Fall of Sovereigns

Did he understand? He had guessed the general picture, and as for whether the specifics were exact—who cared! At this moment, Li Hao struck. His long sword swept across the sky, fracturing to the verge of complete shattering. The Time Star hung aloft, colors draining from heaven and earth as time and space seemed to freeze. "Er Mao! Kongji!" His shout reverberated across the cosmos! Was the timing right? He did not know. If the timing was off or his judgment flawed, they might pay a catastrophic price. But at this stage, Li Hao cast caution aside. He trusted his deduction was correct. In such an hour, what was the harm in taking a gamble? Meanwhile, in the distance, the Samsara Sovereign frowned slightly. His expression suddenly shifted. In the next breath, his aura surged, rising to its absolute peak as he bellowed, "Kill the Human King!" Around him, the two eighth-rank Sovereigns of Samsara and the eighth-rank Sovereign of the Chaos race felt their hearts tighten at his command. Until now, they had been wearing the Human King down, intent on grinding him to death without taking risks or paying a heavy price. Yet now, the Samsara Sovereign had suddenly erupted, clearly sensing that something was amiss. None of them dared hesitate; their powers burst forth at once! In an instant, the Human King found himself on the precipice of absolute destruction, poised on the very brink of death... Yet at that exact moment, golden light emanated from the Human King's skeleton, and he exhaled deeply. Gamble? Of course! "You want to play rough, do you?" The Human King gave a low growl. In an instant, heaven and earth overturned. He let out an ear-splitting roar, flesh and blood suddenly sprouting across his frame as he shouted toward the firmament, "Yin and Yang, reverse my body!" Heaven and earth upended; time and space inverted. Flesh and blood rapidly regenerated over the Human King's form. His utterly depleted aura surged back toward its peak in a single breath, though the Yang vital essence throughout his body was instantly exhausted, leaving him like a corpse—transformed in that instant into a wandering shade from the underworld. Reversing Yin and Yang! The dead could be brought back to life! Samsara governed life and death, but Yin and Yang inverted the universe. Ever since he left Xinwu, it was as if people had forgotten this fact about the Human King—as if everyone had forgotten that in the past, he had reversed Yin and Yang to resurrect countless people. At this moment, between heaven and earth, a chaotic thunder tribulation suddenly materialized, incomparably potent. Eighth rank! It rapidly expanded toward the pinnacle of the eighth rank—tribulation thunder that punished disorder! Reversing Yin and Yang, throwing life and death into turmoil, and wielding time were all targets marked for destruction by the chaotic thunder tribulation. This was the Human King's true trump card. What self-detonation? What detonating his flesh and blood? Those were mere child's play. Li Hao had been thinking of reviving the Human King, but there was actually no need. As the leader of Xinwu who had led his people from obscurity to their present height in a mere thousand years, how could he lack a lethal ace up his sleeve? In that breath, the Human King's aura surged back to its peak. Naturally, the price was steep. Any act that defied heaven demanded a cost. His body swelled like a corpse, and Yin aura emerged to blanket the cosmos. Yet he roared with laughter, entirely disregarding the thunder across heaven and earth, wild and unbridled in his supreme arrogance: "Samsara, this king wants to see whether you can reverse life and death after I slay you! Otherwise, what right do you have to call yourself Samsara?!" A fist struck out! *Boom!* His sudden return to peak condition caught everyone off guard, sending a jolt through even the Samsara Sovereign's heart! Did people know the Human King could reverse Yin and Yang? They did. However, that had happened long ago within Xinwu. Moreover, he had separated from the world and universe of Xinwu, leading some to suspect he no longer possessed the power to invert Yin and Yang and alter life and death. Even if he could... could he reverse it upon himself? No one had known. Today, they had their answer: yes, he could. By inverting Yin and Yang, the Human King had restored himself to his peak in an instant, his combat prowess reaching the absolute apex in the blink of an eye. The thunder tribulation gathering in the sky surged straight toward him. In the next breath, the Human King chuckled slyly, and his inner world suddenly expanded, seeming to envelop the entire void! It instantly swept over the surrounding Sovereigns. Stealing the sky and switching the sun! The art of switching the sun. If Li Zhu knew it, could he possibly not know it? If he couldn't even