Chapter 232 - 222: True Monarch Returns
No matter where they were in the ruins, regardless of their cultivation—from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment—everyone felt an indescribable, sharp pain deep within their Divine Soul, a sensation of being stripped away.
Then, to their astonishment, they saw countless fine, gray threads materialize on their bodies.
One end of these threads was connected to their own fortune, Divine Soul, and Dao Foundation.
The other end pointed far off, toward the Suspended Coffin and the True Monarch.
This was the cause and effect tying them to the annihilation of the Zombie Alliance.
Now, these threads of cause and effect were being forcibly traced and pulled taut by an irresistible, terrifying power.
"No—!"
A Foundation Establishment Master in the middle of collecting a Magical Artifact let out a desperate howl.
He could only watch as his hand, along with the Magical Artifact, began to disintegrate from the fingertips, turning inch by inch into the finest dust, like a sand sculpture eroding in the wind.
It wasn’t shattering. It was a complete erasure of their very existence.
His furious howl was cut short. He, along with the very imprint of his Divine Soul, was wiped from Heaven and Earth by the formless Power of Cause and Effect.
Vast swaths of the area—the Cultivators, the treasures they had just seized, and even the traces they left behind—were all being silently annihilated in a way that defied all reason.
There were no explosions, no brilliant flashes of light.
Only a despairing "non-existence."
This was the wrath of a True Monarch!
To invert effect into cause, wiping away existence itself!
A silent, swift tide of destruction spread out from the Suspended Coffin.
Though they were thousands of miles away, Qi Yun and Qian Xin Master, aboard their Vermilion Fire Cloud, felt the same fatal pull.
The threads of cause and effect entwined around them trembled violently.
Life and death hung in the balance, to be decided in an instant.
...
"Faster!"
Veins bulged on Qi Yun’s forehead. He felt the threads of cause and effect around him straining to the breaking point, a tearing sensation that threatened to rip him apart.
The True Monarch’s intangible power of annihilation shadowed his every move.
As his eyes closed, the Cyan Gold Divine Radiance within them faded, and a Nine-Colored Divine Radiance erupted forth!
[Mastering All Skills]!
But this time, he wasn’t taking command of another’s Divine Techniques.
Instead, it was the [Avoiding Tribulation Curse] he himself was struggling to form!
The surging, nine-colored divine light contained the Venerable Dao Intent of Commanding All Skills.
Like a celestial river bursting its banks, it charged into the nascent Spell on his wrist—a spell that was only halfway complete, its golden light still flowing sluggishly!
"HUMMM—!"
The slowly evolving golden runes, with the intervention of the Nine-Colored Divine Radiance, began to emit a clear, urgent hum!
Countless golden runes, as fine as dust and impossibly complex, were accelerated to their absolute limit, madly generating, combining, and intertwining!
SWOOSH—!
In a single instant!
The [Avoiding Tribulation Curse]—which would have taken an unknown amount of time to form a complete ring—instantly achieved Perfection under the forceful intervention of [Mastering All Skills]!
A seamless, perfectly formed golden Spell, its beginning meeting its end, was deeply etched upon the veins of Qi Yun’s wrist.
As the Spell slowly circulated, it emanated a strange Daoist Intent—one of avoiding calamity, dispelling disaster, and remaining untouched by any hardship.
It temporarily severed and obscured the violently trembling threads of cause and effect around him.
"Hahh..."
Having successfully formed the [Avoiding Tribulation Curse], the fatal sensation of being stripped away lessened by more than half. Only then could Qi Yun let out a breath of Muddy Qi.
But before he could finish exhaling, a stifled grunt from Qian Xin Master reached his ears.
He glanced over and saw that Qian Xin Master’s face was deathly pale.
The golden Spell on his wrist flickered violently. The evolution of its runes had reached the final stage, but the last one-fifth of the structure stubbornly refused to fully condense and close!
The Red Dust Evil Mist churned around him as he desperately resisted the causal annihilation.
But his situation was clearly perilous!
"Master Qian Xin!"
Qi Yun’s expression hardened. Without a moment’s hesitation, he raised his hand again!
[Mastering All Skills]!
The nine-colored radiance reappeared. It didn’t surge into Qian Xin Master’s body but precisely wrapped around the gap in the unfinished Spell on his wrist.
Using his Daluo Magical Power as a conduit and his own newly perfected Avoiding Tribulation Curse as a template, Qi Yun forcibly guided and completed the final part of the runic structure!
Qian Xin Master felt a sudden warmth on his wrist as an irresistible power, one that carried with it a profound guidance, surged into him.
Under the illumination and pull of the Nine-Colored Divine Radiance, his stalled Spell rapidly grew clear and solidified!
HUM!
Another clear chime rang out!
On Qian Xin Master’s wrist, the golden [Avoiding Tribulation Curse] finally closed, forming a complete ring that was branded deep into his skin!
The instant the Avoiding Tribulation Curses on both their wrists lit up and began operating in perfect unison—
A strange phenomenon occurred!
The two Avoiding Tribulation Curses detached themselves from their wrists, transforming into two lifelike, golden fish!
No, they weren’t fish.
On closer inspection, they were two rivers of script, formed from countless, minuscule golden runes!
These two rivers of runes circled and danced around Qi Yun and Qian Xin Master, spinning ever faster and scattering a rain of golden light.
The drops of light intertwined, linking together to form an exquisite, transparent [Golden Radiance Banner] of flowing runes about three feet away from their bodies.
This Golden Radiance Banner was not perfectly round. Its form was archaic, resembling an inverted glass bell, its entire body composed of billions of golden runes that constantly formed, vanished, and evolved.
It emitted a faint, yet grand and majestic sound, like a hymn from some ancient ritual!
Outside the banner, the intangible power of causal annihilation surged like a violent undercurrent, relentlessly crashing against it.
Each time this power touched the Golden Radiance Banner, the runes on its surface would flare, sending out ripples of golden light.
It was as if the force of annihilation was striking some kind of "conceptual substitute."
The vast majority of the force was bizarrely deflected, scattered, and funneled into the void.
Viewed from afar, against this tableau of destruction where Heaven and Earth had gone dark and all life withered...
Only this golden, runic banner of light, barely ten feet across, stubbornly resisted the causal reckoning from the True Monarch.
Inside the banner, the figures of Qi Yun and Qian Xin Master flickered in and out of sight amidst the flowing runes.
Though their expressions were grim, they had managed to stabilize themselves for the moment, avoiding immediate annihilation by the terrifying force.
The [Avoiding Tribulation Curse] held!
...