Chapter 670: The Man Who Swept the World (Two-in-One)

"Keep it for yourself. I'm not lacking yours."

As Yan Jing's voice faded, the air seemed to stagnate once more.

"..."

The entity atop The Tower fell silent yet again.

At this point, anything he said would be useless. Whether he feigned magnanimity or squabbled over every detail, it would only look embarrassing.

He was a Deity. The person opposite him was not even fully in the Demigod Realm.

It was utterly humiliating.

He should have been furious, but the revelation of the gods had yet to begin.

Ultimately, he could only speak in a slow, measured tone:

"Do you realize that once the revelation of the gods begins, I will descend?"

"I am the Deity of Victory. I will not permit defeat, much less to an existence like yours—not even in mere words."

"There is no one else here. If you retract your words now, I can pretend none of this happened."

He had finally recovered his divine majesty. His tone was serene, simply stating a fact.

In his eyes, this was the last chance he would offer Yan Jing.

If Yan Jing failed to show the proper attitude, death would be his only remaining path.

But things did not follow his script. Yan Jing merely smiled:

"I understand what you mean."

"Thank you for your concern."

"But I can't wrong myself over this."

Wrong himself.

He meant that accepting this Divine Throne would be doing himself a disservice.

When those words left Yan Jing's lips, the entity atop The Tower froze for a moment. Then, he laughed.

The booming laughter cascaded from the heights, twisting the clouds and warping the sky.

A torrential downpour immediately crashed over the world.

Yan Jing could hear the endless fury threaded through that laughter.

Yet he just stood in the rain with a faint smile, not saying a word.

In the distance, the aura of "Fist" had vanished. She had sensed the anomaly here, seen the massive tree blotting out the sky and Yan Jing perched above. Ultimately, she chose to flee. Compared to her life, pride simply did not matter.

But another aura was hurtling in this direction, carrying a majestic pressure that crushed everything in its path.

Like a falling meteor, it crashed directly in front of Yan Jing.

It was a man. He had a massive build, standing nearly three meters tall.

Yet his proportions were not distorted. This did not seem to be a mutation from weird energy; it was just his natural stature. He spread his arms, biceps as thick as vigorous tree trunks, while his legs were like iron pillars driven firmly into the earth.

He stood there, arcs of radiant light blooming around him. His eyes swept over Yan Jing with disdain as an invisible pressure unfurled from his back, forcing back everything in the vicinity.

It was an aura of absolute invincibility.

It was the momentum of victory, something that could only be accumulated through endless triumphs.

Relying on this terrifying momentum of victory, the man could terrify his opponents into submission before the battle even began, leaving them too afraid to even meet his gaze.

To his surprise, Yan Jing did not fall into that category.

Yan Jing looked up at the man, his eyes crinkling with amusement:

"A Demigod Realm cultivator of the Victory Pathway?"

"That works."

"Today is a duel between you and me."

Yan Jing smiled softly:

"I don't mean anything by it. I just want to see your talent."

As his words fell, a white Crown materialized out of thin air above Yan Jing's head. Wisps of light cascaded down, washing over his body and the Crown itself.

"Buzz—"

Pitch-black light flickered around Yan Jing.

An aura astonishingly similar to the man's—but even more piercing—erupted from him.

The man's eyes narrowed.

He knew his opponent walked the Victory Pathway, otherwise he wouldn't be exploring The Tower. But he hadn't expected Yan Jing's momentum of victory to be this terrifying.

At that moment, the phantom behind Yan Jing looked like a Deity's avatar. A massive throne materialized beneath the Fear Tree, and the illusion of the Crown manifested directly at the very top of that world-spanning tree.

Countless auras surged. They belonged to the opponents Yan Jing had defeated in the past. Now, they formed a vast, oceanic presence that rippled through the leaves of the world-like Fear Tree.

The man searched through those auras, unable to find a single trace of defeat.

His heart jolted.

This person, just like him, had never lost.

"Do you know what era I come from?"

The man glared at Yan Jing. His words were sharp, his tone freezing, attempting to pry open a flaw in the airtight pressure radiating from his opponent:

"I come from a distant epoch. In that time, there were no kings who ruled for a century, no emperors who reigned for a millennium. There were only sovereigns who swept across an entire era."

"And I, alone, swept through two eras."

"Before the severance of ages, I had already attained the Divine Throne of Lord Hand of Victory."

"I sealed myself in ice, all to wait for this era to arrive."

"You think you can beat me?"

Hearing this, Yan Jing laughed.

It was a genuine laugh. He was not mocking, he was not ridiculing, nor was he trying to enrage the man to expose a weakness.

