Silence.
An absolute, deathly silence that stripped away every sense and made even the soul tremble in its stillness.
There was no deafening explosion, no blast of air to rupture eardrums, no sky collapsing or earth splitting apart.
The instant the illusory staff, formed from pure golden Martial Astral Force and pitch-black Demon Aura, struck the violet Heavenly Punishment lightning descending from the nine heavens, the Linjiang Forbidden Zone seemed to fall mute beneath an invisible, almighty hand. Water from the River of Forgetfulness had flooded this killing ground, filling it with endless Death Qi and despair.
Violet Heavenly Punishment embodied this world's supreme will to erase. It was the Heavenly Dao's absolute judgment upon an "anomaly," upon anything that disrupted the balance of its fundamental rules.
An ordinary Grandmaster who so much as brushed against a wisp of that violet lightning would be erased in an instant, flesh, bone, and Three Souls and Seven Spirits alike.
Yet Li Xiang's illusory staff met that bucket-thick bolt of violet lightning head-on with a brute force that defied all reason.
"Hiss... hiss, hiss..."
A hair-raising sound of annihilation finally broke the profound silence.
It was not thunder tearing through flesh. It was two utterly different sets of rules devouring and savaging each other in the oldest, cruelest way.
In Li Xiang's sight, the violet lightning writhed like countless frenzied vipers, racing down the illusory staff to burn the mortal who dared defy heaven's might to ash.
But the moment it touched the intertwined gold and black flames around the staff, it was like snow meeting the heart of a star. An incomprehensibly domineering force crushed it into the most basic particles of energy!
"Break... you bastard!"
Light from Li Xiang's Fiery Golden Eyes shot three feet outward. The roar rising from his