DD Black White [343-344] (Patreon)

Chapter 343: The Defeat of the Sea God

At this moment, it was as if all the noise in the world had been silenced.

All humans and soul beasts, regardless of faction or strength, could only look up at the violently trembling golden ancient tree—like ants staring helplessly at the sky, powerless to do anything but watch as it seemed ready to shatter at any moment.

Their senses were completely consumed by the terrifying auras erupting and colliding madly from deep within the tree's heart.

One aura was familiar—sacred blue, now tottering on the brink of collapse. The other was unfamiliar—icy, deathly, and filled with purple-black evil.

Each clash and tear between these two forces caused not only spatial distortion and humming but also a quake that struck to the very core of the soul.

Their hearts were flooded with overwhelming fear, feeling their own insignificance in the face of such great power, and a deep confusion about what would come next.

The ferocious assault of the soul beast army had already come to a complete halt.

Even those as violent as Bear Lord and as cunning as Myriad Demon King were now utterly suppressed by the divine battle aura that far surpassed their comprehension. Their huge beastly eyes were filled with suspicion and instinctual fear.

As for the soul beasts below ten thousand years, acting purely on instinct, they had already lost all ferocity, sprawling densely on the ground, trembling, squeezing out desperate, suppressed whimpers from deep within their throats.

Inside the golden tree, the earth-shattering clash that would decide the fate of countless lives finally reached its conclusion.

Tang San, merging all the power and will of this divine consciousness avatar into one unstoppable strike, unleashed a brilliance that cleansed all evil, as if even true gods and devils could be slain.

However, what Lord Ravager Phantylia represented was a force that transcended the ordinary laws of this world—a power born from the end of the universe itself.

Especially in that last moment, she forcibly converted the vast life energy of the golden tree into purest destruction, even at the cost of damaging its source. This instant eruption elevated her power to a new and despairing height.

The black energy sphere, dark as the abyss and seemingly able to devour all light, did not explode upon colliding with the Sea God's golden radiance. Instead, it showed a terrifying property—devouring and annihilation.

Like an endless, bottomless black hole, it greedily tore and sucked away the divine power and life energy within the golden light, converting and absorbing it inch by inch, making it part of its own destructive force.

As one power waned and the other grew, the once dazzling and unstoppable golden stream visibly dimmed and shrank, its divinity rapidly corrupted and assimilated.

In the end, under Tang San's gaze, filled with disbelief and deep unwillingness, his all-out attack was completely swallowed and digested by the black sphere.

The now smaller, more condensed seed of destruction, radiating ominous light, continued its momentum and struck hard at his exhausted divine consciousness form.

"Pu—!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a dull, chilling sound of energy corrosion.

Tang San's divine form instantly became transparent and illusory. Countless ferocious purple-black destruction patterns, like living poisonous thorns, crazily spread and rooted across his body, corroding and polluting the very core of his consciousness.

He could not even utter a final warning or last words before his form was disintegrated, inch by inch, in the absolute darkness, turning into countless dim golden-blue specks of light, and finally dissipating completely in the still-boiling sea of life.

Only the shadow of the Sea God Trident emitted a hum filled with unwillingness before fading into nothingness.

—This divine consciousness avatar of Sea God Tang San was completely erased, both form and spirit destroyed.

"Xiao San!!!"

In the distance, Ah Yin, forced back by the aftershocks of battle, let out a startled cry. The stable blue divine light around her fluctuated wildly in extreme shock, nearly collapsing.

She wanted to rush toward where her son's form had vanished, but Phantylia casually waved her hand, and a tightly condensed purple-black shackle of destruction appeared out of thin air, binding her from head to toe, rendering her immobile and unable to utter a sound.

She could only watch helplessly as her son's divine consciousness was utterly annihilated, her crystal-blue eyes filled with powerlessness.

Her own refining process was also forcibly interrupted by this emotional shock and Phantylia's interference, causing a backlash from the golden tree's instinctive will. Her consciousness became extremely dim and weak, on the verge of collapse.

"Hehehe... Hahahaha!"

Phantylia stood at the center of the sea of life, laughing wildly and unabashedly, her laughter full of conquest and satisfaction.

She spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the vast, now unprotected sea of life.

Thanks to Ah Yin's thousands of years of refining and assimilation, as well as the willingness of successive Sea God's Pavilion Masters of Shrek Academy to merge their souls and power into it, the golden tree's chance of developing its own consciousness had long since been snuffed out, leaving only the most primitive life instinct.

And a plane core acting only on instinct, no matter how high its level or how vast its energy, was even less resistant to Phantylia, who specialized in spiritual corruption and energy conversion, than Ah Yin before her.

"What vast and tempting life force... What a perfect foundation."

Phantylia's voice was filled with intoxication.

"Now, it belongs to me."

She no longer hesitated. Her huge and pure destructive intent surged forth, madly eroding, polluting, and assimilating the golden tree's core source.

