Trials of the Abyss

Pang Jian swung his sword with mechanical precision, sending wave after wave of sword light at Xuan Ying.

Each sword light he sent upward clashed with Xuan Ying's blade light and exploded upon contact.

The air between crackled with unending blasts, becoming a dazzling sea of light laced with their respective techniques and blood essence.

Their battle was locked in a grueling stalemate.

Despite this, Xuan Ying remained calm. She was clearly not fighting with her full strength yet.

Pang Jian focused intently, expression serious as he executed each swing of his sword with utmost concentration.

However, he suddenly shifted his focus when the Rank Eight warriors from the Flame Race, the Ghost Race, and the Demon Bull Race sidestepped the battle between him and Xuan Ying to pursue Zhou Qingchen and the others.

He no longer concentrated entirely on the battle and instead discreetly spread his divine sense to assess the whole situation.

There was Fan Chen's struggle with the Rank Eight Demon Armor Beast and Hu Yuanfei's predicament after losing two spirit swords.

Liu Youyu was still trapped in the gray cloud vortex, while Zhou Qingchen and the others in the Third World had split up to flee in different directions.

He even saw Ling Yimo on the other side of the battlefield, with Zhou Yi recovering by her side.

His sea of consciousness took in everything around him even during the heat of his fierce battle with Xuan Ying.

As he analyzed the situation, his thoughts surged like a relentless tide.

Zhou Yi!

Zhou Yi was a prodigy of the Nine Tribes Sect and adept in the Spatial Mirror Technique. The fates of Zhou Qingchen and the others lay in his hands.

No one would be able to escape once he recovered his strength.

Dong Tianze had suffered severe injuries trying to save Pang Jian and was in bad condition.

Wu Yuan was also in a similar state to Dong Tianze after unleashing the full power of the Purple Demon Eye to force Ling Yimo's retreat and prevent the Sanctum of Godly and Demonic Genesis from appearing.

Even disregarding the three Rank Eight warriors, if Zhou Yi were to use his Spatial Mirror Technique under such circumstances, it would be nearly impossible for them to escape.

Zhou Yi has to die. If he doesn't, everyone else will perish, Pang Jian concluded.

"What are you thinking about?" Xuan Ying of the Demon Scale Race asked, a sharp glint flashing in her narrow, piercing eyes.

Although she had been holding back in order to test the human cultivator with the Primordial Chaos Spiritual Sea, the idea of her opponent doing the same was intolerable!

"I was just thinking I'm not going to die here," Pang Jian replied seriously.

His sword technique transformed as he channeled the energies within his spiritual sea, and the next sword light he unleashed radiated a new, formidable aura.

The sword light had transformed into a chaotic cosmos!

A blazing sun, the size of a fist, rose slowly at the forefront. A full moon, a crescent moon, and radiant, gem-like stars followed closely behind it.

Twisted, violent forces clashed as a fiery pool, an ice pool, a lightning vortex, and a fragmented land emerged within the greenish sword light.

Chaos Sword Technique, Cosmic Fission.

Pang Jian's inner voice resounded like a clap of thunder in his mind.

The sun, moons, and stars within the chaotic cosmos imploded in an apocalyptic vision that obliterated Xuan Ying's blade lights.

Her expression shifted dramatically when she saw Pang Jian depleting most of his strength in a single breath.

Unwilling to take on the full brunt of his terrifying sword technique head-on, she instead chose to withstand the initial searing impact of the sword light and narrowly escape the collapsing cosmos at the cost of minor injuries.

Her hands were a bloody mess.

Pieces of the silver scale armor, refined through her bloodline, cracked one after another, piercing her palms and the backs of her hands.

Gripping her serrated long blade with her bloodied hands, she sneered coldly, "Already desperate enough to risk it all?"

Whoosh!

After unleashing Cosmic Fission, Pang Jian hastily recalled the Heart of Winter into his spiritual sea and shot into the thick leaden clouds above.

Cosmic Fission had also destroyed the massive cloud vortex trapping Liu Youyu.

"Hurry up and get out of here!" Pang Jian shouted urgently.

Swinging his sword, he directed streams of chaotic sword lights from the lingering explosions toward the pursuing Rank Eight Flame Race and the Ghost Race warriors.

His wild, reckless attacks forced the two Rank Eight warriors to focus on defending themselves.

Whoosh!

A golden shadowy figure flickered between Pang Jian's brows.

The muscular Demon Bull Race warrior was pursuing Zhou Qingchen on his stone platform when a golden shadow pierced through the back of its head.

Both the Rank Eight warrior and the stone platform came to an abrupt halt.

The Rank Eight Flame Race and Ghost Race warriors paled at the sight.

"That's his divine soul!"

"He actually dares to send out his divine soul!"

They then quickly unleashed secret techniques to shield their minds.

Even Ling Yimo was astonished.

"His divine soul…" she murmured.

She had never seen any Soul Wandering Realm human cultivator with such a domineering divine soul.

