Chapter 1573: The Reviving Dao Merging Divine Lord Should Die Completely

Within boundless solar radiance, a silver-white aerospace fighter peeled out one corner, then countless more—aerospace fighters swelling into a sea, endless and unbroken; among the fighters rode aerospace warships, above those rode aerospace motherships, and above all those mothership fleets reigned Star-Sky Fortresses commanding the four directions.

Above the Star-Sky Fortresses stood steel-city warships.

Layer upon layer of formation patterns unfurled, each independent yet interlinked, forming a colossal entity that stretched across hundreds of thousands of kilometers of starry sky, its might pressing down upon the four corners of the realm.

This was the Sovereign of the World Cluster making his inspection tour!

Along the way, passing one Minor Thousand World after another, one Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie after another, the indigenous powerhouses of those worlds all bowed with utmost reverence, lowering their heads, allowing that searing, annihilating radiance to sweep over them one by one—over their bodies, over the bodies of the powerful around them, and over the entire world.

Their souls trembled, yet they dared not resist in the slightest, not even daring to let their bodies tremble, fearing they might draw more of the Sovereign's gaze upon themselves.

"Ah…"

"No! I am the Deputy Commander of the Mo Shi Xiao Gao Jie Conscription Corps—without due process, you cannot kill me…"

A moment later, shrill cries rang out from every corner of the world, making the many powerhouses with bowed heads tremble all the more in fear; some bolder ones stole glances at their surroundings with peripheral vision.

What they saw was a tiger-race powerhouse they had once known well.

His tiger body turned to ash beneath the solar radiance, revealing a tiger soul that fled madly in all directions—yet under the sunlight it had nowhere to hide; its outermost soul layer melted like snow, being stripped away layer by layer, as though carved by ten thousand blades.

Beneath layer upon layer of soul, something utterly unfamiliar was exposed.

It was a grotesque maggot with an old man's head and a pale, tender worm's body.

"Useless…"

"…Useless… hahahaha… useless… This Old Ancestor will surely revive…"

This strange worm showed no fear; its bulging eyes stared straight at the hazy figure within the sun, letting out a cackling, eerie laugh.

Whoosh!

The sun in the starry sky cast an especially resplendent beam of light toward this place, landing upon the grotesque maggot and reducing it to utter annihilation—leaving only an extremely weakened tiger plummeting to the earth below, stumbling and tottering as though a single gust of wind could scatter it.

"Many thanks to the Sword Lord for saving my life…"

The great tiger said, trembling.

From within the sun, however, came no reply at all; as the solar radiance enveloped the world, every place was bathed in light, and all manner of demons and monsters vanished like dispersing smoke.

After a long while, the fleet within the sun gradually departed into the distance.

No—

This fleet within the sun had never paused at all.

Its radiance lasted only an instant, yet for the living beings within it, it stretched far too long—seeming to last an entire lifetime, leaving nothing that could be hidden.

"Mo Shi Xiao Gao Jie—now that is a familiar place."

"Things from over ten thousand years ago, thinking back on them now, they seem like only yesterday…"

Jiang Ding said to the moon, a note of sentiment in his voice.

Back then, it was right here that he had taken a single finger strike from the Flame Stone Great Emperor at the peak of Nascent Soul cultivation and survived—his body exploding into fragments, leaving only a single head.

The joy of that moment, recalled now, still made one's heart surge with excitement, filled with boundless nostalgia.

"Sword Child, you seem to have aged a little."

"Is it my imagination?"

The moon complained: "More and more like Zou Zou Xiyuan and her lot—even when they were over twenty thousand years old they were already like this, all world-weary and sentimental, constantly reminiscing about the past… yet you're not even halfway through your lifespan yet!"

"This kind of mindset isn't quite right."

"Nonsense!"

"This Lord is only sixteen years old right now!"

Jiang Ding instinctively rebuked, then began to consider the moon's words.

This Moon Spirit of the Great Sun Sword Pavilion was the teacher of successive generations of Great Sun Sword Lords, having trained generation after generation of Great Sun Sword Children and Great Sun Sword Lords; her opinions on many matters were extremely valuable and could not be ignored.

"You mean an aged mindset, don't you?"

"That is indeed a fact."

Jiang Ding thought seriously for a moment, then sighed: "These past years I've always been playing around with old-timers like the Ancient God Ancestors and Yuan and their generation of cultivators—I really have lost some of my vigor."

