169: The Lament of Heaven and Earth

The sky had collapsed.

This was not a figure of speech.

It had truly collapsed.

Above the capital, the energy channel that had originally served as the beacon for the God Lord's descent did not dissipate after being ruthlessly severed by the spatial rift.

It was like a massive sheet of glass that had been smashed, with cracks spreading wildly in all directions, centered on that pitch-black guillotine mark.

Crack... Crack-crack!

The dense, crisp sound of shattering echoed in the eardrums and deep within the Souls of every living creature.

The sky was no longer the sky, but a mirror in the process of disintegration; behind the shards of the mirror lay a heart-palpitating, profound Chaos.

The dark clouds were not clouds, but turbulent flows of the Void Realm leaking from the cracks; they churned and intertwined, completely swallowing the light of the sun and moon.

Immediately after, a will that could not be described in words crossed an immeasurable distance and descended with a boom.

That was not an energy shockwave, nor was it a physical attack.

It was pure, unmasked—fury.

"Awooooo————!"

That roar did not seem to come from the unknown God Lord whose arm had been severed, but from a higher, more ancient entity that seemed to be the collective will of the entire Divine Kingdom.

Inside and outside the capital, all living creatures—whether they were the soldiers fighting bloodily on the city walls, the commoners struggling to survive in the ruins, or the fanatics outside the city who had fallen into Chaos due to losing their guidance—all stiffened at that moment.

They seemed to see a pair of formless, intangible giant eyes slowly opening behind the shattered firmament; in that gaze, there was no pity, no scrutiny, only the tyranny and unwillingness of being provoked by ants.

This emotion transformed into an invisible storm that swept across the land.

Not a single brick or tile was further shattered, yet it felt as if everyone's heart had been gripped by a cold, giant hand, causing their breathing to stagnate and their blood to be ice-sealed.

A sense of insignificance stemming from the instinct of life and the fear of the coming doomsday grew wildly in everyone's heart.

"Hold onto your Dao Heart!" The Royal Ancestor's voice boomed like a great bell, exploding in the ears of Wei Zheng and Li Qingxuan, waking them from that mental shock.

The two turned pale; in that instant, they had even felt the urge to drop their weapons and kneel to beg for death.

The Divine Might was actually to this extent!

Merely a wisp of residual anger after a failed descent had nearly caused their Dao Heart to collapse.

Yet, as they looked toward the center of the storm, still shaken, they saw a scene that overturned their cognition.

Li Dong still stood there.

That pitch-black vortex centered on him was not only not crushed by this divine fury but spun even more joyfully, like a glutton encountering a delicacy, grinding up and devouring that formless will of anger.

Li Dong himself was completely unharmed.

He even had the leisure to lift his head, meeting the invisible gaze from behind the shattered firmament, and curled the corner of his mouth.

The smile was faint but full of provocation.

As if saying: Is that all?

"Evil creature! How dare you... how dare you..."

The envoy's voice trembled; he looked at the anomaly in the sky, felt the anger of his master whose connection had been severed, and then looked at Li Dong, who was treating Divine Power like a meal. His faith and his understanding were collapsing inch by inch.

"His connection to the Divine Kingdom... is broken!" The Royal Ancestor was a person of great stature and immediately grasped the key point. "The backlash of Divine Power has turned him into an empty shell! Kill!"

The word "Kill" contained endless killing intent!

The Royal Ancestor hesitated no longer; he merged with the phantom of the Azure Dragon behind him, transforming into a stream of light that pierced heaven and earth, crashing fiercely into the barrier of the great array, which was flickering due to the loss of energy control!

"Boom——!"

This time, there was no resistance.

The light barrier shattered in response!

"Wei Zheng!"

"This subordinate is here!"

"Focus fire! Don't let him run!"

"Yes!"

Wei Zheng's eyes were blood-red; there was no need for words. He squeezed the remaining Spirit Qi in his body to the limit. The well-worn standard long saber in his hand let out an unbearable wail, and the blade's light surged, slashing directly at the envoy's face!

"Qingxuan, left flank!"

"Understood!"

Li Qingxuan also gave a sharp cry; the long whip in her hand shot out like a spiritual snake, carrying a sharp whistling sound, sealing off all of the envoy's escape routes.

