"Li Jing!"
Nezha's voice exploded into Peach Mountain along the Father-Son Karma.
The hundred thousand soldiers of the Heavenly River Navy reeled inwardly. One corner of the Heavenly River Sea-Covering Grand Formation, which had only just stabilized, fell into disarray on the spot.
Li Jing's expression changed violently.
He whipped his head around. Golden light blazed from the Exquisite Pagoda in his palm, yet it could not suppress the terror in his eyes.
"Nezha?"
"Impossible!"
"I smashed your Divine Temple with my own hands! Your remnant soul should have scattered completely!"
The moment his words fell.
Above Peach Mountain, that black-and-red Demonic Qi exploded completely.
A youthful demonic body slowly took shape within the Demon Flame.
A red bellyband.
A topknot pointing skyward.
A pitch-black demonic mark between his brows, as though carved there in a single stroke by the flames of resentment.
Phantom Wind-Fire Wheels spun beneath his feet. What had once been Samadhi True Fire had become black-and-red Demon Flame.
The Fire-Tipped Spear fell into his palm.
Its shaft was dark red.
Resentment coiled around it, and killing intent pierced the heavens.
Nezha raised his head.
His eyes no longer held even a trace of the warmth a child should have possessed.
Only coldness remained.
Only hatred remained.
Only an old debt between father and son that had to be settled.
"Li Jing."
His voice was quiet, yet all hundred thousand naval soldiers held their breath.
"I carved out my bones to return them to my father, and cut away my flesh to return it to my mother."
"That should have settled everything between us."
"After I died, Mother built me a temple, hoping to leave me one last thread of hope for life."
"Why did you destroy it?"
The final word fell.
Boom!
The Demonic Qi behind Nezha surged, forming a demonic silhouette ten thousand zhang tall.
The silhouette had no face, yet its pressure sent the Heavenly River Water Aura churning backward.
Li Jing's primordial spirit shuddered violently.
That aura drove straight into his sea of consciousness along the Father-Son Karma.
He seemed to see the scene outside Chentang Pass again.
Nezha knelt on the ground, stripping out his own bones and cutting away his own flesh.
Then he saw the newly erected Divine Temple, shattered by a single strike of his palm.
The incense offerings ceased.
The remnant soul wept.
Those cries had now all become the killing intent in Nezha's eyes.
"Monster!"
Forcing down his fear, Li Jing shouted harshly, "I am a marshal of the Heavenly Court, charged by the Heavenly Emperor's Edict with suppressing Yang Jian! If you dare interfere, you make yourself an enemy of the Heavenly Court!"
Nezha laughed.
His laughter was soft.
Yet it made Li Jing's scalp prickle.
"The Heavenly Court?"
"The Jade Emperor?"
"If they stand in my way, I'll settle accounts with them too."
The next instant.
Nezha vanished from where he stood.
The hundred thousand naval soldiers could not even follow his movements.
By the time they reacted, Nezha was already standing before Li Jing.
He did not thrust his Fire-Tipped Spear.
He merely raised one finger and pointed it at the space between Li Jing's brows.
"Self-Transformation into Freedom."
"Manifest the sinful debt within your heart."
Black-and-red Demonic Qi burrowed into Li Jing's sea of consciousness along the Father-Son Karma.
Boom!
Li Jing's body abruptly went rigid.
The Exquisite Pagoda's golden light instantly fell into disarray.
Before his eyes, the Divine Temple collapsed again and again.
The scene of Nezha carving out his bones to return them to his father also replayed endlessly in his sea of consciousness.
Each repetition was like a blade gouging into his Dao heart.
Li Jing tried to activate the pagoda.
But the moment the thought stirred, Nezha's voice rang out in his sea of consciousness.
"When you smashed my Divine Temple, did you ever remember that I was your son?"
"When you cut off my path to life, did you feel even a trace of regret?"
"Now you're afraid?"
Crack!
Li Jing's Dao heart split.
In the next breath.
Before the utterly horrified eyes of the hundred thousand soldiers of the Heavenly River Navy, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King, Li Jing, buckled at the knees and fell heavily to his knees before Nezha.
"Nezha..."
"My son..."
"Your father was wrong!"
Li Jing burst into sobs, striking his own face hard with both hands.
Slap!
The first slap sent blood spilling from his mouth and nose.
Slap!
The second left his cheek swollen high.
"I should never have smashed your temple!"
"I should never have cut off your path to life!"
"I was wrong!"
"Please spare me this once!"
All hundred thousand naval soldiers stood frozen among the clouds.
They watched Li Jing kneeling and slapping himself, their minds utterly blank.
He was the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King.
