Essence Devouring Art

Lancang County City.

Headquarters of the Overlord Whale Alliance, the Council Hall.

The grand hall was dim.

Tears and snot streaming down his face, Zhao Jianji ran in with one bare foot. He hastily adjusted his attire and was about to pay his respects.

”Your subordinate greets the Alliance Leader... May the Alliance Leader live for a thousand generations, unify the... urk.”

But his eyes fell upon the far end of the shadowy hall.

Upon the Overlord Whale Throne sat a magnificent figure, poised and steady, at once familiar and yet utterly alien.

All his words.

Died in his throat.

Impossibly ancient, weathered by countless ages.

He seemed like a traveler who had strode forth from the dawn of time.

A traveler who had crossed to the very end of time before returning, step by step, to the present.

His eyes were deeper than darkness itself.

The moment his placid gaze landed on you...

It was as if a Nine Nether Demon God had opened its eyes, as if the Celestial Vault Saint Buddha was looking down from the heavens.

One felt their very soul being dragged into the myriad realms of Hell, feeling as insignificant as a speck of dust.

One dared not look at him directly, dared not speculate about him, dared not profane his presence.

Within one’s consciousness,

all that remained was that omnipresent, all-encompassing,

ineffable, magnificent light of a God and Demon.

’This is troublesome...’

Wu Dao gazed down at the motionless Zhao Jianji, whose eyes were hollow and vacant. Frowning slightly, he once again reined in the activity of his Spiritual Consciousness.

His body slain countless times in Nirvana.

Tossed in the Sea of Suffering for uncounted years.

These experiences had forged a cold divinity within his soul—one unmoved by calamity, unstained by worldly phenomena, a divinity that gazed down from on high, encompassing all.

He could suppress this divinity.

But only enough to keep it from affecting himself.

If an ordinary person were to behold him,

it would still be like gazing upon a God and Demon.

At best, they would fall to their knees in worship. At worst, they would utterly renounce their own reason for existence, losing their heart and soul.

To completely erase the divinity’s influence on the outside world...

...was something that not even an eternity could easily achieve.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP~

With a mere thought,

Wu Dao activated the Primordial Magnetic Demon Embryo within Zhao Jianji’s heart. It pumped his stagnant qi and blood, releasing a gentle, warm aura to wash over his hollowed soul.

”GASP... GASP... GASP...”

With the help of the Primordial Magnetic Demon Embryo,

Zhao Jianji finally broke free of the divinity’s influence. Like a man saved from drowning, he took huge gulps of fresh air, his eyes filled with terror and lingering dread.

’The Wu Dao of today...’

’...is simply too terrifying.’

’I only glanced at him once,’

’and it felt like my soul was plummeting into the Sea of Suffering in Hell.’

’Under the gaze of a God and Demon,’

’a person becomes infinitely small,’

’unable to find any meaning in their existence.’

’If Wu Dao hadn’t saved me,’

’my Spiritual Consciousness would have been lost entirely.’

”Rise. Tell me of the major events that have occurred in the world during my absence. Speak of everything, no matter how trivial.”

Wu Dao’s deep gaze was serene. His imposing frame sat poised upon the throne in the darkness as he spoke with detached indifference, looking down from on high.

”Yes!”

Zhao Jianji shivered, now fully lucid. He immediately straightened his back, like a loyal soldier standing for inspection.

Although the ineffable, magnificent aura emanating from Wu Dao was still too terrifying to look at directly,

it was far more restrained than it had been just moments before.

Despite the pressure that had him breaking out in a sweat,

Zhao Jianji began to recount, in great detail, everything that had happened in the Great Li Empire, the Southern Border, and the Overlord Whale Alliance during the four months of Wu Dao’s absence.

First,

was the matter of the ”harvest,” which Wu Dao was most concerned about.

During the four months of his disappearance,

Prince Nanyang had not gone back on his word.

The Bai Ze Bureau continued to operate in his service.

With the aid of the heavenly Magnetic Field network covering all human settlements in the Southern Border,

within the Thirteen Prefectures of the South Border,

the moment any Alien Species revealed themselves,

none could escape capture by the Overlord Whale Alliance and the Bai Ze Bureau.

Over the four months,

they had accumulated a large number of various Alien Species.

Since Wu Dao was not present,

these Alien Species

had all been imprisoned by the Bai Ze Bureau’s Immortal Dao Formation masters in a Demon Suppression Prison constructed beneath the headquarters.

Well...

In truth, it was more of a granary.

Whenever Wu Dao returned,

it would be ready to serve.

Next was the war between the four regions and the Central Plains.

Over the four months,

although various natural disasters had ravaged the lands,

this was an Extraordinary World.

Manpower could resist the heavens’ wrath.

The disasters did not have a major impact on the home fronts.

