Chapter 360: Pursued and Killed by Emperor Ranks, Escaping from Death! The Vanguard's Great Name Spreads Far and Wide

Chapter 360: Imperial Pursuit, A Daring Escape! Vanguard’s Renown Spreads! The Yaoguang Inheritance!

Upon stepping into that strange space, isolated from the currents of time and causality, Qin Feng’s mechanical avatar, "Vanguard," beheld a solitary figure.

It was not a physical entity, but a humanoid silhouette forged from the pure radiance of laws, sitting silently in the heart of the void, surrounded by the phantasms of a billion stars being born and dying, exuding an aura both ancient and vast.

This was the imprint of the will left behind by the Venerable Yaoguang.

There were no words, no greetings.

The moment Qin Feng’s gaze met that phantom, a "debate of the Dao" spanning a million years began.

This was no clash of tongues, but a collision of wills, a dialogue between the Great Daos themselves.

At the onset, the phantom of Venerable Yaoguang manifested the chaos of the universe’s dawn, before the birth of all laws.

Countless fundamental threads of law emerged, weaving into a web that constructed the underlying logic of matter, energy, space, and time.

The test was of Qin Feng’s foundational understanding of the "Dao."

Facing such a magnificent cosmic tapestry, Qin Feng did not hesitate, responding with his own [Dao of Extremity].

His Dao lacked such complex and arcane evolutions.

In the world of Qin Feng’s will, there was no chaos—only "One."

A pure, infinitely condensed "Primordial Singularity."

This singularity was everything; it required no evolution, for it contained all possibilities within itself.

Venerable Yaoguang’s law was "Creation," building a perfect world from nothingness.

Qin Feng’s law was "Unity," the source of all things returning to the ultimate.

When the spatial laws of the Venerable attempted to construct a stable universe, Qin Feng’s will became an unreasonable force, neither analyzing nor bypassing, but piercing and shattering it with pure power, forcibly compressing it into a point of higher density.

When the temporal laws attempted to display the mysteries of the ages, Qin Feng’s will became a barrier of absolute stillness; the river of time, crashing against it, could not stir it, but was instead drawn in and twisted by its terrifying mass, eventually stagnating.

It was a "barbaric" way of debating.

It followed no logic, observed no rules, and simply used the core concept of "Extremity" to overwrite, assimilate, and terminate all other laws.

The phantom of Venerable Yaoguang fell silent for a long time, seemingly contemplating this unprecedented and domineering path.

For a full hundred thousand years, both sides remained locked in this fundamental clash and fusion of laws; Qin Feng’s [Dao of Extremity] was tempered and validated as never before through its constant collision with the will of a Venerable-level powerhouse.

After the test of foundations, Venerable Yaoguang began to interrogate Qin Feng’s "heart."

Within the space of the debate, illusions bloomed.

Qin Feng was cast into the eve of humanity’s extinction, facing unbeatable foes, watching his kin, mentors, and comrades die one by one, leaving him alone to bear the weight of blood-feuds and utter despair.

The test was whether he could guard his true self amidst such agony and hatred, without descending into madness.

Qin Feng’s will became an eternal iceberg; no matter how the torrents of despair lashed against it, he remained unmoved.

His heart had been tempered by countless brushes with death, harder than divine gold.

Pain and hatred were merely fuel for his journey, not shackles to shake his Dao heart.

At other times, he was placed at the pinnacle of the universe, a god whose words became law, revered by all races.

Exquisite goddesses, boundless territories, eternal life, and power to satisfy every whim—all desires were within his grasp.

The test was whether he could remain clear-headed before such absolute authority and temptation, without losing himself to power.

Qin Feng’s will merely surveyed it all with indifference.

He pursued power, but was never enslaved by it.

The [Path of Extremity] he walked was destined to be a journey of endless solitude; any worldly pleasure was but dust on this path, unworthy of a glance.

More extreme still, Venerable Yaoguang manifested a "shortcut"—a path nearly identical to the [Dao of Extremity] but one that promised a faster, easier ascension to godhood.

This path required only that Qin Feng abandon a sliver of "purity" and accept other laws as supplements, saving him billions of years of toil.

