Tang San roared in unison: "How dare you!"
"Who is recklessly manipulating the power of the sea's faith?!"
The moment this question surfaced in his mind, the answer followed immediately.
Di Tian!
The faith power of the ocean largely originates from the countless sea soul beasts. Currently, only Di Tian has the ability to manipulate this faith power.
Given Tang San's cunning and shrewd nature, and the fact that oceanic faith is crucial to his divine status as Sea God, he would undoubtedly have prepared contingencies.
This is also a lesson he had deeply internalized from his wife, Xiao Wu—always have more than one escape route, as the saying goes.
Therefore, being able to sense the disappearance of the ocean's faith power was completely within expectations.
But...
Why did this just so happen to occur precisely at the moment of the Abyssal Plane's invasion? Was it really just a coincidence?
Where exactly did Di Tian choose to forge his divine position? How was he able to evade the eyes of fate? Was it within the Blood River God-Slaying Grand Array? Or inside some newly-emerged, peculiar small world?
With his mind working at lightning speed and filled with a thousand suspicions, Tang San instantly noticed far too many abnormalities.
To someone like him—who had always been in control and was one of the greatest schemers in the world—he was especially sensitive to manipulation.
In that fleeting moment, he not only felt something slipping beyond his calculations, but also sensed the ominous feeling of being manipulated himself.
Of course, all these thoughts came and went in a flash.
Time was pressing; there was no luxury for careful deliberation.
If Di Tian successfully forged his divine position, he would become an uncontrollable variable.
At that point, any move made would be too late.
But he, his father, and his mother were all in the final stages of preparing for their millennia-long master plan.
And now, there was no time left to eliminate all of Di Tian's hiding places one by one.
With that in mind, Tang San decided to activate a costly contingency!
A Sea God Divine Position Inheritance Seed suddenly appeared in Tang San's hand.
This item had been specially prepared for his son, Tang Wulin. It was meant to be used to pass on the Sea God divine position, shatter the Douluo Plane's limitations, and use divine power to resist the core force of the Golden Dragon King bloodline—the final three seals.
To have ascended to the peak of divine authority in just ten thousand years, Tang San possessed absolute decisiveness.
The hesitation in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by ruthless determination.
His hand tightened.
"Crack!" A sharp sound echoed as the inheritance seed was crushed.
The eight divine rings symbolizing divine level surrounding the inheritance seed shattered as well, as if detonated.
The Sea God divine position, condensed from the ocean's faith on the Douluo Plane, was forcibly destroyed by Tang San. Though its divine might and quality declined, it reverted to its purest state: raw faith power of the sea.
In the next moment, this vast and immeasurable sea-faith energy was pulled by a mysterious force and swiftly vanished.
Tang San's deep blue eyes glowed with profound insight, as though they pierced space, tracing the destination of the fleeing sea-faith power.
At the same time, streaks of light resembling rainbows or torrents—the soul beast clan's faith power—also surged toward that same destination, flowing into a singular core.
Behind Di Tian, a radiant rune floated. Unlike before, the divine rune was now shrinking. Though more threads of faith power wove into it, the rune became simpler and more refined—an embodiment of "great simplicity" in the Daoist sense.
Then, at a certain moment—Di Tian suddenly stood up.
He muttered softly, "Sever!"
A blade swept from the west, slicing through the heavens and rending the Abyss below.
The Dragon-Slaying Blade unleashed its sharpest edge in full glory.
As it descended, its blade light stretched across the world like a line—then a surface.
With this stroke, Di Tian severed the torrent of incoming faith power, like slicing apart will itself.
Vast faith energy was halted as if it had hit an impassable border. Di Tian now stood alone on one side of this divide.
His golden dragon eyes glared coldly across the divide at the now seemingly sentient sea-faith energy.
Among the faith energy, the largest and densest portion began to gather into the form of a human—Tang San in his human shape, adorned in his Sea God divine armor, a body formed entirely from faith.
Tang San spoke lightly, though his voice echoed with divine majesty:
"Di Tian, you seem to have known I would come?"
"Maybe," Di Tian replied.
Failing to ambush him, Tang San's eyes flashed with a cold light.
"You really do know about my ten-thousand-year plan!"
But this new wave of hostility was as fleeting as the last.
Tang San quickly returned to a calm and indifferent expression.
He said, "Since you know of my plan, then you should also understand its final goal. If the plane evolves into a semi-divine realm, it would benefit your soul beast race too."
"Besides, when you launched the racial war between soul beasts and humans, I did not interfere. With all the killing that's taken place, that should be enough to avenge your clan's blood debt, no?"
"How about this—we call it even. Let's join forces to kill the Abyssal Sovereign and evolve the plane."
"I'll even throw in a bonus: the Abyssal Plane was born from the Crimson Plane, and it only occupies 40% of its energy."
"After we devour the Abyssal Plane and elevate the Douluo Plane to a semi-divine realm, we can then target the Crimson Plane. That would allow the Douluo Plane to evolve into a true divine realm."
"By then, your soul beasts will also have the chance to evolve into divine beasts."
"Why not turn enemies into allies? Turn conflict into a future? Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
Upon hearing this, Di Tian rubbed his chin, pretending to contemplate the alluring prospects Tang San painted.
"Hmm… sounds… kind of nice."
"But don't you think you should sweeten the deal a little more?"
"After all, your Divine Realm is powerful. Even though it has vanished, who's to say it won't suddenly come back? That makes me feel… very unsafe."
"…"
The previously tense, on-the-verge-of-battle atmosphere vanished. Now, the two of them seemed more like merchants discussing a business deal.
But in truth, these two seasoned old monsters didn't believe a single word coming out of each other's mouths.
They were both buying time, each with their own agendas.
Though calm on the surface, their actions were frantic and fierce behind the scenes, causing veins to bulge and aura to surge.
Two vast forces had already spread throughout the underground world, clashing and competing for control over the immense sea-faith power.
Tang San was trying to block the flow of external faith power from reinforcing Di Tian's Beast God divine position, while Di Tian was working nonstop to break through this blockade.
In the battle of results, Di Tian had the upper hand—after all, it was soul beast faith power, and their subjective will gave him tremendous support.
Even though the amount of faith power flowing into the Beast God divine position had slightly decreased, it was still flowing.
At the visible surface of the game board, Di Tian remained dominant. Time was on his side—given enough of it, his advantage would turn into outright victory.
However, the faith body of Sea God Tang San showed not the slightest urgency.
Until—
"Crack!"
Behind him, space shattered.
A super divine weapon—the Sea God Trident—pierced through the void.
With a whoosh, it landed squarely in Tang San's grasp.
(End of Chapter)