Chapter 316: Gold Emperor! Blood Slaughter Marquis! Two Great Enemies Gather! Limit

Chapter 316: The Golden Emperor! The Blood-Slaughtering Marquis! Two arch-enemies converge! The Lord of Ultramarines descends!

Boom!

A pillar of blood erupted, piercing the heavens!

Within the eye sockets of that severed head, two flames ignited, seemingly forged from pure blood and unbridled rage.

Across its surface, veins that had long since withered began to writhe like living creatures, radiating a crimson light so intense it felt as though it might drip with gore!

"This is..."

Marquis Qingtian and the others paled, frantically summoning their weapons, watching the skull—which emanated a boundless, malevolent aura—with wary eyes.

They could feel that will; it made the blood in their veins boil uncontrollably, a primal urge to slaughter battering against their very souls.

Yet, Qin Feng’s reaction was infinitely more violent!

The moment that will descended, his brain felt as if it had been struck by a red-hot iron hammer!

Countless visions, like a bursting dam, flooded his consciousness.

He saw!

He saw mountains of corpses and seas of blood; he saw a throne of bone, built from the skulls of endless sentient beings, rising to pierce the sky!

He saw, seated upon that throne, a terrifying entity whose form and grandeur defied all language.

That being seemed the very personification of "wrath" and "war."

Surrounding him were eternal storms of battle and unceasing rivers of gore.

He heard, too!

He heard billions of worlds and billions of races, in the same moment, shouting the same name in a thousand different tongues.

It was a true name, heavy with the stench of iron and blood!

"Khorne!!"

Qin Feng’s pupils contracted into dangerous, needle-like points!

In an instant, he understood!

Everything, at this moment, fell into place!

No wonder!

No wonder the Imperial War had turned so bizarre, so frenzied!

No wonder beings of the caliber of the Prism Emperor and the Heaven-Swallowing King had been swayed by such reckless bloodlust, igniting a true, mindless fire!

It turned out that from the very beginning, this war—which had gathered the peak combat power of humanity and the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races—had been watched by an indescribable evil god from the Chaos!

This was no mere racial war!

This was... a blood sacrifice, where the victims were the peak powerhouses of both sides, and the altar was the entire star sector!

That formless, eerie aura was the whisper of the evil god!

That reckless, insane slaughter was the temptation of Chaos!

Khorne, the Blood God who drank from skulls and toasted with gore, intended to turn this star sector into a massive, flesh-and-blood altar to satisfy his hunger!

And he himself—the "Creator of the God-Path" whom the Alliance sought to kill and humanity sought to protect—was the perfect "incense" to open this ritual!

It was his appearance, and the intense emotions he had stirred—hope, rage, killing intent, and the desperate need to protect—that had acted like a lighthouse in the dark, drawing the gaze of this evil god!

"...A fine play, Khorne..."

Qin Feng stared fixedly at the violently trembling head, his teeth grinding together.

In his eyes, there was no fear, only a cold, absolute fury at being played as a pawn.

If this continued, every participant—human or alien—would be reduced to a beast of slaughter under Khorne’s influence, bleeding until their last drop to add one more insignificant stone to that throne of bone.

...

Just as Qin Feng grasped the malicious conspiracy of the Blood God, and prepared to withdraw himself from the battlefield to urge the human high command and the Alliance to end this war—

A mutation, once again, erupted from the depths of this universe, stained by blood and fire!

It was a hand!

A hand so vast it transcended the limits of language and the boundaries of imagination!

It did not tear through the void, nor did it emerge from any fixed dimensional coordinate.

It appeared out of thin air, as if it had existed there since the dawn of time, an eternal mark etched into the universe at its birth.

This giant hand reached out from the deepest, most unknowable reaches of the star-sea; its palm was so vast it seemed to cradle an ancient universe in the midst of evolution;

Between its fingers, wide as canyons, flowed rivers of time!

Brilliant stars, before this hand, were as insignificant as dust on a beach; their light was utterly eclipsed by the halo radiating from the hand itself, leaving them dim and lusterless.

Vast nebulae, before this hand, were as fragile as morning mist, stirred and torn apart, only to return to chaos under the weight of a more magnificent law.

This hand was vaster than the entire galaxy where the Island of Dead Meteors lay, branded with the supreme will of humanity—the will to rise from the dust, to struggle amidst the encirclement of ten thousand races, to pass the torch, and to fight to the death!

