The trench yawned below, vast and endless. Haotian continued to dive, his golden eyes piercing the gloom. But the deeper he went, the heavier the silence became — not an absence of sound, but a silence filled with voices.
Yield… dissolve… you belong to us…
The whispers pressed against his mind like icy fingers. His body endured the crushing pressure of the deep, but his sea of consciousness trembled.
Shapes stirred in the black waters around him. Ocean beasts swam from the shadows — creatures once majestic, now twisted into nightmares. A whale with a ribcage that jutted outward like spears. A serpent with a hundred bleeding eyes. Finned predators dripping black ooze that thickened the water around them.
They struck without warning.
Haotian moved like current, redirecting strikes, tearing the water itself into weapons. Spears of liquid pierced skulls, blades of current sheared through abyssal flesh. But for each beast he slew, three more came, their abyssal qi soaking the waters further.
And as he fought, the voices pressed harder.
Join… become… the tide will claim you…
Haotian grit his teeth, forcing his Dao to the forefront. But cracks spread through his calm. His shadowed aura thickened, threads of corruption weaving into his qi. His movements grew harsh, his strikes more violent.
Then it slipped deeper.
A jagged whisper pierced his sea of consciousness. His golden eyes darkened, his vision blurred crimson. For a heartbeat, his strikes lost balance, becoming raw slaughter. The Abyss crept in, rooting itself within his mind.
Yes… dissolve… become ours…
His sea of consciousness quivered, black mist spreading like ink.
Then a voice thundered:
"LEAVE!"
The abyssal corruption shattered like glass. The mist dispersed in an instant, torn apart by a force far older and far stronger than the whispers.
Alter's voice echoed in his mind, harsh and commanding.Brat, rebalance yourself. Enforce your laws. Expel the shadow. You lingered in Umbrel Spire too long — you've let its darkness fester within you.
Haotian staggered in the water, gasping. His mind snapped back into clarity, his aura flaring. He clenched his fists, his body vibrating as he shouted into the deep:
"Out!"
Equilibrium surged through him. The invading shadow qi was dragged out of his veins, torn from his meridians. Black filth hissed into the sea, scattering as harmless vapor. His Dao of the Universe blazed, now renewed with the pure Laws of Equilibrium. His body steadied, his golden eyes burning with light once more.
Alter's voice rumbled in satisfaction.That's better. Any more of this crap, and I'd have had to take over myself.
Haotian exhaled, the last of the whispers shattering against his reinforced mind."Thank you," he muttered into the silence.
The beasts lunged again, dozens at once. But this time, Haotian's strikes flowed with harmony. His blade-like currents pierced without waste. His water-binding chains redirected massive bodies into one another. For every strike of theirs, he answered with perfect balance, until the deep once more stilled.
Ahead, the pale glow of the Abyssal Trench brightened. The source pulsed like a beating heart, each throb sending a wave of corruption upward through the seas.
Haotian steadied himself, black robe trailing in the currents. His voice was calm, resolute."Now… the true battle begins."
And he pressed deeper, toward the heart of the Abyss.
The Abyssal Trench glowed like a wound in the planet's heart. Its light pulsed, steady, patient, as if it had been waiting for him.
Then it rose.
From the pale chasm drifted a weapon — a halberd forged from abyssal essence itself. Its shaft twisted like bone, its blade blacker than void, veined with writhing crimson light. In its center pulsed a gem the size of a heart, radiating a will so corrupted it drowned the waters for miles.
Haotian's chest tightened as the aura struck him. This was no beast, no sect technique — this was a fragment of the Abyss given form. Even his Dao of Equilibrium wavered, unable to erase its presence.
The halberd moved on its own, sweeping across the trench. From its blade erupted waves of black mist, forming into writhing tentacles that lashed outward. They twisted through the sea like serpents, their tips splitting into barbed hooks, dripping with abyssal qi.
Haotian weaved between them, his robe trailing. Each lash carried the strength to tear apart mountains. He countered with law and Dao, dissolving strands with currents of pure equilibrium, yet more formed endlessly.
"There has to be a weakness," he thought, his golden eyes scanning. Then he saw it — the core gem, pulsing at the halberd's center. But to reach it, he would have to pierce through a storm of tentacles that multiplied without end.
