Despicable Insects, You All Deserve Purification!

Back in his hotel room, Huang Tian washed up briefly before unlocking his phone. His eyes immediately caught the "99+" unread indicator on the Baidi Young Martial Artists Social Group chat, and he tapped into it. The earliest message had been sent over half an hour ago. [Group Owner He Zhengtong: @All Members, run! Take your families and get out of here right now! A void passage has appeared in our Baidi City! It won't be long before the kin of the evil gods from beyond descend through it and unleash a slaughter! I'm already fleeing Baidi City with my teacher!] [Liu Xuexue: Void passage? Do you mean that blood-red pillar of light in the sky?] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: Exactly that! I didn't recognize it at first either; my teacher was the one who told me. Don't worry about the details now—just run! Every time a void passage opens, at least one or two Martial Grandmaster-level kin descend. We can't hold them off at all!] [Steamed Cake Laughs: Thanks for the warning, Group Owner! Packing up and getting out immediately. No, I won't even pack, I'm just bolting!] [+1...] [+1...] A wave of "+1" replies flooded the group. After nearly twenty minutes of eerie silence, someone finally posted again. [Qu Xiao (Hit me up for pills and potions~): Holy shit, I pulled an all-nighter and only just woke up. What happened? What void passage? What evil gods? I just went to my window and looked toward the pillar of light. It's completely quiet over there. No monsters in sight, no fire, no explosions. Looks just like any normal night.] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: Huh? Are you sure? For real?] [Qu Xiao: I swear I'm not lying. Nightscape.jpg, Nightscape.jpg. I just snapped these two photos. Look for yourselves—isn't the area around the light pillar totally peaceful?] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: ...I don't get it. Did my teacher go senile? He shouldn't have misidentified a void passage! And it's not just our Yuanzhen Sect fleeing—martial artists from other small sects are running for their lives too. Dawnlight was even asking us for reinforcements earlier...] [A Bald Head Will Eventually Shine: @Group Owner He Zhengtong, I just saw the messages too. I'm still inside the city, and my place isn't far from the light pillar. Looking over from here, it's totally peaceful. Forget evil god kin, you can't even hear a monster screech.] [The Great Hermit Hides in the Quilt: Could that pillar of light be some rare atmospheric phenomenon rather than a so-called void passage?] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: Now I'm totally baffled. Was it really a false alarm? Did my teacher and the Dawnlight people all get it wrong? Hold on, let me check with my teacher.] [The Great Hermit Hides in the Quilt: Awaiting the boss's update.] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: I'm back. *Cough cough*, I just explained the situation to my teacher, and he's completely confused too. After discussing it, we aren't rushing to drive any farther. We've pulled over by the roadside and decided to observe for a bit. Also, my teacher said a void passage usually lasts for half an hour, and time is almost up. Those of you near the light pillar, keep an eye out to see if it disappears in a bit.] [Qu Xiao: Got it, got it. I'm super nervous too—glancing between the group chat and the light pillar right now.] [A Bald Head Will Eventually Shine: Keeping my eyes glued on it too. I'll report back immediately.] Several minutes ticked by. [Qu Xiao: Holy shit, the pillar of light disappeared! It really was about half an hour!] [A Bald Head Will Eventually Shine: The timing matches. That thing was eighty to ninety percent likely the void passage the group owner mentioned. But I didn't see a single trace of any evil god kin. It's completely dead quiet over there.] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: ...I passed your intel on to my teacher. He's urgently contacting Dawnlight right now. Hang tight for a moment, everyone.] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: Confirmed! It really was a void passage! The evil god kin descended—a total of five Martial Grandmaster-level kin appeared throughout the event! However, every single one of those monsters was slaughtered by an expert! It's the same young martial artist I told you about before, the one who wiped out all the Flesh Society cultists who snuck into the city! He's not a Limit Break martial artist at all—he's a Martial Grandmaster! And an extraordinarily powerful one even among Grandmasters!] [Qu Xiao: Holy shit! So a supreme boss was handling it! Suppressing a void passage all by himself—absolute legend!] [The Great Hermit Hides in the Quilt: Becoming a Martial Grandmaster in his twenties? That's utterly absurd. Compared to him, I'm the trashiest trash of all trash (crying~)] [Liu Xuexue: @Group Owner He Zhengtong, do you know the name of that Martial Grandmaster? How could our tiny Baidi City suddenly produce a Martial Grandmaster? It's simply incredible...] [Group Owner He Zhengtong: I don't know the boss's name yet, but we should learn more in a few days. This incident caused too massive a stir. Dawnlight headquarters and the four supreme sects will definitely dispatch people to Baidi City to investigate. We should be able to get some information then.] [Qu Xiao: Please ping me when there's news.] [+1...] [+1...] Skimming through the cascade of "+1" replies, Huang Tian exited the group chat and opened the Everlasting Dawnlight app. Checking his personal account, he immediately noticed a massive sum of newly credited contribution points. "Quite prompt. Not bad." He nodded with approval, then navigated to the point redemption catalog. Without hesitation, he spent every last point on the items at the very