Essence Devouring Art

「At the same time.」

Within a treacherous forbidden zone on the Emperor Star.

"Don’t give up! We finally got our chance. That Witch must die without a place for burial!"

"That damn bitch! She devoured so many of our Yin Celestial Emperor Sect’s Celestial Prides. She’s simply courting death!"

"She can’t escape! The Yin Spirit Water corrodes the Divine Soul and physical body. She’s probably suffering a fate worse than death somewhere!"

Within the rolling, black-mountain forbidden zone.

Groups of enraged cultivators wielded the Celestial Patrol Treasure Mirror, sweeping across one forbidden area after another, seemingly searching for someone.

「Deep within the forbidden area.」

In a mysterious space where Creation Qi flowed and gestated.

A tall, cold, and stunning white-haired figure sat within the Treasure Pool, ravenously devouring the Creation Qi. Her skin was as translucent as jade, but her perfect face, a beauty that could outshine the starry sky, was contorted as if she were enduring the tortures of Purgatory.

"Mistress, this is great! Xiaocai knew this place could hide our aura. They walked right past and didn’t find us at all."

A clear and sweet voice, full of relief, rang out. A cute, owl-sized little girl wearing a Feathered Robe flew in, flapping her wings and looking for praise. A tuft of colorful feathers stuck up from her head like a cowlick.

It seemed she had only recently taken form.

Not only had her wing feathers not yet molted, but her feet were also those of an Alien Species—soft and pink like a mouse’s, yet tipped with sharp tiger claws. The overall effect was a strange hodgepodge, yet somehow adorably fierce.

"Not bad. The little hen is finally useful for something. I’ll eat you later."

Yaya opened her slightly weary, crimson eyes. The corners of her mouth lifted, revealing sharp, serrated teeth as she reached out to pat the head of the Little Caique on her shoulder.

"Ah! You still want to eat me?"

The Little Caique fluffed her feathers, shrinking back, then ingratiatingly rubbed against Yaya’s jade-like hand and softly corrected her:

"Xiaocai will definitely be useful... Also, Mistress, can you please not call me a little hen? I’m from the Qique Race. I have the great ability to foresee fortune and disaster and to devour and refine all things."

Saying this,

Xiaocai wanted to show off her skills.

She opened her mouth and swallowed a large gulp of Creation Qi.

Her small belly glowed red and began to operate like an alchemy furnace.

A moment later,

She opened her mouth again and spat out one pure Creation Mother Pill after another, completely free of impurities. It was a speed that would make even a Saint Grade Alchemist weep.

"Alright then. Why didn’t you tell me you had this skill sooner?"

Yaya’s crimson eyes gazed at the pure Creation Mother Pills in her palm, and every pore in her body seemed to relax in comfort. She reached out, pinched Xiaocai’s chubby baby cheeks, and sneered,

"If you don’t refine a thousand of these today, I’ll stew you into a soup."

"Mistress, you’re so cruel! A thousand..."

Xiaocai’s face immediately turned bitter.

’I shouldn’t have revealed my ability.’

’Now that ’Yaya the Skinner’ has caught on, I’m definitely going to be exploited. My bird-life is doomed.’

"Enough chattering. Hurry up. We can’t hide here for long."

Yaya’s expression returned to its cold and domineering state.

She let out a slow, turbid breath.

She tossed the Creation Mother Pills refined by Xiaocai into her mouth. Her body operated like an abyss, a furnace that could swallow the heavens and devour the earth, digesting the medicinal power in an instant and rapidly recovering from her injuries.

"Don’t worry, Mistress! My life was given to me by you. I’ll never let anything happen to you."

The Little Caique clenched her small claws, full of fighting spirit. She stood on Yaya’s shoulder and, opening her mouth, began gulping down the Creation Liquid in the Treasure Pool with gusto.

She wouldn’t just drink from anywhere.

She specifically drank the liquid Yaya was soaking in.

Her small, red eyes held a dazed, hungry thirst as she muttered madly in her heart:

’Hehe... Mistress’s bathwater... Every drop is Xiaocai’s...’

’The Qique Race.’

Yaya sensed the Little Caique on her shoulder, so diligent and yet so deranged, and her heart stirred slightly as she thought of her origins.

’She had found Xiaocai in a Desolate God Corpse Pit on the Emperor Star, a relict Desolate Divine Seed egg that had not yet lost its Spirituality. It was only after being tainted by her Ancestral Bloodline that it finally hatched.’

’Perhaps because of her bloodline, which was Innately superior and suppressed the Desolate Divine Seed, Xiaocai had recognized her as master from the moment she was born.’

’The Qique Race’s unique ability to foresee disaster and fortune had saved Yaya from peril several times.’

