A voice filled with confidence rang out from behind them.
The group was startled and whipped their heads around. There, floating before them, was Herta, dressed in her magnificent witch's gown and topped with a pointed witch's hat.
The moment they saw Herta, the faces of Changgong Wei the God of Light, Lei Xiang the Mad God, and Hai Long the Celestial Emperor—kings who were once the undisputed God-Kings of their respective worlds—simultaneously displayed expressions of both awe and gratitude.
"Ms. Herta, it is a pleasure to see you again," Changgong Wei, the God-King of Light, greeted her with a slight bow.
"Heh, you did well. The favor you owed me is now settled," Herta said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Ms. Herta, might I ask which side you are standing on?" Tian Hen, the Celestial Emperor, inquired.
"Do you even need to ask? You call yourselves God-Kings and you can't even see that? Stupid," Herta said bluntly, showing not the slightest bit of courtesy despite their status.
"Fine, let's just watch the show," the Lute Emperor and the others exchanged awkward glances; they had indeed asked a foolish question.
For Tang San, who had already descended into madness, every second of confinement was pure torture.
"Break... for... ME!!!"
He let out a roar. The unfathomable divine power of a dual-seated God-King was, at this moment, being burned recklessly and desperately.
The chains formed by the Oath of Judah that bound his divine body began to emit a creaking, overburdened groan, and fine cracks even began to surface on them. The terrifying gravity applied by the Star of Eden also began to grow unstable.
Lu Jingming's face still wore that same calm, unhurried smile, as if everything remained within his grasp.
However, someone else could wait no longer.
At the edge of the battlefield, the Demon Empress, who had just finished reconstructing her divine body, fixed her eyes—filled with resentment—on her greatest lifelong enemy currently struggling in a frenzy.
Now is the time.
A voice echoed in her heart. This was not a rational judgment, but a vengeful instinct.
"Tang San... for my husband's life, today, you must pay with yours!!!"
A resolute, morbid smile appeared on the Demon Empress's face. She did not charge forward again. Instead, she took a mad action that caught everyone off guard.
She held her hands high, as if embracing the entire sky. Within her body, the core bestowed by Lu Jingming—containing the full authority of the Herrscher of Thunder—began to operate at an unprecedented, overloaded pace.
"In my name, liberate—Final Form."
"Let the thunder echo through the deep sea."
"Boom—!!!"
A thick bolt of violet-black lightning, massive enough to pierce through the entire Divine Realm, descended from the heavens and struck her violently. But the lightning did not harm her; instead, it was absorbed by her body like nourishment.
Within that blinding thunderlight, her voluptuous and seductive human form began to expand frantically in a way that defied all biological logic. Flesh proliferated, bones restructured, and massive violet-black scales shimmering with lightning burst through her skin.
In an instant, a hideous and terrifying deep-sea behemoth—over ten thousand feet long and looking as though it could swallow the sun, moon, and stars in a single gulp—took her place.
The Deep Sea Demon Whale King.
Now, within every gap between her scales, the violent, destructive lightning of the Herrscher of Thunder pulsed. The moment she transformed into her true self, her massive eyes, like two purple suns, locked onto Tang San, who was about to break free.
Then, she opened her abyss-like maw, wide enough to swallow a continent.
Seeing this, Lu Jingming did not stop her. Instead, with a single thought, he instantly released the Oath of Judah and the Star of Eden that bound Tang San.
Tang San, having regained his freedom, didn't even have time to launch another attack at Lu Jingming before an irresistible force enveloped his entire body. He instinctively looked back, only to see that abyssal maw, large enough to blot out the sky, swallowing toward him.
Tang San roared, trying to flee, but it was too late.
The giant mouth snapped shut.
Tang San's tiny figure, along with his unwilling scream, was swallowed into that endless internal world composed of lightning and darkness.
"Haha... Hahaha... Tang San, can you feel it?! This is the despair my husband felt all those years ago!!"
The Demon Empress's mad and triumphant laughter echoed throughout the Divine Realm. Immediately following, an even more terrifying and ominous aura erupted from the massive whale body.
Her divine seat was burning. Her divine soul was boiling.
She was going to self-destruct.
She intended to use her entire life, soul, divine seat, and that complete Herrscher core as the price to completely erase Tang San—the enemy she hated to her very marrow—from this world within her own belly.
"To be able to kill you with my own hands... to avenge my husband... it was all worth it..."
"Let's meet in hell, Tang San!!!"
This was the final sound she left in the world.
Lu Jingming's face remained expressionless. If the Demon Empress wanted revenge, even through mutual destruction, he would grant her that wish. Regardless, she could be resurrected in the Pantheon.
Tang San, however, could not.
"BOOM—!!!!!!!!!"
An absolute explosion occurred, one that defied any linguistic description. A violet-black sun containing endless destructive energy suddenly ignited at the center of the Divine Realm. The light was so piercing that even the high-and-mighty God-Kings were forced to temporarily close their eyes.
Then came a shockwave powerful enough to upend the entire Divine Realm. Even though the space of the Divine Realm was tens of thousands of times more stable than the lower realms, it still appeared fragile before this self-destruction triggered by a deity sacrificing everything.
Space shattered inch by inch like a broken mirror, revealing patches of dangerous black void filled with space-time turbulence beneath. The entire Divine Realm trembled and wailed violently in the blast.
When the light finally dissipated, the core of the explosion had turned into a massive, bottomless spatial black hole that continued to devour surrounding light and matter.
