Gods? Mere Ants!

An aged voice suddenly rang out over the square.

"This is the headquarters of the Cultivation Alliance."

"Since when was it the turn of some flat-feathered bird from a lower realm to squawk and screech here?"

As the voice sounded...

Violent spatial ripples suddenly appeared in the starry sky above the square.

An old man in a purple starry robe edged with gold stepped out of the void.

Seven glittering silver stars were embroidered on the old man's clothes.

This was a Seven-Star Alliance Envoy of the Cultivation Alliance, whose status was second only to an elder.

The old man's head was full of silver hair, and his face was withered, yet his eyes seemed to contain a vast sea of stars.

The instant he appeared...

The tens of thousands of cultivators in the entire square all stopped talking.

Those Nascent Soul guards were so frightened their faces went pale, and they dropped straight to their knees, prostrating themselves completely.

"Greetings, Lord Seven-Star Envoy!"

The tens of thousands of voices shouting in unison gathered into a wave of sound that shook Qian Renxue's Angel Domain violently.

The old man paid no attention at all to the people on the ground.

With his hands clasped behind his back, he casually glanced at the gigantic golden sword cleaving down toward his head.

"A petty trick."

The old man did not even raise a hand.

He merely gave a light snort through his nose.

"Hmph."

To the surrounding cultivators, that cold snort was merely the most ordinary sound.

But to Qian Renxue's ears, it was like divine thunder from the highest heavens exploding inside her mind.

Crack!

That sacred colossal sword, condensed from all of Qian Renxue's Soul Power and radiating terrifying heat...

Stopped dead in midair when it was still ten zhang from the top of the old man's head.

Then dense cracks appeared across the surface of the golden blade.

There was no explosion, nor any energy leaking out.

This holy sword that represented the Angel Verdict simply turned into golden powder filling the sky beneath the old man's cold snort.

The powder scattered with the wind, leaving not even the slightest residue behind.

"Pfft!"

Qian Renxue instantly felt as though she had been struck by lightning.

The immense pain of her martial soul's backlash made her violently spit out a large mouthful of blood.

The Angel Domain she was so proud of was like a fragile soap bubble, bursting in an instant.

Qian Renxue fell straight down from midair and smashed heavily onto the white jade floor.

Douluo Continent fell completely silent.

Inside the Pope Palace in Spirit City, the consecration elders all had their mouths wide open as they stared blankly at the light screen.

Light Feather Douluo felt cold all over, not even noticing when the Ice Bow in his hand fell to the floor.

"How is that possible..."

"That was the Angel Holy Sword..."

Bibi Dong's hands dug tightly into the armrests of her throne, her nails drawing blood from the excessive force.

She had finally glimpsed the tip of that world's iceberg.

The aura of that old man in the purple robe was as vast as the sea.

Compared to Zhou Wutai, who had casually crushed the body-snatcher to death in the death prison earlier, this old man was countless times stronger.

Before someone like him, the Soul Power of Douluo Continent was simply even more fragile than air.

In the scene...

The Seven-Star Envoy slowly descended from midair and stopped in front of Qian Renxue.

He looked down from above at the blond woman whose mouth was full of blood, who was struggling to climb to her feet.

"Somewhat interesting."

The old man stroked his withered chin, a hint of intrigued light appearing in his eyes.

"There clearly wasn't a trace of cultivator spiritual energy inside you, yet you possessed the law of light."

"And those three pairs of wings on your back seemed to have been condensed from some kind of faith power."

Every word the old man spoke increased the pressure on Qian Renxue by another degree.

Qian Renxue clenched her teeth, braced both hands against the ground, and stared fixedly at this unfathomable old monster.

"You... who exactly are you?"

Qian Renxue's voice carried a tremor she could not hide.

"I am the inheritor of the Angel God's divine seat. If you dare hurt me, the divine realm won't let you off!"

Even at a time like this, Qian Renxue still wanted to drag out the banner of the divine realm to intimidate him.

When the old man heard this, he could not help laughing.

That laughter was filled with pity for the ignorant beings of the lower realm.

"The divine realm?"

With his hands clasped behind his back, the old man gazed deep toward the end of the starry sky.

"Little girl, this old man is in a good mood today, so I'll let you die knowing the truth. I'll also let you see exactly what that so-called divine realm of yours amounts to in the eyes of my Cultivation Alliance."

The old man slowly raised his right hand.

His sleeve stirred without wind.

A vast divine sense that could not be described in words instantly enveloped the entire Reception Plaza.

Under the pressure of that divine sense, Qian Renxue felt as if her very soul had frozen. She could not even move a finger.

"Within the star domains governed by my Cultivation Alliance, there are one hundred and eight thousand cultivation planets."

The old man's voice was like a great bell, resounding across the entire sky of Douluo Continent.

