked to the very end of the Yin God realm, but when it came to Yang God, she had yet to glimpse its full scope.
Hearing this, Qi Yuan felt a bit disappointed. "Looks like I'll only know how powerful this so-called Yang God is once I see the big boss."
No sooner had Qi Yuan's words fallen than an earth-shattering noise erupted.
Before Qi Yuan's eyes, everything instantly turned into a curtain of blood.
Endless blood-red light filled his vision.
He jerked his head up toward the firmament.
From within the blood-red celestial body hanging above the Mortal Heart Realm, a terrifying, colossal hand reached forth.
That massive palm seemed as large as an entire planet.
The palm gave a gentle downward shove.
The Heavenly Pillar—whose height spanned tens of thousands of li—crumbled with a resounding crash, collapsing as easily as fragile building blocks.
"The Heavenly Pillar... has fallen!" Qi Yuan looked up at the crumbling pillar, as if watching a setting sun.
He had not expected that he would witness history unfolding at this very moment.
With the fall of the Heavenly Pillar, the Mortal Heart Realm shook violently, and rain of blood filled the sky.
It was the heavens weeping!
"Go!" The Holy Mother of Inedia shouted, casting a deep glance in Qi Yuan's direction.
Qi Yuan hurried after her.
He knew that she was going to face that Yang God.
He was also about to witness the most brutal battle of the Hongtang Great War.
All the Mythological figures were destined to perish this day.
Amidst the drifting blood rain, Qi Yuan appeared with the Holy Mother of Inedia atop the severed Heavenly Pillar.
"Holy Mother of Inedia, twenty breaths!"
"Hold on!"
Six Mythological voices transmitted their messages as their figures plunged into the Heavenly Pillar.
They had to begin condensing the world seed and sending it out from the Heavenly Pillar.
At this moment, Qi Yuan looked up toward the firmament.
Where the terrifying giant hand had reached out earlier, the space had turned into a rich, deep crimson.
A sea of blood churned—a sea devoid of water, comprised entirely of blood-red radiance.
The blazing crimson light was so intense that any mortal gazing directly at it would likely perish on the spot.
A cold, unfeeling voice rang out from high above.
"Annihilate."
The terrifying crimson figure's face was completely indiscernible.
In her eyes, the Holy Mother of Inedia did not exist—or rather, the Holy Mother was nothing more than the most insignificant ant.
Qi Yuan also looked toward that terrifying silhouette.
[Projection of Great Sage Blood Sun's Devouring Incarnation, Yang God.
This incarnation can devour all things and swallow celestial bodies whole.]
She stood high above the heavens, plummeting downward at a terrifying speed.
Twenty breaths? She would crash into the Heavenly Pillar in a single breath.
"Who is he!" the Holy Mother of Inedia called out, gazing up at the terrifying silhouette. Her scarlet robes appeared all the more vivid and striking amidst the bloody glow.
"A projection of Great Sage Blood Sun's Devouring Incarnation..." Qi Yuan shared what he saw without hesitation.
"Devouring, is it?"
The Holy Mother of Inedia seemed to grasp a critical piece of information.
Her red robes fluttered loudly in the wind. She lifted her head and roared at the fearsome silhouette above.
"Chaotic Boundlessness!"
"Sole Existence of This World!"
Endless radiance flared from her snowy-white palms.
Like a soldier charging bravely toward death with no lingering regrets, the Holy Mother of Inedia surged toward the terrifying silhouette.
Qi Yuan's voice reached high into the sky at the same moment.
"Her upper palate has an injury!"
"Her divine power covers her entire body, but it is concentrated most heavily in her head!"
A mere projection of a Yang God's incarnation was enough to affect Qi Yuan.
He felt his body trembling and his divine apertures shaking, as though confronted by a natural predator.
If just an incarnation's projection was this terrifying, how domineering would the true body be?
Qi Yuan could hardly imagine it.
He continued staring at every shred of bloody light and every discernible feature of that Yang God incarnation.
