The Battle of the Ancestral Gods

The great war erupted without warning. The Ancestral Lord of the Death World was unfathomably powerful—with a single palm strike, he sent Li Huiyou and the Martial Imprint flying.

The true Ancestral Gods could turn their hands to summon clouds or rain, master myriad worlds with a thought, shatter stars with a flick, and were bound by no law or principle.

Li Huiyou roared at the heavens. The hedgehog battle armor covering his body blazed as divine spines shot upward, radiating ten thousand beams of light. Though he faced an incarnation of an Ancestral God, fury still burned within him.

In the palm of his right hand, a divine halberd coalesced from void to substance. Though pitch-black, it blazed with a light that pierced the clouds.

Halberd in hand, Li Huiyou tore through heaven and earth, stepping forward to close with the Ancestral Lord in a single stride.

The black halberd, though barely three meters long, weighed countless thousands of kilograms. It gleamed with an eerie radiance, and its strike shattered the entire landscape.

The Doomsday Halberd—true to its name, when it struck, it was as if the end of the world had come. It was a supreme Ancestral God weapon, passed down through untold generations in the otherworld. In the long river of history, countless human Ancestral Gods had fallen beneath its blade.

"Clang!"

But the Ancestral Lord across from him was monstrously strong. He met the Doomsday Halberd with a bare bone palm and gained the absolute upper hand. His jade-white bone claws reached forward, and with a crash, they seized the hedgehog divine armor.

Li Huiyou stumbled from the blow, but the Ancestral God battle suit protected him from injury. Yet the Ancestral Lord's dominance was plain to see—his bone hand was not pierced by the divine spines standing upright; instead, he grabbed a handful of them and ripped them out.

Li Huiyou, enraged, swept the Doomsday Halberd across the front, but again it was intercepted by a bone palm.

"You claim to be an Ancestral God? Not so impressive." The Ancestral Lord pressed down on the black halberd with a single bone hand, looking down on his opponent from above.

"My true body has not arrived. If my true form were here, how could you be my match!" Li Huiyou shook the Doomsday Halberd, again shattering the surrounding heaven and earth as the weapon swept around.

"One is not enough—you too…" The Death World Ancestral Lord radiated divine might. From his bone palm shot a rainbow beam that struck the Martial Imprint, dragging him into the fray.

The Martial Imprint had been sent flying earlier and had planned to watch from a safe distance, letting the two fight to the death before making his move at the last moment. He never expected the Ancestral Lord to be so arrogant as to drag him in and fight them both at once.

The Martial Imprint used his weapon soul to drive his original divine tree, unleashing terrifying beams from the ancient demon cities that filled even Ancestral God-level experts with unease.

"The path here cannot withstand spatial travel or intense battle," the Ancestral Lord said with a grave expression. "Let us decide this in the sky curtain."

With that, he charged toward the faint curtain of light ahead. The Martial Imprint had no choice but to pursue—the Eternal Light was there and could not fall into outsider hands. The otherworld Ancestral God Li Huiyou followed immediately; he had come for the Eternal Light in the first place. Two otherworld Ancestral Gods had already fallen on the road; it would be too tragic if he failed at the final moment.

Just those few collisions had been terrifying enough. If true Ancestral God-level warfare erupted, it was unimaginable—unless they held back, they might destroy an entire world.

The three supreme powerhouses vanished into the sky curtain in the blink of an eye.

As the Ancestral God battle exploded, the Half-Ancestors and Sovereigns behind them also joined the fray.

In the three-way melee, nine otherworld Half-Ancestors and eight Death World Sovereigns held the advantage. Xiao Chen, Bai Qi, and the two divine weapons were clearly at a disadvantage.

Among Xiao Chen's side, the Golden Divine Halberd and the Dark-Iron Seal were quite resilient—both had evolved to the Sixth Heaven and, though divine weapons, could match Half-Ancestors of that level. Each held off two opponents, engaging four powerful enemies.

As for Xiao Chen and Bai Qi, they were in grave danger. In this cataclysmic melee, they were completely surrounded by enemies.

Especially Xiao Chen, who was being hunted by an eight-heaven otherworld Half-Ancestor. The gap between them was far too wide—they were simply not on the same level.

"Damn it!" Xiao Chen fought defensively, forced to retreat again and again, frustration burning within him. Left with no way out, he raised the half stone skull and met the eight-heaven powerhouse head-on.

"Boom!"

