Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

They had grossly overestimated themselves!!

"Argh!!" In a painful howl, Asenath’s expression shifted to one of incomparable evil. Her entire body emitted a dreamy, vile, baleful energy. Astral stars of blood, ghosts, and horrors, literal things of nightmares, were birthed alongside that horrific howl.

They were the size of a small moon, manifesting far above her. Their baleful light illuminated the surroundings. These astral stars looked like tiny peas to a planet in comparison to the All-Immortal Dragon. Its eye, which stared calmly at all creation, exceeded their combined size by the thousand.

The utterly absurd size of her made them all look like specks of dust floating across space. It was as if this was no longer the Dusk Zone or the Heavenly Origin Grounds, but her universe. If it wasn’t for the skewed heavenly laws in the area, nobody would even think to refute that.

"Establish battle formations!" Asenath’s aura flared, entering the remaining six Heavenly Monarchs. They seemed to be shocked out of their stupor, reacting swiftly with heavy hearts and dark expressions. They all, without fail, took out fist-sized crystal orbs that had milky white mist within.

The Ruin Emperor’s aura changed in this grave situation, become more steadfast and domineering. He truly seemed like an Emperor of Ruin, a faint light containing destructive powers flowed calmly through his body. With a grave expression, he sent a telepathic message via the soul to all his members.

The other Heavenly Monarchs followed decisively behind. They were the only ones with the sensory capabilities wide enough to know that the All-Immortal Dragon was literally before them. To the others, it was just a shadowy place they seen after being pushed out of their dimensional spaces prematurely.

The hundreds of millions of Heavenly Genesis cultivators acted in unison, putting their complete trust in their respective commanders. The only exception was the forces of the two knights. While they did get into formation, they were several moments behind.

Who knew how they’d feel knowing that Asenath had decisively killed their leaders in hopes to injury the All-Inmortal Dragon, but it only caused it to twitch.

Luckily, the might of the collective oftentimes exceeded the might of the one.

The formations were for all uses. Some manifested titan-like figures, others supported these titan-like figures with elemental might, a few acted as defensive shields as they hovered around those figures. However, despite each manifestation of various creatures of creation and legend, including a silver skull with emerald flames in its hollow eyes, an ouroboros, and war god knights wielding axes and spears, their sizes paled in comparison.

They reached thousands of kilometers, some even tens of thousands of kilometers, but regardless, before the All-Immortal Dragon, they were like a rock to a planet - insignificant.

To put it in perspective, they still couldn’t rival a single eye in size. Hundreds of millions of cultivators, establishing gigantic manifestations of battle, weren’t capable of matching a fifth of its eye size.

Resplendent light erupted everywhere, illuminating the skin and surface of the All-Immortal Dragon, but even still, only its scales and creases could be seen by those heavenly cultivators.

"I-is...that the All-Immortal Dragon?!" A cultivator who was proficient in the soul could see more of the situation than the extent of his heavenly sense. He was shocked as he exclaimed.

"What? What is the All-Immortal Dragon? Where is it?" Quite a few cultivators were ready for battle? They prepped themselves mentally, their blood hot with the intent to do battle, but as they looked about, they only saw darkness as if they were in a cave. In fact, they all assumed they were in the cave of the All-Immortal Dragon.

"Attack! Attack NOW!!" Asenath’s heart pounded as she evoked her greatest power. With a wave of her hand, she gripped a formless scepter. This scepter was like an image, a dream, but with a thought it went from formless to form.

This was an aspect of Yin. The ability to create from nothing! It had limitations, but when used appropriately, planets, suns, and even realms could be produced from nothing!

This scepter was something formed by her Original Law and contained the True Origin of her Original Law. All of its power originated from this scepter exhibiting an immense level of power.

She smashed her milky white crystal ball into the scepter. Twenty percent of the forces and formation present started glowing brightly with a dreamy light. She pulled their power into her, her eyes evil to the extreme, and she bashed forward with the scepter towards what was the All-Immortal Dragon.

A tempest of wind smashed heavily onto the All-Immortal Dragon. It was powerful enough to collapse a portion of the heavens, with intrinsic properties that would induce a literal nightmare, yet this strike only caused a single scale of the All-Immortal Dragon to tremble slightly.

The All-Immortal Dragon was the daughter of an Immortal Yaoguai and the literal ancestor of ALL dragons and their descendants. Birthed from a Celestial God of legends, how fearsome and mighty must she be?

With a roar, all non-living things collapsed away with utter ease. A blow from a Three-Fold, Third Phase Heavenly Creation Realm expert with faintly heaven-surpassing might was like an ant trying to pinch a mountain. It simply wasn’t sufficient.

Her internal powers may be weakened due to her recent birthing, but her physical body and natural powers of the world would obviously remain. To act against a being of such caliber, calling them fools would insult fools.

This didn’t mean the greed within her and the other Heavenly Monarch faded. In fact, they were enthralled by the prospect of attaining just a drop of her blood to the point they were willing to risk it all.

Asenath continued striking with her full force aided by the formations. The others joined in, striking out with attacks of the heavenly nature towards where she aimed, even the soul nature, but besides a twitch here and a slight tremble of a scale there, there was no other response.

However, with their beautifully multicolored cascade of attacks going unimpeded with the All-Immortal Dragon not attacking back, they believed it truly was too weak to respond!

