The Wordless Heavenly Stele

The colossal Heavenly Stele crashed down like a mountain of darkness upon the Primordial Forbidden Zone. Blood-red lightning forked through the sky; rain of blood fell in sheets; countless divine and demonic corpses tumbled through the void.

With a thunderous boom, the gate in the sky—already pale and trembling—was smashed into near-transparency. A roar of world-shaking fury erupted from within.

In that instant, a black giant claw, as vast as a mountain peak, lunged out of the portal, its scaled flesh writhing with malice, and slammed against the Heavenly Stele.

Simultaneously, the altar below blazed with ten-thousand-zhang light. The cryptic characters arranged around it shone like stars arrayed in the heavens, pushing back against the stele's descent.

Rumble…

The black claw, like a demon's world-annihilating talon, was covered in gleaming, fine-scaled, jet-black flesh, radiating inconceivable divine power. When it collided with the descending Heavenly Stele, the impact rang like forged metal, and sparks sprayed through the sky.

It caught the stele!

It was a scene of absolute horror.

Xiao Chen's heart sank to an abyss. In that moment, he felt an unimaginable terror emanating from that black claw in the heavens.

“Was the Otherworld Ancestral God a ferocious beast? Such a claw defies reason… his power is overwhelming.”

“It is you again!” Eternal King Meng Degang roared in fury. His divine city had been brutally dismantled, and he had only just begun to heal from the broken arm Xiao Chen had dealt him. Now, seeing his enemy again, even his petrified eyes burned red.

The True Wood Female Saint gnashed her teeth as well. Her own primordial demon city had been shattered by Xiao Chen, and she had lost four War Swords to him. For beings of their station, such humiliation was unbearable.

Yet both forced down their rage. The priority now was to aid the descent of the Ancestral God. They poured all their power into striking the Heavenly Stele, trying to block its crushing fall.

The sky split apart. The Heavenly Stele shook violently.

Sparks flew—the massive black claw raked against the stele in a shower of fearsome light.

Xiao Chen had poured his entire strength into summoning the Heavenly Stele. Now drained, he slumped to the ground. But with Keke and the three skeletons nearby, he had nothing to fear. The little beast quickly drew him into the Lost Paradise.

King Qin Guang immediately began channeling divine power into him.

The Divine Diagram trembled and shot upward, slashing toward the giant black claw. Metallic clashes rang through the sky as the claw held the Heavenly Stele like a shield, blocking the Diagram.

This colossus was utterly terrifying—gripping the Heavenly Stele and wielding it like a weapon surpassed all imagination!

The entire Primordial Forbidden Zone convulsed, as though on the verge of collapse.

“How can this be?” Xiao Chen's blood ran cold. His heart kept sinking. Was that being even stronger than the Otherworld Stone Man Kings like Lu Zhan?

Rustle…

At that moment, he summoned the Ancient Scroll as well, casting it directly toward the altar. He was certain that if he could destroy the stone platform, the gate in the sky would naturally close.

BOOM

But before he could succeed, the black scaled claw extended further from the fading portal. The being within was clearly panicked, straining with all its might to enter this world.

It held the Heavenly Stele, swinging it back and forth to block the Divine Diagram while simultaneously warding off the Ancient Scroll to keep it from reaching the altar.

“It doesn't feel as oppressive as the Heavenly Steles we've seen before,” Keke muttered quietly. “Is it because the Heavenly Mark was drawn out?”

The little beast's words struck Xiao Chen like a thunderbolt. He had been too close to see clearly. In this critical moment, he had overlooked such a simple truth!

An even more vast and terrifying aura poured from the gate in the sky. Its killing intent was so cold it plunged everyone into an abyss, into hell itself.

The entire giant claw had emerged, and half of a demonic shadow was about to cross the threshold. The oppressive presence was suffocating.

Xiao Chen sat cross-legged inside the Lost Paradise. Swiftly, he summoned the third Heavenly Mark. Instead of attacking the claw, he sent it hurtling back into the Heavenly Stele.

BOOM

The Heavenly Mark returned to the stele, and in an instant, the Heavenly Stele surged with overwhelming might, as though it had come alive. With a thunderous crack, it flung away the black claw, sending it flying.

Black scales scattered. Blood splashed. The giant claw was grievously wounded.

At the same time, the Divine Diagram whirled down, slashing.

The Ancient Scroll, hazy and indistinct, enshrouded the altar below, which groaned and cracked.

“No!” A roar of fury and unwillingness came from within the great gate in the sky, echoing like ten thousand thunderclaps.

Eternal King Meng Degang and the True Wood Female Saint were incensed, but they could do nothing. They had only recently recovered from grievous injuries, and today they had offered blood and soul essence. They could not display their peak combat power; they could not stop what was happening.

The altar, blazing with light and covered with dense rows of cryptic characters, was enveloped by the Ancient Scroll. Crack, crack—it fractured swiftly.

Meanwhile, the great gate in the sky grew pale, on the verge of vanishing. Under the combined pressure of the Heavenly Stele and the Divine Diagram, the black claw, dripping with blood, seemed about to shatter. It had no choice but to retreat back into the gate.

