Desolate Devouring Art

Beyond the secret realm, a peak Profound Immortal didn't possess the strength to rule as an overlord, but could still lead a minor clan as its patriarch. Yet one such figure now knelt at Liu Wuxie's feet, groveling for mercy with all the dignity of a pitiful worm.

Liu Wuxie showed no hesitation. His blade flashed across the peak Profound Immortal's throat and ended his life without mercy.

The slaughter gathered momentum with every passing breath. Shen Can and Zhu Li could no longer match Liu Wuxie's speed. Although they unleashed several attacks in rapid succession, he slipped past every strike untouched.

However, as the battle continued, the surrounding cultivators began adjusting to its brutal rhythm. Urged on by the two Zhu Clan elders, they gradually recovered their shattered confidence.

Blackie had already subdued the cultivators amassed around the exit, freeing Liu Wuxie from any concern over that side of the chamber. He now needed only to eliminate those who remained.

Once the roughly three hundred cultivators rediscovered their courage, their combined strength became formidable. Although Liu Wuxie was extraordinarily powerful, how could he possibly slaughter hundreds of cultivators alone?

The cultivators watching from afar also joined the assault. They had counted him using eight orbs already. None believed he had any more left.

Still wary that Liu Wuxie might possess additional Divine Penta Elemental Bolts, the cultivators coordinated their movements with Zhu Li and Shen Can. They split into two groups and trapped Liu Wuxie in a pincer attack.

Before long, the relentless pressure forced Liu Wuxie completely onto the defensive. Several swords skimmed dangerously close to his vital points and carved bloody wounds across his body instead. Seeing him injured only fueled his enemies' courage, and they bombarded him with an even wider array of attacks launched from treacherous, unpredictable angles.

Alone, Liu Wuxie endured the united offensive of every enemy surrounding him. If the situation persisted, they would overwhelm and kill him within a few more breaths.

Blackie could offer him no assistance. The cultivators swarming the exit kept it fully occupied, denying it any chance to intervene.

Liu Wuxie survived the merciless barrage only by pushing the Divine Ninefold Step to its limits. Without the Divine Ninefold Step, death would have claimed him long ago.

"Keep attacking. Liu Wuxie is almost finished," someone shouted. Excitement flooded back onto the cultivators' faces as their ruined confidence swiftly rebuilt itself. None had expected that Liu Wuxie's death would ultimately make them the greatest beneficiaries.

With each passing moment, Liu Wuxie appeared closer to being overwhelmed, and fresh sword wounds continued to open across his body. He deliberately withheld unity with heaven and earth, allowing blood to pour unchecked down his figure.

His blood-soaked condition lulled his enemies into lowering their guard even further.

"Closer. Just a little closer," Liu Wuxie murmured. His counterattacks grew increasingly infrequent until he devoted nearly all his attention to evasion. With each calculated step, he lured the cultivators deeper into the chamber, toward a section where the terrain constricted sharply.

An ominous feeling immediately tightened around Shen Can's heart. He couldn't fathom why Liu Wuxie would voluntarily retreat into such an isolated place when the choice seemed utterly irrational. The others, however, had already surrendered their judgment to the promise of victory. They rushed forward without hesitation, each desperate to kill Liu Wuxie and seize his treasures.

More than three hundred cultivators steadily closed around Liu Wuxie. The moment every one of them came within range, a faint smile finally touched his lips.

"Fall back," Shen Can shouted, retreating the instant he noticed that smile. As a high-level Origin Immortal, he possessed instincts far keener than those of ordinary cultivators.

The moment Shen Can withdrew, Zhu Li followed him without the slightest delay.

At that instant, a black hole opened before Liu Wuxie and swallowed him completely. In the space where he had stood, only two Divine Penta Elemental Bolts remained suspended in the air.

"Fuck you, Liu Wuxie!"

"You shameless bastard, Liu Wuxie!"

"......"

Furious curses burst from every direction. Before they could retreat and scatter across the chamber, an earth-shattering explosion swallowed them completely.

As soon as the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron received him, Liu Wuxie detonated the Divine Penta Elemental Bolts without a heartbeat of hesitation.

Both Divine Penta Elemental Bolts erupted amid the tightly packed cultivators, releasing devastation that defied imagination. A colossal black hole opened at the center of the explosion, and its terrifying gravitational force seized countless cultivators, dragging and devouring them whole.

