The moment the blade appeared, an icy will towered into the sky, causing everything to tremble. The ground cracked and crumbled. The second challenge they had overcome, the long valley, was now revealing its true form as the boulders crashed down. It was actually a trough for the blade! It was crimson red, as if it had been stained with endless amounts of blood. And it emanated a terrifying baleful aura.

As for the area where Xu Qing was seated, the crumbled stone made a roughly circular altar that formed the base of the execution platform. A heavenly saber hovered above, which was connected to the execution platform below.

Together, they formed an astonishing guillotine!

By means of the Eye of Heaven, all of this imagery was transmitted directly into the minds of the people. A thrumming sound echoed everywhere as the performers reacted with utter shock, and the audience remained thoroughly stunned.

“God Decapitation Altar!” Eighth Sib blurted.

The God Decapitation Altar was the ultimate trump card of Imperial Sovereign Li Zihua. Legend had it that after manifesting the divine ability for the first time, Li Zihua used it to behead himself!

The technique was very heaven-defying, and was incredibly difficult to cultivate successfully. Among Li Zihua’s children, only Ninth Sib was able to master it. None of his other sons or daughters could do so. Neither the Heir Apparent nor Brightblossom ever succeeded, which was one reason they were so astonished by what was happening.

“He’s… really doing it?” the Heir Apparent murmured, looking at Xu Qing, then the canopy of heaven, and then the world in general.

In this world, heaven was the saber, and earth was the altar. The green saber contained world-killing power, and the earth was soaked with the wicked blood of sinners. Most terrifying of all was the killing will inside of the horrifying guillotine. Countless beings had been beheaded with it, so the killing intent was so strong it caused heaven and earth to tremble.

“I never thought I would see the God Decapitation Altar in my lifetime…” Princess Brightblossom murmured, her eyes flickering with reminiscence. Fifth Sister was reacting similarly. Eighth Sib stood there silently. All of them seemed to be thinking about good memories, but at the same time, the losses their family had suffered.

Meanwhile, out in the Moonrite Region, members of all species were reeling in astonishment. They couldn’t even control their own thinking. Every single person was completely immersed in what they were seeing in their mind. To the mortals, the shocking scene was profoundly moving. It was as if flames of anticipation had been ignited in their hearts. They anticipated… the moment of the beheading!

It wasn’t just the mortals who felt that way. The cultivators did too. Earlier, they had suspected the nature of the images they were seeing, but right now, those doubts vanished like smoke in the wind. This was absolutely, positively real!

That was especially true of the Moonrebel Congregation cultivators. In their various locations in the resistance forces, they were now fully aware of the impact this broadcast was having on the people. Everyone was forced to hold a tight rein on their excitement as they simply waited… for the blade to fall!

The Red Moon Cathedral had devolved into a state of sheer madness. Even their pontiff was on the move. They were using all sorts of divine abilities and magical techniques to try to find the source of the broadcast. By this point, they had focused their search on the Greenhair Badlands, and countless cathedral cultivators were rushing in that direction, including the pontiff.

The pontiff could also tell that the broadcast was real, and he knew full well the significance of what was being depicted. The truth was that the images everyone was seeing had transformed. And that was because when the God Decapitation Altar actually formed… images recorded in ancient memories were revealed.

Those images surpassed Ning Yan and the other performers, becoming the only thing visible. They were the memories of the last execution ever performed by the God Decapitation Altar. An ancient wind blew through the green sky, touching the blood-colored canopy of heaven and sending out ripples as far as the eye could see.

In fact, that sky looked exactly like the sky that Xu Qing had seen in the ink. But at the same time, it looked different. The similarity was in the way the canopy of heaven was partly green and partly red. The difference was that the two sides were obviously participating in a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering fight.

The dome of heaven was like a mirror that had cracked in half. The lands below also crumbled, turning into a violet sea. Within it were innumerable corpses. There were men, women, young ones, and elderly folks. There were mortals and cultivators alike. It was horrifying beyond comparison.

As for the towering figure, he was visible to all of the people as he sent fluctuations out into the sky.

This was the first time anyone had seen Imperial Sovereign Li Zihua. He had his eyes closed, but was uninjured, and stood tall, as if he could prop up heaven and earth.

He was facing Crimson Mother, whose lower half of tentacles was largely destroyed. She had lost many of the stars as well. And as the stars shattered, they sent huge quantities of blood raining down. It looked extremely ghastly. That was the blood of all the countless living beings Crimson Mother had devoured up to this point.

When the mortals and cultivators of the Moonrite Region saw Crimson Mother, they gasped. For them, it was also their first time seeing Crimson Mother.

In the broadcast, Crimson Mother looked at the stars collapsing, and her eyes turned crimson.

“Li Zihua,” she shrieked, “we’re both from the same place! Back when you left, you told me you were going to pursue godly ascension! You were going to change our fate! Countless years passed in which I followed in your footsteps. I searched far and wide for you. And now I’m here!