Facing this temptation that struck at the root of his Dao, Qin Feng’s will fluctuated violently for the first time. It was not wavering, but fury!

The [Dao of Extremity] was defined by its purity and singularity!

A deviation of a hair’s breadth would lead to a thousand miles of error!

Any compromise would cause the entire foundation of his Dao to collapse!

"My Dao requires no shortcuts!"

A domineering will swept across the space, tearing all illusions to shreds.

The light of Venerable Yaoguang’s phantom seemed to brighten, revealing a hint of approval.

Through these four hundred thousand years of tempering, Qin Feng’s Dao heart had been hammered and refined, becoming transparent and resolute, like a piece of glazed divine iron purged of all impurities.

Having passed the dual tests of foundation and character, Venerable Yaoguang finally began the true "transmission of the Dao."

This time, it was no longer a confrontation, but pure demonstration and instruction.

Venerable Yaoguang began to manifest all he had learned in his life.

A brilliant light shot from the phantom’s fingertip, constructing a complete model of laws before Qin Feng.

This was the core of the [Yaoguang Law], a powerful law using "light" as a carrier, possessing properties of speed, purification, insight, and energy conversion.

Following this came countless world-shaking secret techniques created based on the [Yaoguang Law].

There was the movement technique capable of crossing galaxies in a single thought—"Great Derivation Light Escape."

There was the supreme divine art capable of purifying all negative states and even repairing the origin of the soul—"World-Cleansing Chapter."

There was the devastating art that converted any energy into the purest, most destructive beams of light—"Nine Heavens and Ten Earths Annihilation Light."

...

Each of these techniques would drive an Imperial-level powerhouse to madness.

Yet, Qin Feng did not immerse himself in learning these techniques.

Instead, from the perspective of an observer, he analyzed and understood how Venerable Yaoguang had deduced and created such a complex and powerful system of laws from the most basic "Law of Light."

He was not learning to "fish," but learning the "art of fishing."

He was verifying and perfecting his own [Dao of Extremity].

Qin Feng’s [Dao of Extremity] was "purity," the return from the "ten thousand" to the "one."

The two were diametrically opposed, yet shared a profound commonality in their most fundamental logic.

Qin Feng hungrily absorbed the wisdom of Venerable Yaoguang; though his [Law of Extremity] did not directly advance, his understanding of how to "construct" and "perfect" a Great Dao soared at a terrifying speed.

This laid an incredibly solid theoretical foundation for him to eventually push his [Path of Extremity] to the divine level.

The five hundred thousand years of transmission were less a legacy and more a master opening his Dao without reservation to a gifted successor, allowing him to observe and learn.

A million years of time drifted quietly away within the space of the debate.

When the final thread of law-insight was absorbed by Qin Feng, the light of Venerable Yaoguang’s phantom became unprecedentedly soft.

He seemed to be making a final assessment, his gaze piercing through the mechanical body of "Vanguard" to see the more powerful and pure human soul origin hidden behind it.

Finally, the phantom nodded slowly, seemingly letting out a silent sigh—one containing gratification, expectation, and the relief of having entrusted his legacy to another.

In the next instant, the entire realm of discourse began to tremble violently.

The phantom of Venerable Yaoguang dissolved into billions of motes of light, cascading like a meteor shower toward the center of the void.

The light condensed and contracted until, at last, a jade slip as vast as a planet manifested from thin air.

Etched upon its surface were countless arcane runes, each one seemingly containing the fundamental truths of a universe’s birth and decay.

A boundless torrent of information surged forth; merely drawing near caused Qin Feng’s soul to ache with a sense of overwhelming saturation.

This was the crystallization of Venerable Yaoguang’s life’s work, the entirety of his legacy.

As Qin Feng’s consciousness touched the planetary jade slip, before he could probe even a ten-thousandth of its contents, an irresistible force of repulsion struck him.

"Hum—!"

His entire consciousness, along with the colossal legacy, was instantly ejected.

...

Outside, in the Yaoguang Secret Realm.

A full year had passed since Qin Feng entered the third trial.

Beyond the realm, the atmosphere was thick with gathering storms.

The tens of thousands of powerhouses who had originally surrounded the entrance had swelled to hundreds of thousands.

