Essence Devouring Art

The Hongyuan Great World.

Born from countless years of wondrous creation, it was a place where infinite spacetimes converged and overlapped. Thousands of races and worlds flourished within, making it unlike a Grand Cosmos in the traditional sense.

Spacetimes of infinitely varying sizes.

The Nine Great Heavens, which had existed since the dawn of creation, were undoubtedly the behemoths among them.

Among them, one heaven was the most unique—

The Chaotic Star Heaven.

What made it unique was this:

While the other heavens were primarily vast, boundless continents, the Chaotic Star Heaven was an endless Star Sea.

The Chaotic Star Heaven, too, was once a vast and boundless continent.

But before the Fourth Tribulation,

a titan of Hongyuan unified the Chaotic Star Heaven. He pulled down the starry river and innumerable Pocket Worlds, despotically reshaping ninety-nine percent of its territory.

To this day,

if a Great Power were to observe the Chaotic Star Heaven from the outside, they would discover a cosmic, starry abyss rising and falling within the bordering continents.

Beyond its unique world structure,

there was another point worth mentioning—

The Chaotic Star Heaven had no Common Lord.

Since the dawn of creation, it had been a place of endless chaos. Various factions, tendrils from All Heavens, and a motley crew of entities all vied for power in ceaseless conflict.

Before the Four Tribulations,

the titan who reshaped the Chaotic Star Heaven had briefly unified this realm. Unfortunately, he had not held the title of Common Lord for long before perishing in the Fourth Tribulation.

Once this great stabilizing force was gone,

the Chaotic Star Heaven once again became a lawless, chaotic land. Its entanglements were too widespread, and no one dared to unify it again.

This state of affairs

had already persisted for tens of millions of years across two tribulations.

In the Border Wilderness of the Chaotic Star Heaven’s Star Sea,

among the countless twinkling stars,

harsh, life-forbidden zones were everywhere.

But there also existed scattered continents and some relatively barren Little Grotto Heavens.

The racial factions that resided here

were mostly at the bottom of the Chaotic Star Heaven’s hierarchy. Powerless to venture deeper into the Celestial Domain to fight for resources, they only wished for a peaceful and stable life.

Among the several hundred stars bordering the Black Ruins, one of the Chaotic Star Heaven’s forbidden zones, there was a Pocket World with a long history, now fallen into decline—

The Primordial Cave Heaven.

In the Hongyuan Great World, the Divine Race flourished.

From this, various Divine Sects and Daoist Lineages arose.

The Extraordinary Life within the Primordial Cave Heaven primarily belonged to the Primordial Divine Sect.

From ancient times to the present, they had all worshipped the legendary Primordial God said to have created Heaven and Earth and brought forth all of existence—the Primordial Divine Monarch.

Of course,

the talk of Heaven and Earth Creation and bringing forth all of creation

was mostly a laudatory gimmick meant to inflate his status.

It couldn’t be taken seriously.

Within any Pantheon or Daoist Lineage, the Supreme God on the lips of the faithful was always omnipotent. Heaven Opening was simply a required skill on their resume.

As for whether it was a Grotto Heaven that was opened,

or All Heavens,

or even the creation of a universe from Chaos itself,

that all depended on how powerful the ’Supreme God’ actually was.

After all, Hongyuan was an incredibly brilliant and prosperous Extraordinary World; creating a small world was hardly an unbelievable feat.

At the center of the Primordial Cave Heaven,

atop a sprawling, undulating Divine Mountain Blessed Land,

the Primordial Divine Sect—once incomparably glorious but now reduced to a mere handful of members—was conducting its centennial god-worshipping ceremony, presided over by the thirtieth Sect Leader, True Monarch Guangming.

The ceremony was extremely solemn and dignified.

But if one observed closely,

they would find that most of the sect’s elders and disciples looked listless and distracted, clearly not taking it seriously.

They worshipped their god once a century, yet for three thousand years, the Divine Monarch had only consumed the Incense Fire without granting the slightest divine boon. Anyone would treat it as just going through the motions.

Some high-ranking figures were even distracted during the grand ceremony, using voice transmissions to speculate whether the Primordial Divine Monarch could ever truly return.

Three thousand years ago,

the Primordial Divine Sect had unified the surrounding Star Realms.

It had thirty-six Grotto Heavens and over a hundred Blessed Lands under its command, controlling tens of thousands of resource-rich stars.

It enjoyed the Incense Fire offerings of countless living beings.

Its Supreme God was a Divine Monarch capable of creating Pocket Worlds, and the sect had reigned supreme in the Border Wilderness of the Chaotic Star Heaven.

But tragedy struck.

