Even outnumbered three to one, Chiqiu, as a superior powerhouse, might have been in trouble — but he did not despair. He was the proud Southeast Divine Sovereign, after all.

Not until Southwest Divine Sovereign Shafeng brought out a small object.

The moment that small object appeared —

Chiqiu’s whole body trembled slightly.

Clearly, he dreaded that little thing to the marrow.

Yue Yang’s heart shook too. Because he’d realized he had found what he’d searched so long for and never traced — the ultimate objective the mysterious existence in the endless world of the silver Sacred Grimoire had assigned him: the true main body of the ancient relic.

The little thing was about the size of a fingertip, diamond-shaped, its rim inlaid with dozens of tiny crystalline shards — forming a small necklace.

Never mind its main body — even the smallest of those inlaid shards held a divine power inside it that was no less than what any of Chiqiu, Shafeng, Shuanghan, or Zhaoxi were displaying on the surface. The core in the middle had absolutely been forged by an ancient great god’s will. It was a peerless divine artifact of the ages, carrying an unassailable divine majesty that even Yue Yang was shaken by.

Anyone who could harness even one percent, one thousandth, or one ten-thousandth of it —

Would ascend easily to godhood.

But this diamond-shaped ancient-relic main body already possessed divine nature and divine standing of its own. No one could hope to master it, to be its owner.

When Shafeng respectfully “invited” it out, it hovered in midair, and in an instant its divine majesty unfurled. Its divine power thrust to the vault of heaven. Within a radius of a hundred li, with itself as the absolute center, a distinctive temporary divine domain formed.

Within this temporary divine domain, Yue Yang was astonished to find that everything between heaven and earth had been converted automatically into a “God-Slaying Mystic Realm” state.

It wasn’t the true God-Slaying Mystic Realm, but the dirt, sand, and rock here had turned into something near-equivalent to God-Slaying Mystic Metal.

Unbreakable.

Yue Yang reached out and scooped up a handful of the ground.

He found the sand was still sand, the stone still stone, no substantive change. But within this temporary divine domain, saturated by the divine artifact’s will, they were unfathomably hard, a different thing altogether from their ordinary state… Not only that. Within this hundred-li temporary divine domain, everyone present had their strength plummet a hundredfold — similar to the space of the God-Slaying Mystic Realm bound by ancient great gods’ will and by ancient laws.

“Shenmie? How can you have this thing? Did Taiyan and Bingli fail to seal it away all those years ago? You dug it out again? You’re mad. You’re all mad!” Chiqiu roared hysterically, veins standing out on his forehead. He was completely losing his composure.

“We’re not mad. You’re the one who’s mad!” Shafeng burst into laughter.

“Taiyan and Bingli died sealing Shenmie. Isn’t destroying them enough? You want to use it to harm me too?” Chiqiu was furious to the point of frenzy.

“If you don’t die, that lunatic God-Slayer won’t fall. And so long as that stubborn lunatic God-Slayer stands in Mountain Beyond the Mountain, our God-Creation Plan stays shelved. Do you have any idea how precious our time has been? For ten thousand years we’ve worked to no result. We’ve had enough of you and God-Slayer. So — you have to die! If back then you had agreed to our plan, in these ten thousand years, how many gods could we have made? It’s you — you — always dragging us down with these petty spoiler tactics!” Shafeng at last laid out his real objective: to bring down his rival God-Slayer.

As for Chiqiu, he was dragged in for being on God-Slayer’s side of the East Camp.

Chiqiu stared blankly for a long moment.

Then, breaking composure, he burst into wild laughter that went on and on.

Shafeng and the other two watched Chiqiu coldly — eyes that looked upon him as one already dead.

Down below, hidden in his cover, Yue Yang listened with fascination, but didn’t dare make a sound. He was terrified of being detected by the enemy, of ruining the bigger picture.

Long moments later, Chiqiu’s laughter cut off, sharp as a knife. “God-Creation? So you’re still plotting that ridiculous plan… I, Chiqiu, may not be a clever man, but I know this: acts that go against heaven cannot succeed! God-Creation — ha ha ha — what an absurd, groundless notion! Cultivation and growth are an accumulation, an ongoing self-transcendence. They require step-by-step progress and self-clarified insight. It is one footprint after another, walked out with resolve. No shortcut will do. Let alone this laughable, heaven-defying business of using external force to ‘make gods.’ Never mind making a man into a god — you cannot even use external force to forcibly raise a treasure’s quality! Show me — do you have the ability to forge a divine artifact? Is it possible? Not possible! Why is it that in ten thousand years, you, who have never succeeded, are still so stubbornly obsessed?”

“We’ve mastered the forbidden power long since. We only lack time to perfect it,” Shafeng heard him out and remained unmoved, as if whatever Chiqiu said was so much noise.

