Essence Devouring Art

Burial Realm.

A hell of crimson, a sea of black mountains.

CAW CAW CAW—

Over a trillion li from Luoxian Ridge.

Demon Beast Blood Crows circled, their eyes glowing like small lanterns as they stared down at Jiang Han, who lay sleeping on the mountaintop. His Red Sun Daoist Robe was in tatters, and his brow was tightly furrowed.

WHOOSH!

Just as the Blood Crows were about to make their move, Jiang Han shot up as if startled from a nightmare. His first instinct was to scan his surroundings and assess his safety.

’Low-level Blood Crows.’

’No threat.’

’And no Burial Realm Scavengers at the edge of my perception.’

’Safe.’

’But...’

Jiang Han’s perception swept across his body and Grotto Heaven. Both were vigorous and hale, showing no signs of damage. A short, green blade floated serenely within his Grotto Heaven, emanating the might of a Sacred Artifact.

’Better than ever before.’

He had even obtained the Divine-Eroding Blade, a Sacred Artifact from the mysterious power in Luoxian Ridge.

’Wait...’

’A mysterious power?’

Jiang Han was suddenly alarmed, an involuntary chill running through him. Yet when he scoured his Divine Soul, he could find no information whatsoever about that power.

He quickly replayed his memories.

In his final moments.

He had detonated the Celestial Thunder Array at Luoxian Ridge, annihilating all his enemies. In the process, he himself had nearly been wiped from existence.

As he was on the verge of his body and Dao perishing,

a lingering will of an ancient expert had emerged from the deepest part of Luoxian Ridge. It had taken him as a disciple, gifting him the Sacred Artifact, the Divine-Eroding Blade, and...

HUMMM~

Within his Sea of Divine Soul,

a ball of light containing the mysteries of endless Dao Talismans suddenly exploded. The immense flood of information made Jiang Han’s Divine Soul ache in protest.

But what followed,

was enough to make even Jiang Han, with his will of tempered steel honed over centuries, lose his composure. He was utterly aghast—

’The Exquisite Method!’

’The complete, fundamental version of the Heaven-Stealing Technique!’

’It turns the mediocre into geniuses, and geniuses into monsters!’

’It lets you plunder the very source of others to enhance your own potential, with zero side effects! It even lets you bypass the limits of the Three Dantians to cultivate the Divine Techniques of multiple paths, replicate the techniques of others, and become a monster among monsters!’

’Such incredible fortune!’

’A truly heaven-defying stroke of fortune!’

Jiang Han’s breath grew ragged, his eyes turning crimson. He fought the urge to throw his head back and roar, ’Today, the sleeping dragon finally meets the rain! It will now soar to the ninth heaven on a path of clouds!’

No one is born a monster.

He too was once a passionate youth with a sincere heart, but a spirit that refused to accept a mediocre, ordinary life pushed him, step by step, down the path of an Evil Demon.

Even after several hundred years,

he could never forget the day his clan tested his Dantian, when he learned that he would be stuck at the Qi Refining stage for his entire life.

He could never forget the condescending, superior stares of those around him, nor the inner torment that felt like death by a thousand cuts.

Mortals seek long life; Immortals seek the Great Dao.

He had glimpsed the light of eternal life, of the freedom found in the Great Dao, only for it to be extinguished in an instant like a dying sun.

There is nothing crueler in this world.

But Jiang Han refused to yield to his fate. If the righteous path was barred, then he would walk the path of Evil Demons and Outsiders!

The successful are always right. As long as one attains the supreme Great Dao, even the most despicable acts are recorded in the history books as celebrated achievements.

But...

defying heaven and changing one’s fate takes more than mere passion. For a full century, he tried all manner of evil paths.

Not only did he fail to break his shackles,

but he was also tormented to the point of decrepitude. He became a pariah, hunted by all, and the fiery passion of his youth had all but turned to ash.

But perhaps it was just as the saying goes—

”The fragrance of the plum blossom comes from the bitter cold.”

Just as the bitter winter was about to consume the last of his life force,

Jiang Han met the most important person in his life, the benefactor who would change his destiny—

the Heaven-Stealing Zhenren.

One technique, the Heaven-Seizing Technique, led to a hundred-year road of gore.

He could no longer recall the faces of the many who had died by his hand, and the endless hardships and dangers of his path were but a distant memory.

There were too many.

He walked an Immortal Path paved with bones.

He defied heaven and changed his fate, becoming a second Heaven-Stealing Zhenren, then a True Monarch, and then an Immortal.

