The Cloud-Ascension Throne's Avatar expanded violently in the void, its once-golden divine light turning a blinding, ghastly white. It was the omen of a Throne's origin being compressed to its absolute limit before detonation. A self-destruction of this magnitude would not only leave Jiang Li and Cang Yaochen as less than ash but would also wipe the "Forbidden Zone of Gods" from existence, reducing it to a single grain of cosmic dust.
"Old dog, you're actually going through with it!"
Jiang Li pressed down on the Mirror of Profound Inquiry with a death-grip, the glass now so red it looked ready to drip blood. She could feel the chaotic laws of causality on the eve of the explosion—they were like a thousand jagged blades frantically shredding her soul. Blood began to leak from her Seven Orifices, and she swayed on the spot.
Cang Yaochen dropped back to the stone dais. Every Asura demonic rune on his body was pushed to its limit, the Nirvana Karma-Fire mixing with the newly absorbed War God's malevolence to form a dark-gold cocoon around him.
"Li'er, give me the mirror!" Cang Yaochen let out a low roar. He snatched the Mirror of Profound Inquiry and slammed it against his own chest.
He intended to use his demonic frame to forcibly shoulder all the karmic backlash reflected by the mirror, carving out a sliver of life for Jiang Li.
"Priest, you're insane! You can't survive this backlash!" Jiang Li shrieked, trying to reclaim the mirror, but she was sent flying off the dais by a strike from Cang Yaochen's palm.
"GO! Get beneath the lamp!"
Cang Yaochen pointed at the bronze Soul-Stabilizing Lamp. Cracks began to spiderweb across his body as violet-gold demonic blood and dark-gold Throne Origin crashed violently within his veins.
BOOM—!
Outside the void, the Cloud-Ascension Throne finally detonated his Avatar.
An indescribable, terrifying white light instantly swallowed the entire Forbidden Zone. It was the pinnacle of destruction—no sound, no heat, only absolute erasure.
The shattered divine statues within the zone didn't even have time to scream before they turned to dust. The old man guarding the foot of the mountain closed his eyes in despair against the encroaching white tide.
Just as the light was about to consume the stone dais, Cang Yaochen let out a roar like a cornered beast. He forcibly drove his Nirvana origin, slamming both palms into the base of the bronze Soul-Stabilizing Lamp.
He wasn't trying to light the lamp—he was trying to shatter it!
THUD—!
Under Cang Yaochen's full-strength strike, the lamp exploded. At the moment of its destruction, the ghostly green flame eerily transformed into a pitch-black vortex.
"The Forbidden Zone's Death Gate... a loophole in causality... it really is here!"
A ruthless glint flashed in Cang Yaochen's eyes. Ignoring the aftershock of Cloud-Ascension's explosion that threatened to tear him apart, he grabbed Jiang Li—who was being tossed back by the shockwave—and lunged into the black vortex.
Simultaneously, the void outside the Forbidden Zone collapsed entirely. The terrifying energy from the Throne's self-destruction blasted a hundred-mile-wide wasteland of nothingness into the fabric of space. Within the Sacred Ground, the "Ever-Burning Lamp" representing the Cloud-Ascension Throne flickered and died.
A Divine Throne had fallen.
In a nameless wilderness of the mortal realm.
Jiang Li slammed heavily into the damp earth, the agony of having her soul forcibly wrenched away causing her to curl into a ball.
"Priest Cang..."
She struggled to her feet, seeing Cang Yaochen lying not far away. The red lotus mark on his chest had dimmed to near-extinction; he was shrouded in the aura of death. The Mirror of Profound Inquiry lay by his hand, its surface covered in a dense web of cracks, on the verge of shattering.
He had used his demonic body and the mirror to face the brunt of the karmic backlash from the explosion, and at the final second, he had shattered the lamp to buy their lives.
"Don't die... I don't give you permission to die..." Jiang Li crawled toward him. Looking at this man who had nearly ground his Asura bones to dust for her sake, the emotions buried for three thousand years finally tore through the Evil God's mask.
She bit her fingertip, placing a drop of vivid scarlet essence-blood upon his lips.
"Xuan-Ying Secret Art: Destiny Transference... Since we can't settle the debt, we'll remain entwined until the very end."