Bloodbath at the Celestial Dome

Wang Hao’s figure cut a golden afterimage through the night sky.

The Heavenly Sword hummed in his hand, its platinum light and silver-white thunder weaving together into a symphony of death.

The Thunder Abyss Demon Sealing Tower spun wildly above his head, all nine layers of its gates flung open. From the first to the seventh floor, cascades of thunder poured down like waterfalls, forming an impenetrable net of lightning around him.

“He’s insane.”

Jian Wuchen, standing at the southeast formation, watched the golden figure charge fearlessly and spat out two words.

He had lived for six thousand years and seen countless desperate men, but never one who would charge a forty-man formation alone. This wasn’t courage—it was suicide.

Yet in the next instant, his expression changed.

Wang Hao’s target wasn’t Li Cangming.

It was the southeast position—where the three Martial Gods of Heavenly Sword Mountain were stationed.

The Sixteen Heavenly Net Formation’s base array was woven from sixteen types of Dao patterns, each representing the inherited power of a sacred land.

Heavenly Sword Mountain’s sword intent was its edge, master of slaughter—the sharpest part of the entire formation, and also its weakest.

Wang Hao saw it.

“He wants to break the formation!”

Jian Wuchen bellowed, his lifebound flying sword transforming into a hundred-zhang azure blade that slashed toward Wang Hao.

At the same time, the other two Martial Gods of Heavenly Sword Mountain—Jian Wuxin and Jian Wuwo—drew their swords simultaneously.

Three blade beams shot in from three directions, honed sword intent tearing apart space into delicate black cracks wherever they passed.

“Come on, then!”

The Heavenly Sword laughed aloud, a black humanoid figure separating itself from the blade. It gripped empty air with both hands, and golden sword intent coalesced into two long swords in its palms.

Dual swords thrust out together.

The left sword struck at the node of Jian Wuxin’s blade beam; the right hand pointed into the weak point of Jian Wuwo's sword aura.

Both hundred-zhang blade beams shattered inch by inch ten zhang from Wang Hao, dispersing into azure light across the sky.

“Old swordmen of the Heavenly Sword Sect—I told you, before this sword, every sword technique is transparent.”

The Heavenly Sword’s grin was wild and arrogant: “Your famed trio practiced for three thousand years and ended up with trash like this? Not fit to hold my scabbard!”

Jian Wuchen’s face turned iron-gray, but as an old monster who had lived six thousand years, he steadied his heart in an instant.

“Sword array—Three Origins Return to One!”

The three Martial Gods of Heavenly Sword Mountain shifted their stances, merging their three sword auras in the formation’s base array.

That sword aura was no longer azure. It became pure white—the color that appeared only when sword aura was condensed to its extreme, the primal color of the sword’s own Dao.

White sword aura descended from the sky like an inverted heavenly river. Before the intent even reached, the ground beneath Wang Hao’s feet had already been crushed into a circular depression a hundred zhang in diameter.

The volcanic rock around Dark City shattered inch by inch under the pressure of that strike. Cracks spread outward from the depression’s edge, the longest fissure stretching over three li away.

Wang Hao looked up at that white sword aura and took a deep breath.

Within him, inner qi, the power of national destiny, and fortune energy surged simultaneously into the Heavenly Sword. The Annihilating Dao Pattern boiled in his meridians, dyeing his golden qi into platinum. He gripped the sword with both hands, man and blade entering a state of strange resonance.

Heaven-Opening Nine Strikes—Second Strike.

A blade beam more condensed than the first shot forth.

It was only three feet long, but the air around it silently annihilated—not cut, simply disintegrated from existence, as though the strike birthed not sword energy but a passage straight into the void.

The two sword auras collided in the night.

White versus platinum.

Jian Wuchen’s white sword aura carried the weight of Heavenly Sword Mountain’s six-thousand-year heritage, every wisp of its intent tempered countless times to ultimate purity.

Wang Hao’s platinum blade beam bore the Annihilating Dao Pattern’s destructive force—a power that rejected reason, refused rules, and existed only for obliteration.

At the heart of the clash, space silently collapsed.

A black hole appeared at the point of impact, radiating terrifying suction that pulled everything around into its depths. Debris, air, remnant qi, even light warped and twisted at its opening before vanishing.

