Chapter 464 - 411: Encountering the Great Terror Again

Inside the cocoon of light, the projected scene of All Marvelous Heaven grew increasingly clear, and increasingly breathtaking.

In the chaos outside, the aura of the True Monarch of No Dao Extreme Law continued to rise.

The Dao of Annihilation that filled the void was no longer just an intangible corrosive force, but had begun to manifest a magnificent, concrete form.

A colossal, pitch-black lotus of immeasurable size slowly emerged and bloomed within the chaotic void!

Its petals were layered one upon another, each seemingly condensed from the deepest essence of eternal night and finality. A terrifying Dao Rhyme flowed across them, capable of making the Ten Thousand Laws wither and stars fade into silence.

The colossal lotus stretched across the void for what must have been millions of miles. Wherever its shadow fell, even the violent turbulence of earth fire, wind, and water was quelled.

This black lotus spread across the entire battlefield with a slow yet unstoppable momentum.

It seemed poised to engulf this entire section of the void, swallowing the Four Great Bodhisattva Dharma Aspects and returning them to the ultimate "nothingness."

Correspondingly, the might of the Black Lotus Dao Fruit within the projection of All Marvelous Heaven grew even more terrifying.

It spun faster, the pitch-black Daoist Intent it poured out growing thicker. Like an inverted celestial river, it surged down, crashing against and crushing the four Bodhisattva Fruit Positions below.

CRACK...

The faint yet distinct cracking sound seemed to echo from the very depths of one’s soul.

In the projection, the cracks on the golden-bodied phantom of the Dragon Elephant Wisdom Fruit Position widened, and one of its arms grew illusory, as if it might dissipate at any moment.

On the Vidyārāja Fruit Position, the mass of Red Lotus Karmic Fire had a deathly gray color spreading to its core. The flames were nearly frozen, and the roaring visage of the Wisdom King was blurred and indistinct.

The glazed branches of the Treasure Tree Sacred Fruit Position had lost their translucent luster, marred by several shocking black cracks. The dangling Yingluo Light Curtain flickered intermittently.

The edges of the World-Purifying White Lotus Fruit Position’s petals were curled and scorched black. The sacred light at its heart had dimmed to an extreme, and its rotation had all but stopped.

The four Fruit Positions trembled violently, their light flashing erratically. They showed faint signs of wanting to break free and escape!

"Wu Dao!"

In the chaos, the heaven-spanning Golden Body Dharma Aspect of the Dragon Elephant Wisdom Bodhisattva let out a low, thunderous roar. The shockwave rippled the surrounding black threads of annihilation.

The expressions of wrath and peace on his three faces had receded.

Only the central face, the one of Compassion, remained, its expression grave and tinged with exhaustion.

"This round, you’ve won!"

The Dragon Elephant Bodhisattva said in a heavy voice, his words piercing the destructive cacophony to reach the black-robed True Monarch’s ears.

"Stop this. We can make a Dao Oath that for the next ten thousand years, should we encounter you... we will give way."

Those last two words were spoken with great difficulty.

For beings of their Realm, to personally admit defeat and swear an oath to give way for ten thousand years was an immense concession and a profound humiliation.

Inside the cocoon of light, Qi Yun’s gaze flickered.

The Great Sun Purple Extreme True Monarch’s expression remained peaceful, as if he had anticipated this all along.

In the center of the chaos, beneath the world-crushing black lotus, Wu Dao’s figure seemed to have fused with the heart of the flower.

Upon hearing this, the detached curve of his lips seemed to widen slightly. He didn’t respond immediately, instead allowing the advance of the black lotus to pause for a moment, creating a fleeting illusion of hope.

Then, his calm voice, though not loud, echoed clearly within the heart and spirit of every Bodhisattva:

"Stop this?"

"I went to all this trouble, even using my Holy Sect’s Acting Sect Leader as bait to set this trap..."

His gaze swept nonchalantly over Qi Yun in the cocoon of light below before returning to the Four Great Bodhisattva Dharma Aspects, his tone abruptly turning cold.

"Did you really think it was all just to give you a beating?"

The Buddha Light around the four Bodhisattva Dharma Aspects flared simultaneously, clearly shocked and angered by the implication in his words.

