Essence Devouring Art

Within the continuous mountain ranges.

One could also see ancient factions occupying Creation Lands where the veins of heaven and earth converged. They absorbed spiritual energy and Dao Essence, radiating with immense, brilliant light, as sacred as the Immortal Realm itself.

There were those Extraordinary and transcendent beings who came and went as they pleased.

Naturally, there was also the bustling, mundane world of mortals. Within the Qiankun Space-Time, the hierarchy was distinct. The lowest Mortal Realm was utterly incapable of contacting or even observing the supreme Daluo World.

Within some Holy Lands,

Grotto Heavens and Worlds had become nothing more than pastures for the great powers.

Within these pastures,

"staircase worlds" were everywhere.

They were like stalks of jointed grass swaying in the wind, found all over the pastures. Only by ascending step-by-step from the very bottom and achieving the Dharma Aspect realm did one gain the qualification to enter the Daluo Celestial Domain.

Ascension was a rare occurrence.

In truth, most Pocket Worlds were merely hens laying eggs for the great powers to harvest Creation Mother Qi and Innate World Mother Qi.

It was just like harvesting chives.

When they harvested, they left the roots.

After a period of time, they would flourish once more.

However, this period was quite long, often measured in tens of thousands of years.

The living beings in most Worlds,

could not perceive the Upper Realm before their ascension.

They would only assume it was a Great Tribulation that their World experienced every few eons.

This situation,

was the mainstream in the Hongyuan Heavenly Realms.

Nurturing Worlds, harvesting Worlds.

It wasn’t stealing or robbing.

It was like mortals farming and raising livestock; when the wheat was ripe, it was harvested. This was the natural order of things.

Of course,

only a minority would harvest Worlds of their own kind.

The vast majority of factions would control the evolutionary direction of the World Law, cutting off the emergence of their own kind at the source.

Having double standards was better than being condemned by all.

In comparison,

the structure of the Grand Universe

and the Chaotic Star Celestial Domain, where all Ten Thousand Realms were on the same starting line, seemed much fairer.

This was because in the countless space-times of the Chaotic Star Celestial Domain, there was no concept of an Upper or Lower Realm, and Extraordinary beings did not need to undergo Crossing the Tribulation to advance.

’Before the Five Tribulations, the space-time of the Hongyuan All Heavens and Myriads of Worlds was unified. There was no Upper or Lower, nor was there any talk of tribulations. The Celestial Court...’

Amidst the Gangfeng Cloud Sea,

Wu Dao stood with his hands behind his back on the dragon-prow of a Heavy Artifact Sky-Crossing Flying Ship. He gazed down, observing the unique Magnetic Field of the Daluo World, his eyes fixed on a Dharma Celestial Pride in the distance who was currently undergoing a Grotto Heaven thunder tribulation.

From the Heaven Opening of Hongyuan to the present day,

including the Heaven Opening tribulation itself, there have been a total of Six Tribulations.

The Celestial Court rose to power during the Second Tribulation, a time when the Innate Divine Race was cast down from their Divine Altars and the Ten Thousand Races emerged.

The Second Tribulation, Three Tribulations, Four Tribulations, Five Tribulations.

After accumulating power over the hundreds of millions of years of these four tribulations,

the Celestial Court of today had clearly become the inviolable Crowned King, suspended high above the heads of the countless beings of Hongyuan.

To say nothing of anything else,

the Nine Great Celestial Venerables of the Celestial Court

all possessed cultivation at the peak of the Near Dao realm!

This disparity alone

was enough to make the All Heavens Lords gasp for breath!

For example, the Star God Hall, the Crowned King of the Chaotic Star Heaven, only had two Mixed Yuan Tao Emperors on the surface: the Taiyin and Taiyang Star Lords!

Throughout four Dao tribulations,

although the Celestial Court was not the absolute protagonist, it had taken a Taotie’s massive bite of the great fortune from every Great Tribulation.

With the fortune of Four Tribulations gathered in one place,

one could only imagine how terrifying the Celestial Court’s influence over the Primordial Path was.

After the Five Tribulations,

Profound Yellow, Fu Guang, Cyan Nether—which had been bloodbathed by the Slaughter Emperor—and the Daluo World, which had joined the war last...

...for various unknown reasons,

formed an alliance with the Celestial Court. Needless to say who the Alliance Leader was.

It was also from that time on

that the Celestial Court gradually revealed its fangs, intending to unify the Hongyuan Heavenly Realms and establish Celestial Rules to bind all living things.