The massive shadow of the tree of destruction behind her seemed to have found the perfect soil for parasitism. Countless thick black roots plunged fiercely into the sea of life, greedily absorbing the nearly limitless life energy and converting it into even more terrifying power of destruction.

Purple-black corruption spread rapidly from her position, like a deadly plague throughout the golden tree's interior. Wherever it went, the once dazzling golden-green was swiftly replaced by dead, bleak black. The holy, warm aura of life was completely overwhelmed and devoured by the cold, despairing will of destruction.

The entire interior space of the golden tree was rapidly shifting from a sanctuary of life into the abyss of destruction.

Outside, the survivors on Sea God Island watched in terror as the towering golden-blue pillar of light was completely swallowed and replaced by ominous purple-black radiance.

The golden ancient tree, bearing Shrek's ten thousand years of glory and faith, was visibly losing all its luster and vitality.

Its lush leaves withered, fell, and turned to dust in an instant. The thick trunk shriveled, darkened, and cracked, as if in these few short moments, it had been forced to live through tens of thousands of years and was now hastening toward the end of decay and death.

The suffocating, terrifying pressure of destruction continued to climb exponentially, like a tangible mountain, crushing all soul power and leaving only bone-chilling cold and endless despair.

"The Sea God... The Sea God's aura... is gone..."

Yan Shaozhe murmured, his face ashen, his lifelong faith completely shattered in this moment, his eyes hollow.

"It's over... Shrek... ten thousand years of heritage... everything is over..."

Elder Lin collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down his wrinkled face, filled only with endless sorrow and despair.

Just as the atmosphere of despair reached its peak—

The nearly pitch-black golden tree suddenly shuddered violently.

A colossal, highly condensed purple-black ring of pure destruction energy, like the sweeping hem of the goddess of death's dress, spread out from the golden tree, silent and swift.

This ring of destruction had no specific target; it represented only pure, indiscriminate annihilation.

Its first victims were Sea God Island and all remaining life upon it.

All members left in the Sea God's Pavilion, whether teachers, staff, ordinary people, or soul masters, could not even scream before their bodies, upon contact with the purple-black ring, disintegrated silently like paper in acid—becoming black dust, souls and all, completely erased.

"Rumble—!!!"

The ring of destruction expanded outward at an unstoppable, seemingly slow but irresistible pace.

Chapter 344: The Star of Destruction

The tide of destruction, like a black ocean, seemed determined to devour all living things.

Inside Shrek Academy, the remaining teachers instinctively activated the academy's massive underground soul tool defense array in their terror.

A huge, thick, seven-colored energy shield rose up with difficulty, making a final, desperate stand.

However, this shield, the pinnacle of Shrek's soul tool achievement, was as fragile as a soap bubble before the destruction ring infused with the will of Lord Ravager.

At the moment of contact, the shield couldn't even ripple before it let out a mournful wail and shattered into countless specks of light, vanishing instantly.

"Shrek Academy... is finished!"

Wang Yan, a teacher who had devoted his life to studying martial soul theory and stayed behind due to his lack of combat ability, bitterly pushed up his iconic black-rimmed glasses. As he stared at the oncoming wave of destruction, there was a trace of fear, but even more, a deep unwillingness and regret at not being able to further explore the mysteries of martial souls.

He was obsessed with the vast sea of knowledge, with so many unsolved mysteries yet to discover. To end here was truly a regret.

"No!!! Hold on!!!"

Nearby, the hot-tempered Zhou Yi screamed hysterically, pouring all her soul power into the soul tool pedestal beside her in a frenzy.

She was not alone. Every teacher left behind was like a fish stranded on a drying riverbed, making one last desperate, futile struggle.

Their faces twisted by terror and despair, survival instincts warring with utter hopelessness.

But the process of destruction never changes for an ant's struggle.

The purple-black ring of destruction swept calmly, irresistibly, through it all.

Whether it was the rational Wang Yan, the frantically struggling Zhou Yi, or anyone else, their actions, expressions, even their very signs of life, were frozen in that instant.

A moment later, their bodies, along with the buildings and ground beneath them, dissolved into nothingness—like sand sculptures blown away by the wind—vanishing into the air as the blackest of dust.

The tide of destruction mercilessly devoured the entire core area of Shrek Academy.

And this was far from the end.

After erasing Sea God Island and Shrek Academy, the purple-black ring showed no sign of stopping. It continued expanding steadily from the golden tree, as if determined to wipe Shrek City, the continent's greatest city, from the map.

Whether city walls, houses, bustling streets, or those who had not evacuated out of blind faith in Shrek Academy, their fate was the same before this aura of absolute finality.

Their existence—along with their fear and hope—vanished the instant they touched the ring.

In just a few breaths, more than two-thirds of Shrek City was swallowed and leveled by the deathly purple-black wave, leaving only a void, a blank land wreathed in black smoke, as if the continent's greatest academy had never existed.

"No, this can't be true...!"