manage that, he would hardly be worthy of being the master of Xinwu. In that instant, the Samsara Sovereign's face drained of color! Damn it! An eighth-rank thunder tribulation—bordering on the pinnacle of the eighth rank and carrying the force of over five thousand Great Dao principles—manifested countless lightning bolts that coalesced into towering giants, charging straight at the eighth-rank Sovereigns. The Human King laughed boisterously! "Exhilarating, isn't it?!" "Samsara, you resurrected several eighth-ranks, so you're already someone marked for heaven's wrath. No matter what trick you used to evade the chaotic thunder tribulation... right now, you're crossing this tribulation right alongside me!" To prevent others from discovering that he had revived multiple powerhouses, the Samsara Sovereign had used unknown methods to conceal their auras and evade the tribulation. But now, with the Human King reversing himself and pushing his power to the peak, the tribulation descended upon them all! The Samsara Sovereign looked thoroughly grim. Damn it all! Despite a thousand calculations, he had never foreseen that the Human King could invert Yin and Yang upon himself. He had assumed that after leaving Xinwu, the man would no longer control Yin and Yang—or that at best, he had only a rudimentary comprehension rather than the ability to reverse his own eighth-rank strength! In this instant, every eighth-rank caught within was struck by the tribulation's power. This was the Human King's confidence. So what if he did not cultivate the Dao of Life and Death or the Dao of Time? Do not forget that in his earlier years, he had resurrected untold numbers of people. Such tricks were nothing new to him. The people of Xinwu were fearless because they believed that even in death, the Human King would pay whatever price was required to bring them back. At worst, they would become Yin soldiers! What of it? If his Yang aura was gone, he would simply kill and seize it back! The sudden turn of events shocked far more than just the Samsara Sovereign and his allies. Over on the other side, Li Hao was also taken aback. He had been looking for an opportunity to reverse time for the Human King and restore him to his peak. Yet as it turned out, his intervention was entirely unnecessary. The Human King had inverted Yin and Yang on his own to regain his peak strength. Even Li Hao had not anticipated this; he had assumed only the Dao of Time, or perhaps the Dao of Annihilation and Resurgence, could produce such an effect... Evidently, he had underestimated the Human King. A good thing, indeed! Li Hao smiled. Since the Human King could restore himself, what reason was there to hesitate? He had originally mobilized only a fraction of his time power, reserving the bulk of it in hopes of saving the Human King. But now that the man had revived himself... what was there left to worry about? In an instant, time erupted with dazzling, resplendent radiance! Above their heads, the power of thunder also manifested—a chaotic thunder tribulation. The three eighth-ranks were still somewhat perplexed. Yet as time rippled out in all directions, their bodies stiffened slightly and their Great Dao powers became sluggish. Their expressions shifted, but they soon shook off their concern. Freezing three eighth-rank Sovereigns? Impossible! This Li Hao was vastly overestimating himself and underestimating the power of three eighth-ranks. The Split Earth Sovereign threw a punch that seemed capable of tearing mountains apart and splitting the earth asunder, causing chaos itself to collapse. With a cold snort, he forced Wushan back with a single blow, the earth-attribute power surging across his body shattering the power of time! *I am an eighth-rank Sovereign!* *A World Lord and Dao Lord! How could a mere sliver of time freeze me?* Indeed, it could not. It was far too difficult; the power of time was not strong enough. While sufficient against the seventh rank, facing three eighth-ranks proved too much. In the span of a single breath, all three showed signs of shattering time completely. Yet right at that instant, all three suddenly blanched! *Not good!* The thought had barely formed when the Split Earth Sovereign's face twisted in horror, and he roared, "Damn it!" *Boom!