401 Divine Chase

Shi had been feeling truly miserable for the past three or so days. It had only been three days, but it felt like several lifetimes as she was hunted down relentlessly by this madman…

Her body struck a pitiful figure in the void of space. She was covered in blood and wounds, her clothes were torn to rags and her eyes were bloodshot. She had no time to fix her appearance of course, leaving her messy blood-matted hair fluttering past her face as she left this region of emptiness and finally stepped into a place with a bit of Spiritual Pressure - the Four Divine Star System.

After falling through the destructive spatial crack that she herself had caused by interrupting Defiance and the Heavenly Dao's battle, Shi found herself in an unfamiliar land. She quickly realised that she had returned to the Blood Plane and that somehow, she was in the Astral Empire, on the crimson moon that hung high up above the continent.

But then, before she could even get her bearings, Defiance Sovereign's domain exploded through the Astral Empire, and she was discovered.

She tried to fight, but she was beaten down so overwhelmingly in just three exchanges that she soon gave up and decided to escape.

But as it turned out, escaping from Defiance Sovereign was quite literally the hardest thing in the world to accomplish.

She tried fleeing down to the continent, but he followed. Even after she found that secret realm that the Primordial Sage mentioned back then, Defiance Sovereign sieged the entire realm, then destroyed it within an hour.

And so, she fled again.

After fleeing through four different empires on the Blood Plane, she realised that Defiance Sovereign, as a body temperer, actually had the greatest advantage in these high gravity and high Spiritual Pressure lands. She had also attracted the ire of several Blood Plane divinities, making her escape even harder, so she fled back up into space, returning to the 'Qi Plane'.

It wasn't really the Qi Plane, as the two planes had now fused into one, but the seven star systems somehow remained in tact, more or less. Divinities were really impressive, they were able to protect most of their territories, even after they fell through a spatial tear and entered another dimension.

Unfortunately for Shi, her assumption about Defiance having the advantage on the continent was actually incorrect - he just had the advantage in general. He was too strong, so much stronger than her that she couldn't understand it.

Weren't they both Empyreans? Didn't they have the same cultivation level?

Why was he so much stronger than her?!

He wasn't even using any treasures to hunt her down, he only used seemingly simple attacks with his body, combined with his terrifying Absolute Domain!

And so, she continued to flee.

She went through two star systems, before almost dying when Defiance started gathering stars in his hands and throwing them at her like rocks. After that, she bitterly left the star systems and entered deep space. It still wasn't ideal, but at least there was nothing for Defiance to throw at her.

She fled, she was struck, her body died and was almost annihilated, but she came back, time and time again. Even when her Life Essence was totally extinguished, it didn't seem to matter, because destruction itself ran through her veins and her Divine Power. So long as there was 'something' of her left, the destruction within her Divine Power would reverse its flow, bringing her back to her 'peak state'.

Her peak state seemed to continually deteriorate with each of these quasi-resurrections, however. She realised that if this kept up, and it came down to a battle of attrition, she would inevitably be exhausted to death by Defiance.

And so, when she felt that aura of Origin Ascension that froze the entire world in place, she felt ecstatic. As soon as she could move, she rushed towards the source of the ascension, knowing that many others would have the same idea. Perhaps, in the chaos, she would be able to lose Defiance…or something.

She would take any chance at this point, she was really out of ideas.

After entering the Chaotic Sector, Defiance Sovereign's deep voice boomed out from behind, vibrating space and causing her to miserably cough up blood several times.

"Don't think you will be able to escape in the turmoil caused by this measly Origin Ascension, little girl. Do you even have a single ally in this world who will aid you? Or will everyone revel in delight and make way for me to take your head?"

Frustrated, Shi turned back and glared, shouting:

"Well do you have any real allies either, huh?!"

"Allies?" Defiance laughed. "I have no need or desire for such things."

And so, Shi continued to flee.

As she encroached deeper into this Chaotic Sector, she was beaten and her body killed a dozen more times. She was forced to collapse herself into black lightning over a hundred times - this was honestly the only reason that Defiance had been unable to catch her. Even if she was chained up, she could just obliterate her body, explode into the distance as an unstoppable bolt of destruction, then reform her body and continue.

Eventually, Shi realised that she could feel the remnants of a familiar aura. A very familiar aura…

"Uncle!" Her eyes shone brightly and she seemed to find a new surge of energy. 

She sped up a bit and was destroyed less frequently as she continued to flee, but Defiance just laughed - she was relying on the power of hope, and once that hope was crushed, she would lose her little burst of energy.

"You committed a cardinal sin, girl; you got in my way. I don't care if your survival is engrained into the passage of fate, I will not rest in this Era until your life is forfeit."

Defiance smiled, but his eyes were filled with burning rage. Taunting her was all he could do to quell the absolute frustration, hatred and anger in his heart, that he felt towards Shi for getting in the way of something that he had spent three Origin Eras building up.