The abyssal whispers battered his mind: Dissolve… kneel… join…
Gritting his teeth, Haotian began to strike back with the Demon God Killing Martial Arts. His fists hammered currents into spiraling shockwaves, his kicks carved trenches in the deep, his strikes scattering the tentacles. But for every limb he tore apart, three more erupted from the halberd's mist.
This will never end.
Alter's voice cut through his sea of consciousness, sharp and amused.Let me take over.
Haotian dodged another lash, the water cracking with force. "If I do…"
I'll make it quick, Alter said. You know I will.
For a moment, Haotian hesitated, his body trembling between pride and necessity. Then another tentacle narrowly missed, tearing a canyon through the trench wall.
"Alright," he growled.
His aura shifted instantly.
The balance steadiness vanished, replaced by something heavier, colder, merciless. Haotian stood straight, his eyes darkening with disdain, his smirk curling sharp.
A tentacle swept toward him. He raised a single hand and caught it mid-swing. The abyssal mist shrieked as he squeezed, his grip crushing the limb until it snapped like brittle coral.
A scream echoed from the halberd itself, a sound like ten thousand voices wailing in unison.
The abyssal will roared: WHO ARE YOU?
Haotian's voice was no longer his own. It was Alter's — commanding, mocking, transcendent."Silence, octopus."
The severed tentacle dissolved in his fist, breaking into mist that scattered harmlessly. He smirked, his gaze like a god looking down at insects."Enough of you."
He lowered into stance. His right fist drew back, qi spiraling and condensing, the sea trembling as the currents bent toward him. Then he drove his punch forward.
The impact tore the ocean apart.
A massive undercurrent erupted outward, a tidal wave of force that swept everything before it. Tentacles shattered into dust, the abyssal mist blown away as though it never existed. The halberd convulsed, the core gem splintering with a scream. In a heartbeat it exploded into shards, dissolving into nothing.
But the force did not stop.
The current surged upward, splitting the sea from trench to surface. Water roared as the planet's ocean parted in a vertical chasm. The blast tore skyward, breaking through the waves in a cataclysmic eruption that split the storms above. Clouds shredded apart, and even reality cracked — a jagged rift in space tore open, revealing a swirling cosmic void beyond.
The world shuddered. Beasts for miles around fell dead, their corrupted bodies shattered, their remnants scattered like sand. The Abyssal corruption dissipated, fleeing before the overwhelming wave.
At last, the current receded. Haotian lowered his fist, his smirk fading into a quiet laugh."Told you… I'd get it done fast."
His eyes closed. When they opened again, the disdain was gone — his golden gaze returned, the eyes of the Universe restored.
But then he froze.
The space rift still lingered, its edges sparking, tearing wider. Haotian's breath caught. "What kind of attack was that?"
Alter chuckled in his mind. Just a punch. A regular punch.
Haotian stared at the rift, his jaw tightening. "A regular punch opened a hole in space? That's not going to cause trouble, is it?"
Maybe, Alter said lightly. Let's hope nothing happens.
It was wishful thinking.
From the rift stretched out a colossal red hand, its nails black and razor-sharp, its flesh crawling with abyssal runes. The void groaned as the hand clawed its way through, reaching into Marephoros' skies.
Haotian's golden eyes widened. Black lines spread across his face, his aura trembling beneath the weight of the presence beyond.
The Abyss had answered.
The rift above Marephoros widened with a groan that split the heavens. One colossal red hand clawed forward, nails black as void, abyssal runes writhing across its flesh.
Haotian surged upward, his golden eyes blazing. "I won't let you through!"
He struck, torrents of law and Dao bursting from his fists, waves of equilibrium surging like storms. Blades of water carved into the hand, chains of balance wrapped around its fingers. But then—
Another hand appeared.
It slammed against the opposite side of the rift, clutching, tearing. The void warped, groaning as the colossal arms began to pull the wound wider.
Alter's voice thundered in Haotian's mind. He's trying to pry it open! If he succeeds, he'll step through. This is no fragment, brat. This is strength near a True God realm.
Haotian's heart froze. His strikes hammered again and again, but the abyssal flesh absorbed them without wound. Then came the roar.
It was not sound, but force. A tidal bellow that carried the weight of a realm.
The world cracked.
