Who... Calls My True Name

As though the pillar supporting the heavens had collapsed, carrying with it a suffocating sense of “inevitability.”

If an immortal wanted you dead, then you had to die.

That was the rule—the iron law.

Although Gu Qing’s primary target was Su Ji, Mo Yun and the other great cultivators of the Chaotic Star Sea could only feel their souls freeze at this moment.

Beneath that finger, they did not even possess the right to move a single thought.

It was an absolute suppression at the level of life itself—like a human casually crushing an ant. There was no need for a reason, nor for any emotion.

Many people, like Wang Ping, rolled their eyes back and fainted cleanly. In a way, that saved them the trouble.

Only Su Ji remained standing.

He stood beneath the shadow of that enormous finger, which was about to descend. The pressure of the wind whipped his clothes loudly and sent his hair flying wildly.

This is bad…

He really didn’t seem to have any way to resist this attack head-on.

The gap in strength was simply too great.

The only solution required him to gamble on his luck…

Just as Su Ji was preparing to risk everything, the blue giant finger was less than ten zhang above his head. The surrounding space had already begun to collapse beneath the unbearable pressure.

“Gu Qing!!”

A sharp howl, like a blade dragged across glass, instantly tore through the suffocating immortal might.

“I’m not dead yet!”

“Don’t you dare look down on me!”

Boom——!!!

A streak of scarlet blood-light suddenly shot across from the side without warning.

It was a blood-colored giant sword swung by the surviving arm of the asura giant. The domineering golden radiance of the Immortal Emperor’s finger bone coiled around its blade.

Crack!

The blue giant finger, which represented the invincible will of a True Immortal, was severed in two at the instant it touched the blood-colored sword. It shattered like a fragile glass rod!

The splintered blue light fell like a meteor shower, smashing countless bottomless pits into the sea below.

A violent shock wave swept in every direction. Before Su Ji, the space rippled—a spiritual-energy barrier, blocking all the aftershock a mere three feet away.

“Hm?”

Gu Qing’s brows drew sharply together, a flash of irritation crossing his eyes.

He turned his head toward the asura giant, who had been reduced to half a body yet remained terrifyingly ferocious.

Ning Shuangyue controlled her ruined dharma body. Furious flames, almost tangible, burned within her lone remaining eye. She glared fixedly at Gu Qing, her voice hoarse and frenzied:

“The victor has yet to be decided, and you’re already killing off bystanders, treating the finger bone as though it were already yours?”

“What do you take me for? A mere decoration?!”

She had not saved Su Ji out of kindness.

It was simply because Gu Qing’s act of diverting his attention during battle to kill an “ant” was the greatest insult he could inflict upon an opponent like her!

“Madwoman.”

Gu Qing gave a cold snort and snapped shut the folding fan in his hand.

“Since you’re so eager to die, I’ll grant your wish!”

He no longer paid any attention to Su Ji and the others below. With a flicker of his figure, he appeared instantly ten thousand zhang above the ground.

The Nine Heavens: Tribulation Lightning Sword in his hand was raised high.

Rumble——!!

The sky, already shattered beyond recognition, split apart completely.

Countless bolts of purple lightning drilled out of the void and coiled around the small sword. This was no ordinary lightning—it was heavenly punishment imbued with the power of “tribulation.”

At that moment, heaven and earth lost their color.

A colossal sword of lightning slowly emerged from a crack in the sky. Its radiance was so dazzling that no mortal eyes could look directly at it—brilliance beyond the limits of endurance.

A dense, nauseating Law of Destruction crazily condensed at the tip of the sword.

It was the Sword of Damocles suspended above the heads of all living beings.

It had yet to descend, but the mere aura spilling from it caused the seawater below to boil in an instant.

A numbing sensation surged from the soles of their feet straight to the crown of their heads. Even the motes of dust in the air ceased to move beneath that overwhelming pressure.

This was the full-force strike of a True Immortal.

A world-ending blow meant to erase this entire realm from existence!

“Come on!!”

Ning Shuangyue threw back her head and laughed, her laughter shrill and ghostlike.

She had no intention of dodging. Or rather, with her aura locked in place by this strike, there was nowhere to dodge to.

She pressed that fragment of an Immortal Emperor’s finger bone firmly against her brow, merging completely with the shattered Asura Dharma Body.

“With my blood, I offer sacrifice to the Emperor Bone!”

“Slay—the Immortals!!!”

