Two Invincible Kings? Just Warming Up

Just as Qie Qiong's divine power finished its transformation, the terrifying aura of annihilation broke through the spatial barrier he had left behind, pierced the mountain, and spread outward.

Although the aura flashed into existence and was withdrawn with extreme speed, that single instant was like a flame kindled in the darkness to the experts in the area around Qie Qiong. They detected it immediately.

In the void not far from the volcanic mountain range, a team of three Kings was wandering aimlessly in search of Time Constant Sand.

The three King-level Immortals were a Machine Race expert whose body was made of dark red alloy; a Demon Race King-level Immortal in the form of a giant, scale-covered lizard several kilometers long; and an Immortal Expert who was clearly human. Judging by his attitude toward the Demon Race Immortal, however, he was a human Immortal who had been subjected to Soul Enslavement.

The instant the aura appeared, the Demon Race expert detected it.

"This energy signature?" The Demon Race Immortal's voice was filled with excitement. "This energy—is some kind of Heavy Treasure emerging?"

"Master, is the source of the fluctuation in that volcanic mountain range?" the human Immortal asked respectfully. His senses were the strongest of the three Immortals. "This aura could very well be the fluctuation from a Heavy Treasure emerging, but it's more likely that experts are fighting."

The Machine Race expert scoffed. "What are you afraid of? Rock and I are both Invincible Kings. Even if we run into a Universe Venerable, we can escape unscathed. Of course we have to take a look. If a Heavy Treasure has appeared, wouldn't that be a bigger haul than searching for Time Constant Sand for years?"

The two naturally had some tricks up their sleeves to form a team and come searching for treasures in a Universe Venerable-level secret region. Both were Invincible King experts, and the Machine Race expert, Molten Fire King, had even fought a Universe Venerable without suffering defeat when sufficiently prepared.

Ordinarily, escaping from a Universe Venerable was enough to qualify someone as an Invincible King. Fighting one without defeat was a feat normally achieved only by Special Lifeforms.

Elsewhere, several Kings at a safe camp also sensed the annihilation fluctuation.

After all, not everyone had the strength to search for Time Constant Sand on the Constant Sand Continent. They could only wait by the stump for a rabbit to come along, and so the so-called safe camps came into being. If a single grain happened to fall, it would be worth a Heavy Treasure.

That was wealth many Kings would never possess in their lifetimes.

"What a terrifying aura." A human Peak King's expression changed as he looked toward the mountain range. "It's a Heavy Treasure!"

"Master, shall we make a grab for it?" A greedy light flashed in the eyes of a King beside him. "The Constant Sand Secret Region is enormous. We can snatch it and leave by Divine Kingdom Teleportation before much time has passed. Then, among those at the Limit King Rank, Master would be close to an Invincible King."

In the face of enormous temptation, reason was often painfully fragile.

Molten Fire King's team and the human King-level Immortals made the same decision at nearly the same time, with barely any hesitation.

Spatial fluctuations surged around every member of Molten Fire King's team, and they teleported toward Qie Qiong.

"Go!" the human Immortal roared, charging toward the mountain range first. Several other streaks of light followed close behind.

Deep inside the volcano, Qie Qiong had just made his breakthrough and was sensing the newborn divine power within him, which contained the power of destruction, when he raised an eyebrow slightly.

His spiritual power had long since covered an area within a hundred thousand kilometers.

Several undisguised auras were approaching rapidly, and three had already arrived.

"Heh." A cold smile curled Qie Qiong's lips. "I was going to stabilize my realm and then explore this secret region, but I didn't expect a few bugs to come knocking first. Fine, I'll test the power of this ultimate technique on you."

He slowly rose to his feet, his silver-gold battle armor gleaming in the volcanic cavern.

The essence of his divine power had undergone an earth-shaking change. Although he had restrained his aura somewhat, he had only just broken through to the Fourth Layer of Space-Time Destruction: Space Chapter. His aura was not fully restrained, and the space around him constantly came into being and perished.

"Perfect. I'll warm up on you."

He simply stood with his hands behind his back, silent in the center of the secluded chamber he had carved out.

Using teleportation, Molten Fire King's team was the first to appear at the entrance to Qie Qiong's volcanic cave.

Yet the aura emanating from the entrance set off involuntary alarms in all three of their divine bodies.

