Dai Mubai was a God of War in the Divine Realm, and even as a second-rank god, he held both status and reputation there. Yet now, he was being so blatantly looked down upon by these young lower-realm gods who had only just ascended?
"Am I really just made of mud?"
The golden holy light enveloping Dai Mubai's body suddenly surged upward, his fighting spirit soaring into the sky.
"Your origin, your identity, your purpose—I'll ask you directly after I abolish you."
Before the words faded, Dai Mubai stomped the ground.
BOOM—!
The earth within a hundred meters instantly collapsed, divine golden light erupting like a volcano, while the phantom of a white tiger several dozen feet tall condensed behind him.
The tiger's fur looked as if it were spun from pure gold; each strand shimmered with sharp divine patterns. Within the tiger's eyes blazed golden flames, and in its open jaws rolled a golden divine fire of pure destructive power.
White Tiger's Roar.
With a furious bellow, Dai Mubai clenched his right fist and slammed it into the earth. The white tiger phantom moved in sync, its massive claws slashing down at the Demon Empress with the power to rend the heavens and earth.
Waves of golden air radiated outward like a tsunami, flattening the withered yellow grass of the wilderness in an instant. Even the distant purple lightning of Thunder Grand Canyon dimmed beneath the shockwave.
"Hah! That's more like it! Fight, and die!"
The Demon Empress wasn't afraid—instead, she laughed madly.
The core of the Herrscher of Thunder within her body instantly revved to the limit, energy from the Imaginary Space surging into her like a tide. Purple lightning soared around her, and the massive phantom of a Deep Sea Devil Whale condensed at her back—her true form. The whale's enormous body, hundreds of feet long, was covered in dark purple scales, each scale crackling with violet electricity. Its eyes, like twin purple stars, radiated an aura of destruction.
The Hell of Thunder Descends.
The Demon Empress spread her arms wide. The leaden clouds overhead instantly deepened into a dense purple, and countless bolts of purple lightning as thick as buckets tore down from the clouds, densely covering several kilometers of ground.
These were no ordinary lightning bolts, but divine thunder infused with godly power. Upon striking the ground, they didn't explode but instead formed a lake of lightning arcing with purple serpents.
The purple arcs writhed across the rocks like venomous snakes, sizzling as they corroded everything into blackened powder.
When the golden white tiger phantom stepped into the lightning lake, the golden divine patterns on its body began to flicker. Its previously solid form grew faint beneath the arcs of lightning.
"Dai Mubai, aren't you the God of War? Come on, then!"
The Demon Empress's voice echoed through the lake, monstrous hatred in every word.
Her figure flashed, transforming into purple lightning as she charged into the thunder pool.
The purple arcs instantly converged on her, condensing into a lightning spear several feet long in her grip—the spear's tip radiated the cracks of a darkened space, proof that divine power was ripping through reality itself.
Whale Devours Calamity.
Gripping the spear, the Demon Empress suddenly stabbed at Dai Mubai.
The phantom devil whale behind her moved in sync, its massive jaws opening to swallow all the surrounding purple lightning, before spewing forth an even more violent pillar of violet thunder, raining down lightning spears on Dai Mubai.
Dai Mubai's expression shifted. The Demon Empress's divine power was clearly lower than his own, yet she wielded inexhaustible energy. Each lightning pillar carried as much force as his full assaults, but she showed no sign of depletion—her eyes remained wild, the purple lightning still raging.
God Realm of War—White Tiger Shatters!
Dai Mubai did not dare to be careless. He pushed his God of War domain to the limit.
A golden field instantly unfolded, sacred golden flames surging skyward. Countless phantoms in the shape of golden tigers burst forth, colliding with the violet thunder pillars and spears.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three colossal explosions shook heaven and earth. Golden holy fire and violet lightning clashed fiercely, annihilating each other at the center of the wilderness.
Waves of golden energy swept outward, crushing the purple arcs of the lightning lake and steadily forcing them back.
Yet the purple thunder kept gnawing at the golden field, thinning the sacred flames at its borders.