In less than one-thousandth of an instant, the shockwave vanished. Most of the cultivators had been vaporized so thoroughly that barely a dozen survivors remained mere moments later.

Those fortunate enough to survive had occupied the outermost edge of the blast radius. Upon seeing Shen Can retreat, they had followed him immediately and escaped the catastrophe by the narrowest margin.

Even the residual shockwave tore through the cultivators battling Blackie, sending many of them hurtling away. Blackie seized that opening at once, launching another merciless killing spree and harvesting yet another group of lives without restraint.

With that final eruption, ten Divine Penta Elemental Bolts had slaughtered more than three thousand cultivators. Only heaps of human skin remained scattered across the chamber floor.

The remaining twenty-odd cultivators hurriedly regrouped, their faces still haunted by lingering terror. After witnessing such devastation, none could tell whether Liu Wuxie possessed any more of those dreadful orbs, much less imagine what they could do if he did.

Amid the surviving cultivators, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron opened and released Liu Wuxie. He slowly ran his tongue over his lips as a spark of madness danced within his eyes.

The survivors glared at him with such hatred that they longed to tear him limb from limb and devour him alive. If looks could kill, Liu Wuxie would already have died countless times.

A grief-stricken elderly cultivator emerged from the crowd. "Retribution will come for you, Liu Wuxie," he cried. "No one can slaughter this many people and escape without consequences."

"Did any of you spare a thought for retribution while you were hunting me?" Liu Wuxie shot back.

In his eyes, killing one person was no different from massacring an entire crowd. Both were acts of killing, and he saw no distinction between them.

His question robbed the survivors of every retort. Retribution had never troubled them while they hunted Liu Wuxie, yet now they condemned him for killing them. Their reasoning could hardly have been more absurd.

"Enough! Even if it costs every one of us our lives, we must kill him today. We can't allow such a demon to continue walking this world," the remaining cultivators declared through clenched teeth, righteous fury hardening their voices. At last, they cast aside all concern for their own lives and resolved to fight to the death.

The previous detonations had spread even more cracks across the chamber, allowing widening shafts of sunlight to pour through the stone. The fresh scent of the outside world had even begun drifting into the ruins.

"Blackie, you're up," Liu Wuxie said.

Every surviving cultivator possessed formidable strength, making it difficult for Liu Wuxie to wipe them out alone.

Only Blackie stood a reasonable chance of killing them all.

Without warning, a brilliant light burst from Shen Can's body as the seal restraining his cultivation shattered apart. His true cultivation returned at a staggering pace, and his unrestrained aura soared to the eighth-level Origin Immortal Realm in the blink of an eye.

Most of the chamber had already collapsed, connecting its interior to the outside world. They now occupied a transitional zone suspended between the Ancient Origin Spatial Realm and the world beyond.

With the seal broken, much of the force suppressing Shen Can's cultivation vanished as well.

Liu Wuxie's expression turned solemn. Though Blackie possessed combat strength comparable to the Origin Immortal Realm, whether it could truly kill Shen Can remained uncertain.

Before Liu Wuxie could utter another word, Blackie launched itself directly at Shen Can.

Shen Can had struck Blackie several times in the Kidney Palace and nearly beaten it to death. Blackie had carried that grievance ever since.

Man and creature collided in a heartbeat and plunged immediately into a savage battle. At the same time, Zhu Li led the remaining cultivators in a charge against Liu Wuxie.

"Your life ends here, Liu Wuxie," Zhu Li roared. An aura comparable to the pinnacle of the Profound Immortal Realm surged from his body like a raging tide, lifting the human skins strewn across the floor and flinging them toward Liu Wuxie.

Liu Wuxie refused to yield even a single step and confronted Zhu Li head-on. With Blackie occupied elsewhere, he could depend on no one but himself in what would likely become the most difficult battle of his lifetime.

A strange radiance pulsed from the crimson mark upon the Bloodthirst Blade, flickering between clarity and obscurity. The blade ray it released descended with the crushing weight of a colossal mountain and violently demolished Zhu Li's attack.

More than ten cultivators struck from behind Liu Wuxie at the same moment, each launching a treacherous sneak attack.

"You're all begging for death," Liu Wuxie roared as murderous intent exploded from his body. While secretly summoning the Purgatory Palace, he simultaneously prepared the Five Elemental Divine Palm and Divine Mystic Yin Needle.

