Essence Devouring Art

Within the Nine Heavens of Primordial Chaos,

if one were to ask which Celestial Domain had the most races,

then Heaven-Burning Fire, where the Human Race and Alien Species coexisted, would undoubtedly top the list.

Tens of millions of years ago, the Mountain and Sea and the Human Race tore up their treaty. The two races went to war, and the Fourth Tribulation erupted, affecting all of Hongyuan’s Heavenly Realms and the Ten Thousand Races.

War is not a matter of black and white.

There were factions within the Human Race that betrayed them and joined the Mountain and Sea Alien Species, just as there were Alien Species who stood in solidarity with the Human Race.

For example,

the Demon Race of All Heavens—long denigrated as ’mongrels’ by the Innate Wilderness Clan of the Mountain and Sea—was the one to put aside their prejudices at that time. They turned their allegiance to the Human Race and joined the attack on the Mountain and Sea Realm.

The Demon Race is a very broad concept.

Any being that achieves sentience and spiritual awareness through postnatal Cultivation can be called a demon.

The fundamental difference between them and the Desolate Race is that

the Desolate Race is born powerful.

They possess the bloodline of Innate Primordial Creatures.

They don’t even need to cultivate intentionally; simply passing from childhood to adulthood is enough to awaken their bloodline and grant them immense Power.

After the Four Tribulations,

although the Human Race and many other races joined forces to expel the Mountain and Sea Realm,

the sentiment ’those not of our race are bound to have different hearts’ remained.

This saying still represented the fundamental, unavoidable conflict between every race.

So, after the war ended,

to prevent these conflicts from escalating into war again, the leaders of the Human Race of All Heavens signed a non-aggression pact of the Great Dao with the Demon Race.

Many major clans, led by the Demon Race,

migrated into Heaven-Burning Fire, the most suitable place for Alien Species to cultivate and grow.

Heaven-Burning Fire.

The name doesn’t specifically refer to a sky of raging flames.

Although Heaven-Burning Fire does indeed have many kinds of Chaos Divine Fire left over from the Heaven Opening era, the fundamental reason

is that its environment has remained in the state of the primordial Wilderness, with chaotic and primitive Heaven and Earth Energy.

For ordinary Extraordinaries,

cultivating in Heaven-Burning Fire is like crossing the Flame Mountains in the middle of summer—like being in a furnace. It is extremely difficult to absorb and convert the savage, violent Extraordinary Factors, and it’s very easy to suffer from cultivation deviation and descend into madness.

Only Alien Species, whose fundamental life essence is Innately much stronger than that of the Human Race, can master this harsh environment and thrive as if they were fish in water.

Of course,

some human cultivators who walk extreme paths also consider Heaven-Burning Fire a Holy Land for Cultivation.

For instance, the current supreme Overlord of Heaven-Burning Fire, the Fire-Raising Sect, is a human faction.

Its heritage can be traced back to the Heaven Opening era.

Its doctrine is to teach without discrimination, believing that ’when the Ten Thousand Races raise the fire, the flames burn high’. It gathers races from All Heavens and has shone brilliantly in every tribulation.

During the Fourth Tribulation,

the Fire-Raising Sect used its Dao Artifact, the Dao Burning Furnace, to refine to death a Mixed Yuan Tao Emperor who had defected to the Mountain and Sea, establishing its status as a peak faction in All Heavens in a single stroke.

However,

the Fire-Raising Sect has always been extremely low-key, with almost no contact with the outside world, and has always been the most mysterious force within All Heavens.

In every era,

the ones in Heaven-Burning Fire who remain active in the sight of All Heavens are those major sects with long histories and some peak Alien Species factions.

The Soaring Snake Race, masters of space,

is one such Overlord in Heaven-Burning Fire.

It controls numerous Lower Realms and Grotto Heaven Blessed Lands, and has stood firm for tens of millions of years in the primitive and harsh competitive environment of Heaven-Burning Fire.

「In a certain Lower Realm of the Soaring Snake Race—the Stone Spirit Realm.」

Bloody light and fiery clouds, banners obscuring the sky.

"KILL!"

"Overthrow the Snake God Palace! Overthrow the Soaring Snake Race! Victory belongs to the Stone Spirit Race!"

"We want freedom, not mining!"

The heavens shattered, and stars fell from the sky.

Within Juntian of the Stone Spirit Realm, a grand army engulfed mountains and rivers, their war cries shaking the Nine Heavens.