Interstellar warships, radiating a frigid intent to kill, sat like steel beasts lurking in the dark, sealing the star sector tight.

Powerful, hidden auras wove through the void, constructing an inescapable web of heaven and earth.

The name "Vanguard" had, over the past year, spread across dozens of neighboring star sectors.

He had slain the divine prodigy, King Cangtian, in a single strike!

He had crushed the first two trials of the Yaoguang legacy with ease!

He had become the sole contender for the final trial!

Everyone assumed the legacy was already his to claim.

This glory had brought with it a lethal harvest.

A complete legacy of a Venerable was enough to drive any being below the rank of Emperor to madness. Countless self-proclaimed Kings had arrived from every corner, driven by a single purpose: to kill and plunder.

Just as the crowd waited in anxious anticipation, a sudden change occurred!

"Rumble—!"

The massive gate of light, suspended in the cosmos, began to shudder without warning.

The space fractured like a shattered mirror, with jagged fissures spreading wildly across its surface.

"The realm is collapsing!"

"He succeeded! He obtained the legacy! This is the sign of the trial’s end!"

"Prepare to strike!"

A roar, stifled by greed and excitement, erupted from the crowd.

In an instant, hundreds of thousands of gazes locked onto the exit, their murderous intent boiling to a fever pitch!

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Just before the realm disintegrated entirely, figures were forcibly ejected by the violent spatial forces.

These were the prodigies and powerhouses who had failed the first or second trials but remained to watch.

They had barely emerged into the deep cosmos, still reeling from the vertigo of teleportation, when they were struck with terror by the lethal, bristling formation before them.

"What is happening?!"

"So many powerhouses... what are they waiting for?"

Then, a figure shrouded in brilliant radiance was cast out.

Tall and composed of a strange, metallic material with an unfathomable aura, it was Qin Feng’s avatar—Vanguard!

Before him, a planetary, translucent phantom of the jade slip flickered once before being absorbed into his body.

Despite the fleeting glimpse, the vast aura of the Venerable was clearly captured by every powerhouse present!

"It’s the legacy jade slip!"

"He really succeeded! He obtained the Venerable’s legacy!"

Someone in the crowd shrieked hysterically.

That cry acted as the fuse to a powder keg.

"Kill him!"

"Hand over the legacy!"

"A Venerable’s legacy belongs to the virtuous! A machine race creature of unknown origin is not worthy!"

Greed had utterly vanquished reason.

At the very same moment, over one hundred thousand Kings launched their long-planned, lethal attacks from every direction!

"Boom—!!!"

In an instant, the cosmos bled!

Hundreds of thousands of law-based attacks coalesced into a storm that swept across the stars.

Divine light, demonic flames, sword qi, and blade energy—a torrent of destructive, multicolored energy converged, completely submerging the area where Qin Feng stood. The space was instantly torn asunder and annihilated, reduced to a chaotic void.

Such a terrifying concentrated barrage would have doomed even a newly ascended Emperor, had they been caught unprepared.

Yet, from the center of the destructive storm, a cold, emotionless voice rang out clearly.

"You court death."

Before the words had faded, a beam of pure, absolute black light erupted from the heart of the storm!

The black light was neither large nor brilliant; it was almost dim.

But the moment it appeared, all the violent laws surrounding it recoiled as if facing a natural predator, forcibly erased and returned to nothingness!

[Ultimate Divine Light]!

The black light flashed, instantly clearing a vast, fan-shaped sector.

Within that zone, thousands of Kings, along with their attacks, were "erased" from the universe before they could even scream, leaving not a single trace of their existence behind!

This terrifying and eerie sight caused the frenzied wave of attacks to stall for a heartbeat.

In that moment of hesitation, Qin Feng moved.

His mechanical body erupted with unparalleled speed, striking like a bolt of black lightning toward a formation of a hundred prodigies on the left.

Leading that formation was one of the three men once hailed as most likely to claim the legacy, the "Feeder on Pain," the Heartless Demon Son!

"Vanguard! You dare!"

The Heartless Demon Son was shocked and enraged; he had not expected that, in such a desperate situation, the enemy would not flee but instead launch a counter-attack!

With a thunderous roar, he surged with billowing, pitch-black demonic energy, a terrifying avatar of ten thousand wailing demons manifesting behind him as he pointed a finger at Qin Feng.

