Every time Zhu Zhuqing moved, she had to forcibly push aside the congealed spatial medium with divine power, as if she were swimming through glue. Her consumption of divine energy was now more than ten times that of previous battles.
I can't go on like this... Zhu Zhuqing's eyes shone with resolve.
She came to a halt, pressing a hand to her chest. The divine mark of the God of Speed glowed on her forehead, etched with lines of dark lightning.
"Divine Technique: Instant Hell Shadow Array."
She finally used the trump card hidden at the bottom of her box.
Zhu Zhuqing's figure instantly split—not just illusions, but real clones. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand... In just three breaths, 108,000 clones of Zhu Zhuqing appeared across the entire snowy plain. Each was real, each carried one percent of her power. This was the embodiment of the God of Speed, unleashing ultimate velocity. For a brief moment, her true body existed in 18,000 positions simultaneously.
Each clone could attack. The clones would keep fighting until every last one was destroyed, or her divine power was exhausted.
All 108,000 shadows moved at once. From every direction—above, below, left, right—they transformed into black streamers and stabbed at the Snow Empress from every angle. The path of each streamer was precise, blocking every possible route of escape for the Snow Empress. Wherever the streamers passed, even the frozen space itself was forcibly torn apart—a destruction of the universe's fabric at the limit of pure speed.
For the first time, the Snow Empress's face grew solemn.
She plunged her ice sword into the ground at her feet and clasped her hands before her chest.
"Ice Extreme Divine Ring."
From her as the center, nine icy blue halos spread out in layers. Each halo carried a terrifying cold, close to absolute zero. The temperature gradient between the rings was astonishing—the innermost ring was infinitely close to theoretical absolute zero.
Eighteen thousand black streamers struck the rings. The first aura shattered, but every clone that touched it was instantly frozen and shattered to pieces. Then came the second, third, and fourth halos... The black streamers, drawn to the icy rings like moths to a flame, smashed through one after another. Each shattered halo became a storm of frigid wind, sweeping the domain and freezing hundreds or thousands of clones at once.
The terrain of ice and snow changed violently. The icy surface in the sky began to crack, and the dark layer of ice on the ground fractured extensively.
This was a collision of two Laws—speed and extreme cold—each striving to rewrite the world's physical rules.
By the time the eighth aura shattered, Zhu Zhuqing's clones had already lost ninety percent of their power. Yet she still had her final 18,000 clones...and, hidden among their countless numbers, her true body.
Now!
Zhu Zhuqing's true body quietly appeared thirty meters behind the Snow Empress, shielded by the shadows of her clones. This was the longest attack distance she had calculated, enough to ensure a fatal strike without triggering any strong reaction from the ice or snow.
Her hands became twin blades of dark light, wrapped in black silk threads that tore the very air.
With this strike, she condensed seventy percent of her remaining divine power, unleashing a devastating blow at the Snow Empress.
"Netherworld Dual Thorns—Godslayer Blades!"
The twin blades stabbed out in silence, moving faster than the perception of time itself.
The Snow Empress, unaware, maintained her pose, the last icy ring slowly revolving around her.
But just as the dual blades were about to touch the Snow Empress's back—
A faint, almost imperceptible, smile appeared at the corner of the Snow Empress's lips.
"You've been deceived."
She spoke softly.
At that moment, Zhu Zhuqing was shocked to realize the temperature around her was dropping exponentially.
No, it wasn't just dropping—it was returning to zero.
"The Snow Goddess's Sigh."
The Snow Empress slowly turned. Her eyes turned an icy blue, with the cold of the universe and the stillness of death reflected in their depths.
Centered on Zhu Zhuqing, the temperature within a ten-meter radius plummeted to absolute zero in a thousandth of a second. Not close to absolute zero—true absolute zero.
This was the theoretical limit, forcibly simulated by the Snow Empress using the core of the Ice Herrscher as energy and her divine status as the medium.
Within this cage, all molecular motion ceased, the meaning of time was lost, the fabric of space froze, and even the flow of divine power was forcibly halted.
Zhu Zhuqing's twin blades stopped just three inches from the Snow Empress's chest. She didn't choose not to stab—she simply couldn't. Her arms, her divine body, even the divine power flowing through her—everything was frozen in that instant.
