Essence Devouring Art

The Demon Suppression Emperor had returned.

Besides the Five Emperors and One King, no one else in the world was alerted.

In the time that followed, the Demon Suppression Emperor made no appearance in the mortal realm. He seemed to be lying dormant, gathering his strength and waiting for the storm to break, and thus had little impact on the state of the Divine Wilderness.

If there was one change, it was that the demonic nature of his former corpse, kept within the Da Li Imperial Palace, suddenly vanished one day.

It was as if an invisible hand had erased it.

This brought Zhou Heng, who had been fraught with worry, to tears of gratitude. He knelt in the Grand Ancestral Temple, kowtowing endlessly.

Time slowly passed.

In the blink of an eye, nearly another month had passed.

”ARGH! DAMN IT! I was so close, so close!”

On this day, a crazed roar from the Guiyu Emperor echoed from the depths of the Imperial Palace in the Northern Lands’ Yellow Springs Country—a place as grim and ghastly as a living hell.

He was not the only one.

The emperors of the other lands, including Chenjing Emperor, opened their eyes with unwilling resignation, feeling their nations’ fate draining away.

And after their nations’ fate began to dissipate, all manner of disasters arose within their lands.

Their faces were etched with deep, unshakable worry.

The day had finally come.

The Dragon Mud Cave Heaven had opened, devouring the last vestiges of the Divine Wilderness’s worldly fate.

A person cannot live without fate.

The same was true for all things that existed, from the world to its nations.

From this day forward, all kinds of disasters would strike without warning, annihilating countless lives.

The Extraordinary Factors between heaven and earth would also gradually fade away until the Path of Transcendence was severed completely.

On this very same day, in the sky above the boundless golden sea of the Western Desert, ten great suns of wind and thunder spat out black lightning and astral winds. They hung in the Sky Dome, transforming the world into a black purgatory.

”Hahaha, I’ve finally done it!”

At 17,999 meters up in the Sky Dome, Lu Hongye’s pores spewed Essence Qi like a roiling sea. Above his head, ten great suns of wind and thunder, each orbited by a black Qilin, spun like a halo. He looked like the Thunder God incarnate as he took a single step forward, crossing into the 18,000-meter domain of gray astral winds and Celestial Thunder.

This also meant that after tearfully consuming the Essence Blood of one Great Demon after another and enduring daily celestial thunderstrikes, his physical body had finally entered the ranks of the Horizontal Refining Ninth Gate.

”This little achievement has already made you this smug?” Celestial King Laozi sneered. ”If you weren’t relying on the support of your Ninth Transformation Divine Techniques and the Celestial Treasure Nourishing Body, do you think you could have ever stepped into this domain?”

”Don’t forget, that monster Wu Dao had reached the Eight Daoist Sects with his physical body alone before he was even a Great Divine Power User. The Nine Daoist Sects will only be more monstrous. You’re still a long way off.”

”I’ve told you a thousand times, don’t mention that monster!”

Lu Hongye’s face darkened. The joy from achieving the Dual Dao Nine Transformations was instantly soured by Celestial King Laozi’s words, turning into pure frustration.

’He was a demon, not a monster. Comparing himself to a monster is just asking for humiliation.’

Throughout his long, life-and-death tempering, Lu Hongye had come to a realization.

’Grudges and battles are meaningless. Only by constantly strengthening myself can I walk the true path of the strong.’

’If I can’t beat Wu Dao, then I’ll just compete with myself. Making progress every day—that is the greatest achievement.’

’In other words, if I can’t afford to provoke him, can’t I at least hide from him?’

’There’s no shame in retreating in the face of difficulty, in avoiding the brunt of his force.’

’The real shame is not knowing your place, overestimating yourself, and getting yourself killed like an idiot.’

BOOM—RUMBLE!!

Just as the Saint King and Celestial King Laozi were bickering, a shattering roar, as if space, time, heaven, and earth had collided and cracked open, suddenly resounded in the souls of all living beings, creating monstrous waves in the seas of their minds.

’This is...’

Lu Hongye was startled. Realizing what was happening, he gazed toward the distant horizon.

He saw that along with that terrifying roar, deep in the Western Desert, where the Daqian Country’s Central Imperial Capital—a place where the Human Dao converged—was located, the Sky Dome had exploded, revealing a jagged, pitch-black fissure that stretched for hundreds of miles.

It was like the gaping maw of an Ancient Fierce Beast.

In a way that mortals could not perceive, it frantically devoured the fate of Daqian, causing all sorts of natural and earthly disasters to erupt across the land, leaving devastation in its wake.

Within that great fissure, terrifying thunderbolts and astral winds raged, and bizarre, phantasmagorical scenes unfolded in its depths.

It seemed to connect to another world.

”Damn it, how did the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven open so quickly!”

Celestial King Laozi stared at the terrifying fissure in the Sky Dome above the center of Daqian Country, his expression ugly with shock and anger.

As someone from six or seven hundred years ago, a figure from not long after the Nine Tribulations had passed, he naturally knew many secrets of the Great Tribulation that other cultivators did not.

Once the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven opened, within a few months at most, the Tribulation Descenders from beyond the Divine Wilderness would emerge from it to descend upon this cage of a world and feast.

Heaven and earth were like a prison.

Once that time came, there would be nowhere to hide.

The Great Tribulation would not end until the world’s most powerful experts had been plundered and squeezed dry in every sense of the word.

And this tribulation, judging from the ever-worsening Dao calamities that preceded it, would likely be even more severe—perhaps even an apocalyptic disaster!

The entire Divine Wilderness World would probably be devoured, leaving not a single scrap behind!

