Trust

"The secrets on Yaoguang belong to the Path of the Void; they can only belong to a Void Dao Lord!" The moment Dao Lord Hunxu, a Dao Lord famed for many years, manifested, his mighty divine sense swept across the surroundings, and... Was swiftly corroded by the power of the Bahuang Heavenly Mirror. Seeing that the formation seemed to stall slightly after teleporting Dao Lord Hunxu, requiring a brief cooldown before executing a second teleportation, Yaoguang couldn't help drawing a sharp breath. This teleportation formation... Could only teleport those Void Dao Lords over one by one? Leaving aside the fact that it couldn't transport all the Void Dao Lords at once, the critical issue was that the formation's cooldown seemed to take two or three breaths! How dared they? These Dao Lords... With preparations so inadequate, how dared they come to ambush him and Dao Lord Penglai?! At this moment, suddenly trapped in the Bahuang Heavenly Mirror, Dao Lord Hunxu also seemed to notice something amiss. "Destruction, what the devil are you playing at?!" This Dao Lord growled in a low voice, clearly... Having no grasp whatsoever of the situation on this side. Then again... It made sense. Who could have imagined that six dignified God Venerables, ambushing two top Dao Lords, would prove so fragile? In little more than ten breaths, not only had they suffered utter collapse, but four out of the six had already perished. Yaoguang remained silent for a moment, but his movements were not slow in the slightest. Channeling the power of the formation, he hurled down a Great Collapse Art. As the Great Collapse Art descended, Yaoguang took firm control of the surrounding void power, not allowing a single shred of it to dissipate. If earlier Void Dao Lords faced him with fifty to sixty percent of their power suppressed, then now... It was easily seventy percent at the very least! "Yaoguang?!" Dao Lord Hunxu immediately recognized the aura of the attacker. His face shifted drastically as he swiftly mobilized the Grand Dao of the Void to pull back and evade. Yet the moment he channeled the power of the void... "How can this be..." "So, is that all you have to say?" Carrying a tinge of faint regret, the Great Collapse Art struck downward, instantly causing the entire space around Dao Lord Hunxu to collapse and shatter into pieces. *Buzz! Buzz!* Secret arts and secret treasures akin to those of the Xuhuang God Venerable that drastically boosted void control burst from Dao Lord Hunxu's hands. Yet... They still failed to break Yaoguang's absolute control over this region of void. Even if he broke through, it would hold little meaning anyway. Yaoguang's application of the Grand Dao of the Void countered other Void Dao Lords to the utmost extent before him, leaving them zero room to escape. No matter how fast they traversed the void, they could never outpace Yaoguang, who wielded Void Flicker as his natal Dao art. "No!" Amid a despairing roar, this famed Dao Lord, whose body had fully merged into the Grand Dao of the Void, was once again blasted out from the violently shuddering Grand Dao of the Void. The void disintegration wrought by the Great Collapse Art ripped apart his control over the void, nearly knocking him down from a Dao Lord integrated with the Dao back to the Void Shattering realm. "An immortal reincarnation! An immortal reincarnation! You are definitely the reincarnation of a True Immortal of the Void Path! Otherwise, your mastery over the Path of the Void could never reach such heights!" Feeling the despair of having his void power completely dominated, Dao Lord Hunxu burst into a manic laugh. "Yet... even if you are a reincarnated immortal, so what? Today, even if I, Hunxu, must perish, I will drag you, a reincarnated immortal, down to die with me..." A wildly violent, immense surge of power erupted from this Dao Lord. The sheer magnitude of its destructive might almost reminded Yaoguang of the Flames of Dao Extinction that Dao Lord Penglai had unleashed back when slaying Dao Lord Wujin. "Suppress!" However, before this destructive power could climb to its peak, Yaoguang clenched his hand tightly toward where Dao Lord Hunxu stood, and void power embodying absolute dominance instantly froze Dao Lord Hunxu in place. In the next moment, the Grand Dao of the Void shuddered and fractured directly. Self-detonation! This was equivalent to a form of self-detonation! Through his absolute dominance over the power of the Grand Dao of the Void, he completely shattered and self-detonated a portion of the void Great Dao power! Having integrated his body with the Dao, Dao Lord Hunxu bore the brunt of the shockwaves born from the shattering of the Grand Dao of the Void, and his spirit, energy, and mind scattered in an instant. The lingering tremors continued undiminished toward Yaoguang, this Void Dao Lord, but were entirely blocked by the power of the Endless Tower. Moreover, as Yaoguang absorbed the Dao share of the Grand Dao of the Void with all his might, the tremors caused by the collapse of the Grand Dao of the Void were soon smoothed over. Yaoguang sensed his own condition briefly... He had lost roughly 0.2 of his void Dao share. Yet as he continued cultivating and absorbed a portion of Dao Lord Hunxu's share, his share surged by approximately 0.8. The remaining 0.2 was continuously siphoned away by that ubiquitous Void Source power that seemed to form part of the entire universe. Furthermore, as Yaoguang killed Void Dao Lords and refined their shares one after another, that vast power seemingly representing the Void Source appeared to cast some sort of influence toward this stellar expanse of the universe, and its struggle against him grew markedly fiercer. "A Void Immortal King located in the Immortal Realm?" Yaoguang had an epiphany. When Dao Lords clashed, if separated by some distance, Void Shattering cultivators would find it hard to perceive. However, other Dao Lords would certainly sense it. In particular, the fall or birth of a Dao Lord could be vaguely detected by other Dao Lords of the same path even across billions or tens of billions of light-years. It was merely a difference in clarity. If even Dao Lords could sense the fall and birth of their peers across billions or tens of billions of light-years, what about immortals? What about Immortal Venerables, who commanded one percent of a Great Dao's authority? And... What about Immortal Kings, who could be called the mightiest living entities beneath Dao Ancestors? For them to sense the