At this moment, Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing, in the form of the Hell White Tiger, had no intention of communicating. They let out a roar of absolute fury.
The White Tiger's roar transformed into a visible, circular shockwave.
Everywhere the shockwave passed, space distorted violently and shattered layer by layer. All matter—be it rock, soil, or air—was instantaneously decomposed into its most primitive particles, forming a rapidly expanding domain of absolute void.
This was an area-of-effect attack powerful enough to make ordinary First-Class Gods retreat in haste.
Facing this oncoming shockwave, Lu Jingming merely raised his right hand slowly.
A black longspear appeared, its tip pointed directly at the wave of destruction.
At the tip of Abyss, a tiny, almost invisible black singularity emerged.
It emitted no aura, yet it possessed infinite gravitational pull.
The moment that unstoppable shockwave touched the singularity, it was like water being sucked into a bottomless pit. All its power, all its divine energy, all its light and sound were swallowed whole in an instant, without raising a single ripple.
It was as if that world-shattering strike just now had been nothing more than a silent hallucination.
"Ineffective...?"
Within the consciousness of the Hell White Tiger, Dai Mubai's voice was filled with unbelievable horror.
Their all-out attack hadn't even managed to make the opponent flinch.
"You seem to have some misunderstanding about me. Are you looking down on me a bit too much?"
Lu Jingming said with a faint smile. He was not a conventional deity of this universe; his strength could not be judged by standard divine power levels.
Before his voice had even faded, the Hell White Tiger moved.
Zhu Zhuqing's will took the lead at this moment.
Its massive body transformed into a streak of light in an instant, transcending the limits of space and time.
Its target was Lu Jingming's back. Upon its massive tiger claws, the sharp divine power of the God of War converged. Golden light tore through layers of spatial faults, looking as if it could easily crush a star to pieces.
Hell Instant-Kill Claw.
However, the moment the tiger claw was about to touch the center of Lu Jingming's back, it stopped.
It wasn't that it wanted to stop, but that it had to.
Slender chains composed of pure lightning appeared around the Hell White Tiger at some unknown point. These chains were not physical entities but were woven from the divine power of the "God of Eternity and Lightning."
"As the God of Eternity and Lightning, I can do more than just manipulate electricity."
Lu Jingming sighed softly. The godhood he had condensed was that of Eternity and Lightning, not simply a God of Thunder.
Because the core of the godhood, Raiden Makoto, was intrinsically related to time and shared a connection with the Great God of Istaroth, the Ruler of Time. A godhood formed with Raiden Makoto's authority as its core naturally allowed him to control not just lightning, but time to a certain extent.
The power of the Eternal Godhead made the flow of time around him absolutely self-contained.
From the perspective of the Hell White Tiger, it had launched a surprise attack akin to teleportation.
But in Lu Jingming's perception, its movements were as slow as a snail's crawl. Every detail, every mobilization of divine power, was clearly visible.
"Roar!"
The Hell White Tiger let out an unwilling roar, the divine power in its body erupting frantically in an attempt to break free from these chains.
Dai Mubai's will took back control. The violent power of the God of War turned into golden flames, scorching the lightning chains.
Crackle!
Several chains snapped.
The moment it regained the ability to move, the Hell White Tiger did not hesitate. It opened its bloody maw, and a golden-black energy sphere, condensed from all its divine power, rapidly took shape.
Hell White Tiger's Annihilation Kill.
This was a supreme strike that exceeded the scope of a God-level fusion skill, truly touching the threshold of a God-King.
The mere convergence of energy caused the surrounding spatial barriers to let out a mournful cry of overstrain. Pitch-black spatial cracks spread across the sky like hideous scars.
The ground of the entire wasteland began to sink, as if it were about to be crushed into the center of the earth by this force.
"It's over."
Dai Mubai's consciousness roared, filled with the resolution of mutual destruction.
Facing an attack capable of destroying a small portion of the continent, Lu Jingming slowly turned around to face the Hell White Tiger behind him.
There was no gravity in his eyes; instead, they held a trace of indifference that bordered on pity.
"At the end of destruction, there is rebirth."
He raised his other hand.
A white knight's lance, the White Flower. Its tip met the sphere of annihilation that threatened to end everything.