He just wanted to laugh.

Because he thought of someone.

The owner of the Crown above his head.

He still remembered the day he first acquired this Crown.

What kind of existence had that been?

A magnificent back standing between heaven and earth. The opponents across from him changed over and over—from giants holding up the sky to near-divine beings glowing with halos... yet that figure remained completely unshakeable.

He had never lost. He didn't even know the meaning of defeat.

The challengers came to him one after another, every single one a stunningly brilliant genius of their time.

But all he needed was a black halberd and a black robe. When the long halberd cleaved downward, the opponent across from him would dissolve into a drop of blood and vanish into his brow.

And so it went, year after year, generation after generation, era after era.

The sun and moon shifted; the seas changed into fields.

He absolutely dominated five whole eras, severing the lineage of the gods. He spent his entire life on the battlefield and never suffered a single loss. Even when facing the Child of Heaven and Earth—born from the gathered power of the world—he fought to a brutal draw in his old age. His legend spanned epochs, stunning countless domains.

Going by this man's logic, a person like that had swept through five eras.

In comparison, this man's two eras seemed rather mundane.

Furthermore, it was only because this man had never encountered him.

Yan Jing burst into loud laughter and looked toward The Tower:

"This is your judgment? This is the talent you desire?"

He pointed at the Crown hovering above his head, his smile wild and free:

"He waited for you for five entire eras, and you never once thought to bestow a Divine Throne upon him?"

"...Shut up!!!"

No one could have anticipated that the entity inside The Tower, after half a beat of silence, would roar with such violent intensity.

He finally remembered. He remembered why this human before him was so loathsome. He remembered why he had felt an instinctive revulsion the very first time he laid eyes on him.

It was because of that man.

The person standing here was far too similar to the man from back then.

Just thinking of him made the Deity's mind tremble involuntarily.

It was out of disgust. Out of bone-deep hatred.

Back then, he had seen that man's invincibility and decided to bestow his Divine Throne upon him.

But who could have imagined that the moment that man saw him, he would actually raise his halberd against a god?

That man walked the Victory Pathway.

He thought he was invincible; he truly believed he was unmatched.

So even when a Deity stood before him, he still raised his halberd.

He invited the god to a fight.

Naturally, the Deity accepted.

Not with his divine body, but at the exact same Tier as that man.

He had his own pride as a Deity. He wanted to win, and to win beautifully.

But...

That defeat nearly shattered his godhood. He fled back to his sanctuary like a stray dog.

He needed to heal, and the process took a very long time.

Over the endless stretch of time, that trauma eventually fermented into pure hatred.

So later, when that man attempted to prove his Dao for a Divine Throne, countless deities wanted to bestow their favor upon him. He blocked them all.

That man could not be allowed to become a god.

It wasn't just because he hated him.

It was because he feared him.

What did it mean to be the Deity of Victory?

It meant a Deity who would triumph regardless of who they faced.

Yet that man had defeated him at the same Tier.

If that man ascended to godhood, would the result be the same?

He didn't dare gamble on it. He didn't even dare think too deeply about it.

He simply pretended to know nothing, stepping in to block the other deities time and time again whenever that man knocked on the gates of the divine sanctuary.

Even for lower-tier deities, he refused to let them grant that man a Divine Throne.

This continued until that man died.

Died completely.

His soul dissolved into weird energy, and his flesh scattered into dust, severing any possibility of reincarnation.

Only then did the Deity finally bury this memory deep within his mind, never speaking of it to anyone again.

But today.

The Crown resting on Yan Jing's head had forced him to remember.

In a split second, the rain curtain in the sky grew even heavier.

If it had merely been a torrential downpour before, it was now indistinguishable from a bursting dam.

The raindrops merged into a white screen, ripping across the ground in the fierce winds like a rushing ocean surface.

Yan Jing and the towering man were barely a hundred meters apart, yet neither could clearly see the other's silhouette.

"Hah."

Yan Jing watched the intensifying rain and chuckled:

"You're getting frantic."

He knew he had struck the Deity's nerve, because what he said was the absolute truth.

Lies never really hurt anyone.

"Come."

Yan Jing smiled:

"Let me show you the power that senior possessed after his sublimation."

Yan Jing spread his hands. Weird energy surged frantically around the throne.

Silver and golden light flared simultaneously.

Peerless; Crown (Sublimated) (Elevated) (Silver-Gold)

{Tailao Rite Elevation Ability 1: Crown of Victory}

{The master of this Crown won against nearly every opponent in his lifetime. Victory was his lifelong pursuit.

