Sovereign of the Ashes

The battlefield on Planet Teyran was dominated by endless stretches of metallic ruins.

Broken pieces of metal lay scattered everywhere, mixed among the corpses of Yao Clan cultivators, Destruction Legion soldiers, Blood Mosquitoes, Beastmen, Elves, and creatures from Myriad Manifestations World.

It was one of the most diverse battlefields in the entire war.

Amidst such chaos, it was sometimes difficult to tell who was an enemy and who was an ally.

After being severely wounded by the Great Monkey of Destruction, the Rank Eight Mosquito Daoist fought desperately to escape before the God of Elves and the God of Beastmen could close in on him.

To carve out a path of retreat, he forcibly tore through the Gallant Federation’s fleet formation and smashed his way straight through their ranks.

That guy was supposed to be an ally of the Gallant Federation...

Venerable Yunqi of Myriad Manifestations World, another ally of the Gallant Federation, had turned against Mosquito Daoist during the battle and become a blade aimed at him.

Venerable Yunqi was not the only one attacking Mosquito Daoist.

The primary mission of the legions under his command was also to annihilate the Blood Mosquito Army.

As the fighting dragged on, everyone seemed to have forgotten why they had joined the war in the first place.

Still, Venerable Yunqi had not completely abandoned his principles. Throughout the melee, he targeted only Mosquito Daoist and refrained from attacking the Gallant Federation’s main forces directly.

After a brutal struggle, Mosquito Daoist finally led the remnants of his Blood Mosquito Army through the pursuit and blockades of the Great Monkey of Destruction and the others, fleeing deep into space.

By then, the tide of battle had shifted completely.

Having pursued Mosquito Daoist all the way to the edge of the overlord-level battlefield, Venerable Yunqi saw that his greatest enemy had already escaped.

With a wave of his sleeve, the Myriad Manifestations World legions began withdrawing from the chaos behind him.

While Mosquito Daoist had still been present, Venerable Yunqi and the Great Monkey of Destruction could temporarily fight side by side against a common enemy.

But now that Mosquito Daoist had fled, how would the battle unfold from here? And where would each faction stand next?

After all, up until this moment, Myriad Manifestations World had remained an ally of the Gallant Federation.

Venerable Yunqi was also a Rank Seven overlord who possessed exceptionally keen instincts on the battlefield.

He knew how to keep personal grudges separate from the larger situation.

To be honest, had Mosquito Daoist not tried to kill him, Venerable Yunqi might have gritted his teeth and continued fighting on the side of the Gallant Federation.

As he hurriedly withdrew from the overlord-level battlefield on Planet Teyran, he did not even have time to bid farewell to the Great Monkey of Destruction, Wukong, with whom he had fought side by side for some time.

Just before leaving, the white-robed Venerable Yunqi looked back and exchanged a brief glance with him from afar.

Wukong still stood at the center of the battlefield, roaring furiously in the direction Mosquito Daoist had fled.

That single glance conveyed a great deal.

The agitation stirred within the Great Monkey of Destruction by Mosquito Daoist’s escape gradually subsided. ℴℴ𝘮

Not far away, Li Qingshan, the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven, was commanding a Gallant Federation fleet and preparing to attack the Myriad Manifestations World legions under Venerable Yunqi.

The fleet’s cannons had already begun gathering energy.

The Great Monkey of Destruction raised his jet-black arm to stop his junior brother. The skin across it was cracked, and the entire limb was stained by blood.

“Don’t attack them,” he said.

“Why? Aren’t they our enemies?” the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven asked with a slight frown. Compared to the Great Monkey of Destruction, he was usually the more rational of the two.

The Great Monkey of Destruction chuckled.

He was severely injured but still caught up in the heat of battle. With his sharp fangs exposed, his smile looked particularly fierce, though the slight grimace on his face betrayed the pain he was enduring.

“I have a feeling that the next time we meet, we won’t be enemies,” Wukong said.

“Your intuition again?” the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven asked with a chuckle. “Can we really count on it?”

The crimson energy field surrounding him immediately began to fade. At the same time, the federal fleet behind him gradually stopped charging its cannons.

“Maybe? Who knows?” The Great Monkey of Destruction shrugged. He then raised his head and watched as Venerable Yunqi led the Myriad Manifestations World legions away from the battlefield.

Even then, battles continued raging throughout the area.

The main conflict now centered on the clash between the Magus Civilization’s overlords and the Gallant Federation’s fleet formations.

The Gallant Federation’s Rank Eight battle fleet, which had originally been locked in battle with the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven and his forces, had been worn down to a fraction of its former strength during the prolonged overlord-level melee.