* A surge of Great Dao power that had been rock-solid an instant ago suddenly collapsed and dissipated. Disaster. Someone was breaching their worlds and their Great Dao universes! Damn it, how could this be? Who was it? Xinwu was occupied at Samsara. The other eighth-ranks were either guarding their own territories or had headed toward the Thunder Realm. Besides, their worlds were located near Samsara—who would dare attack their home worlds right now? Their departure had been kept strictly confidential... All three changed color. Had this disruption not occurred, Li Hao's time power would have been negligible to them—it had some effect, but nothing pronounced. Yet at this precise moment... it instantly froze their destabilized Great Dao power! A flash of jubilation erupted in Li Hao's eyes! The opportunity had arrived! As expected, the Xinwu Supreme had truly gone to attack their native worlds. "Freeze!" The power of time erupted once more, locking down the three eighth-rank Sovereigns almost simultaneously. In the distance, Kongji let out a roar as his Domain of Annihilation swept forward to engulf the space, while Er Mao opened his maw to devour everything around him, swallowing vast quantities of Great Dao power! Not far away, Fusheng had just swatted Yuan Shuo away with a palm strike when he felt an anomaly behind him. He spun his head around, and his expression instantly warped! In the span of a single heartbeat, catastrophic reversals had erupted on both battlefields! The Human King had returned to his peak, forcing Samsara and his allies to cross the tribulation with him. On Li Hao's side, all three eighth-ranks were suffering from dissipating Great Dao power, their universes and worlds apparently breached by force, subjecting them to severe backlash. And precisely at that moment, they had been struck by the freezing power of time... Among the eight eighth-rank Sovereigns, only he remained completely unharmed, possessing the time and opportunity to come to their aid! Without a second thought, Fusheng abandoned Yuan Shuo and tore frantically through the void toward Li Hao. Horrified, he cared for nothing else; he could not allow those three eighth-ranks to be slain, or the entire situation would be completely upended! Everything had unfolded far too quickly. They were supposed to hold the advantage at every turn! "Stop!" Fusheng roared, sending a sonic wave surging straight at Li Hao to disrupt him and shatter his Time Star. As long as the Time Star was broken, it would not be easy for the other eighth-ranks to slay the trio, even with their Great Dao powers unraveling. Nearby, battling the lightning of the tribulation, the Samsara Sovereign's expression also tightened! Damn it! The assaults on the Split Earth and Sun Moon Worlds were entirely outside his calculations. He had acted with utmost secrecy; Samsara's defection to Huntian had been swift and decisive, and those two worlds' alignment with Huntian had been an absolute secret. Hardly anyone knew that these three eighth-ranks had mobilized—not even Fusheng and his companions had known, only the eighth-rank of the Chaos race who accompanied him. With such secrecy, who could have struck the two eighth-rank universes that had always kept a low profile? Where had things gone wrong? "Fusheng!" The Samsara Sovereign roared. Fusheng, who had previously shrunk back in fear from the Human King and been dispatched to deal with Li Hao, had unexpectedly become their sole lifeline by sheer chance! So long as Fusheng shattered the Time Star and the three eighth-ranks survived, it was their opponents who would perish. "Shatter the star!" The Samsara Sovereign bellowed once more. He didn't care about Li Hao—dead or alive, a seventh-rank could not reverse the overall balance. But if the star was shattered and the flow of time severed, Li Hao would have no way to suppress three eighth-ranks! At the same time, Wushan and his two companions snapped back to their senses. Roaring, they struck with everything they had! They lunged straight at the three eighth-rank Sovereigns! Though suppressed by time, the three foes remained conscious. Their dilemma lay in being attacked from both inside and out, making escape exceedingly difficult. If they could resolve the threat on either front, they could fight back! Struggling frantically as their Great Dao powers bled away, all three pinned their hopes on the Fusheng Sovereign! *Shatter the star!* The Time Star hovered above Li Hao's head, appearing none too formidable. If that star were broken, they still had a chance. The Fusheng Sovereign understood this clearly. And so did Li Hao! Weakened though this eighth-rank might be, if he struck now and broke the star, their hopes of turning the tables would be thoroughly extinguished. At all costs, he had to be stopped. The allied eighth-ranks were fully occupied with their eighth-rank targets, while the seventh-ranks—Kongji, Er Mao, and the rest—were tied down combating the phantoms or suppressing the three eighth-ranks. None could pull away. Whether they could halt Fusheng was a matter of life and death! Without an instant's hesitation, Li Hao cast away all reservation. In the distance, the world inside Er Mao rippled—the Dali Realm! In a flash, the barrier of Dali broke open. Li Hao yelled fiercely, "Hold back this eighth-rank!" A universe emerged—the Silver Moon Universe. Qian Wuliang and the others, who had been secluded within the Dali