"So strong!"
"Immortal King Wanqian didn't even have room to fight back! How could the gap between them be this terrifyingly vast?!"
"Didn't you hear? Dao Ancestor! That is power on the level of a Dao Ancestor! Yuxiao has already digested the legacies of both the Void Dao Ancestor and the Time Dao Ancestor! Aside from not having accumulated enough shares yet, his realm is already indistinguishable from theirs!"
"If he possessed such strength all along, why did he hide and tuck it away, refusing to show it until now? On top of that, he actually killed both Chairmen Yuankun and Zhongyan... Is he truly Yuxiao or is he Yaoguang? At this point, I can hardly tell anymore!"
"Shut your mouth! Who else could he be if not Immortal King Yuxiao of our Hunyuan Realm? 'Yaoguang' was merely an alias he used; could he possibly have any real ties to the Ancient Immortal Realm?! Don't speak words that undermine our unity!"
At that moment, whether belonging to the four conglomerates of Tianyuan, Shenluo, Changsheng, and Star Sun, or the camp comprising Creation, Xiyu, and Dusk, several dozen Immortal Kings exchanged divine senses in a flurry of heated discussion.
Yet, without coordinating, they had all halted their fighting.
Evidently, they had realized something was profoundly wrong with the situation.
"Nizhuan! Taiyi, what are you waiting for?!" Yaoguang called out. "I might be inclined to show leniency toward Changsheng Group and Star Sun Group, but those from Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group were just barking right in my face about fighting to the death! Are you going to turn a blind eye to that?!"
Yaoguang's figure flashed as he charged once more toward another Shenluo Group Immortal King who had been clamoring enthusiastically earlier.
"Chairman, please show mercy!"
Immortal King Nizhuan hurriedly called out to intervene. "Right now, our great enemy, the Ancient Immortal Alliance, stands before us! We should unite first to wipe them out! Whatever offense Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group committed against you, Chairman, can be settled afterward. I am sure they will give you a thoroughly satisfactory answer when the time comes!"
"Insolence!"
Yaoguang's divine sense surged furiously. "Nizhuan! Are you trying to rebel?! Am I the chairman, or are you?! How dare you defy my orders!"
His divine sense swept outward again. "And you, Taiyi! According to our agreement, you were supposed to hold back the others so they wouldn't interfere with my comprehension of the Gate of Karma! Yet here I am, left to clean up this mess! You can't even handle a simple task, so it seems to me you have no intention of honoring our agreement at all! When the time comes, just wait to suffer the backlash under Master Yuanxi's judgment!"
"Chairman Yuxiao, we have no intention of breaking our agreement, it's just that..."
Immortal King Taiyi waved his hands in a fluster.
Before he could finish, Immortal King Tianming let out a long laugh. "Hahaha! Can you all still not see it even now? Dao Ancestor Yaoguang has long been one with our Ancient Immortal Realm! Having inherited the legacies of both the Void Dao Ancestor and the Time Dao Ancestor, he is destined to become the new Spacetime Dao Ancestor of our Ancient Immortal Realm, sharing our glory and our ruin!"
His divine sense thrummed with excitement and seduction. "What he intends to do now is join hands with us to slaughter every single Immortal King of your Nine Great Conglomerates! He will purge every last one of your people until the Ancient Immortal Realm is restored to its proper order!"
The leader of the Ancient Immortal Alliance raised an arm and rallied his forces. "Everyone, follow me! Coordinate with Dao Ancestor Yaoguang and slaughter to your hearts' content! After today, the Nine Great Conglomerates will be history, and the Ancient Immortal Realm will officially usher in an era belonging to our Ancient Immortal Alliance!"
"Kill!"
Under Immortal King Tianming's rallying cry, the thirteen Immortal Kings roared, swooping down toward the Immortal Kings below.
Their primary targets were the Immortal Kings of Changsheng Group and Star Sun Group—the very ones Yaoguang had claimed he might spare.
