Paragon of Sin

The saber howl shook body and mind, ravenous and invasive, heretical and incisive, oddly warm yet undeniably heavy. Heads all over snapped toward the World Forbiddance Array. Eyes widened as the array experienced drastic changes, the runic markings of esoteric and profound origins dimmed and fractured.

The World Forbiddance Array was on the verge of collapse!

The Chosen were aghast. Their expressions fell harder than night as the image of Su Mei's valiant, dominantly superior display rose unbidden within their minds. Her combat strength was terrifying to witness, requiring the assistance of several unusual mortals and an exquisitely refined array that caused even their hearts to shudder fearfully.

The Ascendants, on the other hand, all shifted their gazes toward the collapsing World Forbiddance Array-only calm existed in every last one of their eyes. Within their minds, they visualized Wei Wuyin's faceless form within their Sea of Consciousness, inducing exceptional effects towards maintaining their mental strength and focus. The image itself was woven uniquely with pure mental energy like an expertly crafted painting, reinforcing their mental strength a few times over.

In each of their Seas of Consciousness, Wei Wuyin's faceless form in silvery robes held up the heavens with a single arm and trampled hell with a single foot. It was godly to an extreme. The Neo-Dawn Visualization Method was Wei Wuyin's first attempt at creating a Mind-based Cultivation Method. He wasn't very adept at doing so, but by using his acquired knowledge from the Sacred Library of the Endless Voyage Realm and knowledge from his alternative self who traversed further into the path of cultivation, Wei Wuyin conceived this mental visualization method.

It wasn't very effective on himself, except to maintain a sense of self and personal awareness, something he had unexpectedly faced in the Second Calamity, but it was extremely effective on others' mental strength.

Su Mei's saber howl was unable to shake their minds. The Ascendants of Neo-Dawn all readied themselves; their mortal auras began to seethe and churn, threatening to erupt at less than a moment's notice.

None of them took to questioning Xue Yifei at this critical moment. Whether this was deliberately planned, whether she had lied before on her estimate, whether it was purely due to Su Mei being abnormal to an extreme, or three thousand other potential reasons, none of it would change the currently developing situation. They prioritized what was important: the Evercrown.

With only fifteen seconds left before the winning condition was active and the holy radiance had been significantly decreased to the verge of near-total dissipation, they all honed their focus and primed their cultivation.

WHOOSH!!

ABSOLUTE FIRE TRANSFORMATION!!

Pupils constricted all around as an absurdly hot and entirely flaming Shui Fengbao made the first move! The Child of Fire became the embodiment of fire itself, streaking toward the Evercrown without the slightest hesitation in his movements while scorching all manner of light, space, mana, and energy in his blazing path. With an arm of fire outstretched, his hand reached for the Evercrown with determined eyes.

"MINE!"

"Violet Mountain of the Boundless Titan!"

An aura that was as heavy and oppressive as a mountain upon one's shoulders violently manifested above the sky. The brilliance of the stars above was eclipsed by a gigantic figure. Within this boundlessly oppressive aura was a wisp of eternity that was utterly soul-shaking!

Da Shan!

Her figure that had always been five thousand feet in height seemingly grew by ten, reaching fifty-thousand feet, her figure shifting inexplicably above the sky, towering above all others as she fell with a colossal, planet-busting war hammer within her hand. She bore down upon the vast lands and slammed with savage killing intent!

It was almost as if she was going to crush the Evercrown and every last living existence in her path!

Her body was ablaze in demonically violet radiance! Mortal World Intent! The Immeasurable Mountain Rune Seed within her was elevated immensely by the fusion with her Earth Heart Intent! Like a mountainous divinity, she was unmatched in weighty might!

"MINE!"

"Aquaflame Kilonova!"

The An Sisters orbiting Solar Stars up above were rapidly moving together, but this harmony seemed to shatter by their joint efforts as if planned since the very beginning. The two Solar Stars smashed within the blink of an Ascended's eye!

A ravenously gushing flood of bursting light erupted at the point of their unimaginable collision. The entire world, and all three spatial layers, shook so violently that ripples endlessly swept for tens of thousands of miles. These rays of radiance sundered all it touched with an intensity enough to blind gods and devils alike.

