Those lifeforms who couldn't even tear open spatial cracks within the Planar Battlefield weren't within Locke's range of observation at all.
What Locke was observing were experts at the Seven Star Fiend level and above who could tear apart the space of the Planar Battlefield.
Whenever he discovered one, he would activate the Eye of the Soul to inspect the "spirituality" within that being's soul.
If the spirituality within a soul was highly active, it proved that the being was still in a stage of rapid improvement and had a high possibility of advancing further.
If the spirituality within the soul was sluggish and exhibited very little activity, then it indicated that this being would find it extremely difficult to break through its current bottleneck and improve further.
For example, those lifeforms who had become Deities by fusing with divine sparks—the spirituality within their souls was practically motionless.
This meant they no longer had even the slightest possibility of improvement.
The final decisive battle was the bloodiest and most magnificent battle of the entire Planar War.
Tens of millions of soldiers slaughtered one another upon the two bridges of the Planar Battlefield. Their desire to survive caused the activity of the spirituality within their souls to rise. In Locke's eyes, if these people managed to survive this Planar War, their future strength would definitely improve considerably.
Gray light radiated from Locke's eyes. His powerful soul energy caused the surrounding Sovereigns to feel their souls tremble merely from being brushed by the corner of his gaze.
This was the suppression exerted by a soul existing on a higher dimension against souls of a lower dimension.
Although the Sovereigns of the magical universe and the Celestial Deities of the main universe were on the same level in terms of rank, once Sovereign sparks were excluded, the soul level of these Sovereigns was probably only comparable to the peak Mahayana stage cultivators of the mortal realm in the Hongmeng Universe's main universe.
The difference between the two sides amounted to four major stages—Heavenly Immortal, Golden Immortal, Immortal Emperor, and Deity.
Among them, the leap from Immortal Emperor to Deity represented a qualitative transformation through the formation of the Soul Golden Core.
As for Locke himself, his soul had already surpassed the Soul Golden Core stage and reached the level of Soul Nascent Infant.
If not for the protection provided by the power of Sovereign sparks, these Sovereigns simply wouldn't be able to withstand Locke's soul pressure.
After exchanging glances, Destruction Chief Sovereign Wordred, Life Chief Sovereign Wawaya, and Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff all shook their heads.
No matter how confident they were, they didn't believe they could survive if Locke launched a soul attack against them while they lacked soul-protecting Overgod artifacts.
Life Chief Sovereign Wawaya had never intended to compete with Locke in the first place.
However, she had to maintain the balance among the Sovereigns. Thus, she had no choice but to ally herself with Destruction Chief Sovereign Wordred and Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff in order to create a situation of mutual restraint against Locke and Death Chief Sovereign.
Destruction Chief Sovereign Wordred, meanwhile, had always wanted another battle with Locke to see how much progress he himself had made over the years and just how great the gap between them truly was.
As for Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff, he himself didn't wish to oppose Locke either. However, the malice toward Locke accumulated within Light Chief Sovereign Augusta meant that if he didn't actively take measures against Locke, Augusta would never agree to merge with him and become the most perfect Bula lifeform.
Locke paid no attention to what the Sovereigns were thinking.
At his current level of strength, the only things capable of restraining him were his own thoughts and his wariness toward Hongmeng.
Thus, Locke was willing to coexist peacefully with the Sovereigns within the framework of the rules.
Of course, if any Sovereign failed to recognize his own limitations and thought Locke weak and easy to bully, Locke wouldn't mind adding a few more Sovereign sparks to his reserves.
At this moment, the slaughter of tens of millions of lifeforms within the Planar War appeared in Locke's eyes as countless flashes of spiritual light.
At every instant, some lights exploded into brilliance while countless others were extinguished.
Unfortunately, until the end of this Planar War, Locke still failed to find any lifeform that seemed to possess the potential to become a Paragon.
There were no surprises.
The Wind Divine Plane currently possessed one more Sovereign than the Dark Divine Plane and naturally had one additional Sovereign Army.
With both sides contributing roughly the same number of Commanders and soldiers, the side with more troops naturally possessed greater chances of victory.
Especially after the Sovereigns learned of the magic battle formations employed by Locke's Sovereign Army, each Sovereign had begun designing battle formations for their own Sovereign Armies.
Of course, although Sovereigns possessed extremely high affinity with the Laws due to their Sovereign sparks, the limitations of talent meant that most Sovereigns could only create ordinary magic formations and were unable to reach the level of "Grandmaster of Magic Formations."
Not becoming a Grandmaster merely meant that the power of the battle formations they created was insufficient and couldn't draw upon much of the Laws of the world.
However, at the very least, they could coordinate the strength of their soldiers and allow their power to be fully utilized.
Under the effects of these battle formations, unless one was a supreme expert on the level of a Prefect, even Seven Star Fiends could perish if they were careless while facing a large army.