Until...

he became the Celestial Immortal in the Cave Heavens Realm he was today.

But after reaching the Cave Heavens Realm, his path was cut off once more. The Heaven-Stealing Technique was merely a low-level imitation of the Exquisite Method.

Its upper limit was the Cave Heavens Realm.

Furthermore, because it relied on plundering the source of others,

the Heaven-Stealing Technique had a terrifying side effect: if he failed to advance for a prolonged period, his own source would gradually collapse, and he would regress step-by-step into a mortal!

The only antidote,

the only hope for his future path,

was the Strongest Divine Technique: the Exquisite Method!

One could only imagine

the turbulent ecstasy Jiang Han felt after confirming that the legacy in his Divine Soul was, in fact, the Exquisite Method.

However...

’Why was I the lucky one?’

After the initial ecstasy,

Jiang Han instantly calmed down. For hundreds of years, he had been a venomous snake lurking in the shadows, surviving in an environment of deceit and conspiracy.

With anything,

he would always consider the causes, effects, and consequences. He would never let personal gain cloud his judgment, and he certainly didn’t believe in free lunches.

This whole affair felt strange from beginning to end. He recalled the lingering will of the mysterious expert who had passed on the Exquisite Method.

Besides saying the two of them were fated to meet,

it had also mentioned something else.

It held a grudge against an elder of Ye Xuan, the Son of Revival of the Luotian Sword Realm, the common lord of the Daluo World.

If Jiang Han were to succeed in his Cultivation in the future...

’Ye Xuan?’

At the thought of that name,

an icy glint appeared in Jiang Han’s eyes. The only tenderness he had ever known in his life had been destroyed in the name of Ye Xuan’s so-called ”demon slaying.”

But that was only one part of it.

After centuries of weathering storms,

Jiang Han’s will to seek the Dao and achieve transcendence had become as unyielding as Divine Iron. He had long been seen by others as ruthless and unfeeling. Romantic attachments were possible, but they rarely influenced him when a choice of profit and loss was on the line.

What truly made them mortal enemies

was a subsequent series of entangled grievances.

Whether by a bizarre twist of fate

or by the hand of destiny,

before fleeing to the Burial Realm, Jiang Han had once orchestrated a scheme to obtain a Dao Stone, which resulted in the annihilation of an entire sect.

Among the victims

was a close female confidante of Ye Xuan from before his rise to power—a Little Witch.

Unwittingly,

he had given Ye Xuan a taste of his own medicine.

And from that point on,

the two became true, fated enemies.

Before he escaped into the Burial Realm,

Jiang Han had exhausted all his schemes and was still nearly killed by Ye Xuan. He only survived by exploiting Ye Xuan’s weakness: his disdain for borrowing the power of others.

Otherwise,

he would not be here today.

’Is there truly some unseen destiny controlling the lives of all beings?’

As his thoughts churned, Jiang Han’s gaze drifted to the crimson Thunder Sea roiling in the Burial Realm’s sky. He seemed to be trying to peer to the very end of the Great Dao, to discover who was controlling everything.

He and Ye Xuan became enemies.

Then, destiny immediately arranged for the lingering will of a so-called expert to grant him a great fortune, giving him the means to contend with Ye Xuan.

If all of this was fated,

then did it mean that no matter how he tried to hide,

he would inevitably run into Ye Xuan through all sorts of coincidences until they fought to the death?

SIGH~

Jiang Han slowly let out a turbid breath.

He suppressed the frustrated anger he felt at his fate not being his own.

His genuine near-death experience in Luoxian Ridge,

the unassailable nature of destiny,

had changed his mentality somewhat. It also further solidified his will to seek the Dao and achieve transcendence.

Only by transcending the Great Dao could he leave the chessboard and become a player, truly free of all shackles, able to do as he wished.

”Luoxian Ridge...”

Jiang Han frowned. Even though he was certain the Exquisite Method in his Divine Soul was real, the whole experience felt ethereal, far removed from reality.

His instincts told him

that he must have forgotten something important.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.

With this in mind,

Jiang Han took a step forward.

He rushed toward the lair of one of the factions, and the result was just as he had expected.

The faction had been completely wiped off the map. Not a single living creature remained.

The attacker was incredibly powerful.

They seemed to have annihilated the Qiankun Space-Time in an instant, giving no one a chance to struggle, react, or send a message.

Unwilling to give up, Jiang Han

secretly returned to Luoxian Ridge.

