The sword-qi bridge and the Rakshasa God Kingdom did not immediately determine a victor.
Instead, they became locked in a state of annihilating equilibrium high in the heavens.
At the core of their collision,
the scene was indescribably bizarre.
Crimson sword light and dark-purple divine power rose amid swelling chaos, both gradually dissolving into nothingness.
That region of sky
had transformed into an enormous furnace that devoured everything.
Within it, colors shimmered chaotically, as if countless unknown lights and shadows were being born and extinguished.
Light that entered vanished like mud sinking into the sea.
Sound that reached it left no trace behind.
Shattered mountain ranges and vast oceans of Spirit Power were drawn in by an invisible force, cast into this furnace.
The heavens themselves were split by the spectacle—
half filled with surging sword qi,
half steeped in ghostly, hellish darkness.
At the boundary between them spread an ever-expanding zone of chaos, like an ugly, irreparable scar forcibly torn into the fabric of the world.
Every breath of this stalemate consumed an immense amount of divine power.
"Li! Zhe! Xian!"
Bibi Dong spat his name word by word, each syllable steeped in hatred.
Under the annihilating sword intent, her divine body was beginning to collapse.
Divine blood filled with terrifying power spilled through the air.
Each drop weighed as heavily as a mountain.
The instant the blood struck the ground below, towering mountain ranges crumbled like brittle deadwood, crushed into deep ravines.
In this contest of divine power, the Rakshasa God's might was being overpowered by Li Zhexian's sword intent.
Separated by the all-devouring furnace, Li Zhexian gazed at Bibi Dong with icy detachment.
Both of his arms gripping the sword were disintegrating—flesh, meridians, and bones breaking apart—while the QinglianSword in his hand emitted sorrowful, low cries.
"Qinglian Sword… wait for me to return."
His whisper scattered into the wind.
He poured all remaining sword intent and his very life essence into the Qinglian Sword.
Clang—!!!!!
The sword's cry resounded across the entire continent.
The sword-qi bridge spanning heaven and earth suddenly surged, divine light soaring skyward for tens of thousands of miles.
It was as if the firmament itself had been cleaved cleanly in two.
Vast sword intent poured forth, irresistible and absolute.
In a single instant,
the Rakshasa God Kingdom that had blanketed half the sky was struck heavily—shattering amid the wails of countless ghosts, dissolving into drifting rain of dark-purple light.
Crack—
Within this apocalyptic scene,
a crisp fracture echoed deep within the minds of all living beings.
The indestructible Rakshasa Scythe, passed down from the Rakshasa God, snapped cleanly at the handle after resisting the sword-qi bridge for only a moment.
"No!!!"
Bibi Dong let out a hysterical scream.
What shattered was not only the demon scythe, but also the proof of her godhood.
The sword bridge smashed through the scythe like the most merciless heavenly blade, cleaving straight into her most brilliant symbol of divine perfection—
Her tenth divine Spirit Ring.
Crack—
Like glass shattering,
like a star going extinct.
Before her eyes, wide with terror and despair, fissures spread rapidly across the tenth divine Spirit Ring, which then shattered into drifting dust of dark-purple light.
The Rakshasa divine might that once towered over all beings collapsed like an avalanche.
From the supreme realm of godhood,
she was forcibly cut down to mortality by that single sword.
"Pff—!"
With her godhood severed,
Bibi Dong spat out a mouthful of blood, her aura rapidly withering.
And that sword light—though dimmed, yet not fully spent—
descended like final judgment, piercing through her shoulder and dragging her shattered divine body from the sky like a falling star.
Boom—!!!
The earth shook violently.
A massive crater several miles wide was blasted into the ground.
When the dust finally settled,
Bibi Dong was pinned at the center of the crater by the Qinglian Sword, now restored to its ancient, unadorned form.
Fragments of the broken Rakshasa Scythe lay scattered around her, dull and lifeless.
She struggled to lift her head.
Her blood-stained face was filled with raging fury, venomous hatred—and… a trace of spiritual collapse, despair, and utter disbelief.
