Chapter 424 - 423: Eight Demonic Hands Seize the Nine Provinces, The World’s Foundations in Peril

Tianxu had already understood that the newly emerged Quasi Demon Emperor possessed strength far beyond that of ordinary Void Refinement cultivators. Yet the power descending upon the Nine Provinces now made the earlier display seem almost restrained.

His golden halberd trembled in his hand, and the faint remnants of his imperial aura flickered as the pressure pressed against his body.

"What is that?" Nanheng whispered.

Her question was barely audible, yet no one needed her to repeat it. The answer was already becoming visible above them, emerging from the darkness that had swallowed the sky.

It was not a single hand.

Eight colossal demonic hands burst through the shattered firmament, tearing the remaining clouds into long, ragged strips. Their enormous fingers extended across the heavens, and each palm radiated the suffocating authority of a Middle Stage Body Integration cultivator.

The hands were so vast that their shadows covered entire regions. The already devastated battlefield seemed to lie beneath an approaching night.

The sight defied ordinary comprehension. These were not illusions projected by a formation, nor ordinary manifestations of spiritual Qi that could be dispersed by a sufficiently powerful counterattack.

Each hand carried a portion of Gu Cangming’s authority. It allowed the hand to reach across the dimensional boundary and interact directly with the foundations of the Nine Provinces.

The first hand descended toward the interconnected tectonic foundations beneath the land. Its fingers spread across an enormous area, reaching for the ancient structures that supported the ground itself.

Mountains trembled as the pressure passed over them. Rivers changed course, and entire regions shook beneath the force of the approaching grasp.

The hand was not targeting a city or a battlefield. It was attempting to seize the foundational structure upon which the land rested.

The second hand veered toward the south, where the Whispering Mirage Woods stretched across an immense region. Its fingers plunged through the distorted layers of the forest, reaching toward the source of the ancient illusions that had sustained the area for countless years.

The trees shuddered violently. Countless overlapping images flickered across the landscape as the hand’s authority interfered with the laws that maintained the forest’s unusual environment.

The third hand rose toward the Floating Mountains.

Those towering peaks had once served as the only physical pathway leading toward the Golden Gate and the Imperial Domain. Their enormous foundations were intertwined with ancient spatial formations, and their gravity-defying structures had remained stable through countless ages.

Now, the descending hand closed around them. Its fingers curled toward the mountain range as though the entire structure were a small object waiting to be collected.

The fourth hand plunged toward the deepest layers beneath the land, aiming for the Primordial Volcanic Forge. The ancient structure had long served as one of the fundamental sources of thermal energy within the Nine Provinces.

Its internal laws were connected to the volcanic currents that sustained numerous regions. As the enormous fingers approached, the ground trembled violently, and distant volcanoes began releasing torrents of fire and smoke.

The remaining four hands spread across other regions of the world, each one targeting a foundational structure connected to the Nine Wonders. They did not descend randomly, nor did they seek to destroy the largest cities or kill the greatest number of cultivators.

Their movements were precise, guided by an understanding of the world’s architecture that surpassed the knowledge possessed by the surviving forces.

Gu Cangming was harvesting the Nine Provinces.

He had no intention of conquering its territories one city at a time. He was reaching directly for the structures that sustained them, intending to gather the remaining Wonders and refine their laws into the treasure he desired.

The destruction of individual sects, clans, and empires was irrelevant to him unless it interfered with the process. His objective was the foundation of the world itself, and the cultivators living upon it were merely obstacles that might be crushed along the way.

Emperor Tianxu stared upward, unable to conceal the horror spreading across his face. The golden halberd slipped slightly in his grasp, and he had to tighten his fingers around the shaft to prevent it from falling.

His years of experience had taught him how to remain composed in the face of overwhelming danger. But the scale of the attack made it difficult to maintain even the appearance of confidence.

"He is taking everything," Tianxu whispered. "He intends to seize the entire world."

The words were barely spoken before the first enormous hand began closing around the distant foundations. A wave of pressure spread across the Nine Provinces, and the resulting tremor reached the Grand Court several moments later.

The broken jade tiles beneath their feet shifted, while fragments of collapsed pillars slid into the surrounding rubble. Far beyond the courtyard, the cries of cultivators and demons rose into the darkened sky.

Ku Ming grasped his prayer beads with both hands. His golden eyes were fixed upon the descending hands, and his lips moved in a quiet prayer.

The monk had once believed that the world’s ancient structures could endure even the most destructive conflicts, provided that enough cultivators remained willing to protect them. Now, he was watching a being attempt to dismantle those structures directly, using a level of power that ordinary defensive formations could not withstand.

His Buddhist aura flickered violently, responding to the pressure that filled the atmosphere. The Indestructible Karmic Wheel had protected him during the earlier battle, but even that extraordinary defensive technique would be useless if the laws supporting it continued to deteriorate.

Ku Ming understood that the problem was no longer limited to the strength of the enemy’s attacks. The enemy was reaching for the very principles that allowed resistance to exist.

Bai Qingyue tightened her grip on the Sun Shooting Bow. Its dark star-iron surface reflected the descending darkness, and the faint traces of its Weapon Spirit stirred within the artifact.

The bow had helped her kill powerful demons during the earlier battle, but the hands above them operated on an entirely different scale. Even if the bow could somehow be coaxed into releasing a single arrow, she could not be certain it would affect a manifestation of such immense authority.

Her fortune reacted before she could fully understand the danger. A warning rose within her soul, so intense that it seemed to press against every part of her consciousness.

The Yunqi Realm had helped her recognize opportunities and avoid dangers that would have escaped ordinary perception, but this sensation was different. It was not warning her about a single attack or a particular enemy. It was telling her that the structure of the world itself was in danger.

Bai Qingyue looked toward Lin Yuan.

He stood beside her, his crimson robes hanging heavily in the unnatural stillness. His deep purple eyes remained fixed on the descending hands, and his expression revealed none of the panic that had spread across the faces of the surrounding cultivators.

Yet she could sense the tension within him, the subtle concentration of his consciousness as he examined the movements of the enormous manifestations.

Lin Yuan’s divine sense extended across the battlefield, following the trajectories of the hands and studying the laws that supported them. His comprehension allowed him to recognize that the manifestations were not simply enormous weapons created to destroy physical structures.

Each one carried a connection to the Demon Emperor’s will. Through it, the hands could interact with the foundational laws of the Nine Provinces from beyond the dimensional boundary.

The attack was terrifying precisely because of its purpose.