Within Qingqiu Tianyao, two powerful auras were awakening and spreading, both surging toward the titan level. He was undergoing a double transformation.

Seeing this, Barus's eyes turned ice-cold. "Qingqiu Tianyao, are you celebrating a bit too soon? Even if you used the edge of life and death to break into the great demon king level, death is still waiting for you."

Barus raised its demonic spear, and ominous power began to condense along its shaft.

Although Qingqiu Tianyao had broken through the shackles and achieved his goal, the two had fought all the way to this point, and that final strike had left him gravely injured.

His origin had been drained. Though his realm had advanced, and he would be able to recover through the remolding of his heavenly king's true form, that would take time, which Barus had no intention of giving.

"What a pity. You won't be killing me today." Qingqiu Tianyao wore a calm smile.

As a king who had risen out of the Era of Darkness and established his own nation, Qingqiu Tianyao had long seen through life and death. His one and only lifelong pursuit had been to break through to the heavenly king level.

As a veteran king, he had stood at the peak for many years. However, whether due to lack of talent or insufficient foundation, he had never managed to break through. He had already resigned himself. If forty years didn't work, then he would try for four hundred. He refused to believe he couldn't shatter that barrier.

Then came Chen Chu's rise. His unimaginable cultivation speed and overwhelming strength reignited a fire in Qingqiu Tianyao's heart. That little fellow had taken just over a year to reach the heavenly king level. Qingqiu Tianyao knew his own talent couldn't compare, but he refused to believe he couldn't break through.

Now, he had proved it. He, Qingqiu Tianyao, truly was a genius. So what if it was the heavenly king level? He had reached it too.

Noticing the grin spreading across Qingqiu Tianyao's face, Barus felt a sudden sense of unease. Just then, a voice rang through the heavens. "Qingqiu Tianyao, may I step in now?"

It was Chen Chu. Barus's expression changed instantly. "No!"

Boom!

The sky above Barus cracked apart as a golden-black halberd ten thousand meters long descended, stretching across the void. A power beyond words came crashing down.

"Chu Batian, why are you here!" Barus roared in shock and fury. All of the power within its body erupted at once, unleashing blinding violet light.

The surging energy compressed space into a solid, translucent mass, forming a crystal wall dozens of kilometers in diameter that radiated an aura of indestructible durability.

Crash!

Under the might of the halberd infused with the Vacuum Annihilation divine ability, Barus's law-bound world shattered in an instant. The explosion that followed triggered layered shockwaves that swept across thousands of kilometers.

Under that matchless, tyrannical power, the great demon king who had once stood undefeated at the Abyssal Battlefield, a foe that Chen Chu and the Destructive Dragon Emperor had needed to combine their souls to suppress, was annihilated in a single instant.

However, as a great demon king, Barus had far more powerful life-preserving techniques at its disposal. The moment it was blasted apart, over a hundred streaks of blood-colored light burst forth from the dispersing blood mist and remains, scattering in all directions and instantly appearing over three thousand kilometers away.

Seeing this, Qingqiu Tianyao was alarmed. "Chen Chu, don't let Barus escape. It's crucial to the Purgatory Clan."

"Don't worry. He won't get away." From high in the sky, Chen Chu stood within a fractured spacial rift, gripping his halberd as his black hair flared wildly behind him. Watching those escaping blood-colored lights, an endless surge of violet lightning erupted from him, blooming like an expanding sun made of lightning.

Within the basic laws of physics, lightning moved second only to light in speed.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Heavenly Purple Lightning, imbued with a supreme law aura, shattered space and spread in every direction, forming a purple web stretching thousands of kilometers. Each streak of blood-colored light was crushed and annihilated, accompanied by echoing screams.

In just a blink, the hundred-plus streaks of blood that had flown thousands of kilometers were utterly obliterated. At that moment, Chen Chu's expression turned cold, and his pupils transformed into golden-black vertical slits.

"Barus, why are you in such a hurry to leave when we've just reunited?" As Chen Chu spoke in a low voice, the halberd in his hand flared with blinding light, and it abruptly vanished.

