Chapter 1352: Upper Wasteland Complete! (2/5)

Chapter 1352: The Upper Wasteland Is Whole! (2/5)

"Offer!"

At this moment, heaven and earth roared!

Ziqing's flesh and blood ascended into the sky.

Xu Qing lifted his head, his gaze piercing through the rising mass of flesh and blood, fixing upon the Fragmented Face.

Ziqing’s goal was to replace it!

This, Xu Qing now understood completely.

And the other’s demand—that he carve his name upon the Third Gate—

was clearly the path most aligned with that goal.

It would make possession easier, and reduce the risk.

Thus, Xu Qing chose to refuse.

Though he knew full well that, according to Ziqing’s schemes, even this refusal might lie within the scope of his calculations—at the very least, this was the path Xu Qing himself had chosen for the other.

And indeed, so it was.

The instant Ziqing’s flesh and blood soared upward, a sudden transformation erupted!

Within this stretch of spacetime, a pillar of black mist—spanning a million li—surged violently into the heavens!

Straight toward the firmament!

The mist was pitch-black, exuding an overwhelming aura of strangeness the moment it appeared, accompanied by wails like those of ghosts and wolves, shrill and mournful.

They echoed across the mortal realm.

And it was not alone—now, throughout this spacetime, the entire Wanggu trembled with thunderous resonance.

One after another, identical colossal pillars of black mist emerged in every direction, all rising into the sky!

Their number was countless, blanketing the entirety of Wanggu.

Exactly ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine!

Their emergence shook the heavens, stunning all who witnessed it.

As the black mist converged, the sky of Wanggu was instantly dyed anew!

The blackness swallowed everything, drowning all beneath its veil—until the sky of Wanggu became a sky of black mist!

Watching this unfold, Xu Qing’s eyes gleamed with a deep, shadowed light—he recognized this as the power of the Gui Realm!

Before his battle with Ziqing, Yu Luchen had warned him: within each of Ziqing’s countless tales, she had sensed the presence of the Gui Realm.

Clearly, the Gui Realm was part of Ziqing’s design!

And now, Ziqing’s voice rang out through heaven and earth!

"If I succeed, the world shall once again know a Gui Sovereign!"

The voice carried an eerie resonance. As it echoed in all directions, the black-mist sky thundered, churning violently—then exploded outward as though the Gui Realm itself had opened!

From within that churning eruption, countless shadows burst forth.

They surged toward Wushuang City!

They gathered fiercely around Ziqing’s ascending flesh and blood!

In an instant, they enveloped the flesh—causing it to rot, dissolve at terrifying speed—until it vanished entirely. At that moment, innumerable shadows had already saturated the space where Ziqing’s flesh had been.

Even more astonishingly, as they swirled together, they coalesced into—

a Fragmented Face!!

This face was immense. Judging by its contours, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the Upper Wasteland’s Fragmented Face.

More precisely—it was the missing half of the Upper Wasteland’s face!

Yet it was not formed of flesh and blood, but woven from shadows,

forming a Shadow Fragmented Face!

Pitch-black, existing yet not existing!

And under Xu Qing’s steady gaze, the eye of this shadow-face snapped open—revealing a crimson glow.

He was Ziqing!

Now, having opened his crimson eyes, he looked down upon Xu Qing standing on the earth below, his gaze flickering with complexity.

Xu Qing’s choice had surprised him—forcing him to activate his second contingency plan!

To open the Gui Realm—and borrow its power!

Yet this choice… if any other path remained, he would never have taken it.

But now, it had come to pass.

He had no choice but to draw upon the Gui Realm, forge causality, and manifest this shadow-face.

"So be it. I schemed against you first—now, let our karmic ties end here."

After locking eyes with Xu Qing, the complexity in Ziqing’s shadow-face hardened into resolve. In a flash—he shot straight toward the heavens!

Straight toward the Upper Wasteland’s Fragmented Face.

He intended to join with it—to form a complete visage.

To possess it!

Fulfilling the words of the Gui Realm: "Like a shadow clinging to form, coexisting with the divine."

As he ascended, even more shadows spilled from the Gui Realm’s black mist, continuously converging upon Ziqing’s transformed face—causing the shadow-face to grow ever larger.

Ever more vast.

Until, under Xu Qing’s watchful eyes, the shadow-face finally reached the edge of the firmament—arriving beside the Upper Wasteland’s Fragmented Face—and then—

fused directly with it!

