There was no drawn-out battle, no standoff, not even an obstacle that could halt Mu Chen's steps for half a breath.
Wherever he passed, ferocious beasts died, venomous insects turned to ash, and monstrous plants withered.
It was as though he had not entered a forbidden land whose very mention made people pale, but merely strolled through a slightly overgrown thicket, casually brushing aside a few thorns in his path.
Before such an absolute disparity in strength, the Black Nether Abyss's fearsome reputation seemed pale and laughable.
After he crossed the Black Poison Marsh, a jumble of roars and thundering footsteps drifted faintly from ahead, rumbling like thunder.
Mu Chen raised an eyebrow and headed toward the sound.
Passing through a valley, he found a vast basin spread out before him!
The basin was immense, scorched black as though burned.
Mu Chen stood atop a raised rocky ridge, his gaze sweeping forward. Stark white skeletons littered the black basin.
On the far side of the basin, dust billowed into the sky.
A beast horde!
Countless spirit beasts, packed together in a dense mass, were charging out of the Black Nether Abyss's ink-black forest!
Their eyes were bloodshot, saliva dribbled uncontrollably from their mouths, and guttural growls rumbled in their throats as they charged recklessly toward the volcanic crater at the basin's center.
The white Bone Sea cracked incessantly beneath iron hooves and sharp claws, bone dust rising to mingle with the smoke and dirt.
The beasts paid no heed to the bones beneath their feet. Their eyes held only that volcano.
At the sight, Mu Chen knew he had come to the right place!
At the dormant volcanic crater in the basin's center, a black egg of light roughly ten feet across emerged without a sound.
An enormous luminous bird pattern marked its shell, its lines bold and ancient, exuding an indescribable nobility and mystery.
As it beat its wings, an unseen hand seemed to wipe away another layer of light from the sky, already gloomy beneath the Black Nether Abyss's deadly miasma, dimming it further.
Screee!
A clear cry rang out, its sound waves rippling silently outward, spreading gently in every direction.
The sound waves brushed across the horde. In an instant, flesh melted away and fur turned to ash!
Only skeletons remained...
Life was stripped away so utterly, so quietly, that the sight instead possessed a breathtaking, sinister beauty.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-
Streaks of spiritual light in different colors, each equally dense and powerful, tore through the dark sky like a meteor shower flowing backward, or ten thousand arrows of light on a pilgrimage.
Humm!
The dark radiance on the black egg's surface abruptly blazed.
It swallowed every streak of light.
Crack.
Without warning, a fissure opened across the surface of the black egg of light, roughly ten feet across.
Boom!
Black flames instantly enveloped the entire egg!
The spiritual energy throughout this stretch of heaven and earth suddenly seethed violently, like cold water poured into boiling oil!
An ancient, noble pressure began to spread as the black flames burned.
Screee-!!!
Another clear cry rang out, higher and more piercing than any before it, as though it echoed directly in the depths of the soul!
The black flames enveloping the egg exploded outward, becoming a tornado of black fire that connected heaven and earth!
An enormous wing covered in deep black feathers slowly unfurled from the flames where destruction and rebirth intertwined, graceful yet powerful.
The wing was so vast that even the portion extending out already obscured nearly half the sky!
Towering black flames spread across the heavens like a burning sea of ink, and the enormous silhouette within fully stretched out her body!
Like an undying bird reborn through karmic flames!
Terrifying spiritual pressure swept across the entire basin like a tangible tsunami, even reaching the distant mountain forests of the Black Nether Abyss.
The air grew heavy and the earth trembled faintly. Ordinary creatures would surely have had their livers and gallbladders split with terror beneath such pressure!
"Is that Nine Nether?" Mu Chen murmured.
He looked up at the enormous figure looming indistinctly within the black flames, sensing the might that made the spiritual energy of heaven and earth boil. His gaze remained calm and untroubled.
The pressure descended upon him like a mountain, yet it was no more than a gentle breeze brushing over a ridge, unable to shake him in the slightest.