They touched the Great Dao and altered the five heavens.

Placing the stumbling block of the Celestial Tribulation on the path of all Extraordinary beings was one of the Celestial Court’s grand moves.

Was it to display their might?

Or was there another purpose?

To this day, there is no definitive answer.

In any case, after the Five Tribulations, the cultivation of Extraordinary beings in the five worlds was no longer limited by just aptitude and potential; the trial of the Celestial Tribulation had been added.

Pass it,

and you ascend to a higher realm.

Fail to pass it,

and you perish in body and soul.

Besides the thunder tribulations,

the Celestial Court’s influence on the All Heavens had long since permeated every aspect of existence.

For example, the Divine Enthronement!

After the Three Tribulations, most of the Pantheons and Divine Spirits within the five heavens were enfeoffed by the Celestial Court using the Divine Investiture List.

The Supreme Gods of thousands of Pantheons became the Heavenly Venerate Emperors of the Celestial Court. The one and only supreme god was the Great Celestial Venerable, giving them a complete monopoly on the authority of the Divine Race in the five heavens and allowing them to reign supreme.

’Celestial Destiny and Fortune, thunder tribulations, Divine Enthronement...’

Wu Dao’s thoughts churned.

He realized that the series of actions taken by the Hongyuan Celestial Court through All the Tribulations seemed to align with the Celestial Court from his past life’s memories—one that controlled all authority and the fate, fortune, and misfortune of all living beings.

Behind these actions,

there must be a motive, a benefit.

What was the purpose and benefit behind the Celestial Court’s various grand moves?

’To unify Hongyuan and reign supreme from on high?’

’The reasoning is too thin.’

’I haven’t reached that level yet. Speculating is just needlessly worrying myself.’

Wu Dao let out a soft sigh. He thought of the protagonist of the Five Tribulations, the Slaughter Emperor, and how the shadow of the Celestial Court was also behind his defeat.

Unfortunately,

that madman was secretive and unwilling to reveal much, most likely because he felt Wu Dao’s level was not yet high enough, or perhaps there was some taboo involved.

Wu Dao’s thoughts returned to the present.

Observing the cultivator in the distance Crossing the Tribulation, he noted that after achieving the Grotto Heaven realm, their foundation, tempered by the ordeal of the Celestial Tribulation, was clearly much stronger than others at the same level.

’Tribulation and fortune are closely related. Thunder tribulations aren’t entirely a bad thing.’

Back on the Taiyi Emperor Star,

Wu Dao had discovered that the Celestial Prides cultivated by the worlds allied with the Celestial Court were stronger than those from worlds that were not close to the Celestial Court.

’It makes sense.’

’In such a fiercely competitive environment,’

’only the superior and the finest would remain after the inferior were eliminated.’

"Alliance Leader, we’re almost at the Burial Realm. The foundation we’ve accumulated over the years is mostly inside."

Zhao Jianji walked over from the other end of the deck. He gazed at the vast, crimson, and ominous World in the far distance, a hint of fondness in his expression, like one returning home.

For twenty years, the Primordial Demons had roamed the All Heavens, but they were not without a fixed abode.

The Burial Realm Forbidden Area in the Daluo World

was their lair, a place to shelter from the storm and lick their wounds.

Speaking of which,

Zhao Jianji was quite audacious.

The treasures they excavated were mostly related to the Slaughter Emperor, and the Common Lord of the Daluo World was the Slaughter Emperor’s mortal enemy.

Making their home in the Burial Realm

was no less than building a nest in the enemy’s lair. If they were exposed, they would be doomed beyond salvation.

However,

perhaps it was just as the saying goes:

"The most dangerous place is the safest place." Furthermore, the Daluo World was vast and boundless, and the Burial Realm was located within the Border Wilderness Forbidden Area.

In addition, for the past twenty years, the Primordial Demons had always acted with a low profile.

They had never revealed any information related to the Slaughter Emperor, so things had remained safe and peaceful.

"The Burial Realm... you certainly know how to pick a spot."

Wu Dao glanced at Zhao Jianji with amusement.

The latter scratched his head in embarrassment.

The place was indeed a bit inauspicious, but it wasn’t like they cared.

Wu Dao naturally didn’t care either. The Extraordinary was inherently part of the Mysterious System; there was only strong and weak, no such thing as fearing one’s own kind.

Not to mention,

the more dangerous a forbidden area was,

the less dangerous it was for him. In fact, it was an Immortal Sacred Land for his cultivation.