However, at the edge of that black hole, a blood-soaked, battered figure stubbornly survived.
It was Tang San.
But he was merely "alive."
His left arm had been severed at the shoulder. His legs were gone. The divine armor on his body had long since turned to dust. His handsome face was now a mangled mess of flesh and blood, barely recognizable as human.
The vitality of a God-King was just that tenacious. Even at the core of such a self-destruction, he had lived.
But that was all. He no longer possessed a shred of strength to resist. His eyes were now filled with nothing but a deathly gray blankness.
At that moment, a golden stream of light, like a bolt of lightning piercing the night, shot forth from the distance.
It was Wang Qi'er.
Her face was void of expression. She took the Golden Dragon Spear in her hand and, using every ounce of her divine power, hurled it forward with all her might.
Puchi!
The Golden Dragon Spear accurately pierced through the heart that maintained Tang San's life. The sharp pain finally caused a flicker of emotion to appear on Tang San's numb face. He lowered his head to look at the dragon spear that should have belonged to his daughter, and a look of extreme complexity flashed in his eyes.
Immediately following, a purple trail filled with evil flashed before his eyes.
It was Bibi Dong.
The Rakshasa Scythe in her hand drew a beautiful yet lethal arc. A mangled head flew into the sky.
Finally, it was Qian Renxue.
She held the angelic Sacred Sword high, its golden blade burning with the True Solar Fire capable of incinerating all things.
"It is time for everything to end."
Her cold voice sounded like the final judgment. A flash of fire followed.
Whether it was Tang San's headless torso or the head still in mid-air, both were completely incinerated and vaporized in the extreme flames. In the end, not even a speck of ash remained.
A great God-King of a generation. The former protagonist of the Douluo Continent. The dual-seated Sea God and Asura God, Tang San.
Not a bone was left.
As Tang San, the former protagonist, met his complete end in such a tragic and humiliating manner, the battlefield on the other side also reached its final conclusion.
"Roar—!!!"
The Golden Dragon King let out an unwilling and angry roar. He had been played.
Just moments ago, the Herrscher of Earth core within his body—which had been providing him with a continuous, massive stream of energy and allowing him to control gravity—suddenly fell silent without warning. It was as if someone had pressed its "off" button.
Without the energy support of the Herrscher core and the gravity authority that could warp space and restrict enemies, he instantly transformed from a berserk god of war capable of fighting many into a trapped beast with nothing but brute force, restricted at every turn.
The golden silk threads woven by Aglaea were no longer easily broken. They acted like the toughest spiderweb, binding his massive draconic body layer upon layer. The power representing law from Cerydra was also finally able to descend upon him without obstruction, forcibly suppressing his violent divine power.
The massive waves carrying the weight of the entire ocean kicked up by Cerydra slammed directly into his dragon body, tearing away and crushing his proud, indestructible golden dragon scales piece by piece.
And Istaroth directly pressed her hand against the top of his head.
"Your time is up," she said softly.
The Golden Dragon King felt his internal vitality, his surging power, and his long lifespan all draining away at an incredible speed. His golden scales began to dim. His robust dragon body began to shrivel. He was aging and weakening at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"No... impossible... why... why is this happening?!" he roared in desperation.
He was answered by Gu Yuena's purple eyes.
"It's over."
The Silver Dragon Spear in her hand at this moment condensed the seven primal elemental powers: water, fire, earth, wind, light, darkness, and space. The seven powers fused perfectly at the tip of her spear, transforming into a single point of chaotic primordial light capable of annihilating all.
Then, she thrust the spear violently into the Golden Dragon King's massive, now-fragile dragon head.
The Golden Dragon King's massive eyes bulged. The madness, tyranny, and unwillingness within them faded at extreme speed, ultimately leaving only a deathly gray silence.
He was dead.
This Mad King, who had inherited half of the Dragon God's power and lived only for destruction and revenge, did not die in vain. He never knew that the Herrscher core which had made him unprecedentedly strong was, from the very beginning, a trap set for him by Lu Jingming.
Back then, Lu Jingming had helped him break out of the Divine Realm's Forbidden Land only to use him to destabilize the Divine Realm and tie down Tang San's power. Now, Tang San was dead. His role as a chess piece had come to an end.
A Golden Dragon King with an excessive desire for destruction and zero controllability had turned from a useful tool into a potential nuisance for Lu Jingming. And if it was a nuisance, it had to be cleared away.
Furthermore, Gu Yuena was his woman. Between a tool dragon and his own wife, the choice was never something that required thought.
Gu Yuena slowly extracted a golden divine core, still radiating majestic divine power, from the dissolving body of the Golden Dragon King. She looked at the core with a flash of complexity in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by determination.
Lu Jingming had told her. The position of the Dragon God was a trap. It was the seat of a loser. If she chose to devour the Golden Dragon King and return to the seat of the Dragon God, she would be forever trapped in a dead end where the outcome was already ordained.
So, she gave it up. She chose to believe in her man. She would carve out a brand-new path of her own.
"Sigh... old fox, you lost after all."
In the distance, Rong Nianbing, the God of Emotion, looked at the spot where not even ashes remained of Tang San and at the slowly dissipating Golden Dragon King, letting out a long sigh. In that sigh was regret, sentiment, and the desolation of an era coming to a close.
Ji Dong, the God of Evil, and Lie Yan, the God of Kindness, were also pale, their expressions complex to the extreme. They silently put away their weapons, no longer confronting Jingliu, who had not moved a single step from start to finish.
Jingliu likewise returned her sword to its sheath.
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