Liu Wuxie's clash with Zhu Li unleashed a violent shockwave that swept across the battlefield and forced the nearby cultivators to scatter. Even if Liu Wuxie still carried additional Divine Penta Elemental Bolts, those weapons could no longer threaten them as severely.

The Divine Penta Elemental Bolts excelled at devastating large groups through ambushes. Once only a few enemies remained and spread themselves apart, the orbs naturally lost much of their lethality.

Liu Wuxie harnessed the recoil from his clash with Zhu Li to retreat in a flash, tearing himself free from the encirclement.

"Purgatory Palace, suppress," Liu Wuxie thundered as a pitch-black palace materialized across the sky.

The Purgatory Palace descended and imprisoned all twenty-odd cultivators where they stood. Since Liu Wuxie's advancement to the third-level Spirit Immortal Realm, its manifestation has grown far more substantial and lifelike.

The same elder who had condemned Liu Wuxie earlier struggled furiously against the overwhelming suppression. "What the hell is this? Why can't I move?" he cursed.

The Purgatory Palace could restrain them for only a limited time, forcing Liu Wuxie to kill as many as possible before they escaped. Without hesitation, he unleashed the Divine Mystic Yin Needle. It pierced their defensive barriers as though they didn't exist and plunged directly into their soul seas.

More than ten cultivators collapsed within the blink of an eye.

With a furious roar, Zhu Li swung his sword at the Purgatory Palace. His strike sent the projection shuddering violently and opened a crack across its surface. It remained only a projection, and that disruption allowed everyone to break free.

At that exact moment, the Five Elemental Divine Palm took shape overhead and plummeted from the sky.

Blood soon ran in streams across the floor as Liu Wuxie butchered the remaining cultivators until only four survived. Who could have imagined that a mere third-level Spirit Immortal, despite being so heavily outnumbered, would slaughter this many Profound Immortals? The impossible sight overturned everything they understood about cultivation.

For one fleeting moment, Zhu Li even contemplated taking his own life. He could no longer summon the courage to confront the demonic presence emanating from Liu Wuxie.

Liu Wuxie surveyed the four remaining cultivators, and a relieved smile gradually spread across his face. Not one of them retained enough strength to pose any meaningful threat to him.

Elsewhere, Blackie and Shen Can continued tearing into each other in a ferocious struggle. Rocks kept crashing from above as the ruined chamber opened wider, gradually exposing the outside world.

Liu Wuxie understood that he had to finish the battle swiftly and kill everyone before the chamber collapsed completely. Once it broke apart, the survivors would have a clear path out of the Ancient Origin Spatial Realm.

Anyone who escaped could immediately contact the forces supporting them and unite those powers against him, inviting even greater trouble. Liu Wuxie therefore had to uproot every threat here and leave no future danger behind.

The accumulated liquid inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron flowed into the Desolate World, rapidly restoring Liu Wuxie's depleted immortal energy.

As power surged through him, Liu Wuxie seized the initiative and launched his counterattack. Executing the Divine Ninefold Step, he brought the Bloodthirst Blade crashing down from above with nearly unstoppable force. In an instant, the battle’s intensity soared.

None of his enemies could come close to matching his speed. If Liu Wuxie intended to eliminate every last one of them, he naturally had to make full use of his greatest advantage, which was his speed.

"Break through the chamber. Get out of here," Zhu Li roared, finally surrendering to his fear. Abandoning the battle, he raced toward the cracks in the chamber and sought to escape.

Few would have believed that the dignified young master of the Zhu Clan would ever be reduced to such a desperate and humiliating state.

"Where do you think you're going?" Liu Wuxie roared. He had no intention of allowing anyone to escape and silently summoned the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. Should every other method fail, he would simply devour them outright.

Countless Demonic Purgatory Chains burst from the surroundings. Liu Wuxie had refrained from releasing them earlier because too many enemies had filled the chamber, creating a risk of backlash.

"Something's wrapped around my ankle," one cultivator screamed. He had fled barely three meters when a chain coiled around his ankle, locked him in place, and began dragging him slowly backward.

The other three met the same fate. Demonic Purgatory Chains even wound around Zhu Li's feet, and no matter how violently they fought against the shackles, none could break free.