Li Zhexian hovered in midair, his body like shattered porcelain, as though it could fall apart at any moment.
He looked down at Bibi Dong, who was nailed to the ground, his gaze calm.
One sword.
The demon scythe severed.
The divine Spirit Ring shattered.
The godly path cut off.
A god pinned to the ground.
"My mission… is complete…"
Li Zhexian's voice was as light as a dream-whisper.
He slowly turned around.
Reluctantly, he looked toward Zhu Zhuqing; toward Dugu Yan, Ye Lingling, Yu Tianheng, and his other friends; toward Chen Xin, Dugu Bo, Feng Bailong, and the many elders.
Using a mortal body to forcibly invoke divine might—
He had reached the very end.
At this moment—
the reckoning of Calamity Rebirth arrived.
Under the grief-stricken gaze of hundreds of thousands on the battlefield below—
"Pff—!"
Li Zhexian's body, already on the brink of collapse, could no longer withstand the backlash beyond all limits. It exploded in midair into a dense cloud of blood mist.
From afar,
that blood mist faintly maintained the outline of a human form, hanging tragically in the heavens.
"Zhexian!!!"
Chen Xin, Feng Bailong, Dugu Bo and the other titled Douluo—along with Zhu Zhuqing, Dugu Yan, Ye Lingling, Yu Tianheng and the rest—let out grief-rending cries as they rushed forward in panic.
Within the surging blood mist,
several brilliant lights slowly emerged.
A skull bone flowing with dreamlike radiance;
A vertebra Spirit Bone resembling both an azure dragon and a sharpened blade;
A white-gold right arm Spirit Bones blazing with the intent of war and slaughter;
And a pair of crimson-gold eye Spirit Bones radiating the power of time and space.
Aside from these four Spirit Bones,
there was also a sword shrine and the left arm Spirit Bone that Li Zhexian had never revealed.
The spirits of the Skydream Ice Worm and the Snow Empress entered these two Spirit Bones respectively.
"Brother Zhexian… why must you do this…"
"Li Zhexian, I will wait for your return in the Extreme North."
The Snow Empress's sorrowful voice fell.
From within the human-shaped blood mist, a sudden force rippled outward,
hurling the sword shrine and the left arm bone toward the northern horizon—vanishing in the blink of an eye.
At this moment,
the blood mist could no longer hold its form.
Before Zhu Zhuqing, Chen Xin, Dugu Bo, Feng Bailong, Dugu Yan, Yu Tianheng and the others could reach it,
the mist unraveled into thin strands of pale red, dispersing into nothingness on the wind.
The dreamlike Myriad Mirage skull bone flickered with an almost imperceptible light, absorbed the remaining Spirit Bones, and vanished mysteriously.
"Zhexian!!!"
Staring at the empty sky that left behind not even a trace—
Zhu Zhuqing spat blood from her lips.
Dugu Yan, Ye Lingling, Ning Rongrong, Shui Bing'er, and Huo Wu were consumed by grief.
Yu Tianheng, Feng Buyu, Oscar, and the others wept openly.
Chen Xin, Dugu Bo, Feng Bailong and the older generation trembled as they closed their aged eyes, tears streaming down their faces.
The weapons of hundreds of thousands of Heaven Dou soldiers clattered to the ground.
Facing the direction where Li Zhexian had vanished, they knelt in unison.
"Lord Sword Wine…"
Above the heavens—
Ten thousand miles of blood clouds gathered, roiling like an endless ocean, vast and boundless.
Yet the clouds were not dark.
Instead, they carried a hint of clarity, as though sunset light had stained them with a glassy radiance.
Then—
The clouds parted.
Petals forged of endless blood drifted down from the sky.
This blood rain resembled red plum blossoms; each petal shimmered faintly with pure light—
the manifestation of Li Zhexian's immaculate Glazed Body.
Ten thousand miles of crimson adornment.
All falling—
For him alone.
The blood-petal rain blanketed this scorched land that had endured a divine battle.