Crippled Joe hesitated, not daring to step forward—instead, he watched anxiously from a distance.
It was simply too dangerous over there. He saw many Heavenly Court gods and demons charge into the darkness, only to collapse instantly—their Primordial Spirits snuffed out. Some of those Heavenly Court gods were far stronger than him, yet none could withstand the assault of that darkness.
"This power of darkness is even stronger than the darkness that shrouds the Great Ruins!"
Crippled Joe’s heart skipped a beat. He thought to himself, 'Quinn shouldn’t die so easily, right?'
Above, the Celestial River drifted across the sky—not stars, but the Heavenly Court’s Zhou-Heaven Star-Army, forming a Heaven Net like an inverted dome, perfectly sealing in the darkness below like a black cauldron.
Both sky and earth were completely illuminated. The starlight was so dense, and the stars numbered in the millions—their radiance shone from every direction, leaving not a single shadow to be found.
The Heaven Net contracted, compressing the pitch-black Netherworld Miasma inward, squeezing it tighter and tighter—soon, the little pocket-Youdu in the Earth-Mother Origin World had shrunk by more than half.
"Quinn is being suppressed!" Crippled Joe’s heart jolted in alarm.
Countless mountain gods came stampeding in. Crippled Joe quickly transformed his body, blending in with the mountain gods as they charged toward the darkness.
He was a master of Creation and transformation arts; at this moment, his appearance was indistinguishable from a true mountain god.
The mountain gods were colossal, towering like peaks, encircling the Heaven Net in a ring. Crippled Joe thought, 'The Netherworld Divine Son fights by instinct, but Quinn fights by reason.'
Each mountain god produced a pillar and drove it forcefully into the ground. They stood by their pillars, chanting incantations and casting spells. In the sky, the Heaven Net suddenly twisted, as if seized by some terrifying monster and dragged downward. The Zhou-Heaven Star-Army, caught in the net, were pulled helplessly down, screaming in agony.
Once the pillars penetrated the earth, they began to swell madly, growing ever taller. The pillars spun, their surfaces lighting up with countless runes that flowed from top to bottom, burrowing deep into the ground. The Zhou-Heaven Star-Army served under the Heavenly Court’s true star gods—ancient deities—but the army itself was made up of demigods and other races who had cultivated enough to join their ranks.
The ground rapidly solidified. The Zhou-Heaven Star-Army and the Heaven Net plunged madly into the darkness, where a giant cauldron awaited. The entire net and the army of gods and demons fell into the cauldron and instantly vanished without a trace.
A mountain god beside Crippled Joe noticed him and barked, "Where’s your pillar? Why aren’t you taking it out?" The cauldron, having devoured so many gods and demons, suddenly spewed outward. Countless faces floated in the darkness, all crying out together: 'A-Chou—!'
Before Crippled Joe could answer, a terrifying beam of light suddenly blazed out from the darkness. He glimpsed its glow and instantly flattened himself to the ground, shrinking his body as small as possible. Just as Crippled Joe let out a sigh of relief, the dark sky lit up once more. Countless gods activated their treasures, assembling the white-browed, white-eyed face of Heaven Duke in the heavens.
The mountain god nearby hadn’t even registered what was happening when an enormous beam swept across him with a buzzing roar, slicing him clean in half at the waist. The massive pillar beside him was also severed and toppled over. The Heaven Duke visage was formed from countless rare treasures, constructed by the Heavenly Court Daoists using their arts and runes to reassemble the head of Heaven Duke.
The sweeping beams shook the air, sending out a low, resonant hum. Heaven Duke’s eyes shone downward, their blinding light evaporating the Netherworld Miasma and quickly revealing Quinn’s true form!
But it wasn’t just one beam—it was six in total. Crippled Joe saw that one of Quinn’s three heads was a big-headed baby. Under Heaven Duke’s gaze, its face twisted in pain, and the head kept shrinking back into Quinn’s body.
Six brilliant beams swept in all directions—slicing horizontally, chopping vertically, slashing diagonally—cutting through the Heaven Net and the Zhou-Heaven Star-Army’s completed formation. Behind every Heavenly Court god, a cluster of stars blazed, their radiance so intense that they managed to block the six beams. Crippled Joe’s heart sank: 'The Daos of Profound Capital and Youdu counteract each other—Quinn can’t hold out…'
But the ground net was not yet complete, so one by one the giant pillars were sliced in half—some even chopped into six or seven segments. The mountain gods scrambled to dodge the beams shooting from the darkness. They were powerful, and the beams so bright, that most managed to evade them.
Crippled Joe pressed himself flat to the ground, glancing at the surrounding mountain gods. They were all incredibly strong, reacting in an instant. Aside from the one who’d spoken to him—caught off guard and killed by the beam—all the others had dodged the six terrifying rays.
Yet strangely, when the mountain gods leapt to avoid the six beams, every one of them jumped to the exact same height.
"Idiots!"
Crippled Joe didn’t dare move, cold sweat pouring down his forehead as he thought, "Quinn has three eyes—two shoot bright beams, the middle one fires dark beams. Now he’s become a three-headed, six-armed demon: six bright beams, three dark beams. He’s forcing them all to jump to the same height, so he can kill them with the three dark beams…"
He’d witnessed Quinn break the seal and transform into the Netherworld Divine Son back in Supreme Heaven, and the terrifying scene that followed. It was only thanks to Tu Bo’s timely intervention that disaster was averted.
Crippled Joe had always been deeply afraid of Quinn’s demonic third eye.
He watched as one mountain god, suspended in midair, was suddenly sliced cleanly into four pieces by three invisible blades.
Looking around, Crippled Joe saw that almost every mountain god in the air had been cut into four neat segments—each one perfectly even, not a hair out of place.
"Quinn isn’t being controlled by his demonic nature—he’s controlling it. Otherwise, the Netherworld Divine Son wouldn’t fight like this."