The black hole lasted less than half a breath before healing itself, but during that half-breath of existence, the entire Sixteen Heavenly Net Formation faltered for an instant.

Li Cangming’s blood-red flame-pupils narrowed slightly.

“Heaven-Opening Nine Strikes, Second Strike… able to stand evenly against the Tri-Origin Returnee Sword Intent without faltering.”

He murmured to himself, his voice so low only he could hear.

“This Young Emperor—must not be allowed to live.”

He lifted his hand. Crimson Sacred Fire materialized in his palm.

But just as he began to move, Wang Hao’s form vanished once more.

This time, the target was the south—the position of the four Martial Gods from the Ten Thousand Laws Sacred Sect.

Those four were already prepared.

They joined forces, ten thousand Dao spells converging, forming a barrier of three hundred sixty runes before Wang Hao. The wall appeared thin as paper, yet each rune contained a Dao rule: fire runes to burn intruders, ice runes to freeze space, lightning runes to rebound attacks, spatial runes to twist directions.

Three hundred sixty rules stacked together—a nearly unbreakable defense.

“Your Majesty, be careful!” Back in the great hall, Yue Ji cried out involuntarily. As a master of cunning arts, she instantly recognized the barrier’s menace—it wasn’t mere defense; it was a trap of the very laws themselves. Touching any rune meant triggering the backlash of all three hundred sixty rules at once.

But Wang Hao never touched the barrier at all.

He stopped dead three zhang before it. His right hand slashed horizontally with the Heavenly Sword, while his left hand struck out in a single palm blow—

Imprison Heaven and Cover Earth Palm—Fourth Palm.

A golden palm imprint slammed into the barrier, instantly triggering the full backlash of all rules.

Fire, frost, lightning, spatial severing—all the retaliatory forces poured into the golden palm, tearing it into shreds.

But that was exactly what Wang Hao had wanted.

The moment the backlash was drawn to the palm, his Heavenly Sword sliced into the barrier’s weakest point—the node where all ten thousand spells turned, the only blind spot that none of the three hundred sixty runes could cover.

The sword tip precisely pierced that blind spot. Platinum blade beam spread outward along the blind angle.

The first rune shattered.

Then the second, the third, the tenth, the thirtieth.

Three hundred sixty runes broke halfway in three breaths. The barrier collapsed with a roar. All four Martial Gods groaned as the formation’s backlash simultaneously wounded their meridians.

“How did he see it?” Wan Daoxuan, the Martial God leading Ten Thousand Laws Sacred Sect, cried out in disbelief, “The turning node of Ten Thousand Dharma cycles is random, shifting every three heartbeats—how could he possibly—?”

“It’s the sword.”

Li Cangming’s voice came cold from the formation’s core:

“The artifact spirit inside this strange weapon in his hand can see through every rule-shift of the Ten Thousand Dharma cycling. Those three breaths—he waited—waited for the node to align precisely beneath his blade.”

Wan Daoxuan’s face became most unpleasant indeed.

His Myriad Dharma Rotation was known as the number one defensive divine ability in the Central Continent, never once breached head-on in seven thousand years. Now, a newly ascended Martial God had shattered it in just three breaths. If word of this got out, where would the Myriad Dharma Sacred Sect’s pride be?

But Wang Hao gave them no time to react.

The instant he broke through the Myriad Dharma Rotation, the eighth-level gate of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower above his head burst open.

A thunder phoenix cried out.

A lightning-formed phoenix with a wingspan of three hundred zhang soared out from the tower gate, its body wreathed in devastating silver-white thunder. It spread its wings and charged at the four Martial Gods of the Myriad Dharma Sacred Sect. Thunder clashed with true energy, unleashing a thunderous roar that shook heaven and earth.

The four Martial Gods were entangled by the thunder phoenix, creating a brief gap in the defenses at the southern array position.

Seizing that opening, Wang Hao’s figure flickered again as he rushed toward his next target—the western array position guarded by two female Martial Gods from the Azure Fall Palace.

“He’s insane!” In the Council Hall, Xue Wuhen watched the golden figure darting endlessly across the sky, his voice trembling. “He’s waging a war of attrition, picking them off one by one—isn’t that suicide? Even if he can break through a few positions, how long can his internal energy last?”

“He’s looking for the array’s eye.”