“The forbidden power! Ha — a terrifying technique that will forever fail to turn a person into a ‘god,’ that will only leave them neither man nor ghost. On the strength of that laughable experiment, you believe in your God-Creation Plan? Too naive. Sheer wishful thinking!” Chiqiu curled his lip in scorn.

“Enough. If we cannot make gods, then how did you and I become gods, Chiqiu? Have you forgotten?” Shafeng could not bear it and shouted him down.

“You say we ascended to godhood… did we really ascend to godhood? Poor Shafeng — power and confidence have blinded you! Never mind you and me — even Hei Zhou and God-Slayer cannot be called gods. And what’s more, even God-Slayer has never claimed himself to be a true god! Just because some subordinates flatter you, some sycophants pat you on the back, you’re so puffed up you don’t even know who you are? It is precisely because we took the shortcut in cultivation, walked the wrong direction — one wrong thought, and our whole future is ruined… Only ones like Taiyan and Bingli can be called gods! What virtue and what capacity have you, Shafeng, to mention yourself in the same breath as those two? Even hearing you say it, I blush for you! Shafeng, you’ve fallen. Swollen vanity and swollen power have made you lose yourself. No wonder you’d bring Shenmie — such a terrifying divine artifact — out for the sake of power!” Chiqiu had gradually steadied himself. He probably knew now there was no escape from today, and had reached a calm acceptance. He was no longer as unhinged as he had been at the first sight of the Shenmie Necklace.

“Walked the wrong direction? That’s your opinion. I have never thought so!” Shafeng did not agree with Chiqiu’s words.

“Fool!” Yue Yang cursed inwardly, but held his emotions down and kept listening.

“A fine Southwest Divine Sovereign! If you truly believe this self-styled Divine Sovereign is a Divine Sovereign, then I have no more to say to you.” Chiqiu decided not to speak to Shafeng anymore. This fellow was beyond saving.

“Chiqiu, out of consideration for our old comradeship, you may still change your mind.” North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi decided to give Chiqiu a final chance.

“Change my mind, then join you in that laughable God-Creation Plan? Zhaoxi, I am sorry. I cannot do it!” Chiqiu waved his arm fiercely, as if reaching some inner resolve. “Perhaps you disagree, but I, Chiqiu, am like this. If a thing is plainly wrong, I cannot take it as right. Even if it costs me my life, none of you will bend my will. I am Chiqiu — one of a kind, standing on my own two feet — not a coward who bows to might and to evil!”

“You have your beliefs. I will not press you.” North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi seemed to have long since understood what sort of man Chiqiu was, and did not try to persuade him further.

“Zhaoxi, this I truly do not understand — you are clearly a clever man. Why do this idiot’s work with them? A God-Creation Plan… not even a three-year-old would believe in it. Do you really think a god can be made?” Chiqiu’s look at Zhaoxi was full of disappointment.

“Long life is hard to fill without something to do.” North Divine Sovereign Zhaoxi smiled lightly.

“So be it. Different beliefs — no use talking more. Today, let me, Chiqiu, sample the ultimate techniques of you three — Zhaoxi, Shafeng, and Shuanghan!” Chiqiu let out a booming roar, morale surging, and resolved on a fight to the death.

He knew this might well be his last battle.

He cast off every last hesitation.

Only a resolve to die fighting.

At the end — to drag one down with him!

Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan, who had been silent all this while, gave a mocking chuckle. “Begging for a beating? Such a modest request — we shall be so kind as to satisfy it!”

Chiqiu was about to charge — his first strike aimed at this Northwest Divine Sovereign. But in the split-second before he could act, Chiqiu discovered with a start that his left ankle had, at some unknown moment, been wrapped in a crystalline, translucent ice chain. This was one of Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan’s signature techniques: the Freezing Chain.

Before he could raise his hand to destroy it with divine power, Shuanghan’s ice chain had already yanked at his form.

“Come down. Long ago, while you were making your grand speech, I was quietly setting the chain in place. Otherwise, who would have any interest in hearing you spout that nonsense?”

Shuanghan controlled the Freezing Chain as if it were his own arm. A single thought, and even one as strong as Chiqiu was pulled down from the sky, unable to resist.

Chiqiu was furious.

But he did not lose his reason, nor rush to break free.

Instead, borrowing the chain’s tug for its own momentum, he plunged like a meteor straight down at the lightning-fast Shuanghan below.

His fist erupted into a mass of blazing flame that surged like a dragon, hammering straight at Shuanghan’s face… But Chiqiu’s savagely-heavy punch, thrown in rage, was met by Shuanghan casually opening his arm and catching it lightly… Dragon-flame gushed and scorched Shuanghan’s palm. Half a second later, the metal-melting, stone-searing flames were frozen into ice — and along with them, Chiqiu’s hand also became an arm of ice.