"Do you really think you're so great?!" Shi cried back. "It's not like you were actually going to win against the Heavenly Dao! Aren't you from the 3rd Origin Era, haven't you already seen the Heavenly Dao survive into the future?!"

Defiance snorted, before punching out with enough force to collapse a mountain range of stars. Shi's body exploded into black lightning, then reformed into a human woman, then exploded into lightning, and repeated this cycle several more times before she finally came to a stop and stabilised herself.

She stood up and groaned, warily glancing back, expecting to see the familiar sight of Defiance's titan of a body hurtling towards her…but she did not.

When she saw Defiance Sovereign standing there, completely ignoring her and looking at something beyond her, Shi's heart skipped a beat and she whipped around nervously.

What she saw left her feeling shocked senseless.

Firstly, there was the giant golden spatial tear. As soon as she saw this awe-inspiring wound that seemed to be inflicted upon the world itself, she knew immediately that it was created by her uncle.

'Uncle's power has grown to this extent…?' She felt her heart drop, but she was quickly distracted by the real focus of Defiance Sovereign's attention.

The golden crack was several dozen million miles in length, from top to bottom.

Shi was several billion miles away, and Defiance was about twice that distance from the golden streak of light.

Halfway between Shi and the gold crack in space, stood an old man in a pale blue robe. His eyes shone like sapphires, and he smiled at Shi and Defiance, his gaze filled with reminiscence.

"Old man, how do you keep returning to this world?"

Shi yelped in surprise when Defiance appeared directly above her and stomped down, casually attempting to crush her beneath his foot, but ignoring her after she evaded to the side.

Defiance continued to stare down at the old man, who simply smiled and shook his head.

"God of Defiance, you should know why I'm here. Eventually, the God of Destruction will break open the world from this crack, and seeing your enmity, I suspect that you will be the one to force her to this end. But…please turn around, just for today. It is still too early for the the final sign to fully manifest."

Defiance looked at the old man, then glanced at the golden crack, narrowing his eyes and staring for a long while. Shi noticed his distraction, and seeing the oddity of the golden tear, hoped that she could escape by flying straight into it. However, as soon as she attempted to do so, she heard some confusing words drift through her ears, before the entire world span around her.

"God of Destruction, leave the Chaotic Sector and do not return."

When Shi opened her eyes and looked around, all she could see was blinding white light. She felt that her cultivation base had been severely suppressed, and even her ability to perceive and utilise the dao of destruction was practically non-existent!

Shi's terror towards that strange old man reached a height that went beyond her fear of Defiance.

Meanwhile, after he felt Shi's presence suddenly vanish without a trace, Defiance finally looked away from the golden spatial tear and glared at the one who called himself 'Prophet'.

"Old man, are you really not going to explain a thing to me, even after three Origin Eras?"

"Some secrets cannot be spoken in the Eras of Origin, God of Defiance." The old man replied calmly.

Defiance snorted and folded his arms, clearly not convinced.

"Where did you send that madwoman?"

"If I tell you that now, the both of you will end up returning here after three more days. God of Defiance, out of my respect for you, I would rather not send you away like that child."

In the end, Defiance Sovereign left silently. He wasn't going to give up on chasing down Shi, but he knew from experience that trying to mess with this old man would just be pointless and tiresome.

Back atop the peak of Rainbow Mountain, Yaan and the Sage both stared a hundred feet down the mountain with equally blank expressions.

"Huh?"

Why was Shi there?

Yaan looked at the Sage oddly.

"I thought you said she was just in the Chaotic Sector?"

"She was…as were you."

"Hmm…"

Naturally, the only reasonable explanation for this, was that once again, the old man who called himself 'Prophet' had acted.

It still didn't feel very reasonable, though. What sort of power was this, to throw someone across the star system, into a suppressive Primordial Treasure, where you knew they would be held captive by another?

'It seems that the old man wants to prevent the invasion of the Chaos Era's Paragons…but whom is he, exactly?' Yaan continued to wonder.

Unfortunately, some questions had no answers. Even the Sage, who had supposedly seen those last three days of the Heavenly Dao's memory in the 1st Origin Era, was clueless when it came to the Prophet's identity. He seemed to appear and disappear at random throughout the world, unrestrained by the laws of continuity…

Back in the Chaotic Sector, after watching until Defiance had long vanished into the far distance, the old man exhaled deeply, letting go of his control over his body. The previous distortions rapidly intensified, until finally…

He vanished.

Defiance Sovereign paused and looked back, sensing that the old man had gone. In the end though, he shook his head, and continued on his way.

He also didn't want to facilitate the invasion of those beings from the Chaos Era, otherwise he wouldn't be so agreeable with the Prophet, no matter what.