Chapter 3235: Birthday Gift Delivered
The Origin Divine Light emitted by the Earth Cauldron was dazzling to the extreme, possessing a strange power that could decompose a ghostly body.
Xue Changjin felt as if his ghostly body was about to be torn apart. He dared not release his divine soul thoughts, suffering unbearably.
"Fight!"
Xue Changjin roared. The living souls within his arms burned, emitting agonized wails, as if the beings of an entire world were being sacrificed. His two arms were themselves no different from two worlds, vast and hazy within, containing infinite divine Qi, with countless living souls nurtured inside.
At the same time, a massive amount of Heavenly Dao Fist Rules converged toward him.
...
The Xue Changjin who died in Fengdu Ghost City was merely a Divine Ghost Doppelganger he had cultivated using various secret techniques.
Similar to the Undying Blood God of Xue Jue War God, or the Yin Calamity Body and Yang Calamity Body of Huang'e Divine Lord...
Top-tier great gods, especially ancient gods who had cultivated for hundreds of thousands of years, often saw their cultivation stagnate for a hundred thousand years. To enhance combat power, aside from cultivating divine abilities and spiritual power, and searching for divine artifacts and esoterica, cultivating doppelgangers was an important path.
Such doppelgangers often required the consumption of countless resources, and ancient gods were the ones who least lacked resources.
For dangerous matters or occasions with certain risks, ancient gods would generally send their doppelgangers.
The Divine Ghost Doppelganger cultivated by Xue Changjin possessed nearly seventy percent of the original body's combat power, with an independent Divine Source. In public, the original body and the Divine Ghost Doppelganger had never appeared simultaneously.
Precisely because of this, the Divine Ghost Doppelganger became the sacrifice for his feigned death and escape, a cicada shedding its shell.
He had to do this, because back then, falsely accusing Zhang Ruochen of being a Quantity Machine had actually put him in a dangerous position, arousing suspicion from many deities.
Xue Changjin possessed a total of six percent of the Fist Dao Esoterica. To cover his tracks and make the world believe he was dead, he had given half of it to the Divine Ghost Doppelganger in Fengdu Ghost City.
"Boom!"
Xue Changjin's ghostly divine body swelled to thousands of feet tall, and his fists struck toward the flying Earth Cauldron.
He couldn't block it at all. His two arms, containing billions of living souls, exploded, and all the living souls inside turned into Origin Source particles, like two worlds annihilating.
With a miserable scream, Xue Changjin was severely wounded, with much of his divine soul and divine substance ground away.
He was no longer terrified; instead, he felt a secret relief.
Because, upon seeing Zhang Ruochen mobilize all the power of heaven and earth and destroy thousands of sacred artifacts, Xue Changjin realized he couldn't withstand the Earth Cauldron's strike.
The reason he had gone all out to block it was out of necessity.
If he hadn't blocked it, or failed to block it, his ghostly body would have exploded, he would have been even more severely injured, and he might have lost any chance to escape.
Sacrificing his arms and billions of living souls bought him a moment to catch his breath, and Xue Changjin immediately fled far away.
One pursued, one fled; they traveled an unknown distance.
Xue Changjin used every trick he had, but couldn't completely shake off Zhang Ruochen. He was both furious and helpless. Suddenly, within his field of vision, he saw a patch of light in the starry sky.
Xue Changjin, as if seeing a glimmer of hope, showed a joyful expression.
That patch of light was his most direct subordinate Nether Realm, named "Wu Yun Realm." The strength of Wu Yun Realm was not inferior to the top thousand powerful realms of the Heavenly Court.
He had managed Wu Yun Realm for many years, raising countless living souls there, and storing most of his wealth. Most importantly, there was a Star Domain Space Teleportation Array there. After collecting Wu Yun Realm, he could completely shake off Zhang Ruochen and escape.
With the living souls nurtured in Wu Yun Realm, he could recover his injuries in a very short time.
The distance grew closer and closer...
"Boom!"
