Trials of the Abyss
Chapter 677: At Wits End

Chapter 677: At Wits' End

Luo Hongyan had made her move.

Though she had yet to reveal herself, the True Gods knew that she was responsible for the earth-shaking upheaval.

The seven artifacts serving as array cores had all returned to the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars.

Luo Hongyan had repurposed the seven pillars as her ultimate weapons.

This all-encompassing aura of death was the embodiment of her divine power!

She embraced light and darkness, commanded life and death, and wielded flame and frost.

She had fused six Heavenly Daos into one and had six Divine Personas in her true body.

In the Abyss, she had managed to seize a strand of Fortune and ascend through the Dao of Death, allowing her to successfully forge a tangible Divine Persona.

No one but her could spread this aura of death across the entire Fifth World!

A dazzling burst of azure brilliance erupted from the center of the continent that Wanderer Tian Du had crashed into.

That radiant light came from the divine sword serving as the pillar's array core!

The divine sword was named Godslayer.

Godslayer drew on the immense power from the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar beneath it and unleashed it in a blinding beam.

Wanderer Tian Du, his Dharma Idol shattered, stared at the descending sword light with a shudder in his heart.

This sword light was more dazzling, vast, and awe-inspiring than anything Li Zhaotian could produce. It carried the accumulated wisdom of generations of ancient True Gods, embodying the celestial bodies, the flow of time and space, the laws of nature, and the many aspects of all living things.

It was a strike that could not be dodged or resisted.

The sword light engulfed Wanderer Tian Du.

Specks of ghostly light burst out in a violent bloom!

The ghostly light coalesced into the vague shape of a deep blue mountain, Mount Skyreach, Wanderer Tian Du's homeland. It was the place where he had attained his Dao.

Even this final manifestation of his divine soul and Fortune crumbled under the azure sword light.

A cluster of radiant clouds emerged after Wanderer Tian Du's death.

This Fortune attempted to return to the barrier but could not pierce through the sky of the Fifth World.

At the same time, another burst of dazzling azure radiance erupted from the peak of a Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar on a different continent.

This beam of light locked onto where Li Yuanli was still struggling to break through the shroud of demonic energy and return to the Fourth World.

A massive knife hovered high above the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar, emanating a terrifying aura of slaughter.

The knife was named Spirit Butcher. Though not technically a divine artifact, the empowerment of the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar imbued its attack with boundless divine power.

Li Yuanli's expression changed drastically. In a panic, he shook loose several hundred array disks from his sleeves and his spatial ring.

The array disks unfolded into vast mountain ranges, mighty rivers, valleys, basins, forests, oceans, falling stars, and fiery meteors.

Breathtaking landscapes from across the Abyss manifested around Li Yuanli.

The God of Arrays could engrave any landscape he ever saw into an array disk. Every river or mountain he laid eyes on could be etched into an array disk. He could even carve the cosmos itself, if he gazed long enough at the starry skies.

Li Yuanli kept every mountain he saw and claimed every body of water he passed. He wove nature into his arrays with a grandeur and ease that was all his own.

All his array disks were summoned, and every last lovingly forged vista turned into a desperate shield. It was clear Li Yuanli had been pushed into a corner.

When the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillar locked onto him, he knew he could not run.

It did not matter how he dodged or flew. The azure radiance from Spirit Butcher would eventually catch up to him.

Even if he fled, the aura of death saturating the Fifth World would only corrode his vitality.

There was no point dragging things out. His only choice was to stake everything in a final, desperate stand!

The azure radiance crashed down, swallowing the vast landscapes Li Yuanli had conjured with his array disks.

Mountains crumbled, rivers dried up, forests disintegrated, oceans boiled, and celestial bodies extinguished under that vast and overwhelming might. Li Yuanli's body, divine soul, and divine power were all snuffed out in an instant.

Only a cluster of radiant clouds remained, persisting stubbornly beneath the azure radiance even after Li Yuanli's body and divine soul were annihilated.

Like the one that emerged from Wanderer Tian Du's death, it too surged toward the sky of the Fifth World, only to be stopped.

Wanderer Tian Du and Li Yuanli, two True Gods, had perished in quick succession.

One tried to break into a continent while the other attempted to pierce the sky of the Fifth World. The array cores atop the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars slew them both, leaving only their Fortune behind.

Li Zhaotian and Lady Yin had since escaped into the bizarre mist.

Meanwhile, Zhu Ji, Gui Mu, and Su Wanrou, the top-ranked True Gods, gathered in the radiant expanse of starry sky around Li Wang. However, even Li Wang's conjured starry sky could not stop the creeping infiltration of the aura of death.

They each summoned a protective shield and tried every method they knew, but none could halt the steady erosion of their vitality.

"What now?" Gui Mu asked coldly.

The deaths of Wanderer Tian Du and Li Yuanli did not stir even the slightest ripple in her heart.

She remained calm and composed, as though even the collapse of the Abyss and the extinction of the human race were not enough to shake her.