Realm, suddenly appeared. Though bewildered, there was no time to question anything. Qian Wuliang immediately unleashed his Great Dao power, his river of the Dao merging with Hong Yitang's in the blink of an eye. In the next second, a formidable power converged upon the Black Panther—a three-in-one unity! The Black Panther roared, a sharp horn sprouting from its head like that of the Demon Suppressing Emissary. The chaotic thunder tribulation stirred up by Li Hao's use of time, along with a portion of the tribulation thunder from the Human King's side, suddenly gathered toward that horn! In the next instant, an immensely powerful thunder tribulation erupted from the top of the Black Panther's head, shattering the horn and hurling a torrent of lightning straight toward Fusheng. Li Hao only hoped they could stall him for a single instant. An eighth-rank was formidable, but the Black Panther and the other two were each at the pinnacle of the sixth rank. Backed by a dual-Dao universe in a trinity formation, and with the Black Panther wielding the power of the tribulation, could they hold him for a fraction of a second? Li Hao did not know, but he had no choice but to gamble! A bolt of lightning struck down above Fusheng's head as well. Paying it no heed, he roared and manifested Life and Death to fend off the lightning. At a time like this, how could he waste effort on mere gnats? Shattering the star was all that mattered! Once Li Hao and the others were dead, these small fry could be dealt with at leisure. The Black Panther bellowed. The preceding tribulation lightning was potent, but against an eighth-rank, taking it head-on would cause minor injuries at most; killing Fusheng with it was out of the question. The Black Panther expanded into a ten-thousand-zhang form, hoping to block his advance with sheer bulk. Yet in a single breath... Fusheng passed straight through the Black Panther's colossal body without being delayed in the slightest. A sixth-rank stopping an eighth-rank? How could that be possible! Even with power rivaling a seventh-rank, what difference did it make? It bought barely an instant, but none of the three eighth-ranks had fallen yet. Seeing Fusheng closing in on Li Hao, numerous phantoms in the surrounding area suddenly lost control, accompanied by newly added departed spirits that detonated one after another! They burst directly beside the Fusheng Sovereign. Nearby, the nether realm constructed by Lin Hongyu, which had been formidable, instantly cracked. The dozens of Sovereign undead guardians who had followed her vanished, detonating themselves in succession to obstruct Fusheng's path. Yet it was useless. The self-detonations of low- and mid-rank Sovereigns—especially as undead spirits—did negligible damage to an eighth-rank Sovereign. Fusheng roared, sound waves rippling outward. The Sovereigns attempting to bar his path suffered cracked physical forms, disordered minds, and bodies choked with death energy, coughing up blood without end! Many Sovereigns had been in secluded cultivation within the Dali Realm, yet in this moment, not one could delay him even for a breath. Had Fusheng not been single-mindedly focused on shattering the star, a brief pause would have allowed him to slaughter them all. The gulf between the eighth rank and lower ranks was simply too vast. Qian Wuliang and the others turned pale. They had never imagined that their combined strength could not buy even a fraction of a second. Was this the true power of an eighth rank? A divine voice suddenly echoed through the void: "God said, chaos is boundless!" A chasm seemed to yawn open before Fusheng, abruptly placing him tens of millions of zhang away from Li Hao. Yet in a mere instant, this illusion woven of faith shattered! "Hmph!" Fusheng snorted coldly. The Dao of Faith mixed with the Dao of Chaos? Did she truly think she could stop him? Nearby, the Queen's form collapsed and a waning moon appeared. Despair crept into her heart; even her potent power of faith had failed to delay him for a fraction of a second before breaking. Only now did they truly taste helplessness and despair. They couldn't stop him! The opportunity lay right before them, yet so many of them could not delay an eighth-rank for a single breath. Dejection weighed heavily upon them all! Even without knowing the full details, they could see that this eighth-rank was lunging straight for Li Hao. The situation was clearly dire, or Li Hao would never have cracked open the realm before Dali naturally breached. All was lost. Fusheng now had Li Hao and the Time Star in full view, the distance between them vanishingly small. A grin spread across his face. *Today, I am the protagonist!* *Defying heaven to change fate!* *As long as I break time, everything will return to its proper course.