The Destruction of the Dugu Clan

Under the underground palace of the divine capital Luoyang, the crushed main vine swept through, annihilating all obstacles. The yellow giant hand that had entangled itself reached out to grab Xiao Chen and the others. Its power was beyond imagination—if it touched even a fraction of them, everyone present would instantly perish, body and soul.

‘Wa’er!’ Keke cried out, sending the seven-colored jade bowl to block the giant hand.

At this moment, tearing through space to escape was no longer possible, for time and space were utterly sealed by the encompassing hand.

‘Boom!’ Without holding back, Xiao Chen summoned the thirty War Swords. The broken formation diagram materialized and merged with him, rising to meet the hand above. At the same time, he held the half stone skull above the heads of the group.

Divine power surged like an ocean, crashing upward against the yellow giant hand. But that dreadful palm weighed billions of tons—it passed through space, shattering the oceanic divine power in an instant and pressing straight down.

It was about to clash with the broken formation diagram and Keke's treasure. Whether they could block it or not, Xiao Chen and the others would surely suffer catastrophic injury, for that force was far too overwhelming. Neither Xiao Chen nor Keke, though their diagram and treasures might be strong enough, had bodies so unyielding.

Green light shot into the sky—the main vine coiled around the yellow giant hand, trembling violently. Divine radiance blazed, tearing through time and space, and the hand was gradually pulled back into the distance.

At that moment, space suddenly tore open again. Another yellow giant hand flashed into existence, snatching directly at Xiao Chen. It was clear that its true target was the broken formation diagram—it wanted to seize it.

Apart from Xiao Chen, who was merged with the diagram, even Keke could not move. Everyone was frozen in the void.

From the far end of ancient times, a strange being had set its sights on Xiao Chen, wanting to snatch the coalescing sword diagram.

There was no choice—Xiao Chen had to endure. He used his body to complete the diagram. Misty light swirled, and the broken sword diagram emanated a power that shook heaven and earth, slowly revolving toward the giant hand.

Suddenly, the half stone skull in Xiao Chen's hand trembled—something it had never done before. In the past, it had not even emitted the faintest energy fluctuation. But now, it burst forth with a dazzling divine radiance, instantly engulfing the fading yellow giant hand.

The half stone skull pressed against the enormous palm, boundless divine brilliance streaming forth like an inexhaustible source of sacred power. It shot into the sky and repeatedly collided with the yellow hand.

A furious roar came from the ancient heavens, piercing through time, surging from the underground of Luoyang—it shook the entire Nine Provinces!

At this instant, the broken formation diagram, hazy and vast with the power to suppress worlds, also revolved toward the yellow giant hand.

‘Boom!’ The diagram struck the giant hand, and the half stone skull pressed down again, its radiance dazzling and fierce.

The entire underground palace shook. An ancient lamp burned quietly, fixed deep beneath the earth, protecting the dragon veines from collapse, shielding the divine capital Luoyang and the whole land.

The great passage connecting ancient time and space shattered. The yellow giant hand slowly withdrew, but its furious howl could still be clearly heard.

‘Roar…’ The howl came from ancient times, pushing through the barriers of time, shaking the entire Nine Provinces. Many otherworld cultivators were shocked. Even the three Ancestral Gods in the Eternal Unknown opened their eyes at that moment.

Six beams of light, like the sharpest and most terrifying heavenly swords, pierced through the stars and directly entered the underground palace of Luoyang.

‘Bang!’ Deep beneath the earth, the ancient lamp trembled. Misty light emerged, blocking the six divine beams from spying.

Xiao Chen was startled. He quickly grasped the half stone skull that had just flown back. At this moment, the skull was calm as an ancient well—all its radiance had converged, as if nothing had happened.

The ancient time-space grew hazy, and the damaged spatial passage was about to close completely.

At that instant, the terrifying giant formed of yellow earth suddenly looked back from the other end. Through the fading passage, the cold, piercing gaze of the giant's petrified head was so gripping that even Xiao Chen felt a chill down his spine.

