Chapter 503: Farewell, Black Dragon Pope

As the two demigods fought fiercely, neither noticed that the illusion array enveloping the Primal Divine Domain was silently disintegrating.

This, naturally, was Su Mu's doing.

Zero had originally laid the array using the eyeball. Now that it was in Su Mu's hands, and with both fighters locked in heavy combat with no attention to spare, Su Mu naturally took full advantage.

"Heretic!" Heilong panted heavily. Blood blurred his vision, but his killing intent hadn't diminished in the slightest; instead, it boiled even hotter.

Zero's condition was equally poor. One of his arms was completely gone, leaving a severed stump as smooth as a mirror.

"Traitor! Did you think you could defeat me just by bewitching the believers? The Temple of God Slaying hunted me for years and couldn't pull it off, let alone you!"

He roared, holy light erupting from his entire body. Like an angel of pure radiance, he charged at Heilong at top speed.

Heilong's expression shifted. He hadn't expected Zero to still be capable of unleashing such terrifying power.

"Protect the Pope!"

The surviving zealots desperately threw themselves in front of Heilong. Working together, they managed to block Zero's attack, but the price was heavy.

After the fierce battle, only a few thousand believers remained alive. Over ninety thousand corpses littered the ground. Severed limbs and blood painted a hellish landscape of slaughter.

Looking at the countless dead and injured believers, Heilong's eyes went bloodshot. His heart bled.

Zero was equally consumed by grief and fury, his body trembling uncontrollably. "The Primal Divine Cult I painstakingly built over so many years—you've ruined it! Heilong!"

"Shut up! You damned heretic, you're the one who ruined my Primal Divine Cult!" Heilong snarled.

The hatred between the two had reached an irreconcilable extreme. Both claimed to be the Primal Pope and worshipped the same god, yet one considered the other a heretic, while the other viewed him as a traitor.

Trust between people truly was this fragile, Su Mu mused silently from behind the scenes.

Even though he had orchestrated this sort of thing many times, he never grew tired of watching allies turn on each other. Was there anything in this world more entertaining than toying with people's hearts?

By now, words had long lost their purpose between the two demigods. They each had only one goal in mind: to kill the other!

But just then, a spatial fluctuation rippled through the void. From the distortion, three terrifying figures exuding demigod auras descended.

They were the trio from the Temple of God Slaying: Wuming, Huangquan, and Warrior Monk.

At their appearance, the expressions of both Zero and Heilong drastically changed.

"Traitor! You actually dared to collude with the Temple of God Slaying!"

"Heretic! You actually dared to collude with the Temple of God Slaying!"

The two shouted simultaneously, pointing fingers at each other.

But after their accusations, they both froze in unison.

Suddenly, a crystal-blue light flared from the eyeball not far away, and Su Mu's figure slowly emerged from within it.

Seeing Su Mu appear, a flash of joy crossed Heilong's eyes. Without a second thought, he flashed over to Su Mu's side, shielding him.

"Hurry, get out of here! The Temple of God Slaying is here. I'll hold them off this time..."

Squelch!

A mechanical arm gleaming with cold metallic light violently pierced through Heilong's heart.

Heilong's expression froze. Looking down, he saw five bronze fingers with mechanical gears at the joints protruding from his own chest. In their grasp was a fresh, beating heart.

He looked back in disbelief, his violently contracting pupils reflecting a smiling face.

The man in the elegant tailcoat was watching him with a smile.

Even though his smile was gentle, those crystal-blue eyes were utterly cold.

Su Mu leaned close to Heilong's ear and whispered, "Farewell, Black Dragon... Pope."

"It was you!!"

In that instant, Heilong understood everything. But his thoughts were already growing sluggish. His blood congealed, his pupils dilated, and his body finally collapsed, lifeless.

"Pride! You were behind this all along!" Zero roared, finally understanding.

His eyes bloodshot, he charged recklessly at Su Mu.

Swoosh!

Warrior Monk's towering frame blocked his path. Wuming and Huangquan appeared on his left and right in an instant. The three formed a triangle, firmly locking Zero in.

Zero glared at Su Mu in a mix of shock and rage, wishing he could flay him alive.

Su Mu smiled faintly and waved a casual hand. "I'll leave him to you."

"Pride! You ruined my cult! You will die a horrible death!!"

Su Mu ignored Zero's rabid barking. Instead, he stroked the Bronze Eyeball in his hands with great interest. Feeling the majestic power surging within it, he smiled silently.

Off to the side, Heilong's corpse gradually dissipated into motes of glowing rain. As it vanished completely, a pitch-black Statue with three eyes and six holes was revealed.

The Statue looked three parts human and seven parts wolf. Its face possessed three eyes, and its body was embedded with six pitch-black hollows. Looking closely, dark vortexes spun faintly within those voids, resembling miniature black holes.

"Demigod Firmament-Swallowing Lord? So this is the Divine Corpse Heilong fused with?"

The suction from the Firmament-Swallowing Lord's black holes gradually intensified. Surrounding light began to distort as the phantom of a much larger black hole slowly took shape around it.

Su Mu reached out. His slender fingers pierced right through the black hole to grab the Firmament-Swallowing Lord. Instantly, the phenomena vanished.

Vast spiritual power surged from him, forming layers of seals that forced the Firmament-Swallowing Lord into complete dormancy before he tossed it into the Dream Space.

He might not have an immediate use for a Divine Corpse, but naturally, the more he had, the better.

On the other side, Zero was barely holding his own against the three-on-one assault. In truth, if they hadn't been in the Primal Divine Domain where he could draw on massive amounts of primal divine power, he would have been finished long ago.

But clearly, even driven into such a desperate corner, Zero still refused to accept his fate.

"God! Your devout children will never allow these heretics to defile You!" Zero let out a final, sorrowful cry, gazing up at the Primal Angel with eyes brimming with hot tears.

He channeled primal divine power far past his body's limits. He transformed completely into a being of light, the holy radiance burning away his skin as it enveloped him.

Eight massive wings of light sprouted from his back, and a terrifying aura flooded the world.

However, it was completely useless.

As a spent arrow facing the combined forces of three demigods, no matter how much sudden power he unleashed, it was all in vain.

Wuming's trio dealt with him calmly. They avoided clashing directly with Zero, refusing to give him an opening to trade his life for a crippling blow.

Zero's death was a certainty. In just a little while, his body would burst from the primal divine power and collapse on its own.

What surprised Su Mu wasn't the power Zero unleashed on the brink of death, but Wuming!

The true origins of this mysterious Master of the Temple of God Slaying were completely unfathomable. Even after watching the battle for some time, Su Mu still couldn't figure out which demigod he had fused with.

It wasn't because the power he used was too unique, but because it was too mixed. In just a short while, Su Mu had witnessed no fewer than ten distinctly different elemental affinities coming from Wuming.