A complete face suddenly blazed across the heavens!

Yet one half was shadow, the other half flesh—Ziqing, reincarnated from the Fragmented Face. But to dominate with his own will was nearly impossible, which was why he had sought Xu Qing’s name carved upon the gate. Now, with his first plan failed, he could only turn to the Gui Realm—to assume the identity of a Gui Sovereign!

To become—a sovereign like the gods themselves: a Gui Sovereign!

But the risk of this act was immense. The very instant the face of the Upper Wasteland was pieced together, the lingering will of the Upper Wasteland abruptly awakened—and clashed violently with the Gui Realm’s power Ziqing had drawn in!

Thus, upon the heavenly curtain, the face of the Upper Wasteland flickered—splitting apart one moment, fusing back together the next.

Plunged into chaos and collapse!

And this occurred at the most critical juncture!

It affected the mortal world, shook Wanggu, disturbed the Ninth Star Ring—and even twisted fate itself!

It also presented an unprecedented opportunity to those beyond!

"You will surely come!"

On the earth below, Xu Qing watched it all—his eyes narrowing.

Almost the instant those words echoed within his heart, beyond Wanggu’s outer rim, the starry sky thundered!

A black tower—symbol of endless imprisonment and soul-annihilation—suddenly tore through the cosmos, carving a path, rupturing space and time, and plunged into Wanggu!

It appeared—upon the firmament!

And descended, without warning, upon Shanghuang at the very crux of his transformation!

Not only the tower: at that same moment, a colossal beast, radiating unspeakable terror, writhing like a mountain range and exuding primal hunger, and an enormous paper figure—as if cut from funeral banknotes of the Yellow Springs—hurtled swiftly through the fabric of spacetime.

The former advanced with chilling indifference toward Shanghuang.

The latter licked its lips, then exploded outward, shattering into countless paper figures that swarmed forth in unison!

Three of the Four Divine Sovereigns of the Ninth Star Ring had arrived!

All their prior machinations had but one aim: to seize Canmian.

For this, they had waited with meticulous patience.

Now presented with such an opportunity, how could they possibly let it slip?

Naturally, they seized the moment—to plunder!

Yet clearly, not all four Sovereigns of the Ninth Star Ring shared this impulse—

Mother River had not come!

She seemed to be watching… waiting.

Thus, in the next breath, the black tower, the monstrous beast, and the sky-choking army of grotesque paper figures rent the void asunder and lunged straight for Shanghuang!

Exploiting the fatal opening—the precise instant when Shanghuang and the Zi-Qing Weird Realm were locked in mutual devastation, utterly consumed by their own conflict—the three struck with surgical precision, encircling Canmian.

The black tower, like an inverted tombstone, slammed down onto Shanghuang’s brow with cataclysmic force!

Ethereal gloom swirled along its surface, emitting a soul-freezing wail, and an invisible, ravenously greedy suction erupted without warning!

Its target: Shanghuang’s vast and ancient divine soul!

Behind, coiled in shadow, the beast gaped wide its maw—a chasm capable of devouring the cosmos itself—thick, fetid drool cascading like a waterfall, each swallow accompanied by the crunch of shattered space.

It feasted ravenously upon Shanghuang’s boundless life-force and vital essence!

Meanwhile, the teeming, silent horde of paper figures descended like a blizzard of white maggots, blanketing Shanghuang’s entire visage in an instant.

Their slender paper limbs flailed, extruding countless near-invisible threads steeped in mold and decay, which latched with uncanny accuracy onto the very nodes of Shanghuang’s fate!

They greedily tugged and siphoned away his abstruse, unfathomable Sovereignty over Destiny!

These three Sovereigns held nothing back—their divine ranks flared open in full!

The tower’s icy desolation, the beast’s savage hunger, the paper horde’s eerie thievery—three utterly distinct yet equally dreadful Supreme Sovereignties spread like plague, commencing their rapacious, tyrannical plunder!

And the timing of their arrival and assault was viciously precise—striking at the exact moment Shanghuang was besieged from within and without, his strength catastrophically drained by internal strife!

This granted their theft unprecedented, bountiful returns!

But—Shanghuang’s own demi-divine aura of terror, coupled with the Weird Realm’s corrosive power capable of eroding all things, ensured this plunder came at no small cost.