Asura God seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. His grip around Qian Chongguang's neck tightened. "A puny divine official who just broke through level 100—I could crush you to death with one finger."
He hadn't taken Qian Chongguang seriously at all.
In the eyes of a Supreme God King like him, a newly ascended god was no different from an ant on the ground.
He could crush one to death with a mere lift of his hand.
He didn't think Qian Chongguang had any means of resisting a God King like him.
"If you don't believe me, by all means, let me try."
Qian Chongguang wiped the divine blood at the corner of his mouth. The blue-purple marks around his neck still throbbed with pain, but there wasn't the slightest trace of fear in his eyes. Instead, they held an almost brazen certainty.
At his words, Asura God first froze, then gave a derisive laugh laced with malice. He truly hadn't taken this newly ascended ant seriously. Rather than crushing him outright, he might as well see what tricks the fellow who had ruined tens of thousands of years of his plans could pull.
His fingertip relaxed, and the force that could crush a divine soul abruptly vanished. The aftershock sent Qian Chongguang stumbling back two steps before he barely managed to regain his footing on the White Jade Divine Platform.
"Very well. I'll give you the chance to strike." Asura God stood with his hands behind his back, his blood-red robes snapping in the surging divine power. The aura of slaughter around him, however, did not diminish in the slightest. "I want to see what earth-shattering ability you, an ant, are hiding."
Before his words had even faded, two utterly opposed divine lights suddenly flared in Qian Chongguang's palms.
In his left hand shone a dazzling, pure golden light. A Sword of Light engraved with the patterns of a Six-Winged Angel slowly took shape, its flowing divine power pure enough to cleanse every evil in the world—the most orthodox source of light belonging to the Angel Clan. In his right hand, however, lay an abyss of ink-black darkness, so dense it seemed to swallow the light. A Sword of Darkness wreathed in dark patterns appeared at the same time, the annihilating demonic energy surging along its blade forming a strange yet perfect balance with the ultimate light.
The moment both swords appeared, the entire Ascension Staircase was enveloped in the interwoven power of light and darkness.
Asura God's brows lifted slightly. At last, a flicker of surprise crossed his previously careless gaze. He had commanded the Laws of Slaughter for tens of thousands of years, and had seen the iron rule that light and darkness were mutually opposed countless times. He also knew all too well that the Angel Clan's source of light was utterly hostile to dark power.
Yet Qian Chongguang before him had managed to control both forces with such perfect harmony—and could even manifest two swords at once?
But his surprise lasted only an instant before it was replaced by even deeper disdain. He scoffed, his tone dripping with condescension. "Light and Dark Twin Swords? That's it?"
"Whether they're worthy of the Lord God King's notice, you'll find out when you take a single sword strike from me!"
Qian Chongguang laughed aloud. The White Jade beneath his feet shattered as he sprang forward, his figure turning into a streak of interwoven light and darkness. Swinging both swords, he slashed at Asura God with a strike that ripped through space. The purifying power of light and the annihilating power of darkness intertwined, unleashing might that nearly matched the full-force attack of a Second-Level God—far beyond the limits of a newly ascended divine official.
But before Asura God, a Supreme God King who commanded the Laws, that strike still wasn't enough.
Facing the incoming slash, Asura God didn't even raise a hand to summon a divine weapon. He merely flicked a finger, as if on a whim. A streak of blood-red divine power, condensed to the utmost, shot through the air and shattered the interwoven light-and-dark slash outright. The shockwave surged up along the twin swords, splitting Qian Chongguang's palms and making even the bones in his hands crack under the strain.
Before he could steady himself, Asura God's second move had already arrived. He merely flicked his hand, and slaughtering divine power swept over him like a tidal wave. Qian Chongguang didn't even have a chance to block before he was blasted away and slammed into the White Jade Divine Platform, smashing out a crater several dozen feet deep. Divine blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, and even the arm gripping the twin swords trembled.
It had taken no more than two moves for him to be utterly defeated.
Asura God gazed down at Qian Chongguang, sprawled in the crater, his gaze full of even greater boredom. Even his killing intent had faded somewhat, leaving only utter mockery. "I thought you had some trump card that could topple the Divine Realm. So this is all you can do? You're not even worthy of making me lift a finger."
Unexpectedly, Qian Chongguang in the crater showed no sign of defeat. Instead, he suddenly burst out laughing. Leaning on his twin swords, he slowly rose to his feet and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. His laughter was full of the mockery of a trick successfully played. He lifted his chin and jerked it toward Asura God.
"Don't rush to conclusions, Lord God King." His voice was hoarse with pain, but every word was clear. "Why don't you lower your head and see what wonderful thing you're standing on?"
Asura God's brows knitted tightly, and an inexplicable sense of foreboding rose in his heart. He instinctively lowered his gaze to look beneath his feet—
On the White Jade Divine Platform, which had remained untouched by dust for ten thousand years and could not be sullied by even the slightest aftershock of divine power, lay a dense scattering of yellow-white filth around the battle boots of the God King who had trodden the myriad heavens and commanded the Divine Realm's laws. The rank stench somehow penetrated even the divine light protecting his body. It was unmistakably the excrement of mortal beings!
The body of a God King had long since transcended the mortal world. The divine light protecting him automatically kept out every kind of filth, so not even such vile refuse—let alone dust from the Divine Realm—could touch him. And yet now, the most vile and vulgar filth of the mortal world lay shamelessly at his feet, with no small amount of it already smeared across his battle boots!
How had this been done without anyone noticing?
Had the attack just now been an illusion?
Silence.
After a deathly silence came a fury so immense it could overturn the entire Divine Realm.
The blood-red divine power around Asura God exploded in an instant, grinding the surrounding sea of clouds into powder. The sky over the entire Divine Realm churned with crimson thunderclouds, and deafening divine thunder roared again and again. Even the immensely stable land of the Divine Realm trembled. His blood-red eyes were now utterly filled with rage, and the killing aura around him had grown so dense it seemed almost tangible—as if it would drag the entire Ascension Staircase into a blood-soaked hell.
"Damnable ant!"
His voice seemed to scrape its way out from between the teeth of the deepest reaches of hell, every word filled with hatred enough to crush divine souls and burn all things.
"You dare defile me and the Divine Realm with such filth! I'll crush your divine soul to pieces and cast it into the deepest reaches of the Ninefold Nether Purgatory, where you'll endure ten thousand years of fire and blades, never to be reborn!"
For ten thousand years, Asura God had commanded the Divine Realm's laws and witnessed seas of blood, mountains of corpses, and battles across the heavens. Even during the Dragon God War, he had never lost his composure. But today, the most vulgar and vile insult from the mortal world had struck like a poison-tipped dagger, stabbing deep into the proud heart of this Supreme God King.