Transforming into a dragon of hellfire, Lu Yun charged Dijiang like he was a sword aimed for the demon god’s head. All hellfire within the atmosphere concentrated on the black dragon, and he streaked through the stars like a ray of inky-black sword energy.

Dijiang shrieked madly, changing his black spear into a dragon as well and sending it coiling atop the Bell of Chaos. The two connate treasures melded their strength together to the accompaniment of ringing bell tolls. Golden oscillations spread through space, containing so much fearsome power that the demon gods observing the fight scattered in all directions.

The Taiyin and sun star began trembling, and even the boundary protecting the great wilderness planet from the yin spirits and realm monster began shaking.

Booooom.

The sword dragon of hellfire crumbled, and the Bell of Chaos flew an unknown distance backward. Dijiang and Lu Yun materialized in space and threw themselves at each other again. No combat arts or mysterious methods flared, just one-on-one physical strength!

However, Lu Yun’s close combat techniques were a thousand times more advanced than what Dijiang possessed; his fists constantly appeared from an unforeseen angle to deliver heavy blows.

At the same time, the demon god’s strength was far greater than Lu Yun’s. Any punch he managed to land punctured the human clean through.

Not too far off in the distance, Nuanzi watched with an increasingly numb skull. Although Lie Shan and Dijiang were still less than Leize, either of their strengths was something that Nuanzi could no longer compare to.

It would be no exaggeration to say that these two combatants were the strongest in the great wilderness, second to only someone like Leize!

“The method of cultivation now exists in the great dao. I’ll be able to reach their level if I take human form and practice human methods…” Comprehension flashed through Nuanzi's mind. “That Asura’s already begun to cultivate.”

He clenched his teeth to the point where blood oozed out of his mouth, but still refused to transform into a human.

“Why is it that mere humans can receive the approval of the heavenly dao and be able to change it?!” Many other demon gods puzzled over the same question.

While it was true that humanity was of the ancient Pangu’s bloodline, Pangu’s relationship to them was like that of connate demon gods to their latter-day descendants. Apart from inheriting Pangu’s form and a thin strand of bloodline, they hadn’t inherited any of the ancient god’s combat arts or strength.

Humans were just a pathetic race with nothing special about them. But all that had changed after Lie Shan appeared.

Rumble—

A tremendous shudder traveled down from the stars. The boundary formed by the Taiyin and sun star lay in pieces, revealing the great wilderness to the rest of space. Countless yin spirits instantly honed in on the planet, but they were quickly destroyed upon approach as collateral damage in the monumental fight.

As for realm monsters… they were still sealed into the chaos by the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates.

“DIE!!” Freed from confinement to the planet’s upper atmosphere, the two could truly let loose without reservation in space.

Dijiang howled and grabbed a nearby star, throwing it at Lu Yun. It wasn’t a real star, but one of the great masters who’d died in battle and transformed into a star in space.

“You fucker!” Lu Yun went a little crazy at the sight. In his eyes, these fallen veterans were all heroes. Their bodies were not to be defiled, and this was something Dijiang surely knew.

However, the demon god was throwing the bodies of heroes around! This touched upon Lu Yun’s reverse scale.

He carefully caught the star and swiftly lobbed it in another direction. Then, he summoned Rearbow and began shooting.

Arrows fired forth like raindrops and poured down upon Dijiang, who swiftly increased the distance between the two of them and redeployed the Bell of Chaos over his head. It shook out curtains of golden light and kept his body protected within.

The volley of arrows pounded on the bell’s curtains and sent the treasure trembling, but Lu Yun’s current level of strength couldn’t break its protections.

“Come out of that turtle shell if you dare!” Lu Yun snarled.

Dijiang didn’t possess a body of the world that could breathe in tandem with the heavens at every moment. His strength and energy were limited, and he’d exhausted quite a bit of personal reserves in the fight thus far. He pulled in his ponderous body beneath the bell and slowly breathed in the energy found in space, recovering slightly.

“Break the bell’s protection if you have what it takes.” He cast a cold look at Lu Yun and returned to the task of recovery.

“Hmmph.” Sneering at the response, Lu Yun blasted outward with all of his strength and beat furiously down on the bell.

He didn’t use hellfire or Rearbow this time, just unleashed himself to the fullest extent possible to resonate with the heavens. He let loose with everything he possessed, his body and organs of the world, and the six yin organs they’d evolved.

