He had just released one hand when the gray chaos on the dragon's chest and abdomen violently churned outwards. The Nine Luminaries Suppression Chain were subjected to the backlash of the second infiltration at close range, and dense dark cracks quickly appeared on the chain. The first suppressing seal collapsed abruptly after only two breaths.
Bang!!! Chen Yong's chest jolted violently, and a mouthful of blood surged into his throat. He swallowed it forcefully and used the force to propel himself backward.
However, the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon also paid a heavy price. Forcibly bypassing the Nine Luminaries Annihilation Sealing Dragon Palace meant that it had to tear apart the nine sealed primordial nodes on its own first.
As the nine seals shattered one after another, several deep cracks simultaneously appeared on the dragon's neck, chest, abdomen, spine, and tail. A large amount of dark azure True Annihilation essence surged out uncontrollably, and the already damaged membranes of the dragon's body became even thinner, with hundreds of places even cracking into large gray holes.
However, it no longer cared. The 99,999 acupoints resonated once again, and this round was far more chaotic and ferocious than the first.
The vitality within a radius of a thousand miles was the first to be affected. The ancient plants that had just survived the first round of infection withered instantly, and the faint remaining vitality inside the cold mountains outside the pool was also forcibly extracted.
Immediately afterwards, a torrent of Consciousness Immersion surged in, and countless fragments of memories that had been swallowed into the dragon's consciousness in the first round howled once more. The lingering remnants swallowed in the second round collided with the old consciousness, and completely different expressions flashed in the dragon's dark blue pupils. Sometimes ferocious, sometimes painful, sometimes bewildered, and sometimes even like a child who had just woken up, showing a moment of ignorance.
Immediately following, the dragon's Source Dao spine trembled and shattered a second time. Before the old, ethereal life-root threads had completely disappeared, new primordial roots were already flourishing from the broken spine. The old and new life-root threads intertwined and interwoven, with some of the Daoist veins extending towards Chen Yong and his group of six, while the other part lost its predetermined target and retreated into the dragon's own primordial core, tracing back to the original origin of its own Fate Soul.
The dragon's massive body convulsed violently as the second Nine Abyss Immersion began to devour its enemies, and even faster, it began to devour itself.
Chen Yong forcibly steadied himself hundreds of feet away. Just as he raised his spear, a transparent tentacle suddenly pierced his Fate Soul along the causal trace left by his previous battle with the demonic dragon.
His face suddenly turned pale. The tentacle had not pierced his flesh, but it had directly traced back to the root of his cultivation of the Nine Luminaries Annihilation Dragon Sealing Heavenly Palace, attempting to remove this technique from his Fate Soul's experience. Chen Yong's eyes hardened, and he suddenly pressed his left hand against his brow.
"Primordial Mirror, shine upon me!" A ray of ancient light suddenly emanated from the distant bronze fragment.
The trace of Chen Yong's Fate Soul, from when he learned the Dragon Suppression Divine Power, was reflected again by the mirror. The transparent tentacles had just pulled out a portion of the source trace when they suddenly stopped. But the second and third tentacles followed one after another, one of which even traced the wound on his tiger's mouth back to an earlier battle experience.
Chen Yong gritted his teeth and swept his spear horizontally. Swoosh! The spearhead sliced through the tentacle, not severing it completely, but briefly repelling it.
The five cultivators in the great formation behind them also suffered a second round of contamination. The Six Fates Return to Annihilation Formation had already experienced a Great Expansion Total Extinction, and now it had faced two consecutive Nine Abyss Immersion, so the Fate Soul of the five people were clearly damaged.
Blood seeped from the corner of the woman's mouth as she held the silver-gray short sword, which was stuck in front of her. She pressed her palms firmly against the array patterns. Two of the ancient mirrors manipulating the six mirrors were already cracked, while the remaining four were still rotating around the Primordial Mirror. The other three were also pale-faced, but none of them left their positions.
Both sides were injured, with the dragon's injuries being more severe, while the condition of the six was also deteriorating.
After the second round of Blood Immersion lasted for several breaths, Chen Yong could clearly feel that his life force had been weakened by one layer; although the Consciousness Immersion was protected by the Primordial Mirror and the great formation, many painful memories that did not belong to him still appeared deep in his consciousness; the Fate Immersion was even more dangerous, with each tentacle attacking, forcing the Primordial Mirror to separate a portion of its anchor marks to protect their "origin".
However, the second Nine Abyss Immersion did not last long enough; the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon could no longer withstand it.