A Desolate God descended upon the Primordial Star Domain three thousand years ago, devouring stars and life itself. In order to slay it, the Primordial Divine Monarch’s Divine Fire was extinguished.

Since then,

the Primordial Divine Sect began its decline.

The remaining True Gods and Little Gods, for the sake of Incense Fire, all defected to other Pantheons.

Successive generations of sect members could not shoulder the heavy burden.

By now, only a few tens of thousands of followers remained, both On the Mountain and below. The Sect Leader was merely a Divine Power True Monarch, and heretics ran rampant within the Grotto Heaven. Their situation was utterly bleak.

However,

Faith Gods originate from the faith of living beings.

For a being on the Primordial Divine Monarch’s level, as long as someone still believed, his Divine Format would not completely shatter. With enough Incense Fire, there was still a chance to reignite his Divine Fire and return.

Therefore, the Primordial Divine Sect had never given up on reviving the Primordial Divine Monarch.

Although the Incense Fire was meager, it had never been cut off. They hoped that one day the Divine Monarch would return and lead the Divine Sect back to prosperity.

Unfortunately...

It had been a full three thousand years.

Not only had the Divine Monarch not returned, but the Divine Sect itself was on the verge of collapse.

Their believers had been almost entirely carved up by heretics, and the sect was left with fewer than a thousand members—the bottom of the barrel, unable to even compare with some Little Mao Gods.

Within the sect,

aside from stubbornly loyal old-timers like True Monarch Guangming, most of the elders and disciples had secretly begun to seek a way out.

In essence, they were all Immortal Dao Cultivators.

Incense Fire Wish Power was admittedly a more advanced and purer form of Cultivation Food than Spiritual Qi. The boons of a Divine Being could rapidly increase one’s strength, and the Divine Monarch’s legacy was also very tempting.

But the current Sect Leader, True Monarch Guangming, was completely obsessed. He funneled all the Incense Fire into the Divine Monarch’s revival, so there were no boons to be had, and the sect’s inherited techniques were cut off at the Divine Power Domain.

A fine bird chooses a tree to roost in.

There was no need to stay with the dilapidated Primordial Divine Sect and let their own futures wither.

"Silence!"

Before the Divine Hall’s Incense Burner,

perhaps sensing the blasphemous conduct of those in the hall, the ethereal-looking True Monarch Guangming turned and let out a cold shout. A bleak look filled his eyes; he was utterly heart-weary.

Seeing True Monarch Guangming’s anger,

the crowd immediately straightened up and feigned piety. After all, True Monarch Guangming was the strongest person in the sect. Even if they gave no face to the god, they had to give face to the man. He still possessed some authority.

’Sigh, this is the last time.’

True Monarch Guangming sighed inwardly. He turned back to look at the solemn, sacred, purple-gold statue seated upon the Divine Altar and took a purple-gold gourd that radiated a golden haze from his sleeve.

WHOOSH~

A stream of golden light, the purest faith, gushed forth.

Under the greedy gazes of the assembled elders and disciples, the Faith and Incense Fire Wish Power collected by the Divine Sect over the past century flowed toward the center of the statue’s brow.

A god-worshipping ceremony like this

was conducted by the Primordial Divine Sect once every hundred years. To put it bluntly, it was like feeding a person in a vegetative state.

The Primordial Divine Monarch’s Divine Fire was extinguished.

He could no longer absorb Faith and Willpower on his own. The followers could only collect it from the various Divine Temples and feed it into his Divine Format.

From this perspective,

the past Sect Leaders of the Primordial Divine Sect could all be considered fanatics. If any of them had possessed an impure faith, they would most likely have lined their own pockets with the offerings.

But this time, during this god-worshipping ceremony,

the statue of the Primordial Divine Monarch, which had been silent for several thousand years, actually showed a change.

"Huh?"

A sound of astonished shock rang out.

True Monarch Guangming trembled all over. His eyes bulged as he stared intently at the purple-gold gourd collecting the Wish Power, his face a mask of excitement.

The flow of Wish Power was abnormal!

It was incredibly fast.

Like a starving person devouring food.

The Divine Monarch was actively absorbing the Wish Power!

This...

THUD!

The moment he noticed this change,

tears instantly streamed down True Monarch Guangming’s aged face. He dropped to his knees with the force of a collapsing mountain, his head hitting the floor. With trembling lips, he piously proclaimed:

"The last Divine Child, Guangming, respectfully welcomes the Divine Monarch’s return!"

The Divine Monarch’s return?

Inside the great hall, the assembled elders and sect members were deeply shaken. Their gazes fixed upon the purple-gold gourd, which hovered in the air on its own, gushing forth Faith and Willpower.