"Continue attacking!" Asenath continued maintaining her position as head commander with orders being sent left and right to this army of cultivators. While doing so, she struck outwards with her scepter over and over with impassioned strikes.

While her full and undivided attention was focused on this, a figure appeared behind her silently.

Her eyes flickered as she erupted with a ferocious aura. "You think you can sneak attack me?!" Her voice was icy-cold and darkness seemed to thrive in its reverberation. To think someone would try to do something like this now.

Her full power had just been pushed forward towards the All-Immortal Dragon, leaving very little left to actually defend herself. It was the greatest time to strike.

The figure was none other than Yan Zaizen!

His eyes were cold, icy to the extreme, boundless killing intent seethed within like a whirlpool of death.

Earlier, Yan Zaizen swore that Asenath’s life and death was going to be determined, and if she lived, he wouldn’t. The All-Immortal Dragon was shocking, but he was relentless in his thoughts.

Even if the All-Immortal Dragon decided to kill him, he would first kill her. His mind radiated a vast, grand dao that fueled his decision.

When he appeared, he wasted no time as his soul energy erupted! An amber-gold and black aurora borealis was birthed, twisting with an undefined yet powerful soul energy.

Yan Zaizen recalled his previous experience in the Ruin Emperor’s World Palace. He had made a world-defying revelation about the Soul Source Path. To everyone, including Yri, the path was simply difficult and that’s it.

They were right.

But, they were also wrong.

If one follows the incorrect path from day one, they’ll never realize its the wrong one. Only when one questions everything they came across, they experience, their very start, would they recognize their mistake. However, with all signs pointing elsewhere, what do you believe?

Yan Zaizen chose to believe in himself, belief in his instincts and thoughts. The Soul Source Path was incomplete! This was the truth!

It was broken, shattered, incomplete, and undefined! All of this was true because the path was purposefully done this way! After reaching the complete understanding of self, one can then push that into self-actualization of their truest self into a form of purest power.

Harnessing this power, structuring this self, enables one to reach a whole new realm that was solely for themselves.

The Divine Realm.

The Immortal Realm.

In the old days, a man had self-actualized himself as a divinity, so he was divine.

Later, a woman who became divine wanted to be an immortal, so she became immortal.

They formed the Divine Immortal Sect that was born and still exist in the Earths and Skies above. Their legacy was passed, others followed their inheritance and believed that the Divine Soul Realm and then the Immortal Soul Realm were the defined path.

They created their path in much the same way as Heavenly Creation Realm experts do, and others followed.

Besides that man and woman, no one knew the truth. No one could. When locked into a belief generated by eons and eons, how could they? When the Celestial Seers of the world delved into the secrets of the universe and confirmed their paths were a path of the Soul Source, how could they?

Yan Zaizen had a humble beginning. Every step of the way, he had to observe and learn, question and justify, and only when he was certain did he push forward. He had the freshest mind, uninfluenced by eons of misunderstandings and beliefs.

The most pivotal aspect was that he believed in that, as long as it was imagined, it was possible. This mindset was that of a sovereign, relentless, and with a breadth of mind so broad that others could barely grasp their view.

And so, here we are.

"Since I started cultivating, I have fumbled and tilted, but in the end, I stayed true to myself. My Dao, my Soul, my expressions of power, I have already long since realized what path I wish to take. Not a Divinity, not an Immortal, but my own! If gods impede my path, sweep gods, if immortals hinder my steps, crush immortals, if devils take what I love, kill all devils in creation!! As long as I will it, I will create it!"

A raging tempest appeared in his eyes, filled with untapped and raw soul power.

Asenath withdrew a bit of her power, forcing her heavenly dimensions to tremble, and her original law to quake, but she urged enough to turn around and lash out. This power was less than one percent of her full strength, but powered by her Original Law and Three-Fold Heavenly Dimensions, it was enough to destroy Yan Zaizen’s heavenly might ten times over.

When she saw Yan Zaizen’s eyes, her soul froze. A pressing, unbelievable thought emerged into her mind: "Am I going to die?"

This thought was impossible, but when she looked at that figure floating just away from her, she couldn’t help but feel this way.

It was as if she was facing a force that was perfect, without flaw, true to itself and all creation, and followed its heart in the most perfect manner.

Yan Zaizen had thought that his soul path would be that of a Sovereign, but a Sovereign Soul Realm wasn’t his soul path. It wasn’t a self-actualization of himself, but a way of life. Instead, he wanted to perfectly follow his beliefs and thoughts to its absolute peak state which the way of a sovereign only defined a portion of.

A rumble echoed throughout the surroundings seemingly eclipsing the crushing attacks of the myriad of manifestations in the world. It rumbled throughout everyone’s soul, causing them all to lag. They looked towards Asenath and saw Yan Zaizen with an outstretched hand like a god lording over an ant.

His entire existence gave off a perfect light. A light so perfect that they subconsciously felt that they were inferior in every sense of the word. They felt guilty and ashamed of themselves. They were ashamed that they were flawed, that they hid their heart behind masks, and that they were untrue to themselves!

This light illuminated their truest self bringing about untold benefits, but also untold ruin!

"Paragon Soul Realm!"

With a soft whisper, Yan Zaizen sent out a stream of paragon soul energy towards Asenath.