Essence Devouring Art

’I just hope that kid doesn’t do anything stupid.’

Thinking about how Ye Xuan’s beloved had been abducted, the Quasi-Emperors of the Luotian Sword Realm looked worried once more.

The Zizai Celestial Kingdom blocked all forms of communication.

Information could only be passed through the Divine Race’s Faith Channel, and even then, it was just for messages. It was impossible to open a Space-Time Channel to send reinforcements.

As the Son of Revival of the Luotian Sword Realm with an unfathomably deep background, no god was worthy of his faith.

Thus, the Luotian Sword Realm could only sense Ye Xuan’s status through the backup measures within their realm. They knew he was alive, but everything else was a mystery.

Emperor Hong Shi and the two Domain Masters had previously calculated that Ye Xuan would survive this ordeal. They predicted that after this tribulation, his temperament would mature and evolve—a blessing in disguise.

But they had all watched Ye Xuan grow up.

They knew his personality like the back of their hand.

If the blow was too severe, they feared it would take him a long time to recover and be reborn from the ashes.

In fact, their guess was right on the mark.

At this moment, Ye Xuan was indeed on the verge of going insane.

Inside the Zizai Celestial Kingdom, Ye Xuan’s fate was different from the others. It seemed the Zizai Celestial Kingdom had singled him out, dropping him into a restricted zone that was a massive Killing Array.

It was like a slaughterhouse for gods.

The boundless Abyss was filled with a crimson aura of deadly calamity and the barely-visible skeletons of the Divine Race. The whispers of ancient Evil Gods manifested as all sorts of corrupting demonic evils and deadly rays of light.

If he hadn’t had enough trump cards, Ye Xuan would have died in this slaughterhouse the moment he arrived!

More importantly...

”Jiang Han, you piece of trash! Did you hear me? You’re a worthless coward! Do you dare to duel me?!”

Ye Xuan wore his bone-white Body-Protecting Sword Armor to block the lethal light. A pure light also emerged from within him, eroding the whispers of the Evil Gods and protecting his mind.

But his eyes were still bloodshot with fury.

He roared endlessly toward the space above the Abyss.

”Tsk.”

Above the Abyss, Jiang Han, dressed in his Red Sun Daoist Robe, looked down at the furious Ye Xuan with great interest. His gaze was calm, completely unfazed, as he said faintly,

”I’ve always wanted to see this. You, looking so pathetic in your helpless rage.”

He had dreamed of this day and night.

Because, Ye Xuan’s current state was identical to his own in the past.

Back then, Jiang Han was just an ant struggling in the Sea of Suffering.

He was a wretched Demon Cultivator in the Daluo Celestial Domain, hated by everyone, a bedbug forced to crawl in the shadows.

Throughout his life, from the moment he set foot on the path of Cultivation until today, he had endured countless hardships and tribulations, narrowly escaping death several times.

During his most difficult and helpless moment, when even basic survival was a challenge, when his body and soul were riddled with wounds and he could only cling to life while awaiting death,

a ray of light had illuminated him.

For a time, he believed he had found salvation. He even considered turning over a new leaf, spending the rest of his life peacefully with his beloved by his side.

But... Ye Xuan personally snuffed out that light!

Back then, just like Ye Xuan now, his beloved was suffering, and he could do nothing.

He was even more powerless.

He didn’t even dare to vent his anger aloud.

He could only hide in the darkness, not daring to make a single sound,

and watch with his own eyes as Ye Xuan took that beautiful head, all for the sake of so-called ”slaying demons and eliminating evil.”

But... they didn’t even know each other!!

Countless ”whys” dragged Jiang Han’s heart into the Abyss.

He came to a complete realization.

There aren’t so many ”whys” in this world.

There is only the strong and the weak. That is how it should be!

It was from that moment on that Jiang Han embarked on an extreme path of ruthlessness and self-interest, until there was no place left for him in the outside world and he fled pathetically to the Burial Realm.

You could say his destiny was sealed the moment Ye Xuan swung that sword.

He didn’t regret it.

Because after abandoning his past, he had obtained what he wanted. He had undergone Breaking the Cocoon to become a butterfly, gaining the infinite potential to roam the heavens and the earth.

More than hatred, he sometimes even felt grateful to Ye Xuan.

Grateful that Ye Xuan had swung that sword back then, giving him a new life and shaping him into the person he was today.