“Except, you’ve changed! Why? Why not do the same as me and achieve godly ascension? Why would you rather bow your head to Dark Serenity?

“We… are the true rulers of this star ring!” 1

Crimson Mother’s eyes filled with venomous hatred. Meanwhile, the surrounding blood sea rose up, turning into numerous blood moons that emanated shocking power as they shot toward Li Zihua. As they accelerated, space shattered around them, creating innumerable rifts in the air. Finally, they slammed into Li Zihua, transforming into countless sealing symbols that could shatter great daos and collapse the souls of gods.

The most powerful of them hit Li Zihua’s forehead. He didn’t dodge the blow, and thus, his forehead caved in and blood poured onto the ground.

Massive waves rolled across the violet sea as Li Zihua opened his eyes. Looking at Crimson Mother, he softly said, “I did become a god… and then I destroyed my own godfire. Why? Because that’s not the future I want. Nor is it what you want…. When did gods show up in Revered Ancient? It was when the primordial taboos were removed, and the Great Terror from the starry sky awoke. Go back.”

Crimson Mother’s eyes filled with even more vitriolic fury. The surrounding sea of blood seethed, and as both heaven and earth were covered with crimson, an enormous blood moon rose in the distance!

Li Zihua sighed, then lifted his hand and pointed at Crimson Mother.

“Let thirty meters of land in the Moon Region become the executioner’s block.”

Deep rumbling echoed everywhere as the land started to shake, starting from where Crimson Mother stood and then spreading beyond.

The mountains in the region collapsed. The plains rose into the sky. Countless amounts of dirt and rocks surged like waves toward the center. Wherever the wave passed, the land sank down by thirty meters. The soil moved with stupefying speed as it closed in on Crimson Mother.

In the blink of an eye, it piled together to form a shocking altar. It wasn’t a round altar. Rather, it was rectangular. A huge trough ran straight through the middle of it, out of which rushed endless amounts of blood and an explosive killing intent. This was a divine ability that could shock the masses.

The rancor in Crimson Mother’s eyes grew more intense. As she rose up into the sky, the air around her shattered, and her tentacles used her remaining stars to send red light out into a sea of blood. It spun into a vortex as she prepared to flee. The surrounding air dissolved, the natural laws shattered, the magical laws collapsed, and all heaven and earth spun wildly.

And yet, with Li Zihua looking on, there was no way she could escape this area.

“Let the sky above this region be the sharp blade!”

As Li Zihua’s calm voice echoed out, the sky shook as it tilted onto its side and became a huge saber! The canopy of heaven served as the blade. The lands below were the altar. The vortex Crimson Mother was in resounded with a terrified shriek filled with unending animosity.

Li Zihua said nothing. Eventually, he lifted his hand, plucked the sun out of the sky, and connected heaven and earth. Instantly… the massive God Decapitation Altar appeared. It was shocking beyond belief.

As Crimson Mother’s shriek rang out, and as the image filled with a sensation of horror, the audience looked on. Li Zihua’s right hand slowly dropped.

The sun rumbled, bursting into flames and rotating rapidly, causing a terrifying might to flow into the heavenly saber.

The heavenly saber slashed down! It was a case of heaven slashing earth! The blood vortex around Crimson Mother spun with violent intensity as it attempted to fight back. It couldn’t. The heavenly saber hit the vortex and didn’t stop. It crushed through it like a hot knife through butter, slicing down until it was right in front of Crimson Mother’s terrified face.

The blade then bit directly into her.

CRUNCH!

Crimson Mother’s head was cut clean off. Endless quantities of blood sprayed everywhere.

The saber didn’t just cut away Crimson Mother’s head. It also cut the fetters in the hearts of the audience. They watched as Crimson Mother died. It was like watching a myth die. The living beings in Moonrite Region felt their minds being assailed by heaven-shaking, earth-toppling waves of shock. They trembled violently and couldn’t control their breathing.

The scene continued to play out. As blood rained down, heaven and earth grew dim. A defiant curse exploded out, to ring into the ears of the living beings of Moonrite.

“If I come back to life, Li Zihua, then your soul will howl in grief! Your flesh and blood will be ripped apart, and your people will experience torment through all cycles of reincarnation! And you… will kneel to me until Revered Ancient collapses!”

The voice was so piercing it could reach to the soul.

Li Zihua hovered in midair amidst the echoing voice and the rain of blood. Then he looked off into the distance at something. He seemed lonely and desolate.

The image blurred, and Li Zihua slowly faded away. The moment before he did, he murmured something that could only be heard by the people on the stage, not anyone in the audience.

“The curse you mentioned? I already saw it, in the moment I reached godly ascension….”

1. In chapter 568.1, I mentioned that the term ‘Brilliant Heaven’ appears in the author’s other novel A World Worth Protecting. In that novel, Brilliant Heaven is combined with the same term used here ‘star ring’. In other words, it’s called the Brilliant Heaven star ring. As I mentioned in chapter 568, the context is not sufficient to prove or disprove that there’s a correlation between the term(s) in the two novels. ☜

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