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Chapter 639: Ten Thousand Years
🕑 Added 2025-09-26 13:00:19 +0000 UTCMarquis Decarabia was an immense devil. He only physically resembled a starfish. That, coupled with his choice of underlings, made Tianyi get the wrong impression. His body wasn’t just the floating starfish but an entire underground network that stretched throughout his territory. It would not be incorrect to say that he had an inexhaustible energy source on his home turf.
This was Marquis Decarabia’s greatest reliance. Even if he died outside his territory, he would just need to create another body because his true body was the fungal network underground. The starfish was nothing more than an avatar. Through this method, he didn’t need to bear the risk of resurrecting through his identity as an abyss lord.
Of course, it was a nice additional backup plan should anything go awry.
Marquis Decarabia was an immense devil. He only physically resembled a starfish. That, coupled with his choice of underlings, made Tianyi get the wrong impression. His body wasn’t just the floating starfish but an entire underground network that stretched throughout his territory. It would not be incorrect to say that he had an inexhaustible energy source on his home turf.
This was Marquis Decarabia’s greatest reliance. Even if he died outside his territory, he would just need to create another body because his true body was the fungal network underground. The starfish was nothing more than an avatar. Through this method, he didn’t need to bear the risk of resurrecting through his identity as an abyss lord.
Of course, it was a nice additional backup plan should anything go awry.
Tianyi also sensed the anomaly. The vast amount of energy he used already clued him in. He never considered himself a super-efficient person, at least in terms of energy usage. However, the amount of energy he and the abyss lord used together should have already sucked the devil dry. Unless he had access to an inner realm or dimension, an energy reservoir had some linkage to size. This was especially so before reaching the divine level.
For a moment, Tianyi considered how long he would have to drag this out before Marquis Decarabia decided to flee. He never thought of losing this war of attrition, but he didn’t want to spend a super long time.
Marquis Decarabia’s attack did not reach the limit under the Divine Realm, but that was only because he had not focused on pure offense. His comprehensive strength had already reached the divine threshold, especially his energy reserves. It would have been a monumental task to hold out so long for any other demigod or immortal-level fighter.
Perhaps he was an energy-type fighter like himself, Tianyi thought. As long as you had enough ability to survive, it would be no problem to tire out your opponents. Tianyi’s biggest problem was that when two of these types fought, victory took too long.
Normally, that wasn’t a problem for Tianyi since he had powerful moves to overwhelm them. He was not just an energy-type fighter but a nuclear bombardment type supported by limitless energy. But now, he couldn’t reveal many of his cards, hence the stalemate.
Tianyi finally gave up the defenses. The lightning barrier exploded, destroying Decarabia’s tendrils. Before they could regenerate and attack again, the UFO mecha aimed its hand at the starfish. The fingertips were actually empty because they were barrels. Concentrated lightning shot out from the fingertips, piercing through the tendrils and striking the starfish.
It wasn’t just the hands—any available barrels on the UFO shot beams of lightning. Many of them weren’t aimed at Marquis Decarabia, but they all curved in the air and struck him. Tianyi had long magnetized his body to a specific frequency when the tendrils touched the lightning barrier.
That wasn’t the end. Tianyi also revealed the devil bullets, using up the stored devilish energy in the outer shell core.
Holes riddled Marquis Decarabia’s body, but the same tendrils soon grew out from within and grabbed one another, filling out the holes. Like a balloon, the starfish's body quickly regenerated. Just as soon as it healed, more holes riddled the body. A limb even fell to the ground. As a new one grew out, the fallen limb dissolved into a fungi field.
For Decarabia, Tianyi’s sudden offensive meant that he was on his last legs. His body could not form a facial expression, but that did not prevent him from sneering. “Just you wait. Once you run out of energy, it’ll be your end.”
Only, that end never came. Beams continually shot out of the UFO without end. Marquis Decarabia even began to suspect he had been caught in an illusion. Perhaps this was a false reality constructed by that bastard, Dantalion?
As soon as that thought appeared, he immediately extinguished it. Even if a divinity or divine devil cast an illusion on him, Marquis Decarabia had the confidence to break out of it. No matter how skilled Dantalion was, could he compare to a divine devil in trickery?
There was a more probable explanation, one that Marquis Decarabia didn’t want to consider. The unknown angel simply had a massive energy reserve. Such a large amount was enough to power a strategic fortress, and its effect would rival that of divinity if used well. Would someone really bring something like that into the sixth level of the Nine Hells Abyss?
As time passed, Marquis Decarabia began to feel the strain. His immense energy reserves came from the sheer size of his body. If he was the same size as another creature, the density of devilish energy was actually pitiful. It was a trade-off he willingly accepted.
The drawn-out battle with the UFO angel had already strained his reserves to their lowest point since the Godsfall War. Now, Marquis Decarabia was swiftly absorbing devilish energy from the surrounding area to replenish his drained reservoir.
Since it was a forced replenishment, it carried the same risks. Even if he was the sixty-ninth devil of Solomon, he was not impervious to the corruption of the Nine Hells Abyss. If he could not outlast the UFO angel, his main body would fall.
Although the immense size brought many conveniences, it also prevented him from escaping as easily. Granted, Marquis Decarabia had left offshoots in various locations. If his main body perished, he would immediately take control of another fungi network, but he would need to regrow again. The second-largest network was hidden under his true territory, but it was not even a tenth of his main body.
