Chapter 210: Passing Through the World's Hand

Before his vision was consumed, Ning Changjiu saw the true form of the Sin Lord.

Once his black robe was cast aside, his body seemed to unleash a seal, rapidly expanding with the swirling black nether energy.

His body unfurled like a bursting cannon, swiftly extending. First to emerge were a pair of long, bony wings from his back. The fierce winds generated by their membranes swept away the nether energy, revealing his body, previously hidden in darkness. The bones in the center of his torso appeared twisted from countless slender hemp ropes, flanked by steel-hard, exposed ribs beneath the muscle. Below, demonic, well-defined legs ended in long, downward-curving talons, possessing a strange, unsettling beauty. His two claws hovered at his sides, not connected by arms, but by a murky black mist.

Beyond the black mist were his eyes.

It was a horizontally set eye, with black whites and two vertical slits of white pupils in the center.

His entire body, with wings outstretched, resembled the mythical form of the character "sin."

The moment this image appeared in Ning Changjiu’s eyes, intense pain pierced him like needles, draining the color from his pupils and filling his eyes with blood.

The instant the stinging pain arrived, Ning Changjiu did not hesitate. The void behind him cracked open, and a suddenly appearing point absorbed him once more. He traversed layers of illusory time, the rushing sound of the Yellow Springs water echoing in his ears. In a momentary daze, Ning Changjiu felt as if he were in a canyon, looking out to see the deep canyon walls like hollowed-out coffins, filled with grotesque skeletal remains. They varied in form, but without exception, their empty bone eye sockets were turned towards him.

The layers of space behind him, unable to bear the strain, began to collapse.

The Sin Lord’s true form manifested in this world, making its very existence seem like a blasphemy against a deity. The entire world became like a deep ocean, with chaotic currents surging and churning, raising monstrous waves that relentlessly crashed against Ning Changjiu. His silvery-white sword light grew fainter with each impact.

After crossing that nexus point, Ning Changjiu’s shattered eyes had recovered, but he dared not look directly at the Sin Lord, only scrambling to escape deeper into the sky.

At this moment, the Sin Lord was the sole master of this ocean.

Chaotic currents surged past him like wind blades, slicing at his face.

As Ning Changjiu frantically ascended, black smoke appeared in the fierce wind. Like a hand, the smoke suddenly wrapped around his ankle.

The unbreakable cage of judgment held him fast.

Ning Changjiu severed his leg directly, continuing to ascend, breaking out from the next nexus point as if reborn.

But he could feel a colossal shadow closing in behind him, moving at an even faster speed.

The Sin Lord's horizontal eye and vertical pupils locked onto him.

He was like a colossal octopus suddenly emerging from the deep sea, extending its tentacles to ensnare its prey. Each pursuing "hand" was like a black-purple flame erupting from the gates of hell, burning with a thick, bloody aura of death.

Ning Changjiu abruptly stopped. His Asura Body fully activated, and the light on his white robes resembled burning pale flames—the colorless divine flames of legend that once incinerated stars to ash.

The light in Ning Changjiu's pupils also shifted from gold to white. He raised his sword high, then folded his body like a bird retracting its wings, diving down like an arrow.

The two collided.

A thunderous roar echoed through heaven and earth, its might no less than the day Ye Chu ascended and clashed with the Sin Lord.

Pale flames mixed with raging thunder and lightning. Endless gales howled outwards from the two combatants. Behind the turbulent sky, large flashes of light pulsed on and off, flickering across thousands of miles in an instant.

That was the clang of spear and sword beyond the sky.

Siming walked deeper into the world. The scenery shifted, but whether grand or barren, an inherent desolation permeated everything.

Looking through the fractured layers of time, the battle in the sky grew increasingly fast, as if doomsday prophecies were coming true, with disasters sweeping in one after another.

Siming could not see the battle in the sky clearly.

She couldn't help but recall many wars she had never witnessed, wars hidden in the most secretive and ancient historical records. In that chaotic era, deities abused their authority, moving mountains, filling seas, shattering skies, and rending earth, creating mountains of bones and making it impossible for myriad spirits to survive. Legend has it that the skeletal carvings of several ancient great gods still exist on the Six Realms Peak today.