For every opponent you defeat, you will accumulate one point of momentum of victory. This momentum grants you the courage to stand fearless even before Deities, elevates your physical attributes—including weird energy—and grants you all the abilities used by the opponents you defeat!!!

Note: The strength of this ability will scale endlessly with your own power.

Note: Now, if you lose a battle, you will lose all of your momentum of victory!!!!}

{Tailao Rite Elevation Ability 2: Peerless}

{Bestow a Peerless posture upon another of your abilities, allowing it to erupt with unimaginable strength. Furthermore, you may now enter the Peerless state.

In the Peerless state, you will gain elevated versions of all the abilities the Crown's master possessed in life, and all abilities will receive a secondary Peerless amplification.}

{Tailao Rite Elevation Ability 3: Undefeated}

{You will remain immortal and indestructible for five minutes.}

{Tailao Rite Elevated Trait: Void

A great existence deeply versed in the Dao of Space has left two blessings upon you.

All of your spatial abilities will receive a hundredfold amplification, and will slowly continue to grow.

You can temporarily open a Space Grid measuring 33,333 x 33,333 x 33,333 meters. It can be used to store items or temporarily trap opponents.

This Space Grid cannot cross spatial boundaries, or it will collapse.}

This was the elevated Crown!

Instead of gaining just one ability from a defeated opponent, he now gained all of them. Instead of the acquired abilities being static, they now grew alongside his strength. And the penalty for losing a battle shifted from losing half of his momentum of victory to losing it all.

Not only that, he had gained the brand-new Peerless state, and 'Undefeated' had extended his immortal and indestructible duration from one minute to five.

Finally, the generated Space Grid had expanded from 333 x 333 x 333 meters to 33,333 x 33,333 x 33,333 meters.

His spatial abilities had leaped from a tenfold boost to a hundredfold amplification.

And this was without even factoring in the Divine Throne of Space.

The weird energy surrounding Yan Jing transformed into an absolute domain belonging solely to him, carving out a space amid the pouring rain.

He lowered his gaze to look at the man across from him.

Under that stare, the man's pupils trembled.

Heavy. An overwhelmingly oppressive weight manifested around Yan Jing. The pitch-black field seemed to weigh tens of millions of tons; just hovering there was enough to cause the surrounding space to continuously collapse.

The Crown hovering above Yan Jing's head had now taken on a completely new form.

The mottled bloodstains seemed to bloom, transforming into brilliant crystal flowers that drifted in orbit around him.

In his hand, a Pitch-Black Great Halberd materialized.

The instant he saw that halberd, the man below shuddered. He finally realized why the aura of the Crown was so familiar.

It belonged to an existence who had lived long after he fell into his deep slumber.

He had heard tales of him. He had even tried to seek him out during his brief periods of wakefulness.

But... he had only managed to find lingering traces of his aura.

An entity who had crushed five eras, only to perish in mutual destruction alongside the Child of Destiny in his final age.

He had imagined crossing blades with that man countless times.

Now, he finally had his chance.

But... why did his own heartbeat sound like pounding war drums?

"Only one strike."

Yan Jing hefted the long halberd and rose from the throne.

Fear Stance Third Layer State manifested.

The sigil of a leaf appeared between his brows.

The Fear Thorns that had previously bound him drew back, allowing him to stand unhindered. He stared down at the man:

"If you know the rules, then you should know that when true walkers of Victory clash, there is only one strike."

"Those with courage seize either death or glory. Those without it eke out a miserable existence."

"Whether you parry it or not, I will only strike once."

With those words, he gazed imperiously at the man. His voice was as light as a drifting dandelion seed:

"Here it comes."

The next second, a streak of lightning cleaved the brilliant night sky. It crashed into the Domain, swallowing both the land and all the light upon it.

Yan Jing's figure dissolved into the flash. The halberd in his hand surged with explosive, terrifying power, piercing the heavens. In an instant, the winds and clouds warped. From the sky, a torrent like an overturned galaxy poured down, crashing around his silhouette and pooling into a boundless abyss of world-shaking might.

Lightning and abyss, sky and earth—all of it merged into this single strike.

The legendary strike from the battle within Yan Jing's memories—the one no living soul had ever witnessed—finally manifested here in reality.

Amidst that blinding devastation, no one could even discern how the man attempted to block it.

But none of that mattered anymore.

A sharp ring of clashing metal echoed out.

Yan Jing reappeared behind the man.

He wiped a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth and gave the halberd's blade a gentle flick.

In the next breath, a crack spiderwebbed across the center of the man's burly torso.

Then, the light in his eyes abruptly dimmed.

His entire body crumbled into dust and blew away.