Still, he intended to go there and stop her.
After all, the Demon Empress becoming a god would benefit no one, no matter what.
Because she was an Evil Soul Master.
Moreover, her true identity was a million-year-old Deep Sea Demonic Whale King.
She was also the wife of the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King Tang San had slain all those years ago.
The Demon Empress who had lain hidden for ten thousand years in the original story, only revealing her trump card during the abyssal invasion...
Was now paving her stairway to godhood with the blood of tens of millions.
Just then, Cao Xin stepped out through the window of the Sea God Pavilion. There were no steps beneath his feet, nor any wind. Only the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window suddenly intensified severalfold, enveloping him.
His figure grew translucent and indistinct within the light, like a drop of water evaporating in the sun...
Then he vanished completely from the study.
The Dou Ling Continent.
Cao Xin appeared above a stretch of ruins.
Those ruins had once been a city, but now only charred walls and billowing smoke remained.
Cracks webbed the ground, but what welled up from them was not groundwater.
It was layer upon layer of dark red crystals.
The air reeked of blood so thick it turned the stomach, mingled with the smell of scorched earth and metal.
In the distance...
More ruined cities stood silent beneath the blood-red sky, like empty husks drained of life.
Cao Xin swept his gaze over the ruins, then looked farther afield.
He could sense the vast array at work, like an enormous heart buried deep underground, beating with tens of millions of lives as its fuel.
The sacrificed souls and blood became torrents of dark red, pouring