If this battle were to occur in the outside world, without an entire shattered divine kingdom suppressing their power, their conflict would be enough to devastate the entire land and all its inhabitants.

Of course, if it were truly outside, the most likely outcome would be Ning Changjiu being crushed like an ant.

As Siming pondered this, she involuntarily clasped her chest tightly, her slender fingers digging deep, wrinkling her black robe. Her slender silhouette appeared forlorn amidst the tumultuous heaven and earth.

She found herself developing an emotion she greatly disliked towards the white-robed youth.

She knew that when she had decided to become his spirit and hand over her authority to him, a sense of dependence had arisen within her Dao heart.

When the Sin Lord arrived, she encountered something she could not kill or destroy, and thus placed her hopes on someone else.

Therefore, her original arrogance, which allowed her to look down upon the world as unrivaled, now bore an indelible crack. For someone who had once reached the legendary realm and perfected her Dao, any minor flaw could be infinitely magnified upon re-entering that realm, ultimately becoming a fatal imperfection.

Therefore, she had to repair her Dao heart.

The way to mend her Dao heart was to kill both the Sin Lord and Ning Changjiu.

So at this moment, she hoped Ning Changjiu would win. Because she couldn't kill the Sin Lord, but a severely wounded Ning Changjiu would be as weak as a chick in her hands.

As she thought about these things, Siming’s eyes, fixed on the sky, suddenly froze, and a profound astonishment became apparent in the depths of her pupils.

A white meteor streaked across the sky, vanishing in an instant.

Then, in the distance, a water dragon surged up like an ice pillar.

It was Ning Changjiu’s figure that crashed down.

The high-speed rotating spear of lightning, pressing against him, slammed him once more into the icy sea.

Fortunately, not long after, the scene seemed to reverse, and the white-robed figure once again shot up from the ground, soaring directly into the heavens.

After that, Siming saw many times a figure being knocked down from the chaos, and each time it was the white-robed figure, ablaze with flames.

Each time Ning Changjiu was struck down, his subsequent ascent was a few breaths slower than the last. This indicated his injuries were worsening, and at this rate, he would surely die when his power was exhausted.

The incessant lightning, thunder, and pale auroras in the sky had been flashing alternately for a long time.

This battle was silently, gradually approaching its end.

Siming no longer walked deeper. She had been planning how to kill Ning Changjiu if the Sin Lord were defeated.

But now, it seemed she didn't need to think about anything anymore.

She watched as the lightning-entangled clouds suddenly sagged downwards, and the white-robed figure was once again shot down to the ground like an arrow. He landed in a swamp.

The swamp's surface tension was instantly torn open, and his body sank wildly, creating a massive crater in the marsh. The mud filling the crater quickly enveloped his entire body.

Ning Changjiu could no longer remember how many sword strikes he had unleashed.

The moment his body fell, he tried to use his power again but felt a profound powerlessness.

When the Sin Lord had not yet torn off his black robe, their battle had suspense and room to maneuver. But once the Sin Lord revealed his mythical form, both sword-sight and golden pupils would be blinded the moment they gazed upon him.

Unless he truly reached that level, he couldn’t even look directly at the Sin Lord’s true form.

However, the Sin Lord revealing his divine body also came with a cost.

The mythical form of a deity symbolizes true supreme hidden power; the fewer people who know this secret, the stronger it becomes.

With every extra glance, his veil of mystery would fade a little.

At this moment, the Sin Lord also seemed to be in a frenzy. No matter what means Ning Changjiu used or where he was, the Sin Lord’s horizontal eye and vertical pupils remained fixed on him.

For example, the Sin Lord now stood on the cloud, wings fully spread, body slightly bent, staring directly downwards, through the thick swamp, at the faintly breathing shadow beneath the marsh.

The Sin Lord suddenly extended his ethereal, floating claws. As the claws contracted, he once again grasped the furious lightning, but this time it was neither a spear nor a sword, but transformed into a golden cross.

