Chapter 439: Mysterious Sacrifice, Burning Together with the World!

In short, Jiang Ying's state of mind was in a mess, and she had already begun to beat a retreat.

One reason was the dissipation of her power, which made anything she might want to do meaningless; the Holy Spirit didn't even need to act personally, as a mere downward glance from Him would likely cause her to faint on the spot and sleep until the dust had settled.

The second reason was the lingering influence of the Holy Spirit's apostles; after the influence of the Source of Life was completely erased, their echoes began to reverberate in the gaps of her heart, making it impossible for her to view the Holy Spirit as an enemy at this moment.

Therefore, although she had made obvious progress compared to before, she still wanted to stop right there; anyway, strictly speaking, she wasn't wrong, and especially since this was the mess left by that dog-thief Buyi, she naturally didn't want to deal with it from the bottom of her heart!

"What is your opinion?"

Du En, for his part, seemed to have no reason to persist either; although the Holy Spirit was suspended in the sky like a sun, He showed no tendency to attack the ground, which also made it seem like he didn't need to stop anything.

Therefore, he opened his mouth to ask Ming, who was beside him.

Ming's expression at this moment could be described as dark and uncertain, inexplicably gloomy, and carried a sense of gnashing teeth.

"Is this your scheme?"

A heartfelt, deep-seated sense of betrayal arose; that gaze, which seemed capable of devouring people, shifted over in response to Du En's question, first sweeping past Jiang Ying, which made her completely afraid to say anything sarcastic, only hurrying to shake her head vigorously to indicate that the "lonely ghosts and wild spirits" had long since wiped their backsides and run off to be reincarnated.

Tsk! Like a little girl who had been kept in the dark and was now filled with nothing but regret for holding back earlier! If I had known you lot were hiding so much from me, I should have hit harder back then! Only then did her gaze collide with Du En's side, blocked by a calm dam.

Ming's eyes flickered, she quickly calmed down, clenched her fists, accepted the facts, and remained steadfast.

"It seems you want to stop Her?"

"And what if I do? Since She spent all those years painting such an idealistic and naive picture for me, yet now acts in a way that contradicts it, it is naturally what She calls 'defying the Dao and falling into depravity.' Heh, according to Her teachings, there is no need to say anything at this moment; one only needs to crush and erase it!"

Ming said this with ironclad certainty, but she knew very well in her heart that relying on herself alone, she was likely unable to stop the Holy Spirit's advance.

Therefore, after expressing her stance, she asked Du En: "Do you have any other methods? Visitor from beyond the heavens, if it is truly as She just said, then the world beyond, or rather, other stars—in short, that true heaven and earth—must be extremely vast and boundless; surely you must have other means?"

If all else failed, the 'Hate-Eye Broken Wing' of the Phoenix's Remnant Hatred should barely be able to pull down the Holy Spirit! Of course, Ming knew very well that such a method was an immense burden for Du En, so although her eyes flickered, she did not mention it immediately.

"I do have one more move, but like the Hate-Eye Broken Wing, it requires paying a huge price."

No way, we still have to fight? Jiang Ying was dumbstruck upon hearing this, then sighed and stopped beating a retreat.

Fine, you are the Senior Brother, you are the leader; since your mind is made up, I will listen to you... The Holy Spirit shouldn't kill me, right?

Ignoring Jiang Ying's trepidation, Ming's expression relaxed slightly; knowing that a conversation via divine sense was meaningless, she simply stated plainly: "Because of some of the Holy Spirit's actions, His Excellency the God of Darkness previously harbored doubts, so he specially left behind a contingency, otherwise his wounds would never have been able to heal."

So there really was a contingency.

Du En was not surprised.

He even felt that the God of Darkness might not truly be dead.

Faking death to escape, biding one's time, and making a comeback—such schemes and behaviors were very routine operations for that deity; after all, the entities he opposed were all of a somewhat too high quality.

"In other words, the God of Darkness's contingency can allow me to offset that burden?"

"If the method you speak of truly has the quality of that Hate-Eye Broken Wing."

Ming knew very well that the Hate-Eye Broken Wing was something deeper, a manifestation so terrifying that even her own physical instincts felt a tremor, far more profound and powerful than the Holy Spirit, who had not yet broken through to the Void Refinement stage.

"Of course."

Du En nodded, knowing that words were useless, and began to silently circulate his secret technique.

Burn together with the world!

Once this trump card, the Four Spirits True Art, was activated, strange ripples immediately began to emanate from his body.

They were very subtle, but with the toughness of his supreme physical body, he was naturally able to capture them.

A sense of respect and admiration could not help but arise spontaneously.

Compared to the frantic hatred and venting destruction of the Phoenix's Remnant Hatred, this Four Spirits True Art, originating from the Vermilion Bird of the Four Saints, contained the holy will of that southern divine bird.

