[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals":3,"chapter-cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-960":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Cluster Artillery: Shattering the Immortals",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2342971,4578,"Chapter 960: Sword Shatters the Eastern Sea Divine Court","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-960",960,"\u003Cp>Vast emerald waves stretched for miles, the sea wind salty and pungent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amid a flash of white light from spatial runes, a young man in blue robes, a long sword at his waist, appeared in the sky.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding extended his spiritual sense, calculating the surrounding human and geographic conditions, coordinates, cross-verifying with memories from the Divine Guard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This is west of the Eastern Sea, locally called the Star Sea—its surface like a mirror, rarely rippled; mortals name it the Dead Sea…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yet immortal cultivators’ ships and flying vessels pass through normally; resources are abundant, with countless strange beasts and spirit fish. Thousands of years ago, numerous sects and demon tribes existed here, but all were exterminated one by one by the Divine Army of the Eastern Sea Sword Court…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding easily locked onto the location of the Eastern Sea Incense Sword Court, concealing his form as he flew toward his target.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His speed was not fast; he maintained peak magical power, moving steadily through space, occasionally gazing down at the ocean and the human towns scattered like stars across the islands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the ocean lived the Jiao people, shark demons, turtle clans, sea serpent tribes, and other aquatic demon races—numerous, thriving, and firmly occupying their ecological niches.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet they were not the masters of the sea.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The true masters were the various incense temples built beneath the waves, and the human devotees within them—acting as temple priests, attendants, and the like—who wielded divine power, ordering and abusing these sea races, preaching that demons were inherently inferior, destined to be slaves and servants for life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only hope for redemption was to devoutly pray and offer sacrifices, so that in their next life they might be reborn as humans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Most demon races believed this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For over millennia, rebellious demons, overly intelligent demons, had all been slaughtered by temple priests accompanied by Divine Guards, subjected to centuries of brainwashing, filtered and refined over thousands of years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The more suffering the demon races endured, the more devout they became, yearning to be reborn as humans in the afterlife and live a happy life thereafter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Across the vast ocean, countless Jiao people and sea serpent tribes existed, each with their own temples and priestly leaders who served as divine shepherds—each day supplying the Incense Sword Court with torrents of incense power, elevating the court’s incense divine seat into the sky, making it a deity rivaling a True Lord.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Familiar…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Grand Sun Sword Pavilion seems to be an extreme human supremacist faction.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding inwardly grimaced.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was no coincidence; as a uniquely human profession, sword cultivators, the very race that birthed them, inherently possessed strong extreme racial tendencies—the more purely martial the sword sect, the more extreme this became.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This social structure is an excellent sample.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding felt a flicker of curiosity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stopped observing the sea demons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There was nothing worth watching—Shen’s power suppressed the sky and earth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>??Xi Ping’an did not resemble ancient deities fallen into slumber; even if a peerless prodigy among demons emerged, he could not overturn heaven—he’d be instantly crushed and slaughtered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This extreme-racial society’s rise or fall depended entirely on the ruling race itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once weakened even slightly, annihilation followed immediately—no room for compromise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding turned his gaze to the human towns.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On an island spanning thousands of kilometers lived over three hundred thousand people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These people seemed divided into several small states; one tiny state had physicians, household ministers, and a handful of capable warriors—a feudal society even more backward than ancient ones.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was no anomaly; nearly every island, large or small, was an independent state, showing no signs of unification—all worshipped deities, obeyed temple priests, and devoted themselves entirely to divine offerings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Between states, pastoral songs echoed, roosters and dogs could be heard across fields, yet they lived and died without ever interacting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This is the harm of deities.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding, seeing this, felt disappointed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Incense deities, to preserve the purity of incense, deliberately suppressed the development of social production relations, blocked external knowledge, and kept believers trapped in simple societies—rising with the sun, resting at dusk, endlessly repeating pastoral cycles until death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>New life was born, repeating the exact same path as their ancestors—no change whatsoever.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>People living in such an environment were relatively ‘simple.’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not pure or kind—simply simple: simple good, simple evil, closer to human instincts—survival and reproduction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such a society would never change, never advance in immortal technology—it was stagnant water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But change is the very foundation of humanity’s survival and development!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Humans are not demons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Demons, especially those with top-tier bloodlines, are inherently powerful, born atop the hierarchy of all beings, possessing long lifespans, destined to attain great divine powers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What do humans have?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What do humans possess?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the pinnacle human prodigies—whether divine bodies, spirit bodies, or unmatched comprehension—without postnatal cultivation, proper lineage, or immortal civilization as nourishment, are nothing. They toil their entire lives like packhorses, dying forgotten in some remote village, forever without hope.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Human prodigies’ potential must draw upon the achievements of immortal civilization to flourish.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Where does human immortal civilization come from?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From constant change and development!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The incense deities’ actions are, without doubt, severing humanity’s roots—for a mere trickle of incense power, they’ve uprooted the entire Eastern Sea human lineage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“All incense deities, whether human or not…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“…must die.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding whispered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was a racial tumor, his destined enemy on the Dao—he must eradicate it utterly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After silently flying for months, Jiang Ding reached the heart of the Eastern Sea—the sacred ground of countless Eastern Sea devotees: the Heaven Sword Seas.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Here, the waters shimmered brilliantly, suffused with incense power; everywhere flowed a single incense divine sword, polished by crashing waves, sharpening its edge, waiting until its body fully solidified to soar into the sky and return to the Divine Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding looked up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No need to search deliberately—he could see the radiant star in the sky, worshipped by billions of human and demonic beings: the Eastern Sea Incense Sword Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Incense Sword Court stood there, radiating brilliant light, its heavy pressure spreading outward—divine authority like a hell, divine might like an ocean.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even a Soul Transformation cultivator here would have his hairs stand on end, his spirit constantly warning him, his soul screaming in alarm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was the divine court of an incense deity!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any deity within their own incense court would see their power massively amplified—a late Soul Transformation cultivator could instantly surge to peak Soul Transformation, easily burying any reckless True Lord who dared enter, trapping even their primordial spirit, turning it into nourishment for the court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Are you still there?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding murmured.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He completely ignored the intense alarm rising in his mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reason it was “seemingly” there was because his flying sword and his soul remained utterly still—these alarms were external, emotional forces artificially imposed upon his soul.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>CLANG!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding drew his sword.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A great sun rose slowly within a thousand-li sword domain!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then it fell!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It slammed down upon the star of the Sword Court, worshipped by countless human and demonic beings—spreading destruction, shattering forbidden arts, annihilating willpower, instantly sweeping away all divine majesty and weight—everything now subject to the sword’s dominion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The great sun and the star touched in an instant, pausing briefly in stalemate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>BOOM!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amid countless shattering spiritual lights, the star of the Eastern Sea Incense Sword Court—the divine seat representing the deity’s authority—shattered violently, exploding into countless fragments of spiritual light that rained down upon the earth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1256,"2026-06-20T23:34:28.016Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","3c913a751d800620a96e08742548ae3248fc0010b5fbf647364ed9ad044d3725","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-961","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-959",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fcluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-cover.jpg"]