As long as he killed Ye Xuan and severed this Chain of Cause and Effect,

his future would be free of...

’No. There are still two shackles.’

The thought of the white-clad child and his mysterious Master cast a shadow over Jiang Han’s jubilant mood.

Those two beings both seemed to be using him as a pawn.

His mysterious Master hadn’t revealed his schemes, but the white-clad child didn’t even bother to hide it. And yet, Jiang Han couldn’t get away from him.

This deathtrap for Ye Xuan would never have been set if he hadn’t agreed to one of the white-clad child’s conditions. Who knows how long he would have had to wait for his revenge otherwise.

But that was all.

The white-clad child wasn’t omnipotent. Moving Ye Xuan into this Killing Array within the Zizai Celestial Kingdom was already his Limit. Whether Jiang Han could get his revenge would depend on himself.

”Hahaha, you gutless rat! You don’t even dare to duel me! Is that all you’ve got?”

Ye Xuan’s trump cards were astonishing. Even in the Killing Array, he was merely in a pathetic state, not truly defeated. He constantly tried to provoke Jiang Han into coming down so he could kill him and break the Array.

”You’re absolutely right. I am indeed a gutless rat. I don’t dare to duel you.”

Jiang Han, however, kept a smile on his face, his state of mind completely unaffected by Ye Xuan’s insults.

He wasn’t a reckless brute.

He was well aware of the gap between them.

He had only just entered the Creation Realm. Although he had forged an Innate Divine Body and grown significantly after entering the Zizai Celestial Kingdom and undergoing the white-clad child’s ”tutelage,”

he hadn’t skyrocketed in power.

His combat power was at most equivalent to the Fifteenth Layer of the Creation Realm, and that was benchmarked against a Single Dao Creation Realm cultivator.

And Ye Xuan?

He was at the Three Paths and Twenty-four Heavens level of the Creation Realm!

Not to mention, he carried the backup measures of numerous titans from the Luotian Sword Realm. In a direct confrontation, Jiang Han would be crushed in an instant!

If he wanted to win, he could only win by using his wits and the geographical advantage.

”You...”

Within the Abyssal Slaughterhouse, Ye Xuan saw that his attempts to provoke Jiang Han were having no effect, and his heart grew a degree colder.

Qingyu was in this animal’s hands.

Even a moment’s delay could lead to a lifetime of regret.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a way to break the Array.

He was just feigning rage to guide Jiang Han into a state of complacent carelessness, hoping he would reveal Qingyu’s location.

But Jiang Han wasn’t falling for it.

He was simply enjoying Ye Xuan’s pathetic state.

”Oh, I forgot to tell you.”

How could someone like Jiang Han, who had spent hundreds of years honing his cunning to the level of a fox, not know what Ye Xuan was thinking? He provoked him faintly,

”That Miss Qingyu is quite... delectable.”

At this point, he gave Ye Xuan a strange look and said, ”What was the last one’s name again? Oh, Yue’Er. She was also an unopened flower bud. Could it be that you...”

BOOM!!

Before Jiang Han could finish his sentence, a beam of sword light capable of annihilating everything in the world erupted from the Abyss. It obliterated the gods and instantly cleaved Jiang Han into a shower of light and shadow.

The corners of Ye Xuan’s eyes were bleeding from the strain.

He stepped out of the Abyss, his voice hoarse and chilling. ”If you truly dare to touch her...”

”A Saint Master Level Sword Talisman? Tsk tsk.”

Jiang Han’s voice echoed from within the scattered light and shadow. It clearly wasn’t his real body. He taunted,

”You don’t believe me? Then I’ll make you believe.”

BZZZT—

The light and shadow shifted.

It revealed the beautiful figure Ye Xuan longed for day and night, groveling at Jiang Han’s feet, wagging her tail and begging for favor. She looked up and uttered,

”Master...”

BOOM!

In that instant, Ye Xuan’s mind went blank.

His pride was stomped underfoot and crushed by Jiang Han. An endless inferno of rage burned away all his reason, leaving only a demented, frenzied roar,

”I will kill you! I’ll hack you into a meat paste, and you’ll never be reborn for all of eternity!!”

’Idiot.’

In another space, Jiang Han glanced at the woman imprisoned in his Gourd and sneered. He hadn’t expected a mere illusion to shatter Ye Xuan’s composure so completely.

