In the face of a life-or-death crisis, Zhu Zhuqing exploded with the last of her strength, forcibly breaking free from some of the ice and snow's restraints as her body recoiled violently.
Though her brow was still grazed by the Snow Empress's fingertip, ice-blue divine power invaded her soul, making her vision go dark as her divine consciousness suffered a heavy blow. But at the very least, she had avoided the fate of having her Godhead shattered directly.
"Zhuqing."
Dai Mubai caught the flying Zhuqing. Seeing her face as pale as paper and the ice-blue streak on her brow, his heart twisted in agony.
"Go... hurry, go..." Zhuqing said weakly. Her soul was being eroded by the icy divine power, and her consciousness was beginning to blur.
"We can't go."
The Snow Empress and the Demon Empress had already sealed off their retreat from front and back.
Nine rings of ice circled the Snow Empress, each radiating a chill close to absolute zero. The Demon Empress's Magneto-Thunder Hell redeployed, with iron sand storms and purple lightning locking down the sky.
Dai Mubai held Zhuqing, looking at the two powerful enemies before and behind him. He looked at Huo Yuhao, who was still closing his eyes far away to adjust his breathing, and even further off at that white-haired youth with arms crossed, seemingly watching a play...
He knew that today, they might truly perish here.
But he was Dai Mubai, the God of War, the leader of the Shrek Seven Devils, and the sworn brother of Tang San.
"Zhuqing."
Dai Mubai lowered his head, looking at his blurring wife in his arms. Tenderness flashed in his eyes, followed by absolute resolve. "Do you remember when we first used the Hell White Tiger back then?"
Zhuqing struggled to open her eyes. Seeing the familiar madness in her husband's eyes, she understood. "You... want to..."
"Yes."
Dai Mubai nodded and grinned, his smile laced with blood. "We can't leave anyway. Let these juniors of the new era see that we old timers aren't pushovers."
He gently set Zhuqing down, leaning her against an ice rock. Then he turned to face the Snow Empress and the Demon Empress.
Golden flames burned more intensely upon him. "I never thought that stepping on this land again would be the day of my death. Oh well, born here, die here. It's not a bad ending."
With every sentence he spoke, his aura surged. By the time he finished, his aura had stabilized at the level of a First-Class God and was still climbing.
But the price was immense—spiderweb-like cracks began to appear on the surface of his divine body. Golden divine blood poured out from the cracks like lava, only to evaporate in the light and flames. His hair was turning white at a pace visible to the naked eye; it was a sign of his life essence being rapidly consumed.
"Crazy... you've gone completely mad." The Demon Empress's expression was grave.
She could feel that Dai Mubai was exchanging everything for a final burst of power. After this battle, regardless of victory or defeat, he would surely die—his soul extinguished, without even a chance for reincarnation.
The Snow Empress also put away her disdain, her ice-blue eyes filled with solemnity. This was a resolve worthy of respect.
"Zhuqing."
Dai Mubai ignored them. His back was to Zhuqing as he spoke softly, "One last move."
Zhuqing struggled to stand. Despite her wounded soul and nearly exhausted divine power, she walked to Dai Mubai's side. She reached out and grasped his hand.
The moment their hands gripped tight, an invisible resonance emerged between the two. It was a resonance born from the depths of their bloodlines, the source of their souls, and their eternal bond.
"Martial Soul... Fusion."
Dai Mubai and Zhuqing spoke simultaneously.
Their bodies began to glow—not gold, not dark black, but a chaotic, grey-white light that both embraced and rejected all things. Within the light, their forms began to merge and transform.
The roar of the White Tiger and the hiss of the Hell Civet sounded at once, only to merge perfectly at a singular point into a new, soul-shaking beastly howl.
The Snow Empress and the Demon Empress retreated simultaneously; they felt a lethal threat.
"Stop them!"
The Demon Empress struck first. The Magneto-Thunder Hell transformed into billions of lightning spears, shooting toward the grey-white sphere of light like a torrential rain. The Snow Empress also struck, her nine ice rings merging into one, forming a pillar of ice-blue light that pierced the heavens and earth, aimed directly at the core of the sphere.
But all attacks strangely vanished when they came within a hundred meters of the sphere. They weren't blocked or neutralized; they simply disappeared into thin air, like mud falling into the sea.
Inside the sphere, a qualitative change was occurring that surpassed their understanding.
"Roar—!!!"
Finally, a roar that seemed to come from the ancient primordial wilderness echoed across the wasteland, even reaching half the Douluo Continent.