Haotian's body was hurled like a leaf in a storm. He tumbled, spinning violently, flipping end over end through the sky. The ocean below shattered into walls of spray as he struck the air again and again. At last, he steadied himself, floating miles from the rift. His breath burned in his chest. His gaze snapped upward.
The rift loomed immense, its light bleeding crimson. Just that roar had thrown him this far.
"I can't let it come through."
Haotian closed his eyes. For a moment, silence.
Then his aura shifted.
Alter stepped forward. His presence poured out of Haotian's body, disdainful, sharp, calm in its violence. Man, he muttered, stretching through their shared vessel, this is turning into quite a day.
He extended his right hand to the side, fingers curling into empty air.
It answered.
A gleam of light fractured the void. A blade took form — long, sleek, a katana without hilt, its core gem glowing between blade and grip.
Starsever manifested, descending into his palm, its edge facing downward. Haotian's — no, Alter's — hand closed tight around the hilt.
The sea trembled.
He lifted Starsever horizontally, holding it steady to his side. Then he shifted, lowering into stance, his body angled sideways toward the rift. The blade stretched forward like a line dividing heaven and earth. His left hand pressed gently to the tip of the weapon, steadying it.
Streams of chi flowed from his body into the blade, rivers of power weaving into steel. Lightning cracked across the weapon, bursting outward in crimson arcs that wrapped around his arms, his chest, his very flesh.
The storm screamed. Wind swirled violently at his feet, spiraling upward, lifting the ocean spray into vortexes. The crimson lightning expanded, engulfing him fully until he was a figure of storm incarnate.
He shifted his weight forward. His presence sharpened, compressed.
Then—he vanished.
Dozens of afterimages ripped through the sea and sky, blurred streaks of crimson light flickering around the colossal hands. In less than a heartbeat, Alter-Haotian reappeared directly before the rift, Starsever drawn back in thrust.
His voice cracked the heavens.
"Divine Heavenly Sword Art, Second Form—Sky Piercer!"
The thrust tore reality.
A beam of condensed crimson lightning erupted from Starsever's edge, spearing forward into the rift.
The heavens split apart.
A colossal shockwave exploded outward from the rift, flattening clouds and sending tsunamis racing across Marephoros' oceans. The beam of crimson lightning stabbed through the void, spearing into the rift with unstoppable force.
From the abyss beyond came a roar. It was not just sound but a demonic howl of agony, shaking the world's core. The colossal red hands convulsed, abyssal runes burning and unraveling under the assault.
But then the unexpected happened.
Behind the rift — space fractured again. Another rift burst open, jagged and raw, and the beam punched straight through it, erupting outward into the starry void.
Reality buckled.
A second rift formed behind the first, then shattered again as the beam tore through. One after another, rifts appeared, collapsed, and reopened in a relentless chain.
From afar, the scene looked like a dotted line of destruction across the sky — each "dot" a collapsed rift, each "gap" where reality had been splintered. The line stretched endlessly into the distance, as if the beam had no end.
The demonic roar turned to a scream. The right hand lost its grip, sliding back into the abyss. The other clung desperately to the rift's edge, claws digging deep. But even it faltered. The rift's borders cracked like glass, the edges splintering. With a final groan, the second hand tore free and recoiled into the void.
The wound in space hung trembling, unstable, half-open.
Haotian stood before it, Starsever raised. His golden eyes glimmered, his aura steady even amid the chaos. Then, with quiet finality, he drew the blade high.
"Dimensional Omni-Slash."
He brought the blade down.
The strike ripped through reality. A massive arc of energy burst outward, engulfing the rift and all the dotted scars left in its wake. Each fracture split into smaller sections, cut apart with surgical precision.
Then — one by one — the rifts shattered.
Like glass under a hammer, each crack broke, collapsed inward, and dissolved. The void sealed itself as if mended by unseen hands. The chain of ruptures vanished, replaced by clear sky and whole reality.
The rift was gone.
The hands were gone.
The Abyss retreated.
Haotian lowered Starsever, its crimson glow fading into stillness. He rested the blade against his shoulder, his breath steady. His robe swayed in the lingering winds of destruction.
A small smile tugged at his lips, weary but wry."This is one hell of a day."
The storm above finally stilled, the ocean below falling calm. The world breathed again.