Each line on the palm was not a texture of flesh, but a chain of laws, thick as divine dragons and bright enough to illuminate the dark universe!

They intertwined, constructing the supreme epic of humanity’s defiance against heaven and earth!

"Hum—!"

The moment this hand appeared, the military seal at Qin Feng’s waist, bestowed personally by the Lord of Ultramarines, erupted with unprecedented brilliance!

The light was searing, pure, and filled with supreme majesty and a sense of belonging—like the only lighthouse seen by a ship lost in the ocean, or the first and only ray of dawn in an eternal night!

An indescribable sense of intimacy and safety, like a warm tide, instantly enveloped Qin Feng’s soul. His mind, stretched to the breaking point by the revelation of Khorne’s plot, found unprecedented relief.

He knew who had arrived.

One of the Lords of the Human Universe, the founder of the Ultramarine Legion—the Lord of Ultramarines!

"It is the Lord of Ultramarines!"

"He has descended!"

Marquis Qingtian, Marquis Liewu, and the other 120 human marquises, who were guarding Qin Feng in their desperate flight, felt that familiar, supreme aura. They shuddered, then erupted into a heaven-shaking roar of ecstasy!

The despair and confusion in their eyes vanished, replaced by a near-fanatical worship and a fearless resolve!

They no longer fled into the depths of the universe; instead, they turned sharply. 120 streaks of light pierced the void, forming a resolute arc in the star-sea, facing once more the terrifying battlefield that had become a meat grinder!

"Offer the Cosmic Crystals!"

Marquis Qingtian let out a roar that echoed through the stars, his voice filled with boundless heroism. Following his shout, he was the first to sacrifice all the mountains of [Cosmic Crystals] he had gathered during his year of bloody battle in the inner island!

"For humanity!"

"For the future!"

Marquis Liewu, Marquis Canglang... one by one, the reborn marquises hesitated not for a moment.

They cast that massive wealth—enough to drive any race to madness and make even an Emperor-level being cast a sidelong glance—into the void!

In an instant, a brilliant torrent composed of [Cosmic Crystals] became the most dazzling sight against the dark backdrop of the universe!

Within that torrent, every crystal radiated the pure essence of the cosmic origin. Billions of these crystals converged, forming a terrifying tidal wave of psionic energy that threatened to assimilate this entire star sector and return it to its primordial state.

Yet, this tide, capable of turning even a Marquis-level powerhouse pale with dread, flowed as tamely as a mountain stream before the giant hand that spanned the cosmos.

At the center of that colossal palm, the laws of space were twisted and folded in ways beyond imagination, as a miniature singularity—seemingly small yet deep enough to swallow dimensions—quietly emerged.

A horrific suction, transcending the boundaries of dimensions, erupted from the singularity. The brilliant torrent of Cosmic Crystals did not even have the chance to fully unleash their radiance before they were transformed into insignificant streaks of light, instantly devoured by the palm’s singularity.

Mission accomplished!

"Hahaha!!"

Marquis Qingtian roared toward the heavens, his laughter filled with an unprecedented sense of relief and liberation.

Seizing the Cosmic Crystals had been the core objective of their expedition to the Dead Meteor Island.

Now that these crystals, which held the key to the future of the human race in the struggle for the Eternal Mountain, were safely in the hands of the Lord of Limits, the last of their worries and burdens had vanished into smoke.

"Comrades! We have returned!"

Marquis Liewu raised his arms and shouted, his blade pointing toward the meat-grinder battlefield where fellow Marquises were fighting for their lives, his eyes burning with fierce intent.

With no more burdens to bear,

All that remained was to fight to the bitter end!

The one hundred and twenty human Marquises, having sacrificed all the Cosmic Crystals, did not hesitate for a moment. They transformed once more into one hundred and twenty streaks of death, charging back into the fray with a fearless, indomitable spirit to relieve the crushing pressure on their struggling comrades.

Their return was like a potent stimulant, instantly revitalizing the flagging morale of the human forces.

Meanwhile, the hand that had blotted out the sky closed the singularity in its palm after securing the crystals.

The giant hand stirred, reaching toward Qin Feng, clearly intending to extract the prodigy who had triggered the Imperial War and carried the "God’s Path" from this inescapable death trap.