In the past, there was the Vermilion Bird, who would not tolerate a filthy world, and would burn together with it!

Ming did not hesitate any longer, channeled her energy, and condensed a point of mirror-moon light out of thin air; it was beautiful and magnificent, like a key, and she struck it down toward the earth, causing ripples of silver light to spread out instantly.

The Holy Spirit, suspended in the sky like a sun, immediately sensed it and opened His eyes to look over.

"I must be crazy to accompany you all in this madness!"

Jiang Ying roared, stepped into the air, and erupted with all her might, stirring up a tidal wave of blood energy; her purpose was naturally not to injure the opponent, nor did she even have the thought of blocking Him—she just wanted to obstruct the opponent's gaze and influence the Holy Spirit's judgment.

Immediately after, she let out a "wah" sound, vomited blood, and flew backward across the sky.

I knew it, the Holy Spirit can finish me off with a single glance right now...

Jiang Ying's heart was filled with helpless thoughts, and there was also a sense of unwillingness.

In the past, she was at least a leading figure among her peers, so how had she become a piece of cannon fodder now?

"Ah!!!"

She roared again, actually stopping her backward flight, intending to make her counterattack once more to display her pride and backbone, to let people know that she had been reborn, and that even if the dog-thief Buyi were in front of her, she would dare to strike! Then, her roar got stuck.

Because she was shocked by the scene before her.

Her struggle just now had indeed been meaningful; the light ripples spreading from Ming's side moved at the speed of light, covering the entire Dark Kingdom in the blink of an eye, drawing out the power that the God of Darkness had secretly hidden in various corners, and finally gathering it into a ball of moon-bright mirror radiance.

It had many wonderful uses and contained the wisdom and power of the God of Darkness; one of its items, called 'Mirror Body Substitute Life,' could allow Du En to activate a self-mutilating trump card once without injury... then, Ming saw Du En nodding, suddenly pointing at her, and realizing something was wrong, but it was already too late.

Beyond those eighty-eight God-made spiritual veins, there was another light-radiance passage that flew out from Du En's side at this moment, directly trapping her in place, and simultaneously causing the God of Darkness's contingency to freeze on the spot as well.

Huh? What's going on?

Jiang Ying was dumbfounded and astonished.

"You!"

Ming's expression was ugly, then turned suspicious, interweaving and appearing very astonished, which was exactly the same as Jiang Ying's, after all, they were originally the same person. The reason for the astonishment was simply that Du En's sudden move was not to collude with the Holy Spirit; on the contrary, his self-mutilating, self-burning secret technique was truly beginning to be activated.

That calm, turned-away figure seemed to be telling her that the God of Darkness's contingency needed to be saved for other purposes.

As for now, I will do it myself.

Just like before, when he used the Hate-Eye Broken Wing without hesitation, almost getting himself martyred on the spot.

It was almost as if he couldn't bear to waste the moon-bright mirror radiance here, but if that were the case, what was going on with the Holy Spirit's God-made spiritual veins?

Even Ming could not understand it at this moment.

Since even she didn't understand, Jiang Ying naturally didn't understand either.

But regardless, the situation has already reached this point.

Du En silently lowered his eyes, and the last bit of light remaining in his palm quietly merged into his own body.

Before truly unleashing the Four Spirits True Method, one more thing needed to be done first.

Boom! His magic power suddenly expanded and erupted; the cultivation method, which had long since reached its boundary, was finally no longer suppressed or restrained. As he swallowed the remnant light, his spiritual body underwent a transformation, driving his proficiency to soar immediately and officially stepping into a new realm.

【Cultivation Method: Brilliant Splendor Canon (Great Accomplishment 0/500,000)】

The Brilliant Splendor Dharma Domain expanded abruptly. That brilliant radiance seemed to be echoing the hanging sun in the sky. Five halos of light emerged from his body one after another, fading away other colors under the scouring of the Brilliant Splendor, ultimately merging into one, embedding and combining into the rough prototype of an indestructible wheel—the budding sign of a physical divine ability.

The Indestructible Brilliant Splendor Body reached Great Accomplishment simultaneously! All kinds of insights welled up, and various mysteries were understood without a teacher. The principles of Brilliant Splendor rippled in his eyes, and bits of radiance seemed to build a path leading into the boundless, dark deep space.

At that far end, a sun was floating! Du En stepped forward, his Dharma Domain retracted, and his spirit and flesh inverted. Appearing in place was his Nascent Soul form! After a cultivator breaks through to the Nascent Soul stage, the Nascent Soul form is the most powerful yet also the most fragile; once damaged, it inevitably shakes one's foundation. Yet, at this moment, Du En used it without hesitation!

Then, he suddenly soared into the air.

"Hey, wait..."