The Demon Lord’s swirling, pitch-black eyes were locked onto the battlefield above. “Li Cangming is the array’s eye, but it’s not fixed. Every so often, the eye of the Sixteen Heavenly Net Formation shifts among the sixteen positions. He’s waiting for it to flow to somewhere other than Li Cangming.”

“And then?”

“Then he’ll strike with full force and break the formation at that spot.” A trace of unintended admiration crept into the Demon Lord’s voice. “But the question now is—whether he can hold out until that moment.”

As his words fell, the battle in the sky abruptly changed.

Li Cangming finally made his move.

He didn’t act from the array’s eye position. Instead, he teleported directly in front of Wang Hao. It was true teleportation—spatial force coalesced into a twisting vortex beneath his feet, and with a single step, he crossed tens of miles from the eastern array’s eye to appear right before Wang Hao.

Half-step Transcendence—he had already begun to grasp the laws of space.

“Enough.” Li Cangming’s voice was calm, but the blood-red flames blazing around him made him look like a demon god emerging from hell. “I’ve played with you long enough.”

He raised his right hand, fingers spread, as the Crimson Sacred Flame gathered in his palm into a blood-red spear of fire.

The spear’s shaft coursed with heat hotter than magma, every wisp of flame capable of incinerating an early-stage Martial God.

He thrust the fire spear.

No flashy techniques—just a simple stab. But wherever the spear passed, space itself tore open into a pitch-black gash.

That gash wasn’t the spatial rift cut by a sword aura—it was a true fracture of dimension. Every rule ahead of the spear’s tip was burned through.

Wang Hao’s pupils contracted sharply.

For the first time, he felt the threat of death.

The power of that fire spear had already surpassed what an ordinary Martial God could withstand. It was the might of a half-step Transcendent, carrying the seed of the “Dao.” This wasn’t suppression through technique, but through realm—a level beyond.

“Wang Hao!” The Heavenly Sword let out an unprecedented sharp cry as the black silhouette instantly returned to the blade. The platinum radiance on the blade surged to its peak. “The Ninth Sword! Use the Ninth Sword! This seat can’t bear it—you must use the Ninth Sword to block this!”

Wang Hao didn’t hesitate. The remaining energy inside him poured wildly into the Heavenly Sword, and the golden light of the nation’s fortune on his body blazed into a liquid golden armor. He gripped the sword with both hands. In that moment, man and blade became one.

Ninth Sword of the Heaven-Splitting Nine.

A dazzling beam of sword radiance—so bright it forced eyes shut—slashed out from the Heavenly Sword.

Not three spans, not a hundred zhang, but a pillar of golden light shooting through heaven and earth. Within that light, the faint outline of a towering sword god took form, holding an enormous blade that fell with a single strike, casting the world into a new hue.

The fire spear collided with the golden pillar.

Then came a third force—the ninth level of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower: the Violet Thunder Dragon!

A five-hundred-zhang-long violet thunder dragon roared out from the tower gate, its scales forged from pure ninth-stage thunder, each one a condensed lightning storm. Opening its massive jaws, the dragon spewed a violet thunder breath at the side of the fire spear.

The three forces erupted at once.

The sky blazed bright.

Not the light of a rising sun, but the radiance born from the collision of these three powers.

That light pierced through all darkness for a hundred miles, turning the entire night sky as bright as noon. Its intensity forced the three million residents of the Dark City to shut their eyes; cultivators of weaker cultivation levels had their vision bleed from the glare.

Then came the sound.

The sonic boom followed the light. It was no ordinary explosive roar, but a compound cacophony of space being torn, rules being broken, and the detonation of heaven and earth’s spiritual energy.

The sound wave, like a tangible shockwave, expanded outward in all directions. The remaining arrow towers on the outskirts of the Dark City collapsed from the force. Among the three hundred thousand outer sect disciples, nearly a hundred thousand suffered ruptured eardrums, blood streaming from their ears.

The Eternal Night Curtain trembled violently amid the sonic assault, its jade-green runes flickering wildly as the city-guarding formation groaned under unbearable strain.

At the center of the collision, Wang Hao’s form was blasted back a full three li by the recoil.

The golden protective aura of the nation’s fortune on his chest had fractured into pieces. His imperial robe bore over a dozen scorched cracks, and a trail of golden blood—the blood of a Martial God, each drop teeming with vast life essence—trickled from the corner of his mouth.