Boom!

Over two thousand kilometers away, space exploded. A shattered figure impaled by the Eight Desolations Creation Halberd plummeted from the sky and smashed into a mountain range.

The ground caved in instantly, and brilliant violet-red light erupted, forming a mushroom cloud a hundred kilometers wide that slowly rose into the air, utterly devastating the landscape. At the bottom of a crater plunging hundreds of kilometers deep, Barus was pinned mid-air.

Struck by the supreme principle power coiled around the halberd, Barus's true form began disintegrating at an alarming speed. Its eyes were filled with despair and an unwillingness to believe its situation.

If only it had known how dangerous that human genius would become, it would have done everything it could to kill him back on the Abyssal Battlefield, even at the cost of crippling its foundation.

However, it had underestimated him. No, if they had known how monstrous this human's talent truly was, they wouldn't have sent just two demon kings to intercept him when he first entered the vast world. The entire Assassination Division should have descended upon him.

Too late now.

"I refuse to accept this...!" Barus's eyes were filled with defiance. However, as the halberd's principle power eroded it away, it finally perished completely.

Though his strength had surpassed all other great demon kings, Chen Chu had chosen to directly exhaust the newly recovered embryonic principle power within his body to ensure this kill. High above the sky, a darker Blood Moon emerged. Many true demons watched it slowly descend with despair.

Another great demon king had fallen.

"Barus is finally dead." Qingqiu Tianyao stared at the descending Blood Moon and found himself momentarily dazed.

Barus hadn't been the strongest among the great demon kings, but within the Federation, its name had long been infamous. Over the years, countless young kings and human geniuses had fallen to the Assassination Division it led. It had always been cunning and cautious. Aside from that one major battle at the Abyssal Battlefield, it had rarely appeared on the frontlines.

Amid his thoughts, Qingqiu Tianyao's form shimmered and transformed into a massive white fox over a thousand meters long, then into a silver-haired youth. Though the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox and Qingqiu Tianyao were both weak in aura at the moment, they exuded a strange sense of completeness and strength, as if they had become a world unto themselves.

Chen Chu descended slowly from the sky with a smile on his face. "Congratulations to you and Eight Tails for breaking through to the heavenly king level."

Hearing this, Qingqiu Tianyao couldn't help but smile. "Not at all. If you hadn't been standing guard from the shadows, I wouldn't have dared to go all out."

"My arrival was only to relieve your concerns. The breakthrough was all your own doing. Your realm hasn't stabilized yet. It's best to find a quiet place to rest and recover. Leave the rest to us."

"Mhmm." Qingqiu Tianyao didn't stand on ceremony.

After their brief exchange, Chen Chu's figure shifted. With a single step, he vanished toward the distant horizon, and he crossed tens of thousands of kilometers in mere breaths with the power of divine abilities.

Watching Chen Chu disappear into the distance, Qingqiu Tianyao slowly exhaled and muttered, "The younger generation is truly fearsome."

Beside him, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, still exuding a faint aura of a colossal beast, shook its head.Fearsome is an understatement. He's outright terrifying.

"Terrifying. That works too," Qingqiu Tianyao said with a nod and a smile.

Because of Qingqiu Minghui and Qingqiu Mingyue, Qingqiu Tianyao had long paid attention to Chen Chu. All the more reason he was now stunned by his current achievements.

Who would have thought? The boy who had once needed to risk everything to fight just an evil god's soul avatar had reached a level equal to the demon gods themselves in a single year.

That kind of cultivation speed was utterly monstrous. Even after witnessing it multiple times, Qingqiu Tianyao, a powerhouse at his level, still found it unreal. It shattered all expectations, all common sense.

What brought comfort to Qingqiu Tianyao, as well the other kings and supreme powerhouses, was that Chen Chu's values remained upright. He hadn't walked the path of betrayal like the once-remarkable genius Xiao Tianyi.

If he had... At that thought, Qingqiu Tianyao shuddered involuntarily.

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