Suddenly, the entire Wu Yun Realm turned into a fireball, burning, and then split into pieces.
The starry sky shook, rules became chaotic, and fire stones the size of planets shot out in all directions. The scene was brilliant, extremely beautiful!
The joy on Xue Changjin's face instantly vanished, his eyes frozen, unable to accept what he saw.
Wu Yun Realm was destroyed just like that?
No, it was absolutely impossible.
In the Hell Realm, who would dare to destroy a Nether Realm so openly? Who would dare to oppose Fengdu Ghost City?
Yi Huang and Xue Mu turned into two divine lights, flying out from the most brilliantly burning area.
Zhang Ruochen caught up, saying, "Old Xue, how do you like this birthday gift?"
"Zhang Ruochen!"
Xue Changjin's hair was disheveled, his teeth clenched, having lost all semblance of a human form, turning into a hideous, ferocious ghost.
He was enraged to the extreme. If not for the lingering thought of wanting to spread Zhang Ruochen's secret, he would have already self-detonated his Divine Source and perished together with Zhang Ruochen.
It was this one lucky thought that cost him the chance to possibly fight Zhang Ruochen to the death, a mutual destruction.
"Whoosh!"
On the Taiji Cloud Diagram, Zhang Ruochen crossed the void, appearing within ten miles of Xue Changjin in an instant.
Xue Changjin retreated rapidly while striking out with both palms, condensing countless Nether Soldiers and Ghost Generals. But it was meaningless. The Six Divine Swords slashed out, like six blazing suns rolling down, crushing all the Nether Soldiers and Ghost Generals.
The Earth Cauldron slammed heavily into Xue Changjin's body. With a bang, his ghostly divine body finally split apart, turning into a vast expanse of ghost Qi and yin mist.
Using the mysterious power formed by the rotation of Lesser Yang and Lesser Yin, Zhang Ruochen seized Xue Changjin's Fist Dao Esoterica while refining his divine soul and ghost Qi with the Earth Cauldron.
"No, I will perish together with you..."
Xue Changjin roared, emitting a soul-losing sound.
The vast ghost Qi and yin mist churned, trying to reform his divine body, but the Taiji Cloud Diagram, like a millstone, repeatedly ground the ghost Qi and yin mist apart.
The Earth Cauldron hovered above Xue Changjin's Divine Sea, and the phantom of the Primordial World appeared, suppressing the Divine Sea and Divine Source.
Under the suppression of the Earth Cauldron, Xue Changjin couldn't even self-detonate his Divine Source.
In the end, he had long missed the chance to perish together with Zhang Ruochen.
"Self-detonating the Divine Source" was indeed the last resort for a deity to survive, able to intimidate a powerful enemy and buy oneself a chance to live. But the prerequisite was a strong will.
One had to make the other party understand your determination to prefer death over submission.
Zhang Ruochen didn't sense this will and determination in Xue Changjin, so naturally, he wasn't afraid of him. He wounded him step by step, then refined and killed him.
By the time he made up his mind to self-detonate his Divine Source, he could no longer do it.
...
Yi Huang and Xue Mu watched the distant Taiji Cloud Diagram, their eyes filled with shock and awe.
The Taiji Cloud Diagram was over a million miles in diameter, divided into yin and yang, slowly rotating, like the concrete manifestation of the Dao's origin in the universe. Inside the cloud diagram, ghost Qi was dense, but unable to escape.
"That was Xue Changjin, one of the top five strongest in Fengdu Ghost City, standing proudly in the world for seven hundred thousand years. Is he really going to be refined and killed like this today?" Xue Mu's heart pounded, unsure if it was from excitement or fear.
Yi Huang said, "This is perhaps why the Young Lord has earned the appreciation of Jiutian, the Starry Sea Angler, Heavenly Mother, and Void Heaven. Having emerged into the world for only two thousand years, he can already stir the winds and clouds of the world. It's too dazzling! Even the Immovable Bright King Great Venerable in his youth was probably no more than this, right?"
