Chapter 1710: The Great Hero, the Sage Who Led Humanity's Rise, Has Died

This stretch of starry cosmos has completely rotted away!

The Eastern Extreme Demon Sect's quasi-ninth-tier forbidden nuclear weapons bombarded again and again, seemingly without end, firing ninety-three quasi-ninth-tier forbidden nuclear weapons in succession—a terrifyingly massive number.

This is immortal-path industrial civilization!

Unlike peer Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong factions, the vast majority of things in this immortal-path industrial civilization can be replicated and proliferated; even eighth-tier heaven-gifted treasures can be artificially synthesized through extensive procedures. They can be copied and regenerated, rather than depending entirely on what heaven and earth naturally produce.

This is the terrifying advantage of numbers!

The immortal gate's quasi-ninth-tier forbidden nuclear weapons fired again and again, bringing destruction and law-annihilation.

At first, they merely shattered the sky-filling raindrops of immortal arts, cutting off the falling raindrops' damage to the Great Sun Sword Son and the Eastern Extreme Demon Sect fleet.

Later on, they even struck directly at the immortal-art cloud layer—the source of countless raindrops—bombarding those dark clouds until they swayed and shattered without end, while vast amounts of radioactive dust and law-annihilating poison spread across heaven and earth.

This stretch of starry cosmos has become a spiritless dead zone, like the spiritless dead zones of the past Great Sun Dayang Dayang Tianchi; the broken battlefield scene will surely endure for hundreds of thousands of years or more.

This is a new forbidden zone of the Ancient God Domain world cluster!

Under such terrifying bombardment, the immortal-art rain-summoning had no choice but to grind to a halt.

When all bombardment ceased and the radiance dimmed, everything once more appeared before the eyes of the living beings of heaven and earth.

"…Report, please…"

"…Scout, please report… report on the damage effect of the shelling…"

Broken, intermittent voices came through the immortal gate's communication network.

On such a battlefield, even the immortal gate's communication network had been severed, unable to flow as smoothly as in peacetime, because the very rules had been severed in this stretch of heaven and earth.

"Reporting,"

"Target heavily wounded; headquarters can finish it."

Jiang Ding drew in a deep breath.

It seemed the immortal gate's ultimate trump card, the forbidden nuclear weapons, held great promise indeed.

In the future, when facing a true immortal maiden head-on, he would simply bombard first without a care, blast the true immortal maiden until wounded and crippled, then go up and harvest the corn.

The mere thought of such a scene was beautiful.

Clang!

Jiang Ding drew his sword.

Sword-light congealed the cosmic river of stars, forming a magnificent scroll painting of the galaxy.

Within this galaxy painting were sword cultivators, the nine major army groups' deep-space fleets of the immortal gate, the pitch-black deep-space voids left by countless forbidden nuclear weapons' bombardment that could not heal for ages, and the immortal-art dark clouds swaying in the wind and rain.

One could see those dark clouds attempting to revive, yet under the suffusion of law-annihilating matter from the spiritless cosmos, they could never take shape.

Perhaps true immortal arts could do it.

But these immortal arts, indirectly controlled by the Ancient God Ancestor, could not be reborn in such an environment—eternal and indestructible.

"This sovereign,"

"From the embryonic form of immortal arts, to shattering heaven and earth's six paths and five elements, annihilating space, annihilating time…"

Jiang Ding murmured.

He recalled his sword path step by step, how he had forged his own sword path bit by bit, all the way to today—to this height he had reached today.

"Today!"

"Annihilate,"

Jiang Ding let out a long howl.

"Sword of Time-Space Annihilation!"

In an instant, the galaxy painting within the starry sky began to contract, shrinking from the scroll-rollers at both ends, drawing together toward the center; one magnificent scene after another of the galactic battlefield was covered over, eclipsing all radiance.

In the end, every scene vanished.

Only a single scroll-roller remained in place.

This scroll-roller shifted hazily, its internal time and space runes flickering; following the principles of the inherited immortal art · Sky-Suppression, and combined with the sword cultivator's and the entire civilization's comprehension, time and space fused within this scroll-roller, giving birth to an entirely new, terrifying thing.

It was a hazy, indistinct sword—a sword-light that transcended the five elements and karma, that transcended the rules themselves!

This sword-light was born from the interweaving of time and space.

This is the Sword of Time-Space Annihilation!

Boom—

The sound of the grinding chaos millstone at the dawn of creation.

Something ineffably mysterious was being slashed forth, sweeping aside all, severing all; this was a hazy, indistinct sword-light that transcended karma, slashing a heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating sword toward the battered immortal-art rain-summoning dark clouds of heaven and earth.

In an instant, heaven and earth fell silent.

The sound of rain, the sound of clouds drifting, the sound of surging, the sound of roars, the sound of shelling, the sound of space shattering… every sound vanished at this moment; every moving substance in heaven and earth came to a standstill.

Even the flow of time came to a standstill.

Only this one sword remained, slashing out all radiance, blooming between heaven and earth!

Before every living being, such a wondrous scene appeared.

A hazy sword-light slashed through the endless dark clouds formed by the immortal-art rain-summoning, cutting open a straight sword-scar, cleaving the entire immortal-art dark cloud—imbued with countless immortal-path mysteries—in two with a single stroke, annihilating all spiritual matter, annihilating all rules and immortal-path runes.

The immortal-art rain-summoning was destroyed!

