Ning Fengzhi roared, instantly releasing his Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda. Several streaks of light struck Xue Ye, trying to pull him away from the raised platform.
Boom!
Another tremendous crash rang out.
The imperial palace's main hall, the symbol of the Heaven Dou Empire's supreme authority, was torn to pieces by a violent current of air surging from underground!
In midair.
Chen Xin grabbed Ning Fengzhi by the shoulder and carried him away from the ground, which was still collapsing.
He stared toward the Star Dou Great Forest, his eyes stretched so wide their corners threatened to split.
"It's not an earthquake!"
"This is absolutely no ordinary earthquake!"
At those words, lightning blazed all over Yu Yuanzhen as he hovered in midair and roared in fury:
"It's the Star Dou Great Forest! That silver-haired woman has struck first!"
"She actually possesses the terrifying power to tear continental plates apart?!"
As far as these human powerhouses understood.
Aside from that "Lord" whom even Spirit Hall feared, no force in the world could create a catastrophe capable of destroying an entire empire.
Human arrogance and ignorance left them unable to imagine that some monster had merely rolled over in its sleep.
Meanwhile.
The Star Dou Great Forest, core region.
The situation here was even more devastating than in the human cities outside.
Countless towering trees were uprooted, and huge chunks of rock were shaken to pieces.
But strangely.
Faced with this apocalyptic scene.
All the high-ranking ferocious beasts, led by Gu Yuena, did not scatter and flee. Instead, they all lay obediently on the ground.
They let the sharp rubble strike their bodies, not even daring to release protective Soul Power for fear of making the slightest disturbance.
"My Lord..."
Di Tian lay beside Gu Yuena, blood seeping from the black dragon scales all over his body, his voice trembling beyond recognition.
"Is the Dragon Ancestor... is the Dragon Ancestor about to awaken?"
At those words, Gu Yuena's face was deathly pale as well.
She pressed her body tightly against the ground, sensing the surging blood and vitality beneath it, along with that terrifying bulk that seemed almost capable of bursting the entire world.
"He isn't awakening."
Gu Yuena swallowed, her eyes filled with awe.
"The Dragon Ancestor may merely have adjusted his sleeping position slightly."
Upon hearing this.
Di Tian, Xiong Jun, and the other peerless ferocious beasts all shuddered uncontrollably.
Merely adjusted his sleeping position slightly?
And the entire Douluo Continent had nearly been overturned?!
If that being truly awakened and stretched a little, wouldn't he burst even the starry universe apart?
Elsewhere.
Slaughter City, underground water prison.
Tang San's limbs were shackled with several thick pig-iron chains, suspending him spread-eagled in midair.
By now, both his arms had been crippled, and even the thought of escape had been completely extinguished.
Suddenly.
Boom!
The entire water prison lurched sideways.
The hard rock walls cracked inch by inch, and torrents of underground river water mixed with rubble poured wildly inside.
Tang San raised his head with difficulty and looked toward the Blood Pool outside through the cell's tiny barred window.
The next second, Tang San's eyes nearly popped out, and his breathing stopped instantly.
That dark-gold dragon whisker, which pierced through all of Slaughter City and required dozens of people to encircle it, had actually retracted upward a little!
That tiny movement alone.
Bang!
The ten-thousand-meter-thick rock stratum above Slaughter City was burned straight through by the terrifying heat generated by friction against the dragon whisker's surface!
Deep within the planetary core.
Gu Xian remained completely unaware of everything happening outside.
That slight muscle twitch just now had not even brought him out of deep sleep.
Within his boundless sea of consciousness.
Only a countdown ticked away quietly.
[Only ten days remain.] [Warning: the host's body is about to enter its final expansion phase.] [Estimated expansion factor: one hundredfold.] [Countdown commencing.]
Meanwhile.
The Heaven Dou Empire, the imperial city's ruins.
Thick smoke billowed over devastation as far as the eye could see.
Ning Fengzhi pushed aside a huge rock pinning him down and crawled out of the ruins, covered in dust and dirt.
He glanced around.
Everything was gone.
The Beast-Slaying Alliance, the million-strong army-all of it had become a complete joke in that terrifying earthquake that had struck without warning.
The thousand-li chasm that had suddenly opened had swallowed the tens of thousands of elite imperial soldiers in the square without leaving even a scrap of bone.
Even Xue Ye had been buried beneath the collapsed main hall of the imperial palace, beyond anyone's ability to dig him out, his fate unknown.
"Sect Master!"
Nearby, Chen Xin and Gu Rong approached, supporting each other.