Countless soldiers of the Stone Spirit Race, led by their bravest Stone King, launched a great revolution to become their own masters, attacking the Snake God Palace—the lackeys of the Soaring Snake Race that had enslaved them for tens of thousands of years.

The war began without warning. It seemed to have been long premeditated.

Caught unprepared,

the Snake God Palace suffered defeat after defeat, forced to retreat to their Ancestral Land in Juntian. They could only rely on the Palace Protection Array to stall for time and wait for reinforcements from the Upper Realm.

"They’re rebelling! They’re actually rebelling! A slave dares to kill its master! It seems we let them get too full!"

Deep within the Snake God Palace,

Palace Master Tengba gnashed his sharp teeth, his earthen snake eyes glaring at the projection of the peerless Stone King wielding his double hammers. He wished he could bite him to death.

Long ago,

he had been very dissatisfied with the previous Palace Master’s policy of appeasement.

’Slaves are slaves.’

’They should be grateful just to have something to eat.’

’If they get full, they start getting ideas. If they think too much, they start wanting better things. Eventually, they’ll shake off their numbness and develop rebellious thoughts.’

Especially that Stone King.

’His schemes run incredibly deep.’

’On the surface, he acted like a lapdog, cooperating with the Snake God Palace to harm his own kind, but behind the scenes, he endured the humiliation and took advantage of the old Palace Master’s nurturing.’

’He unbelievably cultivated to the Fifteenth Step of the Emperor Grade Dharma Aspect, revealing potential of the Twenty-Four Celestial Levels.’

’The environment of this Lower Realm is harsh.’

’Even the Ninth Step of the Saint Grade is as rare as a phoenix feather.’

’Let alone the Emperor Grade.’

To this day, Tengba couldn’t understand it.

’How did that Stone King cultivate? He could only guess it was a case of an extreme turning into its opposite, something related to the Stone Spirit Race’s destiny.’

"Palace Master, that Stone King is too tyrannical! Only the final nine layers of the ninety-nine-layered Palace Protection Array remain. If reinforcements from the Upper Realm don’t arrive soon..."

The deputy palace master at his side said worriedly.

For this branch of the Soaring Snake Race in the Stone Spirit Realm, the strongest had been the old Palace Master at the Ninth Step of the Saint Grade, who had already taken his own life in apology.

The current Tengba was only at the Eighth Step of the Saint Grade. He was no match for the Stone King. Without reinforcements, they would end up as beaten dogs, forced into a humiliating retreat.

"We can’t retreat! Hold the line until the very last moment!"

Hearing this, Tengba turned and glared viciously at the deputy palace master.

’It’s a matter of attitude.’

’Retreating after holding out to the last moment and abandoning our post to flee are two different concepts.’

’The former carries a lighter punishment. The latter would absolutely be treated as desertion and treason by the main clan, and my head wouldn’t be safe on my shoulders.’

BOOM!

As the two spoke,

another layer of the Palace Protection Array was brutally smashed apart. The Snake God Palace, which stood tall in the nine heavens’ Star River, teetered on the brink of collapse. Surrounding stars crumbled and disintegrated amidst the roars.

"Tengba! You cowardly rat, do you dare to duel me?"

Outside the Grand Array,

the Stone King was like a God and Demon descended upon the world. He wielded the Star Essence Double Hammers, bore a Fifteen-Layered Dharma Heaven Domain on his back, and his magnificent physique towered into the Star Sea.

His entire body glowed with a glazed divine light.

His boundless Essence Qi gushed forth like cascading galaxies, shattering the void in the Ten Directions. The impact caused the Snake God Palace to tremble incessantly, and layer after layer of the Grand Array petrified and disintegrated under the glazed light.

"You dog, you’ve gone too far!"

Inside the Snake God Palace,

Tengba gritted his teeth, but he didn’t lose his reason. The gap between them was too vast; accepting the duel would be suicide.

The Fifteenth Layer of Heaven of an Emperor Grade Dharma Aspect.

A being at that level could turn a Ninth Layer Saint Grade cultivator to dust with a single breath, let alone Tengba, who was only at the Eighth Layer of Saint Grade.

"So you think you’re good at fighting, do you?"

Just as Tengba was feeling utterly humiliated,

a hard, iron-blooded female voice, tinged with excitement and bloodlust, suddenly echoed through the starry sky.

"Who?!"

The Stone King, who was about to resume his assault on the Snake God Palace, was startled. He felt as if he were being targeted by a famished Ancient Fierce Beast, and the Heart Lake Alarm Bell in his mind rang wildly.

"That voice... could it be?"