It seemed as though an unspoken division of labor had already been established: Yaoguang would exterminate Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group, while they dealt with Changsheng Group and Star Sun Group.
Once the Immortal Kings of these four conglomerates were wiped out, they would then join forces to handle Creation Group, Dusk Group, and Xiyu Group.
Without the empowerment of Master Yuanxi, and having already lost four of their Immortal Kings, Changsheng Group and Star Sun Group were left with only thirteen members. Armed with the Wheel of Karma and the Boundless Boat, the Ancient Immortal Alliance had nothing to fear.
"Hold off the Ancient Immortal Alliance!"
"Chairman Yuxiao, the Ancient Immortal Alliance is our true enemy! Let us strike together and annihilate them first! Whatever grievances you have with Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group can be settled later!"
Immortal King Nizhuan and Immortal King Taiyi projected their divine senses in unison, rallying their faction's Immortal Kings to charge toward the Ancient Immortal Alliance.
"What grievances? Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group were bent on fighting me to the death! Of course you don't care, since you weren't the ones on the receiving end! But now that I have this opportunity to catch them all in one net, why would I ever let tigers return to the mountain?!"
Yaoguang unleashed a barrage of Great Void Arts from his hands.
After activating the power of the Void "Dao Master," his control over the Grand Dao of the Void had reached an unprecedented height.
Although an incomplete share prevented him from commanding the heaven-shaking, realm-sweeping might of a true Void Dao Ancestor with every gesture, when he focused his entire spirit to lock onto an individual Immortal King, the pressure he exerted was utterly lethal.
Under such suppression, an ordinary Immortal King could hardly withstand a single exchange against him.
He was incomparably ferocious!
"Chairman Yuxiao, this is a misunderstanding! The ones who wanted to fight to the death were only the Immortal Kings directly tied to Yuankun and Zhongyan! Now that they have been slain by your hand, Chairman, we have absolutely no intention of fighting you to the bitter end!"
The terrifying spectacle left the Immortal Kings of Tianyuan Group and Shenluo Group trembling in fear, pleading incessantly.
"You are merely biding your time because the tables have turned and you're weighing the odds. Had you held the upper hand, would you have left me any path to survive today?! Such scheming minds only make it all the more impossible to let you live!"
"Chairman Yuxiao..."
Other Immortal Kings attempted to plead as well.
Yet several perceptive figures had already seen through the situation. "Can't you see it? Yaoguang threw his lot in with the Ancient Immortal Alliance and the Ancient Immortal Realm long ago! Otherwise, how could he have gained the recognition of the Void Dao Ancestor's and Time Dao Ancestor's inheritances so quickly?! No matter how sophistical his words sound, they all point toward a single objective: to slaughter every last one of us!"
"Still flinging mud at me even now?! Die!"
Yaoguang flickered through the void, appearing beside that Immortal King in an instant, and smashed a Great Void Art straight down upon him.
"Flee! Run!"
"He is at the level of a Spacetime Dao Ancestor! We can't stop him! We can't stop him at all! Unless we receive empowerment from Master Yuanxi and gather ten, or even twenty or more Immortal Kings, we won't stand a chance! But our interference has already jammed Master Yuanxi's perception of this area—he cannot descend!"
"Get out of here! Once we leave this region, we can reestablish contact with Master Yuanxi and let him decide our fate!"
Witnessing this, the remaining Immortal Kings completely lost whatever courage they had left to confront Yaoguang.
The dozen or so Immortal Kings from Tianyuan Group, Shenluo Group, Changsheng Group, and Star Sun Group scattered in a frenzy, fleeing in all directions at top speed.
"Flee? Do you really think you can escape?!"
Yaoguang muttered under his breath, "After acting for so long, it's time to clear the field and wait for the boss to spawn."
The ultimate goal of the four conglomerates' Immortal Kings gathering here had been to extort him.
Since they chose extortion, they naturally had to bear the price of failure.
Without hesitation, he reached out his hand, and the void centered on him rapidly contracted once more.