After the True Annihilation Vortex in its chest and abdomen throbbed violently several times, it suddenly stagnates, and all 99,999 orifices simultaneously become disordered. The massive amount of life force and consciousness that it had swallowed did not have time to fully settle before it began to surge and collide throughout its body.
Nearly 30% of the newly sprouted life-giving tentacles pierced directly back into the spine, further deforming the already damaged dragon's spine. In the center of the Nine Abyss Cold Pool, the dragon's massive body suddenly sank downwards, the water submerging half of its chest and abdomen. But just as Chen Yong was about to determine if it had exhausted its strength—
His gaze suddenly changed. The demonic dragon did not fall; it was gathering its strength. Moreover, this time, its aura was completely different from that of the Great Expansion Total Extinction and the Nine Abyss Immersion. It slowly raised its dragon head.
The remaining cyan light in the dragon's eyes began to converge at the deepest part of the two dragon eyes. The more than 90,000 acupoints stopped devouring, and all the outward-spreading gray life roots and tendrils were also retracting into the body one by one. All the life force, consciousness, and life source that had been swallowed but not yet digested were concentrated along the spine towards the dragon's head.
Chen Yong's heart sank. "It's reclaiming the Nine Abyss Immersion." The sword-wielding woman behind him paused. "It's not going to continue devouring?" "That's precisely why it's troublesome." Chen Yong stared at the demonic dragon.
After the life force was massively extracted from the area surrounding the Nine Nether Cold Pool, large areas had completely lost their vitality. The cold crystals on the pool's banks turned grayish-white, and the lingering Fate Soul in the nearby mountains had been almost completely wiped out. The enormous price the Demon Dragon paid for its second Nine Abyss Immersion did not truly stop it.
It simply refocused everything it had previously swallowed onto one place—the dragon's head, or more precisely, between its two enormous horns. There, a grayish-blue primordial form was slowly taking shape, initially no bigger than a fist, then rapidly expanding to a length of ten feet.
Ten zhang, a hundred zhang, layer upon layer of life force, memories, obsessions and broken life essence that had been swallowed into the demonic dragon's body intertwined within it, and were ultimately forcibly compressed by the power of True Annihilation.
Around the core of the gray-blue origin, several contradictory scenes began to appear. Sometimes they showed a flourishing of all things, sometimes only endless death and silence, and sometimes countless living beings could be seen being born and dying at the same moment.
For the first time, Chen Yong's composure truly turned into a stern expression. The demonic dragon was preparing to unleash its third innate divine power. He didn't bother to guess what this move was, nor did he have time to do so. Chen Yong suddenly turned around, and the five people behind him looked at him simultaneously.
His spear was now held horizontally across his chest, blood still fresh at the corner of his mouth, and his breath was noticeably weaker than before, yet his eyes showed no sign of waning.
"We can't let it unleash its divine power!" The voice was resolute, and the expressions of the five Annihilation God Clan cultivators turned solemn at the same time. Chen Yong had already gripped his spear tightly, and his gaze was locked back on the ever-growing gray-blue primordial core in the center of the Nine Nether Cold Pool. At this moment, they had only one choice: to interrupt it before the third divine power was truly formed.
As soon as Chen Yong finished speaking, the five Annihilation God Clan cultivators within the Six Lives Return to Annihilation - True Suchness Guardian Formation simultaneously looked up. They had just endured the Great Expansion Total Extinction and two Nine Abyss Immersion in succession, and their Fate Soul origins were all damaged to varying degrees. Their faces were paler than the last, but at this moment, not one of them hesitated.
Above the Nine Nether Cold Pool, the gray-blue primordial energy that was condensing between the demonic dragon's horns had expanded to hundreds of feet. True Annihilation Dao Traces continued to converge in all directions, and the mountains, cold crystals, and remaining life essences around the entire Cold Pool began to shift slightly toward that direction.
Everyone could see that once the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon fully condensed its third innate divine power, they would be completely unable to withstand another round in their current state. Chen Yong was the first to make a move.
He stomped his left foot forward, and the gray-black spear flew out of his hand. Seven dark red rings on the spearhead lit up at the same time, and the True Annihilation Realm · Peak flowed from the spear's tail into its tip.
The spear hovered three zhang in front of him, its tip slowly turning towards the demonic dragon, causing the surrounding space to sink layer by layer. Chen Yong raised his hands together, his ten fingers spreading out from his chest to the sides, and a gray-black ancient seal rose from his heart, quickly merging with the spear.