Ten thousand blade-rays smashed into the half stone skull, only to be absorbed completely.

The powerful otherworld Half-Ancestor froze, finding it unbelievable that such a savage assault could be blocked so easily by a single hand.

Seizing the moment, Xiao Chen transformed into a bolt of lightning. The six heavenly steles and twenty-seven War Swords swept across the sky, instantly rending the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor into pieces, blood and gore scattering through the air.

"DAMN IT!" The otherworld Half-Ancestor roared in fury. Having reached the Eighth Heaven, he could not be killed so easily. Even as he was shattered, he reformed his body in the sky. Wielding the authority of heaven, he brought his massive demon blade down on Xiao Chen.

But again he was met by a single hand—ten thousand layers of blade-light, a thousand curtains of energy, all stopped by that hand. The half stone skull absorbed every killing stroke.

At the same time, Xiao Chen swept forward with his War Sword. "Pfff!" It slashed open the enemy's throat, a spray of scarlet blood blossoming.

The eight-heaven Half-Ancestor stumbled backward in disbelief, one hand clutching his throat as blood gushed between his fingers. Anguish and shock struck him speechless.

"Afraid? Come again…" Xiao Chen beckoned, feigning nonchalance.

At last, he felt some confidence taking root in his heart.

This eight-heaven Half-Ancestor was already an extremely powerful existence—among Half-Ancestors, he could sweep away entire regions. Yet at this moment, he felt nothing but seething frustration.

Divine light blazed all over his body as his throat healed in an instant. He transformed into a beam of light and charged at Xiao Chen, avoiding that damned hand and aiming for every other part of Xiao Chen's body.

But at the Half-Ancestor level, divine sense was immense. Xiao Chen simply kept his left hand before him, and it was always fast enough to block the otherworld Half-Ancestor's circling attacks.

After several dozen exchanges, fate was cruel: the mighty eight-heaven Half-Ancestor was throat-slashed again by Xiao Chen! A spray of blood erupted.

"I was born from the will of heaven and earth, sent to execute divine punishment. My body is eternal and indestructible. You can never destroy me."

"Hearing such bullshit makes me sick." The eight-heaven Half-Ancestor, enraged beyond reason, attacked again.

"Who's afraid of who? You can hit me a thousand times—it won't matter. One solid hit from me is worth more." Xiao Chen was completely relaxed now, adopting an infuriating demeanor.

The eight-heaven Half-Ancestor ignored his words, his expression turning ice-cold and emotionless. "Six-Direction Seal!"

In that instant, terrifying light appeared from all sides, above and below, closing in on Xiao Chen. Space shrank rapidly, trying to seal him within.

But the moment the dreadful light curtain pressed in, it was absorbed by the half stone skull in Xiao Chen's hand. Heaven and earth cleared once more.

The eight-heaven Half-Ancestor was furious but could not think of a way to kill Xiao Chen right now.

For his part, Xiao Chen could only defend; he could not kill this eight-heaven opponent either.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Bai Qi was fighting for his life, locked in a white-hot melee with two Bone Sovereigns and another otherworld Half-Ancestor. He was pierced through several times.

"Hey, my Death World brothers—we're on the same side!" Xiao Chen, using the half stone skull to clear a path, broke free of the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor and charged toward a group of powerful Sovereigns.

At the same time, he retracted his Ancestral God battle armor, letting his flesh become translucent. The bones within were clearly visible—a seven-colored crystal skeleton blazing with dazzling light.

"Look—we're the same race!" Xiao Chen shouted loudly. "I, your little brother, trained on the outer regions of the Death Continent for years. My brothers should be able to recognize my identity."

"You are a cultivator of the Death World?" Several Sovereigns showed expressions of surprise. They could indeed see that his seven-colored skeleton was no disguise.

"Exactly. I am a super-evolutionary."

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The Sovereigns who had been besieging Bai Qi and the two divine weapons all withdrew from the fight, preparing to surround the nine otherworld Half-Ancestors together.

The sudden reversal made the nine Half-Ancestors feel deeply uneasy.

"Even if you are a seven-colored skeleton, how can you prove that you are truly a cultivator of our world?"

"You are all Sovereigns of the Death World—you must know some famous names." Xiao Chen, throwing caution to the wind, began name-dropping with Sovereigns he had never met. "You've heard of Yingxiong, right? We're sworn brothers!"

"Nonsense! Yingxiong vanished ten thousand years ago. If you were such an ancient relic, why have we never heard of you before?"

