Essence Devouring Art

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH~

The biting wind had lessened, and only a light snow remained. Time waits for no man; the depths of winter had passed.

The catastrophic blizzard that had swept across the Southern Border...

...just as spring was arriving.

Perhaps it was the final flare of a dying candle.

Or perhaps it was the brief calm before the storm.

After five consecutive months of blizzards,

the gloomy sky was finally pierced by long-awaited sunlight. The sun rose in the east, warming the earth, and only scattered snowflakes remained, drifting through the air.

”The harsh winter is over, spring has returned to the land, and our hard days are finally behind us.”

Among the common folk of the Mortal Realm,

ordinary people who had survived the tribulation looked at the rising sun. A genuine smile finally appeared on faces that had been wracked with sorrow for months, for they believed the disaster had passed.

But in the Extraordinary Realm,

the few figures at the apex of the pyramid felt not joy, but a growing sense of dread.

Because...

After the blizzard disaster,

the deathly, oppressive atmosphere between heaven and earth had grown even heavier.

All kinds of Extraordinary Factors were also rapidly diminishing.

The environment for Cultivation was becoming harsher and harsher.

A major sect had conducted a study.

During the five consecutive months of blizzards,

in the entire territory of a Prefecture,

among the newborn children,

fewer than ten possessed a Cultivation Dantian!

This was a Prefecture we’re talking about!

Not a town, not a County, not a commandery.

It was a vast Prefecture that, even affected by war and blizzards,

had seen nearly a hundred thousand births in those five months!

Among one hundred thousand people,

fewer than ten were qualified for Cultivation.

That ratio...

...was frightening.

It could already be described as one in ten thousand.

You have to understand,

before the blizzard,

the ratio was still, on average, one in several thousand.

A single blizzard,

and it had plummeted so drastically.

It wasn’t hard to imagine

that in the remaining six months,

the situation would only continue to worsen,

until the very foundation of Cultivation in the Divine Wilderness was completely severed.

Even more seriously...

It might even be as those at the Absolute Peak, the Great Divine Power Users, had speculated.

If they failed this tribulation as well,

the Divine Wilderness would truly become an End of Dharma World, and the Extraordinary would vanish from this World entirely.

This matter caused considerable panic within the cultivation world.

Even cultivators at the four stages of Foundation Establishment, who had just begun their journey by tempering their bodies,

could clearly feel

that cultivation was becoming increasingly difficult.

Even with ample resources,

it was as if their bodies were bound by layer after layer of shackles. Every step forward was like carving a road out of a mountain—each inch a struggle.

As for those cultivators who had passed the body-tempering stage

and had begun constructing the Celestial Human Bridge to absorb the Heaven and Earth’s Extraordinary Factors,

the feeling was even more pronounced.

If absorbing the Heaven and Earth Energy before was like gulping down water like a whale,

then after the great blizzard,

it had become like sucking on a tiny straw, mustering all their strength just to get a single sip. One could only imagine the difficulty.

Lower-level cultivators, unaware of the truth, were terrified,

believing only that the Dharma Decline Era had well and truly arrived.

They knew nothing of the Great Tribulation.

To avoid panic,

after every tribulation,

all information regarding it would be erased and concealed by the top Extraordinary Influences of the era.

Only a select few

knew the truth of the matter.

”Man cannot live without fortune, nor can the heavens exist without their dao. This tribulation... it’s truly trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

「On the Southern Border Front.」

Inside the temporary Prince’s Mansion in Puyang Prefecture,

Prince Nanyang stared at the azure-and-gray sky with his deep, star-like eyes.

From his perspective,

he could see the multicolored fortunes of all living beings in heaven and earth converging like currents drawn into a sea eye, flowing toward an unknown place.

As for that unknown place...

The Dragon Mud Cave Heaven!

For thirty thousand years, across Nine Tribulations,

whenever a Great Tribulation occurred, the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven would manifest in the world, becoming a sea-eye black hole that would devour all the fortune in the Divine Wilderness World.

It was the graveyard of the Divine Wilderness eras.

And a Creation Land for the All Heavens beyond the Divine Wilderness.

At the same time...

It was also the sliver of hope the Great Dao gave to the living beings of the Divine Wilderness.

A hope that wasn’t truly hope.

