"The clan leader is gravely injured and near death," Xia Hu Chu said to He Li in a low voice, devoid of emotion, simply conveying the information.
He Li nodded upon hearing this. He glanced down from the Divine King's Palace and saw Xia Bailin lying there, covered in blood. He then asked, "Where is Yu Li Che?"
"Not here," Xia Hu Chu replied concisely.
He Li nodded again, gripping the white greatsword in his hand tighter and tighter. His heart was filled with extreme anger and grief, yet he couldn't express it.
It was no wonder people said great sorrow has no form, and profound sadness is without appearance. When sorrow and suffering reach their peak, tears flow inward.
He Li looked at the Divine King, his brows furrowed, all his rage and killing intent evident in his eyes.
"Attack!"
At the sudden roar of an unknown Divine Lord, the Divine Lords in confrontation instantly transformed into streaks of light, shooting out and engaging in a fierce battle across the vast lands of the Divine Realm.
The Divine King let out a light chuckle, as if about to say something, but abruptly stopped. He simply raised a hand and formed a simple hand seal before his chest. Divine power belonging to the Divine King realm surged forth, sending out continuous rings of divine power that expanded and bombarded He Li.
He Li took a deep breath, released his grip on the sword, weighed the greatsword, and then raised the blade named Corrupted Blood Forest high, throwing it with immense force at the incoming divine power rings.
Rumble!
The two collided, exploding with a deafening roar. The long sword was sent flying, and the divine power rings transformed into meteor showers, resembling sharp swords condensed from divine power, accurately striking towards He Li.
The next instant,
He Li leaped high, stepping on a wisp of white divine power. Like a valiant soldier charging alone towards the enemy's great general on the battlefield, he met the dense hail of arrows without fear. He reached out to catch the flying greatsword, a barrier of divine power surrounding him. He swung his sword, cleaving the arrow rain in two, creating a clear passage.
The Divine King pointed to the sky again. The Divine Realm's sky tore open, revealing over a dozen black holes from which fiery pillars blasted down, directly targeting He Li.
Such brilliant and overbearing divine power attacks were unlike anything He Li had ever witnessed. The Desolate King had not unleashed his full power before being trapped by his future self. Now, he finally witnessed the divine bearing of another King from this era, and it was indeed immensely oppressive.
However, more intense than these destructive attacks was the grief of losing Chen Du and the furious rage of the dying clan leader. These emotions directly annihilated the cowardice that had surfaced in He Li's heart, igniting the courage within his bones.
Why must his path be paved with sacrifices of those who accompanied him? Why were they willing to die for him?
He truly didn't want this. If he had known it would be like this, perhaps he should have rotted to death in the mental hospital, or allowed Xi Ming to extract his divinity, letting Yan Ping live on with a new identity, and quietly die on that desolate planet.
This feeling was like someone prying open He Li's chest with a knife and repeatedly saying into his empty heart: "They died for you..."
Is the path to becoming a King truly this lonely, truly paved with blood and bones?
But on this blood-and-bone path, there were still his brothers, his family.
The raging divine power intertwined, roaring madly in He Li's ears, like jeers and mockery, ridiculing He Li's overestimation of his own strength, mocking his futile attempt to shake a great tree.
He Li, facing the divine fire and arrow rain, slowly approached the Divine King. You all do this for me, but what can I offer in return?
He was well aware of the gap between himself and the Divine King, and harbored no illusions of luck. The reason he had rushed to the Divine Realm was to exchange his own life for Chen Du's.
Perhaps Chen Du had already foreseen this, which was why he died just before He Li arrived.
Or perhaps, Chen Du hadn't foreseen it, and he was killed by the Divine King.
He Li's body twisted, displaying stronger divine power. After spinning, he slashed horizontally, dispersing the all-encompassing divine fire and shattering the dense arrow rain. His hands tightly grasped Corrupted Blood Forest and he struck heavily at the Divine King's raised palm.
Boom!!!
The ripples of divine power erupted, sweeping across the entire Divine Realm, causing the Twelve Divine Clan realms to tremble precariously.
The Divine King looked up, his gaze calm as he met He Li's eyes. He smiled silently and said softly, "Unfortunately, you are still lacking. Even though you now look down upon Divine Lords and stand at the pinnacle of the heavens, you are still beneath me. You shouldn't have been so reckless; patience is what you should have practiced."
"Die! I will make you pay for Chen Du!" He Li roared, like an enraged dragon overturning the sea, a lion's roar.