Furthermore, with the Great Tribulation drawing near,

all beings were scrambling for survival.

On the front lines of the four regions,

the war between the various kings and the Central Plains was like oil poured on a raging fire; the smoke of battle grew thicker with each passing day.

In this ”trapped beast” scenario,

the Great Li Empire’s disadvantage of being isolated and without aid was rapidly magnified by the intensifying war.

The Central Plains had always been the place where the world’s fortune converged, the prime land for cultivation, home to exceptional people and spiritual ground. Its overall Extraordinary standard was higher than the other four regions.

Its accumulated foundation was unfathomably deep.

But no matter how deep,

it couldn’t withstand being constantly depleted.

During the war of attrition before these four months,

the Great Li Empire had to support armies on four fronts.

Its ordinary provisions and mid-tier Extraordinary Resources

were almost completely depleted.

To continue forcibly maintaining such an army

would have incurred the wrath of both heaven and its people.

This led to a situation where,

after the armies of the four regions withdrew,

the Great Li Empire could no longer afford to support its low-level soldiers.

Not to mention the suppression from the Great Dao.

Absorbing the world’s Extraordinary Energy had become immensely more difficult than before.

Innate cultivators and Celestial Beings below the Fifth Floor,

after fighting a single battle,

required a long time to recover what they had expended before they could return to the fray.

It could be said they had become completely useless on the battlefield.

The consequence was,

the Great Li Empire could no longer defend its last remaining territories.

In previous wars,

although low-level soldiers were weak,

both sides had abided by the unspoken rule of ”soldiers fight soldiers, and generals fight generals.”

Capturing territory and defending cities

relied almost entirely on these rank-and-file soldiers.

Peak Celestial Beings and Divine Ability Users

mostly acted as deterrents and rarely made a move.

After losing its conventional army,

every battle became a direct confrontation between kings.

One can only imagine the Great Li Empire’s predicament.

They employed a war of attrition.

The strong ganged up on the weak.

The rested attacked the weary.

No matter how deep one’s foundation,

no matter how many Divine Ability Users one possessed,

a single region could never stand against the combined might of four.

In just two short months,

of the Nine Prefectures the Great Li Empire had remaining,

a total of

four were lost.

Two months after that, another two prefectures fell.

As of today,

the only territories still under Great Li control,

aside from Wandeng Prefecture where the Imperial City is located,

are the Long Abyss and Guangdao Two Prefectures, which serve as its shield.

It is worth mentioning

that five days before Wu Dao’s revival and return was the day the Great Li Empire lost those two prefectures.

That battle was earth-shattering.

Nearly all the top Celestial Beings and Divine Ability Users from both sides participated.

It is said that the last Great Emperor of the Great Li Empire, Zhou Heng, personally made a move, fighting a battle against the King of the Living Prison from the Northern Lands, Zhou Prison, in the void outside the world.

The outcome is unknown.

Some say Zhou Heng won,

because the King of the Living Prison returned from the battle wounded.

Others say it was a pyrrhic victory for the King of the Living Prison.

Otherwise,

the Northern Lands would not have been able to seize the Great Li Empire’s northern territory.

But as for who truly won or lost,

only a select few at the level of the King of the Living Prison would know.

After all,

others didn’t even have the right to witness the fight.

Besides the spectacular battle between the King of the Living Prison and Zhou Heng,

in that war,

the Great Li Empire finally revealed some of its ultimate hidden strength.

From within the Imperial Court

and several of the leading Holy Lands of the Central Plains’ cultivation world,

three Peak Masters who had once dominated their respective eras emerged, clashing with Prince Nanyang and the other two of the Three Kings in the void.

Below the Absolute Peak,

a number of figures who had long since disappeared from the world also made their appearance.

Unfortunately...

Regardless of the outcomes of these one-on-one battles,

that war...

The Great Li Empire still lost.

It was forced into a full retreat to its last Three Prefectures.

In a sense,

it had reached the end of its rope. The momentum was lost.

Perhaps in a few months,

or even just one,

the Great Li Empire, which had ruled this land for five to six hundred years, would be reduced to a mere footnote in history.

’The Four Kings... Zhou Heng... the Great Li Ancestor... the Ninth Transformation...’

Wu Dao listened quietly to Zhao Jianji’s report, his fingers tapping gently on the armrest as a ripple of emotion flickered in his eyes.

’After the Nine Tribulations,’

’the Great Dao’s suppression lowered the upper limit of cultivation to the Ninth Transformation of Great Divine Techniques.’

’With no path forward,’

’over the course of a thousand years,’

’this peak realm of the Ninth Transformation’

’was expanded upon again and again by the Nine-Transformed of every generation, widening the gap between them and those who came after.’

’In a way,’

’it could even be considered a completely new realm within the system of Divine Techniques.’

