Across the vault of heaven, the Empress began to fade away. She did not bleed, nor were there any broken bones or snapped tendons, yet this was far more grievous than such injuries.
She was coming apart. Countless specks and shards of light streamed from her entire body.
These were known as fragments of the strong, a phenomenon that only appeared when a true powerhouse died in the fiercest of battles, after pushing their sublimation to its utmost limit.
They were the hallmark of the strong, and also the strong's elegy.
Without question, faced with the Emperor Lord's strike, the Empress had exhausted everything, burning herself to the very limit. Yet even so, she had still been slapped to death with a single palm.
Three-in-one—even merely the most preliminary form of three-in-one, not yet truly transformed into a quasi-singular state—was already this powerful.
They said that in cultivation, being one step ahead meant being incomparably ahead, while being a whole level ahead—perhaps even more than one level—the gap between them was beyond measure.
Originally, though the Emperor Lord was stronger than the Empress, he had not been infinitely stronger. But now, with the Empress's power, she could not withstand even a single palm from him.
Even Zhao Cheng himself had not anticipated such a turn of events.
After all, he was not omniscient or omnipotent, merely someone a little stronger than others. Though he had achieved the coexistence of three lifetimes and sent his will roaming through time, he had not expected the Emperor Lord to use such a method to accelerate time and pierce through the ages ahead of schedule.
And once the ages had been pierced through, it was not only the Emperor Lord whose power was continuously rising. Zhao Cheng's power was rising as well, only far