’Judging from the structure of that nest, Xiaocai was likely the posthumous child of a Great Power from the Mountain and Sea Qique Race who had attacked the Chaotic Star Heaven during the Four Tribulations. She had only survived because she was nourished by the essence of the Desolate God Corpse Pit.’

’Mountain and Sea...’

The thought of the Mountain and Sea Realm caused an irrepressible feeling of homesickness to rise in Yaya’s heart.

There were many things

that she naturally came to understand

after her bloodline awakened.

The Mountain and Sea Realm was her bloodline’s cradle, her Ancestral Land. Hongyuan was the wrong environment for her to grow in; staying any longer would only wear away her potential.

’I want to go back.’

’I can, at any time.’

’All I have to do is activate the mark in my origin.’

But...

’That obsession in my heart...’

"Father, Yaya misses you so much. I want to go home, too."

A dangerous, morbid red light appeared in Yaya’s crimson eyes, scaring Xiaocai on her shoulder so much that all her feathers stood on end.

’Mistress is having one of her fits again,’ she thought.

Then,

while Yaya was in her crazed state, Xiaocai’s tail feathers made some ’unintentional’ small movements, a dazed look on her face as she secretly had her own little fit.

...

While Yaya was "missing" Wu Dao,

Wu Dao, having finished his great hunt, had long since returned to his lair in the Asura Sea with his haul of prey, once again lying low.

The commotion from this hunt

had been a bit too big.

Not only did it alarm the Star God Hall into dispatching soldiers to guard the great Daoist training grounds of the All Heavens, but it also changed the landscape of the Emperor Star to a certain extent.

To maintain real-time control over outside information,

Wu Dao had an Incarnation constantly lurking within a large city attached to a Daoist training ground, monitoring and collecting intelligence from all the heavens.

What was happening in the outside world,

and how the power structure on the Emperor Star was changing,

he was naturally perfectly clear about it all.

The day after the hunt conducted under the guise of the Dragon Hunting Tower,

the Incarnation lying dormant in that city suddenly sensed a vast and powerful Magnetic Field descend upon the city center before concealing itself.

The level of danger it gave off

completely surpassed that of the Infinite Saint Master, who had returned from death in the Infinite Ancestral Hall with a First Layer Undying Body.

Without a doubt,

a Guardian for a Daoist Child, a tyrannical expert of the Creation Realm, had descended upon the Daoist Lineage occupying that city.

This was not an isolated incident.

In the following days,

his Incarnation traveled through cities controlled by various Daoist Lineage powers and discovered Creation Realm auras of varying strengths in all of them.

He didn’t find anyone above the Creation Realm,

or rather, any Creation Realm experts who were too terrifying.

This proved his previous guess was correct—

The top Daoist Lineage powers possessing Primordial Emperor Artifacts did indeed have the ability to bypass the rules of the Emperor Star to some extent and smuggle in Creation Realm experts.

They hadn’t done so before,

most likely because the cost was too great.

Furthermore, the Daoist Children who entered the Emperor Star were all beings who could dominate those of the same realm, so they didn’t need Creation Realm Guardians.

But things were different now.

A monster had appeared on the Emperor Star who could hunt Daoist Children with just a pat on the shoulder. The younger generation was completely unable to resist.

If they didn’t provide protection,

they would have to give up on the grand Creation event of the Emperor Star.

Otherwise, where there’s one, there will be two. If it happened again, they would absolutely go mad.

However...

They were overthinking it.

For now,

Wu Dao had basically completed his initial accumulation and wouldn’t be launching another large-scale hunt for a long time.

RUMBLE—

On the outskirts of the Shura Bone Sea,

within a certain Evil Abyss, the Infinite Ancestral Hall stood majestic and profound. It anchored itself in spacetime amidst the churning, boundless baleful qi, remaining motionless.

Deep within the Ancestral Hall,

at the highest point of the Infinite Golden Stele,

Wu Dao, clad in black robes that covered his magnificent Demon God Physique, sat quietly, his mind sorting through the vast, ocean-like information of the Scriptures of All Heavens’ Emperors in his head.

This large-scale hunt

had resulted in the capture of over fifty Daoist Children.

They came from Emperor’s Lineages and even All Heavens Emperor’s Lineages; there was no shortage from Daoist Lineages like the Thunder Emperor Palace.

Some cultivated only one Emperor Scripture.

A rare few, through fortune and creation, were able to cultivate two Emperor Scriptures and Great All Heavens Divine Techniques.

After "reforming" all of them,

they had contributed a total of one hundred Emperor Scriptures and ten brand-new Great All Heavens Divine Techniques.

Among the Emperor Scriptures,

there was naturally a hierarchy of strength.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be three major classes of Emperor’s Lineages. But generally speaking, their achievements all stopped at the same level: the Emperor Realm.

Therefore,

although Wu Dao had obtained many Emperor Scriptures,

all of them only allowed him to extract two Primordial Magnetism Circulations. The only difference was the strength of the circulations themselves.

