Chapter 161: The Heart of the South-Falling, Inscrutable

"Your Majesty!"

A piercing roar shattered the air as Qilin Huo watched in absolute disbelief, his eyes splitting open with rage and terror, as the Qilin Emperor was sent flying into the spatial turbulence by a single punch from Nan Luo, vanishing without a trace.

To escape the crushing might of Nan Luo and the Qilin Emperor's divine pressure, Qilin Huo had been forced to abandon Qilin Cliff, retreating a hundred thousand miles away to the distant clouds to watch the battle.

Otherwise, he, Qilin Huo, would have been just another tragic, innocent soul wiped out in the blink of an eye when Qilin Cliff was thoroughly reduced to a black hole.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!..."

"The Emperor has been cast into the spatial turbulence by the Divine Emperor?!"

"Quickly, save the Emperor!"

"We will fight Nan Luo to the death!"

......

Following Qilin Huo's initial frantic roar, a chorus of terrified and enraged shouts erupted, echoing across the heavens and the earth.

Boom! Boom! Boom! ...

Behind Qilin Huo, the boundless sea of clouds suddenly burst forth with tens of millions of divine rays. Tens of millions of beams of light soared into the sky, instantly dispersing the endless clouds to reveal an army of ten million armored Qilin warriors wielding sharp weapons.

This force of ten million Qilin soldiers was the absolute elite of the Qilin clan. Each possessed the cultivation of the True God realm, and when fighting in formation, they were capable of holding off a demi-saint for a brief moment.

As it turned out, long before the Qilin Emperor agreed to duel Nan Luo, Qilin Huo had grown increasingly uneasy and secretly dispatched messages to summon the ten million-strong Qilin army to Qilin Cliff to protect the sovereign.

However, the Divine Emperor and the Qilin Emperor were truly among the Five Primordial Emperors whose might overawed the entire world.

The sheer terror of their battle transcended the imagination of Qilin Huo and the millions of soldiers alike!

The space across a hundred thousand miles surrounding Qilin Cliff shattered and disintegrated like a fragile mirror, completely transforming into a deep and terrifying spatial black hole that devoured everything in existence.

Qilin Huo and the ten million Qilin troops behind him couldn't even dream of providing reinforcement; they couldn't even approach the terrifying spatial black hole.

A spatial black hole spanning a hundred thousand miles was more than enough to easily consume Qilin Huo and the entire army.

Now, seeing the Qilin Emperor driven into the spatial turbulence of the deep abyss by a single blow from Nan Luo, Qilin Huo and his millions of troops could no longer conceal themselves.

Yet, Qilin Huo was, after all, the Grand Elder who had administered the Qilin clan for millions of years. He was not blinded by the fires of vengeance, nor was he foolish enough to seek a suicidal retribution against Nan Luo.

Even if the ten million elite soldiers rushed forward together, what could they possibly signify to the aloof and infinitely powerful Divine Emperor Nan Luo?

No matter how numerous a swarm of ants might be, could they ever suppress a supreme deity?

Suppressing the boiling fury of the millions of Qilin soldiers, Qilin Huo ordered them to form heavy layers of defensive barriers surrounding the hundred-thousand-mile-wide black hole.

On the surface, this appeared to be an operation to search and rescue the Qilin Emperor, but its deeper implication was the encirclement of Nan Luo.

If the Qilin Emperor met a tragic end, the Qilin clan would drain every last drop of blood from their lineage to make the Divine Emperor Nan Luo pay the price.

No matter how terrifying Nan Luo's might, no matter their inferiority in strength, they would never allow the Divine Emperor to strike down the Qilin Emperor and stroll away in untroubled leisure.

The dignity of the Qilin cannot be violated; they can be killed, but never disgraced!

This was the exclusive pride of the royal clan that had ruled the Primordial World for millions of years!

Having ordered the grand army to seal off the hundred-thousand-mile black hole, Qilin Huo summoned a stream of fiery Qilin radiance and instantly flashed to the very edge of the abyss.

"Divine Emperor Nan Luo, I pray you answer: is our Emperor safe and sound?"

Standing at the rim of the great void, Qilin Huo gazed into the black hole at Nan Luo and shouted aloud.

Within that hundred-thousand-mile expanse, none beneath the realm of demi-saints dared to tread; to step foot inside was certain death.

Having defeated the Qilin Emperor with a single punch, Nan Luo had instantly plunged into a state of self-forgetfulness, seizing this rare opportunity to deeply comprehend the boundless physical strength of his own body.

As mentioned before, if one wished to know the true extent of their strength, they must measure themselves against a formidable opponent.

After leaving Mount Buzhou, although Nan Luo knew he had completed sanctification and attained the realm of fleshly sanctification, he had always struggled to fully channel the supreme power of the three hundred and sixty-five divine power galaxies within his body.

Now, faced with an adversary as mighty as the Qilin Emperor and confronting intense, fatal pressure, Nan Luo had finally mobilized the infinite vigor within his body to its absolute limit, causing all three hundred and sixty-five divine power galaxies to simultaneously unleash their supreme majesty.

