What’s face worth I’ll scatter your ashes to the wind

"Boom—!"

Wang Wudi didn't even draw a weapon. In the instant his aura erupted, his shriveled, hunched body swelled wildly, muscles bulging like horned dragons, tearing apart his ridiculous eunuch uniform. He transformed into an afterimage burning with blood-red energy, his sheer physical strength slamming into space itself and cracking it with pitch-black fissures!

"Great Zhou Imperial Secret Art: Overlord Sheds His Armor!"

Watching the previously subservient old eunuch instantly turn into a god of death, Xie Wujiu's pupils, hidden beneath his black robes, shrank to the size of pinpricks. With no time to chant any profound Heavenly Mystery incantations, he instinctively raised his strange artifact, the Heavenly Mystery Whisk, across his chest. Simultaneously, he frantically channeled his true qi, attempting to condense one hundred and eight defensive formations in front of him.

However, in the face of absolute violence, all flashy tricks were futile.

"Shatter for me!"

Wang Wudi's first move—a right punch carrying apocalyptic power—smashed mercilessly into the one hundred and eight defensive formations. Accompanied by a dense series of cracks, Xie Wujiu's proud Heavenly Mystery defensive formations tore like wet paper. They couldn't even last half a breath before being completely obliterated by a single punch!

A massive rebounding force surged through the Heavenly Mystery Whisk into Xie Wujiu's body. He let out a muffled groan as the bones in his arms creaked under the overwhelming pressure.

"Second move, breaking your dog legs!"

Before Xie Wujiu could even catch his breath, Wang Wudi's ghost-like figure appeared below him. A remarkably ferocious grin surfaced on the old man's vein-bulging face. His right leg swung like a battle-axe, carrying an ear-piercing sonic boom as it viciously whipped toward Xie Wujiu's waist.

"Bang—!"

A teeth-gritting thud echoed across the arena. Xie Wujiu felt as if his internal organs had been rammed head-on by a rampaging ancient desolate beast. Severe agony instantly drowned his reasoning. His body flew backward into the sky like a kite with a broken string, uncontrollably spewing a large mouthful of blood mixed with visceral fragments.

"Third move, sending you to the afterlife!!!"

Unforgiving in his advantage, Wang Wudi stomped fiercely on the void, compressing the air into a tangible ring of white shockwaves. He shot upward, instantly catching up to the airborne Xie Wujiu. Clasping his ten fingers together into a hammer, he raised them high above his head and brought them down upon Xie Wujiu's chest with the crushing weight of Mount Tai!

"Rumble!!!"

Xie Wujiu's body plummeted like a falling meteor, driven directly into the dark iron wall at the edge of the colosseum by Wang Wudi's heavy hammer strike. That dark iron wall, reputed to withstand the full-force bombardment of a Sky Realm expert, crumbled like tofu upon impact, forming a human-shaped crater over a dozen meters deep.

Three moves! Merely three moves!

Despite both being in the Demigod Realm, the Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, Xie Wujiu, was beaten by the Great Zhou ancestor, Wang Wudi, like a grandfather thrashing his grandson—left utterly defenseless, his life or death unknown!

The entire audience of a hundred thousand, including the two holy maidens, Shen Xue and Yun Meng, who had just been preparing for mutual destruction on the arena, were completely petrified. Was this really the aloof, unerring Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion? No matter how they looked at it, he seemed more like a miserable old man being beaten up by a street thug!

"Humph! Ptui!"

Wang Wudi landed on the ground, rolling his slightly sore wrists. He spat fiercely at the deep crater, mocking with a face full of disdain, "Xie Wujiu, you old charlatan! You usually put on the airs of a transcendent immortal, always claiming to represent the Heavenly Dao, but it turns out this is all you've got? With your ability to take a beating, you're not even as tough as the bouncers I used to run into when visiting brothels in my youth! And you call yourself Tianjizi? I think calling you a Heavenly Mystery Joke is more like it!"

Wang Wudi's extremely vulgar mockery caused his old buddies in the VIP box to exchange amused glances. Old Man Ren chuckled gleefully, not finding anything wrong with it at all. For the cultivators of the Great Wasteland, the law of the jungle was absolute; whoever had the bigger fist was the voice of reason.