But Dai Mubai's face grew uglier—his divine power was being rapidly consumed, nearly ten percent spent in just that round of clashes.
Meanwhile, the Demon Empress simply raised her lightning spear again, the thunder pool around her gathering fresh purple lightning.
"How is this possible… How do you have so much divine power?"
Dai Mubai grit his teeth, realizing the Demon Empress's godforce was utterly unending. He was going all-out, but she showed no sign of fatigue.
The Demon Empress sneered, not bothering to answer.
The core of the Herrscher of Thunder within her ceaselessly drew energy from the Imaginary Space, converting it into honkai energy for her use.
Even as she expended divine power, she could unleash ten consecutive attacks without ever tiring—this was the advantage of a Herrscher: a perpetual motion machine with infinite energy.
Take my hand—Judgment of Thunder, Ruin of the World!
The Demon Empress moved again. This time, she didn't condense a lightning spear, but instead pushed the power of the Thunder Herrscher to the absolute limit.
Purple clouds surged violently overhead, condensing a colossal blade of thunder that spanned the sky—ten times larger than any magnetic storm slash before. Dark spatial cracks webbed its surface, radiating destructive force.
The thunder blade descended slowly, tearing through space wherever it passed, even disrupting the laws of heaven and earth themselves.
Dai Mubai's pupils contracted suddenly. He realized he could not dodge this strike—he could only resist, with everything he had.
True Body of the White Tiger, God of War Descent!
With a furious roar, Dai Mubai's form soared, transforming into the ten-foot-tall God of War White Tiger.
His skin was clad in golden divine armor, his hands gripping a condensed golden battle saber wreathed in burning holy fire.
He poured all his divine power into the blade and slashed violently at the falling thunder blade.
BOOOM——!!!
Golden saber met violet thunder blade. There was no earth-shattering sound—only a brief, terrifying silence.
Then, a shockwave of annihilation erupted from the point of collision.
The wilderness was uplifted, exposing hundreds of meters of bedrock.
In the distance, Thunder Grand Canyon was flattened, its purple lightning vanishing in an instant.
Even the clouds above were torn apart by the shockwave, leaving a vast hole that revealed blue sky beyond.
Dai Mubai was blasted back repeatedly by the force. Deep cracks split his golden divine armor, golden divine blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Seventy percent of his divine power was gone, and his breath was ragged.
The Demon Empress too stumbled back a few steps, purple thunder still lashing her body.
Within her, the Herrscher's core spun once more, drawing energy from the Imaginary Space, instantly replenishing all she'd spent.
It's not over yet.
She sneered, transforming into purple lightning again and charging at Dai Mubai—intent on pressing her advantage and utterly defeating this subordinate of the Sea God.
At the same time, Snow Empress blocked Lu Jingming, who was about to move.
Her fingertip gently pressed Lu Jingming's arm, her icy blue pupils shining with excitement.
"She handed it over, and let me show you what I'm doing now."
Before Lu Jingming could reply, Snow Empress transformed into a streak of icy blue light, instantly appearing before Zhu Zhuqing.
Zhu Zhuqing's expression was grave.
Dai Mubai was at a disadvantage against the Demon Empress, and Snow Empress was certainly no easy foe either.
"You're fast, but before my ice and snow, it's meaningless."
Snow Empress's voice was cold, but brimming with confidence.
She extended her right hand, icy blue divine power condensing in her palm, slowly forming a three-meter-long sword of ice.
The blade was traced with snowflake-like lines, each line radiating a cold glow. Around the blade, the air condensed into fine ice crystals.
Imperial Sword: Limitless Frost!
With a flick of her wrist, a blade of icy blue dozens of feet long swept out from the sword.
Wherever it passed, the air instantly froze, forming a path of transparent ice adorned with tiny frozen flowers.
Zhu Zhuqing's pupils shrank. She pushed the power of the God of Speed to the limit, leaving afterimages as she tried to teleport behind Snow Empress.