Yan Shaozhe, Cai Mei'er, Elder Lin, Shi Xing—every surviving Shrek leader and powerhouse stared blankly at the ruins, hollowed out by the utter despair and heart-wrenching pain of seeing their home erased.

All that was left of their lifelong sacred ground was endless emptiness, and the towering golden ancient tree, now dyed pitch black and radiating terrifying evil.

Then, the blackened giant tree suddenly erupted with a blast of light that devoured all else.

Amid a terrifying energy fluctuation, its massive form began to twist, contract, and morph.

The thick trunk and branches writhed and reformed like living things, finally condensing amid the swirling aura of destruction into the form of a tall, demonic, coldly lifeless woman.

She slowly opened her eyes, purple-black flames of icy ruthlessness flickering within, seemingly able to freeze all life.

"This vessel... will do."

Phantylia spoke, her voice no longer a mere spiritual fluctuation but now possessing a true physical form, her tone carrying a soul-chilling evil.

"Now, this tiresome farce is over."

A lazy yet cruel smile curled on her strange face as she gazed down at the ruined city below, still echoing with faint cries of resistance and despair—admiring it as one might a painting not yet wholly bathed in blood.

"The struggle of ants can be annoying at times."

She murmured softly, her voice echoing through the lifeless air.

She slowly raised an enormous arm, formed from the pure life energy of the golden tree, and pointed it toward the starry sky.

A terrifying gravitational force, born of the very law of destruction, erupted from her palm.

This was not a physical pull, but a compulsion targeting existence itself.

Crack—Hum—!!!

Above the clouds, space let out an unbearable, tooth-aching cracking sound.

A massive asteroid fragment, nearly a kilometer in diameter, once floating quietly at the edge of Douluo Star's shadow, was forcibly ripped from the space crevice by this overwhelming power.

The star fragment was dark as iron, covered in craters and solidified lava scars.

From Phantylia's palm, purple-black destruction spilled out like a flood, instantly crossing space and wrapping around the giant star fragment.

The energy didn't just envelop—it invaded, corroded, and assimilated madly.

Its surface turned inky black at visible speed, its structure compressed and reforged under the law of destruction, becoming incredibly hard and dense. Dark red destructive patterns began to flow across its surface, as if a furnace of annihilation burned within.

Meanwhile, countless smaller space debris, cosmic dust, and captured meteorites were drawn in and fused, swelling the mass even further, until it became an irregular, kilometer-wide Star of Destruction, ablaze with dark red and black fire.

Wherever it passed, space twisted and collapsed, leaving behind a trailing wake of void and a soul-shattering roar.

This Star of Destruction, embodying pure malice and the will of finality, descended from the heights, plummeting toward the half-ruined Shrek City with unstoppable force.

Its vast bulk completely blocked out the last light of the sky, casting an ever-expanding shadow of death over the ruins.

"Wh-what is that?!"

The remaining city guards looked up, their soul tools hanging limply, faces drained of color, left with only terror in the face of this calamity.

"A divine punishment?!"

Some collapsed entirely, slumping to the ground, losing control of their bodies.

All survivors, human or soul beast, felt that soul-freezing will of destruction locking onto the area, and the burning, stifling stench of annihilation.

"Why did it come to this? What did Shrek Academy do wrong...?"

Staring at the world-ending meteor, Yan Shaozhe let out a bitter laugh, his eyes filled only with utter despair.

They had the courage to fight the beast tide to the death, but against Phantylia—this world-ending demon beyond comprehension—they could only wait for death.

As destruction came, whether Title Douluos like Yan Shaozhe, the last-stand city guards, or young students forced onto the battlefield, all could only stare blankly and hopelessly as the apocalyptic vision loomed overhead.

"Shi Xing—!!!"

But in that absolute silence and despair, the fear and confusion in Yan Shaozhe's eyes suddenly vanished, replaced by a desperate resolve.

He spun and yelled at Time Douluo Shi Xing, his final cry filled with hope and trust.

In the next moment, to everyone's shock, Yan Shaozhe erupted with a last burst of holy light, transforming into a brilliant phoenix and, like a moth to flame, flew headlong against the destructive torrent toward the falling Star of Destruction.

"Shaozhe!! Don't!!!"

Cai Mei'er shrieked, tears blurring her vision.

Elder Lin, Elder Zhuang, Gong Changlong, and others were also jolted awake, watching helplessly as that golden streak flew toward doomsday, their eyes filled with grief and helplessness.

"Hmm?"

Yan Shaozhe's unexpected move not only roused his despairing friends but attracted a glance from Phantylia high above.

She watched with interest as that tiny golden light flew at her creation, a mocking smile on her lips.

She had seen many like this—across countless civilizations she had destroyed, there were always so-called heroes of courage and sacrifice.

They always tried to overturn fate with faith and bravery, but before Lord Ravager and the Antimatter Legion, all struggle was futile. Only destruction was the eternal end.