Prologue 2

The Spirit King of the Nine Nethers was the oldest of the six fiends so he knew the terror of the Divine Celestial Emperor best. The only reason he decided to move with the others was because of the allure of the 12th page of the Heavenly Tome as well as the presence of their leader. If there was one person who had the potential to rival the Divine Celestial Emperor it would be him.

"Don't give up yet." The said individual spoke up.

"Haha. Come at me." The Divine Celestial Emperor suddenly laughed out loud.

Boom.

The towering abyssal demon suddenly stomped its foot on the ground and flashed away. Despite having a humongous size, it easily closed the gap and approached the Divine Celestial Emperor within an instant.

"Die."

Infernal Obliteration Punch.

With great momentum and vigour, the abyssal giant punched at the Divine Celestial Emperor creating explosions in mid-air with a large wave of heat due to friction blasting towards the target.

The remaining five coordinated their attacks together as they knew alone, they were no match for their foe but they stood a chance together.

With the abyssal titan demon as the frontman, the rest launched their various attacks at the Divine Celestial Emperor with barely any gap between them.

With a light smile that seemed to indicate that he was enjoying the 'show', the Divine Celestial Emperor moved a palm to face the abyssal's fist.

A smooth and fair palm against a massive black basalt fist. The sight was glaringly disparate. The two couldn't be compared and the result looked obvious from a layman's point of view. However, this wasn't a layman's battle.

The palm collided effortlessly with the fist, generating no explosion or fireworks. Even the heat waves from the punch had disappeared faster than they arrived. It was like the effect of abruptly muting a sound system that was previously at its highest volume. All the momentum and vigour from that punch had disappeared and the punch itself was ineffective against the palm. But that wasn't all.

Before the abyssal demon could react to the changes, an intense aura of greatness swept over him, sending him flying back like a broken kite in the sky. He eventually crashed a few kilometres away but his current status was unknown. The Divine Celestial Emperor then followed up with a flourish of his sleeves, sending the attacks of the remaining 5 to an alternate dimension. However, one of those attacks managed to sneak past his defences and still went for him.

A dull grey 'arrow' made its way towards the Divine Celestial Emperor, seemingly harmless but containing within it enough force to demolish a star.

'Hmm?'

Though surprised at the incident, the Divine Celestial Emperor was not deterred. In his opinion, it was simply a slightly stronger attack than the others that would warrant him more focus than normal.

He nonchalantly pointed a finger towards the grey arrow sending a murky transparent wave at the attack. Similar to the joint attack from before, the grey arrow was wiped away from the face of the Netherworld land without making so much as a single sound.

'Dao of void.' The human-like demon frowned.

He didn't get a good look at the technique before but as it was exhibited once more, added with his knowledge of the Divine Celestial Emperor, he had managed to confirm the technique the Divine Celestial Emperor had used against them. It was the infamous dao of void that ruled over all within space.

A supreme dao that couldn't be comprehended without great luck and heaven-defying perceptive abilities, the dao of void was one of the key factors that made the Divine Celestial Emperor who he was now.

Having practised it to a very high realm of achievement, the Divine Celestial Emperor was invisible against opponents far weaker than he was and those who didn't know the intricacies of the dao of void.

"Attack all at the same time. Don't give him any breathing space. Keep him pinned down while I escape with the 12th page." The leader messaged his teammates.

"That's not fair. Why do we have to do all the dirty work while you escape? What makes you think you can even escape successfully? And even if you do, this bastard might let out his anger all on us. I don't have any plans of dying for someone else other than myself." The monarch of devouring was the first to disagree.

While all the surface, all 6 fiends ruled the Netherworld, in reality, there were undercurrents among them. The human-looking demon was revered as the strongest of them and the de-facto but in all earnest, the difference between him and the rest wasn't convincing enough.

While it was true that he had managed to defeat some of them a couple of decades ago, that was far back and they had all made massive improvements in their cultivation. No one could say for certain whether he was still stronger than them. Though the grey arrow just now had proved such, no one would agree till they traded blows.

As a result of this, no one was willing to take his orders to the letter especially for something as risky as this.

It was quite obvious that the Divine Celestial Emperor was determined to get the 12th page of the Heavenly Tome. At the same time, none of the six fiends was willing to let him have it. The leader of the six fiends felt that escaping would be for the best but the problem was that he couldn't pull it off on his own. He would require the other five to hold down the Divine Celestial Emperor while he did so.

However, none of them was willing to do the dirty work. They all wanted to study the 12th page together so why would they let one of them get the upper hand? Apart from that, if the demon leader successfully escaped, the Divine Celestial Emperor would undoubtedly be pissed and might unleash his anger on them. That means that one of them would end up never leaving this battlefield again. Obviously, none of the fiends was willing to be the 'martyr' in this case.

'Tch.'

The leading fiend was incensed at the behaviours of his partners but he knew that he couldn't do anything about it. They were not his minions so he couldn't order them as he pleased. If he wished to escape with the page, he would have to make some concessions to them. If he delayed a second longer, those who got the news about the page's location would show up.

Communicating with his teammates, the leader tried to appease them to work with him but the Divine Celestial Emperor seemed to have noticed that as he immediately went on the offensive.

The Spirit King was forced to take on an attack far ahead of his cultivation. The monarch of devouring was faced with a thin beam of energy that was capable of destroying stars as well as sending him to the other side of the world. The two other fiends were not left out as they both faced attacks that were more than what they could handle.

Without any suspense, the 4 fiends were taken down with the number one figure amongst them being the only one left standing, and this was mainly because the Divine Celestial Emperor had not made a move on him yet.

"I'm aware that if there's anyone amongst you who is to have the 12th page, it would be you. Surrender it now and I will spare your life as I did with the others."

Faced with the words of the Divine Celestial Emperor, the fiend's leader simply laughed.