"Punishment of the Innocent," the Sin Lord slowly uttered, his voice piercing through both realms and reaching deep into the swamp.

Almost everyone saw the cross-shaped lightning shimmering behind the celestial curtain.

Siming watched it, an instinctive dread rising in her heart. She involuntarily remembered her days on the torture rack; at that time, wielding the authority of time, she truly understood the meaning of "a day felt like a year" for the first time. Simultaneously, the phantom pains of lashing and whip marks returned. Her slender legs slightly bent inward, knees gently touching and overlapping, and her body involuntarily tensed.

Then, a sense of inevitable death welled up within her.

Many others felt this sensation as well.

Ye Chu, Shao Xiaoli, all the survivors in the city, the residents of the tribe…

The moment the cross lit up, a feeling of utter despair filled their hearts.

But this sense of despair did not come to pass, for its target was solely Ning Changjiu.

"Boss, what's wrong with Boss...?" Shao Xiaoli suddenly panicked, clutching her chest, her expression trembling.

The deathly glint in Ye Chu’s pupils vanished in an instant.

He gazed across the entire crumbling world; the shattered city seemed like an insignificant grain of sand before his eyes.

"It's about time," Ye Chu said inexplicably, then walked forward alone.

With each step, handsome features began to grow on his charcoal-black face; they didn't look real, but rather as if drawn with ink. He gradually reverted to his former appearance. However, the youth, who should have been dashing and refined, still looked like a dying person.

"Where are you going?" Shao Xiaoli felt uneasy.

Ye Chu replied, "Waiting for Ning Changjiu to return."

After Ning Changjiu found him in the wilderness, he had a secret conversation with Ning Changjiu.

He had unreservedly imparted the array formations he had studied for hundreds of years.

Now, it was almost time.

Ning Changjiu, submerged in the swamp, seemed to have stopped breathing.

"Can you still hold on?"

A voice called to him.

It was the Sword Spirit.

Ning Changjiu's thoughts were slowly pulled back. The swamp had stripped away his flesh, his bones were twisted, and his mind felt as if knives were constantly cutting through it, churning his very essence into a bloody mess. He also felt the killing intent descending from the Ninth Heaven.

This certainty of death, paradoxically, made him even more clear-headed.

"I can hold on," Ning Changjiu replied, though his divine radiance was growing increasingly faint.

The Sword Spirit said, "He's coming."

"How much longer?"

"Now!"

After that very brief exchange, the swamp was torn open.

The tens of thousands of miles of swamp were like a festering wound of flesh, and he was the tumor hidden deep within its decaying core.

The golden cross sliced down.

Ning Changjiu, deeply embedded in the swamp, suddenly opened his eyes.

His body was so mangled it was horrifying to behold.

The power imbued by the Asura Divine Record was like fish scales scraped off by a knife; after all the hardness was gone, only soft, decaying flesh remained.

Ning Changjiu watched the Sin Lord descending from the sky, his pupils exploding again like crushed eggs.

Then, the cross pierced through his body.

Yet, Ning Changjiu reached out and held him tightly.

As the cross plunged deep into his flesh, the Asura Divine Record activated almost instinctively. Without any conscious thought from Ning Changjiu, the eighty-one forms rapidly extracted spiritual energy from his Qi Sea, transforming into real techniques that, like a volley of ten thousand arrows, rained down upon the Sin Lord.

These eighty-one forms were exceedingly fierce, now imbued with divine authority, each strike carrying the sharpness to slay ancient gods.

Even on the Sin Lord's body, shallow indentations were left, and blood even seeped from beneath his feathery scales.

However, the eighty-one forms, like an assault of ten thousand spears, were still nullified by the Sin Lord one by one.

It was at this moment that Ning Changjiu's silver sword broke free from his control and thrust forward.

Because the Asura Divine Record had absorbed the Heaven's Mandate Sword Scripture, his Asura Divine Record possessed a full eighty-two forms!

This was the eighty-second form.

This single sword strike, originally, could not pierce the Sin Lord's body.

But Ning Changjiu held him tightly, and the infinite authority activated one last time, drawing both him and the Sin Lord into its power.

