Clown King's voice was distorted and shrill as he angrily hurled his trump card, the throwing knives. Four knives sliced through the air, blocking all of Taiyi's escape routes.
Taiyi simply stood there coldly, without even moving.
"You're manipulating people's hearts."
His voice resonated directly in the depths of the Clown King's soul through the data.
"And I... control your destinies."
The four throwing knives, powerful enough to cut through space, were swallowed up by an invisible, deeper dark force the instant they approached his body, vanishing without a trace.
In the end, there was no suspense regarding the outcome of that earth-shattering battle.
Taiyi is no longer "defeating" them.
With absolute overwhelming force, he forcibly aggregated all the remaining core data of the Dark Four Heavenly Kings. Using his will, which had transformed into the ultimate terminal, he utterly crushed, absorbed, and fused their consciousness!
The image freezes.
The dust of the battle has settled.
Taiyi was sitting on a throne made of bones constructed from the remains of the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.
The broken cannon barrel of Mugendramon formed the armrests, the alloy armor plates of MetalSeadramon covered the back of the chair, the cross puppet strings of Puppetmon hung limply, and Piedmon's mask was trampled under his feet.
His left hand gleamed with the cold, metallic light of the Steel Seadramon.
His right hand emanated the elusive, dark aura of the Clown King.
His gaze had evolved from pure hatred into an absolute coldness that transcended all things.
He completed his initial capital accumulation.
Taiyi slowly raised his head.
His gaze seemed to transcend time and space, piercing through the barriers of dimensions, fixed intently on the constancy beyond the screen, on those "comrades" who had once fought alongside him.
It was a declaration that aimed to etch fear directly into the other person's soul.
That was the tolling of the bell signaling the complete end of the old order.
"Next..."
"It's your turn.
"Next..."
"It's your turn."
The final syllable was less a sound and more a mark of absolute will, directly piercing through the barrier of dimensions.
On the throne of bones, Taiyi's gaze did not linger for even a second on the desolate plain before him, a plain composed of destruction and ruins.
His gaze pierced through reality, penetrating into the deeper, more essential dimensions of the digital world.
There, he "saw" it.
The four fundamental directions of the void—east, south, west, and north—are supported by four vast energies, as boundless as a sea of stars. They are anchor points, foundational elements, and the very laws that allow this world to exist stably.
The Four Divine Beasts.
The guardian of this land in its old days.
"It is not enough to merely rule the land."
A cold voice echoed in Taiyi's mind.
He finally understood the crux of the problem. The reason why constancy was so superior and could bring down its so-called "judgment" on him was not because of its own power, but because it held the foundation of this world.
The gods sit in their divine kingdom, supported by four pillars that reach to the heavens.
To launch a counterattack against the gods, one must first sever His limbs.
Taiyi's fingers lightly traced the armrest formed by the Infinite Dragon Beast cannon barrel, and the dark red data stream at his fingertips pulsed and hissed like a living thing.
Behind him, shadows began to creep and gather.
A massive army silently assembled. It was Devimon, who had once struggled at the bottom of the Digital World's food chain, the lowest-ranking cannon fodder.
But now, they are different.
Each of the Demon Beasts was forcibly infused with data fragments of the Dark Masters. Their bodies swelled, their muscles bulged, and beneath their jet-black skin, the metallic sheen of Mugendramon would sometimes appear, and the eerie runes of Piedmon would sometimes flash. They were no longer simply demons, but deformed war machines bearing the brutality and power of the Dark Masters.
Taiyi did not issue any grand pre-battle mobilization.
He didn't even look back.
He simply waved his hand indifferently and casually.
The next second, a massive army of demon beasts soared into the sky, forming a dark cloud of countless twisted despairs that instantly obscured the entire sky and swept southward.
First stop, the Southern Territory.
The Vermilion Bird, guarding this place, felt an unprecedented desecration and invasion. It let out a cry that pierced the sky, swooped down from the heavens, and with a flap of its wings, crimson flames powerful enough to melt and decompose data transformed into a sea of fire, descending upon the Demon Beast army.
However, Taiyi, sitting on the throne, showed no emotion in his eyes, which had become completely digitized.
He had already seen through everything.
He didn't even send Agumon out to attack.
He simply raised his other hand, spread his fingers, and then clenched them tightly.
A cold, icy command, traversing vast distances, reached the very depths of the souls of all the water-type digital beasts in the southern realm.
"In the face of absolute scale, the flame of an individual is but a candle flickering in the wind."
Taiyi coldly observed the battle.
His will is an absolute iron law.
The ocean roared, the rivers surged backward. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of aquatic digital beasts, whether in their nascent or mature stages, lost themselves in that instant. Their eyes became empty, their sole instinct to carry out the commands of the world's new ruler.
They transformed into a terrifying curtain of water that blotted out the sky, facing the Vermilion Bird's raging flames with a resolute and fearless suicidal stance.
laugh--!
The collision of water and fire created an endless white mist, shrouding the entire world in chaos.
One after another, water-based digital beasts were evaporated in the flames, dissipating into the most primitive data streams.