Three hundred and sixty-five divine power galaxies could combine to form an entire divine universe.

Then, what kind of supreme might was it when three hundred and sixty-five galaxies erupted with endless divine power all at once?

To shatter the heavens and destroy the earth was nothing more than this!

It was only because this took place in the Primordial World of the Archaic Era that Nan Luo's release of the divine power of three hundred and sixty-five galaxies only managed to carve out a hundred-thousand-mile spatial black hole.

Had it been the Primordial World of the Ancient Era, this single punch of his would have been enough to shatter the lesser primary stars of the Zhou Tian constellations—a true star-destroying blow.

Had it been the Era of Immortal Dao, this punch would have been sufficient to reduce an entire galaxy to nothingness.

And had it been the Dharma-Ending Era, this strike might well have sufficed to annihilate a decadent universe.

As time progressed from the Archaic Primordial World to the Dharma-Ending era, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth would continuously wither, and the structural integrity of space would steadily weaken.

However, the might of Nan Luo's divine fist would not diminish; instead, it would only grow grander and more expansive.

The reason was simple: with smaller spatial constraints, the corresponding destructive impact naturally increased.

Feeling the supreme might of the three hundred and sixty-five divine power galaxies revolving within his body, and experiencing the ultimate majesty of fleshly sanctification, Nan Luo finally felt a powerful sense of seizing control over his own destiny.

Clenching his fists tight, Nan Luo closed his eyes. Waves of emotion surged turbulently within his heart, and with a surreal, dreamlike clarity, he whispered, "Ten hundred thousand years of endurance and concealment, playing the fool—all to trade for a single thread of survival today."

To know fear yet remain fearless—this is true fearlessness.

Ten hundred thousand years ago, Nan Luo was acutely aware that he was merely a chess piece, his destiny controlled in the palms of the various sages. He had no choice but to feign madness and construct intricate plots to blind the sages.

Ten hundred thousand years later, having attained the rank of a demi-sainted sovereign, he now possessed the qualifications to enter the game as a player and the strength to contend for the Dao of Sanctification.

Following his journey to Mount Buzhou, Nan Luo's mindset had fundamentally shifted; he was no longer willing to surrender his fate to the dictation of the sages, nor would he let the unseen puppet masters behind the scenes pull his strings.

From knowing fear to achieving fearlessness, the bitterness of the path he had walked was beyond measure, yet he had finally forged a heart of absolute fearlessness.

And at this very moment, aided by a mysterious, unknown force, he had completed his sanctification in the flesh.

Fleshly sanctification, coupled with a fearless heart—Nan Luo knew the day of his true sanctification was not far away!

Just as Nan Luo was reveling in the joy of initially mastering his destiny, Qilin Huo's voice abruptly broke his reverie.

"Your Majesty the Divine Emperor, is our Emperor safe?"

Hearing this, Nan Luo opened his eyes. A pair of cold, merciless purple pupils calmly swept across the tens of millions of Qilin troops gathered around.

Every elite of the Qilin clan who met Nan Luo's gaze felt an overwhelming sense of lowliness, as if standing before a supreme divinity, and lost all courage to glare back in anger.

As for the weaker members of the Qilin clan, they didn't even possess the qualification to register Nan Luo's gaze. Truly ignorant and thus fearless, they continued to glare bitterly, hating Nan Luo for casting their Emperor into the spatial turbulence and leaving him lost without a trace.

Nan Luo paid no mind to the millions of Qilin soldiers. With a calm glance toward Qilin Huo—for whom he held a sliver of genuine admiration due to his unwavering loyalty—he spoke evenly, "The Qilin Emperor will return shortly. I take my leave."

With those words, Nan Luo instantly transformed into a streak of purple-golden divine light, streaking across the firmament and rushing toward the central teleportation array of the Qilin City.

As for the heavy, overlapping barriers established by the millions of Qilin troops, they were nothing more than a joke in front of him.

Nan Luo didn't even care to smile at them; he simply ignored them entirely.

Qilin Huo and the ten million soldiers watched the retreating figure of the Divine Emperor Nan Luo, looking at one another in blank dismay, utterly at a loss for what to do.

Fortunately, at that very moment, the Qilin Emperor, who had been banished into the turbulence of the black hole by Nan Luo, finally reappeared.

Emerging from the depths of the black hole, the Qilin Emperor was a sorry sight indeed: his nine-colored Qilin battle armor was tattered and torn, the matching nine-colored cape was completely missing, and his entire body was covered in grievous wounds.

As soon as the Emperor cleared the black hole, Qilin Huo hurried forward to steady the sovereign's swaying frame. Concern plastered across his face, he asked anxiously, "Your Majesty, are you unhurt?"

Ignoring Qilin Huo's inquiry, the Qilin Emperor fixed a complex, lingering gaze upon the direction where Nan Luo had vanished, and slowly uttered a single sentence:

"The Divine Emperor Nan Luo... lives up to his legendary name. And the heart of Nan Luo is truly unfathomable."