In the chaos, the shaking great dao furiously absorbed Lu Yun’s presence and evolved another step further.

Dijiang’s expression grew increasingly ugly from his seat of safety inside the bell. He felt like a fish out of water at this moment, that the great dao was retreating ever further away from him. Even the qi in space was slowly slipping out of his grasp and becoming unavailable to him.

“I see… so you are able to modify the great dao when you fully unleash your strength!” Dijiang finally grasped this as he watched Lie Shan’s maddened attacks. Every change in the connate great dao had occurred when the human battled a demon god.

“It seems there’s really no other way of restoring the great dao without killing him.” His face was now an alarming shade of purple, as if he was suffocating. He could sense his strength recede and his regression from a lofty demon god to an ordinary being.

All of the demon gods had discovered this, not just Dijiang. If they still refused to surrender to the great dao and take human form, they would all be summarily demoted to mundane life forms without any power.

“Lie Shan, I will personally rip you apart for this!” An anguished wail burst from Dijiang’s mouth before his mammoth form of four wings and six bird feet vanished. A limber middle-aged man dressed in long red robes appeared beneath the bell.

The great dao instantly flooded back into Dijiang’s body and restored his strength, while the Bell of Chaos hummed happily as well.

“The path of cultivation?!” Dijiang started, seeing a cultivation method in the great dao. If he could grasp his own cultivation method from what he saw in the great dao, he’d be able to continue cultivating and eventually become a creator!

“It’s the cultivation method of the human race, created by Lie Shan! This boy is… an unparalleled genius!” Dijiang looked at Lu Yun in a new light.

He knew of the cultivation methods created by the divine spirits, but those crude and basic methods were of no use to demon gods. Fuxi, Wahuang, and Tushan possessed methods as well, but those were only suitable for themselves.

However, the cultivation method of humans was applicable to all living beings! It could be utilized by all sentient beings beneath the heavens, including demon gods—the caveat being that one had to be in human form.

“Regardless, you are still the source of all trouble!”

Hummm.

The Bell of Chaos exploded into the size of a mountain and bore down on Lu Yun, clanging loudly and sending out golden oscillations.

Lu Yun refused to back down, summoning the blazing black sun from the bow again. The light of hellfire flared from the sun, fighting back against the bell. Behind him, the illusory Sal Tree appeared once more.

Dijiang was even faster in human form and stabbed forward with his black spear before one could react.

……

Dijiang had submitted!

He’d submitted to the great dao and to the humans!

This chilled the hearts of many demon gods, but as the great dao grew increasingly heavier and more of their power wrested away, the remaining holdouts had no choice but to take human form.

They didn’t want to relinquish their dignity, but they wanted even less to become ordinary! As a mundane being, even their intelligence would be wiped away.

Emitting one last bitter howl, Nuanzi withdrew his true form and became a man in black robes. However, he too quickly discovered the surprise within the great dao.

“Creator… within reach?!” His eyes widened greatly. “But Lie Shan is the source of it all. If becoming a creator is possible, he will always walk ahead of us. Therefore, he must die, no matter what!”

A frosty light glinted in his eyes as he looked up at where Lie Shan and Dijiang were fighting. However, he stubbornly clung onto his last shred of dignity as a demon god and refrained from ambushing Lu Yun.

Many demon gods had given up on the fight and returned to their homes to study the new heavenly dao, and to glean their own cultivation methods from it.

Humans were undoubtedly the most direct beneficiaries of the change in world order. With the change in heavenly dao, their qi refinement method was recognized by the great dao and their cultivation future full of potential and hope.

At celestial divine realm, Shennong spontaneously broke through to divine king—no, human king realm!

As more and more demon gods took human form and incorporated their great daos into the heavenly dao, the human dao cultivation system was finalized in the battle of Lu Yun versus Dijiang.

Connate realm, golden core realm, true human, celestial human, human king, empyrean, and chaos realm!

The seven realms were fully listed in the heavenly dao.

Although they weren’t any different from the original realms under the primitive great dao, what they meant was much different from before. Under the human dao, cultivators in the same realm would dominate their peers under the previous dao.

The heavenly dao was no longer its primitive iteration. After this phase of improvement, it’d become the even more marvelous human dao, so of course its cultivators would be stronger than their predecessors.

Human dao had truly been established, but remained in its initial stages. The collective efforts of all were necessary to continue refining it.

Deep among the reaches of the stars, Lu Yun and Dijiang continued waging their staggering battle.