To extract three circulations,

he would need something from the ranks of the Ten Great Supreme Divine Techniques,

or, a Taoist Scripture.

So far, Wu Dao hadn’t encountered anyone who had mastered a Taoist Scripture. Even Su Chen wasn’t qualified, perhaps because his realm wasn’t high enough yet.

As for the group of Great Power Incarnations from the Ten Tribulations of the Divine Wilderness, the limited amount of Taoist Technique information carried by their low-level Incarnations didn’t represent their full achievements. The gains from them were more or less the same as from the Daoist Children.

The only exception

was Cyan Yu Celestial Venerable, who provided one of the Ten Great Supreme Divine Techniques, the Great Silence of All Heavens.

"One hundred Emperor Scriptures, ten Great All Heavens Divine Techniques... a shame it’s still not quite enough."

Wu Dao opened his eyes, let out a slow breath, and transmitted all the sorted Emperor Scriptures and Great All Heavens Divine Techniques to the Star Mother for comprehension.

Currently,

for the second stage of the Essence Devouring Art, the Heavenly Creation Domain,

he had already extracted 130 All Heaven circulations. He still needed another 235 to reach the Great Full Cycle Perfection of 365.

One hundred Emperor Scriptures.

Ten Great All Heavens Divine Techniques.

If he finished digesting them all, his progress would reach 340/365. He would still be short fifteen Heaven-Opening Techniques.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t calculated it beforehand.

In fact,

the Daoist Children he had hunted were all the ones he could quickly get his hands on.

However,

as for how to gather the remaining fifteen Heaven-Opening Techniques and perfect the second stage,

Wu Dao already had a target in mind—

Huanwu Mountain!

The Crowned King of Chaotic Star Heaven before the Four Tribulations.

It only began to fall from its divine altar after the rise of the Taiyi Star Emperor. After the Four Tribulations erupted, its Ancestral Land was also moved into the Emperor Star.

Huanwu.

It means to gather the ’Martial Power’ of all the heavens and universe.

It doesn’t specifically refer to the Martial Dao.

At the height of its power,

Huanwu Mountain was known as the All Heavens Martial Vault.

It is said to have collected all Seventy-two Heavenly Great Divine Techniques and five of the Ten Great Supreme Divine Techniques. It also possessed numerous Emperor Scriptures and was once the Seeking Dao Sacred Land that all the heavens yearned for.

After the Four Tribulations,

Huanwu Mountain, now on the sealed Taiyi Emperor Star, also became an Ultimate Creation Land within the forbidden zones.

Every time it opens, it’s a gathering of heroes.

A true grand event of the All Heavens.

"It’s similar to Martial King Mountain in the Divine Wilderness."

Wu Dao reviewed the information on Huanwu Mountain in his mind, discovering that this power’s rise was somewhat similar to that of Martial King Mountain.

The difference was,

Huanwu Mountain didn’t have the style of a ’Daoist Gate,’ and actively opened its doors, exchanging techniques for techniques.

Even their core inheritances

could be taken away, as long as you had the ability, provided you left behind a Taoist Magic and Divine Technique of not too much lower quality.

With such a development model,

accumulating over one era after another,

it naturally earned the title ’All Heavens Martial Vault’.

"Now that the older generation of Celestial Prides has entered at the Creation Realm, there will be too many variables once Huanwu Mountain opens. I have to raise my strength as soon as possible."

After composing his thoughts,

Wu Dao’s consciousness entered the Primordial Celestial Demon Circulation. Within his Divine Domain, a dazzling, dense array of star-colored cocoons hung everywhere!

The fifty Daoist Children were just the small part.

The main haul was the outer settlement cities plundered by the Primordial Demons; they had snatched up everything, lock, stock, and barrel.

Such a huge amount of Dao Wheel materials

was more than enough to refine all 365 Grand Circulation Dao Wheels and the Primordial Demon Dao Wheels needed to build the Star Mother network.

What was left

could also be used as computational ’power’ for the Dao Wheel Spirits. A single Dharma Aspect could fuel a Sub-wheel for several days.

As for the growth of the Artifact Spirits,

the upgraded Second Generation Primordial Dao Wheel was like a supercomputer. It only needed a continuous increase in its information reserves.

It would advance along with the main body’s hardware, freeing itself to some extent from the first-generation’s limitation of needing Divine Souls as fodder for growth.

Of course,

it wasn’t completely free of it.

The fastest method was still to feed it high-grade fodder directly to keep up with the hardware’s growth.

"Hooo~ Time to begin."

Cracking his neck,

Wu Dao took out one Celestial Soldier after another from his treasury to pollute the Magnetic Field, while the Celestial Demons extracted Artifact Spirit components, once again beginning the assembly-line production of Primordial Dao Wheels.