Dao Sovereign

"This!?" Dao Lord Penglai looked at the scene before her in utter astonishment. Meanwhile, the Dao Lords observing this battleground through all manner of methods were instantly dumbfounded. Everyone, including the Dao Lords belonging to the Ten Immortal Sects, felt their trains of thought grind to a dead halt at this very moment. What had just happened? Wasn't this supposed to be two invincible Dao Lords locked in a monumental battle against the fourteen Demon Saints of the Nine Demon Immortal Lineages? Wasn't this supposed to be a clash of the century that would dictate the future course of Beihai Star? The battle had not even begun, yet it was already over? The Nine Demon Immortal Lineages—a whole fourteen Demon Saints! How could so many Demon Saints simply vanish into thin air? Did the Nine Demon Immortal Lineages think the atmosphere on Beihai Star had grown too tense lately, so they decided to put on a magic vanishing act just to entertain everyone? What kind of joke was this!? Destruction God Venerable and the others, who had mobilized in full force with eight God Venerables leaving the territory of the God Race, ground to an involuntary halt on their way to the Nine Demon Immortal Lineages. Shock, dread, and sheer disbelief were written across every God Venerable's face. "Impossible! That's utterly impossible!" "Fourteen Demon Saints vanished just like that!?" "An illusion! It has to be an illusion! It won't fool me!" "A spatial shift secret technique! This has to be a shifting method! Using the Grand Dao of the Void, he moved all fourteen Demon Saints directly to some remote realm or starry sky to remove them from the battlefield! It must be!" All sorts of divine thoughts rippled incessantly from the God Venerables. Noble as God Venerables and mighty as Dao Integration experts, they still found it hard to accept the reality unfolding before their eyes in such a reality-shattering spectacle. Fortunately, though shaken dizzy and reeling under a sense of apocalyptic collapse, some of the God Venerables quickly regained their composure and wits. Whether Yaoguang had truly suppressed those fourteen Demon Saints or had merely shifted them away temporarily using secret arts, heavenly treasures, or a Dao Sovereign's talismans, an earth-shattering crisis loomed right in front of the God Race. If Yaoguang had gone to such great lengths to move those Demon Saints aside, the ones he truly intended to deal with... "Go! Back to the Divine Kingdom!" "Quick! Return to the bounds of the Divine Kingdom and link its power into one! As long as the God Race stands within the Divine Kingdom, we are invincible!" Slaughter God Venerable and Destruction God Venerable projected their divine thoughts simultaneously, wheeling around without the slightest hesitation. The other God Venerables came to their senses as well, their hearts turning cold as they scrambled to return to the Divine Kingdom at maximum speed. ... High above the domain of the Taotie Demon Saint, Dao Lord Penglai looked at the fourteen Demon Saints truly suppressed by Yaoguang with an "immortal artifact," her eyes brimming with irrepressible amazement. "How... did you manage this?" she could not help asking. "Merely relying on the might of an immortal artifact," Yaoguang said. Pressing his hand down through empty air, he sent a tremor through the Grand Dao Pagoda. Inside the pagoda, every Demon Saint who had managed to stay conscious was battered by terrible attacks reminiscent of the Great Collapse Art and Great Annihilation Art—just a step below origin Dao arts. Their powerful demon bodies were swiftly worn down and destroyed. Yaoguang did not even need to intervene personally. He only had to maintain control over the Grand Dao Pagoda, and the assembly of Demon Saints inside would naturally be refined away; it was merely a matter of time. "Still, now isn't the time to discuss this treasure. The plan to lure the snakes out of their hole went smoothly. Next... we strike while they are out of their Divine Kingdom and round up these God Race opportunists who thought they could play the sparrow waiting behind the mantis," Yaoguang remarked. Though Dao Lord Penglai had countless questions, she understood what took precedence and nodded. Allowing Yaoguang to guide her, they crossed nearly half of Beihai Star in a few Void Flickers, cutting off the eight God Venerables desperately attempting to flee. "Go to the God Race's Divine Kingdom and keep them from slipping back inside. Leave these people to me." "Can you handle them alone?" "A scholar absent for three days warrants a new assessment, let alone three hundred years." "Very well, then," Dao Lord Penglai agreed with a nod. One of her favorite sayings was that a "genius" could never be measured by common sense. Furthermore, beyond understanding that truth deeply, she knew far more than the other Dao Lords on Beihai Star. Thus, she granted Yaoguang her complete trust without hesitation. Sweeping the Human Emperor Sword in her hand, she rippled the void and shuttled through space, moving to block the retreat route to the Divine Kingdom. "Yaoguang! Penglai!" Cut off in his path, Destruction God Venerable let out a low growl. "His need to teleport the Demon Saints of the Nine Demon Immortal Lineages away only proves he lacked the confidence to defeat so many God Venerables and Demon Saints together! We are already right on the doorstep of the Divine Kingdom. Fight and fall back! Once inside the Divine Kingdom, he won't be able to lay a finger on us!" "Understood!" "Fall back to the Divine Domain!" The remaining God Venerables spurred their divine thoughts and stirred their Grand Daos. They all knew that facing this invincible Dao Lord, they had reached a moment of life and death. Compared to the God Race's grave readiness, Yaoguang remained calm and unhurried. "Is there a possibility that it wasn't a