The grand marshal of the Heavenly Court's armies.
Yet now he was kneeling before his own son, weeping and begging for mercy!
In the distance.
Yu Ding Zhenren tightened his grip on his fly whisk, and his Jade Purity Immortal Light wavered.
He stared at the demonic mark between Nezha's brows as a chill surged through his heart.
This technique struck directly at karma.
It used the sinful debt between father and son to ignite inner demons.
Even the protection of Li Jing's divine office in the Heavenly Court could not withstand that blow.
Yu Ding Zhenren suddenly looked toward Guanjiangkou.
Yang Jian had been like this.
Now Nezha was too.
The mysterious being in that ruined temple was no longer satisfied with changing a single person's destiny.
He was taking disciples.
And placing pieces on the board.
This game of chess might overturn the Investiture of the Gods Tribulation entirely.
At the same time.
Within the Heavenly River Sea-Covering Grand Formation.
Yang Jian's eyes snapped open.
With Li Jing's Dao heart shattered, the formation lost the control of its master, and the water-element laws pressing down on Yang Jian instantly loosened.
Now.
Yang Jian let out a low roar.
Deep within his dantian, the Hell Furnace burst open.
Black-and-red divine flames shot skyward, forming a massive devouring vortex.
The Heavenly River Water Aura.
The formation's runes.
The water-element laws.
Every force pressing down on him was forcibly dragged into the Hell Furnace.
The hundred thousand naval soldiers blanched at once.
"The formation's heart is collapsing!"
"My magical power is being drained!"
"Break the formation, now!"
But it was already too late.
Yang Jian spread his fingers and seized the deep-blue formation talisman from afar.
It was the formation heart of the hundred thousand naval soldiers.
And the core of the Heavenly River Sea-Covering Grand Formation.
"Just now, you were suppressing me.
"Now it's my turn to refine you."
Boom!
The Hell Furnace's flames surged.
The deep-blue formation talisman was forcibly dragged toward Yang Jian.
Its runes shattered inch by inch.
Strand after strand of water-element laws was refined into pure origin essence and poured into Yang Jian's body.
The fifty-fourth Divine Elephant Particle awakened!
The fifty-fifth Divine Elephant Particle awakened!
The fifty-sixth Divine Elephant Particle awakened!
Yang Jian's blood and vital energy soared into the heavens. Even the split-open Peach Mountain trembled.
All hundred thousand naval soldiers spat blood.
Some tried to retreat.
Only to discover that the formation had locked down their own magical power, leaving them unable to break free.
Yu Ding Zhenren's pupils contracted sharply.
"He really can refine laws..."
This had already surpassed the scope of the Mystic Gate's cultivation methods.
Devouring weapons and armor, refining immortal bodies-those were still comprehensible.
But if he could even devour the Heavenly River's water-element laws, then this cultivation method's origins definitely lay outside the Primordial World's existing legacies.
Li Jing knelt among the clouds, his face smeared with blood.
Hearing the formation shatter, he finally wrested a sliver of clarity from his inner demons.
"Hold the formation!"
"All of you, hold it steady!"
Nezha looked down at him, his gaze icy.
"You still dare give orders?"
Li Jing trembled all over.
The next instant.
Nezha planted his foot on the Exquisite Pagoda.
Crack!
The pagoda's golden light flickered violently.
Li Jing's face went deathly pale.
"Nezha, you dare!"
Nezha bent down, pressing the Fire-Tipped Spear against the center of his brow.
"I already gave you back my life."
"Tell me, what wouldn't I dare do?"
Boom!
At that very moment, the Heavenly River Sea-Covering Grand Formation finally gave way.
Yang Jian spread his arms, and fifty-six Divine Elephant Particles thundered in unison.
The Hell Furnace devoured the last wisp of the Water-Element Law.
The deep-blue formation runes exploded on the spot.
The Heavenly River surged backward.
The sea of clouds collapsed.
The backlash hurled a hundred thousand naval troops away, their divine armor raining densely from the sky.
Yang Jian had forcibly burst the Heavenly River Sea-Covering Grand Formation apart from within!
Yang Jian shattered the remnants of the formation underfoot and descended into the sky above Peach Mountain.
Nezha kept his spearpoint pressed against the center of Li Jing's brow.
Two figures, one dark gold, the other black and red, appeared simultaneously in the Haotian Mirror in the Thirty-Three Heavens.
Inside the Lingxiao Treasure Hall.
Haotian's face darkened completely.
A breath later.
In the Haotian Mirror, Nezha slowly raised his head.
He seemed to see the Heavenly Emperor in the Lingxiao Treasure Hall through the mirror's surface.
"Haotian."
"Who's next?"