"The Myriad Demon Heart-Erosion Finger!"

This strike contained such boundless agony and resentment that it could shatter the Dao heart of even a King-level powerhouse.

Yet, Qin Feng paid no heed to his law-based assault.

Through a million years of debating the Dao, his will had long since been tempered to be impervious to all techniques.

That soul-corroding demonic energy could not even draw near his physical form.

Facing a finger strike capable of piercing the stars, Qin Feng’s choice was simple and brutal.

He clenched his fist and struck out.

No fluctuations of law, no radiance of energy, only pure, extreme physical force.

His fist collided with the fingertip of the Heartless Demon Son in the vacuum with a deafening boom!

"Crack—!"

A crisp, teeth-grinding sound of shattering bone echoed through the void.

In the Heartless Demon Son’s eyes of disbelief, his finger, comparable to a top-tier King-level treasure, broke inch by inch!

An irresistible, terrifying force destroyed his protective demonic aura like dry wood and surged into his body.

"Puff!"

The entire body of the Heartless Demon Son, like a watermelon struck by a giant hammer, exploded into a mist of blood!

Even the dozens of prodigies behind him were caught in the aftermath of the punch, their divine bodies cracking and dying on the spot!

One punch, and the King-ranked prodigy, the Heartless Demon Son, was obliterated!

This bloody and shocking scene fell like a basin of ice water upon the heads of all those gone mad.

"The Demon Son... is dead?"

"One punch? How is it possible! That was the Heartless Demon Son!"

After a brief, deathly silence came an even greater panic.

And Qin Feng’s slaughter had only just begun.

He turned his form, like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, and charged into another formation composed of countless powerhouses.

His fighting style discarded all flashy techniques.

It was nothing but the simplest of charges, punches, and sweeps.

Any enemy standing before him, whether a peak King-level powerhouse or a prodigy bearing exotic treasures, could not withstand a single blow. His mechanical body was hardened to an unfathomable degree; countless King-level treasures striking it could only spark, unable to leave even a white mark.

Every punch he threw inevitably blasted a King-level powerhouse into a spray of flesh and blood.

Every sweep he made cleared a vast area of the void.

For a time, blood flowed like a river, and the universe bled!

This was no longer a battle; it was a one-sided massacre!

"Madman! He is a madman!"

"Run! We are no match for him! His strength has definitely reached the Emperor-level!"

"Fairy Linglong was crushed to death by his foot! Flee, quickly!"

Fear spread like a plague.

The hundreds of thousands of troops, once imposing, completely collapsed under Qin Feng’s ten minutes of bloody slaughter.

Countless beings were terrified out of their wits, turning to flee, wishing only that they had been born with more legs.

Qin Feng looked coldly at the scattering figures, not bothering to pursue. His goal was to establish prestige and strike fear, not to kill every last one of them.

However, just as he prepared to depart the battlefield, a pressure countless times more terrifying than all previous enemies combined descended without warning!

"Hum—!"

Four beams of light, like pillars of heaven, tore through the void from four different directions of the universe and arrived in an instant!

The light dissipated, revealing four majestic figures whose auras were as deep as the sea, their mere presence causing the surrounding stars to tremble.

They were of different forms: a Winged Race member with golden wings, a Flame Demon composed entirely of lava, a Void Race member shifting like a nebula, and a Necromancer riding a throne of white bone.

Yet, the aura they emitted—transcending the King-level, commanding the laws of speech, and holding the authority of a sector of the universe—was identical!

Emperors!

And four Emperors of the myriad races, arriving in unison!

"Heh, what grand airs. A mere newly-ascended King dares to slaughter the prodigies of our races."

The Winged Emperor spoke coldly, his voice seemingly containing the power of supreme judgment.

"Hand over the Yaoguang inheritance and commit suicide here; this Emperor may leave your corpse intact."

The Flame Emperor’s voice was like a billion volcanoes erupting at once, filled with the will of destruction.

Clearly, they had received word long ago and had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for the final "fruit" to ripen.

Seeing Qin Feng display such terrifying combat power, they finally stopped waiting and chose to enter the fray themselves!

