High Martial: I Grind Professions

Chapter 397: Chapter 237: The First Among Kings

He burned his blood essence, disregarding the damage to his very core. The edges of his golden wings even seeped with blood as his speed reached an unprecedented peak.

But it was useless!

The aura of death continued to intensify, so palpable it felt as if it were already pressed against his back.

A colossal shadow of death instantly enveloped him, plunging him into an unprecedented despair.

’This distance is enough.’ Li Wen thought.

He needed to end the fight quickly, then head to the thunder region to achieve the final breakthrough in his saber techniques.

Facing the Golden-Winged Great Peng King, who excelled in speed and was focused solely on escaping, a physical pursuit would eventually catch him but would be a hassle.

With a single thought.

Within his sea of consciousness, the Shocking God Stab, which had been upgraded several times and condensed to its absolute limit, trembled slightly.

The pure, ocean-like power of his 7th Layer Primordial Spirit instantly poured into it.

In terms of sheer volume, this Primordial Spirit power was already on par with that of an ordinary Venerable.

Now, amplified and focused by the Primordial Spirit Secret Skill, the Shocking God Stab, its power instantly soared to... the level of a peak Venerable!

BUZZ!

There were no earth-shattering energy fluctuations, no ear-piercing shrieks of tearing air.

The Shocking God Stab silently left Li Wen’s sea of consciousness, seeming to merge with the void itself.

It ignored the hundreds of miles of distance between them.

In a bizarre manner that transcended the limits of time and space, it directly pierced through the Divine Sense defensive barrier the Golden-Winged Great Peng King had hastily erected.

The Golden-Winged Great Peng King was fleeing for his life when he suddenly felt an indescribable, bone-chilling coldness on the back of his neck, as if he had been targeted by the deepest ice in the universe.

He didn’t even have time to react effectively, let alone cry out in alarm.

PFFT!

A soft, almost nonexistent sound echoed deep within the Golden-Winged Great Peng King’s consciousness.

The Shocking God Stab had pierced with unerring accuracy into the core of his sea of consciousness.

Before this Primordial Spirit attack at the level of a peak Venerable, his incredibly resilient Demon King Primordial Spirit was as fragile as thin ice under a scorching sun.

It couldn’t even muster a sliver of decent resistance before it was completely overwhelmed, annihilated, and reduced to nothingness by the unstoppable Primordial Spirit power.

From an outsider’s perspective.

The Golden-Winged Great Peng King, resplendent in golden light and flying at high speed, suddenly went rigid.

His sharp, untamable eagle eyes instantly lost all their light, becoming vacant and dead.

His high-speed flight posture didn’t even change immediately; he simply lost all power and control.

His huge golden wings stopped flapping, and his massive body glided forward for a distance on pure momentum.

Then, like a golden kite with its string cut, he plummeted straight down into the endless halo of Laws below, still radiating a brilliant but lifeless golden light.

His physical body was completely unharmed, not even a feather out of place, but his Primordial Spirit had been utterly dissipated.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Of all the humans and members of the Demon Race watching from hundreds of miles away, only the Celestial Martial King, with his profound cultivation, faintly caught a trace of an extremely subtle Primordial Spirit fluctuation.

Everyone else only saw Li Wen’s figure flicker and close the distance, and then the Golden-Winged Great Peng King suddenly fell without any warning, his death bizarre and inexplicable.

This silent, terrifying kill was even more heart-stopping than the furious saber strike from before!

”Next.” Li Wen didn’t even glance at the falling corpse of the Golden-Winged Great Peng. His tone was completely flat, as if he had just done something trivial.

His figure traced a near right-angle turn in the air.

He changed direction, locking on to his next target—the Profound Turtle Old Demon King, who was massive, had a heavy aura, and was currently trying to burrow into the planet’s crust.

The Profound Turtle Old Demon King had been watching the Golden-Winged Great Peng’s fall with his divine sense, and that silent death had scared him out of his wits.

When Li Wen’s killing intent locked onto it, it let out a despairing roar: ”ROAR!”

It gave up on burrowing and violently retracted its head and limbs into its indestructible shell.

At the same time, it burned its blood essence and core, frantically stacking layers of heavy, mountain-like gray light upon its shell.

A dense aura of the Law of Earth spread out, attempting to construct a final defensive barrier.

It remembered how the Celestial Martial King had once broken its Profound Heaven Tortoise Shell, but now that it was burning its life force, its Defense Power was far beyond what it had been then.

However, in the face of the Shocking God Stab, all of this was useless.

The formless, intangible Primordial Spirit spike ignored its vaunted physical defense.

It ignored the layered demonic light, passed through as if through nothingness, and accurately pierced into the sea of consciousness hidden inside the shell.

”Ugh...” The Profound Turtle Old Demon King’s head, retracted within its shell, trembled violently, and then its entire aura was instantly extinguished.

The heavy shell still radiated powerful defensive fluctuations, but it had already become the cold coffin that entombed its soul.

The massive turtle body crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, but it was devoid of any life.

Next was the Scale Emperor Great Demon King.

It sensed the Profound Turtle’s fall, and the last shred of hope in its heart shattered as it let out a despairing shriek.

The dark scales covering its body stood on end as it spewed a black, poisonous mist that corroded the void. Simultaneously, its body completely merged into the shadows, attempting a final struggle to hide.

But Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit perception had it locked down tight.

The Shocking God Stab was unleashed again!