The grey-white sphere of light exploded.
Standing in its place was no longer the human forms of Dai Mubai or Zhuqing, but a giant beast over a hundred zhang tall and three hundred zhang long. The beast's appearance was somewhere between a tiger and a cat, covered in grey-and-white fur through which divine patterns flowed like a brilliant galaxy.
Its eyes—the left was a burning golden sun, and the right was a cold, dark moon. On its forehead, a "King" character pattern pierced through the skull, containing the fused rules of the God of War and the God of Speed.
Most terrifying was the aura it radiated—it was a genuine First-Class God's pressure. And not just a new First-Class God, but a terrifying existence with a divine power level above 130, comparable to a veteran First-Class God.
The Hell White Tiger.
And it wasn't the Hell White Tiger of ten thousand years ago; it was the ultimate fusion performed at the cost of the lives of two Second-Class Gods burning everything—the Divine Level Hell White Tiger.
"This is trouble..." The Demon Empress's face changed completely.
She could feel that the power of this Hell White Tiger had surpassed the limit of what she could handle. Even with the infinite energy of the Herrscher Core, against an absolute power gap, infinite energy only allowed her to hold on a bit longer.
The Snow Empress also felt immense pressure. Although her laws of ice and snow were powerful, they might not be able to completely restrain such pure, extreme power.
The Hell White Tiger roared at the sky, its sound waves turning into physical grey-white rings of light that expanded outward. Wherever the rings passed, space solidified and time slowed; even the Snow Empress's Ice Realm and the Demon Empress's Magneto-Thunder Hell were forcibly suppressed and shrunk.
It lowered its head, its sun-and-moon eyes locking onto the Demon Empress.
"Roar—!"
The Hell White Tiger moved.
Its massive three-hundred-zhang body moved faster than the laws of physics allowed. It wasn't running; it was leaping through space. Every time it appeared, it was hundreds of meters away, like teleportation. In just three steps, it crossed a thousand meters to appear before the Demon Empress.
Then, it swiped a claw down.
It was a swipe that was extremely simple and extremely terrifying. The moment the claw descended, the Magneto-Thunder Hell around the Demon Empress shattered like paper.
The iron sand storm was scattered, the purple lightning was snuffed out, and the gravitational singularity was crushed by a single claw. The Demon Empress only had time to condense twelve layers of electromagnetic shields before she was hit head-on by the tiger claw.
"Crack—!"
Twelve layers of shields shattered simultaneously.
The Demon Empress was sent flying like she had been struck by a star, drawing a bloody trajectory thousands of meters long through the air before slamming violently into a mountain peak at the edge of the wasteland.
"Boom—!"
The entire mountain collapsed, burying the Demon Empress under millions of tons of rock.
One hit. The Herrscher of Thunder was heavily wounded.
The Hell White Tiger turned its head, its sun-and-moon eyes locking onto the Snow Empress.
The Snow Empress took a deep breath, her hands forming seals in front of her chest. The Herrscher of Ice core operated at full capacity as Honkai energy from the Imaginary Space poured into her divine body like a bursting dam.
"Absolute Zero—Eternal Ice Coffin."
She intended to use her strongest defense to endure this strike.
But the Hell White Tiger gave her no time. The second claw swiped down, faster and fiercer than the first. Before the claw even arrived, the terrifying pressure caused spiderweb cracks to appear in the space around the Snow Empress. Her Eternal Ice Coffin was only half-formed when the tiger claw reached the top of her head.
The Snow Empress closed her eyes. She knew that after this claw, she would be at least heavily wounded and on the verge of death.
But the expected destruction did not arrive.
"Clang—!!!"
A massive explosion of metal clashing against metal rang out, making the Snow Empress's eardrums ache.
She opened her eyes and saw a sight she would never forget.
A fair, slender hand was holding a pitch-black spear, the tip of which held back the tiger claw that was enough to shatter mountains. The owner of the hand was that white-haired youth who had appeared before her at some unknown moment.
Lu Jingming.
He held the spear with one hand, his body not even swaying as he nonchalantly blocked the full-strength strike of the Hell White Tiger.
"Are you done playing?"
Lu Jingming looked up at the hundred-zhang-tall Hell White Tiger, his tone as calm as asking if they had eaten.
A flash of shock and suspicion appeared in the Hell White Tiger's sun-and-moon eyes. It could feel that the power of its claw, the moment it touched that black spear, was decomposed by some eerie force. It wasn't neutralized or blocked; it was like ice and snow meeting spring sunshine, silently melting and disintegrating.
