Chapter 1411: A Falling Star!

The creature folded its wings and crossed the distance toward him.

Marcus’s own manifestation descended before Phei and lowered itself like a beast welcoming its master. Phei’s giant figure stepped casually onto its back as though the Angel Progenitor had summoned the enormous creature solely to save him the trouble of standing in the sky.

Then Phei reached toward the golden sea.

The ocean stirred beneath him.

A line of light appeared far below.

It widened.

The sea split.

An enormous sword rose vertically from the depths.

World Essence streamed from the blade as it climbed, not wildly, but in heavy golden sheets that slid down its edges and returned to the sea. The weapon continued upward for kilometers before its hilt finally reached Phei’s open hand.

His gauntlet closed around it.

The colossal weapon compressed. Its length shortened until the proportions matched Phei’s immense armored manifestation, though the final blade still possessed enough size and weight to cleave through mountains without slowing.

The bird spread its wings.

Phei leaned forward.

The creature vanished; the sea exploded behind it.

A trench several kilometers long opened through the golden water where the bird had launched, and Phei crossed the distance toward Marcus before the resulting shockwave could follow.

Marcus barely turned in time.

All six wings folded around his body as the sword arrived for judgment!

The collision darkened the Soul Realm—

Golden radiance erupted from the point of contact and expanded into a sphere large enough to swallow mountain ranges. Marcus’s wings buckled beneath the blade. Several rows of feathers disintegrated immediately, and fractures raced along the white-gold spiritual bones beneath them.

Phei’s strike continued through the defense.

Marcus folded around the blade but he was thrown off the bird and fell.

His figure struck the golden sea.

The ocean opened.

World Essence fled from the impact in every direction and left behind an immense hollow hundreds of kilometers across. Walls of gold climbed around the crater while Marcus continued deeper through the empty space his body had created.

The bottom remained invisible.

Only darkness and distant gold waited beneath him.

Everything from Marcus’s first thrust to his fall had consumed roughly one second!

Phei disappeared from the bird.

True Void Steps swallowed him whole; distance lost its meaning and Phei emerged directly inside Marcus’s fall, inverted above the descending Progenitor with one colossal hand already open.

Marcus saw the gauntlet.

He could’ve never escaped it; it was simply way too fast he only saw it when it was an inch from him he only managed to harden an armor around his face!

Phei closed his hand around Marcus’s face.

The fall stopped instantly.

The Soul Realm paid for the sudden halt.

A monstrous ring of force burst from them and struck the towering walls of displaced sea. Golden water thousands of meters high shattered into mist. The open crater widened and cracks spread through the surrounding space and branched outward before streams of World Essence slipped through them like molten veins.

Marcus roared in pain as Phei squeezed the pathetic head yet allowing the scream through.

The ancient Soul finally cast aside restraint.

His full manifestation erupted.

Lesser God cultivation mighty swept across the Soul Realm and the golden sea convulsed.

Great rivers of World Essence tore themselves from its surface and rushed into the heavens around him. His six wings blazed until every feather looked capable of cutting through the luminous sky, and his spiritual body swelled beneath an outpouring of power that the mortal Marcus outside could never have displayed.

Phei laughed.

The sound crossed the sea and disturbed the horizon.

"A measly Lesser God?"

His fingers tightened.

The golden armor covering Marcus’s face cracked.

Thin fractures spread over his cheeks, temples and jaw. Light escaped through them before pale-gold mist followed.

"That’s all cultivation base you can manifest upon yourself to become in your Soul Realm?"

Marcus seized Phei’s wrist with both hands.

He pulled.

Explosions burst around his fingers as the strength of his manifested cultivation crashed against Phei’s arm.

The arm did not move.

Marcus released another violent surge of Lesser God might.

The sea rose beneath them.

Phei squeezed harder: "And you thought that would save you?"

Within a Soul Realm, an Original Progenitor could reach far beyond the weakness of its mortal body.

