Desolate Devouring Art

Once Vandore disappeared from sight, Liu Wuxie oriented himself and headed for the Celestial Weave Domain. Danger lurked throughout the mountain range, so he needed to find a safe place before refining the Asura Blade fragment and the Face-Seer Ghost King to advance his cultivation.

"Divine Steed Manor must be quite lively by now, unless I'm mistaken. I need to advance faster. Joining the Azure Jade Palace may be unavoidable after all," Liu Wuxie murmured.

Even so, his cultivation remained below the level required to enter the Azure Jade Palace.

Despite Vandore's repeated encouragement, Liu Wuxie had only promised to consider the idea. He had never wanted to tie himself to a force and submit to its rules. Revealing his Immortal Emperor's will had forced him to reconsider. A powerful organization could at least provide somewhere safe to settle, freeing him from the constant wandering of a rogue cultivator.

He wanted protection from the Azure Jade Palace and nothing more. Once Xiao Wufa discovered his identity, no force in existence would dare harbor him. Before that happened, Liu Wuxie had to reach the Immortal Emperor Realm.

Joining a force did not guarantee powerful cultivation techniques or limitless resources. Internal struggles could consume a disciple's entire life. However, the clearest benefit was the status it offered. The greater a faction's prestige, the higher its disciples ranked in the eyes of others.

The Azure Jade Palace was one of the superpowers. Its name alone compelled even disciples of second- and third-tier forces to treat its members respectfully. Becoming the disciple of a powerful expert could further raise Liu Wuxie's status.

Accepting a master, however, held no appeal for him. Anyone below the Immortal Emperor Realm lacked the qualifications to guide his cultivation.

After an entire day's travel, Liu Wuxie finally left the mountain range. An immense city stood before him.

"Sandriver City, at last!" Liu Wuxie gazed upon the ancient city, exhaustion visible across his face. After so many years away, he had returned.

Sand stretched for over eight hundred miles around the city, resembling an enormous river. It was from this landscape that Sandriver City derived its name.

Once he passed through the gates, the yellow sand vanished from view. Bright lights filled crowded streets, and traffic flowed through the bustling city. Sandriver City exceeded Eastern Emperor City's prosperity several times over, yet within the Celestial Weave Domain, it amounted to little more than a small countryside city.

The Celestial Weave Domain's truly enormous cities could span for tens of thousands of miles, housing hundreds of millions of cultivators.

As dusk fell, the streets became even livelier. Several Golden Immortals hurried past Liu Wuxie, leaving the pungent smell of alcohol behind them.

He had visited Sandriver City only once in his previous life, but that visit had left him familiar with its layout. He turned east instead of looking for an inn.

There was little time to waste. He still had to refine the Face-Seer Ghost King.

About an hour of walking brought him before a towering building.

"The Ten-Foot Pavilion! This is the place!" Liu Wuxie smiled as he looked up at the three characters above its entrance. Little seemed to have changed since he was last there.

He crossed the threshold and entered the Ten-Foot Pavilion. Luxurious furnishings filled the interior, while elaborate patterns covered every pillar. Their exquisite workmanship could easily captivate anyone who stopped to examine them.

Neither meals nor accommodation were available here. The establishment rented out cultivation chambers.

Liu Wuxie needed a chamber to refine the Face-Seer Ghost King and reforge the Bloodthirst Blade. Refining the Asura Blade fragment could release the Immortal Emperor's will, and the smallest trace could draw the attention of other Immortal Emperors.

The Ten-Foot Pavilion's cultivation chambers employed ingenious designs to isolate their occupants from the outside world. Many cultivators came specifically for that protection.

Most arrived for reasons similar to Liu Wuxie's. While passing through Sandriver City, they sensed a breakthrough approaching and sought a chamber where they could enter seclusion.

All ten counters remained busy as cultivators came and went. Liu Wuxie waited roughly fifteen minutes in line before reaching the front.

"What sort of cultivation chamber do you need, Young Master?" the attendant asked with reasonable courtesy. He appeared to be in his twenties. Every customer he had previously served was at least a Divine Immortal, whereas Liu Wuxie was only a Profound Immortal.

Several categories of cultivation chambers were available at the Ten-Foot Pavilion. The first consisted of small rooms intended solely for secluded meditation. The second accommodated both cultivation and pill refinement, while the third included additional facilities for forging. The fourth even provided everything needed to practice spiritual arrays.

More facilities meant a higher price. Renting a third-tier chamber alone could readily cost millions of immortal stones per day.

"I'd like a cultivation chamber equipped for blacksmithing," Liu Wuxie said. Pill refinement and spiritual arrays were not part of his plans. Paying for facilities he didn't need would waste immortal stones that he could use elsewhere.

After entering the Celestial Weave Domain, he would find fewer opportunities to obtain more immortal stones.

He had acquired more than ten million immortal stones in the Ancient Origin Spatial Realm and another ten million from the Celestial Moon Dao Hall's mentors. The Face-Seer Ghost King's and Mou Shan's interspatial rings had added to that wealth, bringing his current reserves to forty million immortal stones.

