Chapter 428: Monster
Yaoguang's exchange with the three supreme elders Zhen Xuanyuan, Gu Li, and Chi Yun had not been hidden from Li Hanqiu, Qi Sha, Wu Changfeng, Wan Liugui, and the others
By the time the conversation was over, every one of them was wide-eyed with disbelief.
It was hard to fathom that in the short while Yaoguang had been away, he had gone and accomplished something on that scale. Storming the Yin Lunar Sect's home ground by himself and cutting down seven of its Void-Shattering supreme fiend lords was a legendary feat!
Once Qi Sha had digested the news, his eyes lit up with worship and yearning; he now saw Yaoguang as the goal he would look up to for the rest of his life.
Wu Changfeng felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart. With a supreme powerhouse like this in the southern domain, from now on they could sleep without a care.
As for Li Hanqiu and Wan Liugui, they were left reeling. Every time news of Yaoguang reached them, they were left shocked by his actions, which at times felt almost like miracles, but this time... Yaoguang had crushed an entire sect! And not just any sect, but the Yin Lunar Sect, one of the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects!
This was beyond anything they could imagine. Never in their dreams had they dared hope that the Cangwu lineage might one day produce a figure who stood at the very peak of the North Sea.
After all, just decades ago, their sole wish had been to raise a single true Void-Piercing cultivator.
Granted, that Void-Piercing cultivator was no ordinary one, but rather a figure on the level of a sect's young sect master, with hopes of one day contending for a deputy sect master's seat in the Taiyi Immortal Sect.
But whether young sect masters, deputy sect masters, or even the big figures of top sects like the Taiyi Immortal Sect and Heavenly Dao Sect, all of them fell far, far short before the glory of one man crushing an entire sect.
A powerhouse like that could stand before a Dao Lord and be regarded with new eyes.
"How fortunate our Great Cangwu World is to have given birth to a figure like Deputy Sect Master Yaoguang, one who can stand at the peak of the North Sea," Wan Liugui said with heartfelt emotion.
Li Hanqiu nodded firmly. "Yaoguang... a Void-Shattering cultivator raised from our Nine Cauldrons Sect."
Seeing Yaoguang, born of the Nine Cauldrons Sect, reach such heights, Li Hanqiu truly felt in that moment that he could die without any regrets.
Especially since it was not only Yaoguang. Under the southern domain's unstinting flood of resources, the Nine Cauldrons Sect had produced batch after batch of top experts in the last century.
By now, several had even condensed Azure Golden Cores. Measured purely by cultivation time, which of them wouldn't be comparable to Heavenly Venerable Jiang?
Of course, they had gone that far only thanks to far more cultivation resources than Heavenly Venerable Jiang had ever had, having access to an effectively unlimited supply. In terms of talent, they were more than just a level below him.
But never mind the process; results were what mattered. It was a fact that those few had matched Heavenly Venerable Jiang's achievements. Given unlimited resources, anyone could be another Heavenly Venerable Jiang.
After a long while, Li Hanqiu steadied his mind. Looking at Yaoguang, who now stood at the peak of the North Sea and was certain to enter the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings, the Void-Piercing cultivator hesitated a moment, then said, "Should we... find time for a trip back to the Great Cangwu World?"
He quickly added, "We brought all our elites to the North Sea Star last time, but many people's families and descendants still remain in the Great Cangwu World. Now that we've achieved so much here, perhaps..."
"The Great Cangwu World..." Yaoguang did not hesitate long before nodding. "The Yin Lunar Sect has sealed its sect, so the threat hanging over the southern domain has resolved itself, and with Zhen Xuanyuan, Chi Yun, and Gu Li helping keep watch, the southern domain will be in no danger. Let's make the trip."
He glanced over Li Hanqiu, Wan Liugui, and the others. "This expedition into the Yin Lunar Sect, killing seven supreme fiend lords, netted me quite a few flying vessels and warships. With a little refitting and repair, they can serve as mobile fortresses housing great numbers of cultivators. Once you refine the vessels, then never mind hundreds of thousands or a million; We could easily bring back tens of millions of people, as long as they want to come to the North Sea Star."
"Yes!" Li Hanqiu and Wan Liugui answered as one.
Yaoguang looked over the many Dao Artifacts in his possession. Sold off one by one, they would cause an enormous stir. But he had taken on plenty of Dao Artifact orders over the years, and though the queue stretched thousands of years out, some of the finished pieces now in his hands happened to meet the specifications of the near-term orders. With just some minor modifications over one or two years, he would have the Dao Artifacts needed to fulfill the next several centuries of orders.
As for the rest, within a few hundred years he would surely have raised the Refiner branch to the sixteenth tier, or even the seventeenth, and if things went smoothly his realm would advance to Dao Integration. By then, refining a Dao Artifact a year would be no trouble, and a mere eight or ten years' work would clear the entire backlog. But for the time being...
"Call Chu Gushan, Qin Shiyue, and the others over. Let them see whether any of these Dao Artifacts are a good match. If so, I'll lend the artifacts to them for their use to help them comprehend their Dao Techniques. As for whatever is left... Wu Changfeng! You will host an auction in a year or two and sell them off, accepting materials as payment," Yaoguang instructed.
"Yes," Wu Changfeng answered at once.