Because,

no one who had ever grasped this sliver of hope had ever truly escaped the Great Tribulation.

WHOOSH~

Exhaling a turbid breath,

Prince Nanyang closed his eyes, activated his Celestial Treasure Divine Techniques, and, as was his custom, began to divine Wu Dao’s fate and whereabouts.

It had been four months

since Wu Dao’s disappearance.

During these four months,

Prince Nanyang had periodically divined Wu Dao’s situation.

Though the information was sparse,

he could at least confirm that Wu Dao was still in the Divine Wilderness, was in no mortal danger, and was, in fact, growing stronger.

The Great Tribulation was imminent.

Any potential ally

was a crucial bargaining chip for the Divine Wilderness.

Therefore, ever since he had come to know Wu Dao, Prince Nanyang had held him in high regard and had great expectations for him.

Otherwise,

he would never have placed the Bai Ze Bureau—an organization crucial for stabilizing the rear—into Wu Dao’s hands as a high-stakes investment.

And Wu Dao had not disappointed him.

Though not a Celestial Treasure Master, he was greater than one.

In less than a year,

he had accomplished what countless prodigies and geniuses couldn’t achieve in centuries.

Sometimes,

Prince Nanyang even suspected...

Could it be...

...that when things reach an extreme, they reverse? That after the worst comes the best?

Could it be that the Celestial Dao of the Divine Wilderness, seeking to save itself, had given birth to a monster like Wu Dao?

But then he thought of the Great Dao that had caused all the tribulations,

and he shook his head with a wry smile.

Even if the Divine Wilderness World had a spirit of the Celestial Dao,

it was likely obliterated by the Great Dao during the Initial Tribulation.

WHOOSH~

A warm breeze sent flurries of melting snow into the air.

Beside the gradually thawing lake pavilion,

Prince Nanyang divined for a moment, but his brow furrowed. Then, his brow slowly relaxed, his eyes filled with an expression that was hard to define as either admiration or astonishment.

The reason for his reaction

was that he could no longer divine Wu Dao’s path of fate.

In the unseen world,

Wu Dao’s fate seemed to have become a bottomless Abyss, an endless Sea of Suffering. To even touch it was to risk plunging into the Abyss and being trapped in the Sea of Suffering.

’Fate is decreed by heaven,’

’but fortune is forged by oneself.’

Before a living being’s fate reaches its decreed end, it is not immutable.

Chance encounters, the ups and downs of life,

all manner of joys and sorrows, tribulations and creations, and all of life’s experiences—they all cause one’s fate to change in unpredictable ways.

The most direct change

is the proportion of space a living being occupies in the world.

The stronger an individual life is,

the greater its influence on the structure of heaven and earth.

Some beings,

after reaching a certain height,

can determine the future direction of an entire world with just the fluctuations of their fate.

The fate of such a being

is naturally not something one can scry at will.

Although Wu Dao had not yet reached that level,

the recent divination

still gave Prince Nanyang the feeling of trying to see flowers in a fog—elusive and ever-changing.

If he were to try and force the observation,

Prince Nanyang could faintly sense a trace of danger.

It was highly likely he would suffer a backlash.

”What in the world did he experience in such a short time? How could he have grown so much in such a harsh environment?”

Prince Nanyang’s eyes flickered as he murmured to himself.

The Celestial Treasure he possessed, ’Destiny’,

could divine some information about the future of noble people and precious treasures.

With the enhancement of his Life Return Divine Techniques,

he could divine all sorts of information, as long as the target was not in the same league as himself.

His inability to divine detailed information about Wu Dao

could only mean one thing.

Wu Dao was already approaching his level.

In just four short months!

’How did he do it? And what did he go through?’

...

「Southern Border Territory, Boundless Gobi Desert.」

Eighteen thousand, five hundred meters up in the sky.

Within the pure gray Celestial Thunder and Gang Wind Sea Eye,

the Glazed Body, which had shattered countless times, reassembled itself once more.

This time,

the Celestial Thunder Gang Wind could no longer destroy his physical body. It could only inflict some superficial wounds, leaving behind a translucent, crystalline skeleton.

Within a few breaths,

flesh and blood had already grown back over the skeleton.

Clearly,

the Celestial Punishment at eighteen thousand, five hundred meters

no longer posed a threat to this physical body.

