296: The Lord of the Divine Realm Appears

Curses, the sound of objects being smashed, and indignant sighs mixed together. At this moment, Lin Yuan's name became the fuse that ignited the accumulated panic, jealousy, and despair in the hearts of almost all Feather Transformation Prodigies. He stood high above, his merit points an astronomical figure, drawing the favor of the Heavenly Dao's announcements time and again. Meanwhile, they were being ruthlessly crushed on their planned path to heaven by the giant wheel of the Myriad Dao Realm that had descended from the sky. This massive disparity and injustice allowed venomous emotions to frantically breed and spread within the Drunken Immortal Abode. Only the Divine Domain Leaderss, Epochal Prodigies, and their ilk did not fear the majesty of Myriad Dao Realm Martial Artists, even possessing the confidence to snatch food from the tiger's mouth in front of Myriad Dao Realm Cultivators!

In stark contrast to the noisy resentment of these Feather Transformation Realm Martial Artists, at the highest point of the Hongmeng Divine Domain, within a ten-thousand-foot Sacred Palace woven from pure Sacred Power Divine Chains and held aloft above endless Chaos airflows, the atmosphere was as heavy as ten-thousand-year-old profound ice.

The ceiling of the Sacred Palace was not solid, but a flowing, vast map of the Divine Domain. At this moment, the core of the map was projecting a heart-palpitating scene: a deep Star Domain that seemed capable of swallowing all light, yet at its edge, there remained wisps of extremely faint but stubbornly struggling nine-colored radiance. Even more shocking was that in the dark core area, a huge, hideous claw mark covered in dark purple crystals was branded into the Void Realm. The edges of the claw mark were surrounded by a foul, chaotic Dark Abyss aura sufficient to erode the Dao. Deep within the claw mark, countless tiny, dark purple eyes could be seen faintly opening and closing, filled with endless greed and a desire for destruction.

Nine figures floated silently, surrounding this core projection. Their forms were either as solid as divine mountains or as ethereal as Dao marks, their auras as deep as the sea and difficult to discern. Their mere presence caused the surrounding space and time to exhibit subtle delays and distortions. They were the Supreme existences governing the Divine Domains of the Primal Plane—the Divine Domain Lords. With the recent disturbances in the Divine Domain, the true bodies of nine Divine Domain Lords had descended, having already understood the source of the previous anomalies!

“You have all seen it clearly.” A thick, aged voice rang out, coming from the figure at the head who was as solid as a mountain, surrounded by earthy yellow Earth Dragon Qi—the Lord of the Houtu Divine Domain. His withered finger pointed to the nine-colored radiance struggling tenaciously at the edge of the claw mark in the projection, his fingertip carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling. “If Lin Yuan had not cut off this ‘shackle’—polluted by the will of ‘Ji’ in an attempt to completely refine our Hongmeng Divine Domain’s primordial dao embryo—deep within the Chaos Mother Sea, what we would be seeing now would not be these remnants of radiance, but a silent Star Domain that has completely fallen and become nourishment for the Dark Abyss Plane!”

His voice echoed in the silent Sacred Palace, carrying a heavy sense of having survived a disaster and an unquestionable certainty.

“Hmph, what do those noisy juniors below know?” A Divine Domain Lord clad in star-patterned robes, his face hidden within flowing starlight, snorted coldly. His voice sounded like the grinding of metal and stone, permeating with a chilling frost. “They only see the Myriad Dao Realm entering the stage early, snatching their ‘Opportunity’ and cutting off their ‘smooth path,’ and so they bark like wild dogs whose tails have been stepped on! They do not know that if not for this boy Lin Yuan, who fought desperately in the depths of the Mother Sea to sever the Dark Abyss shackle and heavily injure the projection of ‘Ji,’ preserving the Origin of the primordial dao embryo... this entire 903 Divine Domain would have already become a frontline fortress for the Dark Abyss Plane’s invasion of our Primal Plane! At that time, let alone their opportunities, even their lives, as well as the Sects, Families, and homelands behind them, would be completely swallowed and annihilated by the filth of the Dark Abyss, leaving not even a scrap behind! This is a merit of saving the world!”

