[{"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-961":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},2342972,4578,"Chapter 961: A Billion Lives Like Ants","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-961",961,"\u003Cp>Amidst swirling spiritual light, the supreme divine court of the East Sea shattered into fragments, falling toward the earth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This scene, through the bond of incense worship, deeply imprinted upon the hearts of hundreds of millions of followers in the East Sea, instantly sparking massive panic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The God!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord of Jade Pure Dust!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In countless temples beneath the sea and on islands, temple priests spat blood and collapsed, screaming in terror.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They could not believe it, scrambled to their feet regardless of everything, their minds in chaos, praying: “Praise the Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord of Jade Pure Dust!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your sword court is like the stars, eternal and unyielding!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your radiance bathes the earth; your path shall stretch into boundless realms…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Across the East Sea, countless temple priests, accompanied by Daoist priests of the divine path and faithful followers within hundreds of li, chanted together—loud, devout voices echoing through heaven and earth, forming a vast tide of incense worship surging toward this place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The power of incense worship nearly solidified into substance, glowing golden and brilliant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet, this incense power received no response.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was unimaginable in the past.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord of Jade Pure Dust is a true god; to invoke his divine name must awaken him, and though his response may vary, he must respond!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, has the god fallen??\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This cannot be!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some temple priests spat blood again, refusing to believe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With grim determination, they immediately forced tens of thousands of devout followers around them to slit their own throats, staining the pedestals of the divine statues with blood, initiating the most brutal and effective ritual of blood sacrifice—capable of gathering the utmost power of faith.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These temple priests were not isolated cases; their number was countless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is a world where true gods exist!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No matter how greedy, how murderous, how lustful and avaricious the temple priests might be—these are common, complex facets of human nature.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But one thing is clear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every single temple priest is a fervent, zealous believer!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without this level of devotion, one could never become a temple priest, could never commune with the divine; all other talents must yield before such faith.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, with the god suddenly cut off from them, they felt no liberation, no relief—instead, they went mad, pouring every ounce of their strength into gathering incense and faith, hoping to awaken the god once more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tide of incense worship surged like a monstrous wave, converging upon the former East Sea Sword Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet found no physical vessel to anchor upon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord of Jade Pure Dust!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your radiance…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your path…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, this overwhelming faith—so dense it could instantly elevate a minor god to a higher rank—spontaneously materialized into a towering, golden-armored divine general, standing with a great sword, his gaze sternly fixed upon the distance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was, unmistakably, creation from nothingness, a phantom form conjured from empty air: a new Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord of Jade Pure Dust, forged right there on the spot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was none other than the Jade Clear Dust Supreme and Exquisite Sword Lord, manifesting from nothingness, crafting existence from emptiness, and utterly recreating itself right where it stood!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Incredible!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding, watching, felt a jolt within his heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He saw clearly: there had been nothing there before—no air, no water, no spiritual energy, no spatial distortion—yet this immense tide of incense faith had spontaneously birthed a golden-armored divine general, whose aura began at the fourth realm and was rapidly intensifying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Give him a hundred years, and restoring to the Soul Transformation realm would be ordinary.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was pure creation from nothingness, utterly disregarding any law of energy balance—stunning to behold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Don’t look like you’ve never seen the world before.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Stay calm.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding, awestruck, reassured himself: “The Immortal Dao world is not like my homeland. Spirit and soul-force are also matter, also energy. Divine incense worship is merely a shortcut to harnessing this power.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“At the highest levels of the Immortal Dao, the same can be achieved.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The balance of energy and matter still exists—it is not truly creation from nothing.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the span of several breaths, the golden-armored divine general’s form stabilized. Under the torrent of incense and divine power, he suddenly opened his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the several breaths of delay, the Golden Armor Divine General’s bodily structure gradually stabilized, and under the influx of countless incense divine path forces, it suddenly opened its eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“To be exterminated!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The golden-armored divine general drew his sword—a golden blade whirled up storms across dozens of kilometers, slashing down toward the young man in blue robes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The giant’s body was as massive as a mountain; the blue-robed youth, impossibly small.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet their auras were utterly reversed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Anyone witnessing this would feel one thing: a mountain-sized ant daring to defy the entire sky.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In truth, that was exactly what it was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clang!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding did not draw his sword. A single flash of blue-gold sword qi pierced through the golden-armored general’s forehead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding did not draw his sword; a blue-gold sword qi flashed and vanished, piercing straight through the Golden Armor Divine General’s third eye.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The golden-armored general stiffened, then shattered once more into a storm of spiritual light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tidal wave of divine incense faith surged again, seeking to reform another golden-armored general—their god—yet each time, just as the form began to coalesce, a blue-gold sword qi appeared, slicing through everything, the blade forever present, forever unextinguished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tide of incense faith was extinguished by a single sword stroke.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hundreds of millions of beings, believing their incense power boundless and immense, were but dust before an Immortal Dao master.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“As long as incense endures, faith endures; the god never dies…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding murmured softly: “Then I shall uproot the faith entirely, and extinguish every last wisp of incense.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My human race is a flexible species. To expect them to forever worship one person, unwaveringly—that’s delusion. A daydream in broad daylight.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“To put it bluntly: without power, what is a god but a blade of grass?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Without power, even a god begging to be a human’s dog would be rejected.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After delivering that single sword stroke, Jiang Ding ignored the surroundings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His spiritual sense and sword intent spread across all directions, slowly scanning the sky, the ocean, and a fifth-rank low-grade spiritual vein beneath the sea.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He found almost nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The retreat had been well-planned and ample; preparations were thorough. They must have evacuated long before the battle in the Western Desert, hiding somewhere unknown.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Are you… beyond the world?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding looked up toward the boundary of the void.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was not certain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the library of Shuoyang Tianjun, in the records left by the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Sect, both recorded that this small world existed alone, with no other small worlds nearby—venturing outside was nearly suicide.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shuoyang Tianjun, when he reached the late stage of Soul Transformation, with no path forward, once ventured out alone, wandering for centuries, only to return here nearly dead, his essence spent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the library of Shuoyang Tianjun and in the records left by the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Sect, both jointly documented that this small world existed alone, with no other small worlds nearby—venturing out on its own was nearly indistinguishable from seeking death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In ancient times, a transcendence pathway—or transcendence rule—existed: cultivators reaching the peak of Soul Transformation had a chance to pass through it and reach the realm whose name could not be spoken.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, that path is severed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Chen Xi, are you and Baizhu Tianjun… beyond the world, or hiding somewhere within it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hard to guess.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding did not care much, speaking calmly: “All of this will be answered once I complete the Star-Settling Array covering the entire world. It will take no more than a hundred years.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only with the Settling Array can one truly claim control over the entire world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Ding didn’t care much and said coolly, “All of this will have a result once I complete the Star-Covering Boundary Array that spans the entire world—no more than a hundred years.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only with the Boundary Array can it be said that the entire world has been brought under control.\u003C\u002Fp>",1375,"2026-06-20T23:34:28.016Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","ae39fe4e6e0d707161c98be16e907d36010c92a5a82152b90922382f7f0e0a79","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-962","cluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-chapter-960",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fcluster-artillery-shattering-the-immortals-cover.jpg"]