Shen Xuance pointed to the illusory Golden Gate that remained sealed high in the sky and sighed. "The rules are set from above: only when someone within the Secret Realm achieves ’Merit Perfection’ can the Celestial Ladder be sensed and opened, setting the top one hundred spots for this session."
"Before that happens, even if I, Shen, were to risk my position, I could not open that gate."
"Merit Perfection?"
Hee Wenyan’s brow furrowed even deeper at his words, a hint of absurdity creeping into his tone. "Lord Shen, what kind of joke is this? The original time limit for this Celestial Examination was three months."
"Barely half a month has passed, and now we’re facing this catastrophe. Even if someone fought for their life in there, they’d have a few thousand Merit points at most. To achieve ’Perfection,’ one would have to accomplish an earth-shattering great deed of the Divine Dao. In this situation, who could possibly achieve that?"
In Hee Wenyan’s view, the so-called "Perfection" was a state the candidates were meant to reach after three months of accumulation and battle.
But the Cyan Nether Realm, as it was now, offered nothing but chaos and death. The conditions were simply not there.
If no one could achieve Perfection, the Celestial Ladder would never open.
The nearly seven thousand candidates trapped inside could only wait helplessly in that small space within the Underground Palace for the moment the Secret Realm was completely devoured by the Great Zhou.
And during this process, no one could guarantee what kind of massacre the two maddened Ancient Gods would commit.
Shen Xuance remained silent, his gaze fixed grimly on the center of the Ancient Mirror.
"The fault is not mine."
At the center of the Cyan Nether Realm, on Lingma Mountain.
The Black Iron Mace, already impossibly heavy, was now hoisted high above the head of the Night Patrol God. Ghastly green flames spilled madly from its lantern, incinerating a hundred-zhang radius into a void.
Before the mace had even fallen, the "Purification" will of the Foundation Establishment Tier had already pulverized the rubble at the outer edges of the Underground Palace into dust.
This was a truly fatal blow.
However, just as the world-shaking mace was about to smash into the gates of the Underground Palace, a dragon’s roar that pierced the collapsing void and shook the Nine Netherworld suddenly shot across the sky from the far east!
The earth split open, forming a massive fissure that stretched for several miles. From beneath the already parched surface, an ink-green wave of frigid miasma, which had been accumulating for ten thousand years, erupted like a volcano.
Amid the turbulent void, fragments of Black Gold Lock Chains rained down.
It was the Prison-Suppressing Evil Flood Dragon.
Its hundred-zhang-long, blue-gold draconic body coiled in the low sky, every single scale pulsing with astonishing Spiritual Light, now that it was free from its ten-thousand-year-old shackles.
Although the turbulent void had left bloody gashes across its Divine Body, the wild Qi of newfound freedom caused its aura to surge to the very peak of the Foundation Establishment Level.
"When the Aquatic Race ascends, Heaven and Earth suffer loss..."
The Evil Flood Dragon’s pair of幽blue, millstone-sized eyes gazed down upon the thousand-plus Cultivators gathered around the Underground Palace, its voice echoing across the heavens like thunder:
"My obsession is called... ’Balance’."
According to the logic of this world’s Divine Dao, the Prison-Suppressing Evil Flood Dragon’s existence was meant to suppress the Aquatic Race, preventing too many creatures from crossing the Dragon Gate and seizing the world’s fortune.
In its eyes, these Outer Domain Cultivators swarming in like locusts were plundering the last vestiges of life from this dying world with every breath they took.
Since the world was to be destroyed, then it would slaughter all these outsiders and return their bodies, their Spiritual Qi, and even that last wisp of remaining Merit, back to this land!
BEGONE—!
The Evil Flood Dragon opened its maw, and a gout of Corrosive Dragon Breath, thick as ink, swept out with the wind.
The Beastkeeping Commissioner, who had been preening in mid-air just moments before, found its conjured Bone Whip half-dissolved by the Dragon Breath. The enslaved Demon Beasts it controlled screamed as they melted into a bloody pulp.
At this very moment, three Foundation Establishment True Gods, each with a profound obsession, had gathered at the foot of Lingma Mountain.
Their three domains of authority clashed violently at the entrance of the Underground Palace. The world-destroying pressure made the entire mountain range groan as if it were about to break.
The earth shook and the mountains swayed!
It wasn’t just the vibration from the collapse; it was the reaction of the main vein of the entire Lingma Mountain range being fully activated.
"They’re here... They’re all here..."
"All the True Gods of this place have returned to their positions!"
Beneath the altar in the Underground Palace, the clay Land God pointed upward in terror. He could feel the Evil Flood Dragon’s Qi from the east and the Wandering God’s fire from the south madly pressing against the Underground Palace’s final defenses.
At this critical juncture.
A footstep—even grander, even weightier, carrying the mercy and resilience of the great earth—sounded steadily from deep underground.
Infused with the Spiritual Power of over a thousand Cultivators, and with the Profound Yellow Earth Essence burning furiously, Chu Bai’s eyes had turned completely pure gold.
His consciousness had become one with the Underground Palace, with the hundred miles of this mountain range.
’The Divine Body is in place... Now...’
’I, too, wield the might of Foundation Establishment.’
Amid the heaven-and-earth-shattering chaos, Chu Bai’s voice boomed through the hundred-zhang-tall Dark Gold Dharma Body: "This is a place of refuge under the Lingma Mountain God. There will be no slaughter."
The roof of the Underground Palace shattered, and a Dark Gold giant, carrying Mount Taiyue on its back and holding a Divine Seal in its hand, rose from the earth at the peak of Lingma Mountain before the desperate, watchful eyes of the masses!

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