Against the Gods

 The crack that had been made in the newly-formed protective barrier quickly spread out and formed an enormous dark spider web, and in the next instant… it collapsed with a loud bang.

Nine Lights Heaven shook violently and under the dispersing darkness energy, the power that should have protected the Nine Lights Heavenly Palace was immediately transformed into a raging destructive power which mercilessly swallowed up and devoured many of the Nine Lights Heavenly Palace disciples below it. Countless numbers of them died and miserable cries rent the air.

It was not only the protective barrier that had instantly collapsed, the hearts and minds of everyone in the Nine Lights Heavenly Palace had collapsed as well.

The instant Yun Che had used a single finger to collapse that barrier, Venerable Hidden Universe’s eyes bulged out so violently that they looked like they were about to explode. After that, they turned white and dazed… He fervently hoped that all of this was merely a nightmare.

The moment his eyes finally regained some focus, the first thing that they beheld was Yun Che’s grim figure.

He stood not three steps away from Venerable Hidden Universe, his emotionless eyes staring down at him. Surrounding them were the Nine Lights Palace Masters who were as ashen-faced as he was. Their eyes were trembling and there were scorch marks all over their bodies… It was just that they did not look the least bit like palace masters at the moment. Instead, they practically looked like a bunch of crippled dogs whose convictions and souls had been torn apart, who did not possess any more will to fight.

“You are very lucky that, right now, I really don’t want to waste my time killing a bunch of useless trash,” Yun Che said in an icy voice. “All of you still have… one last chance.”

Palace Master Hidden Universe’s mouth opened and closed three times before he finally spoke in a weak and feeble voice, “I… I… will bring… both of you… there.”

After he said those words, the emotion that surged through his heart the most was, astonishingly enough, not humiliation. It was relief.

As he brought Yun Che and Qianye Ying’er past the layers of barriers, Palace Master Hidden Universe finally arrived in front of the greatest forbidden ground in their entire sect and opened up the barrier to the treasury… While also revealing the entire sect’s accumulated resources and all of their greatest secrets to these two outsiders.

“Very good.” Yun Che swept his gaze over the riches in front of him. “You can get lost now.”

Palace Master Hidden Universe’s entire body violently swayed and he spoke through clenched teeth. “The treasury is filled with traps, if I am not…”

“Get lost!”

Palace Master Hidden Universe violently shuddered and he did not dare speak another word. Instead, he timidly left.

As one of the palace masters of the Nine Lights Heavenly Palace, a level nine Divine Sovereign who looked down upon all creation, he had never imagined that he would actually be reduced to such a pathetic and terrified state one day.

Before they had even entered the treasury, the aura that leaked out from inside had already caused Qianye Ying’er’s golden eyes to glimmer. “It looks like the harvest this time should be pretty good. Given your unfathomable absorption ability, this should allow you to become a Divine Sovereign quickly.

“Speaking of which,” Qianye Ying’er said as she shot him a glance, “just based on its aura alone, it should have taken the power of a level five Divine Master to break that protective barrier just now. But in front of your darkness profound energy, it was actually so weak and pathetic.”

It was not Yun Che’s power that had broken the Nine Lights Heavenly Palace’s belief, it was his act of breaking their protective barrier with a single finger.

“The power that is derived from the elementary powers of the ‘Eternal Calamity of Darkness’ is actually so tyrannical. If you are able to master most of it in the future… I am afraid that all of those who exist in the darkness will have to bow at your feet.”

“Including you,” Yun Che said in an icy voice before he stepped into the treasury.

“You shouldn’t be so sure about that!” Qianye Ying’er retorted in a low voice as she followed close behind him.

Fifteen minutes went past… Half an hour went past… time crawled along at a frighteningly slow pace.

After one hour had gone by, Palace Master Hidden Universe finally could not wait any longer. He gathered up all of the courage in his body and raced straight toward the treasury… After that, he stood in the middle of the treasury and stared blankly at the completely empty space for a very long time.

After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, he finally came back to his senses. He held up his sound transmission jade and made what was perhaps the most weak and helpless sound transmission of his entire life. “Do not send a sound transmission to the Thousand Desolation Divine Sect… From now on, no one in our entire sect is to mention the name Yun Che or anything related to him.”