Yet, at the very moment the Lord of Limits was about to succeed, an anomaly occurred without warning!

Across the dark canvas of the universe, in a star sector billions of light-years away from the giant hand, an eye—equally vast and capable of standing toe-to-toe with the Lord of Limits—slowly, inch by inch, opened!

It was a cold, ruthless vertical pupil that viewed all living beings as ants and the universe as a chessboard.

Its sclera was a chaotic hue colder than absolute zero;

Its pupil was a vortex of destruction, composed of billions of conflicting, intertwining, and annihilating divine laws!

A single glance seemed to reveal the entire cycle of a universe from birth to extinction, evoking the endless suffering and struggle of all existence within the wheel of reincarnation.

The gaze held no emotion, no anger, no murderous intent—only the absolute indifference and judgment of a higher life form toward a lower one!

Just one look!

A single glance!

That icy gaze traversed the endless sea of stars, ignoring the distance of space and time, and landed with pinpoint accuracy upon Qin Feng!

In an instant, Qin Feng felt the space-time around him freeze solid!

No, it was not merely frozen; it was being subjected to a "dimensional reduction strike" by a higher-dimensional force!

His pride, the "Limit Body," a physique tempered by nine-colored divine lightning and considered indestructible, began to emit involuntary wails of agony!

Every particle composing his body trembled violently under that gaze, as if they were about to be dismantled and scattered, returning to the primordial, chaotic soup of the universe’s birth!

His soul, that "pure black quality" essence deemed immortal, felt as if it were crushed beneath an invisible, ancient divine mountain, unable to even form a single thought!

The shadow of death had never been so thick!

This was a despair beyond resistance, a total and absolute crushing at the level of existence itself!

The entity did not even need to use any mystical arts; a mere "gaze" was enough to erase him from the universe entirely!

"Hmph!"

Just as Qin Feng’s consciousness was about to be pulverized by that supreme will, a cold snort emanated from the human giant hand!

This sound was unlike any other, yet it seemed to contain all the principles and laws of the cosmos.

It was like the first sound of the Dao at the dawn of creation, filled with the supreme majesty of opening the heavens!

It acted like an invisible celestial blade, severing the eons and destiny itself, instantly slicing through the cold, dead gaze locked upon Qin Feng!

"Pfft!"

Qin Feng was struck as if by lightning, vomiting a mouthful of blood shimmering with divine radiance as control of his body returned to him.

He gasped for air, drenched in cold sweat, his eyes filled with lingering fear and shock.

In that moment, he had truly walked through the gates of hell!

As the Lord of Limits’ snort—imbued with supreme Dao power—echoed, a true peak-level confrontation between Lords of the Universe erupted in the invisible realms between the giant hand and the indifferent divine eye!

In the physical universe, there were no earth-shattering psionic explosions, no thunderous clashes of laws. Everything remained calm, as if nothing had happened.

But in another, higher-dimensional battlefield unknown to ordinary beings, two supreme entities standing at the apex of the cosmic pyramid were locked in a war capable of reshaping star sectors and rewriting the laws of reality!

Endless divine light collided; billions of laws clashed!

Every exchange between them triggered horrific storms in the depths of the dimensions, capable of annihilating entire galaxies!

At this moment, the Lord of Limits was completely pinned down!

He could no longer calmly extract Qin Feng!

...

As the two Lords of the Universe were locked in their higher-dimensional standoff, the battlefield settled into a bizarre and brutal equilibrium.

The Lord of Limits was occupied by the Lord of the Alien Races.

The Imperial-level existences of both sides, corrupted by the will of Khorne, fought with bloodshot eyes, unleashing all their laws and mystical arts, shattering star rivers and causing the Great Dao to wail; none could easily break away to deal with a mere Qin Feng.

The Marquises, Kings, and the lower-tier Domain Lord armies were locked in a bloody, deadlocked slaughter.

Every minute, every second, countless lives withered, their flesh and souls becoming the perfect offerings to appease the chaotic evil god.

No one could easily withdraw.

No one could spare a thought for the "eye of the storm" who had triggered it all.

This created a brief, vacuum period for Qin Feng where he was left unattended.

He was as if forgotten by the world at the edge of the battlefield; if he wished, he could seemingly vanish into the depths of the universe at any moment.

Yet, would the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races truly let slip this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strangle the future of the human race?

