Just as all the lofty beings believed the outcome had been decided and this anomaly was about to be erased.
Yang Chen, who had been rolling on the ground, convulsing, and howling, suddenly stopped moving.
It was not the pause of exhaustion.
It was an absolute, eerie stillness that arose from the very root of his being.
As though a machine pushed to its limits and on the verge of collapse had been paused by an invisible hand.
The wails of the billions of Dragon-Phoenix Souls filling his Divine Soul, the hellish illusion of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, the endless torment capable of grinding a Grand Unity Golden Immortal's Dao Heart into dust—they had not vanished.
They were still there.
Only, Yang Chen no longer fought them.
He released all resistance, allowing that black, venomous torrent to pierce his True Spirit completely and soak every inch of his flesh.
He accepted it.
At that moment, he and the karma of this Immeasurable Tribulation, the karmic force capable of destroying the entire prehistoric world, reached the deepest and most terrifying resonance.
The supreme will pressing down upon him, from the Heavenly Dao and the Six Sages, clearly sensed this change.
To them, the final struggle of this ant had ended.
His Dao Heart had been completely devoured by karmic force.
The fire of his True Spirit had already gone out.
This "error" was about to be corrected.
The terrifying pressure that could crush Mount Buzhou thus loosened by an imperceptible trace.
Like an executioner seeing that a prisoner had abandoned resistance and bared his neck for the blade, unconsciously slowing the descent of the butcher's knife held high in his hand.
It was this trace of slackening.
This gap of one ten-thousandth of an instant.
Yang Chen moved.
Slowly, with an extremely stiff and sluggish posture, he swayed to his feet from the patch of land charred black by his own blood and karmic force.
Every movement he made tugged at the dense black karmic force around his body, so concentrated it had become tangible.
Black vapor coiled around him, completely corroding his already tattered clothes and revealing pale skin covered in black cracks beneath.
His hair hung loose and wild, strands entwined with phantom dragon souls and the mournful cries of phoenix spirits.
His neck creaked under unbearable strain as he laboriously raised his head.
That face could no longer be called human.
Pale and withered, cheeks sunken deep; only those eyes, once dim and lifeless, dead gray and vacant, now rekindled with a point of light.
It was not the light of hope.
It was not the light of survival.
Still less was it the light of reason.
It was a pure, cold flame without the slightest emotional impurity, called "destruction."
He no longer howled.
He no longer complained.
He no longer showed any expression of pain.
The muscles of his face twitched under extreme distortion, slowly, bit by bit, pulling into a smile so strange it reached the utmost extreme.
That smile carried a profound sense of liberation and freedom.
As if a prisoner who had borne shackles for countless ages had finally found the key to cast off every restraint.
And that key was himself.
It was his death.
He opened his arms, his movements slow and solemn, as though he were not welcoming death but embracing a new era that belonged to him.
An era in which all things returned to Guixu and everything began anew.
His voice rang out.
It was not loud.
It was even hoarse and weak.
Yet it held a strange penetrating force, clearly cutting through the rolling thunder of the tribulation clouds above the heavens, resounding through the nine heavens and ten lands, and reaching the six supreme wills with absolute precision.
"My heart is so tired. I might as well stop cultivating immortality!"
One sentence.
One light, drifting sentence.
Within Jade Void Palace on Mount Kunlun, Primal Celestial Venerable's cold will of judgment did not waver in the slightest.
Words born of a shattered Dao Heart were only natural.
On Golden Ao Island in the East Sea, Sovereign of Heaven's Immortal-Slaying Sword Intent stood poised to strike, waiting only for the source of this karmic force to completely lose its final strength to resist.
Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens, Empress Nuwa's compassion grew ever stronger, yet she was also ever more powerless.
On Mount Sumeru in the West, the trace of "regret" within the wills of Jieyin and Zhunti was nearly becoming tangible.
On Shouyang Mountain, Grand Supreme Elder Lord's Dao Heart of non-action remained as still as an ancient well.
Everything was proceeding along its proper course.
This anomaly was denying itself.
This error was ending itself.
Yet Yang Chen's next sentence froze the entire prehistoric world, the six saints who overlooked eternity, and the lofty Heavenly Dao in an instant.
He took a deep breath. What he inhaled was not spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but the endless black karmic force boiling and surging around him.
His entire chest swelled from it, as though he meant to swallow Rahula's lifetime of sins and all the hatred of the three races into his belly.
Then.
He used every ounce of strength in his body, all the unwillingness and madness of his two lives, and roared toward the heavens!
That voice was no longer weak, no longer hoarse!
It was the most shocking declaration, erupting from the deepest depths of his True Spirit!
"Then I might as well let my body and Dao perish, let this immeasurable karma erupt completely, and have everyone return to chaos together!"
Boom—!!!
These words were not a spell, not a divine ability, and did not even contain the slightest power of law.
Yet the consequences they caused were billions of times more terrifying than any chaotic divine lightning or any strike from a saint!
It was not an attack.
It was a declaration.
A declaration from the most insignificant piece on the board, directed at every player moving the pieces—a declaration of the greatest equality and the greatest terror.
I cannot live.
Then none of you will live either!
This was the most hysterical cry of an ant.
It was also the most naked, utterly undisguised ultimate threat against the entire prehistoric world, the Heavenly Dao, and the Six Sages!
The instant his words fell.
No will even needed to urge it onward.
The karma of the Immeasurable Tribulation bound deeply to the very origin of the prehistoric world within Yang Chen seemed to hear the long-awaited command to "detonate," beginning to boil, churn, and expand with unprecedented violence!
It was no longer karmic force eroding him.
It transformed into an activated chaotic nuclear bomb capable of blowing apart the entire universe!
The pure destructive energy within, condensed to the utmost limit, began to surge madly in geometric progression!
A terrifying aura of "ending" and "returning to Guixu" burst from Yang Chen, instantly tearing apart the restraints of space and time, ignoring the barriers of laws, and wildly spreading toward every corner of the entire prehistoric world!
The earth beneath his feet silently vanished.
The space around him twisted and collapsed violently.
All fundamental laws that formed the world—karma, space and time, the five elements, yin and yang...—wailed beneath the impact of this Power of Guixu, showing signs of breaking apart!
He was actually going to self-destruct!
Before you continue