"Roar—!"
The Hell White Tiger let out an angry roar, and its other claw swept in from the side, the tips of the claws wrapped in a grey-white sharpness that could cut space.
Lu Jingming didn't even turn his head. His left hand still held the black spear "Abyss" against the first claw, while his right hand rose, and the pristine white lance "White Flower" appeared in his hand, giving a light sweep.
A soft white light flashed past. The Hell White Tiger's second claw suddenly froze when it was still three meters away from him. On the tips of the claws, the sharpness that could cut space disappeared like pencil marks erased by an eraser.
Not only that, a long, thin wound appeared on the tiger's claw. No blood flowed from the wound; instead, it began to heal rapidly—no, it wasn't healing. The flesh around the wound was growing and proliferating rapidly, swelling wildly in an uncontrolled manner, growing into a tumor several meters in diameter in an instant.
The tumor twisted and writhed, the outlines of facial features appearing on its surface as it let out silent shrieks.
That was the creation authority of the White Flower—granting life. But if used on an enemy, it would cause the target's cells to proliferate infinitely and become cancerous, leading to self-destruction.
The Hell White Tiger roared in pain, abruptly retracting both claws and recoiling hundreds of meters. It looked down at its right claw; the tumor was still growing wildly, having already eroded down to the forearm. It tried to suppress it with divine power, but it was useless—that creative force seemed alive, taking root and spreading within its body.
Abyss decomposes all things; White Flower's creation loses control. These two spears—one governed the end of death, and the other governed the out-of-control nature of life. Combined, they were the supreme authority over life and death.
Lu Jingming withdrew the White Flower, holding the Abyss in one hand as he walked step by step toward the Hell White Tiger. His pace wasn't fast, but every time his foot landed, the wasteland earth trembled.
"You have indeed surprised me a little."
Lu Jingming stopped a hundred meters in front of the Hell White Tiger, looking up at the beast. His tone carried a rare hint of praise. "Burning your Godheads, burning your Martial Souls, burning your souls to exchange for a brief power surpassing a First-Class God, plus this fusion that exceeds the limit... If I weren't here, you might truly have changed the tide of battle."
He paused, spinning the Abyss spear in his hand. "But unfortunately, you are facing me."
The moment his voice fell, Lu Jingming moved. It wasn't teleportation, but a more eerie method—his body dissolved like a reflection in water, then reconstructed itself above the Hell White Tiger's head.
The Abyss spear lunged downward. The moment the spear tip pierced the Hell White Tiger's skull, a black-red ripple expanded outward from the point of impact. Wherever the ripple passed, the Hell White Tiger's grey-white fur began to wither and weather, as if it had endured the baptism of billions of years of time, turning into ashes and falling away.
"Roar—!!!"
The Hell White Tiger let out an indignant roar that shook the fields. Faced with a fatal crisis, the Hell White Tiger erupted with terrifying power, the strength of a First-Class God being displayed without reservation upon the Douluo Continent.
Under the roar, within a thousand-mile radius, gravity became chaotic and magnetic fields lost control. The earth let out an unbearable groan under its heavy breath, and bottomless ravines spread out like spiderwebs. The clouds in the sky were completely cleared by invisible pressure, revealing the deep, dark background of the universe, with only the stars trembling in the distance.
This area had already transformed into a Divine Realm that did not belong to the mortal world.
Lu Jingming was blown back by the impact of this power, but then stood steadily in the void. The four paws of the Hell White Tiger cracked the space beneath them as its massive, molten-gold eyes locked onto Lu Jingming, who was suspended in mid-air.
Compared to this heaven-destroying and earth-shattering beast, Lu Jingming's figure appeared so small, like a leaf in a raging storm. He wore simple black clothes, his white hair unmoving in the hurricane formed by the surging divine power. His red eyes were calm, reflecting the tiger's ferocious posture without a single ripple.
Although he was a newly ascended god, the Hell White Tiger did not dare to show any disdain. Because at this moment, the entire Douluo Plane was cheering and resonating with his presence. He was the new master recognized by the will of this planet.
"Is this your resolve?" Lu Jingming spoke. His voice wasn't loud, yet it clearly overpowered the roar of heaven and earth, sounding directly in the depths of Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing's souls.
"Burning everything just for a battle destined to fail?"
"Shut up!"
What answered him was the Hell White Tiger's roar that tore through the firmament.
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