Essence Devouring Art

BOOM!

In that instant, it was as if oil had been thrown on a raging fire.

The depths of the Red Thunder Abyss stirred, like an Ancient Barbaric Dragon flexing its muscles as it awoke.

A colossal wave of magnetic field energy erupted like a volcano.

The tremors spread across hundreds of millions of miles of forbidden zones. The world in all ten directions blurred and warped, and every inch of space filled with an unparalleled, tyrannical aura. The scene was utterly terrifying.

If Wu Dao hadn’t sealed off this region of spacetime,

any passersby who saw it

would have likely thought a Demon God was being born and fled in terror.

...

Wu Dao’s guerilla tactics weren’t wrong.

Cast a wide net, but only take a few fish.

He prioritized quantity over quality.

In just a few days,

his incarnations had "persuaded" and collected enough materials from the countless settlements on the outskirts of the Emperor Star to forge the Dao Wheels needed for all his cultivation techniques.

He even prepared many spare sets.

Although there were murmurs of fear and discussion in the various settlements, it was nothing compared to the major incident he had caused before.

People have their stations, high and low, noble and base.

This truth is timeless.

The last time,

he had targeted the cherished elites of the various Overlord Forces. Their status and reputation were far beyond that of the mud-legged peasants on the outskirts, which was why it had caused such an uproar.

As for the lower classes,

in the Extraordinary Realm,

countless low-level cultivators died every day. This was even more true in a dangerous place like the Emperor Star. As long as he wasn’t too greedy in one place, no one would even notice.

After obtaining sufficient materials,

Wu Dao paused his cultivation.

He spent several days refining all the Primordial Dao Wheels required for his current Heaven-Opening Techniques.

Once all forty-five of his Heaven-Opening Techniques

were equipped with Primordial Dao Wheels,

he officially began a fervent, great leap in his advancement.

While engrossed in his arduous cultivation,

Wu Dao also kept an eye on the situation at the Boundless Sacred Land.

The forces that had their eyes on the Boundless Sacred Land

came from Buzhou Heaven and Profound Yellow Heaven.

Buzhou Heaven was led by the Eternal Emperor Sect, while Profound Yellow Heaven was represented by the Punishment and Calamity Imperial Dynasty.

Both factions

were Imperial Influences in their respective Celestial Domains.

They either had, or currently have, an Emperor Realm expert suppressing their destiny and looking down upon the world as supreme.

Furthermore, they all followed the Martial Dao.

The Martial Dao strengthens the physical body,

making it easier to practice the Transverse Refining Dao. No wonder they were so persistent.

After a long and fruitless siege,

the two forces decided to get serious.

They moved a Holy Soldier in from the outside world, intending to forcefully break through the forbidden zone of the Boundless Sacred Land.

The result was rather frightening.

In this era,

the rules of the Emperor Star seemed to have changed.

Not only were cultivators above the Grotto Heaven realm forbidden from entering, but any power exceeding the Creation Realm was also not allowed to damage the Emperor Star.

After the two forces moved their Holy Soldiers into position,

just as they began to activate their mighty power,

they triggered a backlash from the power of the Emperor Star’s rules and order.

The Taiyi Emperor Star,

at its peak, was a Soldier of the Close Path.

Even a mere sliver of its power was unstoppable for anyone beneath the Emperor Realm.

The two forces’ Holy Soldiers were instantly obliterated. A great number of people died, and countless more on the periphery were severely injured, sending shockwaves through the All Heavens.

If Wu Dao’s incarnation hadn’t slipped away quickly,

it would have been caught in the crossfire.

’Thank goodness I didn’t have any World Mother Qi.’

After this narrow escape,

Wu Dao felt a lingering fear for the first time. He possessed a Holy Soldier himself—a top-tier Saint Master Divine Weapon, no less.

If those two great forces hadn’t tested the law with their own bodies,

and if he had obtained World Mother Qi in the future

and used his Holy Soldier on the Emperor Star, he would have been instantly annihilated, not even dregs left behind.

The Emperor Star’s obliteration was all-encompassing.

It was a level of power that was simply incomprehensible.

No amount of backup plans would have worked.

After this disaster,

the two great forces became much more obedient.

They returned to using their Heavy Artifacts to slowly grind away the Tribulation Qi of the forbidden zone.

As for giving up?

That was naturally impossible.

They had invested too much.

Each use of a World Heavy Artifact required a vast amount of Creation Mother Qi. Even for a Creation Realm expert, a single activation would take a long time of breathing exercises to recover from.

As for those below the Creation Realm using it,

they could only rely on the reserves of Creation Mother Qi their respective forces had accumulated.

Months of attacks.