It had since regrouped with the other federal fleets that had arrived as reinforcements.

Meanwhile, the Gallant Federation’s Rank Seven fleet and Rank Seven giant mobile suits were being heavily suppressed by the God of Elves and the God of Beastmen.

The God of Elves was a Rank Eight overlord, while the God of Beastmen was a peak Rank Seven overgod.

Both held an overwhelming advantage over the federation’s overlord-class forces opposing them.

The legions they had brought to Planet Teyran were also the elite main forces under their respective commands.

Even though this was the heartland of the Gallant Federation—essentially their home ground—neither the Beastmen nor the Elven legions showed any sign of weakening after such a prolonged war.

On the contrary, with their overlords holding the upper hand, the mid and lower-tier legions under their command fought with growing ferocity.

After exchanging a few jokes with the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven, the Great Monkey of Destruction rubbed his chest and grumbled.

“Damn it, why aren’t those guys from the Buddhist faction here yet? What the hell are they doing? Old Thus-Come said he owed me a favor last time, but he still hasn’t paid it back until now! The Bodhisattva of Mercy too! Is she really going to stand by and watch me get beaten half to death here?”

He could barely bring himself to look at his injuries.

They were truly horrifying.

His entire chest had been blasted open by one of the Gallant Federation’s ultimate apocalyptical weapons, while his back was riddled with countless puncture wounds left by the Blood Mosquitoes.

If Old Sun were not tough enough—and born from stone at that—he might really have died here today!

The Eighth-Grade Black Lotus of Destruction spun ceaselessly beneath his feet. Threads of destructive energy rose from it, slowly soothing the wounds across his body.

At the same time, the immense loss of life and widespread destruction across the battlefield continued producing more destructive energy, all of which converged upon him.

Growing stronger through battle and destruction was the defining trait of his bloodline.

Hearing the Great Monkey of Destruction’s complaints, the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven replied, “Didn’t the Thus-Come Buddha already repay the favor he owed you when you last forced your way into the Underworld?”

“And wasn’t it also the Buddhist faction that cleaned up the mess after you went to the Central Heavenly Court, cut down all those peach trees, and brought them home to replant?”

The Great Sage of Demonic Heaven knew all too well how much trouble his senior brother had caused over the years.

Besides, he did not truly believe that anyone from the Buddhist faction would come directly to such a dangerous overlord-level battlefield to help them.

Even the Victorious Fighting Buddha had nearly been overwhelmed here. Who could the Buddhist faction possibly send?

Would the Thus-Come Buddha come in person?

What the Buddhist faction truly cared about were the military gains to be made on the Magus Civilization’s battlefield. Rescuing a few specific individuals was hardly their priority.

“I didn’t need the Buddhist faction’s help with any of that. I could have handled it myself. The Jade Emperor and Queen Mother of the Central Heavenly Court are only peak Rank Seven sages, so what if I took a few of their peach trees?” the Great Monkey of Destruction muttered. “Besides, didn’t they send some to our master before too...?”

The Great Sage of Demonic Heaven sighed.

“That’s different. Besides, the Central Heavenly Court is still the nominal leader of the Four Heavenly Courts of the Immortal Realm.”

“And the Jade Emperor and Queen Mother were once disciples of the Dao Ancestor...” he reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it already!” The Great Monkey of Destruction scratched his head impatiently. There was nothing he hated more than being lectured.

Apart from the many injuries he had suffered in this battle, he had another serious problem...

He had lost a great deal of fur. Some of it had been blasted away during the fighting, while the rest had been plucked out by his own hand.

As a result, the once-mighty monkey was now bald in patches and looked rather mangy.

The Stabilizer of the Four Seas, which had previously been damaged, had somehow been forcibly twisted back together by the Great Monkey of Destruction using his divine power.

Gripping the badly damaged staff, he declared, “That stinking mosquito got away, but these massive Gallant Federation fleets aren’t going anywhere!”

“That God of Beastmen seems to have made quite a bit of progress over the years. He actually crushed that giant mobile suit like that,” he muttered.

“Let’s go! Damn it, after taking such a heavy beating, we have to settle the score. Otherwise, they might really think the Great Sages of the Immortal Realm are easy targets!”

With that, the Great Monkey of Destruction charged forward once more, clutching the severely damaged Stabilizer of the Four Seas.

Even in his badly wounded state, he remained as fierce as ever.

He would never stop fighting until the very end.

Seeing his senior brother charge back into battle, the Great Sage of Demonic Heaven reactivated the crimson force field around him.

Wave after wave of Gallant Federation fleets fell under his influence and formed ranks behind him.

The moment these two overlords rejoined the battlefield, the death knell of the Gallant Federation had already begun to toll.