fall and birth of Dao Lords in the mortal realm from the Immortal Realm was not surprising. And once they sensed it, they would leverage their greater Dao share advantage to siphon the shares of the fallen Dao Lords. The more frequently Dao Lords fell in a given region, the easier it was to draw the attention of top figures, allowing them to siphon even more shares. Yaoguang even thought of the Gate of the Immortal Realm. Could the Gate of the Immortal Realm be the node through which those top beings in the Immortal Realm absorbed Dao shares? After all, if Dao Lords were scattered too far apart across the barrier separating the immortal and mortal realms, even Immortal King-level entities might not out-compete a Dao Lord who happened to be nearby. But if all Dao Lords were concentrated in a single region to be periodically "harvested"... Every opening of the Gate of the Immortal Realm was undeniably a feast of plunder for the Immortal Venerables and Immortal Kings of the Immortal Realm. "When I absorbed the previous Void Dao Lords, that vast, magnificent power was clearly very distant from me and could barely contest the shares of the Grand Dao of the Void with me. But now... it is noticeably much closer..." Thinking of this, Yaoguang felt a chill in his heart. Fast! He had to hurry! "Next." Yaoguang turned his gaze back toward the reactivating teleportation formation. Before long, the formation took shape, and yet another Void Dao Lord stepped forth. And promptly met the strike of Yaoguang's Great Collapse Art. A few breaths later, Yaoguang refined this share. Sure enough, that vast power competing with him for the share seemed to draw yet another step closer. Yaoguang even felt a faint, prickly sense of crisis on his back. He glanced at his Dao Lord share, which had risen to 5.7, and fixed his gaze once more on the void teleportation formation engraved upon that specially crafted Dao artifact. However, after the formation operated this time, not a single Void Dao Lord jumped out from inside. Yaoguang's thoughts stirred, and he quickly deduced the reason: "Every Void Dao Lord is selfish. Hunxu and the other Dao Lord rushed over in haste. If everything here had truly gone smoothly and Penglai and I were lambs awaiting slaughter, those two Void Dao Lords would definitely have found a way to stop the teleportation formation from opening again. Yet they didn't; instead, they allowed the formation to activate repeatedly. Such a situation is blatantly suspicious..." Perhaps the second Dao Lord had sensed something wrong before crossing over, or had even agreed upon some coded signal with the other Void Dao Lords. Or perhaps, due to the short distance, they had received a message via a transmission jade talisman. Knowing that the situation had shifted, the remaining Void Dao Lords naturally would not take the risk of jumping out one by one to their deaths. "Since the teleportation formation hasn't been destroyed from the other end, it proves they are still clinging to hope... Heh, after all, with six God Race Dao Integration experts and eight to ten Void Dao Lords—such a massive lineup deployed against two top Dao Lords—who would believe they could be defeated so quickly? Even if they did receive a message sent by the Destruction God Venerable, they would suspect whether the Destruction God Venerable merely wanted to hog my secrets for himself..." Yaoguang saw through it clearly. At the level of a Dao Lord, everyone trusted their own judgment too much, hardly listening to anyone else's advice. Since these Void Dao Lords dared not come over, then to cut the weeds and eliminate the roots to prevent them from staging a comeback... "I will go over myself!" With this thought, Yaoguang instantly communicated his plan to Dao Lord Penglai, simultaneously asking Dao Lord Penglai to do her utmost to tie down the Destruction God Venerable and Slaughter God Venerable. As for himself, he retracted the Bahuang Heavenly Mirror, took a step into the void, and vanished into the teleportation formation. The distance covered by this teleportation formation was not far; otherwise, a somewhat special high-grade Dao artifact could not have easily sustained it. Stepping into the teleportation formation, Yaoguang appeared in another expanse of starry sky in just a moment. In this starry sky, he could vaguely sense the Grand Dao of Destruction, the Grand Dao of Slaughter, and the Grand Dao of Origin shuddering ceaselessly in the farther distance. At this moment, the five Void Dao Lords here were full of caution and vigilance... As for why there were only five Void Dao Lords... It turned out two of them had sensed that the situation was off and departed in advance. The remaining five Void Dao Lords firmly believed that riches were sought in danger and refused to let the opportunity slip away. The five of them occupied five positions, yet they did not form a battle array. Void Dao Lords who had joined forces halfway through could hardly speak of having any trust in one another. Without trust, forming a combined battle formation was naturally out of the question. "Yaoguang?!" Seeing the figure appear from the teleportation formation, the five fully vigilant Void Dao Lords instantly erupted into an uproar. "It's him?! How could the person teleporting out of the formation be him? Where are Hunxu and the others?" "Damn it! Could it be that Yaoguang's supposed plan to strike at the God Race was just a grand play directed and acted out by themselves all along? And the true purpose of their play was to bait us Void Dao Lords onto the hook so they could wipe us out in one fell swoop, reducing his risks in the Dao Contention five or six hundred years from now?!" "Regardless of whether Yaoguang and the God Race staged a play for us or not, destroy the teleportation formation first! That way, he won't be able to rendezvous with the God Race in time, nor can he escape the encirclement of the five of us through the teleportation array! I refuse to believe that the five of us Void Dao Lords working together cannot handle a newly ascended Dao Lord who only integrated with the Dao two hundred years ago!" Naturally unwilling to believe that the six God Race Dao Lords and the two who went over afterward, including Hunxu, could be defeated so swiftly, their divine senses flickered, full of endless speculation. Taking it all in, Yaoguang gave a heartfelt sigh. "A motley crew." In the next moment, alone as though encircling them, he swept straight toward the five Void Dao Lords.