Sitting on the dragon throne, Wang Hao was leisurely peeling a grape and tossing it into his mouth. His abyssal eyes weren't watching Wang Wudi show off; instead, they were fixed intently on the deep crater. Enhanced by the Emperor's Qi Observation Art, Wang Hao could see that Xie Wujiu's destiny had not dimmed. On the contrary, it was growing wildly at an incredibly bizarre frequency.

"Great-grandfather, don't celebrate too early. Haven't you figured out the rule that villains die from talking too much?" Wang Hao sighed repeatedly in his heart, realizing the old man's intelligence was being suppressed by the Heavenly Dao. His right hand quietly gripped the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. He understood these so-called righteous bigwigs too well. On the surface, they were all sanctimonious, but behind the scenes, which of them didn't have a few extremely sinister trump cards?

Sure enough.

"Cough, cough... Hahahaha... Hahahahahaha!!!"

A remarkably shrill, somewhat hysterical burst of maniacal laughter echoed from the deep crater in the ruins.

Immediately after, with a boom, the rubble covering the crater was blasted apart by an incredibly cold, black current of air. Xie Wujiu, his hair disheveled, floated up from the pit. His current appearance was incredibly miserable. A large section of his ribs had caved in, his black robes were shredded into strips, and blood was bleeding from all seven of his facial orifices. Yet, his once clear eyes were now filled with a spine-chilling madness and resentment.

Spitting out large mouthfuls of black blood, he pointed a finger at Wang Wudi and then at Wang Hao, who was watching the show from the dragon throne, laughing like a lunatic.

"Good! What a Great Zhou Imperial Family! What a Wang Wudi!" Xie Wujiu's voice was as hoarse as rubbing sandpaper. "I said it long ago. You members of the Wang family might look vulgar and act recklessly on the surface, but in your bones, each of you is more sinister and treacherous than the last! Especially you..."

Xie Wujiu's gaze locked dead onto Wang Hao, his eyes revealing undisguised killing intent and wariness. "You little tyrant! So young, yet you are even more ruthless and scheming than your bunch of undying ancestors! You guessed long ago that we would come, so not only did you not hide, but you also made a big show of opening a casino to lure us out. Do you think that just because you gathered this group of greedy old geezers and laid down this inescapable net, you have my Heavenly Mystery Pavilion dead to rights?"

Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, the expression on Xie Wujiu's face became extremely twisted. "Wang Wudi, do you think our Heavenly Mystery Pavilion is the only one who wants to kill your great-grandson and extinguish your Great Zhou's orthodoxy? You are too naive! The Heavenly Dao wants your Great Zhou to perish, so you all must die!"

Following Xie Wujiu's hysterical roar, the nine peak Sky Realm assassins of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, who had been locked down by the Wang family ancestors in the eight directions of the colosseum, suddenly made an incredibly bizarre move.

They didn't draw their swords to meet the enemy at all. Instead, they simultaneously plunged their hands into their own chests!

"Squelch!"

Nine beating hearts, radiating extremely pure true qi, were ripped out alive by their own hands! Without letting out a single groan, the nine assassins directly crushed their own hearts!

"Blood Sacrifice! Heavenly Secret guides the way, to the Nine Nether Underworld!"

Accompanied by Xie Wujiu's incantation, nine massive streams of lifeblood rapidly converged in midair, transforming into an extremely evil, crimson grand array radiating a thick stench of blood! In the center of the array, an eerie compass, radiating a pale white glow and seemingly carved from human bone, slowly emerged!

"Is that... the fifty-seventh ranked ancient bizarre artifact, the 'Myriad Soul Ferrying Compass'?!" In the VIP box, Old Man Ren, who had been looking relaxed and ready to steal kills and loot corpses, was so frightened upon seeing the bone compass that he dropped his wine gourd to the ground. His old face instantly turned deathly pale.

"Old Ghost Wang! Stop him quickly! That thing can forcefully tear apart spatial nodes for long-distance legion teleportation! These lunatics from the Heavenly Secret Pavilion, they have helpers!" Several Demigod Realm old monsters immediately reacted, screaming in terror. They erupted with their strongest auras, wanting to rush over and interrupt the array.

But, it was too late!

Using the time he bought by taking a severe beating, combined with the blood sacrifice of the nine death warriors, Xie Wujiu's array was completely formed!

"Buzz——!!!"

A blinding white light shot into the sky, directly blasting away the old monsters who had lunged forward. Within the summoning array, the laws of space twisted violently. Immediately after, one suffocating, terrifying figure after another, like Asuras walking out of hell, slowly condensed into shape within the light.