That’s right; the battlefield where he fought against Tianyi was not his true territory. He had captured the abyss lord and sealed it under his body, pretending to be the lord of this land, while his true body remained out of sight. If Marquis Decarabia wanted to continue his ruse, he could only hope that the UFO’s energy ran out first or reveal his true size and go all out.
Marquis Decarabia chose the latter. The other surviving devil lords also knew his secrets. Once a secret was known by more than one person, it was no longer a secret. Compared to that, he wanted to leave a way out for himself more.
White tendrils suddenly burst out of the ground, resembling giant pillars. They seemed like one piece, but closer inspection revealed them to be formed out of countless thinner tendrils. All of them aimed at the UFO angel.
The change surprised Tianyi. Until now, he hadn’t realized that Marquis Decarabia’s body was so huge. It was only after he stopped hiding that Tianyi could sense his aura underground.
The countless tendrils blotted out the UFO’s sensors, preventing Tianyi from seeing the sky or ground. The multiple barrels no longer aimed at the starfish body but shot beams of lightning in an omnidirectional manner. They pierced the fungal pillars, allowing Tianyi to glimpse the sky and ground, but only for a split second. Soon, it was a mass of white once more. Eventually, it grew so thick that the beams could no longer pierce through the barrier.
Soon after, the tendrils constricted the UFO, binding it in place. The lightning shroud protecting it could not fend them off and was all absorbed. The countless barrels continued to shoot, but fungi grew in the barrels. It was not a soft or delicate fungus but resembled the strongest metal. The beams could not even shoot out and instead harmed the internal frame.
Tianyi remained calm. After all, he could easily take away the Realm Core, leaving behind an empty shell. However, he felt unwilling. He’d admit he was a bit of a sore loser. His encounter with Chunsang and the false Phenex had made him arrogant and careless. He never expected that a devil who hadn’t reached the divine level could capture him.
Trapping was harder than defeating. Even if he lost, Tianyi had the confidence to escape with his creation. Now, that was impossible. Others might not consider it a loss, but Tianyi did.
He sighed. “It’s time to retreat. But before leaving, I’ll give you a gift. I made this function as a joke, but I didn’t expect to really use it. And so soon.”
Marquis Decarabia noticed immediately when the UFO angel stopped struggling. He sighed in relief and thought, It finally ran out of power.
The devil lord was happy too soon. The dim energy suddenly increased to a terrifying degree. His senses captured a myriad of laws, none of them at the divine level, working in conjunction. His tendrils blurred, intent on chucking the offending angel as far away as possible.
It was too late.
A bright light erupted from the angel and engulfed the tendrils, swallowing everything in white. It expanded past the fungal prison, where it promptly bathed the area in radiance. Not even when it reached the ground did it stop. It continued forth, burning and incinerating the land. The devilish energy wailed in pain as it was destroyed by the pure white destruction.
So bright was the light that it seemed as if the sun had descended on this dim and dark land. It brought forth brilliance, but in the Nine Hells Abyss, this sacred light was a poison. This had only happened during the Godsfall War when the myriad pantheons descended to exterminate the devils. This cataclysmic light reminded the devils of the danger beyond the Nine Hells Abyss and of their position in the grand cosmic order.
When the light died down, Marquis Decarabia’s starfish body had vanished, vaporized into dust if not atoms.
Part of the ground had been vaporized and melted, giving off a shiny black sheen like obsidian. Countless tiny metal shards fell into the crater at this moment, cracking the surface. The cracks fell apart, revealing countless fungi.
“Damn you! Was it you, Dantalion? Even if it wasn’t, it must have been your scheme!” Marquis Decarabia raged. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like it was an outside invasion. It was exactly this feeling that made him confirm it was Dantalion who set this all up.
Nearly thirty percent of his body had been vaporized in the angel’s self-destruction. The time it would take him to recuperate would be measured in the tens of thousands of years. More crucially, the detonation killed the abyss lord sealed by him, making this land ownerless.
Marquis Decarabia wasn’t worried about stray devils coveting the land. The previous lord had refined the land but was immediately sealed by him. No, he was worried about other devils noticing him and targeting him. Unless an external threat great enough for them to band together arrived, devils were just as likely to kill their kin as they were people.
The devil lord decided he would burrow deeper into the ground and wait it out, pretending to be dead. After years passed, he would emerge again, take control of the abyss lord, and then seek revenge on Dantalion.
***
Tianyi opened his eyes. “What a failure.”
He wasn’t too disappointed but was a bit frustrated. He thought he could capture Marquis Decarabia to extract information but failed, and the creation he poured his heart into had turned into junk. It wasn’t all bad; he gained new insights into the Law of Lightning. Tianyi didn’t know if it was enough, but it was worth a try.
After informing everyone that he would enter secluded cultivation, Tianyi cut himself off from the world. By “cut,” he meant completely. He did not surf the Xiyinet or halt his meditation on the Law of Lightning. For the following ten thousand years, he focused wholeheartedly on comprehension.
Tianyi had originally only planned on ruminating over the Law of Lightning for a thousand years at most. If he failed, he would create another angel and enter the Nine Hells Abyss again, but his planned secluded cultivation became ten times longer.
For those who knew Tianyi, this was shocking. It wouldn’t be strange for immortal monarchs and even ordinary true immortals, but this was Tianyi.
Finally, Tianyi opened his eyes in the True Nothingness. Golden lightning flashed within his pupils. “Finally.”