Both Super Douluos had blood trickling from the corners of their mouths and were covered in dirt, clearly having suffered considerable internal injuries when the crust tore apart.
"This... what on earth..." Gu Rong's voice trembled as he looked at the imperial city, now reduced to wasteland.
Ning Fengzhi clenched his teeth, staring toward the Star Dou Great Forest with eyes full of fear.
"It was that silver-haired woman!"
Ning Fengzhi spoke with certainty.
"Who else could instantly create a catastrophe that destroyed the entire imperial city from a thousand li away?"
"This was definitely her retaliation for us forming the alliance!"
"She's making a show of force!"
Hearing this, Chen Xin closed his eyes in pain.
"With power that can destroy heaven and earth from afar, she has probably long since surpassed Limit Douluo, perhaps even become a god."
"Fengzhi, we've lost."
"Humans could never defeat a monster like that."
Ning Fengzhi said nothing.
He sank dejectedly into the ruins, gazing at the gray sky as profound despair rose within him.
Before they had even finished shouting the alliance's slogans, a single "warning blow" from the other side had overturned their home base.
How the hell were they supposed to fight now?
Elsewhere.
Spirit City, the Pope's Palace.
Even the walls of this building, reputed to be the sturdiest on the continent, were now covered in a dense web of cracks.
Bibi Dong stood on the steps outside the great hall, watching the dust that had yet to disperse from the distant sky.
Ghost Douluo knelt below the steps, trembling all over as he reported the news of the Heaven Dou Empire's destruction.
"Your Holiness, Heaven Dou Imperial City... is completely gone."
"Everyone outside is saying that the woman in the Star Dou Great Forest unleashed divine punishment. The entire Heaven Dou Empire has been completely paralyzed."
Hearing this, Bibi Dong was not pleased. Instead, she sneered.
"Divine punishment?"
"Who does that woman think she is? Is she worthy of unleashing divine punishment?"
Bibi Dong raised her head and looked into the deep night sky.
Only she and Qian Daoliu knew.
The catastrophe that had nearly torn the continent in half had not been an attack launched by some Soul Beast at all.
It was merely that underground monster, which wore the planet like a coating of mud, accidentally moving a muscle in its sleep!
"Pass down my orders."
Bibi Dong withdrew her gaze, her tone so calm it made one's skin crawl.
"Everyone in Spirit Hall is to abandon the outer defenses of every major city and fall back to the Pope's Palace."
"Gather every defensive Soul Tool you can find in the treasury."
Ghost Douluo froze.
"Your Holiness, what are we defending against? A beast tide from the Star Dou Great Forest?"
"A natural disaster."
With those words, Bibi Dong turned and walked straight back into the great hall.
She had a powerful premonition.
That earthquake had definitely been nothing more than the beginning.
That single movement had already caused irreversible loosening in the structure of Douluo Star's crust.
This planet probably would not hold out much longer.
As it turned out, Bibi Dong's premonition was correct.
The Star Dou Great Forest, core region.
A day had passed since that terrifying upheaval.
Yet the ground's temperature continued to soar at an uncanny rate.
The once-cool Lake of Life was now giving off thick white mist, its waters showing faint signs of boiling.
Gu Yuena stood by the lake, her head drenched in sweat.
Not from heat, but from fear.
Di Tian lay nearby, all four limbs digging fiercely into the ground, not daring to move at all.
"My Lord..."
Di Tian swallowed, feeling as though the soles of his feet were nearly cooked.
"Why is the temperature underground getting higher and higher? Is magma about to erupt?"
Gu Yuena stared fixedly at the ground beneath her feet, terror flickering in her purple eyes.
"It isn't magma."
"It's because the distance is shrinking."
"The distance?" Di Tian froze.
"What distance?"
Gu Yuena took a deep breath, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
"The Dragon Ancestor's body... is expanding."
"What?!" Di Tian was utterly dumbfounded.
He already had the entire Douluo Star wrapped around his body, and now he was going to expand?
What the hell was he trying to do?!
"There used to be tens of thousands of meters of rock between us."
Gu Yuena crouched down and touched the scorching soil.
"Now, that thick crust is being continuously forced outward by the Dragon Ancestor's expanding body."
"The heat radiating from the Dragon Ancestor's body is almost burning through this layer of crust and reaching the surface directly."
Hearing this, Di Tian collapsed limply to the ground, his mind completely blank.
"My Lord, what do we do, then?"
"Wait."
Gu Yuena raised her head and looked at the Lake of Life, which was nearly baked dry, a trace of resolve flashing through her eyes.
