Essence Devouring Art

Time slowly trickled by.

It was the fifth day of Wu Dao’s secluded cultivation.

The Southern Border, which had experienced a brief resurgence, was like a dying patient who, after a few days of renewed vigor, was once again bedridden.

The snow disaster had returned.

And it was far more violent, terrifying, and horrifying than before its brief respite.

Black skies!

Black snow!

Lightning flashed and thunder roared as goose-feather snowflakes fell!

In less than a day, all Thirteen Prefectures of the Southern Border were afflicted.

Black snow blanketed the mountains and fields, stretching to the ends of the earth, a stark contrast against the inky-dark, lightning-filled heavens.

The world looked like a faded old photograph.

Everywhere one looked was ruin and deathly silence.

Rather than the world of the living, it more closely resembled a sunless Abyss of Hell, without a single glimmer of hope.

Fortunately, during the long snow disaster that came before, the Southern Border had already gathered the common folk and implemented a series of disaster relief measures in the major cities.

Although the black snow disaster arrived abruptly, it did not cause any large-scale catastrophes. At most, life simply became harder than before.

But for a disaster of such a scale, affecting the entire world, the common people were just glad to be alive. Whether their lives were hard or not truly no longer mattered.

The populace lamented and cried out in sorrow.

Naturally, the Extraordinary Realm was not faring any better.

A truly shocking piece of news sent the entire Extraordinary Realm into an uproar a few days after the black snow disaster began—

The Celestial Human Path was severed!

Of the three paths of the Human Race, no matter which one a person followed, a Land Immortal’s ascension to a Celestial Being required them to gather Heaven and Earth Attribute Energy and integrate it into the Spiritual Qi, Primordial Qi, or Soldier Qi Sea within their Dantian, until it was all converted into various forms of High-level Attribute Energy.

But ever since the black snow began to fall, the Land Immortals of the Divine Wilderness World discovered to their horror that they could no longer absorb Heaven and Earth Attribute Energy!

Even absorbing normal Extraordinary Energy had become much more difficult. They had to strain with all their might just to draw in a tiny mouthful.

This meant that, from this day forward, becoming a Celestial Being within the Divine Wilderness World would become a thing of the past, just like Divine Techniques!

No!

The situation was even more severe!

It had been a thousand years since the Nine Tribulations. Only in recent times did Divine Techniques truly become a thing of the past, with the path to becoming a Celestial Being rendered impassable.

But now...

The Ten Tribulations hadn’t even officially begun!

And the Celestial Human Path was already severed!

Every path and every realm of cultivation faced unprecedented suppression, making any progress nearly impossible!

The end of the End of the Dharma, the end of the Extraordinary path!

The ancient prophecy was coming true.

This plunged the entire Extraordinary Realm into a state of panic and unease, sparking considerable turmoil and chaos.

Fortunately, the various lands of the Divine Wilderness now had their kings, and the chaos was quickly suppressed by the four Kings and one Emperor.

At the same time, the four Kings and one Emperor also knew that they were running out of time.

The unnatural heavenly and spiritual calamities meant the Great Tribulation might not arrive when they expected. It could very well come early!

If that were to happen...

With the Divine Wilderness’s current strength, with their own current Power, did they truly stand a chance of winning?

Nine Transformations Peak.

It seemed incredibly strong, admittedly.

But they had to understand something.

During the thirty thousand years of the Nine Tribulations, it wasn’t just the cultivators of their era who had focused on internal development when their paths were blocked.

Throughout All Tribulations, in every era, there were always divisions of strength for those who broke through their limits, so-called ”One Step, Two Steps, Three Steps, Four Steps.”

And in the eras that came before, among the countless Celestial Prides and heroes, there was never a shortage of people who had gone further than them.

Not to mention distant history, legend had it that when the Ninth Tribulation descended, the Divine Wilderness had many Fourth Step experts in the realm Above Divine Techniques.

But they still lost.

So what chance did the current Divine Wilderness have, with only a single suspected Fourth Step expert?

How could they fight?

What could they fight with?

Under this unprecedented pressure, the kings who served as the world’s pillars all seemed to have ”gone mad” in the eyes of the public.

Even as the heavenly and spiritual calamities worsened, they paid them no heed. They prepared for war, mobilized all the Power at their disposal, and sharpened their blades, their swords pointed at Dali’s final and most fate-blessed Three Prefectures.

...

「On the tenth day of Wu Dao’s seclusion.」

「Central Plains, Wandeng Prefecture.」

「Within the Wenyuan Pavilion of the Great Li Imperial Capital.」

FLUTTER FLUTTER FLUTTER~

The pages of the one-of-a-kind classic in his hands flipped rapidly.

The Xuanwu Emperor, Zhou Heng, his Essence, Qi, and Spirit worn and weary, read through passages of obscure and difficult scripture. He would periodically pause to mull over their meaning and comprehend their insights.

He was clearly a figure at the Nine Transformations Peak, yet at this moment, he looked as listless as an ordinary scholar who had spent many sleepless nights poring over books, utterly exhausted.

Celestial Treasures are unique.

Their Celestial Treasure Ceremonies are equally strange and varied.

The Celestial Treasure wielded by the Xuanwu Emperor was, just as King Bao Tong had said, indeed the ’Golden House’.

As the name implies, ”in books, one finds houses of gold.”

The ceremony to enhance the Celestial Treasure and have it empower him in return was to read countless volumes and savor the meanings of all kinds of classics.

People often use the phrase ”how much ink is in your belly” to describe a person’s level of scholarship.

In Zhou Heng’s case, the amount of ”ink” he consumed was directly proportional to the amount of Power his Celestial Treasure fed back to him.

This type of ceremony was indeed much simpler and easier than that of most other Celestial Treasure Masters.

But it also had its limitations.

As a Celestial Treasure Master’s perspective broadened and their Power grew, the conditions for completing the ceremony became increasingly demanding.

Take Prince Nanyang, for example.

The Celestial Treasure he possessed was Destiny.

His Celestial Treasure could guide him to find the fated people and items in his life. The process of seeking them out was his Celestial Treasure Ceremony.

His limitation was that the fated people and items guided by his Celestial Treasure might not exist in this World. Even if they did, he might not be able to find them, let alone control them.

Wu Dao was one of the fated people his Celestial Treasure had guided him to, and he was someone Prince Nanyang could not handle.

Zhou Heng’s Golden House was the same.

At his level, the books that could satisfy the Celestial Treasure Ceremony were no longer a matter of quantity. The key was that they had to be specific, designated texts.

Many of these scriptures and classics were texts he had never even heard of before, even back when Dali was still at peace. A worldwide search would fail to find them.