Yin Wudao's words had barely faded when Chen Zhou moved.
"Rules?"
Chen Zhou suddenly chuckled, his voice carrying a trace of inexplicable mockery.
"Yin Wudao, have you misunderstood something?"
Yin Wudao's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"
"You are willing to follow the will of heaven and act according to the ways of the earth, conforming to the Golden Buddha's rules."
"But have you ever wondered who exactly sets the rules?"
As he spoke, a terrifying surge of death qi erupted from Chen Zhou's body.
The ground instantly turned a desolate gray as countless mounds of rotting soil surged forth, transforming the magnificent Star-Picking Platform into a mass grave in a heartbeat.
The Domain of Defiled Earth had arrived.
Defiled earth churned, and death qi roared.
The purity and density of this death qi were beyond anyone's imagination.
Cangming and Tuoba Feng, standing behind Chen Zhou, were the first to be affected. Their faces paled as a chill surged straight to their scalps.
It felt as if they were standing naked on an arctic wasteland; even their souls felt frozen.
"Retreat!"
Tuoba Feng barked a low command, slamming the stone coffin off his back onto the ground.
The lid cracked open slightly, and several heroic spirits surged out, forming a barrier around him that barely held back the erosion of the death qi.
But a storm of shock raged in his heart.
This death qi was too pure.
It was so pure that it didn't seem like something a seventh-stage cultivator should possess.
The Western Region was known as a land of the dead, filled with black-spot monsters and death qi so thick it was almost solid. Yet, even in the innermost core of that region, the density and purity of the death qi were not even a ten-thousandth of what Chen Zhou was currently releasing.
'Is this truly a human?'
'Can a human really contain such horrific death qi within their body without their mind being eroded, without being enslaved as a monster that knows only slaughter?'
Tuoba Feng's hand trembled as he gripped his blade.
He suddenly recalled a line from the ancestral teachings of the Western Region.
'Death qi of absolute purity is not for man to command; only a god can wield it.'
'Could it be...'
Cangming's reaction was entirely different.
While he gritted his teeth and held up a water curtain to block the death qi, a fanatical light erupted in his eyes.
"As expected of Lord Dragon Ancestor!"
"This is the true majesty a dragon should have!"
As a prince of the Eastern Region, he was well-traveled and knowledgeable.
He had seen his father's agonizing state when he was forced to draw death qi into his body to achieve symbiosis for the first symbiosis contract.
But what about Lord Dragon Ancestor?
Such an immense amount of death qi was as docile as a domestic pet inside him, moving according to his will without the slightest sign of backlash.
'Strength' was no longer enough to describe it.
This was a fundamental difference in essence.
No wonder they were merely fish, while he was a dragon.
Yin Wudao's expression finally changed.
He hadn't expected Chen Zhou to be so decisive, and he certainly hadn't expected Chen Zhou's death qi to be this terrifying.
Aside from the one in the palace, he had never seen anyone whose death qi could reach such a level.
It was illogical.
That person was a true god.
But reality was before him, and Yin Wudao had no time for further thought.
Chen Zhou's Domain of Defiled Earth had already spread to his feet, and countless bone hands burst from the soil, trying to drag him into the abyss.
"Hmph!"
Yin Wudao snorted coldly, forcing down the shock in his heart.
No matter how strong the opponent was, this was his home field.
He rose into the air, and a thick shroud of death qi erupted around him as well.
However, his death qi was different from Chen Zhou's; it was darker, closer to ink-black.
It was laced with tangible sinful karma and the piercing wails of countless ghosts.
He waved his hand, and the death qi condensed into a massive ghost wall that connected the heavens and the earth.
The wall was densely packed with malevolent ghosts, twisting in agony—some had only half a head, some had their guts spilling out, and some were charred black.
These were all the vengeful spirits who had died in the palace over thousands of years, refined by Yin Wudao into his own power.
Yin Wudao shoved forward.
The ghost wall instantly tilted, washing toward Chen Zhou's Domain of Defiled Earth with endless resentment.
The malevolent ghosts charged into the defiled earth, intending to tear everything apart, but the moment they touched the death qi, they were rapidly assimilated, turning the color of bleached bone.
Meanwhile, under the resistance of the opponent's death qi, the expansion of Chen Zhou's ghost domain slowed slightly.
For a moment, the two sides were locked in a stalemate.
The Star-Picking Platform shook violently, and the surrounding palace walls finally gave way, beginning to collapse in large sections.
Chen Zhou's brow arched.
He felt something was off.
The intensity of Yin Wudao's death qi clearly exceeded the standard level for a seventh-stage cultivator.
Especially the moment the ghost wall formed, Chen Zhou clearly captured an extremely dense aura of sinful karma.
That was not Yin Wudao's own sinful karma.
'There's something strange about this.'
Yin Wudao clearly hadn't reached the first symbiosis contract yet, so how could he possibly withstand his reinforced Domain of Defiled Earth?
Chen Zhou was currently in a state of full death qi eruption.
However, Chen Zhou's target wasn't him anyway; crushing him would just be a side effect.
The target of Chen Zhou's death qi was merely a pile of paper scraps on the ground.
Seeing this, Yin Wudao breathed a slight sigh of relief.
It seemed that although the opponent's death qi was pure, his cultivation was still only at the seventh-stage early-phase. By relying on the advantages of the terrain and the power of ten thousand ghosts, he could barely hold his own.
Yin Wudao regained his confidence, standing high in the air with a smile.
"It seems having many people truly is useless, but having many ghosts... sometimes it's quite effective."
"Is that so?"
Chen Zhou spoke two words flatly.
Rustle—
A crisp sound of paper flipping rang out.
The sound wasn't loud, but in the noisy environment of ten thousand roaring ghosts, it was exceptionally piercing.
Yin Wudao subconsciously looked down, only to see the scraps of paper from Jian Huaishuang that had been scattered across the ground. At that moment, they were drifting into the air, carried by the wind of the death qi.
"This is..."
Yin Wudao's pupils constricted violently as a strong sense of unease surged in his heart.
Those white paper scraps dancing in the sky quickly condensed and pieced themselves together.
In the blink of an eye, a complete human silhouette reappeared.
The scraps finally settled, transforming back into Jian Huaishuang's cold, pale face.
He stood perfectly intact behind Chen Zhou, his aura not having changed even a fraction.
It was as if the scene of him being erased by the rules just moments ago had been nothing more than an illusion.
"This is impossible!"
Yin Wudao cried out in shock, losing his composure completely.
He stared fixedly at Jian Huaishuang.
"He clearly died once already."
"In the Golden Buddha's rules, the life of the loser belongs to the winner. His life and death should be under my control!"
"How could you possibly bypass the rules and resurrect him?!"
Yin Wudao could not accept the reality before him.
The Golden Buddha was flesh and blood fallen from the sky, representing the rules of heaven and earth.
How could someone deceive the Golden Buddha and find a loophole in the laws of heaven and earth?
"Bypass?"
Chen Zhou looked at the flustered Yin Wudao, the smile on his face widening.
"Prince, you seem to have a misunderstanding about me."
He slowly straightened his sleeves and said calmly.
"I don't need to bypass any rules."
"Because my rules stand above the Golden Buddha's."
Rate on N.U.