Not to mention Ming who was imprisoned, Jiang Ying was still able to move, and subconsciously she was about to follow to say or do something.

But Du En flashed and vanished, having already used spatial movement to its fullest, shaking her off on the spot.

—After the cultivation method broke through, the coverage of his divine sense had surged to five thousand li. In other words, his single spatial movement could now reach that same distance! In a few flashes, he had already escaped the capture of the stars and arrived in outer space.

Here it was desolate and silent, here it was a vacuum devoid of Qi, here it was boundless and profound.

As soon as Du En's figure appeared, gazes from the opposite side were cast upon him.

The hanging sun was approaching the star. Invisible chains were dissolving within the churning radiance; that was the disintegration of the life-source shackles. The Holy God was curling up and slowly drifting away from the fetters of the mother star, while at the same time, the barriers of her realm were crumbling piece by piece, drawing ever closer to the Void Refinement stage.

Because of this, although her body was no longer expanding or growing larger, correspondingly, the principles had begun to emerge, causing her surroundings to gradually fill with strange fluctuations, as if they were being incinerated and burned. Ordinary Nascent Soul stage cultivators would have their senses completely destroyed and their divine sense severely damaged just by catching a glimpse of the edge.

Even Du En, at this moment, could only barely capture an outer contour, unable to clearly see the various things inside.

He did not speak, as if returning to the time when he played deaf and dumb.

The Holy God also remained silent, as if she, being high above, did not need to say anything at this time.

They were simply doing what they believed to be right.

Thus, Du En slowly pinched a magic seal. His endless magic power stalled, and then it directly began to boil and burn as a whole, his body suddenly enveloped in scorching white fire.

South Bright Separation Fire!

Its appearance was like lighting a lamp in the boundless starry universe.

It was calling, it was guiding, it was provoking! The principles once left behind by the Four Spirits of Heaven were being drawn out!

Jing, Gui, Liu, Xing, Zhang, Yi, Zhen!

These seven mansions of the Vermilion Bird of the Southern Palace suddenly erupted with dazzling light among the vast number of stars, responding to the call of the True Method. But if it were only this, it would be fundamentally impossible to truly borrow the power left in this realm by the Vermilion Bird Holy Spirit of that year.

The secret technique of "Burning Together with the World" generally can only draw in a little starlight to ignite the South Bright Separation Fire, and then it serves as a rather conventional self-destructive explosive method of "harming the enemy by one thousand while damaging oneself by one thousand."

But for Du En, the situation appeared different from the very beginning.

The reason is simple: he was able to practice this Four Spirits True Method entirely thanks to the scorching of the Phoenix's Remnant Hatred, and the common point that connected them was actually not the relationship between the Phoenix and the Vermilion Bird, but the base point between the Phoenix's Remnant Hatred and "Burning Together with the World"!

To cleanse the turbid world, even if it means burning together with it! Therefore, as soon as he mastered it, Du En obtained the fire seed of the South Bright Separation Fire and was able to trigger this true flame under specific circumstances.

And right now, after triggering the secret technique, it directly caused the seven mansions of the Vermilion Bird to reveal strange light, as if invisibly scrutinizing his actions, brewing some kind of more profound change.

Du En also just silently continued to pinch the seal.

Burn.

Sacrifice.

Principles.

Puppet Manipulation, Ice Soul, Golden Eye, Holy Refining, True Flame...

Jing, Gui, Liu, Xing, Zhang—that Southern Palace Heavenly Star, following the mysterious sacrifice, began to self-immolate, lighting up one by one, completely covering the other stars and star realms of the southern corner of the sky, with only the seven mansions shining exceptionally bright.

Five stars already! What else could he burn?!

The answer is simple! In the eyes of the observer, a profound dead land suddenly appeared behind him. The pitch-black burial soil was not large in area; even now, it had only expanded to a scale of one hundred zhang, appearing so insignificant in the cosmic starry sky.

However, it was incomparably deep, penetrating the shallow layers and reaching the depths. The various dead remains buried within were like a relay bridge, helping him go deep all the way to grab a leaf of that principle, then flourishing, then reflecting and highlighting the living, the sole master of divine ability!

Divine Ability, Burying Death to Flourish Life!

The leaf of the principle emerged, and the surging, inexplicable ripples shocked everyone. They could not actually feel it; even those two who possessed Holy Bodies and whose physical bodies had begun to develop alternative divine abilities, attempting to interject into the deep layers, only had an inexplicable feeling of a jolt, mistakenly thinking it was a reaction to his current state.

Because Du En's momentum was surging crazily: late Nascent Soul, peak Nascent Soul, half-step Void Refinement, and then it stuck, but his strength was still expanding, unshakably shaking off the prefix of the weak and officially stepping into the realm of heaven's pride!

(End of chapter)