"Chu Tian."
Shen Ming's voice came from within the burning Great Dao, hoarse yet calm—so calm it did not sound like someone burning his own Great Dao.
"You are the strongest Emperor Venerable I have ever seen. Throughout the ages, there has never been another. But I refuse to believe you can withstand this sword. After this strike, either you die, or I perish."
As his words fell, the golden greatsword came slashing down.
This sword contained no technique. No variation. No laws.
It was the supreme strike Shen Ming had unleashed after burning five Great Daos, infinitely close to the threshold of the Creation Realm.
The sword light cut across the heavens, brighter than the light of the Immortal-Slaughtering Sword, fiercer than the blade light of the World-Destroying Blade, thicker than the pillar of light from the Epoch Ancient Pagoda.
Where the sword light passed, the White Thunder Sea was cleaved apart down the middle—not forced back, but cleaved apart.
Tribulation lightning, tribulation light, tribulation fire—everything split to either side beneath the pressure of the golden sword light, like a white ocean carved down the middle with a bottomless chasm.
Chu Tian's figure was swallowed by the sword light.
The instant the sword light touched him, his dark-golden skin began to crack—not shallow fissures, but cracks deep enough to expose bone, splitting from skin all the way to his skeleton.
Golden blood gushed from every crack, while golden flames burned along every fissure's edges.
His bones creaked and groaned. The dark-golden radiance of Proving the Dao with Force surged madly through his skeleton, attempting to mend the fractures, but the sword light's destructive speed far surpassed its rate of repair.
His eighth Great Dao—the still-outlined Proving the Dao with Force—shuddered violently beneath the sword light's pressure.
Fist imprints, palm