Upon the Altar of the Loving Father within the Blood Moon Kingdom of Heaven, the Flaying Twins shed their ornate garments, revealing hairless bodies smooth as lambs. Around the altar's perimeter, six hundred and sixty-six ascetic sorcerers achieved synchronization with the Flaying Twins. Holding hook knives in a reverse grip in their right hands, they carved crosses into the tops of their heads, then raised vials of quicksilver in their left hands and poured the liquid into the incisions. Due to quicksilver's heavy density, it rushed swiftly between skin and flesh, causing each person to visibly swell. Then, using their hook knives, they slit themselves open along the midline from face to crotch, peeling off their own skins in one piece as though stripping off clothing.
It was not that they could not feel pain. On the contrary, to complete the ritual, their pain receptors had been amplified thirty-three times over, pushing them to the absolute brink of their souls' endurance—any more, and the agony would cause their very souls to shatter and collapse. Only human skin stripped off voluntarily amid unfathomable agony could thoroughly unlock the Altar of the Loving Father's authority over pain.
The Altar of the Loving Father—its name alone made it obvious that this world secret realm was tied to one of the Four Pillar Gods, the Loving Father.
As ancient evil gods spanning back to time immemorial, the Four Pillar Gods were themselves natural phenomena, no different from thunder, earthquakes, or supernova explosions, save for the fact that they possessed self-awareness.
Their very existence served as the fountainhead for certain sorcery factions. The ascetic faction, for instance, had undoubtedly derived its sorcery from the Loving Father. This Altar of the Loving Father, also known as the Blessing Altar, was a sacred relic of an ancient ascetic cult devoted to him. Through sacrificial rituals that exhausted the limits of a carbon-based organism's imagination, they had drawn unimaginable power from the Loving Father and once ravaged an entire era. In that age, every living thing was destined from birth to be an offering: the fat were pressed for oil, the thin were dried in the wind, the beautiful were flayed of skin, and heroes were tortured. Darkness smothered the earth, and all living beings were submerged in boundless agony, regarding suffering as the supreme bliss.
The Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon had been born during the Era of the Loving Father. A monster genetically engineered by sorcerers, he possessed a ferocious physique and an unimaginable rate of growth, maturing in a single year. Yet he had not been created as a killing machine for war; he had been an offering for the 'Hunting Festival'—he was brought into this world as prey, all his exceptional capabilities meant only to allow him to die in a grand hunt.
He survived seven Hunting Festivals by sheer grit, even rising to become a silver sorcerer. But that did not improve his lot. The stronger he grew, the crueler the rites he was deemed fit to endure. The turning point came with strife within the Four Pillar Cult. The rise of the Loving Father meant the Tyrant, the Treacherous Minister, and the Prince were being squeezed out. Followers of the other three gods sparked a rebellion, and the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon earned the Tyrant's favor through his valor in slaying enemies, stepping onto the stage of history one stride at a time.
Although the Era of the Loving Father had brought the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon nothing but a horrific, brutal childhood and youth, and he was undoubtedly the Loving Father's victim, he had nevertheless inherited the vast majority of that era's legacy and even its culture. Certain systems within the Blood Moon Country were rife with the hysterical madness unique to the Era of the Loving Father.
When the flayed skins covered the altar, the Flaying Twins laid their hands upon them. Beneath their fingertips, it felt as though they were touching vast, dark-green snow that stung to the touch.
This was agony.
Through the Altar of the Loving Father, the Flaying Twins connected with the Loving Father, and the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon thereby perceived the dimension of pain.
Many believed that the relationship between a 'feeler' and a 'Pillar God' was hierarchical—that the Four Pillar Gods chose who served as their feelers. Only a select few, such as the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon, knew that feelers and the Four Pillar Gods were actually equals; it was merely that feelers almost invariably chose to revere the Four Pillar Gods. It was akin to lesser and greater nobles: even if both answered directly to the emperor with no innate rank between them, the lesser noble would usually defer to the greater.
In truth, as long as a person met all the criteria of a feeler, they would become a feeler regardless of the Pillar Gods' wishes! Likewise, so long as a feeler completed the sacrificial rite, the Four Pillar Gods had no choice but to lend their authority, willing or not!
This was not the Four Pillar Gods corrupting the world through feelers; it was God-Leaders stealing the Four Pillar Gods' power through feelers!
Beyond the Altar of the Loving Father, the entire Blood Moon Kingdom of Heaven operated at full throttle. Blessing Angels, Scarlet Handmaidens, Nightshadow Priests—tens of thousands of sorcerers banded together with dozens of wonders. Divine miracles, miracles, and wonders intertwined seamlessly... At this moment, the Blood Moon Kingdom of Heaven seemed to transform into a literal 'state apparatus,' unleashing an unimaginably immense might with everything it had!
Skillfully channeling the authority of his Kingdom of Heaven, the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon parted his lips slightly and exhaled pink smoke. The smoke rapidly engulfed one of Ouroboros's wings. Feathers and eyeballs sprouted grotesque, misshapen flesh that burst violently in an instant, and before long, half the wing had blown apart into bloody mist!