The remaining elites of the Demon Suppression Division also threw their last talismans and Magic Treasures as if they were worthless.

"No! My Lord's Divine Kingdom has not yet descended... I cannot die!"

The envoy let out a desperate roar.

He wanted to resist, to invoke those high and mighty divine arts, but he sadly discovered that the Divine Power within his body was draining away at an unprecedented speed, even rejecting him as its vessel.

The backlash of the array, the anger of the God Lord, and that damned vortex of Li Dong's had together drained his Foundation.

He had been abandoned.

Puchi!

Wei Zheng's blade arrived first, cleanly severing one of his arms.

Immediately after, Li Qingxuan's long whip coiled around his legs and twisted violently!

The Royal Ancestor's fatal strike finally descended; a beam of light, condensed to the extreme, fell from the sky and precisely pierced his chest.

"I... see... eternal life..."

The envoy's body began to disintegrate in the beam of light, turning into the purest black-gold light particles, dissipating into the air.

On his face, there was no pain, but rather a strange, satisfied smile.

In the final moment of his life, Li Dong's [Spiritual Domain] keenly captured a wisp of an extremely weak Soul fragment that was about to dissipate.

In that fragment, there were no memories of the envoy, only a thought of extreme purity.

It was not loyalty to the God Lord, nor was it an obsession with power.

It was the most humble and insane longing of a Mortal, at the end of his Lifespan and vitality, for the simple act of "living."

So that was it.

Li Dong understood clearly in his heart.

What the God Lord bestowed was not power, but "hope."

With the ethereal bait of "eternal life," He hooked the most primitive desires within the hearts of Mortals.

With the complete demise of the envoy, the sacrificial array, which served as his core, finally came to an end.

The rune network spread throughout the underground of the capital let out a final wail and then extinguished one by one.

On the ruins of the imperial palace, that evil altar built from the flesh and blood of countless living creatures, having lost all energy support, collapsed with a boom and finally turned into a handful of ash drifting in the wind.

The haze covering the capital dissipated.

The shattered sky, under the self-repairing mechanism of the world's rules, also began to slowly heal.

A long-lost, warm ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds and sprinkled onto this devastated land.

Amidst the ruins, the surviving commoners tremblingly lifted their heads. When they saw the black fog retreat and the daylight reappear, they were first bewildered, then erupted into earth-shaking cheers and cries.

They did not know what earth-shattering battle had taken place; they only knew that they had survived.

They saw that in the direction of the imperial palace, that terrifying evil aura had vanished.

They saw three figures standing proudly in the air, and the one in the middle was Li Dong.

It was that young man who had been wanted by the entire city and had stirred up the situation with his own strength.

"It's him... he saved us!"

It was unknown who shouted first, and immediately after, countless people spontaneously knelt in that direction.

At this moment, in the center of the array.

"Li Dong!"

Li Qingxuan flashed in front of him, looking him up and down. Seeing that he was safe and sound, her hanging heart finally settled.

Wei Zheng also landed, looking at the silent earth beneath his feet, feeling the Dragon vein that had fallen into slumber with dim light, his expression complex.

"We won... but the Foundation of Great Xia is also..."

The Great Xia Dynasty had suffered heavy losses, but everyone understood that without Li Dong, the capital would already be a true Hell on earth.

After this battle, Li Dong's name would become synonymous with savior, permanently inscribed in the annals of the Dynasty.

"You..." The Royal Ancestor looked deeply at Li Dong, wanting to ask something, but did not know where to start.

Was the young man before him still that small official of the Demon Suppression Division at the Golden Core Stage?

He could confront the envoy, reverse the sacrifice, and even... cut off the God Lord's descent!

All of this was beyond his scope of understanding.

Li Dong did not respond to them.

He slowly raised his hand, looking at his palm.

The body was still the same body, but the power was completely different.

In the eyes of others, he was a savior.

But only he knew that just a moment ago, as that ancient stone slab devoured enough Divine Power, a "hunting ground map" that spanned the endless Void Realm, vast to the point of despair, had quietly unfolded in his Sea of Consciousness.

The God Lord who had almost descended was merely an insignificant speck of light on that map.

He lifted his head, looking at the healing sky, as if he could see that on that map, countless bright or dim light spots were flickering with greedy light.

Trouble, it seemed, had only just begun.