"ROAR—!!!"

A furious roar, capable of shattering stars and collapsing the void, arrived from the distant star sector beyond the battlefield!

Following it, a streak of golden light—brilliant and domineering to the extreme—tore through layers of space at a speed that defied cosmic laws, crashing violently into the already chaotic battlefield!

It was a newly arrived Alien Emperor!

A star-beast covered in golden armor that looked as if it were cast from divine metal!

Its size was so immense it surpassed many small planets; the meteorites orbiting it looked like mere marbles in the hands of a child compared to its majestic form.

Every breath it took stirred psionic storms capable of tearing apart starships;

In its golden beastly eyes, a rage and murderous intent burned, enough to incinerate the eight wildernesses!

The Emperor of the Golden-Armored Behemoths—the Golden Emperor!

An ancient sovereign renowned among all races for his indomitable flesh and ferocious combat prowess!

Upon his arrival, he did not hesitate for a moment, nor did he spare a single glance for the imperial battlefield.

His massive form stomped violently against the void, and endless laws converged upon his beastly claws, coalescing into a golden talon capable of rending the very cosmos. His target was singular and absolute: Qin Feng, currently caught in a moment of vulnerability.

This strike traversed space-time, sealed causality, and carried the unwavering resolve of an Emperor’s kill.

"Don't you dare!"

Within the human imperial battlefield, a human Sovereign engaged in a fierce duel let out a heaven-shaking roar.

He had sensed the Golden Emperor’s intent, his heart burning with frantic anxiety.

Forcing a sliver of his consciousness away, he kept his physical body locked in combat with his opponent, while the towering, heaven-supporting avatar behind him spun abruptly. A massive hand, forged from infinite divine light, lashed out to intercept the Golden Emperor’s world-destroying claw.

Yet, his opponent—an Abyss Demon Emperor wielding a demonic blade—would never let such a fleeting opening slip by.

"Heh heh heh... distracted while dueling me? Die!"

The Abyss Demon Emperor sneered, and upon his blade, a terrifying law capable of withering all things and extinguishing the Great Dao surged wildly.

Seizing the moment, he brought his supreme blade, imbued with the law of "Extinction," down upon the human Sovereign’s avatar with brutal, unadorned force.

"Screech—!"

A teeth-grinding sound of tearing echoed through the void.

The human Sovereign’s massive avatar was cleaved open on the spot, a wound so deep it reached the core.

Black laws of extinction clung to the wound like maggots, devouring the avatar’s essence and causing its radiance to instantly dim.

"Pfft!"

The Sovereign’s true body suffered a grievous blow, vomiting a spray of golden imperial blood as his aura plummeted.

A single moment of distraction had cost him dearly.

His hastily cast divine ability was shattered by the Golden Emperor’s claw.

The human imperial battlefield, due to this failed rescue, instantly fell into a disadvantage.

The Golden Emperor’s golden talon, now unimpeded, continued its crushing descent toward Qin Feng with irresistible momentum.

The supreme pressure of an Emperor made Qin Feng feel once more like an ant gazing up at a dragon—powerless and suffocating.

His life force was being compressed; death seemed an inevitable conclusion.

Yet, just as the golden claw of death was about to touch Qin Feng—

A figure appeared before him, silent as a ghost, without a single ripple of warning.

His black hair danced without wind; his frame was not particularly hulking, yet his straight spine seemed capable of holding up the entire sky for the human race.

It was Qin Feng’s master, the pinnacle among human Kings—the Heaven-Swallowing King!

He had abandoned his opponent on the King-level battlefield, using his own body as a shield, standing firm as a King against a true, blood-blooded Emperor!

"Heaven-Swallowing! You have some nerve!"

The Golden Emperor’s roar, thunderous and dripping with majesty and contempt, exploded in the King’s ears, causing the surrounding stars to crumble and collapse. "A mere King, even if you reign supreme among your peers, you dare to block my path?!"

Facing the questioning and pressure of an Emperor, the Heaven-Swallowing King felt no fear. Instead, his hair stood on end as he tilted his head back and let out a wild laugh filled with boundless heroism and towering hatred! "Hahahaha! Golden Emperor! What a fine Golden Emperor!"

His laughter shook the universe, his eyes burning with the fire of vengeance and the resolve of a guardian!

