Essence Devouring Art

Previously, his attitude toward Prince Nanyang had always been one of apprehension.

But his trip to Martial King Mountain had dispelled much of that apprehension.

Qiu Tianjing’s agreement to let him ascend Wuliang Mountain was surely due to Prince Nanyang pulling strings in the background.

One gesture of goodwill after another was enough to show Prince Nanyang’s attitude toward him.

If Prince Nanyang truly wanted to harm him, to be honest, Wu Dao didn’t think he would have any chance of escape.

Because when he was leaving Martial King Mountain, he had subtly asked Qiu Tianjing about Prince Nanyang’s current level of strength.

Qiu Tianjing hadn’t revealed much.

But even what was known was astonishing enough—

Dao Embryo Divine Eight Transformations!

Just one step away from rivaling the Demon Suppression Emperor at his peak!

What his actual level was remained a question mark.

To put it bluntly, an existence of that caliber could kill him with a single slap, with no need for schemes or plots.

Of course, one couldn’t rule out a much deeper scheme.

’Never trust anyone.’

This was the principle Wu Dao had concluded from his two lives.

Once you trusted someone, you might end up placing your life in their hands, becoming complacent in the face of crisis—a fatal mistake!

...

After returning to his stronghold in Lancang County City, Wu Dao stopped by the headquarters for a short while.

Because during the time he was away, the Primordial Demons scattered across the two prefectures had found a few little snacks for him.

「Inside the headquarters’ courtyard.」

”Alright, just leave them here. Go to the treasury and collect your reward.”

Zhao Jianji directed several Primordial Demons to place two house-sized, mottled-fur rats, which had passed out, on the ground. Then, he bowed to Wu Dao and said fawningly:

”Alliance Leader, these two Mouse Demons were discovered last night in Wanshan Prefecture. They’re at the Innate First Step, and it took a lot of effort to capture them.”

’Mouse Demons...’

Wu Dao’s interest was piqued. He pressed, ”You didn’t find their nest?”

The last time in Wanshan Prefecture, after wiping out the Red Rat King’s clan and the great-grandfather and great-grandmother he had summoned, he had reaped a full 80,000 Teleportation Points.

After getting a taste of such a sweet reward, he had been hoping to run into the Rat Race again—preferably one where hundreds of generations of ancestors were all gathered in a single nest.

These two Mouse Demons were at the Innate First Step, which surely meant a massive nest was involved, along with even more powerful ancestors.

If he could wipe them all out in one go, that would be another fine feast.

”Well...”

Zhao Jianji knew what Wu Dao meant, but he still shook his head regretfully. ”Reporting to the Alliance Leader, these two Mouse Demons were acting alone.

The Wanshan Prefecture branch found them deep in the mountains, covered in injuries. They seemed to be fleeing from an enemy.

If not for the great commotion they made while healing, which alerted the nearby mountain folk, we really wouldn’t have found them.”

’Fleeing for their lives?’

Now Wu Dao was genuinely curious.

Two Innate First Step Great Demons... unless a Grandmaster of Gang Qi had acted, it was impossible that they would be so grievously injured and forced to flee.

But if it were humans who attacked, there would surely be pursuers. Once they entered Wanshan Prefecture’s territory, it would be impossible for the Overlord Whale Alliance’s intelligence network to remain unaware.

Yet, in reality, there was nothing.

Then there was only one possibility: these two Mouse Demons were heavily injured and fleeing due to internal strife within the Demon Race.

’Looked at this way, it seems other Great Demons are involved.’

Wu Dao’s eyes lit up. He placed a large hand directly on one Mouse Demon’s head, his vast Spiritual Consciousness, carrying the Power of the Magnetic Field, invading its soul and consciousness to read its information.

Soon, within Wu Dao’s perception, it was as if time was flowing backward as a series of images played out like a movie.

’Hm?’

Suddenly, Wu Dao ’saw’ two familiar figures and immediately slowed down the soul search.

”To Hell with the Saint King! I am an ancestor of the Rat Race! You think you’re worthy of my submission?”

”My sons, kill them for me!”

”You disgrace to the Demon Race, colluding with humans!”

”You had your chance to do this the easy way. Attack!”

”Run!”

”Ancestor, no!”

...

BUZZ—

The images stopped, and his consciousness withdrew.

”Saint King, Celestial King... Good, very good!”

Wu Dao retracted his large hand, a hungry, ferocious light bursting from his eyes that made Zhao Jianji’s heart pound with terror.