But as she tried to meld into space, the surrounding air suddenly grew viscous.
Countless tiny ice crystals condensed from the air, wrapping around her body like chains and delaying her teleportation by a fraction of a second.
She was a split-second too slow—danger flashing in her heart.
Immediately, she gave up on space-jumping, her figure splitting into hundreds of shadows—this was her god-level escape technique, "Hundred Shadows of the Underworld." Each shadow contained a fragment of her divine consciousness, confusing most locking techniques.
But Snow Empress's icy blue eyes did not waver.
She quietly raised her left hand, fingers closing.
Frozen Divine Domain.
The moment her cold voice rang out, a halo of icy blue aura spread outward, centered on Snow Empress.
Wherever it passed, time itself seemed to slow—no, not time, but all particles in space were forcibly decelerated.
This was a terrifying cold, close to absolute zero.
The halo spread to a full kilometer, then stopped, forming a domain utterly dominated by the laws of ice and snow.
What fell from the sky were not snowflakes, but countless tiny hexagonal ice crystals glowing with divine blue patterns.
The ground was covered in a crystalline layer of ancient black ice, dozens of meters thick, freezing even the rocks beneath at a glance.
Zhu Zhuqing's hundreds of shadows all froze within this bitterly cold field.
Frost quickly formed on their surfaces, their movements growing sluggish and clumsy.
More terrifyingly, these ice crystals didn't just freeze with cold—they contained the divine rules of the Ice Goddess, corroding and assimilating any energy structure on contact.
Found you.
Snow Empress's gaze locked onto one of the hundreds of shadows.
The frost coating this one was notably slower, still struggling against the invasion of the ice crystals.
Zhu Zhuqing was shocked.
All her "Hundred Shadows" should be completely identical—how had the enemy locked onto her real body in an instant?
Unless…
The moment this field of ice and snow spread, Snow Empress had already begun monitoring all energy flows within it.
Emperor's Palm—Frozen World Without Snow.
Snow Empress's right hand extended gently, the motion as soft as stroking a petal.
No wind, no snow, no cold wave.
But a strange phenomenon appeared in front of her palm—all light bent and dimmed, as if space itself was dying.
This was the domain of absolute zero; temperatures so low even photons struggled to move.
At the very last instant, Zhu Zhuqing's true body broke free of the frost chains, her speed godforce exploding at full power, her figure turning into an almost invisible black thread, shifting three hundred meters in a thousandth of a second.
But the spot where she'd just stood—the very space itself—had frozen.
Not just frozen, but something far more terrifying—a ten-meter sphere of absolute vacuum, utterly black.
Within that sphere, time nearly stopped. Molecular motion approached zero, and the structure of space grew fragile to the point of collapse.
At the edge of the sphere, air, dust, light, and all matter that touched it instantly solidified into a strange state between energy and solid, shattering like glass and dispersing as fundamental particles.
Cold sweat beaded on Zhu Zhuqing's brow.
If she had taken that palm head-on, even as a second-rank god, her divine body might have been permanently crippled.
Run while you can.
Snow Empress's voice was still gentle as she turned, shining like a lotus in the icy field.
"But in this domain, does your speed even make sense?"
She lightly raised her right hand, condensing the ice sword in her palm.
The blade was no longer material, but a pure edge forged from the laws of ice and snow. Wherever it fell, it naturally formed a trail of blue-white light.
Snow Empress raised the sword and gently slashed.
There was no sword energy crossing—but Zhu Zhuqing was filled with dread—the temperature within a kilometer had dropped by hundreds of degrees in an instant.
The clouds above turned to massive floating ice sheets, thousands of meters high.
The dark ice on the ground thickened, the sound of stone cracking beneath the extreme cold echoing up from below.
Most terrifying of all, every molecule in the air was turning solid—even oxygen, nitrogen, and free energy particles condensed into faint blue crystals, drifting down like snowflakes.
This was the permanent transformation of the battlefield.
Zhu Zhuqing's speed was fatally restricted in this domain, brought almost to a standstill at absolute zero.