Defused

"Puff!"

In front of the main hall, Han Mo and the Old Woman of the Taiyin Demon Sect simultaneously spat out a mouthful of blood, their faces turning ashen.

"They're... they're here..." Han Mo looked up, trembling, his eyes filled with despair. "The Boundary-Patrolling Black Dragon Ship of the Prince Pingnan's Residence!"

At the bow of the warship, atop a throne built from the bones of millennia past.

A middle-aged man, dressed in Black Python and with a cold, chiseled face, sat upright on it, his eyes seeming to hold the sight of Stars falling as they opened and closed.

The Prince Pingnan looked down at the crumbling Divine Mountain below, which resembled an anthill, his eyes devoid of any human emotion.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like thunder from the heavens, carrying the irresistible iron law of the dynasty, booming and resounding in everyone's ears:

"The Cangming is dead, the Southern Nation are not empty."

"By the decree of the Xianyu Dynasty, effective immediately, all cultivators of the Southern Nation are to be removed from the register and demoted to the Slave Realm. All cultivators of the kingdom shall be sent to the Demonic Mines Beyond the Domain, to be slaves for generations!"

After the verdict was announced, the world fell into a deathly silence.

Despair overwhelmed everything like a tidal wave.

Faced with the overwhelming pressure that could determine the fate of billions of lives, Mo Wendao collapsed to the ground, and the elders of the Myriad Phenomena Academy trembled in fear.

Only Chen Changqing.

His leg bones cracked under the immense pressure, blood gushing from the corner of his mouth, but he gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with an almost insane light.

"Clang!"

With his sword drawn, Chen Changqing withstood the overwhelming pressure of the Void Refinement, enough to crush him into a pulp, and staggered step by step to the stone gate at the back of the mountain. He spread his arms to protect the entire cave entrance behind him.

"If you want to harm my son... you'll have to step over my dead body first!"

Chen Changqing roared to the sky, his eyes filled with tears of blood.

On the throne of the warship, the Prince Pingnan didn't even glance at him, but simply raised a finger and lightly tapped it in the Void.

A jet-black beam of light tore through the air, heading straight for Chen Changqing's face.

However.

Just a split second before the fingertip struck.

"Boom!"

The seemingly indestructible, millennia-old Dragon -Dragon-Breaking Stone Gate behind Chen Changqing did not open; instead, it instantly and silently turned into dust!

A slender, fair hand reached out from nothingness and waved casually.

The black light, powerful enough to instantly annihilate an ordinary Deity Transformation cultivator, vanished without a trace on the spot, like dust being brushed away.

The world suddenly fell silent.

Under the gaze of hundreds of thousands of stunned eyes, an eleven-year-old child dressed in plain white clothes slowly emerged from the smoke and dust, reaching out to wipe the blood from the corner of Chen Changqing's mouth, who was covered in blood.

"Dad, stand a little further back."

Chen Fan patted his sleeves, turned around, and looked up at the towering Ancient Black Dragon Ship that blotted out the Firmament above, a brilliant yet cold smile spreading across his lips.

"What a huge loach!"

He took a step forward, and the Void beneath his feet suddenly solidified.

Under the gaze of the Prince Pingnan, whose pupils suddenly contracted, the child stepped on the invisible white jade steps, smiling as he walked step by step toward the White Bone Throne suspended high in the clouds.

The Void is mourning.

Chen Fan, dressed in coarse white cloth, stood barefoot in the void. With each step he took, a faint ripple of gray and white light silently spread out from beneath his feet.

The ripples, though seemingly gentle, caused the oppressive power of the 100,000-foot-long black dragon pouring down from the sky to melt and disintegrate inch by inch, like snow being splashed with boiling water.

The earth's tremors abruptly ceased the moment the child stepped into the air, shattering the entire precarious Immortal Alliance Divine Mountain.