”Right now, I’m only at the Second Step at best. If the Great Tribulation fully descends... damn it!”

Lu Hongye’s expression turned grim as well.

Faced with a crisis of life and death, his recent thoughts of abandoning conflict and bloodshed instantly felt like bullshit. He couldn’t stop crazed ideas from bubbling up in his mind.

”Don’t dwell on it. With the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven open, all Great Divine Power Users should be able to enter and seek their own Creation.”

Celestial King Laozi’s expression calmed, and he took a deep breath before continuing, ”The Dragon Mud Cave Heaven has gathered the Divine Wilderness’s fate from an entire tribulation period. Where fate converges, treasures of the era are born. Some are so incredible they can defy heaven and change one’s destiny.”

”This is the last sliver of hope for the Extraordinary beings of the Divine Wilderness. If you’re lucky enough to find an extraordinary Supreme Treasure, you might just ascend to the heavens in a single step!”

’Ascend to the heavens in a single step...’

A sharp light glinted in Lu Hongye’s eyes. He, of course, understood the weight of the Creations within the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven. Without further hesitation, he concealed his Demon Qi and sped toward Daqian.

Throughout All Tribulations, the passage into the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven only opens to the Divine Wilderness for a single day when it first appears.

Once missed, there is no second chance to enter.

It was not just Lu Hongye and his companions.

With the opening of the Dragon Mud Cave Heaven, Great Divine Power Users from all lands, whether reclusive or not, were all stirred into action.

With a myriad of complex emotions, they all rushed toward the spatial-temporal fissures located at the core of their respective nations’ fate.

「In Da Li’s Celestial Fate County.」

Deep within a certain mountain forest, inside a sea of bamboo that stood in stark contrast to the surrounding bleak landscape of frozen ground and withered life, smoke curled up from a chimney.

The simple life of the mortal world.

BOOM—

The roar that resounded through heaven, earth, and all living beings caused a hale and hearty old man—with a full head of white hair, plain gray clothes, and an unremarkable appearance—to put down the fire poker he was holding.

His slightly cloudy eyes gazed into the distance through the bamboo window, and a flash of divine golden light flickered in their depths before vanishing.

”A pity. It is useless now.”

He shook his head and sighed.

The old man withdrew his gaze, added a few more sticks of firewood to the stove, and tottered back to his bamboo chair, which creaked as it rocked gently.

GURGLE~

The wild vegetable congee in the pot began to steam.

A light, fragrant aroma of porridge filled the kitchen.

RUSTLE RUSTLE~

The sea of bamboo swayed gracefully.

Its beautiful notes intertwined, causing the old man’s eyes to fall half-closed as he enjoyed the simple pleasures of the mortal world, his expression one of complete contentment.

’Even the greatest Supreme Treasure is of no use to me now. It can’t compare to the two bowls of simple congee in the pot, much less to this vibrant and colorful mortal world.’

Only a human could truly experience the joys and sorrows of the wonderful mortal world.

Therefore, the old man had left his statue-like form and returned to being an ordinary mortal.

He cherished the last traces of mortal life he could feel through the most mundane of existences.

...

RUMBLE—

The sound of the heavens collapsing thundered across the Divine Wilderness, echoing through the eight extremes and Ten Directions, audible even from the farthest reaches.

In the outer Sky Dome.

Nineteen thousand meters high!

Within a world of pure white Celestial Punishment, the thunderous astral winds seemed to have turned into a flowing slurry. A single strand, a single drop falling into the mortal realm could cause a catastrophe.

Gathered together like a sea, its Mighty Power was unimaginable.

An ordinary expert at the limit of the Ninth Transformation would be ground into dust upon entry, utterly annihilated.

But within this very forbidden zone of terror, a magnificent human form, seemingly constructed from countless specks of starlight, was gradually taking shape. With every collision of blood, bone, and flesh, the roars of Sacred Beasts from the Primordial Chaos echoed forth.

The pressure belonging to an Ancestral Sacred Spirit was almost tangible.

It swept across the wilderness in all directions, intimidating thousands of races into stillness, as if they were congratulating and welcoming the birth of a Sacred Spirit.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH~

CRACKLE—

And that was not all.

All the various Magnetic Fields within a radius of several thousand miles, as the figure on the Sky Dome Peak coalesced, began to swarm and converge like pilgrims on a journey or young swallows returning to their nest.

Heaven and earth were thrown into chaos. Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind raged, and a kaleidoscope of colors flickered, creating all sorts of spectacular magnetic phenomena.

VMMMM~

The primordial chaos in the world did not last long.

It was pierced by eighteen blazing great suns that seemed to be formed from the convergence of countless starlights. In an instant, several thousand miles of the world transformed into a cosmic expanse, a starry sky that shimmered with an ethereal, dreamlike glow.

In the deepest part of that starry sky, white, black, and gray—three colossal Shadows of Gods and Demons manifested.

Their spines held up the cosmos, their feet suppressed the boundless earth.

Celestial Thunder, Nirvana, and the Sea of Suffering.

Heaven, earth, and humanity.

The three supreme powers of calamitous punishment evolved into three ominous, rumbling worlds within the starry sky. The moment the Gods and Demons opened their eyes to gaze upon the world, it was as if the end had come. The destiny of all things, all beings, and all existence had reached its final point.

HUUFF~

Within the world of pure white Celestial Punishment, a breath of turbid starlight fire was exhaled.

The figure woven from starlight fully solidified, and all the various phenomena in the world flowed back like a thousand rivers into the sea, returning to the Heaven-Supporting Physique and vanishing without a trace.