What he cared about

was the unique nature of the Burial Realm.

From the time of the Heaven Opening to the present,

Hongyuan had undergone the baptism of All Tribulations.

Every tribulation brought turmoil to the All Heavens and shattered the Ten Thousand Realms. Countless battlefields became saturated with endless Tribulation Qi, burying innumerable peerless figures.

These areas, ravaged by Tribulation Qi and baleful qi,

were difficult to completely erase even after eons and the baptism of the Great Dao’s entropy reduction. They became forbidden zones of life for later generations.

The Primordial Demons’ lair, the Burial Realm,

although located in the Border Wilderness of the Daluo World, was one of its most dangerous forbidden areas.

The main reason was that,

like the Taiyi Emperor Star, the Burial Realm

was once a primary battlefield of a Celestial Domain during One Tribulation. The difference was that the Burial Realm had been the primary battlefield in the Daluo World for the Third Tribulation, the Celestial Demon Tribulation.

The Third Tribulation of Hongyuan, the Celestial Demon Tribulation,

occurred hundreds of millions of years ago.

The destructive power of that tribulation was not the greatest among All the Tribulations, but its perilousness was unmatched across the myriad realms. The Primordial Ten Thousand Races came within a hair’s breadth of being enslaved by the Heavenly Demon Evil Gods!

The root of the disaster

stemmed from the uncontrolled spread of Faith and Willpower.

During the Second Tribulation,

in order to fight against the Innate Divine Race, the Primordial Ten Thousand Races created their own gods—the Faith Gods—after a change in the Dao Rules.

After the Innate Divine Race fell from their Divine Altars,

the Faith Gods replaced most of the Innate Divine Race’s authority, gradually merging with the Primordial Extraordinary Civilization to become an inseparable part of it.

Faith Gods originate from the Wish Power of all living beings.

Or, in other words, desire.

Given this premise, one can imagine how terrifying the ’procreation’ speed of the Faith Gods was.

In that era,

there was no concept of righteous gods versus Evil Gods.

Without any restrictions, the thousands of races, regardless of good or evil, black or white, gave birth to a massive number of Faith Gods due to their various desires.

Divine Spirits nurtured from pure desire...

one could imagine what their temperament would be like.

Furthermore,

the Ten Thousand Races of that era had not yet developed methods to use faith to restrain Divine Spirits or to cultivate emotionless and desireless ones.

The root of the calamity

was thus planted.

Hundreds of millions of years after the Second Tribulation was quelled,

the Faith Gods experienced a viral explosion in numbers, becoming the largest race in Hongyuan, almost rivaling the Innate Divine Race. The main theme of the struggles in the All Heavens also began to revolve around Faith and Willpower.

Countless fanatics,

under the control of innumerable Evil God Celestial Demons and driven by desire, waged a protracted war to contend for faith and the Divine Fire of other gods.

Eventually,

after escalating further and further, it became the third Dao tribulation that swept through the All Heavens and Myriad Realms and affected countless living beings: the Celestial Demon Tribulation.

In the history of All the Tribulations,

the recorded Great Freedom Celestial Demon

once enslaved and occupied the Celestial Domain that is now the Daluo Celestial Domain. This is also the main reason why the Daluo Celestial Domain later descended into a chaotic dance of demons.

According to legend,

the place where the Great Freedom Celestial Demon fell is within the present-day Burial Realm.

However,

because the Burial Realm Forbidden Area is too perilous,

there are areas that even a Great Emperor would not dare approach. The legend remains just that—a legend, still without any substantive proof.

There is, however, some basis for this speculation.

The reason the Burial Realm became one of the foremost forbidden areas in the Daluo World,

aside from its extremely harsh environment, is that its Great Dao order and Extraordinary Energy seem to have been tainted by an unknown contamination. Every inch of space is filled with a degenerate aura.

If one were to live in the Burial Realm,

over a long period of time,

those with a weak will would, at best, go insane, and at worst, degenerate into Evil Demons and Outsiders.

Many people speculate

that the reason the Burial Realm has such terrifying polluting power is that the Great Freedom Celestial Demon is buried within it, and the area is influenced by its lingering resentment.

However,

the diversity of life lies in different adaptive abilities.

Although most cultivators turn pale at the mere mention of the Burial Realm, its unique structure has, throughout history, nurtured batch after batch of survivors who adapted.

Mm.

In other words, what the world calls the Demon Dao.