Chapter 560: The Celestial Venerable's Doomsday

The moon shone brilliantly under the light radiating from the True God's eyes. Had the people of the Western Ox New Continent still been awake, they would have looked up and discovered just how different this bright moon was from the one they remembered.

Unfortunately, the people of the Western Ox New Continent remained petrified, none of them waking.

Chen Shi's True God Dao Field continued to expand outward, and the eighth heaven was the realm the Celestial Venerable had cultivated, the Grand Veiled Heaven!

The Grand Veiled Heaven's coverage had already encompassed the entire Western Ox New Continent.

In the sky, the flesh writhed ceaselessly, trying to flee the Western Ox New Continent, but its body was too massive, and escape was no easy matter.

The Grand Veiled Heaven manifested great Dao phenomena such as the Taiji diagram, the Palace of Longevity, and the Thirty-Two Heaven Youths. Wherever they spread, the demonic energy within the flesh was refined away, transforming into clear water that fell from the sky.

Some flesh that failed to transform into clear water in time tore away from the main body, tumbling through the air as mountains of meat before crashing down.

These chunks of flesh dissolved within Chen Shi's Dao Field as they fell, and by the time they reached the ground, they had shrunk considerably, causing little destruction.

In the sky, the endless flesh writhed, squirmed, and contracted madly, attempting to resist Chen Shi's True God Dao Realm.

But even as it shrank its body, it could not withstand the refining power of the True God Dao Realm. The flesh on its surface continued to dissolve into clear water that streamed downward.

It abruptly shifted form, assuming the shape of the Six-Winged Heavenly Silkworm, beating its wings to flee.

The primordial insect excelled at imitation. It had observed Can'er transform into the Six-Winged Heavenly Silkworm and wield the five-colored divine light moments ago, and now it copied the form with astonishing fidelity.

Even more, when it beat its wings, five-colored radiance burst forth!

Its speed was tremendous as it soared upward, surging into the high sky in an instant, attempting to flee beyond the heavens.

"The primordial insect is truly incredible!" Chen Shi exclaimed, marveling at its power.

He raised his hand and swung his sword, employing the simplest technique, the Ziwu Evil-Slaying Sword. This spell was the most basic, yet its power was immense!

Behind him, the Celestial True God also swung its sword, using the same Ziwu Evil-Slaying Sword!

The sword qi stretched a thousand li, tearing through the air. The next moment, the blade light howled past, and one side of the primordial insect's wings fell away!

The primordial insect's remaining wing vibrated frantically, but it could no longer maintain its balance and plummeted toward the ground.

Chen Shi raised his hand, and a Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Talisman appeared in his palm, also an extremely simple talisman.

Behind him, the Celestial True God likewise formed the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Talisman, but its power was utterly terrifying. Bolts of lightning as thick as mountains descended from the heavens, striking the primordial insect one after another.

The primordial insect tumbled and rolled, flesh splattering everywhere. Midair, it transformed into a strange beast once more, stepping on dark radiance as it tried to flee.

Chen Shi stamped his foot, and talismans rose all around him, rapidly forming the Spirit Banner Ten Extremities Array.

Around him, the Spirit Banner Ten Extremities Array unleashed by the Celestial True God exploded outward, spanning ten thousand li, enveloping the strange beast. Blazing divine light erupted, surging and intersecting within the great array. The primordial insect let out a miserable shriek as it was refined smaller and smaller.

By the time the light of the Spirit Banner Ten Extremities Array faded, the primordial insect had been refined to ashes.

The underworld.

The underworld was ten, even dozens of times vaster than the mortal world. However, the Yin and Yang realms were one entity, and the mountains and rivers of the underworld were projections of those in the mortal world. When the Grand Veiled Heaven descended, it shrouded the entire underworld, drawing it into the Dao Realm.

The primordial insect covering the underworld's sky felt stabbing pain from countless parts of its body, writhing and tumbling in agony.

The Celestial Venerable's true body was attacking the Palace of Virtue, having already reached its gates and slaughtered countless deities. He was about to break through the doors and raze the temple when he too suddenly felt stabbing pain. He cried out and clutched his forehead.