Xiao Chen smacked his forehead. "I forgot—he was trapped in the Death World heavenly palace for ages; I was the one who saved him. Fine, let me mention another name you must know. On the outer regions of the Death Continent, there's a Sovereign named Yi Tianzhong—he's my little brother. Heard of him?"

"Of course we have." All eight powerful Sovereigns nodded. But one of them, a colorful diamond skeleton Sovereign, ground his teeth and stepped forward.

"Then you should believe me now, right?" Xiao Chen asked.

All eight Sovereigns shook their heads at once. The colorful diamond skeleton who had stepped forward ground his teeth even harder. "When did I ever become your little brother?!"

Behind him, Bai Qi, the Dark-Iron Seal, and the Golden Divine Halberd all rolled their eyes in unison.

Xiao Chen felt as if he had swallowed a mouthful of chili peppers, coughing and sputtering. His tongue tied, he stammered, "This… can't be such a coincidence… Yi Tianzhong, weren't you exploring the depths with the young Sovereign Lady? Why are you following an Ancestral Lord? Where is the young Sovereign Lady?"

"You talk too much!" Sovereign Yi Tianzhong interrogated coldly and emotionlessly. "When did I become your little brother?"

Joy had truly turned to sorrow. He had thought he had contacted a powerful ally, but instead, he was exposed on the spot.

Xiao Chen himself felt his face burning with embarrassment. He could only explain, "Gentlemen, it's a misunderstanding. I have long admired Brother Yi Tianzhong from afar. I've yearned to meet him for years but never had the chance. I got excited just now and let it slip."

"Explanations are just cover-ups. No matter how eloquent you are, don't think you can fool us!" Yi Tianzhong was deeply indignant.

"In any case, you should believe that I am a cultivator of the Death Continent—otherwise, how would I know the names of the sovereigns of the outer regions?"

"We will go to aid the Ancestral Lord. Let those two sides continue to fight." The eight Sovereigns turned and left the battlefield, walking toward the sky curtain.

At this moment, the nine otherworld Half-Ancestors stood facing Xiao Chen's group, holding the absolute advantage.

"Brother Yi Tianzhong, don't go!" Xiao Chen shouted after them.

But the eight Sovereigns ignored him and vanished into the sky curtain.

"Kill!"

The eight-heaven Half-Ancestor raised his hand, and the nine Half-Ancestors surged forward. Billowing killing intent erupted like countless volcanoes, blasting into the clouds and engulfing the area.

Ancestral Gods—an entire civilization might produce only a handful. Half-Ancestors were already the limit of cultivation.

Nine powerful Half-Ancestors, together, shook heaven and earth with their aura, able to blot out the sun and moon and shake the stars themselves.

Not even the likes of Bai Qi could withstand such pressure. And Xiao Chen, even with his half stone skull, could no longer defend against attacks coming from every direction, engulfing his entire body.

In a single instant, Bai Qi was shattered twice more. The Golden Divine Halberd and the Dark-Iron Seal also developed cracks, their divine consciousness rapidly weakening. If this continued, they would surely fall.

Protected by his Ancestral God battle armor, Xiao Chen's body was not broken, but he still suffered severe damage. Even through the dark-iron war suit, countless bones were shattered.

"Shh, shh, shh!"

At that moment, Xiao Chen flicked drops of blood from his fingers, each one infused with infinite killing intent. Several otherworld Half-Ancestors screamed in fury as the blood droplets pierced through their bodies.

Those were drops of Ancestral Lord blood, obtained from the Death World heavenly palace alongside the three broken swords.

Xiao Chen spat out more than a dozen mouthfuls of blood and shouted, "GO!" He rushed out through the gap he had created. He was nearly ground to dust—even with the Ancestral God battle suit, he could not fully block the overwhelming assault of blade-light and sword-qi.

Bai Qi had been shattered for the fourth time.

Using the Ancestral Lord's blood to open a path, the four of them finally broke out of the battlefield and charged into the sky curtain.

"Think you can leave? Not so easy! Today, there is no escape for you—your path leads to heaven, your gate leads to earth. You are dead men!" The eight-heaven otherworld Half-Ancestor, who had been torn apart several times by Xiao Chen earlier, was already brimming with rage. He led eight Half-Ancestors in hot pursuit.

The sky curtain shimmered like water. In a few steps, they passed through, revealing a vast, vibrant grassland full of life.