* With Li Hao channeling time to suppress three eighth-ranks, he seemed utterly spent, able only to watch helplessly as Fusheng's fist hurtled toward the Time Star. Once the star shattered and the suppression broke, the three eighth-ranks would regain the strength to retaliate. Killing them then would be nearly impossible! "Motherfucker!" Even the Human King could not hold back a barrage of curses. He could stomach having his opportunity thwarted by Samsara and the others. But to have it ruined by a weakling was truly unbearable—it was mortifying! What was Fusheng even worth? A piece of trash he had previously chopped to pieces with a few slashes, someone scared half to death at the mere sight of him... Yet right now, there was nothing he could do. He had trapped Samsara and the rest, but in doing so he had trapped himself, and inverting Yin and Yang could not change that. To have his plan ruined by such garbage... he was deeply unreconciled! Everyone had done their utmost! Old Zhang and his companions who were not here had done their utmost; Old Zhang's assault on the two worlds had exceeded expectations, a testament to his foresight. Everyone had given everything, yet they had overlooked a weakling like Fusheng—it was maddening. Just as despair gripped the crowd, Li Hao drew a deep breath. Watching the fist descend toward the Time Star, Li Hao finally moved. A long river manifested beneath his feet, and in a single instant, he and the Fusheng Sovereign seemed to step into the River of Time together. Reversing time or freezing Fusheng was beyond Li Hao's present capacity. However, summoning the River of Time and dragging Fusheng along with it... drifting downstream was something he could barely manage. He knew nothing of what lay ahead, what path awaited, or what the future held... Yet he had no choice but to walk it. Li Hao had used time many times. He had reversed time to witness Daoist masters preaching in Tianfang, and he had walked through Xinwu to observe its rise. But he exceedingly rarely drew upon the future, for the future held far too many uncertainties. No one knew what the future truly looked like. In the past, he had summoned his future self to achieve the trinity of past, present, and future, but that had only been the future of the very next breath, and he had paid a staggering price for it. Unless pushed to absolute desperation, he would never touch the future. The future was far too illusory! One could never know what the future held. Among countless possibilities, perhaps only death awaited. Treading the path of the future was fraught with erratic volatility. Perhaps your future self was peerlessly powerful, yet might not allow your past self to appear; moreover, a future self was not truly you... Li Hao rarely contemplated or utilized such bafflingly intricate abilities. At this moment, only drifting downstream allowed him to maximize his strength, leaving him with no other option. A fleeting glimpse across the ages! In a single instant, they seemed to traverse untold years. Fusheng looked bewildered, and Li Hao felt a deep strain. The river surged, leading toward an unknown destination. Just as Li Hao felt his strength faltering, nothing seemed to appear, and nothing happened. As Fusheng began to recover his senses and prepared to strike Li Hao... Suddenly, deep within the river, at the very end of the waters, something appeared—not Li Hao's future self. Li Hao could not see his own future along this river. He did not understand why. Could it be that his future had severed its ties with the River of Time? Was it because he had abandoned the river? Or was there another reason? He had no time to ponder it. As they drifted downstream and arrived near what seemed like the terminus of the River of Time, deep within the waters... someone appeared to be sleeping? Sleeping? Who would sleep deep within the River of Time? Was it a person? Or some extraordinary entity? Li Hao himself had little idea what lay at the end of the River of Time, making it impossible to discern. At that exact moment... the figure snoring at the river's end suddenly opened his eyes. As if awakened from his slumber! With a touch of confusion, the figure looked toward the upper reaches of the river. In that instant, something surfaced in his gaze—puzzlement, bewilderment, and an indescribable annoyance. It was the intense irritation of someone whose sleep had been disturbed. Or perhaps something else... He suddenly looked at Li Hao, at the star above Li Hao's head, and at the long sword in Li Hao's hand that was on the verge of shattering completely. He froze, then looked at Fusheng... And froze again! "Time..." A murmur echoed, seeming to pierce through worlds and heavens, reverberating along the river: "Did I sleep so long that time actually flowed backward?" What was he looking at? He seemed to see... the Lord of Time! He seemed to see a world in utter turmoil, seeing