The Immortal Artifact Heir was dead.
Here, in this solemn place wreathed in incense smoke, before three imposing, indistinct humanoid statues, he had died without the slightest power to resist.
He had burned everything in the earlier battle. Now his final fate had arrived.
As a peak Void Refining cultivator, the Immortal Artifact Heir had no means of surviving a foe of the same rank.
Three things fell where he had stood.
One was a ruined furnace the size of a fist, riddled with holes. In places, the heat had melted great gaps through it.
This was likely the Immortal Artifact Heir's bonded artifact: an artifact embryo forged from the finest ninth-tier inherited divine metal of the Upper Realm, the foundation on which the Dao Child would very likely attain supremacy one day.
Even after the Immortal Artifact Heir burned everything, much remained that could not be burned.
Another was something shaped like a magic cube, dark and lightless. It might have been a storage artifact, but Jiang Ding could not be sure.
The last was a string of runic chains suspended between the real and the unreal, shimmering with spiritual light. Within that light lay the mysteries of fate and puppet computers, beautiful enough to take one's breath away.
These were rather like the hardest parts left behind when a demonic beast died.
Jiang Ding silently gathered his spoils and flew away without looking back.
The pitch-black opening was shrinking rapidly, but that was no obstacle. The Materialist Solar Sword Soul could soar across vast cosmic distances in an instant. A mere few steps could hardly stop it.
The sword soul was about to fly through the pitch-black opening.
Then the opening snapped shut.
Jiang Ding stopped in silence. He turned and slowly looked up at the three towering,