Chapter 1972: The Eighth Emperor's Bold Plan

Familiar golden rays of light finally began to emanate from the deepest part of the underwater plain. Xu Yang's astonishing insight immediately told him that the appearance of this light was highly unusual. He swiftly moved to the edge of the battlefield, pushing his movement speed to its limit, and arrived directly in front of the golden light.

"So that's it," Xu Yang thought. "This so-called Immortal Essence Tide Sea is actually just a concealing barrier. The true secret essence lies buried beneath it."

As he spoke, Xu Yang immediately summoned an incredibly powerful core sword beam from his Eternal Sword Dao and brought it down fiercely onto the golden, shimmering crack beneath his feet.

Meanwhile, the powerful blue life form, who had been in an intense battle with Xu Yang, suddenly stopped, attempting to prevent Xu Yang's action. However, this realization came too late. Horrifying and violent fissures began to form on the ground. At this moment, Xu Yang was utterly enraged.

"I knew your secrets weren't important," Xu Yang declared. "There must be a more profound, unknown reason for you to guard this deepest part of the underwater realm. What's hidden beneath this golden light is the true key to the future destiny of the entire Ancient Martial God Dao."

As Xu Yang spoke, he unleashed an incredibly powerful palm strike directly at the entity in front of him. With a thunderous boom, the blue, essence-shrouded figure was sent flying.

Xu Yang then approached the source of the golden emanation. Using his main artifact, the Cold Spring, he began to meticulously cut along the golden light.

"Stop immediately! Do not touch that mark, or the consequences will be unimaginable!" the blue life form shrieked frantically, its voice on the verge of breaking.

The blue life form's voice was a desperate, collapsing scream, but no one could stop Xu Yang. The more the creature protested, the stronger Xu Yang's curiosity grew about the hidden mark beneath the fissure.

Finally, as he brought his last strike down forcefully, the complete mark-totem of the golden fissure was revealed. At that very instant, different array nodes beneath the Martial God Sea simultaneously lit up; nearly a hundred array nodes illuminated the moment Xu Yang made his move.

Xu Yang finally understood: the so-called Will of the Supreme God was hidden within the most powerful array sealed beneath the Martial God Sea. In other words, the deepest part of the Martial God Sea was where the Supreme God's consciousness had been sealed by this mighty formation. If the seal of this array was broken, the Supreme God's consciousness could be released from beneath the Martial God Sea.

There was nothing left to hesitate about. This was Xu Yang's true purpose for lying low in the Ancient Martial God Dao for so many days. He absolutely would not allow the Will of the Supreme God to continue to erode the civilization of the entire Great Dominion. He didn't even care who was trying desperately to stop him. As long as someone stood in his way, their outcome would always be the same.

The golden mark-fissure was completely shattered by Xu Yang's sword energy. An incredibly dense aura of death rapidly began to emanate from hundreds of different locations across the surface of the Martial God Sea, transforming the entire sea into a true purgatory in a very short time.

All the powerful sea beasts frantically moved towards the shore, trying to avoid being affected by the terrifying death aura from the depths of the sea. Xu Yang understood that he had inadvertently opened a Pandora's Box that could doom the entire world. However, for him, this was paradoxically the best way to personally save the world.

If no one were to touch this immensely powerful mark, the hidden danger left by the Will of the Supreme God would forever remain gathered within the Ancient Martial God Dao.

"Just a few hundred array nodes?" Xu Yang scoffed. "I'm genuinely curious to see what it can achieve."

After speaking, Xu Yang pointed a finger at his own brow, and hundreds of soul phantoms instantly materialized. They immediately began to search along the pathways of the death aura flowing beneath the endless sea.

It wasn't long before all of his phantom clones located their corresponding array nodes. Guided by Xu Yang's main body's mental power, they simultaneously unleashed immense power, striking at hundreds of different underwater locations with the strongest force each phantom clone possessed. In just an instant, all the array nodes of the entire formation were annihilated by Xu Yang's power alone.

Rumbles echoed. Earth-shattering explosions erupted consecutively. Because Xu Yang had preemptively crushed all the array nodes, the death aura that was supposed to be released by them became chaotic within the formation, leading to the complete collapse of the entire magic array.

It was important to note that this was the essence of death aura that the Will of the Supreme God had secretly accumulated for tens of thousands of years, yet Xu Yang had rendered it all to nothingness with a single move.

"You cursed wretch, you've ruined my tens of thousands of years of planning! No one can save you today!" the blue life form roared in fury, its voice spreading as a sound wave that enveloped the entire Martial God Sea.

But Xu Yang clearly heard that the voice was a superposition of two distinct tones. This led him to conclude that the powerful soul energy belonged to two different individuals.

Realizing this, Xu Yang immediately ascended from the deepest part of the Immortal Essence Tide Sea back to the surface. Sure enough, he found that the blue life form, now carrying its original soul essence, was hovering in the void. Standing beside it, on the other side, was unmistakably the soul form of the Will of the Supreme God.

Xu Yang seemed to recall something. He immediately pulled out the three purple crystals he held, only then realizing that these three amethyst crystals were constantly emitting terrifying power.

They seemed to be struggling to break free from the seals within the crystals, trying to extract a portion of the power essence from both individuals to bring them to their peak combat state.

"Hahaha, the day I've been waiting for has finally arrived! I just didn't expect you, boy, to release both of us in such a decisive manner!"

The entity with the blue life form was, in fact, the Eighth Human Emperor, which perfectly aligned with Xu Yang's earlier conjectures. The Will of the Supreme God, standing on the other side, had clearly not yet fully recovered to its peak state.

In fact, years ago, the Eighth Human Emperor had used the sudden appearance of a "divine artifact" as bait, luring thousands of powerful Martial Gods of that generation from the Ancient Martial God Dao into the Immortal Essence Tide Sea.

He was doing the same thing Xu Yang was: intending to use the lives of those thousands of Martial Gods to draw out and suppress the conspiracy of the Supreme God's Will. It proved that the Eighth Human Emperor possessed such power, and he indeed succeeded, though at an extremely heavy cost.

In the end, he sacrificed his own life force, transforming his powerful original essence into amethyst crystals, and sealed parts of both his own soul and the Will of the Supreme God within them.

Seeing these two figures appear simultaneously, the doubts in Xu Yang's mind were completely resolved.