At Ian Song's command, a thousand Divines surged forward, brandishing their Divine weapons and unleashing a torrent of attacks on the old fossils. Their combined strikes formed a vast ocean of energy, sweeping across the sky, packed with terrifying phantasmal beasts and wild, chaotic force.
"Run!"
The old fossils finally snapped to attention and tried to escape in every direction, but right then, a grand array rose up, covering the whole region and freezing the void. There was no way for them to tunnel through space.
To set up this array, Ian Song and Ancestor Cyrus had pulled out all the stops. It couldn’t trap the old fossils forever, but even a short delay was a win.
"Aaaah!"
Agonized screams rang out as dozens of sixteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals failed to escape through the void and were crushed into powder by the ocean of energy.
But those deaths served as a warning. The surviving old fossils turned into streaks of light and tried to flee normally, giving up on void escape.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
They didn’t get far before bouncing back—an invisible spatial barrier blocked their way.
"Kill them!"
The Divine army closed in, slaughtering another wave of sixteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals. In just a few breaths, nearly a hundred old fossils had died.
Watching this, Victor Grandridge, Marcus Five-Gates, and Trent Three-Lives felt their hearts freeze with terror.
Victor glared coldly at Ian Song and shouted, "Those Divines were all summoned by that brat! If we capture him, we can make them stop!"
"Go!"
The three of them moved at once, blasting away the Divines attacking them and speeding straight toward Ian Song.
In a single breath, they closed to within a hundred meters of Ian Song.
"Heh, perfect timing!"
Seeing them approach, Ian Song let out a strange laugh and activated another thousand Divine Summoning Talismans.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A thousand more pillars of light crashed down from the sky, and another thousand Divines flew out, tightly surrounding the three old fossils.
"Kill those three!"
Ian Song's expression turned icy.
The thousand Divines erupted in fury and charged all at once.
Even though Victor Grandridge, Marcus Five-Gates, and Trent Three-Lives were eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals, they couldn't withstand the onslaught from a thousand Divines. After the first wave, all three were seriously wounded.
But the second wave of attacks was already crashing down.
"No!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Get out of my way!"
Inside the encirclement, the three of them crashed around wildly, trying to break out. Their faces twisted with rage and unwillingness.
But they had underestimated these Divines.
Even though the Divines could only fight at peak sixteenth-layer strength, their Divine armor and weapons were so tough that not even eighteenth-layer Ancestors could break them easily.
So even with all three going all out, they still couldn't break free.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The three were struck again and again, each of them covered in blood and looking utterly miserable.
"Ian Song, make them stop! I’ll let bygones be bygones and leave, no more hatred between us!"
Victor Grandridge shouted.
"Me too!"
"Just let us go and we swear we’ll never go against the Great Qin Immortal Kingdom again!"
All three shouted at once.
"Naive! Do you really think you can survive at this point?"
Ian Song sneered and barked at the Divines, "Hurry up and get it done! If you keep slacking, don’t blame me for ordering you all to kill yourselves!"
He said this because he noticed some of the Divines were still holding back, just going through the motions without real effort.
"Hmph!"
Many Divines snorted coldly. Being summoned by a mere tenth-layer Ancestral Immortal was already humiliating, and now he was threatening them. But with the Divine Summoning Talismans binding them, if Ian Song ordered suicide, they really couldn’t resist.
As for taking revenge on Ian Song, that was totally impossible, so they vented all their fury on the three eighteenth-layer old fossils.
"Aaargh!"
With a scream, Victor Grandridge had his arm chopped off.
Next, Trent Three-Lives lost a leg, and soon after, Marcus Five-Gates had his chest punched clean through.
But the three went berserk, ignoring their wounds and fighting desperately. They even managed to tear several Divines apart, but the talismans instantly forced those Divines to re-form, though their auras grew weaker.
"Ants dare to wound us!"
Seeing their comrades nearly killed, the Divines went wild and attacked even more furiously.
Ten breaths later...
Trent Three-Lives was blasted by almost a hundred Divines at once and was erased from existence.
Twenty breaths later, Victor Grandridge was shredded into a mist of blood.
Thirty breaths after that, Marcus Five-Gates suddenly dropped to his knees in midair and shouted to Ian Song, "Don’t kill me! I’ll swear a vicious Heavenly Dao oath and become your slave—just spare my life!"
Ian Song hesitated for a moment, then agreed.
Marcus was overjoyed and immediately swore a venomous Heavenly Dao oath of lifelong obedience. Ian Song, still cautious, planted the strongest restriction he could inside Marcus, and had Hannah Murong add a second restriction just to be sure.
Marcus didn’t resist at all, cooperating the whole way.
Elsewhere, almost all the sixteenth-layer old fossils had been killed. Only twelve seventeenth-layer Ancestors were still fighting, but all were wounded and couldn’t last much longer.
"We’ll swear oaths and become your slaves too!"
Seeing Marcus Five-Gates survive by surrendering, the other old fossils all shouted, begging for their lives.
Thinking of the coming Immortal Kingdom War and his lack of top experts, Ian Song agreed. After twelve seventeenth-layer and eight heavily wounded sixteenth-layer Ancestors swore fierce Heavenly Dao oaths, he and Hannah Murong together planted restrictions inside each of them.
Witnessing this, Great Qin’s ministers erupted in shouts of “Long live His Majesty!”
The battlefield was stabilized, but the Divine army’s summoning duration still had more than half left. Not wanting to waste such a chance, Ian Song immediately ordered the Divines to unseal the locked immortal veins in the Eight Immortal Domains, Thirty-Six Cave-Heavens, and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands, and to draw a full tenth of the Immortal World’s immortal veins straight to Islebright City.
After Great Qin collapsed, those old fossils had split up most of the world’s immortal veins, forcibly transporting them to secret locations and sealing them away for their own cultivation.
Only a tiny fraction leaked out, forming the Eight Immortal Domains, Thirty-Six Cave-Heavens, and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands.
Now, with the old fossils dead or enslaved, Ian Song refused to let the immortal veins stay sealed.
Two thousand Divines moved out at once, their efficiency astonishing.
Of course, before they left, Ian Song warned them again not to slack off. If they failed to finish before returning to the Divine Realm, he’d order them all to commit suicide.
The Divines gritted their teeth at his threat, but had no choice but to obey.
Soon, the sealed immortal veins were unlocked. The entire Immortal World changed—immortal essence surged tenfold, and a gentle spirit rain fell across the land. After the rain, countless beings felt the shackles inside their bodies loosen and break, triggering mass breakthroughs...