In Qin Feng’s mechanical eyes, data streams flashed frantically, instantly analyzing the situation—a dead end!

Facing one Emperor, he might be able to maneuver for a while.

But facing the combined siege of four Emperors, he had no chance of victory.

Four Emperors united: sealing space, severing paths of life, locking the soul, and rotting the foundation!

This was a kill-box, a siege of the highest specification against a King, one worthy of being recorded in the annals of the myriad races.

Facing such a desperate situation, data streams surged in his electronic eyes at a speed billions of times faster than light, calculating trillions of possibilities, yet the final result always pointed to one word—"Death." Conventional means offered no hope of survival.

Therefore, he could only use unconventional means.

"Limitless Divine Light."

The cold voice carried not a hint of emotion.

This time, what erupted from his body was not a focused beam of black light, but a three-hundred-sixty-degree, omnidirectional black "spherical" explosion!

He released the power of the Limitless Divine Light in an extremely wasteful and brutal manner, in every direction simultaneously!

That pure, conceptual power of "erasure" collided violently with the laws of the four Emperors.

"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—"

The space seal was erased, revealing a fleeting gap.

The apocalyptic lava was erased, clearing a zone of absolute vacuum.

The sword of judgment was erased, turning to nothingness mid-flight.

The wither curse was also forcibly scoured away by this overbearing power, temporarily severing the connection to the Bone Emperor.

In a single instant, Qin Feng created for himself a momentary, "absolutely safe" gap.

Yet, the price was staggering.

Such reckless detonation of the Ultimate Divine Light sent a tearing agony through his soul, which had only just begun to recover, while his mechanical core was drained of nearly thirty percent of its energy in a single heartbeat.

But he did not hesitate for a moment.

"Hum!"

Behind his mechanical frame, countless precision components shifted and locked, instantly forging a pair of massive metallic wings.

These were no mere decoration; they were short-range burst thrusters he had crafted by combining his understanding of mechanics with the principles of the captured "Crimson Gold Wings."

With a single beat of these wings, Qin Feng’s body transformed into a streak of light invisible to the naked eye, plunging headlong into the breach he had torn through the fabric of space.

"Stop him!"

The Feathered Sovereign roared.

But it was already too late.

The path Qin Feng chose for his breakout was not the open expanse of deep space, but a "Sea of Chaotic Rocks," a region already churned into madness by the gravitational pull of celestial bodies.

It was a realm choked with countless high-speed meteoroids, planetary debris, and volatile spatial turbulence.

For the colossal Sovereigns, this was a nightmare of a battlefield for pursuit.

But for the agile Qin Feng, it was the ultimate sanctuary.

A cosmic manhunt spanning three millennia had begun its bloody prologue.

Upon entering the Sea of Chaotic Rocks, Qin Feng found no true respite.

Though the four Sovereigns could not simultaneously enter the narrow, chaotic corridors, they adopted a strategy of coordinated encirclement.

The Lord of Nothingness shifted space along the perimeter, attempting to "package" and excise the entire star field.

The Flame Demon Sovereign ignited meteoroids and derelict planets one by one, turning them into hellish fireballs for indiscriminate carpet bombing.

And the swiftest of them all, the Feathered Sovereign, entered the fray personally, becoming a golden bolt of lethal lightning, hunting Qin Feng directly through the asteroid fields.

"Boom!"

A massive meteoroid, over three thousand kilometers in diameter, was sliced silently in two by a mere flick of the Feathered Sovereign’s wings, the cut as smooth as a mirror.

Qin Feng’s silhouette passed through that gap with hair-raising precision.

He dared not linger; every thruster on his mechanical body ran at overload, performing extreme evasive maneuvers through the impenetrable rain of stone that no mortal could fathom.

Behind him trailed the relentless golden light, each flicker signaling a patch of space purged by the Light of Judgment.

For three full centuries, Qin Feng lived in this high-intensity chase.

His processing power was pushed to its limit, forced to handle billions of external data points every instant to calculate the singular path to survival.

During this time, he was struck head-on by the Feathered Sovereign’s Sword of Judgment three times.

The first time, his left arm was severed at the shoulder, the wound scorched by golden flames that gnawed at his chassis.

He did not hesitate, instantly detonating the entire limb and using the shockwave to propel himself into the distance, barely escaping.