Furthermore, Pang Jian's divine soul was imbued with divine consciousness!

Pang Jian had to have absorbed an unimaginable amount of divine consciousness from the Outer Gods to refine such a terrifying divine soul.

"Gui Ye!" Ling Yimo called out.

The Rank Eight Ghost Race warrior halted his pursuit of Dong Tianze.

He glared at Pang Jian with a cold glint in his green eyes and held out the bloody head of a Nirvana Realm human cultivator.

A sharp, eerie wail erupted from the severed head.

The Nirvana Realm cultivator's divine soul had been imprisoned within his head after his death and was later refined into a sinister artifact.

Ghastly pale eyes fixed unwaveringly on Pang Jian's exposed golden divine soul and the cultivator's agony of being refined shot through Pang Jian.

The torment echoed back tenfold onto Pang Jian's golden divine soul, becoming a kind of mental attack.

A piercing headache split Pang Jian's head. He could practically see ghastly creatures gnawing on his divine soul.

Although it was merely an empathetic sensation, it was almost enough to break Pang Jian.

Whoosh!

He hurriedly recalled his divine soul back into his sea of consciousness to shield it from the head in the Ghost Race warrior's hands.

Fortunately, the torment vanished once his divine soul returned to his sea of consciousness.

The experience told Pang Jian that only the Demon Bull Race warrior could be killed with his divine soul.

Though physically weaker, the Ghost Race warrior's mastery of soul techniques allowed him to defend against Pang Jian's divine soul and even counterattack using his sinister artifact.

Xuan Ying's icy voice cut through the air.

"Your opponent is me."

Her serrated long blade grew larger and larger behind her until it resembled a massive weapon that an ancient Demon God would have wielded.

Whoosh!

Scenes of ancient continents breaking apart appeared on the long blade's surface.

The demonic serrated blade seemed to have mercilessly cleaved continents in the Fourth World, the Third World, the Second World, and even the First World into pieces, leaving a trail of fragmented lands in its wake.

It had also severed spirit veins, mineral veins, rivers, mountains, and entire kingdoms, and only a few continents in the Abyss had escaped unscathed.

As the long blade sliced through the sky, it subtly distorted the natural laws, halting the torrential rain and quelling the brewing thunder.

It was as if the long blade was all that remained in the sky.

The long blade tore through Pang Jian's chaotic Cosmic Fission as it descended.

The sky itself fractured under the force of the long blade, with cracks spreading through it like a shattered mirror.

Even without techniques such as the Spatial Mirror Technique, the Demon Scale Race's ancient demonic blade could still tear the skies asunder.

Pang Jian summoned the Primal Sphere, infusing it with energies until it swelled into a massive grayish-green iron ball in a desperate attempt to block the blade.

Boom!

The sacred-grade Primal Sphere broke apart.

Pang Jian's protective shield also shattered.

Blood sprayed as he plummeted toward the continent below like a broken kite.

"Pang Jian!"

Dong Tianze's and Zhou Qingchen's anguished cries echoed through the thick leaden clouds.

Dong Wenjian, having escaped with a talisman, watched Pang Jian's blood-soaked descent from a distance.

"Li Zhaotian chose well!" Dong Wenjian muttered through gritted teeth.

"It's too bad…" Lin Manhe lamented.

The Demon Scale Race woman had potent blood essence, a powerful bloodline, and a refined soul.

She was not only without obvious weaknesses but also wielded a weapon infamous throughout the history of the Abyss.

The fact that she viewed Pang Jian as the greatest threat among them proved Li Zhaotian's choice of disciple had been correct.

In Xuan Ying's eyes, Pang Jian was the Sword Pavilion prodigy of this era, destined to play a more important role than even Fan Chen of the Supreme Monad Divine Kingdom or Liu Youyu of the Primeval Pillar Divine Kingdom.

It was a profound honor to have the enemy's utmost respect, and it truly showed that Pang Jian's name would have surely resounded throughout the Abyss one day.

Unfortunately, his name would now forever be associated with tragedy.

"Pang Jian!"

Liu Youyu and Hu Yuanfei stared at the falling figure from the leaden clouds.

Whoosh!

Zhou Yi used his Spatial Mirror Technique to appear behind Pang Jian's plummeting body and thrust his jade ruler toward Pang Jian's exposed back.

He wanted to ensure Pang Jian died by his hand.

Pang Jian's spiritual sea and blood essence had been exhausted, and only his divine soul still brimmed with energy.

Zhou Yi knew Pang Jian did not have enough strength to unleash another one of those cosmic sword techniques.

Black turtle, Pang Ling, Pang Jian murmured through their mental connection.

His depleted spiritual sea rapidly replenished and rich life energy surged from his chest.

Pang Jian unleashed his Cosmic Fission technique.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The six mysterious realms of the Demon God Lamp emerged within the fissioning cosmos.

"You cunning bastard!" Zhou Yi screamed in anguish as the terrifying cosmos reduced him to nothingness.