"Loyally following the Young Lord, perhaps we can truly achieve something remarkable in the future." Xue Mu was full of spirit, smiling.
Before, the two of them had submitted to Zhang Ruochen more because they wanted to reclaim their Divine Sources, regain their cultivation, and wash away a hundred years of humiliation. But now, having witnessed Zhang Ruochen's rise and power, they genuinely wanted to follow him.
It was awe for a strong one, and anticipation for Zhang Ruochen's future achievements.
Hai Shang You Ruo had subdued Xue Ying and followed the residual aura of Zhang Ruochen and Xue Changjin. She thought Zhang Ruochen was no match for Xue Changjin and was fleeing all the way, feeling anxious, worried that Zhang Ruochen might meet with misfortune.
But when she arrived at the starry sky where Wu Yun Realm was located, she was completely speechless!
Xue Changjin had been beaten until his ghostly divine body exploded, suppressed within the Taiji Cloud Diagram, and was being refined by Zhang Ruochen.
This...
Whose power had Zhang Ruochen borrowed this time?
She absolutely refused to believe that in the short span of less than a hundred years since they parted at the Destiny Temple, Zhang Ruochen could have become this fierce. Hunting down a Soul-Stop Realm powerhouse?
And refining and killing a Soul-Stop Realm powerhouse?
But, feeling the terrifying aura continuously strengthening on Zhang Ruochen, Hai Shang You Ruo had to accept this fact.
A strange light flickered in her lively, clear eyes.
A thought flowed through her mind, "Could I really have to call him 'big brother' in the future? Bah, how is that possible? How old is Zhang Ruochen? If an ancient god calls him 'big brother,' would he dare to accept it?"
Yi Huang and Xue Mu had already released their spiritual power, enveloping this starry domain, preventing what happened here from being discovered by the outside world.
At the same time, they sent out divine soul thought doppelgangers into the starry sky, hunting down Xue Changjin's escaped thoughts.
A deity's original body can sense the experiences of its divine soul thought doppelgangers. But the thought doppelgangers cannot sense what the original body experiences!
Therefore, even if Xue Changjin had left divine soul thoughts elsewhere, it wasn't a big deal and wouldn't cause any waves. Just like in a battle between two armies, if the main force is routed, even if some scattered remnants escape, they are no longer a threat.
In the end, it's because deities are almost impossible to kill completely; there will always be some divine soul thoughts remaining in the world. Especially those thoughts that enter Lihentian, unlike those scattered in the real world that quickly dissipate, they will eventually all die in the next Eon Calamity.
Divine soul thoughts in Lihentian might be able to exist eternally in the world. But they can only stay in Lihentian and cannot come to the real world.
In the view of Yi Huang and Xue Mu, it was still very necessary to find and destroy all the divine soul thoughts Xue Changjin had separated during his escape.
After all, the Young Lord's secrets could not be leaked.
As time passed, a large number of Origin Source Rules and Fist Dao Rules gathered around the Earth Cauldron, and chaotic yin Qi converged, condensing into an ocean ten thousand miles in diameter.
Lesser Yin gradually took shape, corresponding to the Lesser Yang Divine Mountain on the other side.
The Earth Cauldron slowly rose, leaving that ten-thousand-mile ocean.
The ocean did not collapse, meaning Zhang Ruochen had finally condensed his own Lesser Yin, no longer needing to borrow the Earth Cauldron to maintain an unstable realm.
Zhang Ruochen's physical body merged with the yin and yang Qi in the Taiji Cloud Diagram.
The moment Lesser Yin was first formed, the rotation speed of the Taiji Cloud Diagram increased, and the speed at which yin and yang Qi shuttled through his physical body accelerated, causing his physical body to rapidly improve after absorbing the yin and yang Qi.
Zhang Ruochen immediately took out divine pills that could enhance his physical body's blood Qi and swallowed them.
At the same time, the Earth Cauldron refined Xue Changjin's divine soul and ghost Qi, condensing them into divine pills that flew toward Zhang Ruochen, directly absorbed into his body.