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  Fear.

  Utter horror!

  The God of Deep Darkness was pletely awestruck after seeing Bing Xue transform.

  It was just like him in shape and form, yet she was much more powerful, much more potent, much more... deep?

  Her very neearance, her form, and her shape made him start to doubt his own strength and even his own title.

  Against plete and utter dominan every aspect, how could a God who has always thought of himself as supreme feel?

  Like a child who had never experiehe world outside or all the hardships that life gives, he felt pletely afraid of it all.

  He didn’t even know what to say or what to do.

  Bing Xue kept approag him, being shadows and disappearing, only to reappear above him. A dozen enormous palms of shadows desded slowly; his eyes opened wide.

  “Ahhh!”

  He screamed as he stepped back, using his powers to quickly evade a barrage of powerful strikes that made the Underworld tremble stantly.

  BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!

  Bing Xue followed him with sharp, crimson eyes spreading through her entire formless and shapeless body. Not only palms, but tless beasts of the darkness appeared.

  Snakes, spiders, dragons, sharks, crows, and all matters of horror! Tentacles spread, blog the way for the God to escape. The monstrous beast approached him as he barely fehem off with Void Waves he unleashed from his hands.

  However, he was stantly wasting his energies, growing more tired than ever before. For the first time in his entire life, the God of Deep Darkness was gasping for air.

  “Hahh… Hahhh… HAAHHH…!”

  He was having a panic attack as the darkness lurked around him. He couldn’t see anything but obscurity.

  And those crimson eyes.

  Thousands—no, millions of them!

  Gring at him, judging him with their endless indifference!

  Was he a challeo Bing Xue?

  No!

  Was he eaining to Bing Xue?

  No!

  Was he… What was he before her?

  Why was she not killing him yet?

  What was she seeking out of his reas, out of his suffering?!

  Bing Xue, through all her life, had struggled and fought to reach where she was. Even this form she showcased was nothing but the prize of all her efforts.

  Yet these gods were so different from her that it made her experien emotion she had almost fotten.

  “You were givehing from the beginning, weren’t you? Your power, your abilities, your divinity.” Bing Xue finally spoke, her tless dark tentacles ing around his body.

  The God of Deep Darkness kept fighting back, beams of void and explosions of shadows c Bing Xue’s body, yet she was pletely unscathed. The Horrors of the Dark kept surging from her body, being birthed endlessly to devour him.

  “So what?! What are y to say?!” He screamed.

  “I had to work very hard for what I earned... So, even though you are so weak pared to me, I ’t help but hold a certaiion I haven’t experienced in a long while.” Laughed Bing Xue.

  “E-Emotion?” The god asked.

  “I envy you.” She said.

  “W-What…?” He muttered.

  “You were born with strength; you were gifted a world. But what did I ever have? Just blood, just battles, fear, desperation, tears…” She muttered to herself without even looking at the God. “Hahaha… HAHAHAHA!”

  And then she ughed. Her entire body appeared in front of the god, her fists reag his body. A dozen palm attacks reached him. Each hit sent a wave of pure agony through his entire body. Large cracks started appearing across his divine form.

  BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

  “UGH?!”

  His body was unched away, falling over the ground and boung several times. The surroundings were a mess, stantly shaking and beiroyed. At any moment, the ceiling would colpse over their heads.

  “Stand up…” Bing Xue walked slowly towards the God; her eyes full e. “For being gifted talent and power, are you going to moan in agony as I kill you?! STAND PROUD! GET UP AND FIGHT! SHOW ME THAT THE STRENGTH YOU WERE GIVEN IS NOT WASTED!”

  “Y-You…!” The God of Deep Darkness was, for the first time, experieng yet another new sensation.

  The endless desire to fight for his life! Something he never, ever felt before. He had a feeling of wanting to survive, a feeling of wanting to do anything to keep on living, even as he gritted his teeth, even as he bled, even as he cried.

  “I don’t want to die…! So I’ll fight… I’LL FIGHT!!!”

  He rushed towards Bing Xue, their fists g against one another, explosions of darkness and void erupting everywhere. The entire Underworld was colpsing. Enormous cracks leading to the ter of the p opened wide, magma drowning most of the Underworld as the two gods fought.

  “If you don’t want to die, then show it to me, God of Deep Darkness! You have to fight, fight until the very st moment!”

  BAAM!

  “I have never experienced anything like this!”

  CLAASH!

  “This is life; this is LIVING!”

  BOOM!

  “Living…? Even… as I die?!”

  The God of Deep Darkness kept gaining tless cracks. He k. His life was ing soon to an end; his entire existence was going to finally end.

  His entire life, he lived without a rger purpose other than to please his followers, to be the god they wanted him to be, to embody darkness, and to create and raise cults.

  There was a feeling, a desire to grow, which he did passively, over eons after eons of simply sitting over his throne and others what to do.

  Yet…

  YET!

  It was only now that he was finally experieng what it felt like to live and to truly desire to survive. This was the first time he was ever experieng the desire to live for another day—to win a fight!

  This exhirating feeling of being in a battle of life ah made him so euphorid shocked!

  His hands trembled, and his body fell apart.

  Yet he couldn’t help but smile.

  “I am… smiling?”

  His eyes opened wide as he looked at his own fists, falling apart into tiny pieces. The almighty being in front of him titag him. Bing Xue had no mercy, crushing him with each fist. Eae of her attacks broke him like gss.

  “Hahah… I’ve finally… I am finally living…” He ughed, his divine body fell over the floor, and an explosion of bck fmes spread as the st sparks of life left gathered into a siack, a pure-bck spear. “I won’t die… Not… yet…”

  The spear made of bck fmes flew towards Bing Xue, and she didn’t evade or defend against it, taking it. The spear mao pierce her clothes and even her shoulder, making her bleed. She could have easily destroyed the attack or blocked it with her defensive abilities.