Massive resources had been poured in, two Holy Soldiers were destroyed, and a large number of Celestial Prides had died.

If they came away with nothing,

the losses would be so great they would cough up blood.

Wu Dao’s incarnation, along with some other forces who had similar ideas of scavenging, continued to hide outside the forbidden zone, not leaving for a moment.

In other directions,

his four other incarnations roaming the Taiyi Emperor Star hadn’t encountered any treasure grounds worth a major fight, and their gains were meager.

However,

「Half a month later.」

"Hm?"

Wu Dao, who was cultivating in the Red Thunder Abyss, felt a ripple in his mind and projected his consciousness into one of his incarnations.

Because,

that incarnation, in a treasure ground that had been picked clean, had discovered traces of the Primordial Demons, whom he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years!

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH~

Deep within the ruins of the Taiyi Emperor Star Battlefield.

In a blood-red forbidden zone ravaged by a savage, murderous aura.

PAT~

Wu Dao descended from the void and landed atop a shattered Divine Mountain. He raised his eyes, his gaze passing over the ruined landscape of countless mountains and rivers, toward the dim, crimson depths of the forbidden zone.

There,

it seemed a world-shaking battle had recently occurred. A Grotto Heaven of considerable size had been completely sunk, and the surrounding hundreds of millions of miles of space had been blasted into a blood-red abyss.

Within the Abyss,

lingered an extremely violent and malevolent aura, along with blood qi and various energies from Divine Techniques and magnetic fields.

As well as...

the various powers of world rules that had been thrown into disarray after the use of a World Heavy Artifact.

The countless chaotic and violent energies,

had formed a titanic hurricane that raged ceaselessly, continuously expanding the Abyss’s boundaries.

"They moved a World Heavy Artifact... Could they have encountered an ominous creature at the Creation Realm?"

Wu Dao’s eyes flickered slightly. With a single step, he crossed the distance toward the Abyss, which was being ravaged by a storm of destruction.

Twenty years ago, in the Hongyuan era,

before the Ten Tribulations of the Divine Wilderness had begun,

he had sent nearly a hundred Primordial Demons into Hongyuan ahead of time.

His goal was to use the treasures of the Slaughter Emperor to cultivate the Primordial Demons into an invincible legion of Demon God minions.

When a person lives between heaven and earth,

before they possess absolute power, the aid of external objects and forces is indispensable.

Fighting alone, with the entire world as your enemy...

that is merely the path of a stubborn fool.

During the Divine Wilderness era,

the existence of the Overlord Whale Alliance had provided Wu Dao with countless conveniences and benefits.

Nearly twenty years had passed.

If the Primordial Demons had grown to a sufficient level, he would no longer have to handle so many things personally in the future.

’They shouldn’t be doing too badly.’

As Wu Dao approached the Abyss, he used the magnetic field to observe the residual fluctuations within. He discovered the remnants of a significant amount of Yang God Sacred Spirit Qi Blood.

This proved that,

at the very least, there were combatants among the Primordial Demons at the level of the Ten Yang Gods.

"A Divine Demon Body?"

After getting a bit closer,

Wu Dao received another piece of good news.

Within the residual magnetic field energy, he discovered Innate Divine Demon Qi Blood, which was of a higher essence than Holy Spirit Qi Blood and closer to that of the Life Ancestor.

The Divine Demon Body.

The eleventh gate of Transverse Cultivation.

A Horizontal Refiner at this step was as rare as a Daoist Child who had entered the Grotto Heaven realm with a perfected Thirty-Three Layers of Heaven Dharma Form!

Their physical body was extremely terrifying.

They were like the Innate Gods and Demons from the creation of the world, their physique becoming a unique kind of Mixed Cave that birthed a Qi Blood Dragon Vein to absorb Creation Qi.

With their physical body alone, they could tear apart a Mixed Cave with their bare hands, roar stars from the sky, and effortlessly create or destroy a Grotto Heaven with a single punch!

Most importantly,

from the tenth gate onward,

the combat power of Transverse Cultivation was no longer weaker than the Main Path—rather, the Main Path was weaker than Transverse Cultivation.

Among all the Daos,

there was a saying regarding the stage after the Dharma Aspect—

"If Transverse Cultivation does not appear, the Military Dao is king."

The Horizontal Refiners were publicly acknowledged throughout the All Heavens as the number one in combat among all Daos!

Before the tenth gate, they could barely fight on equal footing.

After the tenth gate, it was a slaughter!

A Horizontal Refiner at the first layer of the eleventh gate, the Divine Demon Body, could even fight and kill an expert at the third layer of an Emperor Grade Cave Heaven, which was completely abnormal!