Mu Chen moved.
Without warning, without testing her.
In the instant before the Nine Nether Sparrow raised her neck toward the heavens to summon the tribulation that belonged to her alone-
"Boom!!!"
Thunder erupted from flat ground!
The hard, scorched ridge beneath Mu Chen's feet seemed to be trampled by an invisible primordial giant's foot. A terrifying web of cracks exploded across it instantly, sending shattered rocks flying and dust surging back!
His thought arrived, and power was already born!
The vast spiritual energy he had amassed fully awakened in that moment, surging fiercely toward the Nine Nether Sparrow, who had just completed her rebirth!
Emperor's fallen double pupils, open!
Amid Void-Piercing Insight, two indescribably strange streams of radiant light flowed forth, enveloping his entire body in an instant!
They appeared thin, yet seemed to isolate an independent domain, Impervious to All Techniques, from which every evil recoiled!
Rustle, rustle-
The resonant voice of the Great Dao echoed!
Divine ability: Chaos Dao Diagram!
The essential principles of countless basic spiritual arts poured madly into the diagram.
The saber's sharpness, the sword's nimbleness, the palm's brute force, the finger's concentration, footwork's shifting movements, the shield's protection... myriad methods of wielding spiritual energy shed their dross and retained their essence in that instant!
Evolving every art, empowering his own body!
Tower, come!
Mu Chen barked coldly in his mind. In the next instant, the One-Qi Chaos Tower appeared above his palm!
At that moment, his innate chaos saint body dao embryo also erupted in full!
"Go!"
Facing Nine Nether's enormous body, Mu Chen mercilessly pressed his palm downward through the air!
The One-Qi Chaos Tower above his palm shot forth at his command.
A hundred feet! A thousand feet! A hundred thousand feet!
The gigantic tower blotted out the sky and sun, its shadow engulfing the scorched basin below along with most of the Nine Nether Sparrow's body.
Only now did Nine Nether finally react!
"Screee-!!!"
A shriek of utter fury tore through the sky. She had actually sensed a mortal threat!
Boom!
Towering black flames erupted without restraint, their temperature abruptly increasing more than tenfold! The air began to warp beneath that extreme heat...
She beat her wings fiercely, turning the World-Burning Black Flame into two enormous black-fire tornadoes that tore through heaven and earth. From left and right, they slammed ferociously toward the gigantic chaos tower descending to suppress her!
Facing those two black-fire tornadoes, powerful enough to burn mountains and boil seas, the One-Qi Chaos Tower neither paused nor evaded.
The tower merely shuddered slightly.
Those two menacing black-fire tornadoes vanished soundlessly, like ice and snow cast into a furnace, like rivers flowing into the sea!
Disbelieving horror surfaced in Nine Nether's eyes, which blazed with fury.
Just as her mind reeled, the gigantic Primal Unity Tower that blotted out the sun thundered down, bearing an irresistible power of chaotic suppression!
Before the tower arrived, its heavy Dao resonance, capable of suppressing all arts, had already enveloped her.
Nine Nether felt her entire body sink, as though a hundred thousand mountains had suddenly been loaded onto her back!
She struggled desperately, beating her wings wildly. The storms she whipped up could tear mountain peaks apart, yet could not shake the descending invisible force field in the slightest.
"Bam-!!!!!"
The earth shook and the mountains trembled!
The One-Qi Chaos Tower stood tall and immovable. Nine Nether was utterly suppressed beneath it!
Mu Chen's figure slowly drifted down from the dust-filled air.
The protective radiance of his emperor's fallen double pupils had already withdrawn, and a trace of fatigue showed on his face.
Even he needed time to recover after unleashing so many methods in a single instant.
"Hey, hey, hey, can you hear me? Miss Nine Nether of the Great Luo Heavenly Domain on the Tianluo Continent, my name is Mu Chen. How about we make a deal?"
Before you continue