Drink, Art is Patrick Star

Wang Hao took a deep breath, channeling all of his profound energy, national fortune power, and fate energy into the Celestial Emperor Sword.

He then retrieved a pill—the last “Nine Revolution Heaven Restoration Pill” he had obtained from his system check-in, capable of temporarily elevating his cultivation by three minor realms, at the cost of having all his meridians severed for three months after the effect wore off.

He swallowed it without hesitation.

As the pill entered his body, its violent medicinal power exploded like magma through his meridians. His aura began to surge—Martial God Realm first layer, Martial God Realm second layer, Martial God Realm third layer—climbing all the way to Martial God Realm fourth layer before stopping.

But that was not enough.

He took out another item—a special object called the “Flower of Evil,” obtained from his check-in at Dark City. It was a black flower the size of a fist, its petals dark as ink, with the stamen flickering with an unsettling ghastly light. The system’s description was simple: Detonate the Flower of Evil, and a hundred miles around will turn to scorched earth, with power comparable to an atomic bomb, resulting in the user’s certain death.

Wang Hao looked at the Flower of Evil, then at Li Cangming and the thirty-nine Martial Gods in the sky.

He held the Flower of Evil in his palm, not yet detonating it.

It wasn’t time yet.

“Li Cangming.” He raised his head, the pill's raging force granting his voice a metallic, resonant quality. “You want to fight? Then come on. I, Your Majesty, will fight with you!”

He charged forward.

This time, his speed surprised even Li Cangming.

The pill’s power had temporarily elevated his cultivation to the fourth layer of the Martial God Realm. Though still far below Li Cangming’s Half-Transcendence, it was no longer the complete suppression he had faced moments ago.

The Celestial Emperor Sword swung out, and the sword glow contained both the sword intent of the Nine Heavenly Slashes and the annihilation power of the Destruction Dao Mark. Wherever the sword glow passed, space was torn open as a pitch-black rift—not merely cut, but directly annihilated by the power of destruction.

Li Cangming’s Void Dragon Flame clashed with the sword glow.

This time, Li Cangming took a step back.

The entire night sky fell silent for an instant.

Forty Martial Gods widened their eyes simultaneously.

Li Cangming—Half-Transcendence, one of the three strongest beings on the continent—was forced back a step by a newly ascended Martial God?

“The Destruction Dao Mark.” Li Cangming glanced down at the gash on his chest robe. There was another sword scar, deeper than the first, almost cutting through to the skin. “And not just in its initial comprehension—it’s at the stage where the mark has taken solid form. How can you, at the early Martial God Realm, possibly master the Destruction Dao Mark?”

Wang Hao grinned, golden blood spilling from his mouth: “What right do I have to master it? None of your damn business.”

Real anger finally ignited in Li Cangming’s pupils. No one had ever said “none of your damn business” to him before—not even Luo Wuji, the last emperor of the Celestial Dynasty, who had knelt, begging Li Cangming to spare the dynasty’s subjects before his death.

“Seeking death,” Li Cangming said. He formed hand seals with both hands. Nine Void Dragons simultaneously opened their massive maws, spewing nine streams of transparent flame.

The fire had no color, no fluctuation, as if it didn’t exist at all.

But wherever the flames passed, space silently collapsed—these were flames capable of burning even the laws of nature, a “Dao Fire” that surpassed ordinary true flames.

Wang Hao raised his sword to block, but his sword glow dissolved the instant it touched the transparent flames—not by being intercepted, but directly burned through. The transparent flames pierced through the sword glow’s barrier and slammed straight into his chest.

The golden light of national fortune protection flickered violently in the transparent flames, then began to shatter inch by inch.

Wang Hao’s figure tumbled backward like a kite with a broken string, scattering a trail of golden blood in the air. He crashed heavily into the volcanic rock at the edge of Dark City, blasting a human-shaped pit several dozen zhang deep.

“Your Majesty!” The Demon Lord’s roar came from the sky, but he was tightly entangled by two of Li Cangming’s Void Dragons and unable to break free.

Li Cangming stepped down through the air, landing at the edge of the human-shaped pit, looking down at the pitiful figure at the bottom.

Wang Hao lay at the bottom of the pit, his imperial robe completely torn, revealing skin riddled with cracks.