Yes, the yellow giant was staring at him—or more precisely, at the broken formation diagram and the half stone skull.

This made Xiao Chen deeply uneasy. Being marked by that monster was a terrible feeling, and he did not know what the future would bring.

‘Boom!’ At the far end of the ancient epoch, nine main vines rolled through heaven and earth, entangling the giant and cutting off the time-space. The scene on the other side vanished completely.

In the underground palace of Luoyang, an ancient lamp hung silently, casting faint light into the deep earth.

Xiao Chen led the others back to the Death World. When they appeared on the Ancestral Lord Ship, only then did his tense heart relax. Somehow, the cold gaze of that yellow-earth giant with only a petrified skull still sent chills through him—a pressure and dread that even an Otherworld Ancestral God had not brought.

Without delay, Xiao Chen sat cross-legged on the ship and poured all his divine sense into the half stone skull. The stone man had always been profoundly mysterious to him. From his first encounter with the stone soldiers to his contact with the stone man, many things seemed connected to the stone man. But no matter how powerful his divine sense probed, the half stone skull remained unmoved, empty, with not the slightest divine energy fluctuation, let alone consciousness.

It was a mere half skull the size of a pigeon's egg—everything inside could be explored, as if it were carved from ordinary rock. Even with Xiao Chen's mighty divine sense, he found nothing unusual.

‘Completing the diagram with my body—let the divine diagram appear!’ Xiao Chen threw caution to the wind. Seated on the Ancestral Lord Ship, the thirty War Swords hung inverted around him, their light piercing the leaden clouds of the sky, divine radiance stabbing into the heavens. The broken formation diagram emerged and merged with him, revolving slowly. He wanted to use the diagram's power to probe the secrets of the stone skull.

Around him, the swords clanged, divine beams piercing the sky. Within the swirling mist, Xiao Chen and the diagram revolved, the half stone skull held in his palm at the center of the divine diagram. With the aid of the broken diagram, Xiao Chen suddenly felt a change: the half stone skull seemed like a vast sky, boundless and deep.

Then, the previously still stone skull suddenly turned hazy. It vanished from his fingertip and reappeared inside his body, sitting cross-legged just as the stone man had long ago. Yes, sitting cross-legged—the missing part was filled by hazy light, and the half stone skull condensed on top.

The broken formation diagram trembled repeatedly, its mysterious might enveloping Xiao Chen. He again probed the stone skull with his divine sense.

‘Boom!’ At that moment, a thunderclap rang in his ears. Then he felt his entire body freeze, and a thick layer of stone armor formed on his surface.

‘Ya-ya!’ Keke cried out in alarm. Jin Sanyi and the others were also shocked—they saw Xiao Chen petrified. His state was strikingly similar to the time when the twenty-four War Swords pierced him as he blocked the Ancestral God, transforming into a stone statue. His whole body turned to stone, becoming a stone statue, though much smaller than before.

‘Crack!’ The stone armor shook, and Xiao Chen stood up. Unlike that earlier time, he could move freely now, though his body was very stiff, as if countless great mountains were pressing on him, giving him an immense sense of pressure.

Xiao Chen waved his hand and snatched the Doomsday Heavenly Halberd that Jin Sanyi had been holding. He slashed at his own body.

‘Clang!’ Sparks flew—this Ancestral God weapon did not injure him.

‘Freak!’ Fatty Zhuge and the others exclaimed in shock. Xiao Chen himself was greatly surprised. With a thought, he withdrew his divine sense from the stone skull, and the stone armor on his body instantly disappeared.

‘Sealing myself gives me protection, but it also slows my movements. If I could use this to trap my enemies…’ Xiao Chen considered it briefly and found it impractical.

After only a few days in the Death World, Xiao Chen and Keke returned to the Nine Provinces. This time, they did not bring Fatty Zhuge and the others, for they could not help now; the last journey had only fulfilled their wishes.