war, seeing destruction, seeing time running in reverse... Was it real? He did not know. Yet the Lord of Time—what a staggering figure! Was he... being hunted down? Could this be the great enemy of time mentioned by Cangqiong? Was the foe powerful? He did not know. In that moment, the figure moved. A long sword appeared in his hand... resembling the Cangqiong Sword! In that instant, Li Hao's eyes widened in shock! He saw countless divine characters—densely packed, absurdly numerous. In a flash, those divine characters converged into colossal Great Daos... No, those were not Great Daos. He could not say what they were. An ordered Great Dao? Rules? He could not tell! All he saw was that figure slashing out with a sword that shattered heaven and earth, severing the river and hurtling straight toward Fusheng. The awakened figure carried a hint of excitement, mixed with curiosity and confusion, his emotions so tangled that Li Hao could not decipher them. "Time flowing backward? Lord of Time... I've fleeced so much off you, but you're no saint either... You opened this river, so why didn't you clean up the mess you left behind?" "Just how strong are you?" Countless questions echoed from the depths of the river. A single sword strike shattered heaven and earth, severing the river with a deafening boom! *Rumble!* The Fusheng Sovereign coughed blood and staggered backward, staring at his assailant in utter shock. How could an advanced-rank Sovereign appear in such a place?! Where had he come from? Where on earth had Li Hao taken him? Why had an advanced-rank Sovereign suddenly appeared... An advanced-rank Sovereign was not terrifying in itself, but what terrified him was that this person's Dao was completely different from the ordinary Dao of Chaos! What kind of monstrosity was this? Those countless Great Dao powers were astonishingly orderly, whereas whether they cultivated the Dao of Chaos or the Dao of the Universe, their powers contained an inherent chaotic disorder. When confronted with such intensely structured rules, his own Dao showed signs of collapsing! *Boom!* With a thunderous crash, Fusheng was repelled. Li Hao's expression shifted slightly as the figure, having severed the river with a sword, appeared surprised, confused, and somewhat disappointed... A murmur echoed across the river: "He... only... retreated?" How could that be! *I am already invincible throughout heaven and earth!* *To fail to kill him with a single strike!* "Why?" He muttered, looking toward Li Hao with complex emotions. Suddenly, holding a divine character, he recorded Li Hao's image and murmured, "Where... are you?" Li Hao felt a stir in his heart. Looking at the figure, whose form appeared hazy as if not existing within heaven and earth, he replied, "I am in the Chaos!" "Chaos? How can that be... Chaos... I have already unified it!" Li Hao's heart trembled. How could someone have unified the Chaos? That would require at least ninth-rank power. Yet this person lacked ninth-rank strength; driving Fusheng back with a sword was impressive, but Fusheng was only a newly ascended, wounded eighth-rank... This person had eighth-rank strength at most! An eighth-rank unifying the Chaos? What kind of joke was that! In the next instant, understanding dawned on him. Chaos... a pseudo-chaos? How could that be? Why couldn't it be! A surge of emotion rose within him, and he wanted to say more. But in the unseen dark, he seemed to brush against something, and an acute sense of crisis materialized. Li Hao's face changed, and he barked, "If you want to find me, come out!" With those words, the river severed, the world collapsed, and the future dissolved. At the end of the river, the figure stood stunned. After a long silence, he muttered, "Come out? Come out your grandfather! Another fucking massive pitfall... Back to sleep. If you show up again, I'll punch you to death!" It was clearly a mountain of trouble! In this life, he hated trouble above all else. Was that the Lord of Time in his youth? Not very impressive! Being chased around like a dog? Still... from the look of things, there might be countless powerhouses there. Forget it, forget it. The past could not be pursued; he was exhausted, and he wanted to sleep. Falling back into slumber, his heart nonetheless rippled. A stir of curiosity. To come out and look for him... So where he was truly wasn't the entirety of the Chaos? Whatever, who cared! "Time... I recorded your pathetic look. Getting hunted down like that—how miserable!" "And... are those people fighting?" "Why is there fighting everywhere?" "Boring, utterly boring. Back to sleep!" *** *Boom!