The Treasure Tree Adornment Bodhisattva’s sacred visage grew solemn, its voice like the clash of gold and jade:

"Wu Dao, what do you intend to do?

Don’t push your luck!

Even if your Fruit Position is superior and you’ve bested us, if you truly force us into a corner..."

The World-Purifying White Lotus Bodhisattva cut in, its voice ethereal yet filled with grim resolve:

"We will raise our Fruit Positions high and smash them against your Black Lotus!

In this struggle of the Great Dao, we will ensure that Jade and Stone Burn Together!

I refuse to believe that in a one-versus-four clash of Fruit Positions, you can possibly emerge unscathed!"

This was the most direct of threats, and also the final, most devastating trump card available at the True Monarch Level—a clash of Fruit Positions!

If it came to that, in the best-case scenario, both sides would suffer severe damage to their Dao Foundations and their Realms would fall. In the worst case, their True Spirits would crumble, their Great Daos would dissipate, and ten thousand years of bitter cultivation would be washed away. Their True Spirits could even be utterly annihilated!

"Hahaha..."

A long, booming laugh was their answer.

The laughter emanated from the heart of the Black Lotus. It began calmly but grew steadily louder until it drowned out every energy detonation and the wailing of the Laws in the chaotic void, carrying with it a lofty arrogance that looked down upon all creation, indifferent to beginnings and ends.

The laughter gradually subsided.

Wu Dao slowly raised his hands and opened his palms. His movements were gentle, as if he were displaying a priceless treasure.

However, in the center of his palms, two almost imperceptible "dots" quietly materialized.

The instant they appeared, an aura erupted! It was an aura of consumption and return to nothingness—purer, more fundamental, and more soul-freezing than that of the Annihilation Black Lotus.

The two "dots" expanded rapidly, transforming into two terrifying black holes that devoured all light, Divine Sense, Spiritual Power, and even the very concepts of space and time, hovering just above Wu Dao’s palms.

The black holes spun slowly, their edges distorted and blurred.

Within them was an absolute darkness that seemed capable of sucking in even the gaze of a True Monarch.

Wu Dao held up the two black holes that seemed capable of devouring Heaven and Earth. Facing the four Bodhisattva Dharma Aspects, whose Buddha Light wavered but whose auras remained resolute, his voice was placid, yet more intimidating than any roar:

"Try me?"

As those two words were spoken, Heaven and Earth fell into absolute silence!

By comparison, even the millions-of-miles-wide black lotus spanning the void now seemed somewhat "gentle" next to the two black holes in his palms.

"Demon!"

"The height of arrogance!"

With no path of retreat, the Four Great Bodhisattvas let out furious roars. Their Buddha Light began to burn with an unprecedented intensity—not for an attack, but collapsing inward, condensing. From the depths of the four Dharma Aspects arose the tragic, resolute aura of a Great Dao bent on incinerating everything, themselves included!

They were truly about to detonate their Fruit Positions and commit to the act of Jade and Stone Burning Together!

Wu Dao’s eyes were cold and detached. The black holes in his palms spun faster. The world-crushing Annihilation Black Lotus raised its petals one by one, aiming them at the Four Great Bodhisattvas. The Dao of Annihilation condensed into billions of black divine spears, poised to strike!

At that critical juncture, just as the clash of Fruit Positions was about to detonate and this entire region of the void was on the verge of collapsing into an abyss of nothingness—

AUMMM!

A drone, so ancient, profound, and desolate it defied description, sounded without warning from the infinitely distant depths of the void!

The boundless chaos to the side of the combat zone was abruptly covered by a shadow—one as deep as ink and as heavy as a physical object!

Beneath the shadow, the chaos itself recoiled. Even the Dao of Annihilation and the brilliant Buddha Light were silently consumed and faded at its edges.

Then, under the grave gazes of the six True Monarch Level beings, four colossal, indistinct figures radiating a terrifying pressure took a single step out from that bottomless, dark shadow!

Their steps seemed slow, yet it was as if they were shrinking the very ground beneath them, arriving instantly at the edge of the battlefield from the depths of the shadow.

Their forms were shrouded in a hazy, shadowy light, their features impossible to discern. One could only sense four distinct but equally ancient auras—each as profound as an abyss and as boundless as a prison—soaring into the void.

