The ancient Thunder God was a divine beast with an ox’s body, a single hoof, and lowed like a cow: the kui.

As a member of the divine race, its mastery of a myriad of thunders made it one of the strongest of its thunder god peers. It was no immortal emperor, but it came very close indeed.

In primordial times, there’d only been one kui in the world. Su Xiaoxiao had originally thought that it died in the war of immortals a hundred thousand years ago, but its sudden appearance overturned her assumption.

She was absolutely sure that Kui was here in its actual body. The Thunder God was real!

It was several orders of magnitude weaker than the primordial kui, but the special aura it carried was no different.

“How is this possible?!” The other immortals knew about the existence of Kui, but found the arrival of this primordial thunder divine even more shocking.

“Kui is dead.” Two searching rays shot out of Art Saint’s eyes. He looked up into the firmament, then down at Lu Yun. “Its corpse has transformed into a corpse divine. A kui has mastery over a myriad of thunders, but there’s one type that’s always eluded its grasp.”

“The azure dragons’ Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder.” Wayfarer paid no attention to Yuying standing guard over her master. To him, the envoy wasn’t the same woman she’d been twelve hundred years ago. The only thing his affections could linger upon was the painting he carried with him.

“This is because of Lu Yun again, isn’t it!” Art Saint’s words elicited indignant expressions from the others. If the Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder was where Kui’s obsession lay, its use must’ve drawn the corpse here.

The tide of yin spirits had prevented it from visiting before. As an undead creature, it could only be subsumed by its more ephemeral fellows. Thus, it’d come when the tide dispersed.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Kui’s singularly gigantic hoof stomped furiously on Azure Province, as if it wanted to wipe the place from existence.

Zhao Changkong and the Azure governor were both aghast. Though Kui’s corpse was infinitely weaker than its ancient self, it still retained power equal to a peak origin dao immortal.

Zhao Changkong hadn’t even plucked a single origin dao fruit yet. According to his calculations, he needed at least a hundred years to do so. That was why he’d plotted to release Art Saint from his shackles.

Though Art Saint found that he was no match for Zither Saint, Qin Sheng, he remained faithful to his prior promise: he would protect Zhao Changkong for the next hundred years.

“In actuality, as long as we surrender Lu Yun, Kui will leave of its own volition. Or perhaps him passing on the Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder will have the same effect.”

Art Saint’s words were cool, but intense malevolence flashed through his eyes. He wanted to tear Lu Yun to pieces more than anyone present. He would’ve regathered Yuying’s spirit and soul once he broke free, resurrecting her from the remains inside the tomb. However, Lu Yun had taken her as an Envoy of Samsara before he could commence with his plans, preventing him from ever being reunited with his love.

All eyes were on Lu Yun. This second disaster had come hot on the heels of the first. Azure Province—nay, the entirety of Nephrite Major—couldn’t keep weathering the storm any longer.

Wayfarer and Zither Saint fell silent. They couldn’t help in this situation. The only ones who could resist Kui were the two people able to wield the power of the land: Zhao Changkong and the Azure governor.

However, both seemed to be fraying at the edges.

“For the sake of the lives here in Nephrite Major, you should give up the diagram and the Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder…” The official was white as a sheet and his voice quavered in terror of the monster above Azure Province.

“Enough!” Qing Han suddenly stood up from Lu Yun’s side. Starlight shimmered all about her, and her cultivation had now advanced a step to returned void.

Unfortunately, the accursed spirit root inside her had worsened as well. There was a distinct sliver of green inside her silvery pupils. If she became an immortal now, the poison curse in her spirit root would trigger immediately. Her death would kill anyone else who’d ever reached void realm as well.

“Is there a way to drive it off?” she whispered to the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals between her fingers.

“Kui is now a corpse divine… its obsession cannot be denied. Unless another yin spirit tide comes, there’s no way to force it to retreat.” The Azure Dragon King was incredulous. Having been Kui’s mortal enemy once upon a time, he’d fought the ox on behalf of his tribe more than once to preserve the Yi Wood Cleansing Thunder.

He’d been the stronger of the two back then. If Kui hadn’t been the court’s thunder god, he would’ve slain it long ago.

Alas, Kui had only grown stronger after it was cut in half and disappeared due to its injuries. Before its death, it had reached peak principal realm and been infinitely close to emperor realm, stronger than the Azure Dragon King had ever been.

But ancient affairs were all in the past. Every grace and grudge was no more important than the dust left behind by the great war. Kui was long dead; this was merely a corpse divine born from its carcass.

Corpse divines didn’t come about after the death of divines. They formed when a divine’s corpse attained a sort of zombified sentience after death. A corpse divine kept all the combat arts it’d had in life and looked convincingly living, but was in fact a zombie.

‘Corpse divines’ and ‘zombie kings’ were two paths of evolution that headed in opposite directions. A zombie king tried its very hardest to return itself from death to life. A corpse divine, on the other hand, consumed as much death energy as it could to turn from something half-alive into something completely undead.

There were more differences than that, too. A zombie king was sentient and rational, looking like any normal living being, but exclusively used zombie methods.

A corpse divine had no sentience whatsoever. As a zombie brought to life by a divine creature’s lingering obsession, it wielded all of its living body’s methods, but used them by instinct alone.

Right now, the corpse divine that Kui had become was doing exactly what one might expect: using Kui’s powers to smash the protective veil over Azure Province.

More than five thousand kilometers tall, the zombie ox was millions of times stronger than any ordinary bovine. Every strike of its hoof sent tremors through the province.

The earthen veins within the ground were shifting little by little from the impacts, including those beneath the bronze palace.

They supplied the power to the grand influence over the world. If they were destroyed, the influence would instantly disappear, exposing the fissure in the depths of the earth once again.

Azure Province would really be done for then.

“It… it’s no ordinary origin dao immortal!” Zhao Changkong shrieked in despair. “Kui… has gone through the void realm!”

Splurt!

The heavenly mandate hovering protectively over the young emperor’s head quivered violently, sending him flying down into the dirt with blood spewing from his mouth.

An origin dao immortal who has gone through the void realm…

Kui was an ancient immortal, one born naturally into its power, and was thus the equivalent of an immortal that progressed through the void realm. The Azure governor was likewise sent flying, and the barrier of light that he and Zhao Changkong maintained was cracking fast.