“A merit of saving the world, yet it draws the resentment of the ignorant; how ironic.” A clear female voice, like the cry of a Phoenix, joined in. It came from a Divine Domain Lord enveloped in a hazy mist. She stared at the dark purple eyes deep within the claw mark, her delicate brows furrowed. “Although ‘Ji’ has been heavily injured, its main body is still watching greedily from the depths of the Chaos Mother Sea. This claw mark brand is its anchor. In the plane war of the 553rd Epoch, we lost too miserably! Since then, every hundred epochs, the Lord of the Dark Abyss sends his army of alien beasts to invade our plane. But this time, it likely won't take a hundred years. Once it recovers some Origin Qi, or its main body’s will finds an opening to penetrate again, coinciding with the Origin tide that erupts when the Hongmeng Origin World matures... the army of the Dark Abyss Plane will surely return. That will be the true catastrophe.”

“A hundred years...” A figure entirely enveloped in sharp Sword Qi slowly spoke, his voice like the ringing of ten thousand swords. “The time is too short. For an ordinary Myriad Dao Realm, it is already not easy to stabilize their Realm in a hundred years. Reaching the Hunyuan Realm? It is as difficult as ascending to heaven. We must integrate all our strength, regardless of the cost.” His sharp gaze swept over the other Divine Domain Lords. “I have already reported to our Holy Emperor. He has ordered the opening of all top-tier Dao-enlightenment Secret Realm stocks in my Cangqiong Imperial Dynasty, the activation of the ‘Time Graveyard’ to accelerate the cultivation of core seeds, and the issuance of a mobilization order to all Divine Domains to gather every combat-ready Hunyuan Realm expert! When the Hongmeng Origin World opens, it will be the final battlefield that determines the Luck of this Divine Domain, and even our Primal Plane! Win, and we obtain Supreme creation, forging the strongest Saint Realm, and even... the foundation of a Supreme! Lose... and everything is over!”

“A mere strand of Primordial Purple Qi is enough to make all those in the Saint Realm tear off their masks of civility, slaughtering across ten thousand domains and igniting plane wars for the sake of competition; how much more so for a complete primordial dao embryo? Since the restrictions on the Myriad Dao Realm have already been broken, it is estimated that the restrictions on the Hunyuan Realm will also be lifted soon. A hundred years from now, it will still depend on us Saint Realm Martial Artists to come and contend for this Supreme creation! Then there is no need to restrain them any longer; let this hundred-year period witness who can rise with the momentum and take charge of the situation in this 903 Divine Domain!”

The Divine Domain Lords gazed at the flickering phantom of the dao embryo in the depths of the Divine Domain, their hearts filled with infinite emotions. Even as fellow Divine Domain Lords of the Primal Plane, they would turn their swords against each other in the face of such a treasure. Although the exact time of its emergence was uncertain, when this Supreme treasure truly appeared, the entire Divine Domain would inevitably turn into an Asura Purgatory—the greed of the Saint Realm would turn into the sharpest slaughtering knives, and the covetousness of other planes would ignite world-destroying flames of war. By then, mountains of corpses and seas of blood would cover every inch of this Divine Domain, and the wails of billions of lost souls would echo through the Chaos Mother Sea. The future direction had already been swept up by countless greed and ambitions, becoming blurred long ago. Only one point was certain—once such a creation began, this storm would leave no one able to stay out of it.

“After that plane catastrophe of the past, the remaining Saint Realm experts of our plane all thought that Xuanyuan Supreme had perished together with the will of the Lord of the Dark Abyss. To commemorate the Supreme's grace in sacrificing himself to protect the world, the Saints granted the status of the Ancient First Clan to his descendants, to be inherited through the generations.”

One Divine Domain Lord looked at the Hongmeng radiance slowly condensing in the center of the Divine Domain, his voice carrying a hint of sighs and emotions. “I never expected that after the passage of hundreds of epochs, such a Heaven-Defying creation would reappear in the world! This time, the descendant of the Supreme, Xuanyuan Wuji, has also established great merit and should be generously rewarded, so as not to fail his sacrifice!”

The Divine Domain Lords' intentions clashed and communicated intensely in the void, and a series of Divine Thoughts containing massive resource transfer orders and strategic deployments quickly reached a consensus. The projection in the center of the Sacred Palace slowly dissipated, but that hideous Dark Abyss claw mark and the sense of urgency regarding the uncertain timing of the war were deeply branded into the hearts of every Divine Domain Lord. Their gazes toward the lands of the Divine Domain were filled with complex worry and resolve. The complaints and grievances below seemed so small and... laughable in the face of the impending clouds of a plane-level war.