Skyfire Avenue

In the distance they could see the red tornado slowly sputter out.

The Terminator spoke in a solemn voice. “There. That’s also where the progenitor is.”

Another flash of pink and they were conveyed to where Satan had released his power. Wild energies flit through the air, potent and stifling. Yet, they were beginning to weaken.

Lan Jue saw Satan right away.

He was once again human form, and Monarch’s doppelganger had him by the neck. Lan Jue could feel the vital energy draining from his ally at a rapid pace. The demon blade he’d used to pierce his heart had become spectral in appearance, opaque. The alien avatar tried to take it for itself, but its hand passed through as though trying to grasp at air.

There was a flicker, and the sword vanished.

Satan’s eyes weakly turned to compatriots, pain clearly in his twisted expression. However, there was neither fear nor sadness, but defiance.

BOOM–! The area was bathed in an explosion of red light, throwing everything into a furor of energy. The release of power from a Paragon in the moments before their death was incredible, more than the avatars could entirely defend against. They went flailing through the air.

“Die-!” Luo Xianni roared. Her tiny pink camera appeared in her hands.

Ka-cha! With the click of the shutter, the creatures froze in mid air. A white light sprang up that settled over the Paragons, and with it the Terminator and his team felt their drained protogenic might recover.

Yet, despite this they were not surprised. All of them were struck to the core by Satan’s death. Brilliant lights erupted from the human warriors, toward the avatars and the lesser beasts around them.

Three strange orbs of purple light shimmered, and all of a sudden the immobilized doppelgangers were gone. Then, overhead, three enormous silhouettes blotted out the sky. The alien home worlds. Their aura bore down on the surface of Heaven’s Light like a torrent of power. Lan Jue and the others froe in their charge and shook with shock and fear.

The alien planets?

As their nightmarish foes appeared the whole of reality was immersed in purple light. The aura of power that surrounded the Avatars buffeted them in ever more powerful waves. In the space of an instant they were on the upper border of Nirvana. It wasn’t just their protogenia, either – every ounce of them was bursting with empowered energy.

As the humans looked on, a strange scene unfolded. All the surrounding aliens turned and headed for the doppelgangers. When they got close their bodies disintegrated into eddies of purple mist, and wormed their way into the planet’s representatives.

Despite the many experiences these Paragons had in fighting the aliens, this was the first time they’d witnessed something like this. Everyone’s face fell, they knew what the avatars were doing; consuming the energy of the creatures around them to increase their strength.

All of these monsters were creations of the three alien planets, and were destined to return to them. In this way they were all one, though it was the first time they witnessed it in such a literal fashion. If this kept up it wouldn’t be long before these three creatures commanded the power of Infinite, or close to it.

“Attack.” Luo Xianni’s voice was cold, calm. She lifted her camera and a pale pink light emerged as dual columns descending from the sky.

Suddenly reality split. Where there had been one unbroken purple horizon now it was cleaved in half. The gathered alien avatars were violently thrust apart, as though deposited in separate dimensions.

Luo Xianni’s fighting style was complicated. She saw that these creatures were strong, but they were strongest together. As such their best chance was to divide and conquer.

Although the Photographer’s breakthrough was still fresh, and her familiarity with her newfound powers in its infancy, she was still a denizen of the Infinite. Even beneath the strengthening light of the planets, she was still their superior.

The avatars were on the move. Lan Jue and Qianlin reacted first by becoming dual bolts of lightning and heading their way.

Lan Jue waved his hands and the misty environment around him parted. Emulsions of the aliens’ power vanished in his vicinity, replaced by a universe of purple light. Out in space the soldiers aboard the human warships saw a singular star blaze in the sky, preceding a strange sight. It was like someone dimmed all the other stars and planets, dialing down their intensity.

In truth this was Lan Jue, employing the might of his Domain for the first time. Even he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

Middle Heaven Emperor of the North Pole Star of Purple Subtlety was master of the stars, or so he had been called. All the stellar bodies payed homage to the North Star, and constrained their light in its presence. Although Lan Jue was only a Reflection of Heaven and Earth, the strength of his Domain was evident.

Within the glittering luminescence of his Domain crackling lightning danced in and out of existence. Each arc of electricity was a different color from the one before it, changing from gold to blue to purple and countless others. Each crackling bolt also bore a different feel, a unique sense – a staggering fear.

An alien came charging in from overhead, headlong into Lan Jue’s Domain. The moment it crossed the border the field around the Jewelry Master lit up as dozens of lightning bolts surged toward the intruder. It was reduced to smoldering powder after the first blast, even its vital crystal was atomized. Whatever energy was contained in the beast dissipated through Lan Jue Domain and left no trace.

Boundless Starlight, Palm of Five Lightning. This was the power bequeathed to him by the Emperor of the North Star.

Modern humans had thus far been unable to manifest the dharma of these long-lost gods. But Lan Jue’s destiny was beyond compare, his luck supernatural. With the thunder essence and the echoes of tribulation lightning it contained, as well as his own lightning Discipline and Jue Di’s tutelage... with his dedicated cultivation and constant restraint, the assistance of immortal qi and his painstakingly evolved All-Heaven Lightning, he was able to grasp the vestiges of Purple Subtlety and thus solidify his protogenia.