Even the prospect of death did not seem to faze her.

"This Sovereign isn't just targeting us," Su Wanrou observed, brows knitted in confusion. "The fragmented lands outside the seven continents were home to Vicious Beasts and weaker foreign races. Her aura of death has swept across those fragmented lands, bringing death to many."

As the Sage of Medicine and Poison, Su Wanrou had delved deeply into the Dao of Medicine. Her understanding of life allowed her to sense the suffocating stillness of death with acute clarity.

True Gods like her, Zhu Ji, Gui Mu, and Li Wang could endure in the aura of death for a while due to their vast vitality.

Those left behind in the Fifth World and deemed unworthy to set foot on the seven continents were all foreign races and the Fey Race of weaker bloodlines. Naturally, they had long since perished under this aura of death, leaving casualties in the tens of millions.

Su Wanrou simply could not comprehend this.

After all, that Sovereign was, at least nominally, the leader of the foreign races in the Fifth World, burdened with the responsibility of helping them ascend to the upper worlds.

This single indiscriminate offensive brought ruin to her allies. Not only did this go against the natural order, but it would also tarnish her reputation.

Gui Mu interjected, "She doesn't care."

"Mhm. I get the feeling she isn't particularly concerned whether the human race is wiped out either," Li Wang nodded. "She's not He Motian or Zi Mo. She came to the Abyss with a different purpose in mind."

You may not truly care about the fate of the human race. After all, you ascended to godhood many millennia ago. What could possibly still matter to you? Li Wang thought to himself.

"Fortune cannot return to the barrier," Zhu Ji noted.

Li Wang startled, then asked, "You have a theory?"

"I believe what she truly wants is the Fortune that emerges when a True God dies," Zhu Ji replied, his tone hollow.

Su Wanrou and Gui Mu were both stunned.

"By trapping us here and killing us, she forces our Fortune to surface. It seems to indicate that she's planning to seize them," Zhu Ji said, his voice calm but sharp. "Life and death, light and darkness, flame and frost, we've all sensed them within those six artifacts before.

"The aura of death is the most potent because she used a woman to ascend godhood through Fortune in the Imperial Dominion.

"She has six Divine Personas, but she's only fully forged one here in the Abyss so far. In other words, five remain incomplete. She still needs at least five more clusters of Fortune."

Zhu Ji's gaze settled on Li Wang, Gui Mu, and Su Wanrou.

All three felt a chill run down their spines.

Wanderer Tian Du and Li Yuanli's clusters of Fortune still lingered restlessly in the sky of the Fifth World.

If what Zhu Ji said was true, then three more clusters of Fortune were still needed.

Sensing danger, Li Zhaotian had wasted no time dragging Yin Ji with him into the bizarre mist, far from the seven continents and beyond that Sovereign's range of attack.

Of the four remaining, Zhu Ji was by far the strongest and the hardest to take down.

"Zhu Ji, this isn't funny," Li Wang said, his voice tight with strain.

"Fine," Zhu Ji replied. "Then let's focus on how to break the stalemate."

The darkness surrounding the Black Dragon King suddenly sank toward the Sixth World like Yan Lie and the other Rank Ten foreign race powerhouses before.

It was as if the Black Dragon King was telling them that entering the Sixth World was the wiser choice.

"It didn't even say a word before slipping into the Sixth World..." Li Wang muttered bitterly. After some thought, he added, "We only made it out last time thanks to the Heaven-Earth Cosmos Chest that Pang Jian carried. But now, even the chest is gone.

"We can avoid the aura of death if we go to the Sixth World, but we can't escape.

"If we can't get out, the murky energy of the Sixth World will eventually eat away at us. Aside from Zhu Ji, the rest of us will meet the same fate as before.

"The aura of death and the artifacts atop the Heaven Ascension Tribulation Pillars will kill us in the Fifth World, but the murky energy of the Sixth World is no better."

Li Wang racked his brain for a solution but came up with nothing.

Li Zhaotian and Yin Ji suddenly emerged from the bizarre mist.

"The bizarre mist is also flooded with the aura of death, and demonic energy blocks the sky above the bizarre mist as well." Li Zhaotian shook his head. Then, pausing to look around, he exclaimed, "Wait. Tian Du, Li Yuanli!"

"They died not long after you two went into the bizarre mist," Su Wanrou said with a sigh.

Li Zhaotian's expression turned grim. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and said sharply, "She's sealed off all exits, trapping us in the Fifth World, slowly killing us with this aura of death. The longer this drags on, the worse it'll be for us!"

"What do you propose?" Li Wang asked.

"Black Dragon King, Xiao Hei!" Li Zhaotian called out loudly, intending to ask the Fey God to get in touch with Pang Jian. Frowning, he looked around and saw no trace of the Fey God's shroud of darkness. "Where is that Fey God?"

"He descended into the Sixth World," Su Wanrou replied.

"Then let's descend into the Sixth World as well! And from there, to the Seventh! Wherever Yan Lie and the others have gone, that's where we'll head next!"

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