He was only a Void-Refining cultivator, but with Yaoguang at his back, the same Yaoguang who had just beaten the Yin Lunar Sect into sealing itself at that, no one would dare cause trouble at an auction, even for ten Dao Artifacts.
Yaoguang continued assigning tasks and notified the people of the Nine Cauldrons Sect as well, so that anyone who wished to see their old home could join the journey to the Great Cangwu World.
***
While Li Hanqiu and the others were organizing the return to the Great Cangwu World, the Yin Lunar Sect, at the cost of its dignity, shared with everyone the glorious record of Yaoguang single-handedly suppressing a top-tier sect.
The shock the news caused far surpassed that of his earlier killing of the Eight Desolations and Dark Fiend Lords, or his defeat of Zhen Xuanyuan and Gu Li within the Heavenly Dao Sect.
When the two fiend lords fell, everyone assumed Yaoguang had taken advantage of the Heavenly Dragon-Slaying Array.
As for what happened inside the Heavenly Dao Sect, who could say it wasn't the sect deliberately raising his status?
Even with Jing Yuntian having died in that battle, most people only considered Yaoguang's strength to rival Zhen Xuanyuan's.
Strength at the level of those on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings? No one would believe that a newly advanced Void-Shattering cultivator, one with barely a century of total cultivation, could be that strong.
The odds that the Heavenly Dao Sect was play-acting to build him up seemed high.
But the Yin Lunar Sect being beaten into sealing its gates... However much ability the Heavenly Dao Sect had, it could not possibly have persuaded its enemy to join the performance, least of all a performance requiring such total loss of face.
This amounted to Yaoguang trampling the entire Yin Lunar Sect alone. The last one to manage anything similar had been the Penglai Dao Lord.
The news of one man crushing a sect and slaying seven Void-Shattering fiendish cultivators was staggering enough on its own; tie in with the Penglai Dao Lord, and the story swept every corner of the North Sea Star like a storm.
It was known not only throughout the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects, the Three Great Martial Dao Sects, and the Four Great Immortal Dynasties, but also by others, such as the Nine Demon Race Lineages, the Ten Divine Races, and the Six Great Fiendish Dao Sects.
The factions within the human race that fell short of the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects' level, especially, felt as though their every channel of information had lately been flooded with nothing but Yaoguang.
Everyone scrambled to verify the reports, and once it was confirmed that the Yin Lunar Sect truly had lost a handful of Void-Shattering cultivators and been forced to seal itself, the story's heat surged to a new peak.
The alien races braced as though for war, aggrieved that yet another supreme powerhouse had risen among humanity.
Within the human race, and above all in the Ten Great Immortal Dao Sects, spirits soared. Countless people speculated over just how strong this Yaoguang, who could crush a sect alone and drive the Yin Lunar Sect behind its gates, really was, and where he would place on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings.
The leaders of factions neighboring the Heavenly Dao Sect grew restless. With another supreme powerhouse added to the Heavenly Dao Sect, who knew what it would mean for the region? If he wanted to expand the sect's territory, should they simply yield?
The Heavenly Fiend Sect in particular, which did not border the Heavenly Dao Sect but lay not too far away, was already debating whether to follow the Yin Lunar Sect's example and pull in its own forces, lest it be picked apart piece by piece.
It was fair to say the whole of the North Sea Star had been thrown into turmoil by Yaoguang's meteoric rise.
***
At the Taiyi Immortal Sect, the Supreme Jade Emperor came hurrying into the palace where the Taiyuan Perfected Lord handled affairs, his eyes full of horror he could not contain. "Sect Master, the news circulating outside..."
"It's true." The Taiyuan Perfected Lord knew what he meant to ask and answered directly. He looked at the Supreme Jade Emperor. "Your intelligence network has already given you a definitive answer, has it not?"
"It has. It's just..." Supreme Jade Emperor's every instinct wanted to deny the truth, despite having personally verified the facts several times... But in the end, facing the incontrovertible facts, he could only sigh. "It's simply beyond belief. I knew Yaoguang's talent was terrifying and his future boundless, but I never imagined it would be to this degree..."
"In truth, there were signs beforehand. When Yaoguang defeated Zhen Xuanyuan and Gu Li one against two, his strength had already shown the tip of the iceberg. So now, taking his revenge by storming into the Yin Lunar Sect, cutting down seven great fiend lords in succession, and beating them into sealing their gates, is also... perhaps... within reason..." The Taiyuan Perfected Lord's words trailed off.
Was it within reason? Was it really within reason? Yet the evidence converging from every direction forced him to accept the facts.
In the end, the master of the Taiyi Immortal Sect could only sigh with a bitter smile. "And he has cultivated for barely a hundred years..."
Hearing the sect master's tone mirror his own almost exactly, the Supreme Jade Emperor felt speechless and quickly calmed down. So he was not the only one who found it unreasonable.
He offered, "A genius simply cannot be measured by ordinary means. Take the Penglai Dao Lord. In her day, she also needed two hundred years to reach the Void-Shattering Realm and five hundred to make it into the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings, and then... then..."
Five hundred years to make the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings?! And Yaoguang was barely past one hundred now.
𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
The Supreme Jade Emperor found he could not go on either. The air in the chamber abruptly froze.
A long moment later, the two Void-Shattering cultivators of the Taiyi Immortal Sect, the Supreme Jade Emperor and Taiyuan Perfected Lord, exchanged a look and sighed in the same breath. "What a monster."