Deprivation

"How could this be?!" The Grand Dao of Fate also served the Ancient Immortal Realm. Now that a wound had been torn in the Ancient Immortal Realm and chaotic nothingness was eroding it, even Fate had to coordinate the Three Thousand Grand Daos at the first opportunity to repair the damaged realm. At this moment... The very "existence" of the Ancient Immortal Realm superseded "Fate." If this was true for the Grand Dao of Fate itself, it was even truer for Immortal King Tianming, who had merely been granted an authority of fate. *Among the messages received by the Gate of Many Marvels... this scene never existed.* Events had not unfolded according to the design of "Fate." For the first time, this anomaly planted seeds of panic within Immortal King Tianming, who had always believed everything was under his control. Yet there was no time for him to ponder it. *Rumble!* The Great Void Art, possessing power so formidable it rivaled a strike from a Dao Ancestor, crashed down upon Immortal King Tianming, carrying an aura of impending doom. Though he immediately brought forth his Supreme Heavenly Book once more and flipped open its pages to resist the might of the Great Void Art, this time... The Supreme Heavenly Book was shattered into pieces with crushing force. The residual power of the Great Void Art swept over his body. Its intrinsic properties—tearing space, annihilating matter, and conjuring void storms—shredded every protective immortal artifact across the surface of his body in an instant. "Not good!" Immortal King Tianming instantly triggered a secret treasure on his person. Within the void storm whipped up by the Great Void Art, a passage was pierced through and condensed into existence. Manifesting from nothingness, the channel allowed his figure to vanish into the distance in an instant, breaking away from the battlefield. *The Grand Dao of Creation?* Yaoguang recognized the essence of this power at a glance. It was an exotic treasure imbued with the Grand Dao of Creation. Yet it was useless. "No one escapes with their life before a Void Immortal King!" Yaoguang took a step through the void. The void unrolled before him like a carpet; wherever it spread, his figure arrived. Not only that, but the space of the Immortal Realm began to flow and contract like a vortex, with him at its center. Immortal King Tianming, having just traversed space and broken away from the battlefield, had not even had time to react before he found himself sliding inexorably toward Yaoguang. Yaoguang's unexpected strength and the bizarre deviation of the Grand Dao of Fate sent a chill through Immortal King Tianming's heart. Better suited to scheming from behind the scenes in the first place, he instantly lost any desire to fight Yaoguang to the bitter end. "Fall back! Retreat! Mohe, hold him off!" The leader of the Ancient Immortal Alliance broadcast his divine sense and barked an order. Transforming into a beam of flowing light wrapped in the power of the Grand Dao of Flowing Light, he shot toward the edge of the horizon. "Think you can flee?" Yaoguang made a grasping motion in the empty air toward Immortal King Tianming as he fled toward the sky. The void flowed! Even though the Immortal King had turned into a streak of light and was flying at full speed toward the horizon like a startled rainbow, in truth... He was drawing closer and closer to Yaoguang. The speed at which he fled as light could not keep up with the speed at which Yaoguang collapsed space. If this continued, it would not be long before Immortal King Tianming, like a bird trapped in a cage, fell straight into Yaoguang's grasp. When that happened, his life or death would no longer be his to decide. At that very moment, however, Immortal King Mohe cut through the sky to intervene. Waves of the Grand Dao of Chaos coursed through him, and by utilizing its nature of obfuscating the surroundings, he acted like a reef pinned firmly into the contracting void, noticeably slowing down the spatial collapse. "Go! Quickly!" shouted Immortal King Mohe. Seeing this, Yaoguang pushed his power—already equivalent to four thousand shares of the Grand Dao—a fraction higher, while his realm climbed further, reaching ninety-nine percent. Although the increase seemed minor, it became the straw that broke the camel's back. Immortal King Tianming, racing toward the edge of the sky as a streak of light, became like a light-speed starship caught by a black hole! No matter how much he accelerated, he could not alter the fate of sliding ever closer toward the event horizon. This outcome drove Immortal King Tianming to near despair. "The Void Dao Ancestor! This is definitely power left behind by the Void Dao Ancestor! How could you use such trump-card Dao Ancestor power against your own comrade?!" Immortal King Tianming's divine sense boiled with dread and fury. Behind him, an illusory gateway suddenly manifested. This illusory portal was neither colossal nor magnificent. Yet on closer inspection, one would find that it bore an eerie resemblance to the Gate of Fate hanging high in the sky like a blazing sun. It was as though a projection of the Gate of Fate had been cast into the Immortal Realm. This was one of the three supreme treasures of the Ancient Immortal Alliance—the Gate of Many Marvels! It could even be called the most precious of the three. The fact that the Ancient Immortal Alliance had managed to escape time and again through the cracks of the Nine Great Conglomerates' encirclements was due in immense part to this very treasure. As this supreme treasure was brought forth, Immortal King Alpha and Immortal King Nizhuan, who had been locked in combat with several Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance, abruptly pulled back. "Immortal King Yuxiao! Don't get tangled up with them, let's go!" "Your safety is far more important than a petty Ancient Immortal Alliance! Leave, fall back first!" The two Immortal Kings' divine senses rippled urgently as they arrived at Yaoguang's side, intending to escort him away. Moreover, because they had retreated, the three other Ancient Immortal Alliance Immortal Kings who had been besieging them broke free as well