After the battle ended, the surviving soldiers within the Planar Battlefield began leaving through the planar teleportation arrays in an orderly fashion.
Every soldier who left the battlefield had to hand over the insignia representing their identity to their Sovereign before they could leave with the badges seized from enemy soldiers.
The Commanders were the same.
If one lacked the badge proving one's identity, whether soldier or Commander, they would be personally executed by the Sovereigns.
As for the divine sparks of those divine lifeforms who had died, they were swept away by some mysterious force and disappeared from the Planar Battlefield.
Very soon, apart from the bloodstains and shattered weapons left behind by the slaughter, not a trace of life remained within the battlefield.
Locke dispersed the soul power from his eyes, though he didn't feel disappointed.
Aside from themselves, true Paragons appeared only once every hundred-plus Cycles.
"Pseudo-Paragons"—those experts recognized as being close to Paragon level—were somewhat more numerous than actual Paragons, but the difference wasn't large. They also appeared at roughly one per hundred Cycles.
As for those possessing Paragon potential—in Locke's view, individuals who had fused all but the final Profound Mystery and were only one step away from complete fusion—their numbers were much greater.
Approximately one would appear every ten trillion years.
Of course, these people also had the highest mortality rates.
Because they could see the road ahead, once trapped before that final barrier, they all sought to force themselves forward.
Without question, the Planar Battlefield was the ideal arena for them.
In life-and-death crises, if they managed to grasp that final spark of inspiration, they could truly fuse all the Profound Mysteries of a single element and become Paragons.
Thus, in every Planar War, these people were always the fastest to charge forward, the fiercest in battle, and also the quickest to die.
At present, throughout the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes, the number of experts only one step away from Paragon level did not exceed twenty.
If he could so easily discover such a person during this Planar War, Locke would probably begin suspecting whether Hongmeng had been secretly intervening.
But after thinking about it carefully, Locke felt it was impossible.
At this point, only several trillion years had passed since Hongmeng created the universe. Even if Hongmeng felt lonely, and desired to see another Hongmeng lifeform born within his universe, he wouldn't direct his attention toward a subsidiary universe.
His focus would still be on nurturing those with uncertain destinies in the main universe, hoping to see whether they could break free from the shackles of the universe and enter the Hongmeng Space to become Hongmeng lifeforms like himself.
The only thing that might make Hongmeng remember Locke was probably the fact that he had cultivated a Soul Golden Core—something only Deities of the main universe possessed—within a subsidiary universe, and with the assistance of the Laws of the world, had even advanced to the Soul Nascent Infant stage.
However, a soul level such as Locke's would merely correspond to an ordinary Godking in the main universe.
Above that still existed the levels of Invincible Godking and Exalt.
After more than ten trillion years, the number of Godkings in the main universe had already exceeded ten thousand.
Even after suffering heavy casualties during Hongmeng's once-per-trillion-years "Exalt Spiritual Treasure Competition," there still remained over a thousand Godkings.
Invincible Godkings were few, but there were still more than twenty of them.
As for Exalts, one was born every trillion years, and currently there were already over a dozen.
Those were Hongmeng's true focus.
Of course, this didn't mean Hongmeng wouldn't pay attention to Locke.
It simply meant that compared to the Exalts he had personally nurtured, a free-range lifeform like Locke didn't require much intervention.
The second Planar War featured the Water Divine Plane and the Fire Divine Plane.
At present, both planes possessed five Sovereigns and five Sovereign Armies. Their battle was considerably fiercer than the previous clash between the Wind Divine Plane and the Dark Divine Plane.
Eventually, the decisive battle broke out after ten thousand years. In the end, each side occupied one bridge across a Starlight River, resulting in the battle ending in a draw.
After the first two Planar Wars concluded, all the Sovereigns gathered within the spatial turbulence above the battlefield became attentive.
After all, wasn't the reason they had come here to witness the first-ever ten consecutive victories and see what would happen afterward?
In the previous nine Planar Wars, both the Netherworld and the Celestial Realm had defeated all challengers with perfect records.
This time, regardless of whether the Netherworld or the Celestial Realm emerged victorious, one of the Higher Planes would achieve ten consecutive victories.
The Netherworld possessed five Sovereign Armies.
The Celestial Realm also possessed five Sovereign Armies.
In truth, the Fate Sovereigns outnumbered the Netherworld by one. At present, only a single Lesser Fate Sovereign had yet to appear.
However, although Locke himself was a Fate Sovereign, he had never occupied any continent within the Celestial Realm or established a Fate Sovereign Army.
(End of Chapter)
⭐ Enjoying the story?
You can read ahead and support the translations by joining my Patreon! Your support helps me update faster and take on more projects. Thank you for reading!
Read up to 50 chapters ahead!
patreon.com/AminaSims
Next Bonus Chapter at 2800 Powerstones