* Heaven and earth seemed to crash back into place. The waters of the river flowed away, and Li Hao and the Fusheng Sovereign were still in their original positions. Yet now, a bloody wound appeared on Fusheng's chest, and he stumbled backward! "Cough..." Fusheng's face was filled with horror. What had just happened? It wasn't the stranger's strength that terrified him, but... where was that place he had just seen? Who was that person? Why had an advanced-rank Sovereign suddenly appeared with Great Dao power entirely distinct from his own? Right now, the Great Dao power inside him was roiling violently, as though that foreign energy was correcting his Dao and eradicating the energy within him. Why was this happening? The moment that thought surfaced, he snapped to attention and realized he was now a considerable distance from Li Hao, having been knocked back. And that lost time was enough to change everything. At this moment, the Thunder Emperor roared, his lightning power erupting with a deafening crash. With their opponents suppressed and destabilized, the three allied eighth-ranks unleashed everything they had. Finally, beneath a barrage of myriad lightning bolts, one of the Sun Moon Sovereigns was torn apart, his physical body blown to bits! "Mingri!" The remaining eighth-rank Sovereign snapped awake, grief flooding his eyes as he bellowed in fury and struggled frantically. Great Dao power bled away uncontrollably. The Split Earth Sovereign struggled with equal desperation, roaring, "Fusheng, you bastard!" *Useless trash!* Li Hao was merely a seventh-rank, expending immense energy suppressing the three of them, yet an eighth-rank had been repelled. How could he be so worthless? Fusheng's face twisted in horror! He was too late! Sovereign Mingri had been slain! Disaster! He had never imagined that on the brink of success, Li Hao would drag him to an unknown realm where an unfamiliar person had repelled him with unfamiliar power! That single twist of fate had shattered his grand ambition to save everyone. Mingri was dead! Right at that moment, Sovereign Wushan plucked countless threads of fate. His fingers burst apart as if defying heaven to alter destiny. With a roar, clouds and mists collapsed, and his five fingers shattered completely. Beneath his fierce shriek, the Split Earth Sovereign's body suddenly fractured with a boom, black mist shooting straight into the heavens! The Split Earth Sovereign possessed peerless earth-attribute defense, yet Wushan's strike struck not at the physical form or even the Great Dao, but at the unseen thread of fate... Severing his life! Severing his fortune! *Boom!* The Split Earth Sovereign's body began to fissure. He glared fixedly at Fusheng, uttering no curses at Li Hao and his allies, only spitting at Fusheng, "Had I known, I would never have allied with a pig!" An eighth-rank Sovereign, entirely unobstructed, had failed to shatter the Time Star, squandering so much precious time. To think they had trusted this fool to break the seal of time! They had vastly overestimated this waste of an existence! Had they known, they would have detonated their own Daos to fight back rather than pinning their hopes on Fusheng... Samsara, you resurrected this idiot; we would have been better off without him! Fusheng's expression warped repeatedly. He had wanted to charge at Li Hao again, but with the deaths of Split Earth and Mingri, he realized that another step forward would bring the wrath of three eighth-ranks upon him! In a flash, Fusheng fled toward the Samsara Sovereign, yelling, "Dao Lord!" The Samsara Sovereign threw a punch like a grinding mill of heaven and earth, repelling the Human King. Ash-faced, he glared at the approaching Fusheng, unable to hold back a curse of his own: *Trash!* *Fusheng, why didn't you just die?!* They could not see the deeper mystery, but they had seen Fusheng approach Li Hao only to be repelled, squandering the golden opportunity and allowing two eighth-ranks to be slaughtered on the spot... Eighth-ranks! Li Hao was actively suppressing three eighth-ranks and had little strength left to retaliate—how could you still be driven back? What was the point of your existence? Though he longed to strike Fusheng dead where he stood, he had no leeway to indulge the impulse. He roared, "Slay the Human King! If he does not die today, we will!" The remaining eighth-rank Sovereigns ignored the bombardment of the tribulation thunder, letting it strike them as they threw themselves into battle against the Human King. At this point, the Samsara Sovereign abandoned the Dao domain enclosing the area. In a single instant, waves of boundless, terrifying aura radiated across heaven and earth. Though the Eastern Region was unimaginably vast, the ripples of power could no longer be contained! Even with scores of seventh-rank Sovereigns clashing at Samsara, the commotion there paled before this. Over ten eighth-rank Sovereigns locked in combat—the Outer Region had not witnessed such a spectacle in a million years. Even the prior ambush against Fusheng's group had not involved so many eighth-ranks. *Boom!