’This realm’

’was a different world from everything that came before the Ninth Transformation. There was no such thing as being on the same level with negligible differences in power.’

’Between one who has just entered the realm and a Peak Master,’

’the gap in their power’

’is immense.’

’If that weren’t the case,’

’the Saint Elephant Ancestor would not have been so utterly powerless against Prince Nanyang at the battle of Mingquan Pass.’

’What step of the Ninth Transformation have the Four Kings reached?’

’And that Demon Suppression Emperor, who has been plotting his ”Divinity Transformation” for hundreds of years... what step is he at?’

’How big is the gap between them and me now?’

’I failed all Nine Tribulations!’

’Just how powerful will the enemy of the impending Ten Tribulations be?’

HUUUU...

He let out a slow breath,

suppressing the turbulent thoughts in his mind.

’No need to rush...’

’There’s still plenty of time.’

The light in Wu Dao’s eyes calmed, and he continued listening to Zhao Jianji’s report.

Besides the war on the front lines,

something else had occurred within the Southern Border

that piqued Wu Dao’s interest—

The Saint King had reappeared!

And on the very day of the recent great battle, no less.

That bastard was incredibly vicious and cunning.

He took advantage of the Southern Border’s main forces being locked in combat with the Central Plains to emerge and stir up trouble, and he caused quite a scene.

But what surprised Wu Dao was,

the Saint King didn’t emerge this time to gather believers, nor did he go on a rampage of slaughter.

On the contrary,

this time he appeared,

he only did one thing—

Robbery!

And he didn’t even rob some Holy Land.

He targeted a first-rate Martial Dao Sect in the Southern Border and dug up their ancestral tombs.

Fortunately,

stationed in Zige Mountain and Martial King Mountain, guarding the Southern Border’s rear, there were still a few reclusive Great Divine Power Users who had not gone to the front lines.

They rushed to the scene immediately.

Unfortunately,

during this time,

the Saint King had already become a formidable force.

With his strength at the Divine Power Six Transformations, coupled with a Celestial Treasure, he was no longer someone who could be easily suppressed.

Moreover,

the bastard didn’t stick around to fight.

After digging up the sect’s ancestral tombs, he ceased his rampage.

He fought as he retreated,

and ultimately disappeared into the vast expanse of the world beyond.

’To risk life and limb and expose himself,’

’just to dig up the ancestral tombs of a first-rate sect.’

’What is that guy thinking?’

’Could it be the Celestial King...’

At this thought,

Wu Dao asked, ”Did the sect report anything missing afterward?”

’The Celestial King may be weak,’

’but he was still a genius blessed with immense fortune in the Southern Border during the Warring States Era seven hundred years ago.’

’He must know’

’what secrets lie buried beneath this land.’

’After joining forces with the Saint King,’

’there’s no doubt about it.’

’Given his weakness, he must have been manipulated into becoming one of the Saint King’s believers, his memories plundered so the Saint King could claim his hidden treasures.’

’What kind of treasure, hidden within a mere first-rate sect,’

’could possibly tempt the Saint King?’

”Well...”

Zhao Jianji’s expression was a little strange. ”This subordinate has heard that he stole the corpse of an ancestor from a thousand years ago, one who walked the Transverse Refining Dao, from the sect’s Ancestral Land.”

’The corpse of a Transverse Refining ancestor?’

Wu Dao was slightly taken aback.

’Could there be some incredible Transverse Refining Technique hidden within the corpse?’

’Does the Saint King intend to cultivate two Daos simultaneously?’

’To strengthen his own foundation?’

’It’s possible.’

The Transverse Refining Technique, which tempers the physical body, can be practiced by any being with a physical form.

At the Saint King’s level,

his physical body is already extremely powerful, even without having practiced any Transverse Cultivation. He wouldn’t need to start from the beginning.

If he could get his hands on a decent Horizontal Refining Technique, his combat ability against those in the same realm would certainly increase dramatically.

The Celestial King

possessed a Technique for the Horizontal Refining Eighth Gate, but the Eighth Daoist Sect is hardly worth a second glance for a Great Divine Power User.

If the Saint King truly was after a Transverse Refining inheritance,

it was very likely a Transverse Refining Technique that reached all the way to the Ninth Daoist Sect.

At this thought,

Wu Dao’s interest was piqued. ”What was that sect ancestor’s title? What technique did he cultivate in life? Is there any intelligence on him?”

Zhao Jianji thought for a moment and replied,

”Reporting to the Alliance Leader, it’s said his title in life was Venerable Qilin, and he cultivated a form of Transverse Cultivation related to Thunder Techniques. However, he was struck dead by Celestial Thunder when he forcefully drew it down to temper his body while trying to break through to the Eighth Daoist Sect.”