From an overwhelming flood of useless information, his eyes extracted actionable details and supplied them to the Holy Mother of Inedia.
This was a battle destined for defeat.
High above, two streaks of bloody light collided. Burning through every ounce of her divine spiritual power, the Holy Mother of Inedia managed to arrest the projection's descent for a moment.
A surprised voice drifted down: "How do you know who I am? How do you know of the unhealable wound on my palate?"
The terrifying figure fell into contemplation.
Her gaze swept across the earth, as if searching for someone.
Every mountain and river she looked upon was reduced to nothingness.
Across a radius of ten thousand li, only the solitary Heavenly Pillar remained.
However, Qi Yuan was not physically in this world, so such a terrifying attack could not harm him.
"What attribute is his divine spiritual power!" the Holy Mother of Inedia's voice rang out again from the firmament.
The terrifying figure grew surprised once more. "Who are you speaking to?"
Qi Yuan quickly peered forward.
[Devouring, destruction, assimilation, puppetry...]
He promptly relayed what he saw to the Holy Mother of Inedia.
Facing a projection of a Yang God's incarnation, the current Qi Yuan was still far too weak.
He had no idea how to counter it, so he could only do as the Holy Mother of Inedia asked.
*Boom!*
Another collision erupted in the heavens.
Qi Yuan watched as blood poured continuously from the Holy Mother of Inedia's body.
Even armed with substantial information about her foe, she remained entirely on the defensive, taking blow after blow.
Her blood rained down from the sky, threatening to corrode the earth below.
The terrifying blood silhouette's eyes swept across the world in irritation, trying to ferret out Qi Yuan.
Unfortunately, her efforts were destined to be in vain.
Bloodstains marred the Holy Mother of Inedia's exquisite face as her mighty Divine Domain shattered at that instant.
A crimson streak pierced through like a long dragon, directly tearing her Divine Domain to shreds.
The wounded Holy Mother roared once more.
"Tell me—her eyes..."
Qi Yuan hurried to look into the eyes of the Yang God incarnation's projection.
He relayed the information immediately.
"Chaotic Boundlessness!"
"Sole Existence of This World!"
The Holy Mother of Inedia launched another assault.
Her attack could not harm the Devouring Incarnation's projection in the slightest,
but it succeeded in delaying its descent.
"Insolent insect!" The terrifying figure grew utterly exasperated.
The Holy Mother of Inedia seemed to infuriate her far less than Qi Yuan lurking in the shadows.
Faced with the unknown and her own helplessness, her rage burned hottest.
"Just who is it!"
She was furious.
Yet her anger could not be vented upon Qi Yuan at all.
It fell entirely upon the Holy Mother of Inedia.
Devastating attacks relentlessly battered the Holy Mother's Divine Domain and her physical form.
She was suppressed completely and one-sidedly.
Her body fractured, her divine apertures broke, and blood dripped from the corner of her lips.
The span of twenty breaths felt excruciatingly long, but it finally drew to an end.
Though blood covered her exquisite face, a smile blossomed upon it.
She seemed to look toward Qi Yuan, her voice bleak yet liberated.
"I promised to protect the Heavenly Pillar, and I did."
"I always wanted to know where my final resting place would be, and now I know."
"I leave this life with no regrets."
She gave Qi Yuan one last look, her eyes filled with complex emotion.
Even though Qi Yuan had seen countless people and countless gazes, he could not decipher what that look meant or what feelings it contained.
"The road ahead... you will have to walk alone."
With those words, the Holy Mother of Inedia could no longer hold on.
Her body shattered with a resounding crash.
Boundless divine spiritual power drifted into the surroundings like scattered specks of starlight.
Qi Yuan reached out his hand, wanting to catch one.
Yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not grasp it.
The terrifying figure let out a roar.
"Who is it?"
She was destined never to find Qi Yuan, this outsider.
Without lingering any further, she crashed into the Heavenly Pillar with a deafening boom.
The entire Mortal Heart Realm violently convulsed.