* Auras soared into the sky. With two eighth-ranks slain, a wave of chaotic force surged upward, shaking the Great Dao and unsettling the Chaos. Experts across the surrounding territories immediately sensed the disturbance... Faces paled across the cosmos! "Two eighth-ranks... Split Earth and Mingri have fallen!" Both were renowned figures of the East; how could anyone fail to recognize them? Dead! Two eighth-rank Sovereigns had perished at once! And over there, a multitude of eighth-ranks were still locked in combat—what was happening? And weren't Fusheng and his companions dead already? Why were they there as well? Countless questions arose, yet not a single soul dared approach, all frozen in terror. Even higher in the nine heavens, tremors reverberated, yet they were far less intense than the battle below. *Boom!* A shattering roar rang across heaven and earth. The Myriad Dao Chessboard materialized. Dao Chess was unsuited for brutal combat, and only now did he finally breach the defenses of his opponent, Sovereign Yinyue. With a tremendous blast, the foe's physical body blew apart! The third eighth-rank had finally fallen. In the span of moments, three eighth-rank Sovereigns had perished... The shockwaves rippled outward, draining the color from the faces of World Lords across neighboring major worlds. Was the Eastern Region descending into total chaos? Did eighth-rank powerhouses die so easily now? With three eighth-ranks dead, Li Hao finally broke free from his lingering shock. His mind still replayed that scene—the man's raw strength had not been overwhelming, but that Great Dao power... that orderly power, virtually devoid of chaos, had left him dazed. For now, he could not dwell on it. With three eighth-ranks dead, the tide had turned. Though their deaths did not guarantee a decisive victory—the Samsara Sovereign still had four eighth-ranks alive, including the eighth-rank Chaos beast—an opening had appeared. Li Hao shouted fiercely, "Trap and kill them!" Leading the charge, he discarded his shattered sword and threw a punch that summoned a thousand worlds, lunging straight for Fusheng. Behind him, the allied eighth-ranks charged toward the Human King's battlefield! Kongji and the other seventh-ranks surged forward as well, bellowing at the top of their lungs as if venting the fury pent up in their chests. Until now, they had been suppressed and battered, on the verge of destruction at every turn. With three eighth-ranks slain... their chance had arrived! *** At the same moment. Having shattered the two worlds, the Cang Emperor and the Supreme sensed the distant ripples. Previously shielded from the specifics, they could now perceive the situation clearly, and the Supreme exhaled in relief. Thank heavens! They had nearly botched the mission and gotten Fang Ping killed. At last, it was done! Wasting no time, he called out softly, "Big Cat, let's go—time to break Samsara!" Samsara was close by. Previously, they had feared being bogged down by Samsara and leaving Fang Ping to die. But now, even if Fang Ping's group could not kill the opposing eighth-ranks, they would not be easily slain either. In that case... break Samsara! The two eighth-ranks sped through the void toward Samsara. The Supreme no longer concealed his aura, his booming voice echoing in all directions as he bore down on the Samsara World: "The Sovereigns of Split Earth and Sun Moon have fallen! Do the Sovereigns within Samsara wish to be buried alongside them?!" Inside Samsara, multiple Sovereigns were thrown into turmoil. Several seventh-ranks coughed blood repeatedly, their Great Dao universes breached—the backlash clearly stemming from the fall of the other two worlds. Outside, battle cries shook the heavens. Aura of radiance unfurled, shaking the cosmos. The Bright Light Sovereign finally held his head high, roaring, "Bright Light of the Four Regions is here! Surrender now!" *Damn it, finally I can vent my frustration!* *Long Zhan impersonated me before, but this time, it's really me!* With three eighth-ranks revealing their auras, the Sovereigns of Samsara—who had been fearless moments ago—lost their composure upon sensing the deaths of three eighth-ranks. In that moment of distraction, a saber slashed across heaven and earth, cleaving a seventh-rank Samsara Sovereign in two! A sword struck with no return, shattering the firmament and slaying another seventh-rank Sovereign! A pair of fists suppressed the heavens as the veteran seventh-rank Sovereign Yang God blasted a seventh-rank to pieces, roaring with laughter. Behind him, his disciple King Zhentian laughed heartily as well: "Today, I step into the seventh rank!" *Finally my turn!* *If I don't reach the seventh rank now, I won't even be able to show my face.* The battle inverted in an instant. Across both battlefields, Sovereigns began to fall in droves.