It sounded like a fortune. However, with the long road still ahead of him, even that amount would be insufficient.

"How many days will you need it for, Young Master?" the attendant asked.

"Three days, with tenfold time acceleration," Liu Wuxie decided after brief consideration. That would give him thirty days inside the chamber, more than enough time.

"That comes to two million immortal stones," the attendant replied, retrieving a jade token from behind the counter. The Ten-Foot Pavilion's unique mark adorned it, and no one could imitate it.

Liu Wuxie handed over two million immortal stones and accepted the token. Its engraved room number identified the cultivation chamber assigned to him.

He entered the passage to the left, and another scene opened before him. Cultivation chambers stood in rows along both sides. The largest covered more than 1,000 square meters while the smallest contained only a few square meters. Those compact rooms were relatively affordable, requiring merely hundreds of thousands of immortal stones a day.

His chamber's blacksmithing facilities and time acceleration explained its greater cost. Most customers chose the cheaper ones with three- to fivefold acceleration. Liu Wuxie had no such leisure. He was racing against time and couldn't remain in Sandriver City longer than necessary.

His familiarity with the establishment from his previous life helped him quickly find the chamber corresponding to his token. He inserted the jade token. When his allotted time expired, the chamber would open automatically, requiring him to leave.

With a creak, the stone gate opened just wide enough to admit one person.

Liu Wuxie stepped through, and the gate slowly shut behind him. Light flowed over its surface, separating the chamber from the outside world. No one beyond it could sense his activities within.

Not long after he entered, five Immortal Regnants arrived in Sandriver City. Three people followed them, bitterness plainly written on their faces.

"We've searched everywhere without finding anyone suspicious. There's no trace of an Immortal Venerable, either."

The five Immortal Regnants decided to remain in Sandriver City overnight and continue the following day. Searching for Liu Wuxie and Vandore had delayed them considerably.

Dense immortal energy permeated the cultivation chamber. Time passed ten times faster inside, and the immortal energy was ten times purer than outside.

"Those two million immortal stones were worth spending," Liu Wuxie murmured as he sat cross-legged. He began circulating the Desolate Devouring Art and drew in the immortal energy surrounding him.

His arrival had awakened the runes engraved across the walls. They now pulled immortal energy from the immortal vein beneath the chamber.

Liu Wuxie extended his divine sense into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and formed a projection of himself. The Face-Seer Ghost King lay before him, barely alive and immobilized by Vandore's restraints.

As Liu Wuxie approached, the Face-Seer Ghost King's eyes snapped open, their depths burning with poisonous resentment.

"What grievances do you have against me? I remember no feud between us. Why keep me imprisoned?" the Face-Seer Ghost King demanded. He could not understand when he had provoked the Elven Race.

"Twenty-five years ago, you ambushed a young man while he cultivated in the Radiant Ridge Mountain Range. Do you remember him?" Liu Wuxie asked. As he spoke, his divine sense projection slowly assumed the face of his previous life.

"I-Immortal Emperor Liu?!" The Face-Seer Ghost King faltered, his entire body trembling. The young man he had ambushed was only at the Immortal King Realm. He had later learned that his former target had become an Immortal Emperor.

News of Liu Wuxie's ascension to the Immortal Emperor Realm had spread throughout the celestial realm. Inevitably, it had reached the Face-Seer Ghost King as well.

That news had filled him with terror. For over a decade, he had waited anxiously for retribution, yet none had arrived. What eventually had reached him instead was word of Liu Wuxie's death at Soul-Severing Cliff.

Only then had the Face-Seer Ghost King aligned himself with the Mou Clan, helping it murder Yu Di and force the Yu Clan into decline.

"So you do remember," Liu Wuxie said coldly, without a trace of emotion in his eyes.

"Forgive me, Immortal Emperor Liu! I'll submit to you. Let me help you rise again!" the Face-Seer Ghost King pleaded. He understood that Liu Wuxie had returned through rebirth. Given time, he could reach the Immortal Emperor Realm and once again stand at the Celestial Realm's summit.

"It's too late," Liu Wuxie replied as his projection gradually faded.

Demonic flames rose from the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron's depths and engulfed the Face-Seer Ghost King. His screams echoed throughout the cauldron.

Liu Wuxie steadied his mind and circulated the Desolate Devouring Art, extracting the Immortal King Realm laws from the Face-Seer Ghost King. Each law was so thick and powerful that refining it was beyond him. For now, he could only reserve them for later use.

Under the demonic flames, the Face-Seer Ghost King's body slowly shriveled. Energy streamed from him, forming into a long river suspended above the cauldron.

Refining the Profound Myriad-Aspect Sand had accelerated the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron's refinement process.

Surveying the hundreds of laws in the Immortal King Realm, Liu Wuxie smiled. He felt certain that integrating them into the Desolate World would raise it by several levels.

"Now for the breakthrough," Liu Wuxie exclaimed softly.