Surprise, terror, piety, joy, gloom...

All sorts of emotions churned within them.

But in the end,

everyone fell to their knees in unison, casting aside all other thoughts and endlessly shouting praises.

Except for a small number of people with ulterior motives,

most of the followers were overjoyed.

The Divine Monarch has returned.

A new day was dawning for the Primordial Sect.

A return to prosperity was just around the corner!

HUM~

As the followers knelt and chanted their praises,

the Wish Power within the purple-gold gourd was completely emptied, and the fluctuations at the center of the Divine Monarch’s statue also calmed down.

But an indescribable feeling of homecoming

was then released from the statue.

Like a silent, gentle rain, it washed over their spirits and bodies,

causing the pious yearning in the eyes of the believers in the great hall to gradually become pure and fanatical.

"Relay my command!"

True Monarch Guangming straightened his messy robes, his aged weariness vanishing, replaced by a spirited vigor. He rose and announced in a resonant voice:

"From this day forward, all sect activities are to cease! Elders, disciples, and the believers on the mountain shall do nothing but chant scriptures and pray to the god, putting all their effort into reviving the Divine Monarch!"

"We shall obey the Sect Leader’s decree! We will do our utmost to welcome the Divine Monarch’s return!"

The many sect members and elders in the hall shouted in unison. Even the few who had harbored ill intentions, after being bathed in that ’divinity’ moments ago,

found that the darkness in their hearts inexplicably could not rise. In its place was a growing piety, to the point that they did not want to leave the Divine Hall for even a moment.

In their minds,

they subconsciously felt that something was not right.

But they couldn’t put their finger on what it was.

They were unable to overcome the resonant sense of homecoming in their souls and the innate yearning of all life for a perfect existence.

"From Chaos born, the Primordial arose; from one breath forged, the Great Dao was opened..."

Inside the Divine Hall,

the followers of the Primordial Divine Sect, led by True Monarch Guangming, endlessly chanted their pious praises.

The disciples of the sect within the mountain

also became extremely excited after hearing the command and gathered in the plaza outside the Divine Hall, joining the Descent of the Divine ceremony.

HUM~

As the pious prayers continued to ring out,

wisps and threads

of Faith and Willpower of varying strengths also rose from the brows of the Primordial Sect’s followers and flowed into the center of the statue’s brow.

That inexplicable sense of attraction and belonging

also began to imperceptibly strengthen, making the joy in True Monarch Guangming’s heart grow ever more fervent.

But he never could have imagined

that the Primordial Divine Monarch worshipped by the Primordial Sect had long been nothing but an empty shell.

This so-called revival and return

was merely the contaminating ’Demon Nature’ passively released by the outlander ’Celestial Demon’ occupying the Divine Format as it healed its wounds.

...

「Several days earlier.」

At the center of the Primordial Divine Monarch statue’s brow.

Within the diamond-crystal-like Divine Format.

was a Crystal Wall Divine Country Cave Heaven.

The Faith and Willpower collected by the Primordial Sect over three thousand years had formed into golden clouds of blessing within the Grotto Heaven.

The sea of blessing clouds, stretching for thousands of miles, blazed with magnificent light. Converging energies gave rise to illusory, ethereal Celestial Palace Divine Palaces, making it resemble a Divine Realm lost to the world.

But at this moment,

this Divine Realm was continuously shattering.

RUMBLE—

Deep within the sea of golden blessing clouds, a gigantic vortex churned like a feeding beast from the Abyss. It continuously ripped apart layer after layer of radiant Celestial Palaces, ravenously devouring the ocean of Faith and Willpower.

At the core of the vortex,

through the rolling thunder, a condensed, profound, humanoid starry abyss could be faintly seen rising and falling, emanating the vast and ancient pressure of a Sacred Spirit.

A faint, almost imperceptible gravity emanated from it, like the primordial core of all creation, pulling upon the machinations of the world’s magnetic fields and energies.

At the source of this shining starlight,

as the vast torrent of faith was being devoured, a sliver of Spirituality was rapidly growing, eventually forming a conscious self.

"Haaah..."

Wu Dao broke free from the darkness and returned to himself. Sensing his current wretched state, he silently cursed his bad luck.

He was indeed quite unlucky.

After leaving the Divine Wilderness, he had entered the chaotic void with the utmost caution.

At first, although he was battered to the point of shattered bones and inverted spacetime, things were relatively calm overall.

Relying on his Magnetic Field Power,

he had also located the immense and vast Hongyuan Magnetic Field deep within the void. He painstakingly adjusted his direction, using the magnetic field’s gravity to continuously draw closer to Hongyuan.

If nothing unexpected happened,

then the unexpected happened.