He had been wondering why there was suddenly no news from that damn Saint King and his Saint King Dao. The Bai Ze Bureau and the Overlord Whale Alliance had been monitoring all human settlements, large and small, in the Southern Border, but had found no trace of the Saint King Dao.

’So they’ve decided to take the elite route.’

They’d given up on cultivating believers and instead chose to directly subjugate and enslave powerful members of the Demon Race to increase their strength.

What he hadn’t expected was that the Celestial King had actually teamed up with the Saint King.

’He most likely wants to use the Saint King’s power to get his revenge.’

’He’s got some nerve, not afraid of being devoured after making a deal with a tiger.’

”Dao Embryo Second Transformation... Heh, Celestial Treasures truly are unreasonable!”

Recalling the power the Saint King had displayed in the Mouse Demon’s memories, Wu Dao let out a cold, chilling smile.

’I’m not afraid of the Saint King being strong.’

’I’m only afraid he won’t be ’fat’ enough!’

’Perfect. The Celestial King and the Saint King are together now. It’ll save me the trouble of hunting them down one by one in the future.’

”Eat up. Eat a lot. The fatter you get, the more excited I become.”

He licked his lips greedily.

Wu Dao manipulated the Magnetic Field, extracting the two brilliant, basketball-sized Demon Pills from the Mouse Demons. A large mouth split open on his abdomen, and he pushed the pills into his stomach one by one, making Zhao Jianji’s eyelids twitch frantically.

”Teleportation Points +1000, +1000.”

The sound of the attribute panel rang out.

Still feeling unsated, Wu Dao ground his teeth, then looked at the two Mouse Demon corpses and said to Zhao Jianji:

”You can deal with these. The corpses of Innate Great Demons are decent Cultivation Resources as well.”

’I’ve already swallowed the Demon Pills. I can’t be bothered with the piddling amount of Energy in the corpses.’

”Thank you for your gift, Alliance Leader!”

Zhao Jianji was immediately overcome with excitement, dropping to one knee to accept the reward.

These were two Innate Level Great Demons! The Energy contained in their flesh and blood was even purer than Spirit Stones or Elemental Stones.

Wu Dao might look down on them.

But to them, they were supreme treasures for Cultivation.

After consuming the two Demon Pills, Wu Dao didn’t linger for long.

As usual, he instructed Zhao Jianji that he would be entering a period of seclusion and was not to be disturbed unless it was something major. Then, with a rumbling sonic boom, he vanished into the sky, ready to begin his arduous training.

The Saint King was the owner of a Celestial Treasure.

The progress of his strength couldn’t be measured by common sense.

One could look down on him strategically, but the prerequisite for that contempt was having sufficient strength; otherwise, it was just arrogant conceit.

RUMBLE—

「A hundred li outside Lancang County City.」

Sixteen thousand meters up in the dome of the sky.

Golden Celestial Thunder Gang Wind raged and surged like an ocean, like an abyss, forming a boundless forbidden zone of life that stretched to the ends of the sky.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH~

Within the endless sea of Gangfeng Thunderbolt.

The moment Wu Dao broke into this region, he was annihilated down to a skeleton. Sinews and flesh regrew around his body, only to be constantly charred black and shattered again. It was an incredibly terrifying sight.

’It’s lacking something...’

After feeling it out for a moment, Wu Dao felt a little dissatisfied.

’These flesh wounds have no tempering effect on me now. I need a more intense stimulus for my potential to continue advancing.’

”Get lost, you useless bunch.”

BOOM!

The Magnetic Field spun.

Wu Dao was like a heartless scumbag casting aside his haggard wife, completely forgetting how he had called the winds ’little baby’ and ’little cutie’ while fighting the Celestial King.

He unceremoniously blasted away the surrounding golden Thunderbolt and Gang Winds that seemed to want him to stay, flying toward the ’beautiful maidens’ higher up.

But the beautiful maidens on the higher level were not to be trifled with; their tempers were exceptionally fierce.

Wu Dao had just flown up five hundred meters when ”they” tore him into thousands of gravel-like fragments, as if avenging their abandoned little sisters below.

”Not bad. Fierce enough. I like it!”

Wu Dao, however, felt a bit of satisfaction. He let out a booming laugh and, dragging his thousands of fleshy, gravelly fragments, shot upward again.

The Celestial Thunder Gang Wind at sixteen thousand meters was fierce, but it wasn’t enough to excite him, let alone drain him.

