"Who are you, really? Who are you?!"
Izisha's exquisite face contorted. How unfair the heavens were — in her former life she had followed the script of "When one is born, why is Tai born," and in this second life a mysterious Emperor now trampled her dignity with contempt and easily snatched the Divine Soul.
She could not comprehend it. The enemy she had provoked definitely did not include such an unfamiliar Emperor.
Hearing her, Lu Jun turned, amusement in his heart. If you want to ask, go ask your good subordinate Dulank — he was the one who plotted against Xin Xia. Why pick a fight with me for no reason?
Besides, you won't wait for me to bestow the Divine Benediction, right… fine, I'll just seize the blessing-printing press myself — one for Tang Yue, one for my sister, one for Ding Yumian, one for Qing Yu, everyone gets one!
Lu Jun felt liberated and let out all the pent-up irritation he had accumulated this month.
He looked inward into his spiritual world. The Divine Soul and the Nether-King each occupied half the realm: the former lay quiet, the latter in full stir — forming a Taiji-like yin-yang picture of pure white entwined with jet black.
After all, if you compared weights, the Athena Divine Soul was solidly a mid-level Emperor-tier (a dominion-class standing). The Ancient King Armor-Robe had only one-third of a Nether-King's fruition; it would have to consecutively swallow Egypt's Khufu and the Undersea Empress Skeleton Queen to be comparable.
Frankly, Lu Jun never really planned to seize Divine Soul that belonged to Xin Xia but fate turned, Izisha took the upper hand, and Dulank provoked him, so he decided to act.
If Parthenon fell under Izisha's iron-fisted goddess rule, it would be the worst possible outcome.
As for Xin Xia, before execution what she most wanted was a peaceful life with her brother Mo Fan. She never liked power and authority; otherwise the magic element she awakened would not be primarily auxiliary.
Now Mind and Curse — two mutually generating and restraining star-systems — by chance had sealed two great things respectively, each with the potential to fast-track one to Forbidden Spell level.
Lu Jun admitted that when he chose Mind and Curse at mid-tier he indeed had grand ambitions: use the Parthenon doctrines for Mind, and for Curse pursue possession-style techniques, walk a non-human path.
He never expected the potential would be orders of magnitude higher now.
"With resurrection armor in hand, who knows — mastering the secret of life and death might free one from human lifespan limits."
He mused as he watched the Divine Soul quietly standing in the Mind star-cosmos — it contained boundless energy, greater even than the Ancient King Armor-Robe, its aura chiefly of Healing and Blessing, the rest secondary.
That perfectly matched Parthenon's most famed specialties: Healing and Blessing.
However, Lu Jun only wanted the Divine Soul's life force and, at most, its Mind puissance; the other Blessings, Plant arts, and the twelve native Holy Souls could be discarded.
A system's value lies in refinement, not in quantity; being too mixed actually impedes cultivation — selection is crucial.
Now that he possessed both Divine Soul and Ancient King Armor-Robe, he intended to build a complementary cyclical system — the most archetypal being the Wheel of Life and Death.
"The awakened super-tier systems are set: Healing and Undead as primary; Mind and Curse assisting and extending; Space-Time, Summoning, Metal, and Water to patch weaknesses, follow the path to the extreme."
He felt a vague enlightenment and great excitement. This was a broad avenue straight to the Emperor-roof: to master life and death dominion, with both a core and omnipotence.
Outside, Izisha did not know Lu Jun's thoughts. To her, this mysterious ancient armored Emperor merely gave her a disdainful smile, a look that utterly ignored her.
"Everyone, heed my order: slay the Emperor and take back my Divine Soul!"
Izisha's killing intent rang out.
Lu Jun came back to himself. He hadn't planned to bother with this woman, but hearing that he smiled and finally spoke in a low voice.
The armored Emperor's tone was cold and hoarse as it echoed in the void: "The Divine Soul never belonged to you — it belongs to Wentai."
Those words made Izisha's face twist hideously. It was unimaginable that such a beautiful woman could become so grotesque; the sentence cut to the heart.
Without more words, Lu Jun reached out and the Nether-King's power erupted.
Crack — crack — crack — Izisha screamed in fear as she felt herself split like shattered porcelain. Her body opened countless fissures; threads of strange purple light leaked out, carrying a heavy deathly radiance — like Netherglow.
Pharaoh's Spring!
"So it is indeed my Undead Resurrection Ritual. Very good! After you're back in the underworld, pay my respects to Wentai."
The Armored Emperor's domineering voice rolled across the Athenian citadel. "Tell Him — when I return, have him vacate the place he's taken."
The next moment Izisha screamed, a terrible, shrill cry that pierced the clouds:
"No!"
Boom! Her whole body exploded outward; a skyful of purple liquid rose up.
Lu Jun waved his great hand and gathered that enormous Pharaoh's Spring into the White Tiger pendant.
It merged with the purple sacred water he'd earlier seized from the Egyptian team, swelling and spreading until it became an acre-sized crystalline purple lake, shimmering with dreamlike color.
Izisha was dead.
All of this happened within a few breaths; no one had time to react before the previous goddess Izisha fell.
Everyone trembled. Only Old Song, Haylon, and the High Matron could barely think, tasting the Emperor's words over and over: "Nether-King? Wentai? Could Wentai still be alive? Fallen into the Dark Plane?"
This was Lu Jun's intent: to shape the Ancient King into someone provoking the Dark King to make it look like he was deliberately going after the Dark King's trouble.
As the Dark King rules the Dark Plane, and with three of the four dark kings not yet returned, he effectively monopolizes the authority there, projecting godlike influence far beyond the usual roofline. Once the other three kings are born, his influence will decline sharply; of course he would fiercely suppress rivals — this story makes sense.
Of course this is the Dark King's viewpoint. Wentai, as a soul-fragment, would probably welcome the birth of the Shadow Saint King, Nether-King, and Shade-Spawn King to split off part of the Dark King's power and ease the pressure on the magic plane.
To be frank, Lu Jun repeatedly studied the original Dark King's behavior, including a shadowed Dark King avatar's line "Wentai is Wentai; he is not me." He had reason to suspect the Dark King resembled a supreme power fractured by mental schisms — soul-personas at odds with one another.
At that moment Lu Jun perceived that, after Izisha's fall, her soul had broken through some barrier and in an instant dropped into the hands of a great being in a distant beyond — which only confirmed his suspicion.
From his emperor-level, high-dimensional vantage he faintly glimpsed, beyond the cosmic crystal barrier, a boundless black world; a supreme deity's form towered on its peak, its vague gaze falling across the void.
Lu Jun ignored that presence — the Dark King could not come over yet.
On Parthenon's summit, the Emperor turned and looked toward a distant, vast, pitch-black shadow.
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