This was not mere freezing, but a far more terrifying state. Even the divine cells of her body, each strand of her power, were suspended at the split second before the attack, as if forced to pause at that very moment.
The Snow Empress exhaled lightly, her breath instantly crystallizing into pale blue ice as it left her lips. Maintaining "The Snow Goddess's Sigh" was incredibly consuming—even with the Herrscher's core, she could only sustain it for three breaths.
But three breaths were enough.
She raised her right hand and gently tapped Zhu Zhuqing's brow with her index finger.
"Sleep, God of Speed."
An icy blue light flowed from her fingertip straight into Zhu Zhuqing's soul.
…
Meanwhile, the battle on the other side was reaching its climax.
After withstanding the Demon Empress's wrath of thunder and destruction, Dai Mubai's divine armor shattered, and his divine power was greatly depleted. But he was the God of War, with a wealth of combat experience.
Just as the Demon Empress gathered another thunder spear and prepared to pursue, Dai Mubai made a shocking decision—
Instead of retreating, he advanced!
"White Tiger Sky-Rending Strike!"
Dai Mubai roared in fury. The shattered golden divine armor burst apart, its fragments dissolving into countless golden lights that merged into his body. His body soared once more, reaching 164 feet in height, with ancient, savage white tiger divine marks appearing on his skin.
He abandoned all defense, pouring all remaining divine power into his right fist.
The moment his punch exploded, the world lost its color.
Where his fist passed, nothing was torn—it was crushed. A black hole a hundred meters in diameter appeared before his fist, a void created by the total collapse of space.
At the edge of this void, the golden divine power of war and the chaotic energy of the void clashed violently, sending out shockwaves capable of erasing everything.
This was one of Dai Mubai's trump cards. The price: burning the origin of his divine body, temporarily gaining the destructive power of a first-rank god.
The Demon Empress's eyes narrowed. She felt the terror of this attack—if struck head-on, even her divine body would suffer grievous wounds.
Yet she did not dodge. Instead, she wore a crazed smile.
"Not bad...not bad at all!"
The Demon Empress spread her arms. Behind her, the phantom of the Deep Sea Demon Whale roared at the sky, drawing all the weather within dozens of miles toward her as if a hundred rivers were returning to the sea.
But it was not enough. The core of the Thunder Herrscher within her surged furiously, and the collapsing space threatened to flood into her body like a dam bursting.
"Electromagnetic manipulation—all phenomena are drawn to the heavens."
She raised her hands—not toward Dai Mubai, but toward the depths beneath the earth.
Beneath the wasteland, thousands of meters of rock lay, and deeper still, there was slowly moving mantle. Deeper yet, the core—a vast, spinning ball of liquid iron and nickel, source of the planet's magnetic field.
In that instant, the Demon Empress's power pierced the crust, making direct contact with the planet's magnetic field.
RUMBLE—!!!
Across the entire Douluo Continent, all living beings sensed something was wrong. Compasses spun wildly, birds lost their direction, soul beasts grew restless.
On the battlefield, the earth began to shake violently. Cracks up to a hundred meters wide spread like spiderwebs. Deep within, a dark red glow of magma shone—proof that mantle material was being forced upward.
But this was only a prelude.
The true deadly strike was that the Demon Empress, through electromagnetism, manipulated every metallic element within a 30 miles radius.
The soil of the wasteland contained traces of iron, which, under her electromagnetic power, separated and gathered into countless iron sands. The iron sand converged into dozens of black metallic streams in the air, swirling around the Demon Empress like dragons.
At the same time, deep underground, she summoned lava rich in iron, nickel, and other metals, forcibly extracting it and turning it into a hot metallic current bursting through the earth.
Everything containing metal—earth, sky, even air—was under the Demon Empress's control.
"Devour the sky, devour the earth—Thunder Hell!"
The Demon Empress suddenly clasped her hands.
The dozens of metallic streams, the molten metal from below, and her own purple thunder fused perfectly at this moment. A terrifying field over a kilometer in diameter formed.
Within this domain, it was no longer just thunder. Lightning and metal were perfectly fused.
Countless grains of iron sand, under her control, spun tens of thousands of times per second, forming billions of microscopic metal storms. The surface of the iron sand was wrapped in purple arcs, colliding and grinding at high speed, creating a terrifying cutting force capable of shredding even divine flesh.