matter of lacking the strength to defeat you, but rather... that I was worried you would scatter in all directions, making the hunt too tedious, so I deliberately let you assemble first?" Yaoguang stepped forward. With a light flick of his sleeve, the Grand Dao of the Void violently shuddered. Void power far beyond anything an ordinary Dao Lord could mobilize gathered under a single thought. Coming together as naturally as water finding its course, it swiftly formed a Great Void Art, crashing down upon one of the slower God Venerables. Under the weight of the Great Void Art, the void surrounding that God Venerable seemed to solidify and collapse inward. Though he exerted every ounce of his power through secret techniques to push his speed to the absolute limit, he failed to escape the collapsing, solidified space; instead, he was dragged ever closer to its core. In the end, he could only watch in terror as the unified, hardened void abruptly shattered and annihilated, grinding every trace of matter and life within it into nothingness. "An immortal art!" Destruction God Venerable cried out in horror. An immortal art! Normally, that alone was not unfathomable. Among lineages bearing a Dao Sovereign's legacy, who did not have a trump card or two capable of unleashing an immortal-art-level attack? Even some powerful Dao Lords, upon acquiring top-grade heavenly treasures, could channel them into a single strike of immortal-art caliber. Yet the problem was... The Great Void Art Yaoguang had just unleashed did not use a single void talisman, nor did it draw upon any precious materials worthy of forging an immortal artifact! He had relied solely on his own power to leverage the Grand Dao of the Void and strike with that Great Void Art! Such a method... He had only ever seen records of it in the most ancient scriptures of the God Race! Ancestral Gods! The Ancestral God of the End! The Ancestral God of the Origin! Legend had it that those two beings, standing on the same tier as human Dao Sovereigns, were capable of unleashing destructive immortal arts through their own realm and cultivation alone, without relying on any external aid. And now, Yaoguang's actions and divine abilities had reached a realm rivaling an Ancestral God!? Which meant... "A Dao Sovereign!?" *Rumble!* The Grand Dao of the Void was stirred once more. A single breath after obliterating the first God Venerable, a second Great Void Art had already taken shape. The interval... It was simply too short—so short that even someone as formidable as Destruction God Venerable felt the chilling dread of impending doom and imminent death! "An immortal art!" In the distance, heading toward the Divine Domain to help Yaoguang cut off the fleeing God Venerables, Dao Lord Penglai watched the scene from afar, her eyes gleaming with brilliant light. "I knew it!" A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "I knew you were the same kind of person as us." In that instant, her mood turned relaxed and lighthearted once more, just as it had been years ago when she first shared the first half of the immortal's inheritance with Yaoguang in easy, carefree repose. ... Under the Great Void Art, the God Venerables possessed no ability to resist. Though each of them held an assortment of life-saving treasures, against an immortal art that incorporated nearly eight or ten variations of Dao arts to close off every possible flaw, those treasures were entirely useless. Void essence that could ignore spatial blockades to travel millions of li? A space-breaking talisman that could slip out of any formation? A scapegoat puppet that could redirect a lethal strike onto itself? Useless! Every last one was useless. The spatial shock caused by an origin Dao art like the Great Void Art was far more terrifying than pure void essence, and its relentless spatial contraction and solidification surpassed anything a void formation could achieve. Moreover, while the Great Void Art appeared to annihilate only a limited expanse of space, it actually compressed a vast realm before obliterating it all at once. To say nothing of the fact that, as one of the supreme Grand Daos, the Grand Dao of the Void served as the foundation supporting all other Daos. Dao Lords with a profound enough mastery of the Grand Dao of the Void could even strip away the very foundation of existence for other Daos, preventing them from manifesting smoothly in the mortal world. Rather than a battle, this had become a massacre. One side hunted; the other fled. And once overtaken, there was no escaping death in this desperate rout. "Stop! Dao Lord Yaoguang, please stop!" Seeing three God Venerables fall in the blink of an eye, Destruction God Venerable at the front could finally bear it no longer. He rapidly projected his divine thoughts, softening his stance in surrender: "Our Ten God Races never had any enmity with you, Fellow Daoist Yaoguang! All of this came about because Radiance acted on his own initiative and brought our relations to such a pass! We are willing to hand Radiance over to you to deal with as you see fit, and we will compensate you generously afterward! Please, for the sake of our shared status as native Dao Lords of Beihai Star, show us mercy!" God Venerable Radiance, who was likewise fleeing in panic, heard these words with a heart full of bitterness. Yet he understood that Destruction God Venerable had no choice. Facing Yaoguang, whose overwhelming might was enough to wipe out every God Venerable among them, sacrificing him alone to preserve the rest was the only way the God Race could hope to survive on Beihai Star. "Every debt has its debtor!" God Venerable Radiance took a deep breath and stepped forward with absolute resolve, declaring, "I brought this disaster upon us, and I, Radiance, am willing to bear the consequences alone! Yaoguang, I offer my neck here for slaughter—do with me as you will!"