The Otherworld's grand gathering was about to begin, but Xiao Chen planned to secretly rescue the imprisoned cultivators beforehand and make a great disturbance at the assembly.

Back in the Nine Provinces, Xiao Chen entered the World of Immortality, the Cultivation World, and the Soul World, discovering that cultivators from all three worlds had been captured and imprisoned on islands beyond the Nine Seas. Only the Curse World, with its complex terrain, had not fallen. That world held too many ruins and ancient formations—places even Ancestral Gods were reluctant to tread. Legend held that the entire Curse World was a great formation, a deadly array specially designed to restrain Ancestral Gods. Thus, even though Otherworld Ancestral Gods could dominate everything there, they were unwilling to garrison it for long. Many fleeing cultivators had taken refuge in this world.

‘Just a small forbidden formation—do you really think it can stop an Ancestral God?’ The voice of an Ancestral God shook the wilderness, echoing clearly across the entire Curse World.

‘Then continue implementing the targeted eradication plan.’ The speaker was the Otherworld Ancestral God Leng Xingyi, who for over thirty years had been responsible for breaking the world-encircling formation that used the entire continent as its energy source. In those thirty years, countless cultivators hiding in the Curse World had been wiped out by him.

But his primary task was not to kill cultivators; it was to destroy the forbidden formations left from previous civilizations. Though he spoke dismissively, truly breaking a formation that could wound Ancestral Gods was no simple task. The Otherworld did not wish to destroy this world, so he could only patiently dismantle the arrays.

This world-level formation, laid with the great heaven and earth as its source, had no effect on ordinary cultivators; they moved through it unaware. But Ancestral Gods dared not be careless—once they entered and the formation activated, it could trap them.

The Curse World retained a primeval appearance: vast regions covered in dense forests, many mountain ranges rising to pierce the clouds, and in some places, bottomless ravines buried mysterious remnants.

A dazzling divine light illuminated heaven and earth, instantly reducing a great mountain to ash. There, several sword beams shot into the sky. Over a hundred gray-robed men could be seen, each wielding a large iron sword, slashing at Leng Xingyi. Their concentrated divine light was enough to make even an Ancestral God take notice. But notice was all it did—they posed no threat!

‘Your whole family is called Sword Demon, but in my eyes, you are pitifully weak!’ Leng Xingyi's voice was icy and cold. A giant hand covered heaven and earth, descending from the sky, enveloping all the gray-robed men. No matter how many sword beams they wielded, no matter how vast the oceanic divine power, not a single beam could escape.

‘So this is the so-called Dugu Nine Swords?’ Leng Xingyi said coldly. ‘Nothing more than that. In my eyes, utterly contemptible.’ The Dugu clan—a powerful family. Over a hundred gray-robed men represented the clan's entire strength. In the past, a mere few dozen iron-sword bearers would have made any power nervous. But today, they faced complete annihilation!

‘Rumble!’ Heaven and earth shook. Leng Xingyi flipped his palm without mercy, pressing down. As the hundred-odd iron swords slashed up at him, he remained unmoved, crushing down relentlessly. All the iron swords shattered, and the bodies of the hundred gray-robed men disintegrated instantly. Before a mighty Ancestral God, cultivators of any other rank were utterly powerless.

The hundred men of the Dugu clan cried out in grief: ‘Ancestor, where are you? The Dugu clan is about to become history and smoke!’ They did not fear death; they had lived for the sword. But to have their swords broken and their Dugu Nine Swords dismissed as worthless—they would die with eternal regret.

‘Your ancestor was born of illusion and reality, complementing the Evil King, both trying to break through to the Ancestral God realm. They both fell! Such tiny ants trying to climb the sky must be ready to be destroyed by the wind.’ Leng Xingyi coldly delivered this news.

‘Dugu indestructible! Sword intent eternal!’ The hundred gray-robed men, their bodies shattered, struggled in the giant hand, roaring in anguish.

