"I saw you hadn't come out yet, so I thought I'd wait."
As he spoke, Tian Xuanjing's hands never slowed. He pried loose two more golden bricks, each a foot square, and carefully stowed them away.
With no time to waste here, Shi Lan paused for only an instant before continuing to race beyond the tribulation clouds.
Her Divine Phoenix Wings expanded severalfold. A single beat carried her hundreds, even thousands of miles; after a few flashes, she vanished from sight.
After pocketing several more pieces of Crimson Nethergold, Tian Xuanjing knew when to stop. A blood mark surfaced between his brows, and a layer of clear light shimmered over his body, faintly etched with divine patterns of the Emperor Dao. He transformed into a dazzling rainbow and shot away.
In an instant, he burned the imperial blood in his body and fled tens of thousands of miles in the space of a few breaths, a shade faster than Shi Lan.
The world was shrouded in darkness. The Heavenly Punishment was far from over. Lightning serpents writhed wildly, their fury plain to see.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
More than a dozen bolts of lightning crashed down in rapid succession. The world-destroying radiance illuminated the land, proclaiming the supreme might of the Lingyang Realm's Heavenly Dao.
Screee—
The floating island suddenly exploded. The golden palace shattered into pieces, its fragments scattering in every direction and instantly riddling the void within hundreds of thousands of miles.
At the very center of the island, a Divine Phoenix corpse, seemingly cast from gold, was infused with life. It rose like a blazing sun, driving the darkness from the world.
Divine Phoenix True Flame blazed across the sky. Its dreadful heat defied description, melting the void within nearly a million miles in an instant.
The True