But their deaths also took away even a fraction of the flame's energy.
The Vermilion Bird was spewing flames wildly, its power seemingly inexhaustible. But Taiyi's slave army was even more inexhaustible in number.
This is a primitive and brutal war of attrition.
When the sacred flames of the Vermilion Bird finally showed a barely perceptible dimming, when it froze for a moment due to the immense exhaustion of its stamina—
Taiyi moved.
The figure on the throne disappeared.
The next moment, he appeared directly above the massive body of the Zhu Tuo Beast, his movements so fast they seemed like a misaligned piece of code.
He swung his fist.
There was no surge of energy, no dazzling light effects.
It was merely a purely physical attack that concentrated the core power of the Dark Four Heavenly Kings, and it struck the core of the Vermilion Bird Beast with perfect accuracy.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
Then, the guardian deity of the south, its enormous body began to shatter and disintegrate.
Next up is the Northern Territory.
The roar of the Xuanwu Beast shook the earth. This sacred beast, renowned for its absolute defense, retreated into its shell, which was made of the hardest material in the Digital World.
Taiyi simply stood quietly in front of it.
He extended his right hand, palm facing up.
A dark red flame, seemingly from the deepest part of hell, slowly rose in his palm.
That was the ultimate destructive power that had been seized, fused, and purified from the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.
Taiyi coldly pressed the ball of energy onto the Xuanwu Beast's carapace.
There was no explosion.
There was no impact.
The dark red energy, like a leech, began to frantically penetrate and erode. The extreme heat caused the Xuanwu Beast's prized carapace to turn red from the inside out, emitting a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound, and cracks began to spread from the point of contact.
"Aaaaaah—!"
The Xuanwu Beast let out a painful roar.
This is not destruction, this is "refinement". Taiyi is using an almost torture-like method to refine this immortal sacred beast, along with its defensive laws, into the purest data source.
Ultimately, in the very heart of the Digital World, Taiichi and Azumamon, the leader of the Four Holy Beasts, faced off from afar.
"Taiichi Yagami!"
The Azure Dragon Beast's thunderous roar caused the entire dimensional space to vibrate. It was surrounded by billions of terrifying bolts of lightning—the power of punishment from the Digital World, the manifestation of order.
"You have embarked on a path of no return."
Upon hearing this, Taiyi's lips curled into an extremely arrogant sneer.
There was no fear in his eyes, only the most primal and pure desire for power.
"A road of no return?"
"When I was betrayed and abandoned by you, that path was already closed."
The moment the words fell, the Azure Dragon Beast's judgment descended.
The lightning, powerful enough to destroy everything, transformed into a pillar of light that pierced through the heavens and earth, crashing down upon Taiyi.
Faced with this divine punishment, Taiyi neither dodged nor avoided it, but instead opened his arms wide.
"roar--!"
From the shadows behind him, WarGreymon let out a roar that shattered the universe. Guided by Taiichi's will, it transformed into an orange streak of light and charged into the heart of the thunderstorm!
That was a scene that shattered one's very soul.
Taiichi is using his special "human digitalization" physique as a connection terminal to forcibly fuse Agumon's evolution code with Qinglongmon's lightning essence in a crazy, savage, and reckless manner!
"Devour it! Agumon!"
The piercing screams and the violent explosions mingled together.
At the heart of the thunderstorm, a jet-black light of evolution, mixed with crimson lightning, suddenly exploded!
The light faded.
A brand new, unprecedented monster silently floated in the air.
Its body was covered in a ferocious suit of armor that crackled with dark red lightning, and a pair of dragon wings made of pure electricity stretched out from its back. The huge dragon-slaying sword in its hand was now crackling with destructive lightning and flames.
Thunderflame Tyrannomon.
For the first time, a look of near-fear appeared in the Azure Dragon Beast's enormous eyes.
It sensed that its authority as the master of lightning was being forcibly stripped away and taken away by the other party.
Taiyi didn't give it any chance to react.
Thunderflame Tyrannomon obeyed its master's will and swung the giant sword in its hand.
With a single sword strike, it fell.
The colossal body of the Azure Dragon Beast, stretching for thousands of miles, was pinned down from the sky by a sword strike containing its own primal power, and firmly nailed to the earth of the Digital World.
As the four sacred beasts fell one after another, their bodies did not dissipate, but instead transformed into four enormous data pillars supporting the heavens and the earth, emitting mournful cries, surrounding the throne of bones.
At this moment, Taiichi successfully seized control of the Digital World.
He could feel that the entire world's latitude, longitude, coordinates, and spatial laws were clearly presented in his will, as if he could see the lines on his palm.
He is no longer an intruder.
He is transforming himself into the new foundation of this world.
Viewers across the myriad realms, watching the cold, aloof figure on the screen, protected by four mournful pillars of data, felt a chill creep from the depths of their very souls.
He wasn't fighting.
He was like a master chess player, ruthlessly and meticulously eliminating all of his opponent's pieces, step by step.
Until the old god hiding behind the scenes was completely driven into a corner with no way out.