Beyond the nexus point, Ning Changjiu's injuries were fully healed. The Sin Lord's true form sustained no apparent damage, yet the silver sword had miraculously pierced his body.

The Sin Lord coldly gazed at the sword embedded in his chest, unmoved.

The sword energy exploded wildly within him, but to him, it remained insignificant.

Even with Ning Changjiu's elaborate planning, it was still a death trap.

But a smile appeared on Ning Changjiu’s face. He reached out, wrapped his arm around the Sin Lord’s body, and gripped the sword tip.

His gesture resembled a long-awaited embrace.

He used his own body as a sword lock, holding the Sin Lord tightly in front of him.

Ning Changjiu’s spiritual power rapidly extended across the entire world, and then all the elements began to boil.

At this moment, the Sin Lord realized that the world beneath their feet had formed a colossal array.

He recognized this array.

It was the same array activated below when Ye Chu had ascended with the giant arrow, propelled by the flames of time.

Ning Changjiu didn't have hundreds of years to gather enough time, so he could only draw the array large enough, using heaven and earth as his canvas, and then shaping rivers with calamitous thunder and fire to form this massive array.

This was not a small Sky-Soaring Array; this was the true Sky-Soaring Array. It had once carried Ye Chu to the heavens!

At this moment, the elemental breaths of heaven, earth, wind, thunder, mountains, lakes, water, and fire had just reached their chaotic peak. These forces, pulling at each other, finally formed this colossal array.

Ning Changjiu mobilized all available power to envelop himself.

Heavenly fire shot up from the ground.

Within the Sky-Soaring Array, Ning Changjiu, using his body and sword to tightly lock the Sin Lord, soared skyward.

The Sin Lord’s pupils narrowed into two slits, and his wing membranes expanded to their fullest.

Even a tiny pebble on the ground could feel his rage.

His sharp claws gripped Ning Changjiu’s shoulders, intending to tear off his arms directly. Countless bolts of judgment lightning also struck his body. Ning Changjiu’s white robes were ripped, his back instantly mangled to the point where his beating heart was almost visible behind his ribs.

Yet, their locked bodies were irresistibly hurled high by the entire earth, soaring towards the highest heavens.

Their figures seemed to be stretched immensely.

Ning Changjiu's face was distorted in agony, his arms bleeding profusely. His head was thrown back, neck elongated, and all his tendons and veins protruded, like countless rivers on the verge of bursting their banks during a flood.

He could no longer control his body.

The Sin Lord understood his intent. Ning Changjiu wanted to drag him into that space where time flowed absolutely differently—a breath in heaven, a year on earth. He intended to forcibly pull the Sin Lord through years of time!

But Ning Changjiu ultimately failed.

While this array was indeed powerful, their battle had caused spacetime to warp, lifting the original heaven and earth higher with the inflowing space.

Even this grand array, capable of shaping mountains and rivers, could not bridge this vast distance.

This was something Ning Changjiu had not anticipated.

"You have failed," the Sin Lord said slowly, his voice no longer indifferent but carrying a hint of regret.

Ning Changjiu's consciousness was hazy; he felt the force dragging his body gradually dissipate.

The Sin Lord's claws, which had nearly impaled his shoulders, twisted sharply.

The world spun.

Their bodies inverted, plummeting back down towards the world below.

In Ning Changjiu's blurred peripheral vision, he could see the illusory firmament not far away, but that distance was one he could never bridge.

The Sword Spirit also let out a despairing sigh.

Burning divine blood enveloped it, threatening to incinerate it to ash.

They fell together, getting further and further from the sky.

Just as everything was about to end, Ning Changjiu suddenly remembered something.

He stretched out his hand towards the receding sky.

The Sin Lord watched this scene in silence.

The spiritual power forged by the Asura Divine Record was incredibly potent. These spiritual energies were like countless threads, shooting swiftly through the sky, probing into the illusory cosmos.

The penetrative nature of spiritual power was extremely strong; it easily pierced through that cosmos, flew into the shattered divine kingdom, and then continued soaring straight upwards.