In the next second, an indescribably brilliant white light bloomed from the tip of the White Flower.
This white light was not scorching; rather, it was full of gentleness and serenity.
It did not collide violently with the golden-black sphere of annihilation. Instead, it enveloped it softly, like a spring breeze turning into rain.
A strange scene occurred.
The moment that sphere, containing endless destructive power, touched the white light, its violent energy began to subside rapidly.
The golden sharpness and the black silence seemed to be neutralized and purified by a power of a much higher dimension.
The laws of destruction were forcibly reversed, transformed into pure, most primitive life energy.
The entire process was silent, yet more soul-shaking than any earth-shattering explosion.
"No... impossible. My divine power... is being... decomposed?"
Within the consciousness of the Hell White Tiger, fear appeared in Dai Mubai's voice for the first time.
This wasn't an oppression of energy levels; it was a total crushing of the essence of existence.
Just as water cannot extinguish the sun, and fire cannot burn in a vacuum.
In the face of Lu Jingming's authority over Creation, even the foundation of their destruction was shaken.
Holding the White Flower, Lu Jingming walked step by step toward the dazed Hell White Tiger.
With his every step, miracles unfolded across the wasteland.
The cracked and sunken earth beneath his feet regained its vitality.
Tender green grass sprouted from the soil, growing frantically at a visible speed, turning into a knee-high meadow in the blink of an eye.
Rocks that had been turned to dust by the aftershocks of the battle reconsolidated, blooming with colorful crystal clusters.
The dry air became moist, and spots of fluorescent light gathered into streams, meandering through the grassland.
The massive life energy converted by the White Flower, under his guidance, began to repair this land ravaged by the war of gods.
Destruction was overwritten by Creation.
"Do you see? This is my power."
Lu Jingming arrived before the massive tiger head, reached out, and pressed his hand gently against its forehead.
"What you pursue is stronger destructive power, but what I hold is the power to define the rules."
White light flowed across his palm.
The authority of the "God of Wisdom and Life" was activated.
The massive body of the Hell White Tiger began to tremble violently.
It felt that the fused divine power constituting its body—belonging to Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing—was being forcibly analyzed and separated by an irresistible will.
"What... what are you doing?" Zhu Zhuqing's consciousness carried a hint of trembling.
"Returning everything to how it was."
Lu Jingming's tone held no fluctuation.
"No! We are gods! The dignity of the God Realm cannot be desecrated!"
Dai Mubai let out a final roar, attempting to mobilize his last shred of divine power to resist.
"Gods?"
The corner of Lu Jingming's mouth curled into a mocking arc.
"In my world, you are not."
As he spoke, the white light in his palm suddenly flared.
"Creation: Reversal."
Boom!!!
The sky-piercingly massive body of the Hell White Tiger began to decompose from the inside out into countless golden and black spots of light in an extremely eerie manner.
The power it had gained by burning its godhood had its process forcibly reversed by the authority of Creation, hammered back from a fused state to a separated one.
The massive light and shadow disintegrated in the air like a grand yet sorrowful fireworks display.
A moment later, the light faded.
Two figures fell helplessly from the sky, crashing onto the soft, newly grown grass.
It was Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing.
They had returned to human form, but the divine armor on their bodies had become dim and lusterless, covered in cracks.
Their auras had weakened to the extreme, with almost no divine power remaining.
Their godhoods, through the fusion just now and the forced separation at this moment, had completely shattered.
They were no longer gods.
Dai Mubai struggled to lift his head, looking at the figure standing unscathed and silent upon the newborn meadow. His eyes were filled with despair and bewilderment.
They had bet everything, only to meet with such a thorough and humiliating defeat.
The opponent hadn't even attacked in the true sense; he had merely demonstrated a different usage of his authority to turn everything they were proud of into nothingness.
"Why... why is it like this..."
He murmured to himself, the pride he once held as the God of War crushed to dust in this moment.
Lu Jingming retracted Abyss and White Flower, the twin spears dissolving into motes of light in his hands.
He looked down at the two former deities who had lost everything, his gaze still calm.
"Because the era has changed."
He turned around, not giving them another look. He cast his gaze toward the distant horizon, as if piercing through the planar barriers to see the high-and-mighty God Realm.
