Trials of the Abyss-2025.11.20
The supreme will of the starry skies created the path to godhood through forging a Divine Persona. All who walked that path and forged a Divine Persona inevitably fell under its restriction to some degree, including Sovereigns and God Kings.
Even Pang Jian could not wholly ignore its corruption. A single moment was all it needed to seize absolute advantage.
The gray-white radiance flooded Pang Jian like poison, corroding his vitality. His injured body became tainted with sinister Dao Sources, and his wounds widened into gaping chasms.
Pang Jian resembled one of the Observers—a hole-riddled banner. His injuries emitted a stench so foul it choked the air.
That gray-white radiance suppressed his divine power. The Dao-infused lightning flickering across his veins, blood vessels, and acupoints was suppressed to the point that even the link between his Divine Persona and body threatened to collapse.
The power of the Dao Sources in that gray-white radiance stands above my comprehended Heavenly Daos, Pang Jian mused.
Stirring the Dao of Life and wielding his secret technique had no effect against the radiance at all. The decay and death consuming his body only spread faster.
***
"You've always been too clever for your own good," the will of the starry skies said through Bai Zi's body. "Using the path I paved to fashion him? Hoping to use him to probe my flaws and weaknesses? How absurd."
The colossal storm of ice shards circling in the Primordial Chaos Starry Region had since devoured every last star and moon. Only the two suns remained. The silver canopy had driven back vast swathes of the bizarre mist, allowing their blazing light to reach across the Primordial Chaos Starry Region once more.
"Come." Bai Zi beckoned to the Soulstream.
Both the Hall of Gods and the Bee Sovereign atop it remained motionless, lost in vacant stupor.
The Soulstream, radiant with its deep blue glow, drifted obediently toward Bai Zi, as though drawn by an unseen magnet. The Dao Source of Soul was about to become part of that will, completing the piece it most lacked.
The gray bizarre mist surged upward in frantic desperation. Strange lightning and foreign energies interwove within it, lashing out like claws and fangs.
"It's useless. You can never defeat me. Not as long as I don't enter your domain. You don't even have a vessel fit for descent, one capable of wielding your true power. How will you fight me?" Bai Zi shook her head.
A silver radiance flared from Bai Zi's bloodied body. The phantom shadows of many Dao Sources could be seen in the light, sharp and unmistakable!
There was a gray sea steeped in death, a foul pulsating mass of flesh, a cloudy river flowing with the mysteries of time, and a crystalline prism shaped like a Divine Persona that brimmed with the wonders of space. Alongside them were strange, grotesque relics, each suffused with the auras of Dao Sources.
It seemed the supreme will of the starry skies had refined most of the Dao Sources that had perished across the ages.
Traces of these Dao Sources now revealed themselves within this surge of silver radiance, swiftly dispersing the churning bizarre mist. Earth-shattering blasts erupted where the silver radiance met with the gray mist.
This was not the resonance of the Heavenly Daos, but the confrontation of the Dao Sources themselves!
The boundary walls and barrier of the Nether Abyss cracked from the powerful clashes. The supreme will of the bizarre mist, diffused within the will of the Nether Abyss itself, had no time to mend the fissures.
"After all these years, your awareness expanded because the Dao Source of Soul sank into your domain. You've managed to work out quite a few clever plans since then, but it's still far from enough," the supreme will of the starry skies said derisively.
The blue Soulstream floated before it, drifting closer as if ready to merge with it.
***
"Brother, shatter it!" Pang Lin urged desperately. "Quick, shatter your Divine Persona! That's your only way out right now! When your Divine Persona splinters, let the shards bear the imprint of its sinister Dao Sources. That'll grant your body a moment of reprieve.
"Shattering your Divine Persona is the only way to survive!
"Brother, you have to trust me!"
Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul turned toward her with a frown. After a brief silence, he gave a slight nod. "Very well. I believe you. I'll do as you say."
***
A sharp sound rang out within Pang Jian's sea of consciousness. His battered body teetered on the brink of death as his golden Divine Persona self-destructed.
When his Divine Persona burst, shards of cold crystal rained into Pang Jian's dantian, like radiant stars that briefly erupted with astounding divine power.
Each shard of Pang Jian's shattered Divine Persona devoured the gray-white radiance corrupting his flesh, absorbing the auras of death, exhaustion, decay, weakness, corrosion, and toxicity. These fragments became etched with the traces of many sinister Dao Sources.
Pang Jian's Immortal Divine Soul, still suppressing the chaos within the four Fey Gods' seas of consciousness, then absorbed these traces from the fragments of his Divine Persona and etched them upon himself.
The destruction of his Divine Persona allowed him to reclaim control over his collapsing physical body.
The giant blade flared with blinding golden radiance, pulsing with traces of various Dao Sources.
Pang Jian's second strike was delivered through his collapsing physical body, using the giant blade forged of the twelve World God Pendants.
The supreme will of the starry skies could no longer use Pang Jian's Divine Persona to bind him. Two beams shot from Bai Zi's silver eyes and collided with the golden radiance of Pang Jian's descending blade.
The fabric of space was torn apart. Waves of annihilation erupted from the clash. An indescribable tide of sinister corruption, laced with the aura of the Dao Sources, rippled toward Pang Jian.
The giant blade became a conduit for its power, a bridge carrying that malign force directly into his wounded flesh. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
Pang Jian was engulfed in the onslaught, and his collapsing body succumbed to the twisted force, bursting apart in a violent spray of blood.
Every bone, vein, muscle, and even the scattered fragments of his Divine Persona were all obliterated in the blink of an eye.
