Lunar Dark Side, Moon-Malefic Star Lord, the Three Pure Ones Pass By

The eight little dragons took different forms: a Five-Clawed Golden Dragon clad in golden scales, a Void Purple Dragon wreathed entirely in purple radiance, a Geng Metal White Dragon covered in silver armor, a Profound Water Black Dragon sheathed in ink-black scales... Every one of them emanated the terrifying aura of a Perfected Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal. Their dragon might surged vast and mighty, sending ripples through layer after layer of space.

The largest True Dragon, meanwhile, possessed a human head and dragon body. An ancient, desolate aura of bygone ages coiled around it. As its eyes opened and closed, they actually echoed the Sun Star and Lunar Star in the heavens, radiating the genuine pressure of a Primordial Golden Immortal!

"Roar!"

"Swish, swish, swish—"

The phantoms of the eight smaller dragons moved first, transforming into eight chains of dazzling golden light. In an instant, they sealed off the surrounding millions of miles of space, trapping the fiend within. No matter how great his divine abilities, he could no longer move an inch.

"Boom!"

The Candle Dragon phantom with the human head and dragon body slowly raised its head. Its pair of eyes, containing the profound mysteries of ages beyond measure, abruptly opened.

Its left eye transformed into a great sun, its golden light stretching ten thousand zhang and incinerating all evil and sinister things in the world.

Its right eye transformed into a bright moon, its clear moonlight illuminating the darkness of the Nine Netherworlds.

As sun and moon revolved and day and night alternated, a vast and majestic force of time instantly enveloped the entire battlefield.

This was the supreme divine ability Candle Dragon had created by imitating Pangu's eyes transforming into the sun and moon—Sun-Moon Divine Eyes. With one opening and closing of its eyes, it could overturn day and night and throw time into chaos.

Moreover, not long ago, he had established the temporal concept of "ke" for the Primordial World. Naturally, the might of this divine ability had grown ever stronger.

"Bang!"

Under the unyielding blockade and restraint of the eight True Dragons, the fiend had no time to dodge before he was struck head-on by the temporal force of the Sun-Moon Divine Eyes!

"Aaaah!"

He let out an incomparably shrill scream, like a vicious ghost wailing in the night, piercing and grating to the ear.

He spewed a mouthful of ink-black demonic blood. More than half the towering black qi wrapped around his body instantly scattered away, making his already gaunt figure seem even more hunched. His aura had withered to the extreme, while his triangular eyes brimmed with incredulous fury and venomous hatred.

"Candle Dragon?!"

"Damn it! You actually dared to give the Nine-Dragon Treasure Staff to an outsider?!"

The fiend shrieked in rage, his voice full of exasperation and fury.

He had been caught completely off guard!

Truly, completely off guard!

No matter what, he had never imagined that Candle Dragon would simply hand over the Dragon Clan's ancestral foundation, left behind by Ancestral Dragon, to the Sun Star Lord, someone entirely unrelated to the Dragon Clan.

Had he known earlier that Lingxiao possessed such a trump card, how could he have launched a sneak attack without any precautions?

Now, not only had he failed to steal the chicken, but he had lost the rice as well, suffering grave injuries instead. Anger and panic churned in his heart as he feared that Lingxiao might pull out a second Nine-Dragon Treasure Staff.

—If that truly happened, then in his current state, let alone devouring Lingxiao's Solar Origin, whether he could preserve his life and escape alive would be another matter entirely!

The Candle Dragon phantom said nothing. It merely gave him a deep look, its gaze carrying an eternal, unchanging coldness and indifference.

After unleashing that earth-shaking blow, it transformed alongside the other eight True Dragons into streaks of golden light, once more condensing into carvings coiled around the Nine-Dragon Treasure Staff.

The Primordial Unity pressure emitted by the Nine-Dragon Treasure Staff also slowly receded as it fell into Lingxiao's hand.

That strike had exhausted the dragon qi accumulated within the treasure. It would need to draw in dragon qi from the Four Seas for eighty-one Yuanhu before it could unleash another world-destroying attack of such magnitude.

At this moment, it was little different from an ordinary Supreme-Grade Acquired Spiritual Treasure.

"Hmph!"

Moon-Malefic Star Lord was still shaken. Seeing that a second treasure staff did not appear in Lingxiao's hand, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Then, an even denser greed and resentment surfaced on his face.

That was right. The Nine-Dragon Treasure Staff was the final foundation Ancestral Dragon had left to the Dragon Clan. There had only ever been nine in the entire clan, and after several great calamities, few remained. It was already a tremendous surprise that one had been given away—how could there possibly be more?

"Junior, you truly have some good fortune, to be so highly regarded by Candle Dragon."

