[711] I Am Luo Jiu!

Robos first turned his gaze toward Little Huangquan. Although Little Huangquan did not appear particularly strong, Robos caught the scent of a kindred kind. She was definitely like him—a divine spirit or a holy spirit. How could any divine or holy spirit at the level of a Mighty One be simple? Never mind that she was tiny, looking as though she would never grow up; Robos was a hundred percent certain she likely chose to maintain that form, while at her core she was probably an old monster who had lived for countless ages. She was playing the pig to eat the tiger! Next, Robos looked at a chubby little yellow duck happily gorging itself on food and drink. This duck did not look strong either—it seemed like an absolute glutton. So far, Robos had never heard of an expert in the form of a duck. *It seems this duck must be the weakest link among them.* Robos observed the expressions, attitudes, and tones of everyone on the deck. Nora, Niman, and the others were watching the battle between Zhang Shou and Apollo. Gong Qian and her group were placing bets. Little Huangquan was roasting meat. Only that duck... barely paid any attention to the outside world, caring about nothing except eating, eating, and eating. No matter how strong such a glutton was, there had to be a limit. Robos chuckled inwardly. This time, he would teach it a lesson and let it know that strength was far more important than stuffing one's face! *** The battle between Zhang Shou and Apollo raged on for a month in the blink of an eye. The two were locked in a stalemate. Once they grew familiar with each other's fighting styles and attack routines, the clash grew only more frenzied, their damage output constantly escalating. Although both sustained minor injuries, both remained in relatively good shape. What suffered was the surrounding worlds. In truth, they had tried their best to rein in their attacks and direct them toward one another rather than the environment, but the surrounding worlds were still occasionally caught in the crossfire. For instance, a world accidentally struck by one of Apollo's miniature suns was instantly obliterated. Whether Zhang Shou and the others wanted to save it or not, it was essentially impossible to rescue anything in that world. The onlookers on the ship said nothing about it. From their initial guilt at the very beginning to now, they had gradually grown accustomed to it. Mighty Ones were simply too powerful; unless they refrained from fighting altogether, such collateral damage was inevitable. Additionally, Zhang Shou's saber qi cleaved several worlds clean in half. Worlds that were originally invisible were sliced open on the spot like eggs, exposing the yolk and egg white within. Yet they were just as doomed. The instant the saber qi sliced through those worlds, all living beings within them were corroded by the death qi woven into the blade aura, dying beyond dead. That was why when Mighty Ones fought, the victims were almost always the living beings of the myriad worlds, while the Mighty Ones themselves rarely perished. "Absolute Saber—Life Severance!" "Eternal Blazing Sun Skyburst!" "Absolute Saber—Cycle of Life and Death!" "Eternal Sun!" "Absolute Saber—Decapitation!" "Eternal Revolving Sun Ring!" Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!... Zhang Shou and Apollo continually clashed head-on, carving countless scars into the Tree Universe as they drifted toward an enormous shattered world. That world had likely been a great thousand world. For unknown reasons it had fractured, yet despite its broken state, it still retained many laws and had even become a sanctuary for countless living beings. From a distance, it resembled an egg cracked halfway open: the fluid of the upper half had drained away, while the lower half remained preserved, fostering countless bacteria and microorganisms. Zhang Shou struck with his saber. Apollo blocked the saber qi with his Great Sun Ring, but the colossal impact hurled him into this great thousand world. The instant he halted, the terrifying law tremors triggered a chain reaction; the surrounding spatial barriers shattered into dust, scattering out toward the Tree Universe. Next, cities that had once flourished were reduced to ashes in an instant. Countless starships scrambled to escape, only to be disintegrated by the searing heat the moment their engines fired, dissolving into energy. Both Zhang Shou and Apollo stopped fighting immediately. Exchanging a glance, they tacitly reined in their energy, changed direction, and departed, resuming their battle only after putting enough distance between themselves and the world. While fighting, it was virtually impossible for them to keep track of their surroundings. Yet whenever they did notice collateral damage, both would tacitly disengage. Even so, a certain degree of casualties was inevitable. After the two departed, on a planet at the bottom of that world: The entire planet looked as though it had plunged into a sun and emerged again. Its surface had completely turned to magma. The towering skyscrapers of before were gone, leaving only ruined walls and rubble. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the living organisms on the planet had died. Yet within a blue stone chamber deep underground, a child suddenly awoke. This subterranean chamber was constructed from a material called ice stone. During a past wartime era, it had served as a cryogenic vault for special weapons. But later, with the integration of the myriad worlds, the ice vault had lost its purpose and lay abandoned for several thousand years. Not long ago, the child's father had seemingly gone mad, liquidating his entire fortune to buy this underground ice vault, claiming he had seen the sun explode. As a result, everyone had mocked the father. Yet despite the mother's fierce opposition, the father insisted on bringing the child to live in the vault and went so far as to cruelly freeze the child. Evidently, the father's vision had not been entirely accurate, but it was mostly right. "Daddy?" "Daddy?" The child was only six years old. The first thing he wanted to do upon waking was to find his father. But the stifling heat in the air choked him. He scrambled out of the specialized cryogenic capsule with great difficulty, and then he saw his father. It was a charred corpse. Clearly, his father had also tried to climb into another capsule, but the blistering heat had arrived too suddenly, scorching him to a crisp in an instant. Yet the child was extraordinarily gifted, and he recognized his father immediately. Letting out a shrill scream, he rushed before his father. Looking at his father's frozen pose, tears streamed down his face. At this moment, he understood what his father had done. And precisely because he understood, his grief was all the more profound. As the sole surviving life-form on the planet, his sorrow quickly drew in an endless sea of malice. The reluctance, fury, resentment, and terror left behind by the planet's billions of souls in the instant of their demise surged rapidly into the child's body through the conduction of extraordinary energy. Under normal circumstances, if an ordinary child endured such vast resentment, he would become a puppet of that malice, completely degenerating into a monster driven only by revenge. Yet as the massive resentment washed over this child, it instead wiped away the dust clouding his spiritual spark. Reincarnation! Countless sealed memories flooded back in an instant. He was a Mighty One—one who had died so thoroughly that only a spiritual spark remained. And now, all his memories had returned. Instinctively, he began circulating a cultivation technique: the *Nine Birds Drinking Poison Chart*. Every toxic, noxious energy was refined into dark purple feathers. A mere few hours later, the child slowly rose from the ground, clad in a greatcloak formed of feathers. "Heh, it seems my luck isn't bad." "Who am I? I am... Luo Jiu, Daoist Nine Birds!" The child's expression had turned utterly cold. He surveyed his surroundings and gave a low chuckle.