Chapter 454: Encirclement
Bang!
High above, the Great Dao Golden Book unfurled by the Golden Book Venerable collided head-on with the heavenly abyss the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord sent crashing down, and the shockwave that burst out from it rocked the entire North Sea Star.
The Great Dao of void caught up in the exchange shifted violently, carrying the tremor through every layer of the North Sea Star, until the whole world seemed to be in the middle of an earthquake.
Countless cultivators of the void Dao, sealed away in secluded training, suffered backlash. Those that had it worst coughed blood and took serious injuries.
Among the many sects near the Heavenly Dao Sect, many arrays based on the Great Dao of void were torn apart, and landslides and fissures born of the spatial tremors spread through all surrounding lands. The chaos was noticeable even to the top-tier Void-Shattering Realm cultivators deep within the stellar core.
That kind of disturbance... Are Dao Lords fighting?
The Gate of the Immortal Realm hasn't even opened yet. Why would Dao Lords start a fight on the North Sea Star already?
Aren't these Dao Lords afraid their attacks will shake the North Sea Star's core? If it can't absorb enough energy, the Gate of the Immortal Realm's emergence gets delayed.
Thoughts churned among the top-tier Void-Shattering Realm cultivators.
For most Dao Lords, the sooner the Gate of the Immortal Realm opened, the better. A shorter cycle meant more chances in a single lifetime to enter the Immortal Realm.
On this point, countless Dao Lords had reached something close to a consensus: they could pour in energy to shorten the cycle, but nothing was to interfere with the gate's growth and push its opening back.
A delay harmed every Dao Lord's interests, and if some Dao Lords then rallied the others to act, they might well swarm whoever had caused it.
Perhaps there was no grudge between those Dao Lords at all, but if a mob attack could remove one of their number, that was one fewer potential enemy.
That was also why so many Dao Lords chose to leave the North Sea Star once the Gate of the Immortal Realm began to open. That way, they'd influence it less.
The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord clearly could not afford such concerns. His end was drawing near, and this Dao contest was his last chance. If he failed to seize the chance, the only outcome left for him would be to pass in meditation.
In that position, he would do anything that might improve his odds of winning the Dao contest, and he'd go all out, just like now!
***
Waves that set the Great Dao of void trembling rolled outward in every direction without pause.
The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord was old, and his mind no longer turned with the speed or sharpness of a Dao Lord in his prime, yet his raw strength was enough. In a single blow, he scattered the Great Dao power manifested by the Great Dao Golden Book, then pushed the force of the heavenly abyss down onto the array the Heavenly Dao Sect had only just managed to activate.
With one blow, the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array, still not fully operational, shook wildly and was smashed open, leaving a gaping breach.
Standing within the heavenly abyss, the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord took a single step across the void. To ordinary eyes, the Heavenly Dao Sect was a place of danger, but he treated it as nothing at all and drove straight in, his powerful psychic thought sweeping across the whole sect like a storm.
When that psychic thought passed over Yaoguang, the Dao Lord paid him no attention whatsoever, sweeping on deeper into the sect until it settled over the area around the Heaven-Forsaken Valley.
Only after several passes back and forth failed to turn up the other unfamiliar Void-Shattering Realm artifact paragon did he finally turn his gaze on Yaoguang.
He reached out with an empty hand.
Yaoguang felt the void around him seize and contract, dragging him toward the Dao Lord's figure.
"Speak! Where is that artifact paragon?" The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord demanded.
With a hum, the Heaven-Sealing Stele burst from Yaoguang's body, and, reinforced by the power of the Great Dao of void drawn forth by the Limitless Sword, it slammed through the congealed patch of void.
"Hmm?" A trace of surprise crossed the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord's face, as though he had not expected Yaoguang to escape his grasp.
Then something seemed to register, and delight flooded his eyes. "A top-tier Dao Artifact?! You actually have a top-tier Dao Artifact on you?! Good! Great! Even heaven is helping me!"
He swept his hand out hard, intending to unleash a divine ability that would pin Yaoguang down and rip the Limitless Sword from his body.
But the Golden Book Venerable's figure appeared once more, and above his head a world of painted scroll unfolded again. This time, what welled up from it were no longer the mountains and rivers of before, but twelve towering silhouettes.
The delay had been enough. The Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array was now fully active and had merged directly with the Golden Book Venerable's power.
The twelve fiend god projections took form and immediately locked into formation, hurling themselves down at the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord. Each seemed to carry the power of a distinct Great Dao, and the strength of all twelve joined with the Great Dao Golden Book that the Golden Book Venerable had manifested, until at last it shaped itself into a single, overwhelming true word.
"Any Great Dao that intrudes upon the Heavenly Dao Sect shall be suppressed by the twelve fiend gods!" the Golden Book Venerable declared.
The power of truth took form.
The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord was a "half-blood" of the star race and void race, so suppressing the void was the most fitting way to bind him.
In an instant, twelve chains of truth seemed to press down on the Dao Lord, and the terrifying momentum that had been sweeping enough to crush the entire Heavenly Dao Sect plummeted.
"This suppressive force..." The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord immediately sensed that something was wrong.
The Golden Book Venerable's strength seemed greater than the rumors claimed!
Over his long years, this Dao Lord had mastered the Dao of alchemy, and the constant nourishment of pills had kept him alive this long. He knew little about arrays.