"Years ago, you ambushed my dear friend, the Guluo King, causing him to fall in bitterness. That blood debt has yet to be settled! And today, you wish to touch my beloved disciple right before my eyes?!"

Before the words faded, the Heaven-Swallowing King’s aura climbed step by step, a terrifying energy that devoured all things and returned them to nothingness erupting into the sky!

"If you want to kill him, you must step over my corpse first!"

A vast black hole, blotting out the sun, rapidly evolved and took shape in his hands.

Deep and dark, it seemed to connect to the end of the universe, radiating a devouring force that would make even other Kings tremble in terror!

The next moment, this black hole, representing "Devouring" and "Ending," collided head-on with the Golden Emperor’s claw of "Power" and "Destruction," under the gaze of countless shocked onlookers!

"Boom—!!!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a void of absolute nothingness that swallowed both light and sound.

At the center of the collision, the laws of space were utterly chaotic, forming a zone of primordial chaos more terrifying than the heart of a cosmic black hole.

The figures of the Heaven-Swallowing King and the Golden Emperor were instantly engulfed by the violent spiritual energy and shattered spatial laws.

The two vanished into a newly opened void battlefield, locked in a primal, brutal struggle!

...

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.

Qin Feng’s gaze remained locked upon the star-beast that had just entered the fray, clad in resplendent golden armor.

Its size was immense, like a drifting golden continent, surrounded by the phantoms of a billion stars, every plate of its armor etched with ancient, tyrannical divine runes.

Its mere presence caused the surrounding void to groan under the weight.

The Emperor of the Golden-Armored Behemoths—the Golden Emperor!

"Golden Emperor..."

Qin Feng chewed the name silently between his teeth!

His pupils contracted to the limit, turning into two dangerous needles capable of piercing through the ages.

It was not because of the opponent’s terrifying imperial strength, nor the killing intent that had sought to rend the universe to reach him, but because this name had touched a long-sealed, deeply etched contract within his heart!

It was the final request of the Guluo King!

Back in the ruins of the Guluo King, before the last remnant soul of that brilliant Feather-race monarch, Qin Feng had sworn an oath to resolve the greatest regret of the Guluo King’s life—the Golden Emperor!

Fate!

How ridiculous, and how cruel, this fate was!

Qin Feng had never imagined that he would encounter this fated enemy, the one who bore his contract, in such a manner, upon a battlefield so tragic and extreme!

He had not even begun to hunt for him, yet the enemy had descended as one of the final assassins sent by the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races to snuff him out!

"So... it is you!"

Qin Feng stared fixedly at the chaotic battlefield churned by the black hole and the golden claw, watching his master, the Heaven-Swallowing King, stand tall as a King against the might of an Emperor, a surge of indescribable agitation rising in his heart.

"Hahaha! Golden Emperor, you killed my dear friend the Guluo King, and I have yet to settle that debt! Today, you wish to touch my beloved disciple?!"

The Heaven-Swallowing King’s wild laughter shook the heavens, containing the grief and killing intent of ages past.

His duel with the Golden Emperor was not merely a conflict between the human race and the ten thousand races, but a personal vendetta born of a friend’s death!

The chain reaction of the battle reached its peak.

Just as the Heaven-Swallowing King and the Golden Emperor fell into their frenzied struggle, another incomparably powerful aura erupted from the camp of the ten thousand races.

It was a Demon King with a single horn, wreathed in the laws of extinction. Seeing this fleeting opening, he transformed into a beam of extinction light, bypassed the imperial battlefield, and lunged straight for Qin Feng!

"How dare you!"

From the human ranks, a thunderous roar erupted, shattering the heavens.

A human King, bathed in crackling lightning, snapped his thunder-wings wide; a billion lightning dragons surged forth as he traversed the void in an instant, planting himself firmly before the demonic King. The two titans collided with a cataclysmic boom, carving out a separate, harrowing battlefield of kings.

Thus, a precarious equilibrium descended upon the fray.

At the zenith of power, the Lord of Limits and the mysterious Lord of the Alien Alliance waged a war in another dimension, a spectacle beyond the reach of mortal eyes.

On the Imperial battlefield, human Emperors and the myriad races, alongside the frenzied, Chaos-corrupted zealots of Khorne, were locked in a bloody, suffocating slaughter.

