The remaining gods didn’t falter under the falls of the two Primordial Gods. They adapted instantly.
The God of Blood inverted Yun Lintian’s circulatory system, while the God of Nerves rewrote his pain receptors to interpret pleasure as agony. The God of Memories reached into his mind, attempting to delete his combat experience.
Yun Lintian’s Divine Phoenix bloodline activated. His body burned away the foreign laws in a purifying conflagration even as the Ice Phoenix’s soul froze the mental intrusions at their source.
The battle raged across conceptual planes—
A dance of primal forces where every move countered another, where reality itself was reshaped moment to moment.
And through it all, the God Slaying Sword grew hungrier.
The battlefield trembled as twenty-eight remaining Primordial Gods reformed their formation, their divine auras interweaving into a complex tapestry of cosmic law. The air itself screamed under the pressure of their combined might, space fracturing like thin ice beneath their feet.
The blue-flamed god, Lan Huo, wiped blood from his lips, his eyes burning with fury. "He’s toying with us," he growled. "This isn’t battle—it’s slaughter."
The silver-eyed goddess, Xuan Ji, clutched her broken jade tablets, her hands trembling. "We need to change tactics. Direct confrontation isn’t working."
A towering figure clad in star-forged armor—the God of Celestial Might—stepped forward, his voice like grinding planets. "Then we drown him in the weight of existence itself." He raised his hands, and the fabric of reality groaned as he summoned the crushing force of a thousand collapsing stars.
Yun Lintian’s robes fluttered as the pressure bore down on him, yet his expression remained indifferent. His golden eye flickered, and the Black Turtle’s domain expanded—a sphere of absolute stillness where all laws bowed to his will. The crushing gravity shattered against it like waves against a cliff.
His voice carried no mockery, only cold observation. The God Slaying Sword pulsed in his grip, its blackened edge drinking in the remnants of the failed attack.
The God of Celestial Might snarled. "You arrogant—!"
Before he could finish, Yun Lintian flickered forward—not with speed, but by erasing the very concept of distance between them. The sword lashed out, and the god barely managed to raise his star-forged shield in time.
The shield held—for a fraction of a second. Then, like brittle glass, it cracked. The God Slaying Sword’s hunger surged, and the divine metal screamed as it was devoured, its essence unraveling into the blade’s abyssal depths.
The god staggered back, his face paling. "My divine artifact...!"
Yun Lintian didn’t allow him to recover. His free hand shot forward, fingers clamping around the god’s throat. The Vermilion Bird’s flames surged down his arm, searing not flesh, but the very concept of the god’s immortality.
The Celestial Might’s body convulsed as his divine essence was forcibly unraveled, his existence fraying at the edges. The other gods watched in horror as one of their strongest was reduced to a flickering ember of his former self before Yun Lintian crushed what remained in his fist.
A ripple of fear passed through the remaining gods. For the first time in eons, they felt something alien—dread.
The God of Shadows, a wraith-like figure whose form flickered between dimensions, hissed, "He’s not just absorbing power—he’s consuming our laws!"
Lan Huo’s flames dimmed slightly. "Damn it!" He turned to the others. "Seal the battlefield! Lock away all cosmic principles!"
The gods moved as one. The God of Seals inscribed primordial runes in the air, each stroke rewriting the rules of reality. The God of Void exhaled, and space itself folded, trapping Yun Lintian in a pocket dimension where no laws could be manipulated.
For a moment, silence reigned.
A fissure split the sealed space. Then another. And another.
Yun Lintian’s voice echoed from within, calm and inexorable.
"Laws are just constructs."
The prison shattered.
The backlash sent gods tumbling through the air, blood spraying from their mouths. Xuan Ji crashed to the ground, her silver eyes wide with disbelief. "He... he broke conceptual imprisonment?!"
Yun Lintian stepped forward, the God Slaying Sword humming with dark satisfaction. His mismatched eyes scanned the disarrayed gods, lingering on those who were slow to rise.
The single word hung in the air, heavy with promise.
Some hesitated. Others wavered. But one—the youngest among them, the God of Blossoms, a delicate-looking deity whose power nurtured entire worlds—broke.
"I won’t die here!" she screamed, tearing open a rift in reality. "I REFUSE!"
She fled, her form dissolving into petals that scattered across dimensions.
The God of Echoes was next, his afterimages flickering as he attempted to confuse pursuit. The God of Whispers vanished into the vibrations of sound itself. Even Lan Huo, prideful to the last, took a step back, his flames guttering uncertainly.
Only Xuan Ji remained standing, her teeth gritted. "Cowards! He’ll hunt you down one by one if you flee!"
Yun Lintian’s gaze settled on her. "You’re right."
Not with a flashy technique. Not with a grand declaration. Just a single, precise step—and the God Slaying Sword bit into her chest.
Xuan Ji gasped, her hands flying to the blade. "I... I am the Goddess of Celestial Arrays... I command the—"
The sword pulsed, and her words died in her throat. Her divine essence, the very laws that made her a Primordial God, unraveled like thread from a spindle, siphoned into the weapon’s endless hunger.
Her body crumbled to ash before she could scream.
The remaining gods scattered, their coordination shattered. Some tried to fight, hurling desperate attacks that Yun Lintian brushed aside. Others begged, offering treasures, secrets, anything—
One by one, they fell.
The God of Whispers, plucked from the fabric of sound itself.
The God of Echoes, hunted through a thousand reflections until none remained.
Lan Huo, who fought to the last, his blue flames turning black as the God Slaying Sword drank them in.
By the time the last god fell, the battlefield was silent.
Yun Lintian stood amidst the ruins of divinity, the God Slaying Sword now thrumming with stolen power. His golden eye burned brighter, his dark eye deeper.
He tilted his head, sensing distant tremors—the remaining Primordial Gods across timelines, their terror a palpable thing.
A cold smile touched his lips.
With a slash that split reality, he stepped through—to continue his slaughter elsewhere...