Although most of that aura had already been restrained, the sensation that it could annihilate space filled them with dread, especially when they saw what was inside the cave.

There was indeed a Heavy Treasure in the cave, but the aura did not seem to be coming from it. It came from a figure.

Molten Fire King instantly fixed his gaze on the silver-gold figure standing with his hands behind his back. The other party merely stood there, yet the surrounding space changed constantly.

He knew at once that this was no ordinary Immortal—it was a Universe Venerable!

Rock King's enormous vertical pupils were fixed on Qie Qiong, not out of greed, but from a profound fear rooted in the difference between their levels of life.

"Attack!" Molten Fire King made his decision instantly, without the slightest hesitation.

A humanoid Universe Venerable had to be human. The three races were mortal enemies to begin with, so whatever happened, they had to strike first to gain the upper hand. At the very least, they had to test the other party's strength.

All three began burning their divine power as one.

Although Molten Fire King and Rock King were both Invincible King experts, if they faced a true Universe Venerable without first burning their divine power, they would be no match for him. Even Molten Fire King, who had fought a Universe Venerable without defeat, was no exception.

Two attacks erupted at once!

The dark red hand cannon on Molten Fire King's arm instantly formed a beam of destructive light.

The shot was powerful enough to severely injure a Limit King Rank expert in an instant—and it blasted straight toward Qie Qiong in the depths of the cave.

This was his prized Heavy Treasure, the Molten Fire Cannon. It had once given a careless, newly advanced Universe Venerable a minor setback.

"Mountain Suppression!"

Rock King's two enormous claws were instantly covered by a pair of fist-blade Heavy Treasures.

He brought them crashing down in Qie Qiong's direction.

He believed that even if his opponent was a Universe Venerable, taking their strongest attacks head-on in such a hurry would surely leave him hurting.

Yet faced with two attacks powerful enough to demand the attention of an ordinary Universe Venerable,

Qie Qiong, deep inside the cave, did not even lift an eyelid.

The beam of destructive energy, powerful enough to melt through a galaxy, seemed to plunge into a silver quagmire as it entered the volcano's vicinity.

Annihilation Domain.

It was an invisible domain formed by Qie Qiong using his newborn annihilation divine power. During his breakthrough, he had already realized that the divine power gained by cultivating the ultimate technique was at least two tiers more powerful than his previous divine power.

His divine body, however, was not large, which meant he could not compete in sheer quantity of divine power with beings possessing enormous divine bodies.

His final choice, of course, was to use annihilation divine power to annihilate his opponents' divine power. By his estimate, a single unit of his current divine power was equivalent to a thousand units of his previous divine power.

The ultimate technique allowed him to surpass his opponents in quality when he could not surpass them in quantity.

The instant Molten Fire King's beam touched the pervasive Annihilation Domain, it began to vanish silently, like ice and snow beneath the sun.

The destructive beam that a Universe Venerable would have had to take seriously was disintegrated just like that. Without penetrating the Annihilation Domain in the slightest, it turned to nothing, unable even to raise a ripple in space.

Rock King's enormous claws tore through the void as they descended, seemingly intent on crushing Qie Qiong and the mountain together.

But when his claws, covered by the fist-blade Heavy Treasures, touched the boundary of the silver domain, Rock King's enormous vertical pupils abruptly contracted.

An invisible force instantly coiled around his claws.

In that instant,

he felt as though he had thrust his own claws into a millstone of destruction.

Crack!

A crisp shattering sound rang out. The fist-blade Heavy Treasures that had accompanied Rock King through years of battle were instantly covered in cracks.

Rock King's vertical pupils widened abruptly. "Impossible!" he cried in disbelief.

His fist blades were Top-Tier Heavy Treasures.

By rights, not even a high-level Universe Venerable should have been able to destroy a Top-Tier Heavy Treasure with a domain alone.

Immediately afterward, his prized divine body also began to diminish rapidly. In the brief instant of contact, it diminished by as much as thirty percent.

His was not a human divine body, where a dozen meters or so counted as large. His was a massive divine body several kilometers in size. Thirty percent of it amounted to the entire divine bodies of who knew how many Kings.

"No!!" Rock King let out a roar of agony, his enormous body trembling violently. He abandoned the arm outright and flew backward.