The An Sisters held each other's hand tightly, their auras as completely one, as they raced toward the Evercrown under Da Shan's weighty shadow. It was only seven hundred meters away!

"OURS!"

The regular Ascendants all unleashed their gathered strength within a single second, executing exquisitely powerful arts, and spells, deploying all sorts of tools synergistic with their cultivation bases.

In a normal situation, obtaining the Evercrown first was a sure sign of losing, but this wasn't a normal situation, and these weren't ordinary cultivators. Seize the Evercrown!

Unfortunately, the dual unity of Da Shan's oppressive weight and the An Sister's solar sundering rays caused most, if not all, of their tactics to collapse within less than a single second. This wasn't a sign of their weakness; this was a sign of the An Sister's and Da Shan's absurd strength!

Even Na Xinyi's prepared spell had crumbled before being deployed. Countless hidden strategies and means were over before they could be properly used!

From the depths of concealment, spiritual wards shuddered uncontrollably from both the oppressive strength and sundering radiance of solar light and energy, exposing the figures of dozens of humanoid figures at the seven-hundred-meter mark. These figures were all familiar!

Su Mei, the First Ascendant, had slaughtered them all!

The humanoid figures were briefly startled, yet their eyes carried unshakeable frigid spiritual strength as if they weren't simply themselves, and this didn't allow the sudden exposure to hinder their strength or intended actions!

They all held hand-seals while under Da Shan's weighty figure and being scorched by the sundering radiance of the Aquaflame Kilonova! Inexplicably, their entire cultivation bases sublimated as an exquisitely formed Spiritual Array was established using these Ascendants as the primary core of power!

"Calamitous Spirit Amplification Array!"

Bei Weiwei was far back as she held a strange hand-seal, her eyes blossomed with pure spiritual light! Her Spirit Core rotated rapidly as she exuded the aura of a Mortal World Intent!

Within her Dantian, a silvery rune acquired during the Neo-Dawn Alchemic Expo shone brightly, exuding a terrifyingly profound spatial power!

Shockingly, she had the Frigid Space Mystic Rune Seed!

"Frigidity of Space! SEAL!" She spoke in the language of Mysticism, strangely being able to articulate each syllable without being an Ascended being! It was unimaginable! Her Spirit Core pulsed with a spiritual hymn as if resonating closely with the Mystic Dao using her Astral Soul! There was a very familiar fluctuation that Na Xinyi noticed but it felt embryonic.

Divine Origin!

The aura of the Mystic Dao flowed gently into the world, affecting space itself as a bog of immovable space was slowly being established!

The rays of sundering radiance burnt Da Shan's back to a horrifying degree as she took the brunt. This was an unintended consequence of her size, unaware of the An Sister's plans. Yet her body shockingly began to heal as it took damage, creating an equilibrium that didn't cause her to stop her planet-busting smash!

However, when the space began to freeze by Bei Weiwei's Spiritual Power, she found herself in the sky, unable to move downwards a single inch!

It wasn't just her!

Shui Fengbao's flaming body was halted unnaturally! He had only traversed forty-two meters before being stopped, besieged by three different powers at once!

Da Shan's oppressive aura!

An Sister's sundering rays!

Bei Weiwei's frozen space!

Moreover, the last one was amplified by several supposedly dead Ascendants?! He was stunned to an unimaginable extent. Channeling a wisp of his Law of Fire's aura, he tried to loosen the frozen state of the three layers of space, yet as he did, he was taken aback to realize that there was a profoundly unfathomable power of the Mystic Dao present, almost applying a strange, eerie law that prevents all those of the Existential Mortal Framework to be unable to affect space! Even move through it!

He was, for the first time, shaken to the core!

Da Shan was having trouble reconciling this as well as she too felt the Mystic Dao's presence! Bei Weiwei was this powerful?!

Fortunately, Shui Fengbao realized that his Law of Fire's aura was unable to slither forward slightly. The issue wasn't that he couldn't move through it using this power, it was that his cultivation base was simply TOO WEAK! He was, after all, a newly ascended Timelord!

TIMELORD!!

Without a Star Domain to draw additional strength from like the rest, he was left in an inferior position.

Bei Weiwei wasn't affected by the frozen space, seemingly even empowered, as her body unleashed Spatial Force as she executed Spatial Shift!