Heavenly Artifact: Feast of Flesh!
"This is why I despise allying with you, Blood Moon," Weaver said leisurely. "Your moves are utterly revolting."
Inside the All-Knowing Heaven, the cobwebs accumulated layer upon layer over millennia burned rapidly, yet eight-armed scholars wove soft, resilient webs at an even faster pace. Among the many scholars, only the Four Pillar God feeler, Professor Zero Wisdom, flipped through the Catalog of Forbidden Secrets to forge a connection with the Treacherous Minister, bringing the authority of seeking knowledge under Weaver's command.
A scroll suddenly materialized in Weaver's hand, displaying the scene from one second into the future. When she superimposed the scroll over what lay before her eyes, the prophecy within turned into reality, and one of Ouroboros's wings vanished into thin air!
Heavenly Artifact: Determined Future!
"Prince," the Lord of Joy said calmly, "consider this a favor I owe you."
The Lord of Joy reached out and swiped his hand, as if erasing a smudge with an eraser, cleanly wiping out another of Ouroboros's wings!
Heavenly Artifact: As One Pleases!
"Tyrant," the Lord of the Endless Abyss said coldly, "time to pay your debt."
The Lord of the Endless Abyss raised a colossal battle axe and cleaved toward the void with all his might. Spacetime itself was split wide open, tearing the hundreds-of-kilometers-large Ouroboros apart like a sheet of paper!
Heavenly Artifact: Sovereign Heavens!
Unlike the Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon and Weaver, who still needed a world secret realm and feelers to connect with the Four Pillar Gods, the Lord of Joy and the Lord of the Endless Abyss had once been feelers themselves. They had only shed their feeler identities after entering Hell, but upon ascending to God-Leaders, both reestablished contact with the Four Pillar Gods. A God-Leader's advantage was such that a single ounce more power could create overwhelming dominance. If everyone else was using the Four Pillar Gods, wouldn't they fall behind by abstaining?
Who could blame them when this generation of Heaven was the most cutthroat in history?
To mortals, the Four Pillar Gods were terrifying evil deities that had to be approached with extreme caution. But to God-Leaders, even if the Four Pillar Gods couldn't quite be considered toys, robbing them on a regular whim was standard practice. Were they really going to jump up and bite back?
The only two who did not rely on the Four Pillar Gods were Senluo and Stars. Senluo's sorcery path placed too much emphasis on the spiritual realm; the moment the Four Pillar Gods found an opening, it would cause her complete collapse—which was precisely what had happened: the instant she showed a slight vulnerability, the Four Pillar Gods quickly engulfed the Senluo Country.
As for Stars, she did not use the Four Pillar Gods simply because... she had no need to.
Shattering the void underfoot, she climbed higher into the sky than Ouroboros. Bearing down with the full weight of the cosmos and her Kingdom of Heaven upon her blade's edge, she slashed down with devastating force!
In the space of a single breath, she traversed hundreds of kilometers, her blade cleaving through the eight-winged creature like a hot knife through butter, slicing it clean in half!
Behind them, the watching demigods held their breath. This was their first time witnessing how God-Leaders fought, and likely the first time God-Leaders had ever gone all out in Hell. At last, they understood what the title 'God-Leader' truly meant, for this kind of battle had completely transcended the domain of sorcerers... Sorcerers almost always fought alone, or at most in small squads; at their peak, in legions. That was the limit.
Yet what were they beholding now? From a one-winged sorcerer's sorcery spirit to a legendary sorcerer's miracle, to an angel's divine miracle, to a world secret realm's wonder—every person and every drop of power had been integrated into a cohesive whole. From tiny screws to thermobaric bombs, every piece served its purpose. This was no longer a battle between sorcerers; this was total war on a national scale, a civilization exerting every ounce of its might!
This was the true meaning of gathering myriad powers into a single entity, where national civilizations stepped forward as the actual belligerents! This was why six-winged sorcerers were God-Leaders: they were not merely lords of gods, but lords of nations, lords of civilizations. Their war was a war of civilizations!
"Heavenly Artifacts," Dead Frenzy explained softly. "A God-Leader's ultimate method of slaughter, capable of flawlessly converting thousands of years of accumulated governance into lethal force. The Supreme Lord of the Blood Moon's Feast of Flesh can transform all concepts into flesh to inflict destruction; before him, even spacetime itself would sprout pustules and burst open."
"Weaver's Determined Future fixes a scene downstream along the River of Flowing Gold ahead of time and then alters it, bending reality into the future she desires. It can be called the most brutal and potent lethal art in the prophecy school."
"The Lord of Joy's As One Pleases and the Lord of the Endless Abyss's Sovereign Heavens both push their sorcery factions to the absolute peak, infinitely approaching the boundary of six wings... Counting the fallen Senluo, the six of them are truly the greatest sorcerers from antiquity to the present. If the seventh layer of the Void Realm had not appeared, future sorcerers could only ever match them, never surpass them."
"This battle in Hell is also the peak battle of sorcerer civilization."
Chapter 1228