"Wait for the moment the Dragon Ancestor fully stretches out his body."
"This fragile shell of soil and seawater will inevitably burst apart completely."
"When that happens, this planet called Douluo Star will cease to exist."
As she spoke, Gu Yuena turned to look at the group of trembling Ferocious Beasts behind her.
"Pass down my orders."
"Have every Soul Beast abandon its territory and gather at the edge of that fissure."
"When the planet shatters, the only thing we can do is cling to the Dragon Ancestor's scales."
"Pray that when He shakes off this coating of mud, He doesn't fling us into space along with it."
Meanwhile.
In the Divine Realm, inside the great hall of the God Realm Committee.
Only a short time had passed since the phenomenon marking the Angel God's fall, and the atmosphere in the hall was oppressive to the extreme.
The Asura God sat in the seat of honor, rubbing his brow.
Ever since the inheritance passage to the lower realm had been severed, he had not dared look at that hot potato of a planet again.
Bang!
Someone shoved open the doors to the hall.
The God of Destruction strode in, violent purple-black lightning swirling around him.
"Asura! You're still sitting there?" the God of Destruction demanded harshly. "Do you have any idea that place in the lower realm called Douluo Star is about to explode?"
The Asura God raised his head, his brow furrowing into three deep lines.
"I haven't been looking at it. What happened?"
The God of Destruction snorted coldly and tapped his scepter.
A projection of a star map appeared in the center of the hall.
This was merely a broad perception of the energy of celestial bodies in the universe, not a direct probe into their details with divine consciousness.
In the image, the once-blue Douluo Star now had dark-red cracks covering its surface.
The entire planet had actually swollen a full size larger than before.
It was like an egg roasting over a fire, its shell about to burst from the expanding substance inside.
"This planet's temperature is soaring at a completely unreasonable rate. Its crust has already been forced apart."
The God of Destruction stared at the star map, his eyes filled with killing intent.
"And in this erupting energy, I caught the scent of the Dragon Clan's blood and vitality!"
At the words "Dragon Clan," the Sea God abruptly rose to his feet.
The Asura God got straight out of his seat and hurried over to the projection.
He closed his eyes and carefully sensed the energy fluctuations coming through the star map.
The next second, the Asura God's eyes snapped open.
"So that's it!"
The Asura God slammed his fist onto the table, a look of sudden realization appearing on his face.
"I've figured it out! No wonder there was such an enormous amount of Dragon Clan blood and vitality. No wonder the Angel God was erased in an instant!"
"It was Gu Yuena!"
The Sea God froze for a moment.
"Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena?"
"Who else could it be?" the Asura God said through gritted teeth, sneering repeatedly.
"During the Dragon God War, I cleaved the Dragon God in two with a single stroke. The Golden Dragon King was sealed, while the Silver Dragon King fled to the lower realm with grievous injuries."
"She must have been hiding inside Douluo Star's planetary core all this time, recovering!"
The God of Destruction frowned.
"You mean that gigantic creature that frightened the Heaven-Observing Mirror into shattering, and the power that killed the Angel God in an instant, were both the work of that gravely wounded woman?"
The Asura God snorted coldly, his tone certain.
"It was definitely her!"
"She must have noticed the Angel God's Divine Sense probing underground and realized she could no longer stay hidden."
"So she directly burned her God King-level dragon core origin and used a Leyline Formation to create that boundlessly enormous illusion, bluffing us!"
With this tightly interlocking chain of logic the Asura God had conjured up in his mind.
These lofty Gods of the Divine Realm instantly felt that everything made sense.
There was no Dragon Ancestor spanning the starry sky at all.
It was merely a smokescreen released by Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena in her dying struggle!
"Then what is she trying to do now by making Douluo Star heat up and expand?" the Sea God asked.
"Isn't that obvious?"
The God of Destruction picked up the thread, his face full of disdain.
"After we cut off contact during her supernatural charade, she knew the Divine Realm would soon send someone to wipe her out."
"So, like a cornered dog leaping over a wall, she plans to forcibly refine the entire Douluo Star to restore the half of the Dragon God's Power she once possessed!"
At this, the God of Destruction tightened his grip on the Destruction Scepter, purple-black lightning flashing wildly throughout the hall.
"A defeated foe who's spent all these years clinging to life in a muddy ditch now dares to refine a planet right before our eyes?"
"She must be dreaming!"
The God of Destruction turned and strode out of the temple.
"Asura, Sea God, stay here and watch."
"I'll go to the Lower Realm Orbit myself."
Before you continue