A World Worth Protecting

The singing voices of the three souls resonated in the heavens. The skies darkened, and devilish winds appeared out of nowhere and swept across the lands. They stirred the black mist that had emerged above ground due to the power of the Dark Artifact and had been spreading across the lands!

Spurred by the devilish winds, the black mist began to spread more rapidly across the Martian lands. They howled furiously. Everyone watched as the skies around Wang Baole transformed into an ocean of black mist!

It was an ocean of mist, a mist of death. It seemed to hail from the underworld. One might even venture to call it the Dark Sea!

The sea filled both the lands and the skies, its rumbling waves coursed through the planet. Mars became a mere shadow of its former self. The Dark Fires on Wang Baole flared up. If the path towards rebirth was lined with lighthouses, they would be the fire lighting up the lamps in those lighthouses—cold flames that burned true, that seemed to contain within them the laws of this universe.

They drove the Dark Sea to unleash its power again. Waves of spirit energy rushed forward, unstoppable and overpowering, at Daoist You Ran, threatening to pull him under!

Thunder crashed, fearsome and deafening!

Daoist You Ran tried his best to escape the Dark Sea, whose power was so great it stirred the entire planet, but it was useless. Shock and despair raced through his mind. He screamed and struggled madly, trying his best to fight back.

The waves of the Dark Sea towered like pillars, ready to crash down and flood everything. As they descended on Daoist You Ran, he blew up every face on his body in a last-ditch attempt at self-defense. In that instant, he was like a fragile air bubble, helpless and vulnerable, bursting instantly!

The force of the explosion of all those faces created a backlash inside Daoist You Ran’s body. Blood flowed from his lips, and his hair, loosened and disheveled, whipped in the fierce wind. His clothes were torn, his eyes were bright with despair and madness, and his voice was sharp and brimming with hate and resentment.

“Wang Baole, I don’t admit defeat!” Daoist You Ran roared and gave up all attempts at escape. His right foot stomped heavily into the ground, holding him in place as his six arms came together in a flurry of hand seals. He was burning his very life in order to gain more power. He was going to fight until his last breath.

He unleashed a hundred and twenty percent of his full cultivation, and the irregularly shaped shard in his eyes appeared again. This precious shard, clearly invaluable to him, began showing signs of self-destruction!

There was no doubt of the extreme danger that Wang Baole had placed him in. It had exceeded any other danger he had ever experienced. He threw everything to the wind as he hoped for the best—that luck would allow him to survive the onslaught of the Dark Sea.

A series of booms thundered in the air. Daoist You Ran continued to hold his ground, proving the extent of his resilience and strength in the face of extreme danger. As he continued to unleash his cultivation and sacrifice his vitality, the irregularly shaped shard in his eyes continued to show itself. It was as if the shard had transformed into an enormous rock that stood before him, protecting him from the waves of the Dark Sea rushing at him. The waves stopped before him, as if held back by the rock. They couldn’t advance and pull him under!

Everyone who was watching the fight shivered at the sight. The powers that Wang Baole had displayed had been incredible, so the fact that Daoist You Ran was still alive and holding his own was simply unbelievable. However, the reality was that… Daoist You Ran himself was reaching his limits. His body shuddered violently as cracks began to appear on his arms. The Dark Sea pressed upon him with the weight of an entire planet. He feared that he couldn’t hold on any longer.

“Since you won’t allow me to take your spirit, I’ll simply have to destroy you.” Wang Baole remained calm as he stood on the Dark Sampan and observed Daoist You Ran’s struggles. As he spoke in a hoarse voice, he raised his right arm, which was holding onto the Lantern Oar. The Lantern Oar pointed at Daoist You Ran, then swept downwards through the air!

The Dark Sea retreated from the invisible barrier in front of Daoist You Ran instantly. Its waves rose into the heavens, shifting and transforming into a finger, followed by a second, then a third. In the blink of an eye… a palm spanning tens of thousands of feet materialized in the air!

It swiped at Daoist You Ran!

Daoist You Ran’s eyes widened, they were red and filled with intense despair.

“Mistress Zi Yue, please, save me!” Daoist You Ran screamed out in fear. It didn’t matter how much he struggled, the enormous hand approached him and landed with a deafening thunder. Daoist You Ran’s six arms turned into mush, and his legs caved in from the impact.

There wasn’t even time for him to scream out again. The huge hand rushed at him once more… instantly capturing Daoist You Ran.

It tightened suddenly. Daoist You Ran’s combat body, and his soul housed within the body… were instantly destroyed!

The fight hadn’t ended yet. An intense light flashed in Wang Baole’s eyes. This wasn’t the first time Daoist You Ran had died. Wang Baole knew very well that his battle with Daoist You Ran had just begun!

“Or should I call it my battle with Zi Yue…” Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. He lifted his right hand into the air without hesitation and turned it towards a spot a distance away from him. His palm sliced downwards. The Dark Sampan under his feet began to rumble, and it charged out and sped through the heavens with Wang Baole aboard it.

