Divinity Stripping Surgery

Ji Xing's words plunged the entire battlefield into an eerie silence.

Separate them.

Those two words were crazier than any order that had come before.

That was not divinity. It was a divine office deeply bound to De Ba De's soul.

Forcibly stripping it away was no different from performing a living dissection on someone's soul.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Xiao's voice cracked. "How is that any different from killing him outright?!"

"The difference is that he still has a chance to survive." Ji Xing's voice held no emotion. "Under my previous plan, death was his only outcome."

"All units, prepare to perform the 'Divinity Stripping Surgery.'"

"This is the only option."

No one objected again.

Because they had all seen that figure turning transparent, those eyes half-mad and half-empty, utterly devoid of reason.

If they delayed any longer, there would not even be a chance to operate.

"Damn it..." Xiao spat viciously, gripping the Mekong Jaw Blade with both hands. Blood-colored Electric Arcs erupted across its edge. "If he bites it, Peak's undefeated record is going down with him."

"It won't be broken." Ji Xing's reply was calm and flat. "The countdown begins."

"Five."

Di Jia Ling Yu took a deep breath and slowly raised her hands.

Blue divine radiance surged from her body. It was no longer the diffuse barrier from before, but highly condensed, transforming into countless blue ice crystals thinner than strands of hair that floated around her.

"Four."

Song Ling stepped to Di Jia Ling Yu's side and closed her eyes.

The black frostflames around her completely withdrew, condensing at her fingertips into a black scalpel only three inches long, thin as a cicada's wing, yet radiating an aura of absolute finality.

"Three."

Jing's figure silently appeared on the other side of the battlefield.

She looked at no one. She merely extended her hands as silver spatial power gathered in her palms, beginning to weave an incomparably complex yet utterly empty illusion vessel.

"Two."

Xiao hunched forward, holding the Mekong Jaw Blade horizontally before his chest.

The divinity around him no longer spilled outward. Instead, it contracted and compressed inward in an unprecedented manner, every ounce of power converging upon that glint of cold light at the blade's tip.

"One."

"Execute!"

Di Jia Ling Yu's eyes flew open. Her raised hands clenched at the figure erasing itself from existence.

"Absolute Stillness!"

Time seemed to have had its pause button pressed at that instant.

That body turning transparent, those two divinities colliding madly, that energy tearing space apart—everything was forcibly frozen for 0.3 seconds into a motionless oil painting on the verge of shattering.

Di Jia Ling Yu's body swayed violently, golden Divine Blood spilling from all seven orifices at once.

Forcibly stopping a concept that was moving toward "nothingness" brought a backlash beyond imagination.

But she had succeeded.

"Move!" she screamed with all her strength.

The instant Di Jia Ling Yu's words rang out, Song Ling transformed into a black afterimage and appeared before the frozen De Ba De.

Two streams of black bloody tears ran from her tightly shut eyes.

Her will followed the black scalpel at her fingertips and pierced the chaotic Divinity Core composed of gold and gray.

She saw it.

The golden blazing sun representing the King of Beasts and the gray black hole representing the Elegy of the End were like two fatal tumors, entwined and tearing at one another, their interlocking edges tangled together.

And what she needed to do was use her blade to sever the countless, infinitesimal lines connecting them.

Not too many. Not too few.

Not a fraction off.

Not in the slightest askew.

Sshk—

The black scalpel carved a trajectory no mortal could comprehend.

The bridge connecting "existence" and "nothingness" was severed with absolute precision.

At the instant it was cut, an utterly pure, utterly frigid will of nothingness exploded forth!

It had lost its host. It had lost its anchor. It sought to drag everything within sight into eternal deathly stillness.

Yet at that very moment, a perfect illusion vessel woven from silver light, identical to De Ba De, appeared before it.

It was Jing's Mirror Flower Water Moon.

Following its most fundamental logic, that will of nothingness instantly flooded into the closest and most perfect "empty shell."

Jing's body jolted, and her face went paper-white.

The illusion vessel in her hands twisted and trembled violently, as though it could burst from that terrifying power of nothingness at any moment.

"Xiao!" she screamed.

Almost at the exact instant her voice rang out—

"Roar—!"

A pure roar, stripped of every last impurity, belonging to an ancient Fierce Beast, erupted from De Ba De's mouth.

Having lost the balance provided by the divinity of nothingness, the tiger god's power had completely spiraled out of control.

His golden left eye instantly filled with boundless savagery and hunger.

His body, which was regaining solidity, began expanding in an even more terrifying fashion. The golden tiger-striped divinity transformed into a destructive storm, threatening to rip him apart along with everything around him.

He was about to become a mindless beast driven by nothing but the instinct to devour.

At that moment, a blood-red bolt of lightning slammed head-on into his chest.

It was Xiao.

Without the slightest hesitation, he poured every last bit of his power, compressed to the absolute limit, into the Beast King's origin within De Ba De.

The Mekong Jaw Blade shattered inch by inch.

Xiao's entire right arm, along with half his body, exploded into a mist of blood under the backlash of that power.

Yet a savage grin spread across his face.

"Wake the fuck up, you useless bastard!"

That strike was not meant to injure him.

It was meant to use the purest fighting will to knock upon the soul belonging to De Ba De himself, slumbering beneath his beastly instincts!

Boom—!

The golden storm of divinity and the blood-red fighting will collided violently.

The entire crumbling divine kingdom was reduced to dust by that single blow.

Space returned to chaos.

Everything fell silent.

No one knew how much time passed.

Amid endless darkness and void, Xiao's consciousness recovered first.

He could not feel his body. He could only "see" the equally weak Soul Fires of Di Jia Ling Yu and Song Ling in the distance, as well as Jing on the other side, desperately holding up a violently twisting silver orb.

Had the surgery... succeeded?

He did not know.

Then, a speck of golden light appeared at the heart of the darkness.

The light grew brighter and brighter, dispersing the chaos and reshaping space.

A tall figure slowly rose from within the radiance.

He was still half-human, half-beast, but the golden tiger stripes across his body had become incomparably pure and condensed, filled with unmatched kingly majesty.

His eyes were no longer half-savage and half-empty.

They were now a pair of pure vertical pupils burning with molten-gold radiance.

It was De Ba De.

He had succeeded.

He had completely taken control of the divine office of the King of Beasts.