"And I am the new era."
Across the wasteland, a long wind blew, the green grass swaying and bringing a rich scent of life.
The sky that had been torn by the god war had mended at some point. Sunlight spilled down once more, warm and bright.
It was as if that world-shaking battle had been nothing more than a brief nightmare.
Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing lay on the soft grass, feeling the divine power drain from their bodies. An unprecedented sense of weakness washed over them.
They had fallen from the clouds to the mortal dust, and even moving a finger had become incredibly difficult.
The pain of a shattered godhood far exceeded that of the flesh; it was a hollowness of being stripped away, as if a piece of their soul had been carved out.
Just then, a violent and familiar aura of lightning exploded behind them, the air filling with the pungent scent of ozone.
Space distorted violently, as if torn open by an invisible hand. A somewhat disheveled flash of purple lightning emerged, and the figure of the Demon Empress appeared.
The magnificent dark-purple gown symbolizing her authority as the Herrscher of Thunder now bore several tears scorched by golden divine power, with energy particles still annihilating at the edges.
A trace of divine blood hung from the corner of her fair mouth; she had clearly suffered a significant injury from the Hell White Tiger's claw earlier.
But her eyes burned with a flame of vengeance even more intense than the lightning on her body.
Her gaze passed Lu Jingming and pinned itself firmly on the two defenseless figures on the ground.
It was them. The companions of that man.
The hatred of the Deep Sea Demon Whale clan and the pain of her husband's death transformed into a tangible killing intent at this moment.
She raised her hand, destructive purple arcs of electricity coiling around her fingertips, crackling so intensely they ionized the surrounding space.
Before seeking revenge on Tang San, it was only right to collect some interest first.
Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing felt that lethal killing intent. They struggled to rise, but they could only watch helplessly as the destructive lightning gathered at her fingertips.
Despair, having just been experienced once, descended again.
However, the destructive lightning did not fall.
A figure appeared before the Demon Empress without warning, like a ghost.
It was Lu Jingming.
He reached out. His movement seemed slow, yet it was precise, beating her to the punch by grabbing the Demon Empress's arm just as she was about to swing it down.
His palm was warm and strong, containing no violent energy. But the moment his fingertips touched the Demon Empress's wrist, she felt an irresistible, incomprehensible power wash over her.
The lightning at her fingertips, capable of piercing through mountains, was like a lightbulb having its power cord pulled. It dimmed and extinguished instantly, without even a stray arc escaping.
Her lightning authority was forcibly silenced before this palm.
The Demon Empress's pupils shrank sharply. The horror in her heart even surpassed what she felt facing the Hell White Tiger earlier.
It was a fear born of biological instinct, a fear toward a being of a higher status.
"I said, someone has already claimed them."
Lu Jingming's voice was cold, devoid of emotion.
His eyes did not look at the Demon Empress, but fell upon the two former deities who had lost everything, as if inspecting his spoils of war.
"Since you were defeated, you have no right to kill them."
These words were like a heavy hammer, smashing into the Demon Empress's proud heart.
Defeated... Yes, she had been defeated.
Even though she possessed near-infinite energy, she had indeed lost before that Hell White Tiger, which possessed the combat power of a First-Class God, and she had indeed been injured because of it.
Yet Lu Jingming had neutralized all of it in a nearly crushing manner.
The difference in their levels was obvious.
The Demon Empress clenched her silver teeth, her teeth rubbing against her lips until they nearly bled.
Endless unwillingness and rage surged in her chest, but her reason desperately suppressed it all.
She could feel that the hand holding her wrist wasn't using force, but it contained a deterrent—a promise that if she dared to move even an inch, she would be completely erased from existence.
She could be unafraid of the Hell White Tiger or a First-Class God because she still had life-saving trump cards.
But she didn't dare to provoke Lu Jingming, because she knew very well that the price for provoking him was one she could not afford.
After a long time, her tense body finally relaxed.
"...I understand."
These words seemed to exhaust all her strength.
Lu Jingming released his grip and said calmly:
"Your enemy is the Sea God, Tang San. You should go find him. Besides, being taken back by me... for them, that might be more painful than death."
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