Shuanghan sneered. As Chiqiu’s second fist came down —

He flicked his arm.

And flung Chiqiu far away.

Chiqiu arrested that vast force in midair, but under his foot the ice chain’s opposing pull dragged sideways, and he was sent tumbling toward the ground.

Struggling to prop himself on one hand, Chiqiu’s gaze fixed. Out of nowhere, a foot appeared before his eyes, kicking heavily at his face — Shafeng, catching the perfect moment. Chiqiu rolled desperately, dodging the heavy kick and slamming his arm at the ground to spring himself upright, meaning to reset his posture and position and struggle out of the chain to fight anew.

But time gave him no such chance. Above, a shadow flickered.

The afterimage was still in Chiqiu’s eyes.

The reality — an elbow was already driving painfully into his lower belly. The heavy strike drove Chiqiu into agonizing pain; he nearly vomited blood on the spot.

Chiqiu, reacting with tremendous speed, whirled with a hooking kick and swept aside the shadow that had elbowed him — it turned out to be a follow-up strike by Shafeng… Shafeng blocked the kick with his arm, unharmed, merely knocked back briefly. Chiqiu, on the other hand, was slammed groundward like a meteor by the elbow, crashing into the earth and sinking deep into rock. If not for the temporary divine domain forged by the ancient relic Shenmie’s supreme divine power and supreme will, Chiqiu would never have been injured. Ordinary rock could not have shaken his body — but now, within the temporary divine domain, the rock was of a hardness akin to God-Slaying Mystic Metal…

Chiqiu slammed his hands on the ground and launched himself upright.

He evaded a leisurely descending palm-strike by Zhaoxi. He would rather take ten of Shafeng’s punches than let one of Zhaoxi’s palms land square.

Over on the other side, Shuanghan sneered again, and with his will he yanked the ice chain. Chiqiu’s body was dragged, out of his control, straight into Shuanghan’s life-taking ice-finger-spear. If that finger-spear struck true, it would open a skylight through Chiqiu’s forehead.

“Out of my way!”

Chiqiu jerked his head aside, dodging the ice-finger-spear. Ignoring the wound scraped across his face, he slammed his head savagely into Shuanghan’s nose. Shuanghan clutched his face and staggered back, but did not forget to jerk the chain — flinging Chiqiu into midair. In the sky, Shafeng’s two fists rained down like a war-drum on Chiqiu’s back. Chiqiu executed an upside-down kick that sent Shafeng flying a hundred meters away, but before he could recover his form he found Zhaoxi standing suspended before him.

The palm seemed to pass through the space of a thousand years.

Even sensing it, Chiqiu could not move to dodge. It was as if being struck had been decreed a thousand years ago. That palm, without flourish, without a single word, sealed itself against Chiqiu’s chest.

Watching, Yue Yang’s expression froze. Only now did he grasp how terrifying Zhaoxi, this North Divine Sovereign, truly was.

Both in raw power and in timing —

Chilling.

A formidable enemy. This Zhaoxi was tenfold stronger than Yue Yang had estimated.

Boooooooom…

Chiqiu was flung a thousand meters away, slamming into the ground, punching through three boulders and gouging a hundreds-of-meters-long trench. And that was after he had actively adjusted his line of flight to protect himself. Had he done nothing at all and just taken the palm, he probably would have been found three hundred meters underground — which would have meant falling into Shafeng’s trap and stepping into the worst possible position.

Of the eight Divine Sovereigns, all knew: the enemy Shafeng was best at fighting was one trapped underground.

Shafeng’s ultimate techniques had a natural advantage beneath the earth.

Whoosh!

Chiqiu barely got one hand under him when Shafeng appeared before him in a flash and whipped out a heavy punch as fast as lightning. From spectating Yue Yang, for his part, it looked as though Chiqiu were sliding forward on the ground of his own accord, delivering himself gift-wrapped into Shafeng’s fist — Shafeng blasted him away in one hit.

Thud!

Chiqiu spun through the air like a top and crashed into a stone mountain, the massive force shattering even that God-Slaying-Mystic-Metal-hard mountain into pieces.

“Cough, cough…” After the successive blows of Shuanghan, Shafeng, and Zhaoxi, Chiqiu was at last wounded, and coughed up blood.

Blood came up by the mouthful.

The most crippling thing of all — his right ankle was still locked in an ice chain.

At the other end of the chain was Northwest Divine Sovereign Shuanghan. So long as this Northwest Divine Sovereign did not release the binding, any move Chiqiu made would suffer strong interference from him.

How would this fight end for Chiqiu?

Never mind outsiders — even Yue Yang, for his part, long practiced in fighting from the losing position, could only frown at the impasse.

(End of Chapter 1166)