‘Your clan built its foundation on the sword, yet now you are all annihilated. Such is heaven's will. Tiny ants, vanish!’ Leng Xingyi mercilessly pronounced the death sentence. His giant hand swept through the air, and the hundred men of the Dugu clan were utterly crushed.

One clear sword beam shot into the sky, still crying out: ‘Dugu indestructible! Sword intent eternal!’ Alas, a clan—in an instant, erased by the mighty Otherworld Ancestral God. Before an Ancestral God, no matter how glorious a past a powerful clan had, it was nothing.

‘Trying to pass on your sword intent? A pity—you won't even have that chance.’ Leng Xingyi sighed softly and flicked a finger at the sky.

‘Dang!’ The Ancestral God's finger of doom did not shatter the sword beam. Instead, a mournful, trembling sound of the age echoed.

‘Interesting. I never thought the thoughts of humans could be so powerful. At the final moment of destruction, they sublimated to the limit, condensing such a rare blossom—a brilliant, ultimate sword intent!’ Leng Xingyi praised, reaching out to capture the beam—the spiritual sublimation of the Dugu clan's elite, a wonder even to an Ancestral God.

Human potential is boundless. In that final moment of death, the hundred gray-robed men of Dugu reached the pinnacle of their sword intent, giving birth to this exquisite blossom of the sword! But it was a tragedy. The Dugu line was utterly wiped out. All had fallen in battle.

When Xiao Chen arrived, it was already over. The targeted eradication had finished. But the mournful cries of the Dugu clan still echoed in the sky, and he heard them clearly. Scattered leaves danced in the wind; terrible sword scars on the shattered mountains recorded the Dugu clan's unyielding struggle and unwillingness. Chaotic falling blossoms mourned the clan's extinction. Xiao Chen had never imagined that such a glorious and powerful family could be annihilated so completely…

This would not be the last time. In the future, more sects would likely meet the same fate.

At that moment, without a word, Xiao Chen directly summoned the formation diagram and struck without warning! The hazy formation diagram suppressed the Curse World, its vast power sealing ten directions! Leng Xingyi, as an Ancestral God at his peak, could not be ambushed so easily—but he found himself momentarily unable to act within the broken diagram's domain.

‘Puff!’ He forced his way out, dodging a fatal blow, but one arm was ground to dust by the diagram, scattering like ashes in the sky amid a mist of blood.

‘Bang!’ In an instant, he grew a new arm. Leng Xingyi fixed Xiao Chen and Keke with a cold, cruel glare. ‘Ants seeking death!’ he said, his voice like ice.

His answer was the broken formation diagram, which immediately enveloped him. Killing intent as deep as the abyss chilled to the bone. Xiao Chen's preemptive battle with an Otherworld Ancestral God had begun! Cut off in his attack, the sword beam in Leng Xingyi's hand shot into the sky, escaping his grip.

‘Dugu indestructible! Sword intent eternal…’ The mournful cry spread across the Curse World, shaking the entire continent. A distant mountain range shattered. The long-vanished Dugu Jianmo, his black hair wild and disheveled, howled at the sky in grief, then shot into the sky. The eternal sword intent, the brilliant sword beam, and the dying roar of the hundred gray-robed men all flashed before Dugu Jianmo's eyes.

‘Dugu indestructible! Sword intent eternal!’ Dugu Jianmo howled at heaven. The eternal sword light plunged into his body. ‘Dugu… Dugu!’ At that moment, Dugu Jianmo, hard as iron, wept like rain—blood tears stained his robes. ‘Ah…’ He snapped his iron sword and ran through the primeval wilderness, letting out beast-like roars. Dugu Jianmo had gone mad!

In the span of a single moment, his jet-black hair turned white, as piercing as snow. Thousands of li away, as Xiao Chen battled the Otherworld Ancestral God, Dugu Jianmo went mad seven times in a single hour. Finally, he jumped into a bottomless abyss—the legendary ‘Pit of Ten Thousand Souls,’ where it was said that in the last civilization, millions of cultivators were massacred to break the Curse World's great formation…