Only Devouring and a few remnants of Doppelganger remained.
Summers's body had lost all recognizable shape. Most of his flesh had burned away, leaving his skeleton exposed, golden flames threading in and out between his bones.
He no longer screamed. No longer cursed.
He merely curled up in a corner, using his remaining Dao of Devouring to preserve his last shred of life.
The sixth year.
Even his flesh was gone.
Only a few flickering threads of law floated within the Guixu Pearl. They were all that remained of Summers's Great Dao origins: the pitch black of the Way of Devouring, the dark purple of Doppelganger's remnants.
The two colors struggled in the golden sea of fire, flickering between light and darkness.
At the center of those threads of law was a cluster of light so faint it was almost invisible.
His divine soul.
The seat of Summers's last vestige of consciousness.
It was impossibly weak. A gust of wind could have scattered it.
But he was still alive.
Still struggling.
"Chen Hao..."
A threadlike ripple of consciousness drifted from that speck of light.
"You won this round..."
The golden flames continued burning the remaining threads of law, eroding them inch by inch, refining them inch by inch.
A section of the pitch-black Dao of Devouring snapped off.
Another segment of the dark-purple Doppelganger remnants vanished.
The light of Summers's divine soul grew dimmer.
"But you can't change the ending..."
The seventh year.
Inside the Guixu Pearl, only a golden sea of fire and three wavering remnants of law remained.
Ninety percent of the Dao of Devouring had already been refined away. Only a strand of its innermost origin still held on.
Not because Summers had any strength left to resist, but because that strand of origin was so densely