and appeared beside Immortal King Tianming in a flash. Grand Dao powers flared and churned around all five Immortal Kings. Uniting the might of five Immortal Kings was enough to break straight through Yaoguang's spatial contraction and escape the battlefield. "Get out of the way!" Yaoguang barked in a low voice. Taking a step across the void, he bypassed Alpha and Nizhuan in an instant. At the same time, the "Dao Lord" power in his spiritual world that signified mastery over the Grand Dao of the Void began to vibrate, instantly blanketing the five Immortal Kings in an aura of absolute dominance. "Dao Ancestor?!" In that split second, Immortal King Tianming and the other Immortal Kings felt their hearts jolt violently. Their eyes filled with terror, shock, and... disbelief! In their perception, the power Yaoguang demonstrated at this moment was virtually indistinguishable from that of the Void Dao Ancestor! Yet just as Yaoguang's power of absolute control engulfed the five Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance and was about to seize them into his grasp, he acutely sensed an even vaster, more majestic will sweeping toward them like a tidal wave. This power... *The Lord of Yuanxi!* At this critical juncture, the power of the Lord of Yuanxi had actually begun projecting over. Then again, it made sense. The battle had suffered unexpected twist after twist, stretching the conflict over several breaths of time. Furthermore, the all-out clash among Immortal Kings had nearly shattered this region of the Immortal Realm. Add to that his near-Dao Ancestor-tier Great Void Art... With a commotion of this magnitude, no matter how much computing power the Lord of Yuanxi had tied up in the lower realms, he would have to spare a glance over here. *If I face the Lord of Yuanxi right now...* Yaoguang weighed his chances. Yet after only a moment, he suppressed the thought. He had yet to fully comprehend all four Supreme Grand Daos, and the "Lord of Heavenly Dao" he had simulated based on the Lord of Yuanxi had not reached computing power comparable to a level twenty authority holder. Confronting the Hunyuan Realm led by the Lord of Yuanxi under these circumstances... The odds of victory were slim. Furthermore, their earlier exchange had made Yaoguang faintly realize that the Glazed Treasure Tree within him might not be as harmless as he had imagined. It was entirely possible that the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor had left contingencies inside it. Therefore, if he truly wished to engage in a final decisive battle, he had to bring himself to peak condition and eliminate all latent dangers first. Hastily initiating a final battle under forced circumstances was not a wise choice. With this thought, Yaoguang shifted the Void "Dao Lord" power he had channeled. Instead of binding the five Immortal Kings, he redirected it to imprison the Gate of Many Marvels unleashed by Immortal King Tianming. As the void power of absolute dominance clamped down, it forcefully ripped this supreme treasure away from Immortal King Tianming. "My Gate of Many Marvels?!" Immortal King Tianming let out a cry of disbelief and reluctance. At that moment, an Immortal King skilled in sensory Grand Daos also detected something, his divine sense trembling with terror: "The Lord of Yuanxi! He's here!" Though these Immortal Kings had fought back and forth with Immortal King Alpha and Immortal King Nizhuan just moments ago and had even gained the upper hand, that had only been because Alpha and Nizhuan could not access the computing power support of the Lord of Yuanxi through their authorities. Once backed by computing power, Immortal Kings of the Nine Great Conglomerates could easily fight two to one against Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance at the same realm and Grand Dao share. A level nineteen authority holder could even take on three or four at once. "Run!" "Alliance Leader, losing the Gate of Many Marvels might be the guidance of fate as well! Never mind that now, we must leave!" "As long as the green hills remain, there will always be firewood to burn! Go!" Panicked, the Immortal Kings no longer harbored any desire to slaughter the remaining three directors of Creation Group. Each unleashed their own abilities to escape the battlefield as swiftly as possible. As Yaoguang claimed the Gate of Many Marvels, he promptly reined in the power of the Void "Dao Lord" dao fruit, maintaining a state that was merely a cut above Immortal King Tianyu. At the same time, he cast his divine sense into his soul immortal artifact, the Human Sovereign Banner. Sensing Yaoguang's divine sense, the three Immortal Kings, led by Xuanqing, immediately asked in pleasant surprise: "Yuxiao, how is the situation outside? Has the crisis passed?" "This Human Sovereign Banner is really something. Staying inside makes me not even want to leave." "By now, the Lord of Yuanxi should be reacting. Once he arrives, no matter how many petty plots those clowns in the Ancient Immortal Alliance have, they'll crumble to dust." All three Immortal Kings transmitted their divine senses at once. Yet they did not receive a reply from Yaoguang. Instead, a torrential power capable of refining any soul into nothingness came rolling over them. The remnant souls of the two weaker Immortal Kings were instantly refined into ash, dissipating on the spot. Xuanqing, who had barely managed to resist for a moment, was overwhelmed with disbelief. "Yuxiao?!" "Immortal King Yuxiao is still locked away in the lower realm. When the time is right, I will have him send his regards. If you get the chance, you can meet again in the Hunyuan Realm," Yaoguang replied placidly. Immortal King Xuanqing's soul fluctuated violently, his emotions chaotic to the extreme. Yet the Human Sovereign Banner gave him no chance to say more. The surging power instantly refined him into nothingness, converting him into pure soul energy that bolstered Yaoguang's mind another degree. Having done all this, Yaoguang peered into the secrets of level twenty authority through this level nineteen authority holder, all while gathering his focus to confront the descending Lord of Yuanxi.