The silence that had fallen over the basaltic plain was heavier than the rumbling of the surrounding rivers of lava. Xuan BaiShe stood upright, arms crossed behind his back, observing the three Great Ancestors of the Azure Kingdom with an almost clinical curiosity. The three Demigods, once so proud, were now nailed to the ground by immense blades of black ice that pierced their shoulders and thighs, brutally anchoring them into the volcanic rock.

The golden blood, a sign of their divine rank, flowed slowly along the stone channels, evaporating in small hisses upon contact with the heat of the ground.

Long Huang wiped away with a disdainful gesture a trail of divine blood that stained her porcelain cheek. Her dark membrane wings slowly folded back against her back.

The leader of the Demigods raised a trembling head. His bloodshot eyes fixed BaiShe with helpless hatred.

"You monster..." he gasped, foamy blood lining his lips. "The Dao Temple... they will know what you have done. You will not be able to hide this crime forever..."

BaiShe slowly adjusted his monocle, his silver pupils already beginning to tint with violet.

"The dead do not tell tales, Lord Ancestor," he replied in a monotone voice that carried no trace of anger or remorse. "Your existence has ceased to be a relevant variable in the equation of this world. Therefore, it is time for you to serve a much higher cause: my own ascension."

Suddenly, BaiShe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His Omega Heart began to beat with titanic force, pumping waves of Khao through his meridians. The atmosphere around him changed instantly. The sky of the Seed World, already dark, turned to a deep violet, as if reality itself was reacting to the call of a primordial predator.

"< Arts: Abyss of the Thousand Hungry Hands >" pronounced BaiShe.

The space behind him seemed to fragment like a broken mirror. Wide black fissures tore through the fabric of the dimension, and from the darkness emerged hundreds of emaciated, monstrous hands, whose gray and parchment-like skin seemed to bear the stigmata of a thousand eons of famine. Each palm was equipped with a gaping mouth with sharp teeth, and eyeballs rolled erratically along the forearms, fixing the victims with insatiable hunger.

The three Demigods screamed in terror as the limbs of the abyss lunged toward them. The hands seized their torsos, their claws sinking into the divine flesh with disconcerting ease.

"No! Stop! I beg you!" screamed the female Demigod as several hands closed on her arms, completely immobilizing her.

BaiShe showed no mercy. He made a simple gesture with his hand, and the mouths in the palms began their macabre work. One heard the sharp sound of ribs breaking under the pressure, followed by the cracking of the thoracic bones. The toothed mouths gnawed at the dantians of the experts while they were still perfectly conscious. The hiss of the divine Qi being sucked in echoed in the cavern like a wind of death, while the victims convulsed, their faces twisting into expressions of unspeakable pain.

"Ahhh... the Qi of a Demigod is indeed richer than that of simple Law Masters..." observed BaiShe, his own silver hair turning jet black under the influence of the devouring.

Long Huang smoothed her long flaming black hair, observing the spectacle with morbid fascination. She did not look away for a single second, seeming to savor every agonized cry that escaped the charnel house.

"You really are an insatiable monster, BaiShe," she remarked with a hint of pride in her voice. "But I love this darkness in you. It reminds me why I chose you back then."

BaiShe felt a brutal heat invade his body. The vital essence of the three experts of the Azure Kingdom flowed back toward his own Dantian, stabilizing his foundations and expanding his meridians with sacred violence. The system flashed furiously before his eyes.

[ Ding! Xuan BaiShe has devoured three Dantians of Demigod rank! ]

[ Dantian Stability: 100% ]

[ Cultivation Progression: Overlord - 2nd stage reached! ]

A sigh of satisfaction escaped from BaiShe’s lips. He felt the new power circulating within him, a force capable of bending the laws of this lower realm at will. The bodies of the three Demigods were now nothing more than gray, dry, and wrinkled shells, whose souls had been literally consumed by the Abyss.

The young scholar returned to his normal human form. His hair regained its silver hue and the Yin-Yang symbol on his forehead faded slightly. He took a silk handkerchief from his sleeve to clean a tiny spot of blood that had landed on his sage monocle.

"Everything is unfolding according to the predictions," he declared calmly.

He turned toward Long Huang, offering her a smile that never reached his cold psychopath eyes.

"My Queen, I believe the banquet is coming to an end..."

However, BaiShe did not have time to finish his sentence. A feeling of imminent danger, an instinctive alert coming from his Omega Heart, froze him in place.

Suddenly, the volcanic dome above them seemed to evaporate. A beam of blinding white light, carrying an authority that surpassed anything they had felt before, fell from the sky at a speed exceeding the perception of an Overlord. The attack carried no identifiable Qi, it was a manifestation of pure will, a sealing strike from the higher spheres.

"!!!"

BaiShe and Long Huang did not even have time to invoke a defense. The pillar of light struck them head-on. The impact was cataclysmic. The basaltic ground on which they stood was vaporized instantly, and the two predators were sent flying far away.

Their bodies crossed several walls of volcanic rock before sinking into the depths of the pocket dimension. A shockwave spread, causing the structures of the central chamber to collapse, while a voice echoed in the void.

"Ignorants of the Uppers Realms?"

Silence returned, more menacing than ever, as the spiritual dust settled over the remains of the Banquet of the Abyss. BaiShe and Long Huang now lay in the rubble.