At the same time,

within the body that had been dead silent for four months,

a spark of Spirituality, like an undying flame, finally appeared.

WHOOSH~

Exhaling a turbid breath,

Wu Dao slowly opened his eyes, which were as dark as the Abyss.

There was no humanity in them.

Nor was there a shred of emotion.

Within his eyes,

the Endless Sea of Suffering churned.

Scenes of boundless, worldly despair rose and fell with the waves.

Beneath the Sea of Suffering,

an endless Abyss Prison of Purgatory rumbled and turned, punishing and extinguishing all living things.

He was like a Divine Spirit who had forged a Golden Body and walked out of the Mud Prison Abyss and the Endless Sea of Suffering.

His gaze encompassed everything in the world.

The trials of life and death, the seven passions and six desires, the myriad states of all living beings...

To him,

none of it had any meaning.

None of it could stir the slightest change in his heart.

This was divinity!

If he were to walk the world possessing this divinity,

no tribulation or hardship could stop his steps toward forging a divine body.

But...

RUMBLE!

The Mud Prison Abyss collapsed.

The Endless Sea of Suffering shattered.

Humanity ultimately triumphed over divinity.

He had, in the end, found himself again.

He had not lost himself in that lofty divinity that looked down upon all living things.

The prerequisite for controlling Power

is always to first master oneself.

A cold, puppet-like vessel of Power.

No matter how powerful the path ahead might be,

he didn’t want it.

”Mud... Prison... Abyss... The... Boundless Sea of Suffering.”

A weathered, hoarse murmur sounded,

word by word,

as if an ancient man, silent for countless ages,

had finally spoken again.

His speech was stiff and unfamiliar,

only becoming fluent and natural toward the end.

”I will find them, and I will find you!”

A volcano, suppressed for a myriad of ages,

had just released a few embers,

yet it was enough to burn away the surrounding chaotic Sea of Celestial Punishment. The Celestial Thunder Gang Wind retreated a great distance, as if in the presence of a descending God and Demon.

Fortunately,

this indescribable abyssal pressure,

along with the inner fire Wu Dao suppressed,

quickly subsided into calm.

Closing his eyes, he focused his mind and guarded his spirit.

Wu Dao began the process of harmonizing his soul and body.

After being ’away from home’ for ’countless ages,’

his spirit and flesh felt slightly alien to each other, showing signs of rejection.

A minor problem.

Nothing worth mentioning.

A few insignificant days later,

spirit and flesh merged completely, becoming inseparable.

Wu Dao had finally come back to life.

WHOOSH—

He took a deep breath.

Vivid sensations.

A tangible reality.

The eternally dim world was finally illuminated by light,

allowing him to break free from illusion

and return to the real.

”Four months...”

he murmured to himself.

After determining the passage of time through the changes in his body,

Wu Dao opened his attribute panel and calmly examined the skyrocketing stats—

[Physique: Peak of Human Extremes]

[Extraordinary: Essence Devouring Art (97% Potential Release) +

Three-Phase Divine Punishment Fist - 20,000 Years (Seventh Transformation of Fist Momentum) +

Undying Transformation - 20,000 Years (Horizontal Refining Ninth Gate, Eighteen Extreme Yang Heavens, Minor Achievement) +]

[Great Divine Techniques:

Primordial Magnetic Gang Shield, Primordial Magnetic Celestial Saber, Ten Directions Divine Slaughter, Primordial Magnetic Tribulation Finger, Celestial Essence Magnetic Burst Fist, Primordial Magnetic Celestial Prison Cage, Primordial Magnetic Demon Embryo, Black Tortoise Incarnation.]

[Great All Heavens Divine Techniques: Reversed Celestial Spirit (Seventh Transformation) +]

[Teleportation Points: 100,080]

Between life-and-death tribulations,

there is great terror, but also great Creation.

The unknown, mysterious old monster

had trapped Wu Dao for ’four months’.

During those four months,

his soul had endured countless tortures in the eighteen levels of the Mud Prison Abyss and experienced an unknown number of desperate, suffering lives in the Endless Sea of Suffering.

Although it wasn’t a true Soul Refining Tribulation,

the tempering and torture it inflicted on his willpower still surpassed anything a mortal creature could imagine.