"Among them are many remote, desolate, inferior waste planets, where the beings have yet to be enlightened and do not understand the method of breathing and absorbing qi."

"And so there are certain spirits and monsters with only a superficial grasp of the craft, or low-level rogue cultivators at the end of their rope, who run to those waste planets and play gods and ghosts."

"They set themselves up as gods and absorb mortals' incense and faith to cultivate."

The old man lowered his head and looked at Qian Renxue, his eyes full of mockery.

"The Angel God you speak of is nothing more than this sort of inferior incense spirit body, lingering on its last breath by relying on Incense Wish Power."

"In the Star Domain Records of my Cultivation Alliance, these so-called divine realms are wiped out by the alliance's Enforcement Team by the hundreds every year."

"The best fate for those incense spirit bodies that call themselves God Kings and main gods is to be captured and refined into artifact spirits for magical treasures."

Every word from the old man cut straight to the heart.

Like sharp knives, they stabbed fiercely into the hearts of all the believers in the gods across Douluo Continent.

Sea God Island.

Bo Saixi listened to the voice coming from the Sky Screen, and her entire body collapsed powerlessly beneath the Sea God Pillar.

An incense spirit body? An inferior spirit monster?

The Sea God to whom she had devoted her entire life, whom she regarded as supreme above all else, was in the eyes of this Cultivation Alliance actually just a low-level cultivation method that needed to be periodically purged?

Shrek Academy.

Tang San's entire body went cold.

He had always taken becoming a god as his goal, and had even faintly sensed the Sea God's inheritance trials.

But now, this old monster from the cultivation world had directly trampled the very concept of "god" deep into the mud.

So it turned out that the end point they were willing to fight to the death to reach...

In a higher-dimensional universe, was merely low-end material others used for artifact refining.

In the image, Qian Renxue's entire worldview completely collapsed.

She shook her head in despair, tears spilling from her eyes.

"No, impossible. You're lying to me..."

Qian Renxue cried out hysterically.

All her pride, all her faith, was stripped away completely before the old man's casual words.

The old man had grown tired of watching this farce.

He turned around, his back to Qian Renxue.

"Although the light faith power inside this little girl is mixed, fortunately, it can still be considered pure."

The old man spoke indifferently, as if ordering some trivial matter.

"Cut off those three pairs of wings on her back and send them to the alliance's Artifact Refining Pavilion."

"This old man happens to be short one light-attribute flying magical treasure for transportation."

"As for her people..."

The old man paused.

"Drain the power of faith from their bodies and throw them into the starry sky to feed the Starry Sky Beasts."

As soon as he finished speaking, the old man took a step forward and vanished once more into the void of the starry sky.

Several Nascent Soul guards immediately stepped forward.

Their faces were expressionless as they took out boning knives from their storage pouches, each blade gleaming with a cold light.

"No! Don't touch me!"

Qian Renxue struggled in despair, but under the pressure of the Nascent Soul realm, she could not even detonate her martial soul.

The icy blade mercilessly sliced open the flesh on her back.

Golden blood gushed out, staining the flawless white jade floor red.

The sacred wings that belonged to the Six-Winged Angel were carved from Qian Renxue's back alive by those cultivators, as casually as cutting leeks.

The image on the Sky Screen, amid Qian Renxue's shrieks that had turned hoarse and warped, gradually became a blinding field of bloodred.

Qian Renxue lay sprawled on the cold White Jade Plaza.

Golden blood trickled down her ruined back, dripping steadily to the ground.

The three pairs of wings that had once represented sanctity and flawlessness were gone without a trace.

The agonizing pain from her wounds made her body twitch and convulse uncontrollably.

The Nascent Soul guards carefully put the severed wings into their storage pouches.

"The quality of these feathers is barely acceptable. Send them to the Artifact Refining Pavilion."

The scar-faced guard in the lead waved a hand, not even glancing at Qian Renxue on the ground.

Beside him, a sharp-faced Foundation Establishment menial disciple sidled over with a flattering smile.

"My lord, there's still some remnant faith of light in this woman's body. Wouldn't it be a bit of a waste to throw her straight to the Starry Sky Beasts?"

The scar-faced guard glanced at Qian Renxue, then gave an indifferent nod.

"Then drag her to the outer Myriad Worlds Incense Array and squeeze out the last bit of her reserves."

The menial disciple accepted the order, stepped forward, and grabbed Qian Renxue by her long golden hair.

Just like that, he dragged her across the White Jade Plaza like a dead wild dog, leaving a long trail of blood behind.

Qian Renxue did not even have the strength to struggle.

Her eyes were utterly hollow. The complete shattering of her worldview was far more fatal than the mutilation of her body.

Outside the Sky Screen, in Spirit City.

Inside the Pope Palace, it was so quiet that even a falling needle could be heard.

Bibi Dong closed her eyes, her hands gripping the armrests tightly, the blood seeping from her nails staining the seat red.