Subjugated though he was, he had yet to grasp how serious the situation had become, and with one wave of his hand six figures appeared at once.
At their head stood his proudest direct disciple, the man who would one day inherit his mantle, sixth on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings: the Void End Perfected Lord!
Having sent out these disciples and followers, the Dao Lord pointed toward where Yaoguang stood. "Void End, the six of you go seize Yaoguang and that mysterious artifact paragon and bring them back!"
The Void End Perfected Lord was left rather stunned.
Yaoguang ranked second on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings. He himself ranked sixth, and he was supposed to capture Yaoguang alive?
And in the Heavenly Dao Sect's own headquarters, no less, where supreme elders like Zhen Xuanyuan, Chi Yun, Gu Li, Liao Chen, Dong Xi, and Yuan Xing were already appearing one after another?
Even with two junior brothers and three of his master's followers beside him, his scalp still crawled.
Did his own master think too highly of them?
But they could not refuse an order from the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord. All they could hope for was that he would break free of the array's suppression quickly and come to their aid. Otherwise...
"Hold them off," Yaoguang said, waving a hand toward Zhen Xuanyuan. "I'm going to help the Golden Book Venerable."
Zhen Xuanyuan and the others watched Yaoguang finish giving the order and rise into the sky, and felt the pressure keenly themselves.
But the enemy had struck all the way into their headquarters, so they had no choice but to steel themselves and face the six Void-Shattering Realm cultivators led by the Void End Perfected Lord.
Seeing that Zhen Xuanyuan, not Yaoguang, had come to meet him, the Void End Perfected Lord let out a quiet breath of relief.
Still, to avoid drawing Yaoguang into the fight, or rather to keep Yaoguang from noticing something amiss and striking without warning, he could not commit fully to a life-or-death struggle with Zhen Xuanyuan and the rest.
With his attention split in two, the two sides traded blows evenly, neither able to pull ahead.
Freed of that engagement, Yaoguang merged into the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array and took command of it personally. At once, the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord, who had held his own against the Golden Book Venerable's truth power until then, felt the pressure increase.
When Yaoguang finished fusing with the fiend god that represented the Great Dao of void and cut out with a Void Sword, the sword's edge and the suppressive force surging upward by a wide margin made the Dao Lord's pupils constrict.
"No! This isn't what the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array can do! As I remember it, the Heavenly Dao Sect's Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array was only equivalent to a level 14 array, yet this suppressive force... It must have reached level 15!"
The words barely left his mouth before he thrust out a hand. A high-grade Dao Artifact saber slashed through empty air, and a vast breach was torn open in the sky above; a fissure appeared, visible to the naked eye.
Within those fissures lay a devouring force resembling a massive black hole, able to swallow every substance around it, intent on consuming all the energy in the sky above the Heavenly Dao Sect and leaving the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array without the foundation it needed to exist.
Yet, terrifying and overbearing as that devouring force was, it could not budge the improved Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array. The array shook without pause, but under Yaoguang's direction it never once failed, remaining operational all along.
As the void fiend god that Yaoguang had merged into brought forth the Heaven-Sealing Stele, ripples spread outward ring by ring, visible to the naked eye, and swiftly pressed down and repaired the torn spatial fissure.
That sight settled the matter for the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord.
A level 15 array! The Heavenly Dao Sect's sect-protecting grand array was level 15!
"I was careless!" the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord exclaimed.
With the Golden Book Venerable here, and a level 15 array on top of that, never mind him... Even a Dao Lord in his prime who fell into this would likely be trapped for a very long time.
Had he known the Heavenly Dao Sect's sect-protecting grand array was this strong, he never would have charged in so rashly.
Damn it. I passed by the Heavenly Dao Sect three hundred years ago, and back then its sect-protecting grand array was only level 14. Three hundred years, and it's grown this powerful? The thought of retreat took root in the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord's mind.
The next moment his figure began to flicker. After each flicker, he immediately unleashed a sword strike, tearing a rift in the void and using that to destroy the foundation of the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array.
But almost the instant he flickered, the void fiend god that Yaoguang had merged into followed with a Void Flicker of its own and called up the power of the Heaven-Sealing Stele to smooth the torn rift flat again.
"Courting death!" The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord tapped an empty hand forward, and a stream of black light condensed to the utmost limit and blasted toward Yaoguang in an instant.
It was the Dao Technique, Void Mass Point.
But just as that black light with its terrifying mass was about to land, one of the fiend gods appeared in front of Yaoguang and took the blow head-on.
The Void Mass Point soon broke the fiend god apart, yet with Void-Piercing and Void-Refining cultivators throughout the array pouring in vast quantities of spirit stones to keep it running, the array's power soon put the shattered fiend god back together.
Meanwhile, the Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord dispersed two more fiend god projections. But as more and more materials, spirit stones, and pills went in, the speed at which he scattered the projections balanced out the speed at which the Twelve-Fiend-God Heaven-Sealing Array restored them.
If he kept this up, the Heavenly Dao Sect would certainly run short of supplies, and the array would fail. But that time would be measured in months!
He did not have a month. He did not even have a day. If the Penglai Dao Lord broke free and came back, and sealed him inside this array...
"Damn it!" The Abyssal Ruins Dao Lord was thrown into near panic. "A Heavenly Dao Sect with no Dao Lord standing guard..."