On his forehead, the primordial insect flesh that had burrowed into his body immediately dissolved into clear water and streamed out.

The eight other wounds on his body also split open again, the demonic energy within the primordial insect flesh refined away, transforming into clear water.

The Celestial Venerable's body trembled. When the primordial insect had been controlling him, he hadn't felt any pain, but now, as more and more of the primordial insect's flesh was refined away within him, the agony came crashing down, nearly overwhelming him.

The Empress of Earth immediately charged out of the Palace of Virtue: "Little Willow, follow me to kill him! Little Willow?"

Outside the Palace of Virtue, only Daoist Willow's two legs remained standing on the ground, his upper body gone without a trace.

Beside him stood the stump of the willow tree.

More than a dozen deities followed the Empress of Earth as she attacked the Celestial Venerable. He was struck repeatedly, looking utterly miserable.

The little Yama, Nannan, raised the Dragon Head Executioner's Blade. A flash of blade light descended from the sky, striking the Celestial Venerable's neck and slamming him to the ground, though without wounding him.

Lord Guan, the Sage Emperor, spurred his horse forward and swept his blade upward. The blade light rose from the ground, sending the Celestial Venerable flying into the air.

The Celestial Venerable flew backward, only to be caught by the Empress of Earth, who raised her Purple Heaven Vine and yanked him back.

The crowd surged forward, surrounding the Celestial Venerable and laying into him viciously. Earlier, he had cornered them all on the high mound alone, inflicting heavy casualties. Now they wished nothing more than to tear him limb from limb.

Zhong Wuwang also flew in, raising the Yin Yang Qi Bottle and channeling its water and fire to refine the Celestial Venerable.

He strained to lift, attempting to raise the Celestial Venerable and draw him into the bottle, but the Celestial Venerable merely swayed slightly, refusing to be lifted.

Seeing this, the Empress of Earth's heart sank.

All along, the Celestial Venerable had been channeling most of his own and the primordial insect's power against her, besieging the Palace of Virtue to drain her divine power. As for Wu Qi, the Celestial Venerable merely dealt with him using his own strength.

And so, the Empress of Earth's divine power had been drained by more than half.

The deities of China had suffered catastrophic losses. Only these dozen or so remained. Half of the Empress's power came from the masses of living beings, and half from the gods and ghosts above and below the earth. Now that most of the deities had been killed, among all the people, gods, and ghosts of the Yin and Yang realms, only the ghost clan of the Heavenly Pool Kingdom still offered her worship, but their incense offerings were far weaker than at her peak.

"I'm no longer strong enough to seriously wound the Celestial Venerable," she thought to herself.

Had the deities of China still existed, her divine power would have been sufficient to strike him down. But now, even wielding the Purple Heaven Vine, she couldn't make him bleed.

Even more terrifying, the Celestial Venerable seemed to have sensed where the weakness in his flesh came from. He was refining away the shamanic ritual markings within his bloodline!

It was precisely because of the shamanic ritual markings in his blood that the Empress of Earth had been able to seize the opportunity to wound him.

"Once the shamanic ritual markings are removed, the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection will have no weaknesses!" the Empress thought.

In the sky, a drizzling rain fell, the clear water formed from the primordial insect's flesh.

In the underworld, the primordial insect's flesh still squirmed within the clouds, desperately contracting into a sphere to resist Chen Shi's Yin Yang Dao Realm.

Chen Shi's method of letting the great Dao of heaven and earth merge with him was a transformation of the Western Ox New Continent's heavenly Dao, coincidentally aligning with the Celestial Venerable's approach of herding the primordial insect. The Celestial Venerable's herding method first let the primordial insect's demonic energy cover the Western Ox New Continent, altering the great Dao of heaven and earth, causing all living beings to demonize and gradually reshaping the world into the primordial insect's Dao Field.

Chen Shi's Dao-merging-self was far more domineering. There was no curse process involved; he directly used the Celestial True God's overwhelmingly boundless divine power to alter the great Dao of heaven and earth!

Thus, the primordial insect could not resist this onslaught. Even fleeing was impossible. It could only desperately contract and hold its ground.

The crowd continued to rain killing blows upon the Celestial Venerable, when suddenly he was sent flying with tremendous force, tumbling and crashing down from the high mound.