A few ten feet from the Evercrown, a faint fluctuation was being born! She was arriving right next to it and no one could stop her!

DEMONIC DRAGON ARMOR!

Xue Yifei unleashed her draconic transformation. Shockingly, she moved through frozen space without the slightest hindrance. Her robes lit with faint grayish runes, containing Void Energy. It was enough! She couldn't move too fast, but her speed was largely unimpeded even by the Mystic Dao's influence of space!

BOOSH!

She kicked off, but she didn't rush toward the Evercrown! Her eyes were focused intently on a single headband-wearing figure.

YAO HOUYI!

With her draconic strength, she propelled herself forward and clenched her fist so tightly that the frozen space was distorted. With a low, magnificent roar, she launched a fist from a distance that contained demonically draconic might! The frozen space pushed aside as a blast of power lanced toward Yao Houyi.

"Hm..." The Archer was already mid-pull, about to fire an arrow! He wasn't entirely hindered by the frozen space either! His left eye and right eye were out! If the left contained an Internal World, then the right eye contained a vortex of chaotic time! It heavily resembled the Time Vortex!!

Yao Houyi had refined both an Internal World and a Time Vortex within his eyes, granting him an unmatched pair of worlds for his cultivation! Both of which vastly exceeded the Mortal Limits!!

Together, they unleashed a power of the Unified Void that was capable of resisting Bei Weiwei's terrifying power, allowing his body to move, but at a much slower pace than he imagined. In this span of a second, it was as if he was in slow motion.

The last etching on his golden bow had vanished as a grayish arrow was nocked!

Seeing Xue Yifei attack him had taken him aback tremendously, so much so that he hadn't anticipated it at all! The raging power of demonically corrosive, titanically forcefully draconic strength let him flummoxed. That attack was clearly gathered over the last few minutes.

If he shot this arrow, he would certainly be obliterated!

He didn't have much time to think she could only prematurely release his arrow at the Evercrown! The aura of Mortal World Intent also flared to life!

Celestial-Piercing Archery Rune Seed!

It contained enough power to pierce through stars, realms, and worlds!

He hurriedly used his golden bow defensively, mounting the strongest defense he could. But the attack smashed heavily against his flesh and bone, causing him to spurt out blood uncontrollably as he was sent flying away. He leveraged that momentum and flew backward at a rate that Xue Yifei was unable to catch up to!

In the distance, the arrow drew a beautiful arc that pierced through space and time, moving at an unimaginable speed! Da Shan's weighty pressure, An Sister's sunder radiance, and Bei Weiwei's frozen space were unable to hinder the arrow in the slightest! It would reach the Evercrown before Beiwei fully exited her Spatial Shift!!

As long as the arrow touched the Evercrown, this competition was his!

THIRD GRAND TRANSFORMATION!

A heaven-rumbling shout thundered as a crescent-bladed halberd drew an even more beautiful arc, blazing across the skies as it honed onto the moving arrow with ungodly precision.

Yao Houyi's expression fell.

BOOOOM!!!

The halberd and arrow collided! Both veered off the course. The arrow that could pierce through all things celestial was barely halted by the halberd. If the arrow had just a little more power, it would have not been stopped!

Xue Yifei didn't chase.

She, instead, spun at the heel elegantly and with premeditated intent and rushed toward the Evercrown!

She didn't need to send out a command as the An Sisters seemed to have been waiting for this exact moment!

The kilonova shockingly began to rapidly change!

It was as if a nigh-infinite mass was born out of the collision of the two Solar Stars!

Bei Weiwei exited her Spatial Shift, the Evercrown just a few feet away from her, when the world above grew dark as all light was siphoned from the world, drawn elsewhere. Her heart thumped violently as a gravitational force that was utterly irresistible pulled at her.

She reached for the Evercrown, but she couldn't quite touch it before she was yanked violently upwards!

SO CLOSE!!

The titanic Da Shan was even more shaken as she was pulled upwards too! While it was much slower given her weighty nature, she was still being pulled!

Shui Fengbao looked up and his flaming eyes widened uncontrollably.

BLACK HOLE!!!

Numerous figures began to jet upwards into the sky beyond the atmospheric layer of the world!!!