Slaughter

"Hiding right beneath the radiance of the Gate of Karma? Obscuring themselves with the power of karma? No wonder I couldn't sense where they were when I scanned the area earlier." Constantly vigilant, watching and listening in all directions, Yaoguang immediately detected the Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance as they appeared. These Ancient Immortal Alliance Immortal Kings must have reached the Gate of Karma long ago. They had done everything they could to conceal their auras, then used the Gate of Karma to obscure their karmic ties. Meanwhile, the battlefield where Yaoguang and his companions had fought earlier was on the outer perimeter of the Gate of Karma; it was only as the battle raged that they had drawn closer and closer to the gate itself. In a sense, it wasn't that these people had lain in ambush around them, but rather that they had delivered themselves right to their doorstep. The treasure that enabled them to conceal themselves... "The Wheel of Karma." Yaoguang's gaze fell upon a gold-robed man standing beside Immortal King Tianming. The wielder of the Wheel of Karma, a cultivator of the Grand Dao of Slaughter: Immortal King Yuantu. The moment he detected the Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance, Yaoguang's reaction was exceptionally swift. Even if he had been a beat too slow, it wouldn't have mattered; all it took was a burst of acceleration using the power of the Grand Dao of Time. At that moment, he seemed to meld entirely with the Grand Dao of the Void, vanishing straight from everyone's senses. Among the fourteen Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance, three were focused entirely on Yaoguang. Among them was the Alliance Leader of the Ancient Immortal Alliance, the former wielder of the Gate of Many Wonders—Immortal King Tianming. Immortal King Tianming had come specifically for him, while Deputy Leader Immortal King Bucun held the Ancient Immortal Alliance's third supreme treasure, the Boundless Boat, intending to sweep Yaoguang up and carry him off directly. They never expected to lose Yaoguang's figure in an instant. This sudden turn of events caught Immortal King Tianming off guard. Yet his reaction was extremely quick. Redirecting his momentum from his charge, he lunged instead toward the ten Immortal Kings led by Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan. These ten Immortal Kings had been in the thick of their fiercest clash with Yaoguang, and having their opponent switched so abruptly caught them completely flat-footed. "It's the Ancient Immortal Alliance!" "They were hiding beneath the Gate of Karma using the Wheel of Karma!" "Careful!" Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan sent out their divine senses at once. At the same time, they pushed their Grand Dao resonances to the limit, unleashing their strongest immortal arts to clash with the Ancient Immortal Alliance. Yet even so, caught unprepared, the ten Immortal Kings were plunged into absolute peril. In an instant, as many as five Immortal Kings fell on the spot! Three more had their immortal bodies shattered, barely preserving their souls with protective treasures as they tried to disengage from the battlefield. Yet before they could flee, the supposedly damaged pinnacle immortal artifact, the Human Sovereign Banner, unfurled across the sky. With a sweeping roll, it pulled the souls of the three Immortal Kings inside. It was Yaoguang, emerging once more as he stepped out from the void. Witnessing this, Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan—who had barely clung to life after suffering grievous damage to their immortal bodies—roared in fury: "Yuxiao, you insolent wretch! How dare you collaborate with the Ancient Immortal Alliance to ambush our four groups?! I will report this to the Lord of Yuanxi and the Lord of Creation, and have them personally execute you, a traitor to our Hunyuan Realm!" "Are you blind? Can't you see they were waiting for the two of us to fight and suffer mutual devastation before springing their ambush? The ones who truly deserve to be tried are your four groups! I was just about to trigger a Grand Dao resonance and shatter the Gate of Karma, but you interfered and caused catastrophic losses to our three groups. You are the real traitors to the Hunyuan Realm! Today, on behalf of the Lord of Yuanxi and the Sovereigns behind you, I will execute you traitors on the spot!" Without hesitation, Yaoguang condensed yet another Great Void Art! Didn't these Immortal Kings accuse him of colluding with the Ancient Immortal Alliance to ambush them? Then he would make it a true ambush. Strike while the enemy is down! Furthermore, with the final batch of supporting actors taking the stage, Yaoguang had no intention of holding back his strength any longer—he directly activated the power of a Void "Dao Master"! Let alone the fact that Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan were already heavily injured and at the end of their tether; even in their peak state, they would hardly be a match for Yaoguang going all out. As the Great Void Art infused with the power of a "Dao Master" crashed down, Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan felt as though they had become enemies of the universe itself. In a daze, it seemed that what descended upon them was no longer a mere immortal art, but the entire Ancient Immortal Realm. The Ancient Immortal Realm erupted with boundless fury, bearing down like a thunderous deluge, sworn to grind these invaders into dust. This sort of might... finally caused terror to sprout in the eyes of the two Immortal Kings. "Dao Ancestor! Dao Ancestor! This is the power of the Void Dao Ancestor!" "You've actually mastered the power of the Void Dao Ancestor... How is this possible?! In less than ten thousand years, how could you have elevated your attainment in the Void to such an extent?!" Dao Ancestor! That was an existence on the same level as a Sovereign! When such power came crashing down, how could these Immortal Kings—cut off from the supportive power of the Lord of Yuanxi—ever hope to withstand it?! And if they couldn't withstand it... The level-nineteen permission abilities they had spent tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of years clawing their way up to would be completely wiped clean as their immortal bodies collapsed and their souls were annihilated. Their lofty status and prestige would be knocked from the clouds like crumbling dry weeds, leaving them among the lowest tier of immortal spirits in the Hunyuan Realm! At the thought of such dire consequences, the two Immortal Kings shuddered to their cores. "We all