Zhong Wuwang put away the Yin Yang Qi Bottle and laughed: "His legs have been refined soft by me!"

The Empress of Earth's gaze fell upon the Celestial Venerable. He lay sprawled on the ground, and on his back, the shamanic ritual markings appeared, slowly dimming.

She sighed, raised her hand, and the Purple Heaven Vine planted on the high mound tore free at the roots, landing in her grasp like a long whip.

Now that she no longer needed the Purple Heaven Vine to fight the primordial insect's flesh, she could use this treasure as a weapon to settle the score with the Celestial Venerable.

"All of you, leave."

The Empress of Earth's expression was calm as she stared at the Celestial Venerable slowly rising to his feet. "This battle is beyond your reach now."

The crowd's hearts jolted. They watched as the Empress of Earth let out a fierce cry, whipped the Purple Heaven Vine through the air, and flew toward the Celestial Venerable.

The Purple Heaven Vine twisted and turned with her movements like a violet divine dragon, brimming with terrifying power. Even a seemingly ordinary strike contained the might to overturn mountains and seas.

Yet the Celestial Venerable gradually steadied himself under her assault.

The Empress of Earth's heart sank lower and lower.

In her current state, she was no match for the Celestial Venerable.

Just then, the sky suddenly split open. The gloom shrouding the underworld's sky scattered, and brilliant sunlight streamed down from above, casting its glow around the high mound and illuminating everything.

The Celestial Venerable steadied himself and looked up. He saw the Celestial True God descending from beyond the heavens into the underworld.

The Celestial True God's Dao Realm grew ever more powerful. Both the Yin and Yang realms of the entire Western Ox New Continent were enveloped within a colossal Taiji diagram!

The Empress of Earth and the others looked up and saw a small figure standing before the Celestial True God's immensely vast body.

"King Chen?" Zhong Wuwang exclaimed in shock.

"Celestial Venerable, I'll give you a fair chance to fight."

Chen Shi's voice rang out. "You may use your most powerful supreme arts and strike at me. Defeat me, and you'll have a chance to live."

The primordial insect suddenly lunged at him, but before it could even approach Chen Shi, it was refined by the rotating Taiji diagram, transforming into a torrential downpour that fell from the sky.

The Celestial Venerable stood in the heavy rain, looking up. The flesh on his forehead slowly knitted itself back together. Gazing at Chen Shi standing before the Celestial True God, he laughed: "You brat, you've actually managed to make something of yourself. It's a pity Wei Daoren didn't destroy the body when he harvested the Innate Dao Embryo."

He activated the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection, and with two clanging sounds, Wu Qi's two finger bones fell from the back of his skull, clattering to the ground.

The bone at the back of his head was also slowly healing itself.

"An insect is still an insect. Even as a primordial insect, it lacks flexibility and couldn't see that you're all bark and no bite."

The Celestial Venerable sneered. "Chen Shi, you're only maintaining the Golden Immortal Realm by relying on the Celestial True God's power. Your Golden Immortal status is nothing but a counterfeit. Before a true Golden Immortal, you're utterly fragile."

His aura gradually surged. Above his head, the Grand Veiled Heaven Dao Realm manifested, nearly as vast as the Celestial True God's Dao Realm. However, his Dao Realm was hidden within the void, not merging with the Celestial True God's.

"The Celestial True God is about to die. You're borrowing its power, but you won't last more than a few exchanges before it collapses and disintegrates."

The Celestial Venerable walked toward Chen Shi, laughing. "Before me, you'll all lose disastrously. Not a single one of you here will escape."

Chen Shi paid him no heed, his aura connected to the Celestial True God.

His aura grew stronger and stronger, and so did the Celestial True God's. But strangely, his and the Celestial True God's auras were almost identical to the Celestial Venerable's!

The Celestial Venerable's expression shifted drastically, and the words burst from his mouth: "The Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection?"

"Correct."

Chen Shi's gaze was deep and profound as it settled on him. His voice was low and steady: "I couldn't find a flaw in the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection, so I thought I'd pit the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection against the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection. Let's see who's stronger, you or me!"