The giant hand that had crushed Daoist You Ran rushed out alongside Wang Baole. They sped across the heavens and appeared in the skies above the main Martian City, right in front of… the Never-Ending Clan Death Dao Battleship.

The Never-Ending Clan Death Dao Battleship took action immediately upon Wang Baole’s arrival. No one knew how it managed to do what it did, but tens of thousands of Never-Ending Clan puppets in the Martian City immediately blew themselves up. Their mutilated and maimed pieces of flesh and blood rose to the skies rapidly and gathered before the Never-Ending Clan battleship. Then, they amassed and transformed into a gigantic tumorous mass that slammed into the approaching Wang Baole!

Countless faces formed the surface of the tumor and screamed and cursed at Wang Baole in a language he couldn’t understand. Their shrieks filled the air as they unleashed their power in an explosive eruption.

Wang Baole’s pupils contracted. His left hand formed a hand seal, then it pointed. The giant hand that had been formed from the Dark Sea charged at the approaching tumor and grabbed at it.

Thunder rose into the heavens. The collision resulted in a violent impact that shook the entire planet. The tumor burst open instantly, transforming into formless flesh and blood. The giant hand that had been formed from the Dark Sea, the temporary vessel for the Dark Artifact’s power, showed signs of damage and disintegration as well.

Consecutive use of the giant hand had caused its damage. The fact that Wang Baole’s current level of cultivation wasn’t able to allow its sustained use contributed to its damaged state as well. Finally, the partially restored state of the Dark Artifact had a great deal to do with the giant hand’s rapid deterioration.

Wang Baole’s face appeared slightly pale, and his organs were churning. He gritted his teeth and unleashed the Dark Fire, continuing to wield the Dark Artifact. The disintegrating giant hand rushed out instantly, its target, the Never-Ending Clan Death Dao Battleship!

He knew that the battleship was the key to this battle’s outcome!

It was then that the Never-Ending Clan battleship suddenly shuddered. An incredible, terrifying force that sent Wang Baole’s heart racing erupted from the battleship. It was a power so strong that the battleship itself began to fall apart. Pieces of the battleship shrank rapidly, and black vines shot out of the battleship and wrapped themselves around the latter. They appeared to be draining the planet of its energy while growing in size and length. The Martian City began to cave in, and the city started to disintegrate before their eyes!

Regardless of which side they were standing on, cultivators on the planet suffered the same fate—their vitality and their cultivation draining from their rapidly withering bodies. The lands suffered a similar fate. All across the planet, the vitality of every living creature was escaping from their bodies and rising up into the air, heading straight for the battleship, which was growing increasingly smaller by the moment!

The unexpected turn of events caught everyone by surprise. Every cultivator trembled as they tried their best to fight back, but it was of no use. Their struggle was caught on-screen and projected to the rest of the Federation. Citizens of the Federation stared in shock and horror at the scene unfolding before them.

Alarm flashed across Wang Baole’s face. He had no time to think as danger loomed over the entire planet. The Dark Fire erupted from his body as he roared and controlled the giant hand formed from the Dark Sea. He pushed the giant hand, as its vitality continued to be drained away, to grab onto a corner of the ever-shrinking, withering form of the Never-Ending Clan battleship. Then, with a sudden burst of energy from the Dark Artifact, he maneuvered the hand into flinging the battleship away into space!

A loud boom thundered in the heavens and reverberated across the entire planet. The shrinking, withering form of the Never-Ending Clan battleship transformed into a long arc of rainbow as it was forcefully thrown into the air. It crossed the heavens, tearing through space itself as it was flung out of Mars and into the cosmos!

The suction that had originated from the battleship weakened as the distance between the battleship and Mars widened. There was no time for Wang Baole to catch his breath though. He sped for the stars, where he saw something that sent shock snaking down his spine!

The battleship had lost most of its parts as they had withered away or had been torn away from it when it had been thrown into space. The remnants of its core were covered by countless vines. These vines continued to grow, extending into four human limbs and a human head. The head… was clearly Daoist You Ran’s!

It was humongous!

Daoist You Ran’s eyes were shut, his face covered with black vines that resembled blood veins. Under his forehead, a tumor seemed to reside, one that pumped without pause. He looked terrifying. At the same time, waves of incredible power continued to exude from his gigantic form.

As Wang Baole observed the giant’s strange and startling formation, alarm bells began to ring loudly in his head. They screamed danger at him. It was then that Daoist You Ran’s eyes opened abruptly.

“All thanks to my master, and to you, Wang Baole, I’ve finally reached complete fusion with the Death Dao Battleship!”

“As a show of my sincerest gratitude, I’m going to destroy your civilization. It shall become the food that will nourish my master—my gift to thank her for what she’s done for me.”