He drew the broken longsword from his waist. The moment he pulled the shattered sword from its sheath, countless fragments burst forth, automatically reforming into a complete blade, shimmering with silver-white light, clearly imbued with the law of time.
He fiercely slashed at the Divine King's neck. With a clang, the blade struck the skin of the Divine King's neck, leaving no trace of damage, nor did the blade advance further.
The Divine King narrowed his eyes, looking at He Li with a silent, mocking smile. An invisible divine power erupted from within his body, violently flinging He Li away. Then, he lightly clenched his fist towards He Li, who was rapidly retreating through the air.
A giant hand appeared in the void, grasping He Li within its palm. Immediately, the hand transformed into a large sphere, sprouting countless spikes, resembling an attacking hedgehog. The next moment, all the spikes pierced into the sphere.
Bang!
The sphere exploded, and He Li, now a bloodied figure, fell from the sky like a leaf, one hand holding Corrupted Blood Forest, the other holding the longsword. He crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a large cloud of dust.
The Divine King sensed that He Li was not completely dead. He glanced at the Divine Lords still fighting, flickered his form, and arrived before the deep pit. He Li was no longer human-shaped, his body riddled with bloody holes and severely damaged. His Divine Lord-level body, tempered by the demonic divine power of tens of thousands of demonic corpses, combined with his use of the law of time around him to rapidly repair himself through temporal reversion, was still so fragile before the Divine King's attack.
The Divine King looked at He Li, who was barely clinging to life. Unlike his reaction to Chen Du, there was no pity, only a cold, disdainful sneer.
"Overestimating yourself."
Then,
The Divine King stepped down into the deep pit.
At the central battlefield, in the Divine Clan's encampment.
Yan Li, who was sitting cross-legged on the windowsill with a blood halberd resting across his knees, had been looking up at the sky. His expression changed instantly. He gripped the halberd staff with his right hand and stood up, his expression grave, saying to Ta Ta,
"If you could travel from the two realms to here, you should be able to send me to the Divine Realm. Help me once."
Ta Ta frowned slightly, "He Li is in trouble? He left the battlefield very strangely just now. Did he go to the Divine Realm?"
"Stop asking questions, please hurry," Yan Li, without realizing it, uttered a word he hadn't spoken in two epochs: "Please."
"Alright, Cheng Xi Lin gave me something that can send you there."
Ta Ta leaped out of the stone tower, hovering in the air above the Divine Clan's encampment. The returning Divine Clan soldiers looked strangely at the young maiden standing in the sky above their encampment. Who is she?
However,
The next moment.
With a raise of her hand, the young maiden waved a black banner, one side inscribed with "镇" (Zhen), the other with "斗" (Dou), both in golden characters.
The black banner unfurled in the wind above the Divine Clan's encampment. The two golden characters flew from the banner, smashing straight upwards. With a boom, the void was forcefully torn open, creating an endless spatial rift that resembled a river of time.
Yan Li transformed into a blood-red shadow and darted away. The rift closed, the two golden characters returned to the black banner, and disappeared into Ta Ta's palm.
...
The Divine King's overwhelming divine might pressed down heavily on He Li's broken body. Then, a sharp sword appeared in his hand, and without hesitation, he drew it across He Li's neck.
In the Divine Realm, thunderous roars echoed, followed by a bloody, violent killing intent that spread across the entire Divine Realm.
Clang!
A blood-red halberd blocked the Divine King's sword.
"You dare touch my brother?"
The Divine King sneered, "You couldn't protect him in the last epoch either, could you?"
Yan Li, who had descended by breaking through the void, was already filled with killing intent. Upon hearing these words, his blood-slaughtering aura surged like a raging tide.
Yan Li's face turned ashen, then he grinned, "That's why I came to this epoch."
"But you no longer possess the might of the ancient epoch, how can you stop me?" The Divine King said, then lightly tapped his sword against the blood halberd, knocking it aside. His next sword strike was aimed at He Li's head.
But as the sword blade descended, He Li, who had been suppressed by his divine might, had already disappeared.
Looking up at the sky, Yan Li enveloped He Li's divine body with his divine power, healing him. Several streams of blood flowed like water into He Li's empty wounds, filling the damage and replenishing his divine power.
The Divine King said, "You are using your own vital blood to save him. If he lives, you will not."
Yan Li laughed heartily, gripping the lightly trembling blood halberd, "As an elder brother... seeing my younger brother injured, how can I care about my own life or death."
Yan Li glanced at He Li, who was being propped up by the flowing blood, and smiled faintly. Then, he raised the blood halberd and charged towards the Divine King.
...