The second time, his back thrusters were pierced, crippling his mobility.

He was forced to land on a derelict mining planet, engaging in guerrilla warfare amidst the complex terrain.

In the end, he detonated the planet’s core, creating a catastrophe rivaling a supernova, which allowed him to vanish into the darkness once more.

The third time, his head was grazed by the Light of Judgment; half of his mechanical skull was vaporized, damaging his core processor and causing his movements to seize for a split second.

In that very instant, the Feathered Sovereign descended before him.

"It ends here, insect."

The Sovereign pronounced coldly, pointing a finger toward his head.

At that critical juncture, the Bone Sovereign, who had been lurking on the periphery, struck in a bid to claim the glory, sensing victory was at hand.

A curse of "Soul Shackles" crossed the void, attempting to bind Qin Feng’s spirit.

Yet, this curse became Qin Feng’s lifeline.

Two opposing forces of Sovereign-level power clashed subtly within him.

The Feathered Sovereign’s Law of Light and the Bone Sovereign’s Law of Death were inherently repulsive.

This 0.001-second collision of laws bought Qin Feng a precious moment of reprieve.

His shattered body was blasted away like a cannonball, disappearing deep into the heart of the chaotic rocks.

In the first millennium, at the cost of an arm, a thruster, and half a skull, Qin Feng had successfully torn a hole through the most dangerous frontal encirclement.

Even after escaping the Sea of Chaotic Rocks, Qin Feng was not safe.

The four Sovereigns had long since marked him with various tracking imprints.

No matter where he fled, they could roughly lock onto his position.

The hunt continued.

Yet, after a millennium of attrition and Qin Feng’s endless desperate gambits, the four Sovereigns grew more cautious, abandoning easy encirclement for a strategy of rotating pursuit and constant exhaustion.

This gave Qin Feng a sliver of room to breathe and strike back.

He began to live like a true cosmic wanderer, traversing desolate, remote, and perilous star sectors.

He once hid for fifty years within the "Ghost Nebula," utilizing its ability to shield divine sense.

During this time, he repaired his broken body while frantically deconstructing the "Judgment Imprint" tracking his soul.

Eventually, he crafted a perfect decoy, successfully deceiving the Flame Demon Sovereign during a devastating search and buying himself a precious century of time.

He also lingered on the edges of the "Space-Time Tides."

There, the flow of time was erratic, shifting from lightning-fast to deathly still.

Relying on his immense computational power and keen perception of space-time, he wove through the gaps in the tides, leaving the Lord of Nothingness behind several times.

Once, he even utilized a violent space-time reversal to shatter a spatial cage laid by the Lord of Nothingness, causing it to collapse inward and briefly trap the Sovereign himself.

The most dangerous encounter occurred when the Bone Sovereign cornered him in an ancient battlefield ruin known as the "Graveyard of Ten Thousand Bones."

The Bone Sovereign was in his element here.

He summoned billions of ancient vengeful spirits and skeletal armies, turning the entire graveyard into his absolute domain.

Qin Feng was submerged in an endless sea of the undead, his mechanical energy draining at a frantic pace.

In the face of certain death, he made a mad decision.

He stopped fleeing and charged toward the very center of the graveyard, where the skeletal remains of a beast—suspected to be of Sovereign-level and dead for untold eons—lay dormant.

Using his own body as a conduit, he poured his remaining energy into the remains, awakening a sliver of the beast’s undying obsession!

"Roar—!"

A roar that transcended time erupted from the massive skeleton.

A terrifying aura of a Sovereign exploded outward!

The awakened remnant soul of the beast, indifferent to friend or foe, unleashed an indiscriminate assault on everything within its domain.

The undead legion summoned by the Bone Emperor shattered like bubbles before this crushing pressure.

Even the Bone Emperor himself was forced back repeatedly by the Sovereign’s might, daring not to face its edge.

Qin Feng, utilizing his exquisite control over the Limitless Divine Light, forged a tiny zone of absolute vacuum around him, shielding himself from the brunt of the pressure and slipping away amidst the chaos.

For the second millennium, Qin Feng lived like a lone wolf struggling in the dark, exhausting his wit, courage, and madness to escape the reaper’s scythe time and again.