If it weren’t for the Luotian Sword Realm behind him, he would have played Ye Xuan to death long ago.

But there was no rush.

This lucky bastard still had plenty of trump cards. He needed to force them out one by one, revealing them, before he had a chance to show his Slaughter Blade.

It was like eating a crab.

Once you peel off the shell and armor, the meat inside will naturally be revealed.

With this in mind, he guided the enraged Ye Xuan into an even more dangerous Killing Array.

He was running out of time.

The white-clad child, who had vanished upon entering the Celestial Kingdom, had suddenly manifested an Incarnation in his Grotto Heaven to remind him.

Before long, the Burial Realm would become the grand stage for All Heavens.

Therefore, he had to end this battle quickly.

”Senior, what do you mean by ’grand stage’?”

While guiding Ye Xuan, the Heart Lake Alarm Bell rang intermittently in Jiang Han’s mind. Unable to suppress the ominous premonition in his heart, he asked the white-clad child.

”Hehe, it’s going to be lots of fun.”

The white-clad child replied in his usual innocent, childlike tone. Suddenly, his bright eyes lit up with joy. ”Oh! I finally see that unbelievable guy! I have to get a good look.”

The moment he finished speaking, the white-clad child vanished from Jiang Han’s Grotto Heaven in a flurry.

’Unbelievable guy?’

Jiang Han frowned slightly.

Although the white-clad child appeared innocent and lively, he was actually incredibly arrogant, making no effort to hide his condescending attitude toward all the heroes of All Heavens, past and present.

Usually, whenever Jiang Han mentioned some great figure, the white-clad child would just call them a ”little guy,” or at most, an ”interesting little guy.”

’Unbelievable guy.’ That was some seriously high praise.

’I wonder what’s so unbelievable about him.’

SPLASH—

「In the core of the Zizai Celestial Kingdom.」

Countless seemingly endless great rivers, carrying all manner of attachments and delusions, surged ceaselessly, converging within a Divine Hall suspended in the center of a white ocean.

To call it a Divine Hall was a bit of a stretch.

It was as simple and crude as a wooden hut built by a child, lacking any strict architectural structure. It seemed to have been built casually, according to whim.

Inside the Divine Hall, which was no bigger than a thatched hut, there were no superfluous priestly items either. There was only a clay statue on the central Divine Altar, covered in Hand Seals.

It was the size of a four- or five-year-old child.

It looked exactly like the white-clad child, and its expression wasn’t solemn or dignified. Instead, it had a grinning, mischievous look.

But before this playful-looking clay statue, more than a dozen Divine Spirits with immense auras were kneeling in worship.

Five Quasi-Emperor Gods!

Ten Great Venerable Gods!

They were prostrated on the ground, full of pious reverence.

Their posture and attitude were second only to how one would kowtow to the Lord of the Divine Court of the Divine Race!

CRACK—

At a certain moment, the clay child statue on the Divine Altar cracked open slightly. A pure white light of supreme divinity seeped out. Deep within, it seemed some great existence was about to return.

”We respectfully welcome the Great Zizai Heaven...”

The gods kneeling in the Divine Hall were instantly moved to tears, their divine bodies trembling as they chanted praises in loud voices.

SPLASH—

「In a tributary of the Zizai River.」

”Mmm, that was so comfortable.”

The white-clad child, poling a small boat made of a lotus leaf, seemed to have just woken up from a long nap and stretched contentedly.

Then, He looked expectantly toward the end of the river channel.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—

It was as if a Heaven-Supporting Divine Pillar was moving forward.

With every step, it sent out monstrous waves and ripples through the long river of Zizai’s obsessions, a river that could trap countless intelligent beings.

It was as if the river had encountered the Immortal Divine Fire!

It was actually evaporating continuously, unable to stain or hinder the newcomer’s steps in the slightest!

RUMBLE!

The final footstep landed!

The resulting wave rocked the lotus leaf boat back and forth, making it seem as if it could capsize at any moment.

From within the sky-blotting shadow, the white-clad child looked up with a smile, meeting a pair of indifferent eyes as black as the Abyss.

”Hehe, hello there.”

The white-clad child waved enthusiastically in welcome.

”Hello!”

Wu Dao’s gaze swept toward a black bell hanging casually inside the Divine Hall in the sea, and he returned the child’s greeting with a polite, gentle smile.