top of the list for bolstering qi and blood and tempering the body—Holy Blood Potions and Longming Pills. Only when his points were fully exhausted did he close the app, still wanting more. *Ding-dong~* Just then, a new message popped up. Surprisingly, it was from his roommate, Fang Yun. [Old Huang, it's been days since you moved out. You haven't gone missing on some wild bender, have you? Bro, you've gotta take care of your body! Also, graduation defenses are in a little over two weeks. Aren't you going to prepare at all?] Graduation defenses? Had Fang Yun not brought it up, Huang Tian would have forgotten about it entirely. He shook his head with a faint chuckle and replied: [Been a bit busy lately. I'll head back in a while.] [Alright, as long as you have it in mind. I was just worried you forgot. The graduation certificate and degree are still pretty important for folks like us,] Fang Yun texted back. [Anyway, I won't interrupt your fun. Later~] Setting his phone aside, Huang Tian stood in the center of the room and stretched slightly, then inspected the spoils from his "spawn camping" session. [Potential Points: 3900] "These points probably aren't enough for another major breakthrough, but they will save me a massive amount of cultivation time... No point saving them. Pump them all in!" With a single thought, his potential points plummeted to zero. *Boom!* The next instant, a tempestuous heatwave welled from deep within his body, coursing outward into every limb and bone. *Whoosh—* His qi and blood surged like a roaring ocean. His skin burst into a translucent, luminous treasure-glow, illuminating the entire room bright as the moon. *** Two days passed in the blink of an eye. On a morning bathed in warm sunlight, a knock sounded at the door of Huang Tian's hotel room. *Click~* Opening the door, Huang Tian found four people standing outside. One was an elder with graying temples yet a ruddy complexion; another was a burly, broad-shouldered middle-aged man. Both possessed deep, consolidated auras—a brief probe revealed they were both powerful figures at the Martial Grandmaster realm. The remaining two were Yuan Gang and Chen Mengzhu. "Mr. Huang, this is Vice Chairman Sun Yuanxu from Dawnlight headquarters, and this is He Ji, Sect Master of the Divine Elephant Sect, one of the Four Great Sects," Chen Mengzhu introduced smoothly. "Mr. Huang, it is an honor!" Sun Yuanxu and He Ji greeted him with warm smiles. "You're too kind. Please, come in," Huang Tian said. The group entered the room and took their seats. Once settled, Sun Yuanxu spoke first. "We took the liberty of visiting to deliver the Holy Blood Potions and other items to you, Mr. Huang." The burly He Ji handed Huang Tian a small case he had been carrying in his left hand. Huang Tian accepted it and opened the clasp. Inside lay three vials of potion as crystalline and translucent as rubies, alongside several medicinal pills. "These supplies are kept exclusively at headquarters, and given their immense value, I made the trip personally to deliver them to you," Sun Yuanxu said with a genial chuckle. "Of course, another reason is that I personally wished to meet such an extraordinary martial prodigy who has burst onto the scene." He Ji nodded, indicating he shared the sentiment. Huang Tian naturally understood that delivering medicine was merely a pretext; their true objective was to meet him and gauge his depths. However, he did not care in the slightest. With his strength already standing at the apex of this planet, even if every Martial Grandmaster in the world banded together, they would still fall short against him. When one is invincible, one knows neither fear nor dread. They chatted leisurely for a short while. Sun Yuanxu remained smiling throughout, while He Ji spoke sparingly, mostly studying Huang Tian in quiet contemplation. Yuan Gang and Chen Mengzhu maintained absolute silence. A few moments later, Sun Yuanxu rose to take his leave. Once they had left the room and settled into their vehicle, Sun Yuanxu asked in a low voice, "What do you think of him?" He Ji let out a slow, heavy breath. "Strong! Terrifyingly strong! Standing before him, I felt like an ordinary man confronting a tiger or a leopard—the hairs on my neck stood on end. Even though he did nothing at all, my heart was pounding in dread." Sun Yuanxu nodded. "I felt something similar... I truly cannot fathom how he cultivates. His talent is absurd. I've reviewed his dossier—he is barely in his twenties, yet his martial cultivation has reached such heights. It puts the rest of us to shame." He Ji fell silent for a beat, then shook his head. "It might not just be talent..." Sun Yuanxu smiled faintly. "It doesn't matter. We'll simply treat it as talent." He Ji understood his meaning clearly and shifted the topic: "Huang Tian's strength is likely greater than that of any Martial Grandmaster in this world. Perhaps he has a chance to cross that insurmountable chasm and achieve the Supreme realm!" "The Supreme realm..." Sun Yuanxu murmured wistfully. "Tell me, even if someone reaches the Supreme realm, can they truly rival the evil gods from beyond?" He Ji fell silent. Naturally, that was impossible. The boundless might of those evil gods vastly exceeded human comprehension. Even a legendary Supreme appearing once in several millennia—a "King of the World"—would be nothing more than an ant before an evil god. "If he achieves the Supreme realm, he could at least help us hold out longer against the evil gods' invasion. That alone would be a tremendous blessing," He Ji said. Sun Yuanxu nodded, letting out a soft sigh. "Let us hope so..." *** Having seen the visitors off, Huang Tian returned to his room and picked up a vial of Holy Blood Potion to inspect it. *Now that all my potential points have been allocated, I'm not far from the bottleneck of the next realm. Once I consume these potions and pills, my qi, blood, and physical body will reach near-perfection. When that time comes, breaking through will be as easy as turning over my palm...