No one knew how long passed before heaven and earth once more resumed the flow of time and matter.

The sky-covering, all-obscuring immortal-art dark clouds vanished in an instant; the lingering move of immortal arts, wielded again through evil arts by the arm remnant of some terrifying being from countless years ago, scattered into nothing!

This scene seemed to have appeared in some incomparably distant age, carrying the same endless sorrow.

This stretch of heaven and earth returned to quiet.

All explosions and destruction had vanished; even the terrifying, icy killing intent had vanished.

The war had reached its conclusion.

Bang!

At the instant the sword that annihilated time and space came slashing down, the Ancient God Dao's Six Paths Reincarnation Grand Formation shattered in an instant; the formations within three Zhong Senior Qian Shi Gao Jie collapsed into fragments, triggering all manner of terrible disasters—mountains crumbling, the earth splitting, rivers overflowing their courses.

The Six Paths Reincarnation world that had always existed around the Ancient God Ancestor shattered as well.

Amid all that scattered spiritual light, a withered skull was revealed.

That skull was aging at extreme speed—its hair turning grey-white, its flesh losing moisture and vitality, its once star-bright eyes growing turbid.

The master of a generation's Ancient God Domain world cluster, the great figure who had led the human race to the position of hegemon of the world clusters, was approaching the end of his life.

"A pity,"

"I regret that I never managed to step beyond Heaven and Man, never managed to become an immortal…"

At this moment, the Ancient God Ancestor's heart was utterly calm; he sighed in sorrow.

At this moment, he thought back to that slave of the Wild Tiger Tribe from several hundred thousand years ago—the long hardships, the long struggle, the many sufferings, the many opportunities and strokes of fortune, the countless joys and pains, a life rich and varied.

And now, he had reached the end.

Countless cultivators all around watched coldly, watching the final road of this outstanding figure who possessed both tremendous merit and tremendous sin.

"Jiang Ding Zi,"

"I curse you—I curse your sword heart to shatter, your future cultivation to advance no further, to fall into an eternal bottleneck, and then to be slain by another sword cultivator of fierce ambition, who will cut off your head to flaunt as his own trophy of merit."

The Ancient God Ancestor said calmly: "This is the price for violating the foundational principles of sword cultivators! A price that must be paid in the future!"

"This is laughable."

"Fellow Daoist, this is also ignorance."

Jiang Ding was not angry; he said calmly: "Ancient God Fellow Daoist, of the Sword Dao, how much can you truly know?"

"Objectively speaking, on the Sword Dao, you seeing me is like an ant gazing upon the stars, a grain of rice's light facing the sun directly—there is simply no comparability between the two."

"On the Sword Dao, you are a layman."

"The Immortal Gate fleet is nothing more than another layer of sword sheath for this sovereign. If a sword cultivator takes heaven and earth as his sword, why then can he not take a fleet as his sword?"

"Holding fast to the principles of sword cultivators—this is the shortcut the Sword Dao's forebears left for their descendants."

"But if one wishes to become an immortal, one must inevitably blaze a new path. This is the first step of this sovereign's new path. Even though it is accompanied by endless risk, it is nonetheless a correct path."

Jiang Ding sighed as he spoke.

"The reasoning of the Sword Dao within this—a layman may not necessarily comprehend it."

"You are deceiving yourself."

"You will die in the future at the hands of a sword"

"cultivator who holds fast to the principles and integrity of the Sword Dao."

The Ancient God Ancestor said calmly.

He was not trying to convince anyone of anything—merely describing a destiny that would inevitably come to pass in the future.

"Very well."

Jiang Ding nodded slightly, showing respect to an outstanding figure who was about to die.

"Fellow Daoist,"

"Do you have any last words?"

Jiang Ding asked again: "You rendered great merit for the human race. This sovereign will grant you a grand funeral and erect a stele inscribed with your deeds and your sins, not a single character altered."

"Your Ancient God Dao may continue to be passed down. Your disciples, and the generations to come, will offer sacrifices to you."

"With that, do you have any final instructions?"

These words, one after another, made the Ancient God Ancestor pause.

A long while.

A long while.

"I have a son,"

"He carries within him the Ancient God bloodline Dao body I extracted, and his father's Six Paths inheritance. His future immortal path will surely be far brighter than mine… I have sent him to the Gods and Buddhas Da Senior Qian World."

"If you have the ability to find this Da Senior Qian World, and encounter him, and are willing to act, then help him once."

The Ancient God Ancestor said calmly.

Until death, he never revealed the information of this Da Senior Qian World he controlled, for he did not wish to let his enemies gain any benefit.

Only a trace of parental affection in his heart made him reveal a sliver of information.

"Very well."

"I have noted it down."

Jiang Ding nodded seriously.

Clang!

The Taiqing Flying Sword blazed with light.

It pierced through the cosmic void, traced a beautiful arc, and with the annihilation-Dharma destructive sword light, bored straight through an aged skull, pinning into it, extinguishing all vitality of this being and destroying every divine-soul particle.

At the fingertip of an indescribable severed arm, a grey-white skull swayed for a moment, then went still.

He was dead.

The Ancient God Ancestor!

This great outstanding figure who, several hundred thousand years ago, had led the human race to rise and established the hegemony of the human race's Ancient God world cluster, the inheritor of the human race's Six Paths Reincarnation—

Today, both divine soul and body were utterly destroyed!