But there was no Luoxian Ridge to be found. All traces of it had vanished, leaving only a vast Abyss in its place.

Everything from his memory

now felt like a dream.

After standing at the edge of the Abyss where Luoxian Ridge once was for a long time and trying various methods, he was still unable to summon his mysterious master again.

Jiang Han finally turned and left.

The karmic bond between master and disciple

stemmed from Ye Xuan and the Luotian Sword Realm.

When the time comes to settle that debt,

perhaps the full truth will finally be revealed.

...

「Back at Luoxian Ridge, before Jiang Han awoke.」

HUMMM~

Wu Dao reached out his hand, manipulated the Space-Time Magnetic Field, and sent the unconscious Jiang Han through it to a safe location.

”Alliance Leader, there’s something... unsettling about that kid.”

Chen Ergou, who had just returned from ’visiting’ several Demon Dao sects, trailed off hesitantly.

”’Heartless and treacherous, caring only for the Great Dao...’ Are you trying to say this ungrateful wolf might turn on me and scheme against me in the future?”

With his hands clasped behind him, Wu Dao watched Jiang Han disappear into the Space-Time Channel and said indifferently,

”Some things lose their flavor if you meddle with them. It’s better to let them grow in their natural state. He’ll be of use one day.”

”Your insight is profound, Alliance Leader!”

Chen Ergou hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant, but it sounded impressive. In any case, he knew sucking up was always the right move.

”Did you take care of the loose ends?”

Wu Dao turned to look at the ruins of Luoxian Ridge. Facing the blood-red sun sinking below the horizon, he asked casually.

”We blocked all communications from anyone who escaped. And just to be safe, we didn’t leave any loose tongues in the sects behind them either.”

Chen Ergou grinned, his expression as casual as if he had just stepped on a colony of ants.

”Yes, well done.”

Wu Dao nodded slightly.

With a person like Jiang Han, a single glance could hide a conspiracy. Betrayal was his specialty.

Since Wu Dao intended to use him,

he couldn’t get too involved, lest he be betrayed in turn. The only way was to keep his own identity an absolute secret.

Ye Xuan.

That little bastard who seized his predecessor’s Yellow Court Dantian was not Wu Dao’s primary objective.

What he valued

was the karmic destiny that tied Jiang Han and Ye Xuan together.

There was a precedent.

He had learned a pattern from his experience with Wuchen: anyone who becomes entangled in a fated conflict with one of those ”Children of Great Fortune,”

Well,

or to put it bluntly, the villains of the story,

also possessed a great fortune of their own.

It was possible they would one day bear something extraordinary.

Jiang Han’s fortune

was beyond question.

From a frustrated mediocrity whose path was cut off at Qi Refining, he had grown step by step into the Great Demon he was today.

What ’defying heaven to change fate’?

It was all the result of being favored by destiny.

His ’coincidental’ encounter with the returning Heaven-Stealing Alliance during a moment of certain death, turning disaster into fortune, could also be seen as a gift from destiny.

Making an early investment,

forging a karmic bond,

was an experiment on Wu Dao’s part. Now, he would just have to see what great fortune Jiang Han would encounter in the future, and how ’fat’ he would become.

Just as with Wuchen,

he would only guide Jiang Han’s life, not interfere with it excessively.

If he handled it like he did with his Personal Guard Primordial Demon,

keeping everything under his complete control,

then Wuchen would never have obtained the Reincarnation Emperor’s legacy, and the future fortune of Jiang Han, his current pawn, would only be suppressed by his influence.

To ensure there was no interference,

while imparting the Exquisite Method, Wu Dao also altered Jiang Han’s memory, erasing all information about himself and the Heaven-Stealing Alliance.

In addition to that,

he had also made a small tweak to the Magnetic Field of Jiang Han’s Divine Soul, slightly amplifying his killing intent toward Ye Xuan.

As for measures to prevent being betrayed,

such as suppressing Jiang Han’s fortune,

Wu Dao would naturally do no such thing. If a wolf he had caged managed to escape and bite him, that would only be a testament to his own incompetence.

...

The incident at Luoxian Ridge barely caused a ripple within the vast, boundless Burial Realm.

The law of the Burial Realm was the law of the jungle.

Countless Demon Cultivators arrived each day, and countless factions were destroyed. For most, the annihilation of a few Grotto Heaven Demon Sects was a commonplace event.

The only thing they might have cared about

was that the attacking force had been too thorough, not leaving so much as a scrap behind for others.