Essence Devouring Art

WHOOSH—

Snow fell like a waterfall, sealing the mortal world in ice.

After leaving Xuzhou Prefecture.

Wu Dao had no intention of lingering on the front lines. He flew through the air at top speed, crossing over mountains of ice and fields of snow.

He didn’t return to Guangqing Prefecture either. Instead, he simply picked a random direction and flew toward the edge of the sky.

There were some things...

He had to verify them for himself. He wouldn’t just take Prince Nanyang’s word for it.

For example...

The matter of the Divine Wilderness World being a ’cage’!

RUMBLE—

Wu Dao’s speed was incredible, many times the speed of sound. In the blink of an eye, he left mountains and rivers behind him, quickly crossing a distance equivalent to an entire Prefecture.

But the land before him still stretched on endlessly.

In fact,

the Southern Border was vast.

Thirteen Prefectures.

Each Prefecture was comparable in size to the largest province of a major country from Wu Dao’s previous life.

The area of the thirteen Prefectures...

already surpassed that of the largest country from his past life.

But it should be noted:

these thirteen Prefectures did not constitute the entire landmass of the Southern Border. They only encompassed the regions of human activity, which were mostly adjacent to one another.

Beyond these thirteen Prefectures,

the remaining vast, primordial lands of the Southern Border were many times larger than the thirteen Prefectures combined.

These primordial lands...

were not comparable to a pseudo-uninhabited area like the Black Stone Desert, which saw occasional traces of activity.

It was common to find no sign of human life for thousands of miles.

There were primeval mountain forests with a thousand peaks and ten thousand cliffs, vast marshes filled with poisonous miasma, and Gobi deserts where life was scarce...

Aside from Extraordinaries,

mortals were fundamentally incapable of surviving in these primordial lands.

Nor were they suitable for human habitation.

WHOOSH—

After crossing an unknown number of thousands of miles,

Wu Dao completely left the human world behind, entering the airspace above a boundless primeval forest.

’The high-energy gas is so thin...’

After entering this primeval forest,

Wu Dao paused briefly in the sky.

His Magnetic Field reached out to connect with heaven and earth.

He discovered that although this primeval forest was vast and teeming with thriving plants, beasts, and insects,

the various supernatural Magnetic Field Powers suffusing the world were exceptionally thin—no different from the ordinary, uninhabited mountain regions of his previous life.

This meant...

that no matter how abundant life was in this primeval forest, it could not give birth to Extraordinary beings, nor was it suitable for Cultivation.

”Destined fortune...”

Wu Dao muttered to himself. Thinking of what Prince Nanyang had said about destined fortune, understanding dawned on him.

The concept of destined fortune...

seemed profound and mysterious at first glance.

But in essence,

it was just what people commonly called luck.

Good luck.

A lucky star shines on you, your life is a smooth path, and everything you do goes well.

Bad luck.

Nothing goes right, you’re plagued by misfortune, and you’re doomed to a mediocre life, unable to achieve anything great.

This principle...

applied equally to all things in heaven and earth.

The Nine Tribulations of the Divine Wilderness spanned thirty thousand years.

Thirty thousand years ago,

the destined fortune of this world was incredibly dense. The Great Dao shone brilliantly, and all living things vied for transcendence. It ranked among the foremost of All Heavens in the Hongyuan Great World.

In that era,

under the nourishing influence of destined fortune and Creation, Heavenly and Earthly Treasures were everywhere. Immortal Mountains, Blessed Lands, and Grotto Heavens were innumerable. Half of every ten people possessed a Dantian. It was truly a golden age.

The so-called Divine Ability Users of today...

would have had a status no different from someone at the Rebirth stage back then. They wouldn’t have even been presentable.

It was said that before the Initial Tribulation,

the truly top-tier Cultivators of the Divine Wilderness World could perform feats like Grasping Stars and Moon, making the Star River Roar, and Crossing the Universe with ease.

One can only imagine...

what a dazzling and prosperous age the Divine Desolate Extraordinary Realm was back then.

After the Nine Tribulations,

the world’s destined fortune was harvested again and again, like crops. The Divine Wilderness rapidly declined, and most of its lands were reduced to ordinary places where no miracles occurred.

Now, in the present day,

it had gotten so bad that the Dao Embryo was the stuff of legends and myths, and a Human Race cultivator qualified to walk the path of Cultivation was one in a thousand.

Comparing the two,

it was the difference between a small country village and a bustling metropolis.

The same world.

A world of difference.

The undisputed culprit behind all this was that madman from thirty thousand years ago, the Slaughter Emperor.

Slaughtering the living beings of several worlds...

Wu Dao couldn’t even imagine how heavy the karmic sin of slaughter that madman had accrued was.

What was even more insane...

was that not only was he mad himself, but he also dragged ninety percent of the Cultivators in the Divine Wilderness World down into madness with him!

’If I put myself in their shoes,’

’if I were one of the victims,’

’I’d probably have ground this Asura Nest of the Divine Wilderness to dust right after the Slaughter Emperor’s defeat and fall, just to quench the hatred in my heart.’

By comparison,

boiling the frog slowly—making the Divine Wilderness repay its debt through Great Tribulations—could almost be considered the mercy of a Holy Mother, a woman’s soft-heartedness.

A blood feud of that magnitude,

was even more intense than the hatred between nations at war. The innocence of individuals was meaningless.

Of course...

there were some things you just couldn’t empathize with by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Especially...

when you yourself were caught in the tribulation.

Anyone would say—

’What the hell does that have to do with me?!’

’Why should generations of descendants have to repay the debts of their ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago with their lives?!’

Anyone who could calmly accept that...

...must have had their head stuffed with donkey hair.

Not to mention...

Wu Dao’s roots weren’t even in the Divine Wilderness. He felt no empathy whatsoever, only a primal rage at this undeserved disaster.

To put it another way,

it was like moving to a new place, only to have a mob show up screaming for your blood, all because the previous owner of your house was their enemy.

?

’Screw your mother’s scallops!’

When he first heard the reason for the Great Tribulation,

Wu Dao had wanted to curse out loud, and even more, he wanted to slap the hell out of the Slaughter Emperor and whoever sent the tribulations.

’Haaah... It’s not like there’s no chance at all, although...’

Wu Dao’s gaze turned cold. He let out a soft breath and continued flying toward the horizon.

The tribulation of the Divine Wilderness World.

Its main cause was the Slaughter Emperor’s failure to achieve Attainment Dao by merging the world’s destined fortune, which triggered a backlash from the Great Dao, sealed the heavens, severed the path, and resulted in its expulsion from the Hongyuan Great World.