At the center of this world was a gravitational singularity created by the Demon Empress's Deep Sea Demon Whale talent—a black sphere that relentlessly devoured all matter and energy around it.
On its surface, purple lightning and metallic flows intertwined in destructive lines.
Dai Mubai's devastating punch slammed into this field.
And then, a shocking scene unfolded.
An attack powerful enough to crush the cosmos, upon entering the Thunder Hell, began to slow rapidly. The golden divine power was stripped away layer by layer by countless whirling iron sands.
Though the iron sand was constantly destroyed by his punch, for every grain destroyed, ten more were drawn from the field to replace it.
This was not a battle of power, but a war of attrition between the finite and the infinite.
When Dai Mubai's punch closed to within a hundred meters of the Demon Empress, its power had already halved. At fifty meters, it was reduced by seventy percent. At twenty meters, the punch was nearly exhausted.
And still, the Thunder Hell raged.
As the iron sand was destroyed, she extracted more metals from the earth to replenish it. Thunder was neutralized, and the converging energies of the imaginary space were ceaselessly converted into new lightning.
Impossible... Impossible...
For the first time, despair appeared in Dai Mubai's eyes. His strongest blow was worn away by this strange domain, vanishing without even touching the opponent's clothing.
"Nothing is impossible."
The Demon Empress's voice echoed coldly through the thunder prison.
"You're still looking at the world with the eyes of ten thousand years ago. Times have changed—your ways are long obsolete."
She raised her right hand. The Magnetic field began to contract inward.
Countless iron sands, metallic currents, and purple lightning slowly rolled toward Dai Mubai at the center, like a gigantic grinding disc.
"Come, feel the power of a Ruler. Magnetic Thunder Prison—Heaven and Earth Grinding Plate!"
The domain shrank rapidly.
Dai Mubai did his utmost to unleash the God of War's domain, but the golden field was quickly melted away by the pressure of the Magnetic Thunder Prison, like snow under the sun.
Cracks began to appear on his divine body; golden divine blood seeped out, but was instantly vaporized into a bloody mist by the electromagnetic field.
Worse still, the gravitational singularity began to exert a terrifying suction, trying to devour his entire body.
"Mubai!"
At that moment, Zhu Zhuqing's desperate cry rang out.
Dai Mubai turned sharply, and saw a scene that nearly tore his heart apart—Zhu Zhuqing was frozen by the Snow Goddess's Sigh, the Snow Empress's finger pointing at her brow.
"Zhuqing—!!!"
Dai Mubai roared like a beast. Sacred golden blood spurted from his seven orifices, and, at that instant, all the divine power remaining in his body was utterly burned away. Not just consumed—burned—at the price of forever injuring the origin of his divine seat, in exchange for one final burst of battle power.
"God of War Forbidden Art—White Tiger Burning God!"
Dai Mubai's body began to burn—not with flames, but with pure golden fire. This signified the burning of his divine seat, soul, and body all at once.
Within the flames, his aura skyrocketed, instantly surpassing the limit of a second-rank god and, for a brief moment, touching the threshold of a first-rank god.
"Break—!!!"
He punched the inner wall of the Magnetic Thunder Prison. The power of this punch was more than three times stronger than before. The iron sand storm on the inside of the prison exploded, opening a ten-meter-wide gap, and the suction of the gravitational singularity was momentarily disrupted.
Now!
Dai Mubai transformed into a golden meteor, bursting through the gap straight toward the Snow Empress.
He wanted to save Zhu Zhuqing, even if it meant dying together.
The Demon Empress's face changed. She hadn't expected Dai Mubai to burn his divine origin with such decisiveness. By the time she reacted and tried to stop him, he had already escaped the range of the Thunder Prison.
"You seek death!"
The Demon Empress roared in fury. The Magnetic Thunder Prison transformed into a purple thunder dragon, chasing after Dai Mubai.
But his speed was overwhelming, and with the explosive power granted by burning his origin, he was momentarily as fast as Zhu Zhuqing at her peak.
Three hundred meters, two hundred, one hundred...he closed in on Zhu Zhuqing and the Snow Empress.
The Snow Empress sensed the terrifying aura rushing from behind, frowned slightly, and pressed her finger to Zhu Zhuqing's brow.
This moment was Zhu Zhuqing's last chance.