A wound deep enough to expose bone had opened on his chest, the surrounding flesh charred black by the flames. The Celestial Emperor Sword lay three zhang away, its cracks increased from seven to thirteen, its glow completely extinguished.

The Thunder Abyss Town Demon Tower lay tilted beside his hand, its lightning gone, leaving only faint silver arcs flickering on its spire.

“It’s over.” Li Cangming raised his right hand, condensing a spear of flame in his palm. “You were a worthy opponent, but born at the wrong time.”

Just then, an unexpected change occurred.

Above Dark City, the eternal night curtain suddenly vanished.

It wasn’t broken—it opened on its own.

The ghastly green light shield receded like an ebbing tide in all directions, revealing the full interior of Dark City—dense buildings, winding streets, and the Demon Lord, kneeling on the ground with his hands forming seals.

“I have opened the city’s protective formation!” The Demon Lord roared to the heavens, his voice carrying the resolve of one ready to die. “Your Majesty, the seventy thousand warriors of Dark City are willing to live and die with you!”

Then, a thunderous battle cry resounded from Dark City.

It was the voice of seventy thousand people—able-bodied men and women among the three million inhabitants. Some held weapons, others tools, some even bare-handed. Their cultivation levels varied wildly; some were at the Profound Energy Realm, others only at the Bone Forging Realm. But in that moment, they all stepped forward.

The killing intent of seventy thousand people converged into a raging torrent, surging from every street of Dark City toward the eight hundred Sky Soaring Realm cultivators in the sky.

The eight hundred Sky Soaring cultivators, facing the charge of seventy thousand, momentarily found themselves flustered. They were certainly the strong—seventy thousand people were mere ants in their eyes. But when seventy thousand ants rush at once, even a lion must retreat.

For the first time, Li Cangming’s brow furrowed.

He was not afraid of these commoners, but the sight of seventy thousand people charging together reminded him of something unpleasant—seven thousand years ago, the last emperor of the Celestial Dynasty, Luo Wuji, had also ordered his entire city’s populace to charge simultaneously, using their flesh and blood to hold off the Sixteen Holy Lands’ first wave.

Then he looked down at Wang Hao in the pit.

Wang Hao raised his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

That smile sent a chill through even an ancient monster like Li Cangming.

“Li Cangming,” Wang Hao said, his voice so soft that only the two could hear, “I originally didn’t want to use this move. This move goes against the will of heaven. From the moment I obtained it, I decided I would never use it in my life.”

He opened his palm, and the pitch-black Flower of Evil appeared in his hand.

The petals slowly unfurled, and the stamen’s ghastly light grew brighter and brighter, more intense.

An indescribably terrifying aura emanated from the Flower of Evil—not a killing intent, not a pressure, but a pure, absolute will to destroy. It was as if this flower existed solely for annihilation: annihilation of the enemy, annihilation of the self, annihilation of heaven and earth.

True fear appeared for the first time in Li Cangming’s blood-red flame-like eyes.

He recognized the thing.

“The Flower of Evil!” His voice suddenly pitched higher, losing his composure in a way utterly unbefitting a half-transcendent being who had lived for seven thousand years. “You’ve lost your mind! Once this thing detonates, nothing will grow for a hundred miles, and you yourself will—”

“I know,” Wang Hao said, his smile calm. “That’s why I said I didn’t want to use it.”

He glanced toward the direction of the Dark City, where seventy thousand soldiers and civilians were charging into battle, then looked up at the six Demon Lords locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Void Dragon in the sky, and finally turned his gaze toward the Eastern Wastelands.

“I am an emperor. The greatest flaw in my life is that I protect my own. These brats just called me 'Your Majesty.' If I let them die here, then I would be too shameful an emperor to keep the throne.”

He raised the Flower of Evil to his chest. Its petals had fully bloomed, and the phosphorescent light within the stamen coalesced into a black orb the size of a fist. A power of annihilation that stole one’s breath flowed across the orb’s surface; every strand of that force could easily obliterate even a Martial God.

“Heh. Art is an explosion.”

A white light erupted.

No one could describe that light.

It was brighter than the sun, fiercer than thunder, more dazzling than all the light in the world combined. The white radiance illuminated the night sky for three hundred miles, turning heaven and earth into a faded, pallid gray.

Then came the shockwave.