After all their ancient Soul had their previous memories too from battles the mortal body had never fought and power that belonged to an existence older than the life now carrying it. Marcus could drag fragments of that former mighty into Soul Realm because it was his very Soul Realm and the golden sea was his Essence and Soul Energy too, the spiritual heaven and every distant horizon surrounding them belonged to Progenitor’s Soul.

It was as simple as that!

In the Soul Realm they could summon and manifest cultivation bases to protect their Souls.

Kyle had done the same.

Phei remembered that battle well.

Marcus, however, simply had the misfortune of facing a very different Phei.

Since Kyle, the Young Dragon had climbed through realm after realm. His Soul had deepened. The Great Immortal essence he refined had strengthened foundations that should never have existed at his age. The Primordial Frozen Zone had spent a subjective year breaking him, forcing him to fight, heal, learn and fight again.

He’d also awakened not only the Primordial Blood from Kyle but the Void later and it had grown more terrible. His Primordial Blood had become stronger. His Soul Energy had changed, and his Death-Kissed Cosmic Dragon Soul possessed a depth that the Phei who entered Kyle’s Soul Realm could not have imagined commanding such mightiness so soon.

The difference now was day and night.

Phei did not mind.

Fairness had never been a virtue the world cared to create; he’d been once the hapless one now tables had turned!

He had not entered Marcus’s Soul Realm to experience some glorious duel between ancient existences. He came here to break Marcus inside the one place where the Angel Progenitor should have possessed every advantage, then leave enough of him intact to understand exactly who owned those advantages afterward.

Phei hurled him into the sea.

Marcus struck the surface hard enough to carve a canyon through the golden water.

Phei followed before the displaced World Essence could close over him.

His fist struck beneath Marcus’s ribs— the Angel Progenitor folded around it. The shockwave tore a trench through the sea encompassing hundreds of kilometers and left the waters split behind Marcus as his body flew backward.

Phei appeared above him. His armored heel struck Marcus across the spine.

The Progenitor plunged; he hit the ocean like a fallen star.

A towering eruption of gold punched through the sky. Marcus escaped the depths with his spear restored in his hands.

He drove it toward Phei’s chest. Phei caught the weapon.

A surge of force of a Lesser God with endless reserved of energy raced through the shaft of the spear. The spear blazed until its light washed over both of them, and the sea beneath their feet churned in answer.

Phei closed his fingers—

CRAACKK!!

—the weapon cracked.

Golden fractures travelled from his fist toward both ends.

Marcus’s eyes widened.

The spear shattered.

Burning fragments scattered across the sea and sank into the World Essence from which they had been formed.

Phei caught one of Marcus’s wings and— he swung him.

The first revolution dragged the sea into motion. The second pulled a storm around them. By the third, great spirals of World Essence had risen high enough to hide the horizon.

Phei released him.

Marcus crossed the Soul Realm like ammunition fired from a celestial siege weapon.

His own colossal bird stood directly in the path.

Marcus struck it.

The creature exploded.

Kilometers of luminous feathers burst across the heavens, and the immense body dissolved into torrents of gold before Marcus tore through the remains and continued toward the distant sea.

He hit something!

The impact lifted another colossal wall from the ocean.

Phei reached him before it fell.

His next punch struck through Marcus’s chest.

Both bodies plunged beneath the surface.

The golden depths swallowed them.

Above, the ocean closed.

Phei drove Marcus farther downward like two torpedoes underwater!

World Essence stretched endlessly around them burning like volcano from Phei’s speed alone wherever he passed and bright enough near the surface to resemble liquid sunlight, then steadily darker as the descent carried them deeper. The pressure grew. Golden currents twisted around their bodies and tore away each time Phei accelerated.

Marcus opened all six wings.

Power erupted from him.

The sea became white-gold fire.

The blast tore through the depths and lifted an entire region of the ocean upward. The surface far above swelled into an enormous dome before rupturing beneath the force.

Phei came through the radiance.

Cracks marked his golden armor.

His smile had grown.

After that, whatever remained of the fight ceased deserving the name.

The golden sea became witness to an execution that refused to end in death.