Twelve billion eight hundred million trillion Profound Nether Curses, this is a fusion of the Water Source Essence and the Cultivator World's Magic. It is the perfect combination of two forms of power across different Dimensional Cosmos.

The Hongyi Sword transformed into the Profound Nether Curse Sea, and the sword's essential level was elevated to an extreme limit.

This Sword Artifact personally forged by Gao Xuan, even he could barely unleash a fraction of its Sword Artifact power.

When Gao Xuan refines the Profound Nether Curse, he can refine ten thousand Profound Nether Curses per second. At this rate, trying to refine twelve billion eight hundred million trillion Profound Nether Curses would take an astronomical amount of time.

Furthermore, Gao Xuan's personal Spiritual Power also has its limits.

Gao Xuan attempted, and his limit for catalyzing at once is twelve billion eight hundred million Profound Nether Curses, exactly one trillionth.

Based on his current level, his Spiritual Power would need to reach at least two hundred points to fully unleash the power of all Profound Nether Curses at once.

In reality, it's not that exaggerated; Spiritual Power doesn't increase linearly but in a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted way.

Every ten points increase in Spiritual Power results in a significant qualitative transformation.

Gao Xuan's current Spiritual Power of 44 points makes it hard to imagine how powerful 50 points of Spiritual Power would be.

Therefore, Gao Xuan refines the Profound Nether Curses whenever he has time each day. Even if he can't fully master them, accumulating more is beneficial.

The Profound Nether Curse Sea is unfathomably deep, and Gao Xuan conceals his Divine Soul within, luring the Black Banner King's Divine Soul to delve deeper.

For the Black Banner King, it was like taking a quick peek, only to be ensnared by the Soul Chain. His Divine Soul was trapped within the Hongyi Sword.

The Black Banner King had never seen a Soul Chain or such unique Soul Power, rendering him momentarily powerless to break it.

The simplest method would be to destroy Gao Xuan's Divine Soul, naturally breaking the chain between the two Divine Souls.

The Black Banner King, having fused with a dragon body and mastering the Greed Furnace, experienced a surge in power.

In such a predicament, his first thought was to resort to brute force.

This method might be somewhat crude, but it's the most effective. With two thousand years of accumulated power in the Greed Furnace, refining a Sword Artifact should be no problem!

Moreover, with such a high-level Sword Artifact, refining it for personal use wouldn't be a loss.

The Black Banner King is very wise, having a deep understanding of human powers, Secret Techniques, and Marvels.

Precisely because of his understanding of humans, he made a misjudgment. Even though Gao Xuan's Spiritual Power was inferior to his, he could control the Hongyi Sword, so it should be even easier for him.

The main factor was the deep accumulation of the Greed Furnace. The Black Banner King believed his power to be a hundred times that of Gao Xuan, so he could simply crush it head-on.

Under the urging of the Black Banner King, the Fire of Greed transformed into Source Flame, covering the vast Profound Nether Curse Sea.

The Black Banner King, being of a half-dragon physique, had a natural affinity for fire elemental Source Power. After remolding his body by refining the dragon spine, harnessing fire elemental Source Power became almost instinctual.

The crimson flames transformed by the Fire of Greed caused the entire Profound Nether Curse Sea to evaporate continuously.

The Profound Nether Curses transformed from seawater could be seen, in the flames, with Spiritual Light flying backward bit by bit.

Gao Xuan's Divine Soul resided in the depths of the Profound Nether Curse Sea, letting the Black Banner King wreak havoc.

He even occasionally mocked, "Greed Furnace, is this it, is this it?"

"Buddy, did you not have breakfast or something? Perhaps you should go home and eat first, then come back?"

"For an Evil God, you're an embarrassment, aren't you?"

The Black Banner King didn't respond to Gao Xuan; he disdained to bicker with him. He just vowed in his heart that once he captured Gao Xuan's Divine Soul, he would make him understand the might of an Evil God.

The Fire of Greed burned fiercely, evaporating layer after layer of the Profound Nether Curse Sea.