His mechanical body was battered and broken, barely a single part left intact, yet his will was honed to a cold, razor-sharp edge through this ultimate trial of survival.

After three full millennia of pursuit, even the mighty Emperors felt a trace of exhaustion and irritation.

"Vanguard" was like an unkillable cockroach, slippery beyond all imagination.

They had expended immense energy, yet they could never land the final, killing blow.

Then, in the year 3012, a golden opportunity finally appeared.

The four of them successfully cornered Qin Feng upon a lonely red giant star nearing the end of its life.

This time, the Sovereign of Nihility sealed all space within a million light-years, severing every possibility of a jump.

The Flame Demon Emperor ignited the core of the red giant, forcing it into a countdown toward a supernova explosion.

The Feathered Emperor and the Bone Emperor stood at opposite ends, locking onto every trace of Qin Feng’s presence.

It seemed to be an inescapable death trap.

"Let’s see where you run to this time!"

The Feathered Emperor’s voice resounded through the starry sky.

On the surface of the red giant, Qin Feng’s broken mechanical frame hovered silently, seemingly having abandoned all resistance.

Facing the encirclement of four Emperors, he merely raised his head, a flash of incomprehensible resolve flickering in his electronic eyes.

"BOOM—!!!"

Before the four Emperors could launch their final assault, Qin Feng’s mechanical body, along with his internal energy core, detonated in a cataclysmic blast!

An energy storm, billions of times more terrifying than a supernova, swept out from the surface of the red giant!

It was the final bloom of the Limitless Divine Light, the moment he unleashed every remnant of his soul, energy, and his King-tier mechanical body without reservation!

The black light of destruction instantly swallowed the entire red giant.

The violent energy even tore through the Sovereign of Nihility’s spatial seal, forming a cosmic disaster that ravaged half a sector.

The Feathered Emperor and the Bone Emperor, bearing the brunt of the blast, were sent flying by the sudden, suicidal explosion, their protective divine lights flickering violently as they appeared utterly disheveled.

When the dust finally settled, only a massive black hole remained in that sector, hungrily devouring the surrounding matter.

The red giant was gone.

The presence of "Vanguard" had also completely and utterly vanished from this universe.

"Dead?"

The Flame Demon Emperor found it hard to believe.

The Sovereign of Nihility remained silent for a moment, probing meticulously several times before slowly shaking his head: "Mechanical race talent."

"Hmph, the mechanical race is truly difficult to kill."

The Bone Emperor snorted, though a trace of imperceptible gravity lingered in his tone.

The Feathered Emperor stared gloomily at the void, feeling no joy whatsoever.

"A pity."

In the end, the Feathered Emperor waved his hand in frustration, and the figures of the four Sovereigns slowly vanished into the depths of the cosmos.

In truth, the Emperors were both right and wrong.

If it were merely a mechanical race talent, he would not have been able to escape such a high-level pursuit.

This was the "Golden Cicada Shedding its Shell" technique, a sliver of insight Qin Feng had gleaned from the Yaoguang Inheritance during his three millennia of flight, combined with his own mechanical traits and the Twin Masks.

He had discarded that long-ruined mechanical body, but his soul remained entirely unscathed.

Not even the Emperors could detect where his soul had gone.

...

Not long after, a bounty order issued by the Supreme Council of the Myriad Races Alliance spread to every corner via the cosmic consciousness network.

[Myriad Races God-List Bounty Order · Sequence: God-Slayer]

Target: "Vanguard," Mechanical race, King-tier combat power, suspected Sovereign-tier strength, bearer of the complete Yaoguang Sovereign inheritance.

Crimes: Contempt for Imperial majesty, possession of forbidden treasures, threatening cosmic equilibrium.

Bounty (Fulfillment of one is sufficient):

Providing confirmed whereabouts earns three high-grade King-tier treasures, vast resources, and personal guidance from a Sovereign-tier powerhouse.

Killing "Vanguard" and returning his core remains and the inheritance jade slip grants a prototype of an Imperial-tier treasure, permanent ownership of a major star sector, and the qualification to study under the Feathered Emperor or other cosmic supremes!

Once this bounty was issued, the entire universe boiled over.