The black mist roiled and the shadows twisted, but they couldn’t stop the Primordial Spirit spike that ignored both space and physical defenses.

The Scale Emperor Great Demon King’s body, merged with the shadows, convulsed violently before stiffly reappearing.

Its cold, vertical pupils were filled with extreme terror and confusion before finally dimming completely. The huge demonic body collapsed limply, all life gone.

The poisonous scales and black mist, now without a master, slowly dissipated.

Finally, there was the Ape Demon Great Demon King, the one who had fled the farthest and was the most berserk.

It had witnessed the strange and swift deaths of its three companions and had fallen completely into madness and despair.

”ROAR! ROAR! ROAR—!!!” It no longer fled. Instead, its eyes turned blood-red, and the muscles all over its body bulged to their absolute limit.

Burning its core blood essence, it swung its mountain-sized fists, which carried the terrifying power to shatter stars, and punched toward Li Wen from across the distance.

Wherever the giant fists passed, space shattered inch by inch, creating a destructive vacuum tunnel.

It knew it couldn’t escape and only wanted to inflict even a sliver of damage on this terrifying human before it died.

The might of this desperate, hate-filled strike was enough to make any peak King’s expression change.

Yet, faced with this world-ending punch, Li Wen just gave it another cold glance.

Shocking God Stab!

It crossed space, ignored defense, and pierced through in an instant!

The Ape Demon Great Demon King’s incomparably ferocious and world-destroying punch suddenly froze in mid-air.

Its giant, crimson eyes, filled with brutality and madness, instantly lost all their light, replaced by a vacant stillness.

Its massive body went limp as if all its strength had been drained, and its berserk aura dissipated like a deflating ball.

The giant fist that could shatter stars dropped limply, and its entire body crashed to the ground. The dust that rose seemed to be the final sigh of its life.

In a short span of time, five peak Great Demon Kings whose combat power was comparable to a threshold Venerable—the Tiger King, the Golden-Winged Great Peng King, the Profound Turtle Old Demon King, the Scale Emperor Great Demon King, and the Ape Demon Great Demon King—had all been slain!

The entire process was so fast that people’s minds couldn’t even keep up.

Between heaven and earth, only a deathly silence and the lingering aura of destruction remained.

On the Human Race’s side, everyone was shocked into a stupor.

The Myriad Phenomena King’s mouth hung open, utterly speechless, his mind a complete blank.

The fervor in Sun Rui’s eyes turned into pure reverence.

The expressions on the faces of Yan Dan King and the others were completely frozen, leaving only deep bewilderment and incomprehensible shock.

They felt as if their entire worldview had been completely overturned in that moment.

’Can a King... really be this absurdly strong? Killing peak Great Demon Kings like reaping grass?!’

The Heaven-Dominating King’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. His gaze toward Li Wen was extremely complex, but ultimately, only a single thought remained:

’A monster! An absolute monster! This is a blessing for the Human Race!’

As for the Celestial Martial King... he just watched all this silently. The stormy waves in his eyes gradually calmed, returning to a profound depth, but his sense of relief and emotion deepened.

He knew that the true pillar of the Human Race had been born today.

Li Wen paid no mind to the dead silence behind him, nor to the countless gazes of shock, reverence, and gratitude.

With a wave of his hand, an invisible force stirred.

It swept up the four perfectly preserved corpses of the peak Great Demon Kings—the Golden-Winged Great Peng King, the Profound Turtle Old Demon King, the Scale Emperor Great Demon King, and the Ape Demon Great Demon King—bodies that were filled with immense life essence and rare materials,

along with their personal storage artifacts, and collected them all into his storage bracelet.

These were all top-tier materials for Artifact Refining, Alchemy, and even for researching the origin of the Demon Race. They could not be wasted.

After doing all this, a faint flash of lightning flickered around him, and his figure transformed into an impossibly fast streak of purple light.

Without pausing, he sped toward the deepest part of this Star Domain, to the area where the Law of Thunder was most violent and most suited to his saber path—the thunder region.

He left behind only a group of human experts still immersed in the aftershock of immense shock and ecstasy, and a ravaged battlefield that announced the rise of the Human Race’s new king.

Leaving the magnificent and mysterious region of the River of Light, Li Wen didn’t pause for a moment.

Purple lightning flowed beneath his feet, allowing him to maintain an astonishing speed even in this Star Domain of chaotic Laws.

Soon, a familiar, heart-pounding roar grew from a distant rumble to a deafening clamor.

Before him was a kingdom of lightning.

Above in the nine heavens, it was as if a massive rift had been torn open.

Endless lightning, no longer just simple lashes,

but like a silvery celestial river that had burst its banks, surged down with an aura of total destruction.

Thick pillars of lightning connected heaven and earth, while smaller Electric Snakes darted and exploded through the void like frenzied silver serpents.

The air was ionized, filled with the pungent smell of ozone. Space was constantly being torn and twisted by the violent energy, letting out groans as if it could bear no more.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a blinding weave of incandescent white and deep purplish-black. The frequency of the flashing light was enough to instantly blind an ordinary expert.

This was a pure, violent sea of energy, the most direct roar of the Laws themselves.

To touch the core truth of the Law of Thunder more deeply, Li Wen took a deep breath.

His Cosmic Domain silently unfolded around him, merging with space to form a tough yet flexible shield.

Without hesitation, he took a step forward and charged straight into the destructive waterfall of lightning.