The moment Tengba heard that domineering, bloodthirsty, and cold female voice, his heart leaped. Images of mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and endless war smoke subconsciously filled his mind.

He thought of that certain someone in his clan with a special status—the Red-eyed Witch who had spent eighteen years trampling countless kings of her generation, conquering thousands of Lower Realms, and taking pleasure in slaughter and war.

’Why is this warmonger here...’

Tengba swallowed hard. For a moment, he actually felt a bit of sympathy for the Stone King.

BUZZ—

As the Stone King stood there in shock and suspicion,

the starry sky outside the Snake God Palace’s broken Grand Array suddenly buzzed and trembled. Amidst surging waves of bloody light, a passage to the Upper Realm was revealed.

CLICK-CLACK—

The sound of footsteps, neither heavy nor light,

was like a Divine Being beating a war drum, shaking the Heart Lake of countless living beings. It felt as if their very souls were being trampled by an Emperor of war. Images of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, of a throne built from white bones, appeared in their minds, and an irrepressible fear and urge to submit arose within them.

The first thing to enter their vision

was a pair of Red-Striped Divine Gold Battle Boots. They were exquisitely delicate, like lotus flowers or jade, but their soles were stained with the heart-stopping, still-wet Holy Spirit Starry Blood.

It seemed that not long ago,

the owner of the boots had just crushed a Yang God to death.

CLICK-CLACK—

Another step was taken.

The tall, imposing figure of the boots’ owner stepped completely out of the passage, appearing before the eyes of both warring sides.

Nine feet tall and graceful, with silver hair like a waterfall.

The first impression was beauty.

Beauty that could topple nations, the posture of an immortal, the face of a saint.

To use such words to describe her was merely cliché.

It was a beauty that transcended race, born from the most primal, shared longing for perfection at the dawn of life. Even if all the stars in the cosmos were to bloom together, they would pale in comparison.

The battlefield fell silent.

Every living being stared blankly for a moment, their minds sinking, unable to pull away.

But in the next moment,

that exquisite beauty

was torn to shreds by the two rows of bloody shark-like teeth that slowly revealed themselves in the Goddess’s perfect face, and by those twin pupils like a red Purgatory.

An ultimate sense of danger and brutality washed over the Ten Directions like a tsunami, transforming into an endless chill that rose from the depths of every creature’s bloodline, making both soul and body tremble.

This was a humanoid Primordial Fierce Beast!

Hidden beneath the skin of a face that made the starry sky pale was an endless, most primitive and brutal desire to conquer and kill!

CLANK CLANK—

The chains in her hand, forged from Divine Iron, rattled.

More figures emerged from the Upper Realm passage, following humbly and tremblingly behind the Red-eyed Witch.

The Stone King’s pupils shrank once again.

He could sense that every single one of the War Servants bound by the Witch’s Divine Chains had a Cultivation level no weaker than his own!

But now,

their spirit and pride had been utterly broken. They were willing to be little puppies wagging their tails to please the Witch.

Yaya’s Red Prison Dual Pupils looked down upon the Stone King. After sizing him up for a moment, she gave a reluctant nod and said:

"Not bad. You’re barely qualified to be a biting dog. So... will you offer your soul, or will you die?"

’That good daddy of mine once said,’

’Desire and scheming are treacherous and unpredictable.’

’All vows and promises are just bullshit.’

’The best loyalty is always to make the subjugated offer up everything, to make your desires the very meaning of their existence.’

’As it turns out,’

’he was never wrong.’

’To be rebellious and willful, to want to escape Good Daddy’s ’parenting guide,’ is like going against my own nature, and it always comes at a heavy price.’

Involuntarily,

her consciousness returned to that night of wind, snow, and frost, a night when she fell from spring-like warmth into cold darkness.

Tsk—

’This feeling of living in a shadow...’

’It’s so, so cold...’

’When can I make that old thing melt this cold away?’

"Stone people will never be slaves! Die, Witch!"

BOOM!

As her thoughts churned,

the Stone King gritted his teeth and suppressed the terror in his heart. Wielding the Star Essence Double Hammers, his body erupted in a brilliant, glazed divine light. With a roar that brought down stars, he smashed towards Yaya with the force of a collapsing sky.

CLANG!!

A peal of Chaos thunder exploded across the Star Sea.

Facing the Stone King, who was unleashing his full power,

a bloodthirsty light flashed in Yaya’s eyes. She raised her fair right hand, her five Immortal Jade fingers closing to crush the vacuum itself. Without dodging or evading, she smashed her fist against the Stone King’s double hammers.