"Today, not a single one of you Immortal Kings will leave the perimeter of the Gate of Karma alive!"
His entire being transformed into a black hole once again.
Although he did not devour the surrounding light to plunge himself into absolute darkness, the surrounding space flowed toward the area centered on him like liquid mercury during the contraction.
However, while the collapsing void encompassed the dozen-plus Immortal Kings of the four conglomerates, he was still not a true Dao Ancestor. Even after tapping into the power of the Void "Dao Master," attempting to restrain over a dozen Immortal Kings scattering in all directions pushed his strength to its limits.
"Hold nothing back! If we can't escape this area, we're all dead!"
"Uninhibited Bead! Break for me!"
"Hahaha! Thinking you can bind over a dozen of us Immortal Kings all by yourself? Not so easy!"
As the Immortal Kings unleashed their full repertoires of techniques, the contracting void trembled violently. Several individuals possessing secret treasures were already on the verge of breaking free from the constrained area.
Seeing this, Immortal King Yuantu of the Ancient Immortal Alliance leapt forward, breaking away from the battlefield alongside three other Immortal Kings and charging straight toward those about to escape the collapsing zone.
"Dao Ancestor Yaoguang, we're here to assist you!"
"No need!"
Yaoguang jerked his arm outward.
The collapsing force of the void instantly swept over Immortal King Yuantu and the three Immortal Kings he had brought with him.
This sudden move left Immortal King Yuantu stunned and entirely bewildered.
Yet Yaoguang offered no explanation.
The power belonging to the "Dao Master" within his Void Dao Fruit was driven to its absolute limit.
In that instant, Yaoguang merged completely into the Grand Dao of the Void, becoming a true Dao Ancestor of the Ancient Immortal Realm. As his authority as a "Dao Master" erupted, the omnipresent Grand Dao of the Void across the entire Ancient Immortal Realm answered his pull and summons, being forcibly stripped from its original loci.
Under the sway of this power, countless Dao Lords cultivating the path of the Void suddenly lost their perception of the Grand Dao, causing their cultivation to plummet directly from the Dao Integration realm.
Countless Void True Immortals were stripped of their authority over the Grand Dao, their cultivations taking a catastrophic dive.
Even mighty Immortal Venerables could not restrain the shares of the void within their bodies, watching helplessly as they were drawn away by a force so overwhelmingly powerful that resistance was utterly impossible.
Cast back down to their earlier states, these Dao Lords, True Immortals, and Immortal Venerables were plunged into excruciating agony.
Meanwhile, all the stripped shares of the void carried surging tides of spatial power, roaring in from every direction like an encroaching deluge and pouring into Yaoguang's body, sending his void power skyrocketing at a staggering pace.
This rapid surge in void power naturally amplified the collapsing force exerted over this patch of space.
The Immortal Kings who had hoped to flee the contracting zone immediately felt the binding force growing drastically stronger. No matter how desperately they pushed their powers to break away, the flowing void inexorably dragged them closer and closer to Yaoguang.
"Not good! The void's contraction is accelerating!"
"How can this be?!"
"Look! Yuxiao... his cultivation is rising?! How could it rise so fast?!"
Uncontrollable terror welled up in the eyes of the Immortal Kings caught within the void's contraction.
It wasn't just the Immortal Kings of the four conglomerates. Even Immortal King Yuantu, who had brought his subordinates to reinforce Yaoguang, realized that he too was uncontrollably "sliding" toward the space where Yaoguang stood.
For a moment, even this wielder of the Wheel of Karma grew uneasy. "Dao Ancestor Yaoguang, we are on your side! We came to help you..."
Yaoguang raised his head slightly and swept a glance across him.
"I made myself very clear just now."
His gaze swept past Yuantu and his companions, then passed over Nizhuan, Taiyi, Tianming, and the others one by one.
"Today, not a single one of you Immortal Kings will leave the perimeter of the Gate of Karma alive."
Chapter 604