The power of the shockwave was beyond the scope of language. The entire battlefield, everything within a hundred-mile radius, was engulfed. The earth trembled, volcanoes collapsed, and the strata overturned. Wherever the shockwave passed, all matter silently vanished—not shattered, but erased from the very fabric of existence.

In the final moment before the shockwave erupted, Wang Hao gripped the Emperor’s Sword, forcibly summoned the last shred of national fortune energy within him, and teleported himself dozens of miles away from the battlefield. On a barren mountain dozens of miles off, a pre-placed substitute doll was waiting for him.

This was the hidden move Wang Wudi had set when he retreated.

Wang Wudi had left so cleanly because he knew Wang Hao’s plan: to use the substitute doll and the Flower of Evil to stage a cunning escape, like a cicada shedding its shell.

The substitute doll had to be placed outside the explosion range before the Flower of Evil detonated. Then, at the moment of detonation, Wang Hao would use the national fortune energy to teleport himself to the doll’s location, letting it bear the backlash of the Flower of Evil in his stead.

The white light devoured Li Cangming’s nine Void Dragons. It devoured the eight hundred Sky-Soaring Realm cultivators in the sky. It devoured the remnants of the Sixteen Heaven Arrays. It devoured the thirty-nine Martial Gods behind Li Cangming, caught completely off guard.

Forty Martial Gods and eight hundred Sky-Soaring Realm cultivators thrashed madly in the white light.

Some pulled out their most treasured artifacts, some burned their entire lifespan to activate defensive secret arts, some threw their life-bound spirit artifacts in front of them—but before the annihilation force of the Flower of Evil, these defenses were as fragile as paper.

The Sky-Soaring Realm cultivators were like ants before this white light. They couldn’t even unfold their defenses before the shockwave swallowed them. Over two hundred Sky-Soaring Realm cultivators were crushed midair by the shockwave, their bodies and protective aura both ground to dust, not even leaving a scream behind.

The early-stage Martial Gods fared no better. Their defensive artifacts held against the shockwave for less than a breath before shattering into fragments.

Seven Martial Gods had their legs blown off on the spot, their lower bodies turned to crimson mist. Five had their arms torn off by the shockwave, the wounds ragged and uneven. Four had their internal organs shattered, blood spraying from all seven orifices.

Mid-stage Martial Gods could barely hold out a little longer. The defensive artifacts they activated lasted two breaths in the shockwave before starting to crack, fragments flying in all directions.

Three of the eight mid-stage Martial Gods were hit in vital spots by the shrapnel and immediately lost their combat capability.

Only the seven late-stage Martial Gods could truly withstand the shockwave. Their protective aura burned into a solid barrier, layer upon layer of defensive techniques stacked in front of them, enduring the strongest blow of the shockwave head-on.

But it wasn’t over.

The shockwave from the Flower of Evil’s explosion wasn’t a single strike—it came in wave after wave.

After the first wave tore through everyone’s defenses, the second and third waves followed—each one more violent than the last, like a relentless tsunami.

After the first wave swept through, three more early-stage Martial Gods had their heart meridians shattered, dying on the spot. Their bodies were carried by the shockwave, tumbling backward and smashing through dozens of miles of mountain terrain before stopping.

The second wave hit next, even more ferocious than the first. A mid-stage Martial God was torn in half directly by the shockwave, his protective aura not lasting even a breath before shattering.

The six remaining late-stage Martial Gods pooled their strength to form a joint defense, unleashing every last trump card they had—Crimson Sacred Flame, the Sword Intent of the Celestial Blade, Myriad Law Flow, Starlight Guardian—six of the highest-tier defensive techniques layered together into an impenetrable barrier.

The second wave crashed against this barrier. The barrier shuddered violently, fine cracks spreading across its surface.

The third wave followed immediately. The cracks on the barrier spread like a spiderweb. The faces of the six late-stage Martial Gods all turned pale at once. One of them had his defensive technique rebounded by the shockwave, backlashing onto himself. He spat out a mouthful of blood, his form swaying unsteadily.

By the fourth wave, the barrier could no longer hold. It shattered with an explosive roar. The remaining five Martial Gods were knocked back by the shockwave, all spitting blood simultaneously, their bodies sent flying backward.

After five waves of impact, the battlefield finally fell silent.