The three Ancestral God-level powerhouses were not here. Instead, ahead, there was a second layer of sky curtain—clearly, they had already ventured deeper, nearing the Eternal Light.

What made Xiao Chen's heart sink with despair was that before the second sky curtain lay a thin golden line, dozens of li long, coiled silently.

That was… killing light!

They had once been chased by this terrible light into chaotic spacetime. Now another line of it was blocking the second sky curtain. How could they cross it without being Ancestral Gods?

The eight Sovereigns were all halted before it.

The nine otherworld Half-Ancestors all wore cold, sinister smiles as they closed in on Xiao Chen and his group step by step.

"Fight to the death!"

This was their only option now.

But the power disparity was far too great. How could four Half-Ancestors withstand nine, including an eight-heaven pinnacle expert?

Bai Qi was shattered for the sixth time, his soul-force plummeting. If this continued, he would surely die.

Even Xiao Chen's body finally disintegrated within the Ancestral God battle armor. Blood mist scattered as he painfully reformed his body. His true cultivation had not yet reached the Half-Ancestor level. When he had been trapped in the Death World heavenly palace for more than a hundred and fifty years, enduring every kind of torment, he had trained desperately and only broken through to the Earth-Penetrating realm at the third or fourth heaven.

The nine powerful otherworld Half-Ancestors surrounded them completely; there was no way out.

The Golden Divine Halberd and the Dark-Iron Seal had been shattered four times as well. As divine weapons, their bodies were inherently indestructible—once broken, they could reform intact, but their cultivation would plummet. After four shatterings, they had fallen from the Sixth Heaven to the Fourth Heaven. At this rate, becoming ordinary weapons was only a matter of time.

"Motherfucker!"

"Damn it all!"

The Dark-Iron Seal and the Golden Divine Halberd cursed bitterly.

"You bunch of bird Half-Ancestors, how about a one-on-one?"

"You eight-heaven worm, dare to fight me alone?"

No one paid them any heed. The nine Half-Ancestors' killing intent was naked and undisguised; they only stared coldly at their prey.

And the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor focused his special "attention" on Xiao Chen, shattering him a second time, driving him to the brink of extinction. At this rate, Xiao Chen—a counterfeit Half-Ancestor—would be the first to die on the spot.

"Worms are worms. You are nothing but a lowly race for us to observe and experiment with. In the end, you will never amount to anything."

One of the nine otherworld Half-Ancestors spoke in an ice-cold voice, dripping with contempt.

"This kind of race should have been destroyed long ago. There's no need to observe them any further. The inferior should be eliminated as soon as possible, to make way for the next dominant race."

"Exactly. We should suggest to the Ancestral Gods that a stronger race is needed as our subject of observation and experiment."

The otherworld Half-Ancestors all carried an innate sense of superiority, deeply ingrained, and looked down upon humans, dragons, and other races.

Just then, the powerful eight-heaven otherworld Half-Ancestor coldly and emotionlessly gave the order, "Send these men on their way!"

The nine mighty Half-Ancestors all blazed with divine light, hanging in the sky like nine suns. Tens of millions of divine rays shot heavenward as they prepared to unleash their ultimate strike, annihilating Xiao Chen and his companions body and soul.

But at that very moment, starlight flickered in the sky. A massive Star Gate suddenly appeared, suppressing the radiance of the nine Half-Ancestors and shaking them until they nearly tumbled from the heavens.

In the midst of this, several figures tumbled out of the Star Gate.

"Bam!"

Wu Ming, Wu Xiaoshi, and Fatty Zhuge crashed directly into three otherworld Half-Ancestors.

Totti fell straight into the arms of another otherworld Half-Ancestor. Seeing the situation before him, he felt like crying but had no tears.

As for Jin Sanyi, his entrance was even more ridiculous. While several Half-Ancestors were reeling, unable to attend to anything else while resisting the pressure of the Star Gate, Jin Sanyi tumbled out of it and landed directly on the neck of the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor, his legs dangling down over the latter's chest.

The stutterer instantly grasped the situation. His mouth split open in a grimace—whether it was a laugh or a sob was unclear, but it was certainly uglier than crying. Nonetheless, his two legs involuntarily swung back and forth across the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor's chest.

"Bam!"

Finally, Keke tumbled out, landing directly on the eight-heaven Half-Ancestor's head. The little creature rubbed his eyes drowsily, then stood on the Half-Ancestor's head to survey the surroundings.