On the King-level front, the Heaven-Swallowing King stood alone against the Golden Emperor, while other Kings found their own rivals, locked in duels that defied resolution.

In the Marquis-level theater, Marquis Qingtian and his one hundred and twenty resurrected warriors charged like a pack of wolves into the enemy ranks, their suicidal, life-for-life tactics relieving the crushing pressure on their human kin.

No one could easily withdraw; no one could pose a direct threat to Qin Feng any longer.

Yet, the Alliance’s resolve to extinguish the "Founder of the Divine Path" was absolute, a mandate to be fulfilled at any cost. Their murderous intent did not wane simply because their high-tier forces were occupied.

In that fleeting, unguarded vacuum, a bolt of blood-red lightning, saturated with bottomless malice and hysterical intent, tore itself free from the chaotic fray of the enemy Marquises!

The figure moved with impossible speed, as if burning his very soul and foundation. Ignoring the intercepting laws of a human Marquis, he took a blow head-on, spat blood, and used the momentum to transform into a crimson streak that pierced the battlefield, locking his killing intent onto Qin Feng with inescapable, lethal precision!

"Qin Feng, you whelp, yield your life!"

The venomous roar spanned the vast expanse of space, striking the depths of Qin Feng’s soul like the most wretched of curses.

It was him!

The Blood-Butcher Marquis!

The beast-kin powerhouse who had sworn an eternal blood feud against Qin Feng following the death of the Old Apothecary!

His eyes were no longer natural; they were two burning, crimson suns of madness, reflecting nothing but the terrifyingly calm face of Qin Feng.

For this day, he had waited far too long!

From the Twin Rivers to the Red Feather Pass, and now to the outskirts of the Dead Meteor Island, this hatred had fermented and twisted within him, becoming the sole obsession that kept him alive!

Qin Feng’s gaze sharpened, a surge of battle-lust rising from every particle of his Limit-Body.

Three millennia of seclusion had more than doubled his strength, and he yearned to test his current prowess against a veteran Marquis.

But reason, cold as eternal ice, instantly extinguished the impulse.

This was the cosmic battlefield, a meat grinder for the greatest powers of two factions, and an altar watched by the Chaos Gods!

The variables were too many; any hesitation could trigger an unpredictable chain reaction.

He could not fight!

Not here!

Without a moment’s hesitation, Qin Feng turned, pushing his speed to the absolute limit of his existence.

His form dissolved into a streak of light, invisible to the naked eye and elusive even to divine sense, fleeing desperately toward the deeper, darker reaches of the cosmos, far from the carnage.

"Where do you think you’re going!"

The Blood-Butcher Marquis, possessed by madness, let out a heaven-shaking roar.

He transformed into a crimson rainbow, trailing close behind, biting at Qin Feng’s heels.

A hunt of life and death, belonging only to the two of them, unfolded across the endless sea of stars, set against the backdrop of a grand battlefield where Emperors bled and chaos reigned!

...

Time flowed like water, years passing in the blink of an eye.

To a mortal, a millennium is enough for a glorious dynasty to rise and fall, enough for the seas to turn into mulberry fields.

But for beings of Qin Feng and the Blood-Butcher’s caliber, a thousand years was merely a protracted chase.

Qin Feng’s cruising speed, sustained by the near-infinite spiritual energy of his Limit-Body, had stabilized at a terrifying ten thousand times the speed of light.

Like a tireless meteor, he streaked past silent star systems and the dust of ancient civilizations, keeping that crimson light behind him at a dangerous, yet constant, distance.

He could have shaken his pursuer.

Had he spent his thirty peak-domain treasure arrays to unleash his ultimate speed, he could have left the Blood-Butcher behind in an instant.

But he did not.

Qin Feng wanted this fight; he wanted to test his strength.

And the Blood-Butcher, like a hound from the abyss, followed with a hatred etched into his very marrow.

The killing intent in his eyes only grew more concentrated and pure as time wore on.

Finally, in the one thousand and twenty-third year of the chase.

As Qin Feng sped through a nebula of dark matter, his form suddenly faltered and came to a halt without warning.

Behind him, the crimson light that had pursued him for a millennium also stopped. The Blood-Butcher appeared, his aura withered, yet the madness in his eyes burned brighter than ever.

"What? Done running?!"

The Blood-Butcher’s voice was hoarse and cruel. "Finally exhausted your essence, ready to bow your head for the slaughter?"