"So, I need cultivators of the same level."

"Only cultivators of the same level can make me happy, joyful, innocent and carefree…"

Amid idle chat, the Immortal Gate's solar fleet advanced through military formation jumps and the transmission arrays of various Minor Thousand Worlds, shuttling ceaselessly onward.

The sun's radiance poured out again and again, swatting the Ancient God Ancestor worms dead in swarms like bedbugs, severing the steps by which they had been infiltrating the Immortal Gate's territory.

And so, the solar fleet patrolled the realm like a streak of flowing light.

On this day, the Immortal Gate's solar fleet arrived at the central Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie of the Tian Yuan Domain—the former Heaven Ghost Divine Sect, now the site of Heaven Ghost University.

This fleet lingered here for several months.

This was rather uncommon; in the past, whether Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie or Minor Thousand World, the Great Sun Sword Lord had always swept past in a single pass, paying no special attention to anything.

Yet many who had read the Immortal Gate's history thoroughly wore expressions as though they had long anticipated this.

"Heaven Ghost Divine Lord,"

"the first Dao Merging Divine Lord to die at the hands of the Immortal Gate—after an interval of over ten thousand years, he is about to begin reviving. A Dao Merging cultivator's Shen Hun Lao Yin merges with the Heavenly Dao, making them extremely difficult to kill completely; this is a fine case study for thorough eradication."

"I intend to record this and use it as future military training material for the Immortal Gate—you must watch carefully, study, and learn, because in the future you'll be doing this yourselves…"

Jiang Ding instructed the many Void Refinement cultivators of the Ninth Front Army.

The power of the Quasi-Heavenly Being level, theoretically

speaking, already possessed the ability to utterly slay a Dao Merging Divine Lord—even a Shen Hun Lao Yin merged with the Heavenly Dao would be useless against it.

"Yes, Great Sun Senior."

The Immortal Gate's Void Refinement cultivators nodded repeatedly like chicks pecking at grain, replying in low voices.

Whoosh~

As the group conversed, a wind rose up between the realms.

First came a breeze, then a strong wind, then a gale. Dark clouds gathered, lightning flashed and thunder roared, and all manner of chaotic phenomena of laws erupted. This stretch of heaven and earth had abruptly become a death zone—any living being below Void Refinement who entered it would surely die.

A wisp of dark, gloomy law appeared within Lei Ting, as Yin winds howled and ten thousand ghosts shrieked.

Many Void Refinement cultivators of the immortal sects held their breath.

This was the law-foundation of a Dao-Unity Divine Lord.

Being within the military formation, they naturally were not afraid, but that did not mean they could look down on a Dao-Unity Divine Lord. This was the Great Dao above Void Refinement, the lifelong dream of countless citizens, capable of easily slaughtering billions of Void Refinement, Soul Transformation, Nascent Soul, and Jin Dan cultivators who had lost their formation.

From this wisp of dark, gloomy law sprouted many tiny protrusions, and from these protrusions spread many more branches.

In the span of a breath, a web of ghost-path laws like a spider's web had already taken shape.

It was as if some necessary condition had been fulfilled—in an instant, countless strands of heaven and earth's spiritual energy and the star-light of the universe surged toward this place, pouring into the ghost-path law web in a steady stream like a hundred rivers returning to the sea. Using the ghost-path law web as a foundation, meridians, a dantian, and a divine soul were generated, and then bones and a divine soul were produced…

All the things a living being should possess manifested rapidly in that instant, as if a backup had been copied once more from the Heavenly Dao.

In but an instant, a handsome Daoist with slightly fierce and sinister eyes reappeared in the world.

"Jiaoming Huang!"

"Eastern Extreme Demon Gate! Badaxian Sect! This Divine Lord swears I will hack you into a thousand pieces, flay the skin and tear the bones from your bodies, annihilate your divine souls, to vent the hatred in my heart…"

The moment Tiangui Divine Lord revived, he roared in wild fury.

Over ten thousand years!

How many ten-thousand-year spans can a Dao-Unity Divine Lord have?

How could this not fill one with hatred?

"Hatred, hatred—"

Tiangui Divine Lord, who had been roaring in wild fury, suddenly felt an instinctive chill. He subconsciously looked around, his body instantly stiffened, and the words in his mouth came to a halt.

Several billion cultivators were staring at him.

Quite a few sat ramrod-straight, pen and paper in hand.