The sweeping pressure was a mixture of the shadow’s profundity, the antiquity of ages, and a cold sense of order that was indifferent to all living things.

It was enough to make the momentum of the impending clash of Fruit Positions falter.

The black holes in the True Monarch of No Dao Extreme Law’s palms slowly stopped spinning, and the Annihilation Black Lotus reined in its advance.

The resolutely burning Buddha Light of the Four Great Bodhisattva Dharma Aspects also froze for a moment, interrupting the tragic aura of their detonating Fruit Positions.

All eyes turned to the four mysterious figures who had emerged from the deep shadow, and to the expanse of darkness that loomed above them.

The chaotic void descended into another kind of dead silence, one far more subtle and fraught with tension.

Inside the cocoon of light, Qi Yun’s calm, observant expression suddenly froze the moment the all-devouring, deep shadow appeared and the four colossal figures stepped out from within it.

"This is..." Qi Yun murmured, his voice carrying a gravity that was rarely heard from him.

’To think I’d run into them again.’

Deep in his memory, a scene nearly lost to the dust of time suddenly became sharp and clear.

It was from his journey to the distant and mysterious Cang Que, right after he had first left the Profound Yellow Origin Realm and was traveling through the endless void.

At the edge of the chaotic turbulence, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of a shocking sight: four terrifying figures, shrouded in impenetrable shadow, silently shouldering an ancient coffin that seemed to bear the weight of eternity and radiated a forbidden aura as they trekked through the nothingness.

The sheer strangeness and terror of that scene had far surpassed any display of Divine Techniques he had witnessed up to that point.

Though he had only seen it for a flash, the image was seared deep into his mind.

True Monarchs as pallbearers!

That terrifying scene from long ago, the one that had shaken even his Dao Heart, was now replaying itself right here, right now!

And this time, it was no fleeting, distant shadow.

’This is bad!’

Qi Yun’s brow furrowed. His gaze was locked on the path of the four pallbearers. They seemed to be completely ignoring the fierce battle between True Monarchs and the chaotic spatiotemporal structure of the area. The direction they were heading...

Was straight for the heart of the battlefield!

"They’re coming toward us!"

At almost the exact same moment Qi Yun noticed,

In the center of the battlefield, both the True Monarch of No Dao Extreme Law, shrouded by his Annihilation Black Lotus, and the four Bodhisattvas, their Buddha Light flickering as they resolved to perish together, sensed it: a terrifying pressure that had descended abruptly and without concealment, carrying an air of indifferent, crushing force!

Five streams of True Monarch Level Divine Sense instantly pierced the chaotic energy turbulence and the clash of Daoist Intents, focusing on the ever-expanding, deep shadow and the pallbearers within.

The instant they "saw" the scene clearly, a tremor of shock and a powerful sense of alarm rose irrepressibly in the hearts of all five True Monarchs!

Although the ancient coffin was wreathed in shadow, its specific form unclear,

the aura it exuded—one of "heaviness," "antiquity," "taboo," and "calamity"—

mixed with the unfathomable pressure of the four pallbearers to form a tableau that made even these True Monarchs feel uneasy and threatened.

They were definitely not allies!

And they were certainly not just passing by!

’Retreat!’

In a flash, the same thought crossed the minds of both Wu Dao and the four Bodhisattvas.

However—

Their reactions were already incredibly fast.

But the movements of the four pallbearers seemed to transcend the very concept of "speed."

In the instant Wu Dao and the four Bodhisattvas shifted their auras to retreat,

beneath the shadow, the four blurry, colossal figures stepped forward in unison.

With this single step, time seemed to stretch and compress all at once.

Before their very eyes, the four figures took a single step with the ancient coffin. The boundless, all-devouring shadow beneath their feet surged forward like a living creature, instantly covering the vast expanse of chaos that had separated them!

The next instant—

BOOM!!!

A boom as if the very limits of space were being forcibly crushed by their arrival!

The four shadowy figures, still shouldering the ancient coffin, appeared out of thin air in the very center of the tense battlefield—a mere stone’s throw from both Wu Dao’s Annihilation Black Lotus and the Bodhisattvas’ Dharma Aspects!

The silence was absolute.

It was as if even the clamor of the chaos had been utterly devoured by the descending shadow and the ancient coffin.

...