The Heavenly Dragon King's head was unimaginably huge, floating between the two of them. The dragon king's head had already corpse-transformed, turning a slick, poisonous green—even his long whiskers had become green, dripping with wet corpse-water.
Quinn Shepherd and the 'Heaven-Guide Venerable' unleashed their divine arts across the Heavenly Dragon King's head. Quinn reached out and grabbed one of the flying swords orbiting him, thrusting it forward—a single sword strike that set all his circling swords into motion, forming a tide of blades that skimmed along the dragon king's head, each sword now stained with corpse poison.
When his flying swords reached the far side of the Heavenly Dragon King's head, the green sword-tide twisted into a sword formation that flooded over Heaven-Guide Venerable.
At the same moment, Heaven-Guide Venerable directly invoked Heavenly Dao arts—Heaven's forty-nine. Forty-nine forms of Heavenly Dao surged forth, each manifesting as a different divine art.
Profound Capital Heavenly Duke's body housed countless gods and demons, all day and night observing and measuring. The Heavenly Dao arts had already been mostly reverse-engineered by the Heavenly Court; even Heavenly Duke's own body had been modeled, and the Heavenly Dao arts deduced from it.
Quinn had only deduced the Heavenly Fire Dao from the Heavenly Fire Crystal Pillar, but the Heavenly Court had already reverse-engineered the rest of the Heavenly Dao forms. Their only flaw was that the Heavenly Court’s Heavenly Dao was constructed using macro numerology, lacking the micro-level foundations.
Heaven-Guide Venerable’s Heavenly Dao arts split into various forms: heavenly net, crystalline Heavenly Fire towers, ship-like begging Heaven, stele-like time, sky-canopy, sun and moon spheres, abyssal holes. Suddenly, all these arts converged into a single seal, forming dense runes that sliced straight through the Heavenly Dragon King’s head as if meeting no resistance, blasting directly toward Quinn!
Their divine arts never collided; instead, each went straight for the opponent’s true body, both aiming to kill the other in the very first instant.
Because the corpse-transformed head of the Heavenly Dragon King was still between them. Even though the dragon king was now muddled and monstrous, his strength remained.
If the corpse-fiend turned on them, no one could stop it. Only by killing the opponent instantly could either hope to escape intact.
The Heaven Dao Seal felt as if Heavenly Duke himself had descended—a boundless, awe-inspiring might, Heaven's majesty absolutely overwhelming and invincible!
On this side of the Heavenly Dragon King's head, Quinn Shepherd faced the full force of the Heaven Dao art. Suddenly, he tore off the Golden Willow Leaf Talisman from his brow, and his third eye snapped open, gaze as deep as an abyss.
"Where my body stands is the Netherworld!"
A surge of wild Netherworld demonic qi erupted—suddenly he seemed to sink into the darkness of Youdu itself. On Quinn’s brow, blazing flames burned; atop his head, two demon horns formed from Nine-Bend Yellow Springs.
He looked like Tu Bo, the Earth Sovereign, striding out from the Netherworld, stirring its Dao. The laws of Netherworld Dao turned into countless chains, winding around his body.
Quinn, draped in chains, thrust out a giant hand to meet the Heaven Dao Seal head-on!
On the other side, the sword formation exploded in power. Countless flying swords leapt with strange rhythms; every move was the second form of the Sword of Calamity—Raise the Calamity. Yet each sword vanished and reappeared, forming new and different arrays with every jump!
His sword Dao had two chapters: Open the Calamity and Raise the Calamity, each containing different insights into sword Dao.
Originally, both Open the Calamity and Raise the Calamity were simple in form—profound in principle, but the sword moves themselves were pared down to the utmost simplicity.
Now, every sword using Raise the Calamity was still extremely simple—yet when different moves combined, they formed intricate sword arrays!
And with every leap, the sword array transformed—each time completely different!
This was the result of his recent days studying Everpeace Reform formation theory with Grandpa Blind.
The Everpeace Reform had achieved much in discussed formation Dao, and those achievements were built on the foundation of the Pioneer Era’s formation arts.
Grandpa Blind was the grandmaster of Everpeace formation Dao—he led the reform of formation arts, working with many virtuous scholars to apply formation Dao to civil life and improve people’s livelihoods.
Quinn, however, applied formation Dao to his own divine arts, adding array transformations to his Raise the Calamity sword forms.
Heaven-Guide Venerable became trapped in the endlessly shifting Raise the Calamity sword arrays. Suddenly, his aura changed—behind him, a Divine Bridge spanned the sky, his Primordial Spirit standing at its end before the South Heaven Gate.
Behind him, layer upon layer of Heaven Palaces emerged, forming a vast Heavenly Court, golden light blazing and clouds swirling.
Thirty-six layers of Heaven, seventy-two halls—the highest among them, the Lingxiao Hall.
There, the light was layered and dense, countless visions roiling and transforming—until they became the image of an ancient god-emperor, towering and seated in majesty.
"Supreme of ten thousand Daos, ten thousand Daos converge into one!"