The Fall of an Orthodox God, the Shattering of the Heavens

At the foot of Ridge Vein Mountain, heaven and earth changed color. Under the clash of two deities, space, already shattered, became a seething pool of destructive lightning.

To Xia Xing and the others, this battle had passed beyond anything Qi Refining cultivators could comprehend.

It was no mere contest of spiritual power, but a struggle in which Divine Edicts of a higher order eroded and strangled one another.

Every thunderous clash of metal shook the Earth Vein and tore fine rents in space. The spreading shockwaves ground the ruined Pill Kiln to dust.

The Night Patrol Wandering Deity's enormous black-iron body was a killing machine that never tired. Its logic was simple and pure, and cold to the extreme.

Beneath this "nightfall," after ten thousand years of deathly silence, any stirring of living breath marked its source as a fiend violating the curfew.

It targeted no one in particular. It targeted everything "restless" in this territory.

"Purge... them!"

The Wandering Deity's double pupils, which seemed to swallow firelight, suddenly narrowed. Its Iron Mace swept toward the fleeing candidates through pitch-black Astral Wind, like Death's crescent blade reaping lives.

Before the mace even fell, the crushing difference in rank split several fugitives' bodies inch by inch. Blood gushed from their pores.

"That is blood fodder I set aside! How dare a lump of iron with its spirit severed squander it!"

In midair, the Beast-Rearing Envoy let out a shrill roar of naked greed.

The Envoy was not saving anyone out of kindness. In the Envoy's warped understanding, these candidates, rich in Merit and vital blood, had long since been branded as livestock.

They were provisions to sustain the Envoy through the next ten thousand years of oblivion, resources for rebuilding a divine body. No one else would be allowed to