* With that thought, he tilted his head back and emptied the Holy Blood Potion into his mouth. His scalding qi and blood instantly engulfed the medicinal essence, refining it at blistering speed. *** Several days later, Akron City, Feiqiu Federation. In secluded locations throughout the city center and its four surrounding outskirts, small altars had been erected. Before each altar stood a High Priest cloaked in white robes. These five High Priests, hailing from different cults of the evil gods, were praying with closed eyes and devout fervor. "Great Feast Lord..." "O Weaver Lord, who weaves the destinies of all living beings..." "Night Mother, cast the heavens into eternal darkness..." "Scarlet Sun, let the blood sun descend!" "Mother of Myriad Waters, source of all life and death..." Behind the five High Priests, dozens of attendant cultists prostrated themselves on the ground, chanting in unison. After a long time, as the sun reached its zenith, the prayers finally ceased. The five High Priests produced handfuls of dark purple powder and cast them into the hollows of the altars. Immediately afterward, they poured out three flasks of Ten-Thousand-Heart Water. The crimson, bloody liquid mingled with the powder, and in an instant, a spark of flame sputtered into life. The five priests continued tossing various bizarre materials into the hollows. As if fed with rich fuel, the flames expanded rapidly, soaring higher and higher until they leaped dozens of meters into the sky. At that moment, the five fires spanning different quarters of the city resonated with one another. They surged violently into the sky, creating a colossal curtain of fire that blotted out the sun! Within mere seconds, the airspace above Akron City was completely engulfed by the fiery shroud. The sun vanished, replaced by a dark red luminescence that resembled thick, coagulated blood. "What is that?" "Is the sky on fire?" "What a magnificent sight! Valerie, where's my camera? I have to take a picture of this!" "Children, get down into the cellar! I can sense an unsettling aura..." "Haha, this is incredible! I'm going for a drive!" "The light in the sky feels strangely filthy, like a pool of blood. It makes me want to vomit..." Across Akron City, over a million residents tilted their heads back, staring in shock and curiosity at the dark red curtain of fire smothering the sky. *Whoosh—* The vast canopy of fire suddenly rippled. From within the undulating waves, boundless red light poured downward, blanketing the entire metropolis! Silence. Everyone engulfed by the red light plunged into absolute silence. Voices, weeping, roars—all sound was entirely erased. On the streets, people bolted with their mouths wide open in panic. Cars crashed and shattered glass sprayed through the air without making the slightest sound, as if the entire world had been placed on mute. Immediately after, flecks of crimson crept across human skin. Wherever the red light spread, heads and limbs disintegrated into grayish-white ash, drifting softly to the pavement. Living, breathing human beings were reduced to flying cinders in an instant, leaving behind only limp piles of empty clothes upon the ground. Those indoors, those hiding in basements, and those huddled in subterranean pits fared no better; the crimson light penetrated stone walls and soil alike, blanketing every corner. Within seconds, over a million residents across the entire city were wiped out. Akron City instantly turned into a ghost town. Deadly still. Macabre. At that moment, another transformation occurred in the sky. As though having absorbed a colossal amount of energy, the sea of scarlet fire swelled violently before converging toward the five altars, coalescing into massive vortexes. At the centers of the vortexes, the red grew deeper and thicker. Abruptly, five gargantuan pillars of light connecting heaven and earth plummeted straight down onto the altars, engulfing the five High Priests standing before them. The High Priests threw their arms wide, merging into the bloody light. Their bodies underwent rapid metamorphosis: muscle fibers regenerated, joints were reforged, and their qi and blood solidified with heavy density. After a long while, bizarre sigils ignited upon the center of each of their foreheads. "This is... the power of my Lord!!" Gu Rong, High Priest of the Flesh Society, sensed the boundless might surging through his flesh and burst into wild, unrestrained laughter. "Today, I too have become a god!" He leaped into the air, soaring toward the clouds. The other four completed their transformations as well, rising to hover alongside him in the heavens. As their gazes met, faint sparks of mutual rivalry flickered between them. "First, spread the doctrines and will of the gods across this world. We can settle our other matters later," Gu Rong declared in a measured tone. The other four remained silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Though the five great cults were hostile toward one another, their greatest collective enemies remained the "reckless" martial artists and militaries of the various nations. It was better to sweep aside all resistance and shower the world in the divine glory of the gods before determining a final victor among themselves. "Hm?" Gu Rong's brow furrowed as he sensed a faint gaze spying on them. He raised his head to gaze into the vast distance, his vision seemingly piercing through the empty sky to glimpse the national leaders and martial artists observing them via satellite feeds. A smile parted his lips. Spreading his arms wide, he chanted in a voice like a soaring aria: "O despicable insects, you all deserve to be purified!"