Chapter 960: Hundreds of Millions of Beings Are Like Ants

Amidst the fluttering spiritual light, the supreme divine court of the Eastern Sea's stars shattered into pieces, plummeting toward the earth.

This scene, through the connection of incense, deeply imprinted itself upon the hearts of hundreds of millions of believers in the Eastern Sea, instantly triggering massive panic.

"God!"

"The Supreme and Most Sublime Sword Lord of Jade Purity and Fine Dust!"

In countless temples beneath the sea and on islands, temple priests spat blood, fell to the ground, and screamed in terror.

Unable to believe it, they immediately struggled to their feet, disregarding everything, and prayed with chaotic minds: "Praise the Supreme Jade Purity and Fine Dust Most Sublime Sword Lord!"

"Your sword court is like the stars, eternal and undying!"

"Your brilliance spreads across the earth, your path will extend into endless realms..."

In the Eastern Sea, temple priests in countless temples, accompanied by Daoist Priests of the Divine Path, along with believers from hundreds of miles around, prayed together; their loud and devout voices echoed through heaven and earth, forming a massive tide of incense surging here.

The power of incense nearly solidified into substance, a brilliant golden-yellow color.

However, this incense power received no response whatsoever.

This was unimaginable in the past.

The Supreme and Most Sublime Sword Lord of Jade Purity and Fine Dust is a True God; praying his divine name must be perceived, the response may vary, but perception is certain!

Now, the God has fallen??

"No!"

"This is impossible!"

A temple priest vomited blood again, unwilling to believe it.

Their faces turned grim; they immediately forced tens of thousands of devout believers around them to join them in slitting their own throats. Blood stained the base of the divine statue, initiating the blood sacrifice ritual—the most cruel and most effective ritual in religious ceremonies, capable of gathering faith power!

Temple priests making such moves were not rare; they were countless.

This is a world where True Gods exist!

No matter how greedy the temple priests were, how murderous, how fond of wealth and lust, these are common complexities in human nature.

But one thing is clear.

All temple priests are devout and fanatical believers!

Without this degree of devotion, one could never serve as a temple priest, could never communicate with deities; all talents must yield before such devotion.

Now, the deities suddenly lost contact; they felt no relief at being freed from bonds, but instead, like madmen, used all their power to gather incense and faith power, hoping to awaken the deities once more.

The massive wave of incense roared, surging toward the former Eastern Sea Sword Court.

Yet it could find no physical form to anchor itself.

"Supreme and Most Sublime Sword Lord of Jade Purity and Fine Dust!"

"Your brilliance..."

"Your path..."

In the end, this extremely dense incense faith power, which could instantly elevate a Mao Shen to a higher rank,

materialized out of nothing, forming a burly Jin Jia divine general holding a great sword, his majestic gaze fixed on the distance.

It was, indeed, creating something from nothing, forging matter from the void, forcibly recreating the Supreme and Most Sublime Sword Lord of Jade Purity and Fine Dust right there!

"Hiss!"

"Impressive!"

Jiang Ding watched, his heart trembling.

He saw clearly that nothing was present at the spot; neither air, water, spiritual energy, nor space participated in the reaction. This vast incense faith power spontaneously generated a Jin Jia divine general whose aura was already at the fourth rank from the start and was rapidly strengthening.

If given another hundred years, restoring him to the Soul Transformation rank would be commonplace.

This was truly creating matter from the void, seemingly disregarding any principle of energy balance, leaving people stunned.

"Don't look like you've never seen the world before."

"Calm down!"

Jiang Ding, having opened his eyes to new wonders, immediately comforted himself: "The Xian Dao Shi Gao Jie is different from my homeland; spirit and soul power are also matter, also energy; the Divine Path's incense faith is merely a shortcut to utilize this power."

"At the highest depths of the Xian Dao, one can achieve the same."

"Energy-matter balance still exists; it is not creating something from nothing."

During the few breaths of delay, the Jin Jia divine general's body structure gradually stabilized; under the infusion of countless incense and Divine Path powers, he suddenly opened his eyes.

"Blasphemer!"

"Must be executed!"

The Jin Jia divine general drew his sword; the golden great sword whipped up wind and clouds across tens of kilometers, striking down at the young man in green robes not far away.

Clearly, the figure was as majestic as a mountain, yet that young man in green robes was so tiny.

Yet the auras between the two were completely reversed.

Whoever came here would feel this sensation: an ant as large as a mountain challenging the entire sky.

The fact was indeed so.

Clang!

Jiang Ding did not draw his sword; a flash of blue-gold sword qi appeared and vanished, piercing straight through the Jin Jia divine general's brow.

"Blasphemy..."

The Jin Jia divine general's body stiffened, then collapsed once more into scattered spiritual light.

The surrounding Divine Path incense faith power, like a tsunami, surged again, attempting to condense another Jin Jia divine general, their deity, yet they saw a blue-gold sword qi always appear just as their body was about to form, slicing through everything; the sword qi existed forever, never extinguished.

The tide of incense faith was annihilated by a single sword strike.

Hundreds of millions of beings, believing their incense power vast and endless, were before the Xian Dao experts merely insignificant dust.

"As long as incense does not perish, faith does not perish, the deity does not die..."

Jiang Ding Zi murmured, his tone flat: "Then I'll just uproot faith entirely,

and extinguish every last wisp of incense."

"My human race is a species with flexible bottom lines. To want humanity to always believe in one person, never to leave or forsake—that's overthinking it, daydreaming in broad daylight."

"To put it bluntly, without power, what kind of green onion does a god even count as?"

"Without power, a god would be despised even as a mortal's dog."

Jiang Ding finished a slash of his sword and paid no more attention to his surroundings.

His divine sense and sword intent spread out in all directions, searching bit by bit across the sky, the ocean, and a fifth-grade lower-quality spirit vein within the sea.

Almost nothing turned up.

The withdrawal here had been very ample, every preparation very thorough—they should have evacuated this place before the battle in the Western Desert even occurred, and no one knew where they had hidden themselves.

"Are you… beyond the world?"

Jiang Ding raised his head, looking toward the void beyond the world's barrier.

He wasn't certain.

In Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun's library, and in the records left behind by Tianshenlei Sect, it was jointly recorded that this Minor Thousand World existed in lonely isolation, with no Minor Thousand World around it; setting out alone was almost no different from seeking death.

Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun, back in his day, had cultivated to the late stage of Soul Transformation. With no path of advancement left, he had once ventured outward alone, wandering outside for several hundred years, and in the end had been forced to return here, nearly spent and on the verge of death.

This Minor Thousand World was a dead end.

In ages long past, there had existed an ascension passage, or an ascension rule, whereby cultivators who reached the peak of Soul Transformation had a chance to pass through the ascension passage and travel to that realm whose name could not be spoken aloud.

Now, that path had been severed.

"Xi Ping'an, you and Bai Zu Tian Jun—did you flee beyond the world, or are you hiding somewhere within it?"

"Impossible to fathom."

Jiang Ding didn't much care, and said flatly: "All of this—once I complete the Xing Chen Ding Gao Jie array that covers the entire world, I think there will be an answer. At most, within a hundred years."

Only by possessing the world-anchoring array can one truly claim to have brought the entire world under control.