With a final, ear-splitting clang, the black claw slammed against the Heavenly Stele one last time before bursting apart. Flesh and blood crazily rushed back into the giant gate.

The colossal Heavenly Stele fell, as though heaven and earth had been turned upside down, the entire world collapsing.

The mysterious altar shattered into pieces. All the characters that had manifested from it collapsed and dissolved into nothingness. The primordial demon city burning below, its flames now extinguished, lay fragmented in ruins.

When the last wisp of divine light faded and the sky darkened, it signified that the attempt to summon the Ancestral God had failed.

But in that moment, Xiao Chen and the others felt a chill creep down their spines, as though the end of days had arrived. Keke even screamed, trying to seal the Lost Paradise shut.

It was too late. A streak of black light tore through the void. Within the Lost Paradise, divine power had not been stripped away—it swept through, seeking to kill them all!

CRASH

The Stone Man King puppet took a single step forward. The War God Domain spread before him. He threw a brutal punch.

CLANG

A shocking sound, and the entire Lost Paradise rippled like an ocean during a tsunami or an earthquake.

A black fingernail several meters long, gleaming with a cold, sinister light, was knocked to the ground by the Stone Man King puppet. It stabbed into the earth.

That chilling nail had condensed the terrifying divine power of the Ancestral God—a final, parting strike meant to destroy Xiao Chen and his companions.

Fortunately, Xiao Chen had been prepared. Dealing with such an ancient, evil being, he had not sent the Stone Man King puppet into battle but kept it nearby; otherwise, things would have been truly dangerous.

Meng Degang and the True Wood Female Saint, though unharmed by the Heavenly Stele, were flooded with rage like a vast ocean. Their success had been snatched away at the last moment; their regret was unbearable.

“I will kill you!” They charged forward, launching their most ferocious attacks against the Lost Paradise. A tide of divine light swept in.

But in that instant, the Primordial Forbidden Zone suddenly turned deathly cold.

A black torrent, wild and roaring, surged from the deepest depths. Anything tangible it touched dissolved—even several hills in its path vanished into nothingness.

It was unmistakable: all this stemmed from the stele not far away. A colossal black vortex swirled around it, and the mysterious torrent had been summoned by the stele itself.

“The Heavenly Stele deep within the Primordial Forbidden Zone has resonated with this one!” Xiao Chen exclaimed.

“We cannot fight here for real. Go!” the Eternal King shouted. Together with the True Wood Female Saint, they swallowed their fury and raced out of the Primordial Forbidden Zone, fleeing without looking back.

Xiao Chen let out a long breath. Otherwise, this would have been a bloody battle. A great catastrophe had been resolved so calmly.

Keke had already sealed the Lost Paradise. Outside, the black torrent raged, but inside, all was calm. Xiao Chen sat quietly, restoring his divine power. It was a long time before he opened his eyes.

“I never thought that would be so easy to deal with,” everyone sighed.

When they opened the Lost Paradise again, everything had returned to its former state. The black torrent had vanished, the mysterious power of that unknown substance having retreated into the depths.

“The ancient battlefield—today we cannot do battle here. How strange,” they murmured.

Among the ruins ahead, they found the Heavenly Stele, now shrunk to about a meter tall. Xiao Chen carefully retrieved it.

Then he gathered the remnants of the shattered demon city and the nearly ruined altar, melting them down and storing them away.

After some discussion, they decided to continue forward—but prepared to retreat at any moment.

When they had advanced another five hundred li, Xiao Chen found it difficult to take another step. A powerful resistance made him feel as if he were mired in deep mud. The blood-red lightning in the sky had grown even stronger, numbing his entire body.

“We are nearing the forbidden zone itself. To stop here is unwillingness.” Though the Divine Diagram, the Ancient Scroll, and the Heavenly Mark floated beside him, Xiao Chen dared not infuse them with too much divine power, afraid that, like the Heavenly Stele, they would summon the mysterious torrent.

“Let's try. It may not be as frightening as we imagine.” In the end, he advanced holding the Heavenly Stele, activating all his war treasures. The black torrent approached silently but did not devour them—it merely surged around them.

“Lucky we have these war treasures, or we could not advance at all.” Xiao Chen and the others relaxed.

They pressed forward another three hundred li. In the distance, they saw a colossal Heavenly Stele standing there—far taller than the surrounding mountains.

“This Heavenly Stele is very special,” Keke mumbled.

“Indeed. It is very different from any we have seen before!” King Reincarnation spoke with uncertainty.

“This is the eighth Heavenly Stele!” Xiao Chen stared at the monument that pierced the sky, studying it carefully.

Around the stele, lightning raged, rain of blood fell, and the corpses of gods and demons littered the ground.

“There are no characters—no diagrams of any kind,” the Little Defiant Dragon said in surprise.

“Yes… a wordless Heavenly Stele.” Xiao Chen observed it for a long time before accepting the reality. There was no profound cultivation method waiting for him here.

Though this stele bore no inscriptions, its aura was far more intense than that of any of the previous seven.

Xiao Chen did not force his way forward. Instead, he skirted around it and advanced.

“Let me see what lies at the very end of the Primordial Forbidden Zone!” In that moment, everyone was filled with anticipation, eager to know what scene awaited at the deepest part of the Death World.