Qin Feng ignored the taunts, his brow furrowed as he scanned the surroundings with vigilance.

They had stumbled into a region of profound strangeness.

The dark, cold void that obeyed the fundamental laws of the universe had vanished here.

In its place lay a boundless, silent continent, shrouded by a blood-red barrier as thick as reality itself.

The continent was gargantuan, stretching beyond the reach of sight.

The earth was dark red, as if soaked in the blood of gods and demons for eons; the sky was a gray haze, devoid of stars, sun, or moon, heavy with a heart-stopping oppression.

Most bizarre was the crimson barrier, an inverted bowl sealing the continent from the universe outside.

Qin Feng could feel a supreme, incomprehensible force of law flowing across the barrier, as if it were a cage forged by an indescribable entity.

He and the Blood-Butcher had wandered into this prison without even realizing it.

Just as they stood in uncertainty, a cold, ruthless, and emotionless will descended like divine judgment from the heavens, branding itself directly into the deepest reaches of their souls!

It was not a voice, nor was it text, but a pure, immutable command of law.

[Welcome to the Blood-Red Arena.]

[Rule: Slaughter every living thing you see.]

[Time Limit: None.]

[Reward: The sole survivor shall earn the right to depart and receive the Arena’s 'gift'.]

[Penalty: None. For the loser, death is the only outcome.]

As the cold brand solidified, the grand will receded like a tide, as if it had never been.

Qin Feng and the Blood-Butcher shuddered violently in unison!

The uncertainty on their faces instantly dissolved into overwhelming horror!

The Blood-Red Arena?

Slaughter every living soul?

The sole survivor?

Qin Feng cast his gaze around; upon this vast, terrifyingly silent, dark-red continent, he could sense no other presence save for the Blood-Butcher Marquis standing before him.

The air was thick with the cloying, inescapable scent of rust, and a tyrannical will that beckoned toward madness and bloodlust—a force more pure and ancient than the whispers of Khorne on the battlefield beyond.

The only path forward lay clear before them.

Either you perish, or I die!

...

Time retreats a millennium.

That frontier of the cosmos, long since battered into a state of primordial chaos, had been burning for a century.

A hundred years of time.

This battlefield bore no resemblance to its original form.

The billions of stars that once hung here had been utterly erased in the opening moments by the shockwaves of imperial-level combat, reduced to the most primitive cosmic dust.

Now, it was a true wasteland of chaos.

Spatial rifts spread like spiderwebs; behind even the most minute fissure could lie a deadly abyss leading to unknown dimensions or turbulent voids.

The flow of time here had become profoundly unstable. In some regions, time seemed slowed a million-fold, where a single drop of divine blood might hang suspended for ten thousand years without falling.

In other regions, time accelerated with frantic intensity; a fragment of a star might endure billions of years of evolution in an instant, passing from birth to extinction.

The laws of reality had completely collapsed and fallen into disarray.

The laws of fire and ice were twisted together in bizarre, interlaced patterns, forming iridescent "law-swamps" where any creature that dared to intrude was instantly torn into its most basic particles.

The collision between the laws of life and death had birthed countless deformed, distorted "subspace monsters," devoid of consciousness, knowing only how to attack anything that drew near.

This place had become a forbidden zone of life that would make even gods and demons tremble.

Yet, the war continued.

Only, the nature of this conflict had, amidst a century of blood and fire, undergone a quiet and chilling transformation.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

A Bear-kin King from the Alliance of Myriad Races, his form as massive as a mountain, roared with eyes burning blood-red, his voice no longer that of a sentient being.

He had abandoned all refined laws and divine arts, choosing only to swing his great palms—stained dark crimson by divine blood—in a frenzied assault against the Human King before him.

His opponent, that Human King, fared no better.

His once-elegant robes were shredded, his body covered in wounds deep enough to reveal bone, yet his eyes burned with the same madness and brutality. Ignoring his own injuries, he mechanically and hysterically drove his life-bound flying sword, carving new gashes into the Bear-kin King.

Their battle had long since lost all tactics and reason; it was more akin to a primal, barbaric exchange of mutual destruction.

And scenes such as this were playing out in every corner of this vast battlefield.

Kings bled out, and Marquises fell like rain.

The great war was far too terrible!

(End of chapter)