He wiped the black blood from the corner of his mouth. Savage light flashed in his triangular eyes as he spoke in a sinister tone:

"Even so, even wounded as I am, crushing a mere Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal like you is no harder than turning over my hand! Hand over the Solar Origin obediently, and I will grant you a swift death. Otherwise, I will tear out your soul and refine your spirit, making you suffer beneath yin fire day and night, never to be reborn for eternity!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he let out a furious roar. "Nine Transformations of the Yin Demon, Moon-Bane Blood River!"

The pitch-black skull beneath his feet shot into the air with a thunderous boom. Suspended in midair, the Black Moon Netherfire atop it suddenly flared up, transforming into a mass of black flames.

"Moon-Malefic? Could he be Moon-Malefic Star Lord from the Lunar Star's dark side?" Lingxiao narrowed his eyes slightly, and a guess instantly formed in his mind.

Moon-Malefic Star Lord was an ancient stellar mighty one from the same era as Rahu and Wangshu.

He had been born from the deepest Profound Yin Meteorite Crater on the Lunar Dark Side, taking form from the fusion of the sinister qi scattered through heaven and earth when Pangu cleaved open the world and the stellar power of the Lunar Dark Side.

This creature had a cryptic, cold temperament and acted with ruthless cruelty. He had once joined forces with Devil Ancestor Rahu and Demon Venerable Jidu to stir up the Dragon-Han Calamity and ravage all living beings, only to turn against one another over an uneven division of spoils.

Wangshu, the first Lunar Star Lord, had once regarded him as the Lunar Star's greatest hidden danger and expelled him with all her strength.

Thus, by the time Xihe and Changxi were born, he had long since departed the Lunar Star. He wandered the Primordial World, secretly taking pleasure in devouring Innate Sacred Beings.

Only when Lingxiao established the Twelve Time Markers and boundless Merit descended from heaven did the aura of that resplendent Solar Origin stir this evil demon from his long concealment.

"Oh? I never expected a junior like you to have heard of my illustrious name?"

Moon-Malefic Star Lord paused slightly, then let out a sinister cackle. Yet the movements of his hands did not stop in the slightest as he poured every last remnant of his Primordial Unity magic power into the skull-shaped spiritual treasure.

This skull was called the Yin Demon Skull, his companion treasure.

When heaven and earth had first opened, the core of the black moon on the Lunar Dark Side fused with a wisp of chaotic sinister qi. It absorbed the resentful thoughts of demon gods deposited across the starry sky over countless years before condensing into form. It was naturally compatible with his root code source of "governing punishments and calamities, dark erosion," and was a genuine Supreme-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure.

"Buzz."

"Crash!"

The Yin Demon Skull trembled violently, and a blood-colored river gushed from its mouth, surging without end and stretching across heaven and earth.

The river water was black as ink and shimmered with an eerie bloodlight. Its corrosive power was extremely potent. Wherever it passed, space was corroded into dense clusters of holes, while mountains, rocks, vegetation, and trees instantly turned to flying ash.

This river could not only wear down the treasure restrictions of spiritual treasures and defile cultivators' Primordial Spirits, but anyone who fell into it would be directly refined into Demonic Thought Puppets, forever barred from rebirth.

Within it were no fewer than one hundred and eight thousand Demonic Thought Puppets, all formed from the remains of Innate Sacred Beings and cultivators devoured by Moon-Malefic Star Lord over the years. Among them alone were twelve puppets at the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal level!

"Boom!"

At the same time, the black qi around Moon-Malefic Star Lord surged explosively. His body suddenly twisted, transforming into the true form of a yin demon with nine heads and three faces.

Every head had a blue face and vicious fangs, grotesque and terrifying. They corresponded respectively to nine dark erosion killing moves, such as spewing poisonous mist, releasing qi blades, controlling puppets, and chanting curses.

With all nine heads emerging at once, demonic qi surged to the heavens. Even a true Primordial Golden Immortal would have to avoid its edge for the moment.

Lingxiao's expression turned solemn. His left hand gripped the Sun God Sword, while the Great Sun Golden Crow Primordial Spirit within his Consciousness Sea was already poised to act, prepared to bring forth the Innate Supreme Treasure, the Chaos Bell, for defense.

—Had Moon-Malefic Star Lord been at his peak, even with the Chaos Bell in hand, Lingxiao might not have been able to retreat unscathed.

Fortunately, the former had been severely wounded by Candle Dragon's strike, leaving him with less than one-tenth of his strength. So long as Lingxiao weathered this burst of power, victory might not be impossible.

"Insolent evil demon!"

"How dare you harm Pangu's descendants!"

"Fellow Daoist Lingxiao, enter the pagoda and take shelter!"

At that critical moment, three streams of clear light sped in from the horizon, so fast that they reached the sky above the battlefield in the blink of an eye.

Three figures stood shoulder to shoulder, with a pagoda entirely of mystic yellow hovering above their heads. Boundless Merit Golden Light flowed around it. It was the Postcelestial Merit Supreme Treasure known as "invincible when held above one's head"—the Heaven-Earth Mystic Yellow Exquisite Pagoda.

The newcomers were none other than the Three Pure Ones!