Before the ruins of the Divine Mountain, Han Mo and the Old Woman of the Taiyin Demon Sect knelt amidst the rubble, looking up at the small figure behind them, their faces ashen and their breaths completely frozen.

"Has he... has he gone mad?"

Han Mo's dry lips trembled violently, and he bit his jaw until it bled.

"That's the Prince Pingnan of the Xianyu Dynasty! A colossus at the peak of the Void Refinement Realm! How dare he... how dare he confront the might of Heaven so directly?!"

"Xiao Fan! Come back! You better come back here!"

On the broken steps behind him, Chen Changqing's eyes were bloodshot, and the broken Yi Wood Green Vine Sword in his hand rang out. Ignoring the excruciating pain of his shattered ribs, he dragged his broken leg and was about to ride the sword into the sky.

"Sect Master! You mustn't!" Mo Wendao desperately rushed forward, his only remaining arm tightly embracing Chen Changqing's waist, tears streaming down his face as he roared, "With that kind of pressure, you'd be crushed into mincemeat in half a breath! You can't save him; going there would only be a pointless death!"

"Get out of my way! That's my son! I don't care if he's some kind of emperor or a god!"

Chen Changqing's forehead veins bulged as he struggled frantically, spitting a mouthful of his heart's blood onto Mo Wendao's face.

Above the Void, Chen Fan paused.

He did not turn around, but deep within his Dantian, in that black and white Life-and-Death Millstone, the pure Life Formation Core array was once again ignited by this paternal obsession that disregarded life and death, and a vast, surging tide of mortal life flowed into the Divine Kingdom.

A faint warmth flashed in Chen Fan's eyes, but when he looked up, that warmth vanished into utter stillness the instant he gazed upon the towering black dragon ship.

High above the nine heavens, the Ancient Black Dragon Ship stretched across the sky.

On the ancient White Bone Throne at the bow of the ship, the Prince Pingnan slowly withdrew the finger that had emitted a black light, looking down at the child who was walking through the air.

"You neutralized my finger strike?"

The Prince Pingnan narrowed his eyes, a chilling absurdity surging within his deep, unfathomable gaze.

In this remote Lower Realm impoverished place, Cangming is dead, and they should be a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Yet this Mortal Body child, whose bone age was only eleven or twelve, actually walked on air, without any trace of immortal True Essence emanating from his body, yet he forcefully shattered his aura.

"Where did this arrogant brat come from, daring to play tricks on me before the king?"

The Prince Pingnan's voice was as cold as iron, his tongue like thunder in spring, transforming into invisible sound waves that tore through the sky.

"I am the Prince of Pingnan of the Immortal Feather Dynasty, here on a divine inspection tour! The Cangming lineage has been extinguished, and this realm is now filled with mine slaves! You ignorant and reckless wretch, why don't you kneel and accept the law?!"

Boom!

On the deck of the warship, thirty-six heavily armored golden-armored warriors stepped forward in unison.

"Drink!"

The general roared, Immortal-Slaying Heavy Halberd heavily onto the deck. Thirty-six strands of iron-blooded killing intent from the Nascent Deity Transformation Realm soared into the sky, transforming into a dense, blood-red cloud that blotted out the sun. It carried a violent, murderous aura capable of crushing Divine Souls and pressed down on Chen Fan!

Such a fierce aura from a military formation would cause even an ordinary peak Nascent Deity Transformation cultivator to suffer physical decay and Primordial Spirit pain upon contact.

However.

The toddler at the Center of the Storm didn't even lift his eyelids.

Chen Fan hovered a hundred feet above the warship, his expression indifferent, as if what was rushing towards him was not a blood-red cloud of military might capable of slaughtering all living beings, but rather an insignificant spring breeze.

He raised his fair little hand, casually picked at his ear, and then gently blew a breath onto his fingertips.

The entire world was deathly silent.

The thirty-six surging killing intents of the Deity Transformation vanished into nothingness the instant they approached within three zhang of him, as if they had struck an invisible chasm of laws.