  Yet she decided to take the hit and bleed.

  “This is the damage you’ve caused to me.” She expio him, tearing apart the spear from her wound, as the God of Deep Darkness gnced i a hole where the blood of someone as strong as her was ing out. This was the wound he left on her.

  “I-I mao damage you…” He smiled. “Haha… Hahaha… I-I…”

  “You fought well.” Bing Xue smiled. “You’ve learned my respect, God of Deep Darkness. It is a pity that we had to cross paths in such a way, but I bid you a good rest. Ierlife, or perhaps, the eternal void where all things e from."

  “Death… So this is... death…” The God of Deep Darkness muttered.

  An even darker darkhan anything else he had ever created engulfed his sciousness; like a careful mother, it embraced him in aernal slumber.

  One he would never, ever wake up from.

  “I… lost…”

  His existence faded away as Bing Xue absorbed his entire being into her own. Her wound quickly healed but left behind a slightly ugly scar. This was the mark he left on her, as a warrior and as someone who battled for his life.

  “So much power…” Bing Xue looked at her own hands, analyzing her body. Her dark form became even darker as she felt the entire Divinity of the God of Deep Darkness bee oh her.

  She saw visions—some sort of enlighte. The birth of the God, the darkness and miasma that gathered within the depths of the Underworld, the fear, the anguish, the horror, the ahe insanity—all of these emotions that were born from the mortals of this world.

  All of them gathered within him for over a million years. Slowly yet steadily f him, his pulsating miasmic body tinued growing rger and rger, and his roots spread, f a Divine Domain.

  The Underworld was slowly born, as his existend birth altered the very Laws of Reality in the World of Eclipse. The God of Deep Darkness, the embodiment of all that is dark, all that is evil, and all that is death, was born in that moment.

  As he sat down over his throne, he watched in silence, being what the mortals wanted him to be. Yet throughout all his years, he always felt lonely, despite surrounding himself with loyal subjects.

  He often wondered if his life had any meaning.

  Until he met her, Bing Xue.

  “You were nothing but a child at the end, weren’t you?” Bing Xue felt a slight sense of guilt for what she had done, grittieeth and shedding a tear. “But it had to be done. Your monsters killed my people. And I had to do this. Your existence could no longer be tolerated.”

  And just as she suspected, evehe God of Deep Darkness died, the world of Eclipse remained untouched. Because these Gods were not truly the pilrs of the world of Eclipse, they were simply that: Gods.

  “A world without Gods, I will give you this privilege, people of Eclipse.”

  She pierced through the bedrod reached the surfa a split sed. With a wave of her hands, she closed the holes leading to the Underworld and the her gaze into the skies.

  Heaven.

  “I am not do.” She thought. “There is another ohat must go.”

  By kig the air, Bing Xue appeared within a split sed within the highest of heavens, the highest of clouds, all above it all. Pierg through an invisible Dimensional Membrane and reag yet another Divine Realm.

  Uhe Underworld, this was a beautiful world of radiand light, of clouds and floating isnds. The sun shone brightly above the blue skies as a sea of clouds waved gently below her. There were a dozen floating isnds with their own golden temples.

  Each temple opes gates, greeting Bing Xue with millions of Angelic Spirits between Level 500 and Level 1000. Certainly, the Goddess of Light was much strohan the God of Deep Darkness.

  “S-She’s here…!”

  “She just killed the God of Deep Darkness and is already ing here?!”

  “Stop her! At all costs!”

  “Our mother has said we ot let her take aep!”

  Bing Xue saw millions of angelic spirits attack her at once, yet with a mere thought and by bining her Bck Heaven Physique with the Divinity of the God of Deep Darkness, she engulfed them all into endless shadows.

  “{Umbral Sea}”

  SPLASH!

  Her shadows and her darkness ged their form; much like how she was able to manipute Photon Essence, she now was able to create its dark equivalent, Umbral Essence!

  Her sea of umbral shadows ed all of her foes, making them disappear in an instant. Nothing was left behind; the shadows ed it all.

  While Photon Energy could be used for a variety of helpful purposes, Umbral Essence was different; it was a greedy energy, a power that desired to devour everything and leave nothing behind.

  It didn’t take long for Bing Xue to reach her destination. After sying over two million Angelic Spirits, what greeted her were the golden gates of the Pace of the Brilliant Mother of Light.

  “I am here, Goddess. Knock, knock.”

  The golden doors burst open and exploded into pieces before her two gentle knocks revealed the temple’s interior. There was a single woman of indescribable beauty waiting for her inside.

  “Y-You… So you’ve e to kill me…”

  Despite how she had acted before, she seemed oddly serious, with a slight sense of despair in her eyes.

  “You killed my brother…” She started sobbing.

  “It had to be done.” Bing Xue said. “You will now join him.”

  “Why? Please, let’s try to solve this without fighting…” She started asking her. “Please…! We do this in another way; do you o kill me?!”

  “I do.” Bing Xue tinued walking towards her. "Maybe I could have do differently, if you didn't kill millions of people when I wasn't there."

  “B-But there’s so much I want to do left. My world… We have to tinue climbing the Tower…!” The Goddess cried, her radiant body shining brightly.

  “Whatever you want to do is not my problem.” Bing Xue said sternly. “I’ve e to kill you, and that is what I’m going to do. You will die now, and nothing is ging that oute.”

  “N-No…! NOOO!”

  The goddess grew desperate and despaired, her light shining brightly as millions of beams of light fshed, pierg Bing Xue’s entire body.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

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  Pach