Buzz—

At that moment, the fragment of finger bone erupted with unprecedented radiance.

That light was neither golden nor blood-red.

It was desolate…

It was the grayness that came from the end of the river of time.

It was the end of all things—the twilight of an Emperor.

The Asura giant’s only remaining arm gripped that gray light and charged upstream, directly toward the sword of lightning descending from the heavens!

In the next instant—

The two collided with a thunderous impact!

At the moment of collision, sound itself was “killed.”

First, the space at the point of impact was annihilated outright, transforming into a gigantic black hole.

Then, violet lightning and gray Imperial might devoured and entangled one another.

Immediately afterward—

Unimaginable heat erupted from the center of the collision.

It was a temperature high enough to vaporize ordinary matter in an instant, heat powerful enough to boil an entire sea dry.

The earth and seabed within a radius of fifty miles let out a collective wail.

“Crack, crack, crack…”

The sound that had been slain finally arrived belatedly amid the aftershock.

The earth was covered in spiderweb-like fractures, like a porcelain vessel smashed to pieces.

Countless streams of magma surged from the ocean floor, only to be forced back down by that terrifying power in the next instant.

Space twisted and folded wildly, like a sheet of paper crumpled by a mischievous child.

Mo Yun and the others, caught at the edge of the explosion, had already unleashed every defensive artifact they possessed. Even so, they were sent flying by the shockwave, vomiting blood as they scattered like withered leaves. Their lives and deaths were unknown.

Su Ji stood at the very center of the storm.

The seemingly fragile dark-red barrier before him was now like a reef amid a tsunami. No matter how thoroughly the world around it collapsed, it remained unmoving.

……

In the sky above.

The stalemate did not last long.

Gu Qing had already touched the realm of the Immortal King, and he was also in his prime.

Ning Shuangyue, by contrast, was merely a pseudo-immortal forcibly elevated through secret arts and external objects. She had already reached the end of her strength.

“Break—for this seat!!”

Gu Qing had lost his former composure. His face twisted viciously as he suddenly pressed both hands downward.

Crack!

The gray Imperial might ultimately ran out of strength. With a mournful cry, it shattered completely.

The violet sword of lightning, carrying what remained of its power, struck the Asura giant savagely.

“Ahhhhhhh—!!”

Ning Shuangyue let out a piercing scream.

The hundred-zhang-tall Asura Dharma Body shattered inch by inch amid the lightning, dissolving into ashes that filled the sky.

Her body fell from the heavens like a kite with its string cut, crashing heavily into the parched seabed below.

The dust gradually settled.

Gu Qing hovered in midair, his chest heaving violently. The Lightning Tribulation Sword in his hand had also dimmed, its radiance nearly extinguished.

That strike had cost him dearly as well.

He lowered his head and looked toward the deep crater below. A flicker of wariness passed through his eyes, but greed outweighed it.

A mere False Immortal, relying on nothing more than a single finger bone, had actually forced him to use his full strength...

How terrifying...

Was this the lingering might of an Emperor?

“It’s over.”

His figure blurred, and he instantly appeared at the edge of the crater.

At the bottom of the pit—

Ning Shuangyue was covered in blood, her aura so weak it was barely discernible.

Yet she still clutched that finger bone tightly in her hand.

“Give it... to me.”

Gu Qing extended his hand, his voice hoarse.

With great difficulty, Ning Shuangyue raised her head. A strange smile suddenly appeared on her blood-smeared face.

“Give it to you?”

“Gu Qing, do you really think... you’ve won?”

A powerful sense of unease abruptly surged within Gu Qing’s heart.

“What are you trying to do?!”

Ning Shuangyue did not answer.

Using the very last of her strength, she drove the finger bone straight into her own heart!

Buzz—!!!

An aura ten times more terrifying than before erupted from the finger bone without warning.

It was not the aura of some dead object.

It was the will of... something alive!

Gu Qing’s expression changed drastically as he retreated at top speed.

“Madwoman! You’re insane!!”

He could feel the finger bone frantically devouring Ning Shuangyue’s life force. Even her soul was being chewed apart piece by piece.

And from within that mangled, bloody wound in her chest, an illusory figure slowly began to take shape.

The figure was indistinct, its features impossible to make out.

Yet merely standing there, it made heaven and earth tremble, as though this entire realm were bowing in submission to its former sovereign.

That was... a remnant fragment of his soul!

“Who...”

An ancient, weathered voice emerged from the phantom.

“Who calls upon my true name?”