Countless lone King-tier powerhouses, powerful star-pirate syndicates, and even ancient families with deep foundations were moved.

The name "Vanguard" had become a legend, a walking treasure chest filled with lethal temptation.

Countless powerhouses began to roam the universe, searching for any trace that might lead to him.

...

Azure Wood Star

At the edge of an unremarkable spiral arm of the universe, in a barren star system named "Cesu."

A life-bearing planet with textures of azure blue and deep green was rotating quietly around its parent star.

This planet was called "Azure Wood Star."

It possessed no powerful cultivation civilization; its strongest creatures could barely cross the atmosphere with their physical bodies.

Most of its regions were covered by primeval forests and vast oceans.

In the southern hemisphere, at the bottom of a dark trench over thirty thousand meters deep.

The water pressure here was terrifying, enough to crush steel into thin sheets; no light could reach this place, making it an absolute forbidden zone for life.

A metal fragment the size of a fingernail, after lying silent for who knows how many ages, suddenly gave a slight tremor.

The thin film of "Light Camouflage" energy that had encased it finally exhausted its last drop of power and quietly dissipated.

A wisp of soul essence, weaker than a speck of dust, drifted out from within.

"I succeeded..."

The thought echoed within the essence.

It was Qin Feng.

He had succeeded.

He had survived.

Yet this was merely the beginning.

Qin Feng did not rush to act, but instead guided this sliver of true spirit to seep silently into the bedrock at the bottom of the trench, carving out a sanctuary so minuscule it defied detection.

Then, he began the long process of recovery and sedimentation.

Time, for him in this moment, was the most precious of treasures.

He stilled his heart, casting his entire consciousness into that planet-sized jade slip of inheritance, which had long since been bound to his true spirit.

During his three thousand years of flight, he had been forced by the pressure of life and death to grasp only fragmented, desperate techniques for survival.

But now, he finally possessed the time to systematically and completely comprehend the vast wisdom left behind by a Venerable.

His consciousness transformed, as if he were a seeker entering an infinite hall constructed of light and law.

He witnessed the entire life of Venerable Yaoguang.

From a gifted youth, step by step, he observed how the master grasped the laws of light, endured tribulations, ascended to the ranks of King, Emperor, and Sage, and finally touched the threshold of the Venerable.

He saw how Venerable Yaoguang had forged peerless arts like the Great Evolution Light Escape and the Purification Scripture. These were not flashes of sudden inspiration, but the crystallization of wisdom born from billions of deductions, failures, and refinements.

Qin Feng’s consciousness became utterly immersed in this process of creating and perfecting the Great Dao.

He did not rush to learn those formidable arts of slaughter.

His focus remained on the Venerable’s most fundamental understanding of the laws themselves.

"So, light is not merely speed and energy. It can be a carrier of information, a measure of space, even a scale for time..."

"My Path of Extremity pursues the purity of force and substance. The Path of Yaoguang pursues the infinite possibilities of light. The paths differ, yet at their core, both are explorations of the universe's primordial rules..."

Qin Feng’s true spirit drank greedily from this ocean of knowledge, absorbing its nourishment.

His soul, rendered fragile by the act of severance, began to strengthen once more through this profound enlightenment, growing at a pace that was agonizingly slow yet unshakably solid.

The outer universe surged with turmoil, driven by the bounty placed upon the Vanguard.

Yet the center of this storm lay at the bottom of a trench on an unremarkable, neglected life-bearing planet, undergoing its most profound metamorphosis.

Before him lay a high-stakes gamble concerning his future.

"Wudou Mountain, the hundred-thousand-year deadline..."

Qin Feng silently calculated the passage of time.

More than three thousand years had passed since his first challenge.

Ninety-six thousand years remained.

Time was still abundant.

All he had to do was digest the inheritance of Venerable Yaoguang during this span, pushing his strength to a new, unprecedented peak.

Then, before the deadline arrived, he would return to Wudou Mountain, under the name of the Vanguard, to complete the unfinished challenge and seize the cosmic wonder that held the key to his future path—the Dou!

At the bottom of the abyssal trench, the eternal, unchanging silence returned.

Only that flicker of soul-fire burned quietly in the darkness, waiting for the day it would reignite the heavens.