The Black Banner King and Gao Xuan's Divine Souls, connected by the Soul Chain, left them unable to attend to their bodies.

From the outside, the Black Banner King grasped the Hongyi Sword with one hand and the Infinite Godslaying Spear with the other. Gao Xuan and the Mechanical Combat Body surrounded the Black Banner King front and back, poised to attack.

Yet, all three remained motionless. The scene looked exceedingly strange.

Both the Black Banner King and Gao Xuan had spare power to control their bodies, but at this moment, physical combat could no longer determine the outcome. Rather than wasting power, it was better to extinguish the opponent's Divine Soul directly.

Standard time of thirty-six hours passed, and the Black Banner King and Gao Xuan were still at a stalemate.

The Black Banner King was getting a bit anxious; he had broken through countless layers of the Profound Nether Curse Sea, yet couldn't see the bottom, nor Gao Xuan's Divine Soul.

Of the two thousand years of accumulated energy in the Greed Furnace, refining the dragon spine had consumed over half. Of the remaining four-tenths of energy, two-tenths had already been consumed inside the Hongyi Sword.

With only two-tenths of energy left, the Black Banner King was becoming reluctant.

This was the accumulation of his two thousand-year foundation, the basis of his power advancement. Consuming half of it on a Sword Artifact of little use had far exceeded his expectations.

The problem was that now he couldn't afford to give up. His Divine Soul and Gao Xuan's Divine Soul were bound by a special power, and tied to this Sword Artifact.

The Black Banner King contemplated switching strategies to focus on the soul bindings. Perhaps investing the Fire of Greed earlier would have already untangled the bond between the two Divine Souls.

Just that having invested so much power into the Profound Nether Curse Sea now, changing tactics at this point would be too costly. It would mean half of the energy wasted for nothing.

The Black Banner King is very wise; precisely because of this, he thought deeply when facing the impasse.

He believed there were many ways to solve the problem, no need to follow just one path to the end.

The issue is that he didn't know which option was correct. The powerful intuition of the Divine was completely failing at this moment.

Gao Xuan, through the Soul Chain, could sense the Black Banner King's thoughts. However, due to the Divine's immense power, he couldn't read the Black Banner King's memories.

Though the Soul Chain is formidable, such direct soul locking is also perilous.

Gao Xuan had an intuition that as he read Black Banner King's memories through the soul chain, his own memories would inevitably be read by the other party as well.

He now had an assured victory, relying on the information gap. Naturally, he was unwilling to exchange memories with Black Banner King.

Black Banner King lacked sufficient understanding of the current situation and didn't know how to choose.

Sure enough, Black Banner King hesitated for a moment and then decided to continue investing power to refine the Profound Nether Curse Sea.

On the other hand, he also diverted part of his attention to analyze the soul chain.

Although Black Banner King was very intelligent, his wisdom entirely came from the human civilization of the Star River Era. This also gave his wisdom significant limitations.

The soul chain of the Mechanical Divine Race and the Profound Nether Curse Sea of the Cultivator World, their energy levels far surpassed those of the human civilization of the Star River Era.

Black Banner King gained nothing from analyzing the soul chain, nor did he find a way to forcibly break it.

Though the energy of the Greed Furnace was strong, it was useless if there was no way to leverage it.

No choice, Black Banner King could only invest all the Fire of Greed into the Profound Nether Curse Sea.

As long as he refined the Profound Nether Curse Sea, Gao Xuan's divine soul would have nowhere to escape.

After another thirty-six hours, Black Banner King felt a bit of despair. Almost all the energy within the Greed Furnace had been invested, yet the Profound Nether Curse Sea remained unbroken.

Gao Xuan's divine soul seemed still far, far away.

Precisely because of this feeling, Black Banner King kept investing power.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu makes it very clear: warfare is the way of deceit. Thus, when able, show incapacity; when deploying, appear not to be; when near, appear far; when far, appear near.