"A Universe Overlord! He's definitely a Universe Overlord!" As a member of the Machine Race, Molten Fire King instantly calculated the despairing gap between them.

His opponent had not even attacked. He had merely stood there and released a domain, yet he had instantly inflicted severe damage on Rock King.

This was absolutely not someone they could resist.

They had never imagined that a being at the Universe Overlord level would come here.

No being of that level had appeared here in a very long time.

The two of them had only one thought now: flee! Flee at any cost!

The enslaved human King had also been frightened out of his wits, but because he was enslaved and absolutely loyal to his master, he still wanted to save Rock King.

Without any hesitation, Molten Fire King instantly circulated his divine power, while Rock King endured the agony of his severed arm and began preparing to teleport.

This was their only chance. They also prayed to the Mechanical Father God and the Dream Demon Ancestor, praying that their opponent was not a Space Universe Venerable.

"Teleport!"

"Teleport!"

"Teleport!"

The three of them invoked the Space Law almost simultaneously, seeking to merge into the spatial fluctuations.

In the end, however, the beings they prayed to did not hear their prayers.

Hum!

A surge of spatial power spread out from Qie Qiong in an instant, covering an area extending several hundred thousand kilometers in every direction.

The spatial fluctuations forming around Molten Fire King, Rock King, and the human King servant were instantly sealed off by Qie Qiong's far more powerful True Meaning of Space. Their teleportation failed.

"A Space Venerable!" Molten Fire King's voice was filled with despair.

To make all three of their teleportations fail in an instant, he was undoubtedly a Space Universe Venerable.

Only despair remained in Rock King's eyes. He had already lost thirty percent of his divine body, and it was hard to say whether he still had the strength of a Limit King Rank expert. Now even his teleportation had failed, which meant he could only wait for death.

The human King servant was also somewhat despairing. He knew that, faced with a Venerable who controlled space like this, they did not even have the chance to flee.

His despair was different from the other two's. He despaired somewhat because his master might not be able to escape.

"If I hadn't made my breakthrough, I'm afraid I might really have let you two get away. You can blame your bad luck."

Qie Qiong's cold voice rang in the three of them's ears.

He merely stood there.

The next moment, the Annihilation Domain that had surrounded Qie Qiong abruptly expanded!

Boom-!

The heart-stopping silver domain of annihilation light burst outward with Qie Qiong at its center!

It was so fast that Molten Fire King's team had barely flown any distance before it engulfed them.

An energy shield instantly appeared around Molten Fire King, and his defensive matrix activated as he tried to resist.

But the instant the expanding silver domain touched him, even the defenses he had raised with all his might were easily annihilated like scraps of paper.

His mechanical divine body rapidly disintegrated. His divine body was not even a fraction of Rock King's size, so it was annihilated in an instant.

"I will return!" Rock King let out one final roar.

As an Invincible King, although he carried Heavy Treasures and the cost of resurrecting him with Reverse Time and Space was relatively high, he was still on his race's resurrection list.

His enormous divine body held out in the annihilation domain a little longer than Molten Fire King's.

Until his death, he could not understand how a mere domain could be so terrifying.

Qie Qiong did not attack the enslaved human King. He was under Soul Control, and Qie Qiong had no way to save him. All Qie Qiong could do was let him die without pain.

The instant Rock King fell, he too fell silent, leaving only his divine body floating in the void.

Two Invincible King-level beings, one of whom even had the strength to challenge an ordinary Universe Venerable, had died before Qie Qiong's silver annihilation domain without even resisting.

The domain vanished.

Within a radius of several dozen kilometers, space was deathly still. Only countless tiny spatial cracks slowly healed.

Molten Fire King, Rock King, and his human servant, along with all their equipment, weapons, and even their Space Rings, had completely vanished, as though they had never existed in this world.

Qie Qiong stood quietly where he was. At last, the terrifying aura around him was fully withdrawn, and all was calm.

The power is good, and the consumption is within manageable limits, he murmured to himself.

He had gained some sense of those people's strength. Before her breakthrough, the Machine Race and Demon Race King-level Immortals could have caused him considerable trouble.

Perhaps he would not have been able to keep either of the two from escaping.

Let alone crush them to death as he had now, as though crushing three ants.

However, the divine power's property granted by the Fourth Layer of Space-Time Destruction: Space Chapter was a little too powerful. None of the wealth the two Kings had carried remained.