The figures of six Mythological beings emerged, only to be extinguished within three breaths, as if they had never existed at all.
Beings as powerful as Mythological figures were like extras in a film, granted merely three breaths of screen time without even a close-up.
Only after a full hundred breaths had passed did the area return to complete calm.
Looking at the devastated land, Qi Yuan murmured, "If I'd known it would end in tragedy, I wouldn't have come to watch."
To be honest, Qi Yuan felt a tinge of regret, yet at the same time, he didn't.
He cast a deep look at the terrifying figure within the Heavenly Pillar, then glanced down at the light on the Lost Glowstick.
"Time's almost up. It's time to... head back."
The Holy Mother of Inedia had perished long ago; coming to the Hongtang Great War had only been to witness her demise.
...
Near the entrance of the Ancestral Land, a burly, dark-skinned man strutted about, humming a little tune. "I must be the one who gained the most from this trip to the Ancestral Land, right?"
He had run into several fortuitous encounters in a row, opening three divine apertures in total.
Such a haul ranked among the very best since the Ancestral Land had first opened.
*Are they still inside? Once they find out what I gained, they'll definitely be green with envy, won't they?*
Thinking this, the burly man finally stepped out of the Ancestral Land.
The moment he emerged, his divine apertures trembled violently.
He felt as if the gaze of a terrifying heavenly deity were locked onto him.
An anxious, displeased voice rang out.
"Why is it an idiot who came out?"
"Why isn't it the Origin Celestial Venerable!"
Hearing this, the burly man felt immensely slighted, but the sight of three Great Venerables standing before him instantly wiped every trace of dissatisfaction from his heart.
"You, boy! Did you see the Origin Celestial Venerable? How is he doing in there? Did he run into any danger?" Great Venerable Lishan urgently pressed.
The burly man looked utterly bewildered, but before a Great Venerable, he answered truthfully: "After entering the Ancestral Land, I separated from the others. I know nothing about the specifics."
He faithfully recounted everything that had happened when they reached the entrance and after stepping inside.
He wondered what on earth the Origin Celestial Venerable had done to make three Great Venerables wait here to corner him.
He couldn't fathom it.
Upon hearing his words, Great Venerable Lishan grew fraught with worry. "The Origin Celestial Venerable pointed out that those people brought danger; there must have been deep meaning behind it. Those people... ran off the moment they entered. There's definitely something wrong with them!"
The burly man stood quietly, not daring to utter a peep.
He really wanted to say: *What could possibly be wrong with someone as kind and genial as She Lao?*
Of course, he didn't dare say it aloud.
Just then, he noticed an elder nearby, and delight surfaced on his face. "Clan Elder, I opened three divine apertures inside the Ancestral Land this time!"
The elder was doddering with age. Hearing the burly man's words, he indeed showed an astonished expression. "You gained so much this time!"
The burly man felt light on his feet with pride.
This was the exact reaction he had been craving.
Later, when his acquaintances came out, he would ask them about their results, and their flattery and envy would multiply crazily.
He waited quietly, feeling a mix of anticipation, fear, and confusion.
Those Great Venerables were glaring at him with rather unfriendly looks.
Their expressions practically read: *Why was it him who came out, and not the Origin Celestial Venerable?*
*Where am I inferior to the Origin Celestial Venerable?*
Time ticked away, and roughly an hour passed.
Movement stirred from the Ancestral Land ahead once more.
Great Venerable Lishan and the other two Great Venerables perked up, fixing their eyes on the entrance.
"I hope it's the Origin Celestial Venerable!"
"Please let it be him!"
"Don't let it be another..." One of the Great Venerables swept a sidelong glance at the burly man.
The burly man was also full of anticipation. He didn't care who came out.
Either way, it was someone he could show off to.
Right then, the thin mist over the Ancestral Land parted, and a group of twenty-one people abruptly appeared.
Every single one of the twenty-one wore a broad, beaming smile.
The burly man, who had been gearing up to boast, froze in place.