Gao Xuan was hiding deep, which actually meant that he wanted him to give up voluntarily. If the Profound Nether Curse Sea was easy to break, Gao Xuan should have shown his divine soul, letting him see the hope of victory.

Now it seemed, Gao Xuan did not play by the rules and did not understand military strategy!

With only a fraction of power left, Black Banner King had to keep it for self-preservation. He couldn't continue to fight this Profound Nether Curse Sea to the end.

Gao Xuan noticed Black Banner King withdrawing his power, and his divine soul emerged from the depths of the Profound Nether Curse Sea: "Friend, stopping now is such a pity. A bit more effort, and the Profound Nether Curse Sea will break!"

Black Banner King's divine soul main body appeared half-dragon, half-human, also a projection of his current corporeal form.

His divine soul floated above the Profound Nether Curse Sea, surrounded by blazing Fire of Greed. From a standpoint of imposing momentum, it firmly suppressed Gao Xuan's divine soul.

Black Banner King was silent for a moment before saying, "I didn't expect you to have this trick. I am willing to concede. You lift the restriction, and I will leave immediately."

"Thinking of surrendering now?"

Gao Xuan couldn't help but laugh: "After killing more than ten billion people, you just want to pat your butt and concede. You're too optimistic."

"They were just parasites among humans, their deaths are only beneficial to humanity."

Black Banner King said: "I see you are not some moral saint either. Why hold onto this matter?"

"Human matters are for humans to decide. It's not up to evil forces to mess around."

Gao Xuan wagged his finger at Black Banner King and said, "Even if you kneel and call me 'Dad' today, you will still die. You're at least an Evil God, show your ability."

"I can't break your methods, but if pushed, I'll self-destruct my divine soul. We are connected, and if I self-destruct, you won't be able to take it either."

Black Banner King remained calm and continued to negotiate with Gao Xuan.

"Self-destruct your divine soul, so tough, come on!"

Even though Gao Xuan didn't fear him, he pointed at Black Banner King with disdain and said, "The one who doesn't explode is the grandson."

Black Banner King gave Gao Xuan a cold look, and the flames on his body suddenly surged.

The Six-winged Celestial Cicada also emitted a sharp cry, warning Gao Xuan to immediately evade.

Gao Xuan was a bit surprised; the other party was really decisive. He couldn't afford to provoke divine soul self-destruction.

After Black Banner King's divine soul expanded to its limit, it suddenly exploded, stirring up towering waves in the Profound Nether Curse Sea. Even hiding deep in the Profound Nether Curse Sea, Gao Xuan felt the intense impact brought by Black Banner King's divine soul self-destruction.

Unfortunately, such a level of divine soul self-destruction was still insufficient to break the Profound Nether Curse Sea.

This was like throwing a large-yield nuclear bomb into the ocean; it could cause massive destruction, but it was impossible to destroy the entire sea area.

After Black Banner King's divine soul self-destruction, the soul chain binding his divine soul naturally unraveled.

At the same time, a wisp of divine soul was born in Black Banner King's sea of consciousness. The newly born divine soul was dim, like a phantom.

This was a backup left by Black Banner King, afraid of encountering the situation where his divine soul was annihilated.

The newly born divine soul was extremely weak, and Black Banner King had even completely lost all the memories from just moments ago.

After all, Black Banner King was a Divine. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew the situation was urgent. The weak divine soul took control of the body, and he wanted to flee immediately.

However, countless glittering cold lights pierced through the sea of consciousness, landing on the newly born divine soul of Black Banner King.

In an instant, Black Banner King's divine soul was sealed by the Profound Nether Ice Power within the cold lights.

Including the reconstructed dragon body of Black Banner King, it was also frozen by the Profound Nether Ice Needle.

Black Banner King was shocked, yet unable to make any reaction. His divine soul was too weak now. Even with the Greed Furnace, it was difficult to control.

Gao Xuan ignored Black Banner King; he took out the Book of All-Knowing and opened it, "With this Evil God as a sacrifice, obtain the secret of Virtual Godhood..."