belong to the Nine Great Groups, born of the same body! To fight the Ancient Immortal Realm, we must pull together in the same boat..." "No! A misunderstanding! Immortal King Yuxiao... Dao Ancestor Yuxiao, how could you possibly be a traitor to the Hunyuan Realm? You are the pioneer of the war between the Hunyuan Realm and the Ancient Immortal Realm! The leader of the Nine Great Groups! We are willing to follow the banner of Dao Ancestor Yuxiao and join hands with you to shatter the Gate of Karma!" Divine senses laden with panic, surrender, and even desperate pleading instantly reverberated around Yaoguang. The two Immortal Kings repeatedly played the card of the Nine Great Groups being one entity, desperately hoping to beg for a sliver of survival. However... Had Yaoguang truly been a native Immortal King of the Hunyuan Realm, then in the face of a formidable enemy like the Ancient Immortal Alliance, he might well have spared the lives of Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan. That would have given the four groups a glimmer of hope, allowing them to cling to wishful thinking and join forces with Creation Group, Xiyu Group, and Dusk Group to encircle and annihilate the Ancient Immortal Alliance together. After all, a lineup of fourteen Immortal Kings from the Ancient Immortal Alliance was by no means weak. In particular, Immortal King Tianming, Immortal King Yuantu, and Immortal King Bucun—the wielder of the Boundless Boat—had deployed in full force with the Ancient Immortal Alliance's remaining two supreme treasures. The threat they posed was so great that even two or three groups going all out might not be able to wipe them out. Considering the bigger picture, he truly ought to have spared the two Immortal Kings, rallied the four groups, and united the strength of all seven groups to wage a war of annihilation against the Ancient Immortal Alliance. In the end, after an epochal clash, the Ancient Immortal Alliance would be wiped out, and the seven groups, having secured victory at a horrific cost, would flank him as he arrived before the Gate of Karma to trigger the Grand Dao resonance, shake the Gate of Karma, and show hope to the Sovereigns behind the Hunyuan Realm. Then, their true bodies would descend, triggering the ultimate war between the Hunyuan Realm and the Ancient Immortal Realm— and perhaps even a civil war between the Nine Sovereigns and the Lord of Yuanxi over the division of the spoils. Unfortunately... Yaoguang couldn't care less about the bigger picture. As the protagonist among the chess pieces laid out by Fate, his only concern was whatever felt most satisfying. Why should he care if this threw the Fate Dao Ancestor's plans into disarray? If things went wrong, figure it out yourself. You're the Fate Dao Ancestor, after all—can't you find a way to steer things back on track? If you put it back on track, he would continue playing the piece. If you didn't even have that much capability, what kind of Fate Dao Ancestor were you? Therefore, far from holding back, he activated the power of a Time "Dao Master," causing the Great Void Art to strike the immortal bodies of Immortal King Zhongyan and Immortal King Yuankun the very instant it coalesced, offering them not the slightest chance to struggle or resist. Such ruthlessness immediately provoked an unprecedented wave of resentment, indignation, and fury in the divine senses of the two Immortal Kings. "No!" "Yuxiao! Damn you to hell! I—" *Rumble!* The Great Void Art crushed down. The immortal bodies of the chairmen of Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group collapsed, their souls extinguished, perishing on the spot without the slightest suspense. This brutal, merciless sight left the members of Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group utterly stunned. The next moment, equal fury erupted from them. "Chairman?! Yuxiao, you actually destroyed the chairmen?! Have you lost your mind?!" "If the lips are gone, the teeth are cold! Everyone from Changsheng and Star Sun Groups, join us to avenge them!" "How dare you! Yuxiao, how dare you?! You are declaring an unending vendetta against our Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group!" One Immortal King after another from Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group flew into a rage. In particular, the diehards loyal to Yuankun and Zhongyan agitated the others, seemingly intent on fighting Yaoguang to the death. "Hahaha! What wouldn't I dare? An unending vendetta?! Then an unending vendetta it shall be! Taiyi, Nizhuan, lock onto Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group and strike—don't let a single one escape! Today, I will wipe Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group from the Ancient Immortal Realm!" Yaoguang took a step through the void. Displaying the strength of a Void "Dao Master," he was directly an entire tier, a whole realm above every Immortal King on the field. Although the difference between these two realms was not as vast as that between Void Shattering and Dao Integration, it was definitely on par with the gulf between a Dao Lord and a Dao Sovereign. In a single flicker, he appeared before the Immortal King shouting the most fiercely. This Immortal King had been elevated by Immortal King Yuankun personally—much like the relationship between Immortal King Tianyu and Immortal King Longxiang—and was someone truly willing to risk his life for Yuankun. The instant Yaoguang flickered into existence before him, carrying the prestige of a "Dao Master," he came naturally endowed with peerless passive properties such as void lock, void suppression, and void freezing. The vast, majestic sense of an entire world crashing toward him detonated violently within this Immortal King's perception of the Grand Dao, causing his very breath to seize. In that instant of paralyzed shock, Yaoguang slammed down another Great Void Art. "Not good!" The jolt of dangling between life and death snapped him awake, but he was completely unable to block the majestic, boundless Great Void Art that descended like the Grand Dao itself made manifest. Amid feeble struggles, this Immortal King was directly ground to dust as the void collapsed around him. This scene... sent violent tremors through the hearts of Immortal King Nizhuan, Immortal King Taiyi, and the others, who were already reeling from the deaths of Immortal King Yuankun and Immortal King Zhongyan, the chairmen of the two conglomerates. Compounded by the presence of their formidable foes from the Ancient Immortal Alliance, the two Immortal Kings felt for the first time that the situation... had spun completely beyond their control.