Because... he realized he couldn't see through the strength of a single person among the twenty-one.
Even those villagers, who had clearly been ordinary mortals before, were beyond his perception.
Even the Ancient Gods whose cultivation had been lower than his were completely unreadable.
Now, he felt as though he were standing before a gathering of unfathomable powerhouses.
What was going on?
"Origin Celestial Venerable!"
"You are the Origin Celestial Venerable!"
"You're finally out!"
The three Great Venerables locked their eyes onto Qi Yuan, their gazes earnest and brimmed with anticipation.
"And you are?" Qi Yuan looked at the three of them with surprise in his eyes.
"I am the master of Venerable Baixi and a good friend of Great Venerable Shenlei. He asked me to look after you," Great Venerable Lishan said hastily.
"Oh, so that's it. Didn't think that old geezer Shenlei was actually a pretty decent guy," Qi Yuan remarked. A day apart—that old geezer Shenlei hadn't eaten up all the pigs in the village, had he?
Just then, Great Venerable Lishan's gaze suddenly landed on Zhu Zhuangshi and the other villagers, his eyes widening. "Your God Visualization Arts... you used them on them?"
"Yeah." Qi Yuan didn't hide it.
"The ones you gave them are... the ones you just visualized?" Great Venerable Lishan asked again, his voice trembling.
"I happened to bring eight villagers with me, and I happened to visualize eight God Visualization Arts, so I just let them use them," Qi Yuan said casually.
Hearing this, Great Venerable Lishan felt immense heartache.
Those were Mythological-grade God Visualization Arts... used so casually just like that?
Zhu Zhuangshi looked at Great Venerable Lishan. With his strength having skyrocketed, he had grown rather cocky. "What, Old Zhu isn't worthy of a God Visualization Art?"
Having advanced to Step Two Sky Treading and awakened a Divine Domain seed with the potion, his strength was increasing with every passing moment.
He felt infinitely powerful.
To deal with that big black dog, why would he even need a finger? A single leg hair would do.
Even facing Great Venerable Lishan, he wasn't intimidated in the slightest.
Great Venerable Lishan stared at Zhu Zhuangshi, his thoughts racing. "Well... what's used is used."
Aside from lamenting the loss, what else could he do?
Suddenly, Great Venerable Lishan seemed to notice something, and his pupils shrank violently. "A rudimentary Divine Domain? What's going on... you... wait, how have you all awakened a rudimentary Divine Domain!"
Great Venerable Lishan's heart shook with shock.
The Ancient Gods before him seemed to have just awakened their rudimentary Divine Domains, which were not yet stable, so they hadn't concealed them properly.
A wisp of their aura had leaked out, and Great Venerable Lishan had caught it.
"They were malnourished, but after taking some oral tonic, they grew big and strong," Qi Yuan said offhandedly.
"Oral tonic?" Great Venerable Lishan was left dazed.
Ancient God Wangsong chimed in, "The oral tonic Lord God speaks of is Divine Domain Celestial Liquid. Heh heh, following Lord God into the Ancestral Land earned us a massive fortune!"
Hearing "Divine Domain Celestial Liquid," the burly man's eyes turned bloodshot.
Opening three divine apertures was indeed a great harvest, but compared to a rudimentary Divine Domain, it wasn't worth dog fart!
How could every single one of these people have awakened a rudimentary Divine Domain?!
Unfair!
He was burning with envy and jealousy!
Great Venerable Lishan was equally shaken, though joy quickly surfaced on his face.
Didn't this mean the Ancient Gods had gained many more combatants on par with Great Venerables?
Eight of them even possessed Mythological-grade God Visualization Arts.
The future was full of promise.
"We need to take the teleportation formation back. Bye-bye, everyone," Qi Yuan said nonchalantly, not caring to dwell on their astonishment.
Only then did Great Venerable Lishan remember his purpose in coming, and he quickly called out, "Origin Celestial Venerable, please wait!"
He couldn't let him go back!
Chapter 208