Silence.
Deathly silence.
All the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals, including the divine general holding the magical treasure, stood petrified.
The arrogance, mockery, and cruelty on their faces froze, replaced by boundless horror and disbelief.
"No... impossible!"
The leading divine general shrieked, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
"The Heavenly Net... my Heavenly Net... how could it..."
That was an immortal-grade magical treasure made by the Heavenly Court's Artifact Refinement Bureau!
How could a mortal boy have shattered it... with a single punch?!
This wasn't real!
This had to be an illusion!
Yet Yang Jian's icy gaze had already settled on him.
"Now, it's your turn."
Before his words faded, Yang Jian vanished from where he stood!
"This is bad!"
Alarm bells blared in the divine general's mind, terror nearly tearing his soul free. Without a second thought, he tried to retreat.
But it was too late.
Yang Jian appeared before him like a phantom and threw another simple punch.
Horrified beyond measure, the divine general hastily held his long halberd across his chest to block it.
Crack!
The Immortal Halberd, forged from extraterrestrial dark iron, proved as fragile as rotten wood beneath Yang Jian's fist and snapped on impact!
The punch continued unabated, slamming heavily into the divine general's chest.
"Bam!"
The Silver Immortal Armor he wore exploded into fragments.
It was as though a Primordial Divine Mountain had struck him. His chest caved in, blood sprayed wildly from his mouth, and his body flew backward, crashing into more than a dozen Heavenly Soldiers behind him and breaking their bones and tendons.
Finally, he slammed into a mountainside a hundred meters away, embedding himself in the rock, his fate unknown.
One punch!
Another single punch!
A divine general of the Heavenly Court, slain in an instant!
The remaining Heavenly Soldiers broke down completely.
"A demon! He's a demon!"
"Run!"
They abandoned their helmets and armor, wailing for their fathers and mothers. No longer caring about the Heavenly Court's dignity, they turned to flee this place that had terrified them out of their wits.
"Trying to leave?"
Yang Jian snorted coldly and lightly tapped the ground with his toes.
Boom!
The ground beneath his feet instantly collapsed and fractured. His figure shot skyward like a cannonball, overtaking them despite moving later and instantly blocking every Heavenly Soldier's path.
"Not one of you... is leaving alive."
His icy voice pronounced their death sentence.
What followed was a one-sided slaughter with no suspense whatsoever.
Inside the ruined temple, atop the altar.
Gu Changqing watched everything happening outside, a satisfied smile curling his lips.
The overwhelming might of the Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Force had not disappointed him.
Awakening just eight particles had given a mortal boy enough strength to crush Heavenly Soldiers and divine generals.
If all eight hundred and forty million particles awakened...
Tsk, tsk. By then, Yang Jian should have no trouble blowing apart the Lingxiao Treasure Hall with a single punch.
Just then, the cold system notification sounded again.
[Ding!] [Congratulations, host, on completing the beginner mission: accept your first disciple!] [Distributing beginner reward...]
Boom!
A vast, boundless surge of pure energy appeared out of nowhere in Gu Changqing's sea of consciousness!
At that moment, his soul seemed to receive an inexhaustible source of power, beginning to grow and solidify at a furious pace!
His once intangible consciousness gradually gained substance.
At the same time, his connection to the clay statue became closer than ever.
He could feel it: he seemed to have truly become this god, able to control everything around the statue with a single thought.
[Ding! Your disciple "Yang Jian" has been detected cultivating the "Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Force" and slaying Heavenly Soldiers and divine generals, generating cultivation insights...] ["Ten-Thousandfold Critical Hit Return" triggered!] [Congratulations, host! You have received: one hundred thousand years of cultivation!] [Congratulations, host! You have received: Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Force · law fragments (trace amount)!] [Congratulations, host! You have received: Primordial Dragon Elephant Power infusion!]
Rumble!
A torrent of energy ten thousand times greater than before surged madly into Gu Changqing's true form—the clay statue—like the Heavenly River bursting its banks!
Crack!
Crack!
More and more cracks appeared across the statue's surface, but this time, what erupted from them was no longer illusory divine light. It was golden radiance imbued with true divinity!
At a speed visible to the naked eye, the statue's material transformed from ordinary clay into an unknown substance, neither metal nor jade, containing immortal divinity!
Gu Changqing felt his strength skyrocketing exponentially!
He even had the feeling that, whenever he wished, he could break free of the statue's constraints, become a true god, and descend into the world!
No hurry.
Gu Changqing forcibly suppressed the impulse in his heart.
I'm still not secure enough.
If he emerged now, he could certainly sweep aside all opposition in a region, but the waters of the Primordial World ran deep. The Saints sat high above the nine heavens, and the Dao Ancestor held sway over the Heavenly Dao.
His paltry cultivation was still far from enough.
Let my disciple draw fire outside while I quietly build my strength behind the scenes-that's the way to go!
He cast his gaze above the Thirty-Three Heavens, a playful smile appearing on his lips.
"Old Jade Emperor, I've taken your nephew as my disciple."
"I hope you... enjoy this generous gift."
Meanwhile.
In the Thirty-Three Heavens, within the Lingxiao Treasure Hall.
Haotian Shangdi abruptly rose from his dragon throne, his face livid.
Just moments earlier, the life tablets of the dozens of Heavenly Soldiers and divine generals he had sent to hunt down Yang Jian had all shattered at the same time!
The entire force had been annihilated!
"How is this possible!"
"How could a mere Demigod Remnant possess such power?!"
Haotian Shangdi flew into a rage. His immortal might surged, making the entire Lingxiao Treasure Hall hum and tremble.
And higher still, within the Purple Heaven Palace, unknown to mortals and unseen by immortals and gods.
Dao Ancestor Hongjun, seated cross-legged on a meditation cushion and united with the Heavenly Dao, slowly opened his eyes.
There was not the slightest emotion in his eyes, only endless laws of the Heavenly Dao flowing
and turning, arising and perishing.
Just now, he had sensed a tiny... variable in the heavenly secrets of the Primordial World, one that should not have existed.
The source of this variable was exceedingly small, yet it carried a supreme aura that even he could not fathom.
It was as though something transcending the Heavenly Dao had descended.
Hongjun calculated on his fingers, but the heavenly secrets were a mass of chaos. He could divine nothing.
"How strange."
"With the Investiture of the Gods tribulation about to begin, what being dares to disrupt heaven's secrets at such a time?"
His indifferent gaze swept across the Three Realms and Six Paths, yet he could never locate the source of that variable.
Finally, his gaze lingered briefly on the inconspicuous, dilapidated Mountain God Temple in Guanjiangkou before moving away indifferently.
The karma there was unremarkable. Nothing was amiss.
It was merely a mundane place screened from heaven's secrets.