“No, it’s not that I’m afraid that he will come back to take revenge if he finds out. I just have this feeling that… this person is simply far too terrifying and it’s possible that the Thousand Desolation Divine Sect will fall into his hands as well.”

    ————

In the mountains beneath Nine Lights Heaven, a palm-sized profound ark quietly nestled between two unremarkable mountain pebbles. A barely discernible frost barrier surrounded it, completely concealing its aura.

Even if any profound beast occasionally passed by, it would not notice the existence of this profound ark.

Within the world of the Primordial Profound Ark, Yun Che silently sat on the withered ground. A large amount of devil crystal and devil jade floated around him while releasing threads of pure and pristine energy. These threads of energy seemed to flow along invisible streams of air as they surged into Yun Che’s body.

The aura within the Primordial Profound Ark was low quality and turbid. It was an environment extremely unsuited to cultivation. Yet because it was an independent world, they did not need to worry about their auras being detected by other people… especially when they were attempting to complete a huge breakthrough.

World-Defying Heaven Manual, the Law of Nothingness, all things are nothing, all creation returns to the profound.

Yun Che was reading the incomplete World-Defying Heavenly Manual. As for what the Law of Nothingness actually was, he was not able to use words to explain it. In fact, he had only vaguely touched upon its borders.

He was even further away from being able to “return all creation to the profound”, yet he was still able to directly convert the spiritual energy within profound crystals and profound jade into his own profound strength in a strange and mysterious manner.

This was undoubtedly the most basic ability of the Law of Nothingness. In fact, it could not even be called “basic”. But in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of someone who had reached the summit of the profound way like Qianye Ying’er, this was truly an ability that defied the laws of this world.

This was a bottleneck which countless profound practitioners could not break through despite a lifetime’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears. Yet in forty hours, in a short span of less than two days, Yun Che had cleared this bottleneck in an exceptionally smooth fashion.

In that instant, all the profound crystals surrounding Yun Che soundlessly shattered and all the air within fifty kilometers was expelled. Profound energy leaked from Yun Che’s body but in the next instant, it swiftly started to flow back inside of him...

Once everything had quieted down, the world of his profound veins had transformed into an even vaster starry sky.

A profound vein world which contained the power of a Divine Sovereign!

Yun Che opened his eyes and black light suddenly flashed within them. He raised his hand and sensed the energy that flowed within his fingers. His perception of the world had once again changed but the only thing in his heart was a deathly stillness and these changes did not excite it in the least.

Not even a year had passed since he had stepped into the Northern Divine Region, but his cultivation had risen from the first level of the Divine King Realm to the first level of the Divine Sovereign Realm. He had ascended an entire great realm of power.

Qianye Ying’er had borne witness to this entire process.

Yun Che was calm and she was also calm… Even though this would have been an earth-shattering event for any profound practitioner on any plane of existence.

“It looks like the three divine regions have come yet another step closer to their doom.” Qianye Ying’er walked over and looked at Yun Che before saying in an unfriendly tone, “Now, you can also help me get back to the Divine Master Realm without any worries, right!?”

Yun Che did not reply. Instead, he raised both hands and firelight shone from his arms as Golden Crow and Phoenix flames ignited on each respective palm. When he brought both of his arms together, those flames swiftly merged into the immensely mighty crimson divine flames.

Currently, the speed at which he was able to produce the crimson divine flames was several times faster than it had been back then. Also, since it was now created with the strength of a Divine Sovereign, its ability to incinerate things had grown many times more terrifying.

As he held the crimson divine flames in his hands, Yun Che’s gaze grew cold and focused. His palm began to slowly get enveloped in a dark glow.

This was not any old darkness profound energy, this was a black light that had been merged with the Eternal Calamity of Darkness! 

The black light came into contact with the crimson divine flames and they instantly tried to snuff each other out. However, Qianye Ying’er realized that space and her vision had been abruptly and violently distorted for a single instant.

The mutual repulsion and destruction stopped and the power of darkness slowly “flowed” into the flames, slowly changing the color of the crimson flames, dyeing it an incredibly bizarre shade of ash.

“!!?” Qianye Ying’er was stunned senseless by what she had just seen.