The noblest young mistress of Spirit Hall had actually been dragged along by the lowest menial disciple like some lowly material.

This was not only Qian Renxue's personal humiliation; it was the dignity of the entire Douluo Continent being trampled into the mud and ground down again and again.

In the image, the menial disciple carried Qian Renxue and flew past more than a dozen massive floating meteorites.

Ahead, in the starry sky, an enormous pitch-black array appeared.

The array covered tens of thousands of miles, with dense gray-black mist drifting around it.

Before they even drew near, the pungent smell of burning and countless shrill screams rushed toward them.

The menial disciple casually flung Qian Renxue away, sending her crashing heavily onto a black stone altar at the edge of the array.

She struggled to lift her head and looked toward the interior of the grand array, following the sound of the screams.

She only took one look.

And this once-lofty young mistress of Spirit Hall completely stopped breathing.

At the center of the grand array burned an enormous ghostly green flame.

Tens of thousands of thick black chains extended out from the void, interweaving into a gigantic spiderweb.

At the end of every chain, a living being radiating terrifying pressure was locked down tight.

Qian Renxue saw that on the chain nearest to her, a giant a hundred zhang tall was shackled.

The giant's entire body radiated law fluctuations like a vast ocean, and in his hand he still tightly gripped a broken trident.

That pure pressure of water was something Qian Renxue had only ever sensed in the recorded legends of the Sea God.

The giant was struggling and roaring in the flames, his hair disheveled.

"I am the Lord God of the Sea of the Canglan Realm! I command the four seas, the eight wildernesses, and billions of aquatic beings!"

"You cultivators dare humiliate this god so! You will surely suffer heavenly condemnation!"

Ghostly green flames spread along the iron chains, instantly engulfing the giant completely.

The giant's roar immediately turned into a heart-rending howl.

Threads of blue faith power were forcibly stripped out of the depths of his soul by the flames.

As his faith was taken, the giant's enormous body began to shrivel at terrifying speed.

The crown atop his head, symbolizing divine authority, also dimmed, until at last it turned to ash in the flames.

Qian Renxue stiffly turned her neck and looked deeper into the sea of fire.

There, an ancient beast wreathed from head to toe in purple lightning was chained, its aura more terrifying than any soul beast in the Star Dou Great Forest.

There was also the phantom of a Buddha with eight arms and a golden halo floating behind his head, chanting scriptures in despair.

These gods, worshiped by countless living beings in their respective lower-plane worlds and enthroned high above the clouds...

At this moment, all of them had become livestock on chains, waiting to be slaughtered.

Douluo Continent, Sea God Island.

Bo Saixi watched as the giant who called himself the Lord of the Sea of the Canglan Realm was drained alive.

Her legs went weak, and she collapsed directly onto the Sea God Stairs, as if she had aged ten years in an instant.

That giant's aura was clearly several degrees stronger than the Sea God she believed in.

Inside Shrek Academy.

Tang San clenched his teeth hard, his eyes filled with terror and a deep sense of powerlessness.

He could not accept that the dignity of gods could be trampled on so wantonly.

The images on the Sky Screen continued, displaying the cruelty of the cultivation world in full.

Above the Myriad Worlds Incense Array floated several enormous bronze cauldrons.

The various-colored faith power stripped out by the flames poured into the cauldrons like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.

The cauldrons slowly revolved, letting out tremendous rumbles.

The array masters of the Cultivation Alliance manipulated the array cores expressionlessly.

They were simply carrying out a dull, assembly-line process, without the slightest ripple in their eyes.

With a muffled buzz...

The lid of one bronze cauldron was lifted by the array.

Hundreds upon thousands of gray pills, each only the size of a fingernail and giving off a muddled aura, spewed out of the furnace.

The pills fell onto the jade trays below, making crisp clinking sounds.

These were the industrial consumables the cultivation world used for trade and to assist low-level disciples in cultivation: Incense Pills.

The menial disciple who had dragged Qian Renxue over walked up to the deacon distributing the pills.

The deacon casually grabbed a handful of freshly refined Incense Pills and tossed them to the menial disciple like he was shooing away a beggar, using them as his payment for today's errand.

The menial disciple caught the pills and held them under his nose, sniffing them carefully.

His brow furrowed, and his face filled with disgust as he spat on the ground.

"Pah, the quality of this batch of Incense Pills is way too poor. They're practically impossible to swallow!"

The menial disciple grumbled and cursed.

"That so-called Canglan Sea God gathered faith power this mixed and chaotic? It doesn't even count as a single low-grade pill."

He casually threw the worst pills onto the ground.

A low-level spirit dog with three tails, which had been following at his feet, wagged its tails and ran over.

The spirit dog sniffed the pills on the ground, then curled its tongue around them and crunched them up like dog food before swallowing.

After eating, the spirit dog even let out a full burp.