But this was meaningless. No matter how powerful spiritual power was, it was merely an illusory thread, incapable of becoming his true rope.

His body continued to plummet, and under the judgment lightning, his physical form was on the verge of utter annihilation at any moment.

"Don't waste your strength, unless a miracle happens…" the Sword Spirit’s voice was utterly despondent; it too began to await death.

But a miracle truly happened!

At the very end of his spiritual reach, he suddenly grasped something.

There was a familiar array formation there.

It was the Small Sky-Soaring Array! The one Lu Jiajia had drawn on the very first day she built her hut and began cultivating by the abyss!

This array was originally drawn by Lu Jiajia, hoping he could find her sooner once he emerged one day.

At this moment, separated by a world, he suddenly met this array.

He stretched out his hand towards the sky.

And that hand seemed to genuinely reach out and grasp him.

It was Lu Jiajia's hand…

She had been waiting for him to return…

Tears streamed from Ning Changjiu’s shattered eyes in the wind. That pure, otherworldly face seemed to smile at him in the dark night. The heart-wrenching wails from when Jiuying fell into the abyss still echoed in his ears, only now, he was the one in such profound despair.

He stretched out his hand, his fingers trembling, and began to draw the Small Sky-Soaring Array in reverse.

All his spiritual power transformed into tangible lines, connecting him with the array by the abyss!

He grasped her hand and soared towards the firmament.

Layer upon layer, the sky opened for him.

Embracing the demon in his arms, he plunged into the realm where time flowed absolutely.

After entering that realm, their bodies did not stop accelerating, continuing to fly upwards, crashing into the barrier between that world and the divine kingdom.

Ning Changjiu's bones shattered completely. The entire divine kingdom appeared in his sea of consciousness for an instant, then suppressed him once more, and the broken barrier walls sealed shut again.

In that instant, he saw countless bones of immortals and demons. These bones paved the ground, formed stairs, forged ten-thousand-zhang-tall towers, and were sculpted into ten thousand lotus flowers.

All the bones were like armored, blade-wielding attendants, collectively facing a single, headless divine skeleton.

That divine skeleton was hidden behind layers of sky-high drapes, impossible to see clearly.

Yet even a mere shadow of it was enough to swallow all heavenly light.

Jiuying's pieced-together skeleton already possessed the awe-inspiring beauty of myth and legend, but before this, it seemed like a crude chicken coop.

That was a true divine skeleton.

The vision in his sea of consciousness was swallowed by darkness.

The Sin Lord also witnessed this scene.

"It's not the Thunder Prison." This was the first thing he said.

Then, the Sin Lord immediately understood something he should never have doubted.

In this world, absolutely no one could kill a Divine Kingdom Lord alone.

The death of this divine skeleton pointed to another astonishing secret: there was another traitor among the Twelve Kingdom Lords!

That traitor had collaborated with this person to kill the Divine Lord and then severed his head!

The image that had flashed into view was quickly swallowed by darkness.

Ning Changjiu still had his hand outstretched, like someone about to fall off a cliff.

The Sin Lord relentlessly tore at his body, but no matter how much pain he endured, Ning Changjiu refused to let go, choosing death over release.

Gradually, Ning Changjiu's Asura body disintegrated, his authority could no longer coalesce, his powerful spiritual threads snapped one by one like guzheng strings, and the Small Sky-Soaring Array could no longer be maintained, losing its radiance.

After a long time, he released his grip, and his body fell limply downwards.

Not a single patch of skin on his entire body remained intact.

As his body plummeted, the Sin Lord finally pulled the silver sword from his chest. He looked at this blasphemer who had stolen divine power and thrust the Asura sword towards Ning Changjiu's heart.

The sharp sword lost its power as it reached his chest.

For the one holding the sword had vanished.

A breath in heaven, a day on earth.

In the blink of an eye, winter had ended and spring had arrived in the outside world.

The Sin Lord's era had passed, and the Godless Month had returned. In one month, the Kingdom of Ti Mountain would open.

Fast text: Chapter list of "Above the Divine Kingdom"