The flames started to violently sway and she did not know if they were struggling to break free or were simply excited. The light cast by those flames turned Yun Che’s hands and face gray. There was a brief pause before the gray-colored flames started to slowly turn black...

It was also in this moment that the world within the Primordial Profound Ark suddenly turned dim.

As the shade of the flames gradually darkened, the light in the world around them also started to grow dimmer and dimmer.

Fire would be accompanied by light and this was not a principle that was limited to the profound way. In any world, this principle was the most basic, something that everyone knew.

However, as her golden eyes were violently trembling, Qianye Ying’er was looking at a flame that was clearly devouring light!

No, it was not only devouring light… even the space around it was swiftly and violently receding. Before she knew it, the area surrounding the black flames had already formed into a vortex-like… black hole!

The black flames continued to change and the last speck of ashen flames was finally transforming as well. At this time, Yun Che’s body violently swayed and the black flames in his hands instantly collapsed. He spat out an arrow of blood that flew dozens of meters. He instantly collapsed to the ground after that and he began gasping furiously for breath.

Qianye Ying’er did not move. The astonishment in her eyes did not recede for quite a while.

“Hooo…. Hooo…” Yun Che gulped down large mouthfuls of air and more than ten breaths passed before he finally managed to regulate his breathing.

His finger slowly wiped away the blood that trickled from the corner of his mouth. The flesh there had split open but he still wore a sinister smile on his face.

“What… is that?” Even Qianye Ying’er, who had long grown accustomed to Yun Che performing unimaginable and outrageous feats, had been deeply shocked by what she had just seen.

“I’ve just discovered another type of fire again.” She could hear seldom-heard excitement in Yun Che’s deep and low voice.

Those black flames which he had formed just now were not merely the merger of darkness energy and his regular crimson flames… It was also a bizarre and fantastic merger of the Heretic God divine power with the Eternal Calamity of Darkness.

The Heretic God divine power could facilitate the merger of the Phoenix and Golden Crow flames to form the crimson divine flames. It could go against the principles and laws of this world, merging the power of fire and ice into the “ice flame” which should not exist in this world. All of this relied solely on the power of the Heretic God, the power that wielded the ultimate mastery over the elements in the Primal Chaos Realm, to the point where it could even bend the laws of reality.

However, the Eternal Calamity of Darkness, a power which stood on the same level as the Heretic God divine power, was something that the Heretic God divine power should not have been able to interfere with.

Yet the fusion that had just taken place in that brief moment produced a power so gloomy and mysterious that it caused every hair on his body to stand on end. It had clearly been the fusion of the Heretic God divine power with the Eternal Calamity of Darkness!

It was just that he did not know why he could actually merge these two Creation God powers using this method. Moreover, it had not even been all that difficult to accomplish.

It was just like how the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor could not understand why light and darkness profound energy could coexist within his body.

He was not sure how long it would take for him to master this sort of fusion… But there was one thing he was sure of and it was that these flames were definitely mightier than the crimson divine flames!

After Yun Che regulated his breathing, he stood up and stared at Qianye Ying’er, his eyes gleaming with undisguised lust. “Within twelve hours, I will help you recover the power of a Divine Master, but before that…”

His body blurred as he violently thrust out a hand.

However, his hand only swished through the air as it swept through an afterimage that was swiftly fading away.

As he stared at Qianye Ying’er, who had fled a fair distance away, Yun Che’s eyes narrowed as he said, “Why? I’m not going to help you recover for nothing, you know!”

Qianye Ying’er gave a soft snort, her absolutely beautiful jade face turning icy and frigid. “You may violate me if you want… but you are not to destroy my… You!”

Bang!

Before she had even finished speaking, Yun Che violently shoved her to the ground. An exceptionally loud ripping sound rang through the air. Her light blue outer robes were torn open in an incomparably savage manner, causing a pair of luscious white mounds, that were beautiful enough to steal one’s soul, to spill out.

“You don’t have any right to refuse!” Yun Che’s tone brooked no question and his eyes were filled with rapacious lust.

Yun Che had become a Divine Sovereign and his strength had undergone an unprecedented increase. The moment he opened the Heretic God Gates, Qianye Ying’er, who had not yet regained her powers as a Divine Master, truly did not have any power to resist him.