"Annihilation God Severing Spear Returns to Return to Truth, Pierce Fate!" Whoosh!!! The spear suddenly disappeared.
There were no streaks of gunfire, only a very thin gray-black trail piercing through the sky above the Nine Nether Cold Pool. Chen Yong's shot directly locked onto the gray-blue primordial energy between the two horns of the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon, which was not yet fully stable, and took the most vulnerable primordial energy node between "accumulation" and "formation" as the sole point of impact.
Wherever the spear passed, the traces of True Annihilation along the way were forcibly pushed aside, and a gray-black spear path that stretched for thousands of feet slashed straight toward the demonic dragon's brow.
The woman with the sword followed closely behind. She gripped the silver-gray short sword with both hands, and her Fate Soul essence flowed along her arms into the spine of the sword. The sword, which was originally only two feet long, did not grow larger, but nine transparent sword shadows appeared around the blade, each corresponding to a different point of impact. Her eyes narrowed, and she slashed the silver-gray short sword forward.
"Sever Thought Sword!" Swoosh!!! Nine sword shadows fell simultaneously from nine different directions toward the demon dragon's head. Each sword did not aim to shatter the dragon's scales, but only to cut the intent that was constantly gathering toward its origin as it condensed its third divine power. As long as one of the sword shadows hit, the demon dragon's momentum would be briefly interrupted.
The man wielding the heavy black ruler gripped it with both hands. His face was bloodless due to the loss of his Fate Soul. He still suddenly lowered his waist and raised the heavy ruler above his head. The ancient engravings on the ruler lit up one by one, and the cold air around him was forced to sink downwards. A huge gray mountain formed from the True Annihilation origin rose from the ground behind him.
"Heaven-Sinking Annihilation Mountain Ruler!" Clang!!! The heavy ruler fell, and the gray mountain crossed the icy pool, pressing down hard on the back of the demonic dragon. This move did not aim to tear apart, but specifically suppressed the flow of the source, forcibly pressing the True Annihilation power that was gathering in the dragon's horns back to its limbs and bones.
The cultivator manipulating the six ancient mirrors also made his move at the same time. He shattered the two already broken mirrors, and the fragments merged into the remaining four mirrors. Instantly, the four mirrors were arranged in the cardinal directions, and each mirror reflected a Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon.
"Lock Source Mirror Domain!" Buzz!!! Four beams of mirror light shone down simultaneously, locking the dragon's head, chest, abdomen, back, and tail onto the four mirror domains, attempting to sever the primal connection between the different parts.
The last two cultivators also held nothing back. The cultivator with the double silver rings fastened the two long, narrow silver rings to his wrists at the same time. With a jolt of his Fate Soul, the silver rings split into four, then into sixteen, instantly covering half of the cold pool. The sixteen ring marks simultaneously fell onto different parts of the demonic dragon's body.
"Seal Meridians and Lock Annihilation!" Another young man drew a dark purple longsword, the blade slowly pressing down from his right shoulder, causing the Fate Soul patterns on his entire arm to light up. Under the activation of his own essence, a deep black mark appeared on the dark purple blade, the mark crawling from the hilt all the way to the tip, eventually dividing the entire longsword into two halves, one light and one dark.
"Sever Source Saber!" Clang!!! The blade swept across the sky, aiming directly at the primal connection between the dragon's neck bone and head.
The six supernatural powers pressed down simultaneously from six different levels: the spear shattered its shape, the sword severed the intention, the heavy ruler pressed down on the source, the ancient mirror Lock Domain, the silver ring sealed the meridians, and the long saber cut off the source. In an instant, almost all the original paths leading to the Demon Dragon's third supernatural power above the Nine Nether Cold Pool were sealed off.
Chen Yong stood at the forefront, his eyes fixed on the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon. If they could interrupt the dragon's build-up in this round of joint action, they would still have a chance to completely suppress this severely injured True Annihilation Realm · Supreme Beast.
The Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon saw it, and its previously empty, dark blue vertical pupils were suddenly filled with rage.
As the six supernatural powers approached the dragon's body, it did not continue to complete the gray-blue primordial essence between its horns. The dragon's head suddenly rose, and its more than 90,000 acupoints contracted simultaneously. In the next instant, the primordial core, which had not yet taken shape, was actively shattered by the dragon, turning into a large area of gray-blue primordial traces that returned to its body.
Chen Yong's heart sank. This demonic dragon had voluntarily given up its third divine power, but the sense of danger hadn't lessened; on the contrary, it had intensified. "Roar--!!!"