During the Four Tribulations,

the Infinite Saint Body from the Boundless Sacred Land, who had perfected the thirteenth gate of Body Ascension, was even more heaven-defying!

He had fought and killed a Mountain and Sea Wilderness God Ancestor King—an Emperor Realm expert of the Human Race—despite being in a lower major realm!

Wu Dao was indeed a little surprised.

He hadn’t expected that in less than twenty years,

an eleventh-gate Horizontal Refiner, comparable to the Grotto Heaven realm, would appear among the Primordial Demons.

But on second thought, it was actually quite normal.

Back in his day, the Slaughter Emperor was the number one expert beneath the Near Dao realm. It was impossible to imagine how many heaven-defying items he had left behind in his treasured fortuitous creations.

In twenty years,

you could feed those resources to a pig and it would ascend as an immortal.

What’s more,

these were the Primordial Demons, who had forged an indomitable will through Purgatory-level training, possessed the Primordial Magnetic Demon Embryo, and could grow endlessly stronger just by eating.

"Let me see what kind of results you can show me after twenty years apart."

At the edge of the abyss of destruction,

Wu Dao let out a slow breath and pressed his hand lightly against the void. Streams of Primordial Magnetic electricity shot out like divine dragons leaving their nests in the starry sky, rapidly spreading and merging with the surrounding magnetic field.

VMMMM~

An instant later,

the countless chaotic and explosive energies of the magnetic field began to shift from disorder to a stable, orderly state. It was as if ten thousand stars were shining at once, their light forming a waterfall that rushed back toward the dome of the sky.

The audio and visual information recorded in the magnetic field,

like time flowing in reverse,

began to rapidly rewind through various scenes.

"KILL!"

BOOM!!

The roars of Gods and Demons shattered the Nine Heavens, and the dull impacts sounded like worlds colliding.

Even after many days,

the wild, primitive, and baleful aura still caused the entire forbidden zone to tremble.

The heavens collapsed, the earth split apart, and stars were extinguished!

Within the crimson, gloomy, apocalyptic world,

more than a dozen towering, sky-supporting figures raged like Ancient Barbaric Dragons, the Essence Qi erupting from their pores causing stars to fall.

They were attacking in unison,

assailing a blurry, monstrous shadow at the center of the world.

It blotted out the starry sky, was shaped like a sea star, and its writhing tentacles shattered the worlds of the ten directions while spewing forth a boundless sea of blood.

At the core of the monstrous shadow,

there was a blood-red tree as tall as a person.

Its branches were gnarled and powerful, its leaves like red jade, and its markings formed profound Dao Patterns. It was wreathed in the sacred phenomenon of ten thousand dragons spitting out essence and creating auspicious signs.

"A Fierce God... the Ten Thousand Dragons Tree..."

Wu Dao’s gaze fixed on the sea-star-like Alien Species and the miraculous blood tree, and he instantly recognized their origins.

The Fierce God.

An evolved form of a unique type of Celestial Treasure Fierce Monster.

Its corrupting ability was utterly terrifying, and it was considered a top-tier Evil Demon in the All Heavens.

Once, in the Divine Wilderness,

Wu Dao had encountered one before. That was also the time he became entangled in karma with the Slaughter Emperor.

As for the Ten Thousand Dragons Tree,

it was a Spirit Root nurtured by the Heaven and Earth Path, containing a large amount of the Dragon Race’s Ancestor Essence Blood. It was one of the greatest fortuitous opportunities for the Horizontal Refining Lineage.

"It’s at least at the Tenth Cave Heaven Layer or higher."

Wu Dao estimated the Fierce God’s strength based on the residual information it left behind. Against a Fierce God of this level, it was no wonder the Primordial Demons had used a World Heavy Artifact.

DONG!!

Another hammer strike shook the starry sky.

The dozen or so Primordial Demons,

led by the Shadow of God and Demon at the front, unleashed all their techniques. They continuously destroyed the sea star’s tentacles, pressing their attack toward its main body.

The one in the lead

had a towering, swarthy physique with muscles that rose and fell like mountains. His ink-black, blood-stained hair whipped about wildly, and his face was a mixture of calm composure and ferocious viciousness.

He wielded a Divine Hammer as black and deep as an abyss.

With every fall of his hammer, heaven and earth collapsed. He was truly unstoppable.

"Lv Tiezhu?"

Wu Dao raised an eyebrow slightly.

He truly hadn’t expected it.

He truly hadn’t expected that Lv Tiezhu—who had barely made it onto the list for the Hongyuan Recon Team and was considered an unremarkable member at the bottom of the nearly one hundred Primordial Demons—would actually come from behind to achieve the Divine Demon Body.