One, ten, thirty... a full fifty figures!

When the auras of these fifty people were completely released, the breathing of all one hundred thousand people in the Royal Colosseum stopped.

A uniform lineup of Sky Soaring Realm peak experts! A full forty-one of them!

And the nine figures standing at the very front, surrounded like the moon among stars, exuded pressures that shockingly belonged entirely to the Demigod Realm!!!

"The Supreme Elder of the Azure Cloud Sword Sect! The Left Protector of the Crimson Moon Demonic Cult! The two reclusive ancestors of the Medicine King Valley..." Wang Wudi looked at those familiar faces, his expression instantly darkening to the extreme as cold sweat slid down his forehead.

It was complete chaos! The righteous path, the demonic path, the neutral sects—these old fogeys who usually fought each other to the death had actually all united under the matchmaking of the Heavenly Secret Pavilion. All for today, to wipe out the Great Zhou royal family's foundation and Wang Hao in one fell swoop, completely overthrowing Great Zhou and carving up the destiny of the Divine Province!

"Hahaha! Are you in despair? Wang Wudi, do you still think that I, Xie Wujiu, am a joke?"

Xie Wujiu looked at the luxurious lineup he had summoned, then at the ugly expressions of the Wang family ancestors and their helpers opposite him. He suddenly felt that the beating he just took was worth it. He arrogantly wiped the blood from his face, looking down condescendingly at Wang Hao, who had remained motionless on the main platform.

"Little animal, weren't you acting very arrogant just now? Didn't you say that at 12 to 30, the advantage was yours?" Xie Wujiu laughed wildly, his laughter full of the thrill of revenge. "Now, adding our remaining two Demigods, we have 11 Demigods and 50 Sky Soaring Realm peak experts on our side! That makes it 61 to 30!"

Xie Wujiu extended a blood-soaked finger, pointing it at Wang Hao from afar, his eyes filled with extreme contempt. "Little tyrant, tell this Pavilion Master loudly once more, whose odds of winning are..."

"... greater?"

Before Xie Wujiu could even spit the last word out of his throat, his face, twisted with extreme excitement, suddenly froze.

Because he saw that, facing this terrifying lineup that was enough to raze the entire Great Zhou capital to the ground and instantly annihilate any top-tier faction in the Great Wasteland, the little tyrant sitting on the dragon throne did not show even the slightest hint of fear, panic, or despair.

On the contrary, Wang Hao smiled.

It was an extremely eerie, highly amused smile, even carrying a hint of... the look one gives a fat pig about to be slaughtered.

"I feel that the wise saying 'villains die from talking too much' is something you should really carve into your coffin lid in your next life."

Wang Hao's voice was not loud, but wrapped in his vigorous true qi, it clearly reached the ears of everyone present. He simply did not give Xie Wujiu the chance to continue posturing, nor did he give those fifty mighty figures who had just teleported over and hadn't yet grasped the situation any room to breathe.

His left hand violently raised the pitch-black, ugly nine-story miniature pagoda he had been playing with in his palm high above his head.

"Unlock the ninth layer seal of the Thunder Abyss Demon Suppressing Pagoda! Smite them ruthlessly for me!"

Although Wang Hao was a greedy and lustful emperor, he was even more of an extremely cautious, deeply scheming mastermind who absolutely refused to let a situation slip out of his control. Since the other party wanted to go all-in, they couldn't blame him for directly flipping the table! If he didn't use his ultimate move now, was he supposed to wait until he was dead to use it?

"Buzz——!"

Following Wang Hao's command, the previously lifeless Thunder Abyss Demon Suppressing Pagoda suddenly erupted with a heart-palpitating resonance. The bronze doors on the ninth floor of the pagoda blasted open with an ear-piercing screech of friction!

"Rumble!!!"

No prelude, no buildup.

A purplish-gold beam of light, as thick as a pillar of heaven, shot directly from the tip of the pagoda, instantly piercing the dome of the colosseum and thrusting straight into the highest heavens!

The originally clear and cloudless sky over the capital was, in this instant, as if a whole bottle of thick ink had been poured over it. Heavy, oppressive, pitch-black storm clouds that seemed ready to drip water enveloped the sky within a hundred-mile radius at a terrifying speed that defied the laws of nature.