He needed a stronger stimulus!

He needed a true ’juicer’ that would push him to the brink of ecstasy and death!

RUMBLE—BANG!

Sixteen thousand eight hundred meters!

The golden Celestial Thunder Gang Wind now faintly held a tinge of scarlet.

Like a group of *yandere*, they crazily swung their hatchets, instantly mincing the intruding Wu Dao into fleshy particles more than ten times smaller than gravel, reducing him completely to a cloud of blood mist.

”Hiss... So satisfying. Now *this* has a kick!”

Wu Dao finally stopped his ascent. His countless particles trembled with excitement, feeling an ecstatic pleasure ten thousand times better than copulation.

BUZZ—

Then, he controlled the Magnetic Field Power, madly devouring all the magnetic energy between heaven and earth. In his blood mist state, while enduring the hatchets of the ’yandere’, he rapidly recovered to his gravel-like state.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t even maintain it for an instant before he was hacked back into a blood mist.

But this was exactly what he wanted.

Dripping with sweat, with skin split and flesh torn, was merely a training method for useless, weak females.

’A true powerhouse either doesn’t train at all, or trains until they are pulverized into mist, and would never cry out once!’

RUMBLE—BANG!

High in the sky.

As Wu Dao’s warm-up ended, the half-gold, half-red Celestial Thunder Gang Wind officially entered a berserk state, giving him not a moment’s rest.

His body fragments began a cycle of constantly exploding into blood mist and then reforming into gravel, repeatedly tempering him at the absolute limit between life and death, excavating the potential of his cells.

At the limit of life and death, Wu Dao ignored the hellish torture that came from the depths of his cells and soul. He was even multitasking, opening his attribute panel—

[Physique: Human Extreme (Limit)]

[Extraordinary: Essence Devouring Art (92% Potential Release) +

Thunder Punishment Dominating Whale Fist 8000 Years (True Intent Tenth Floor) +

Divine Desolate Transformation 8000 Years (Horizontal Refining Seventh Gate Limit) +]

Immortal Black Tortoise Divine Skill 100 Years (+)

[Teleportation Points: 46615]

’Divine Desolate Transformation... Immortal Black Tortoise Divine Skill...’

His thoughts swept over the two Transverse Refining Techniques.

Wu Dao recalled his previous speculation about the Horizontal Refining Tenth Dao Gate and felt extremely satisfied with his past decision to merge and evolve his Cultivation Techniques.

The root of the Divine Desolate Transformation was the Giant Whale Skill.

The Giant Whale Skill had evolved step by step, resulting in today’s top-tier Divine Skill of the Horizontal Refining Seventh Door.

This growth process was an ’Ancestral Return’ evolution, like a snake transforming into a dragon.

Although the ancestral form it returned to might be a hodgepodge creature, its essence was still that of a Postnatal Mortal Object evolving toward a so-called Innate Sacred Spirit.

The main reason the founding ancestor of Martial King Mountain failed to step into the Horizontal Refining Tenth Dao Gate was that his starting point was too high.

Through a fortuitous Creation in his youth, he started his Cultivation with the Immortal Black Tortoise Divine Skill, a technique that went straight to the Ninth Gate Limit.

By the time he became aware of the Saint Spirit Path, his body’s potential was already exhausted, making it impossible for him to merge other Cultivation Techniques for an Ancestral Return evolution.

If, like Wu Dao, he had started by choosing a low-level Cultivation Technique and evolving it step by step through fusion, opening the subsequent Horizontal Refining Gates by excavating potential rather than consuming it, then he absolutely would not have stopped at the Ninth Gate. The foundation of potential he would have accumulated along the way would have been enough for him to achieve ’Sacred Spirit’ status and break through the Tenth Gate.

’Will the feedback from the Horizontal Refining Eighth Gate be enough to complete the Human Extreme Limit Domain?’

With a hint of anticipation, Wu Dao suppressed the various distracting thoughts in his mind.

In his Divine Ghost Heaven State, he was like a Divine Buddha on earth, in a state of Unity of Heaven and Man. All distracting thoughts vanished, and sparks of wisdom flashed and collided, as if he could solve all the world’s problems.

He multitasked.

While his spiritual will endured the ravages of the Celestial Thunder Gang Wind, he began to operate under an extreme overload, deducing the fusion of the Divine Desolate Transformation and the Immortal Black Tortoise Divine Skill.