Essence Devouring Art

“Alliance Leader Wu…”

King Bao Tong watched as Wu Dao calmly stated his intention to scheme for the Burning Chaos Furnace. After a moment’s hesitation, he still tried to offer a word of caution.

“The Dragon Hunting Tower’s foundation runs far deeper than All Heavens can imagine. According to the intelligence I possess, the Tower has no fewer than ten Primordial Chaos experts!”

Ten Primordial Chaos experts!

Regardless of whether they were at their peak or not.

This number was absolutely staggering.

In all of All Heavens, only the great Common Lords possess such a foundation. Coupled with the Burning Chaos Furnace and their hidden Power, the true terror of the Dragon Hunting Tower was plain to see.

Trying to seize the Supreme Treasure of such a power…

To put it bluntly.

Even a Common Lord would pay a heavy price.

And even after paying that price, success wouldn’t be guaranteed!

Though Wu Dao’s current achievements were extraordinary, King Bao Tong didn’t believe he could match the power of a Common Lord.

…

Wu Dao knew firsthand just how terrifying the Dragon Hunting Tower was.

If nothing else, there was the incident in the Burial Realm a few years ago.

The Dragon Hunting Tower’s plot had backfired, leaving them as scapegoats. They were besieged by the All Heavens’ Primordial Chaos experts in the Sea of Chaos, yet after paying a certain price, they still managed to retreat fully intact.

That alone was enough to prove the faction’s power.

However…

But Wu Dao’s audacity wasn’t just a baseless daydream.

Elsewhere, he might have been powerless.

But within Shanhai Pass, he had a plethora of methods at his disposal.

The risks were great, but a Dao Artifact was worth any of them!

More importantly, this Dao Artifact was incomplete.

The chances of forcibly seizing control of it were high!

This wasn’t just about self-preservation; it was also crucial for his subsequent schemes.

“Oh, right.”

Seeing that Wu Dao remained unmoved, his mind seemingly set in stone, King Bao Tong quickly added, “The Dragon Hunting Tower’s move into Shanhai Pass in force this time isn’t just because of their ties to the Primordial Sect. There’s another important reason.”

At this, King Bao Tong looked at Wu Dao and said gravely:

“I do not know the secret of your Physique, Alliance Leader Wu, nor would I dare to ask. But ever since you appeared on the Dragon Hunting Tower’s radar…

“…the Dragon Hunting Tower has been dead set on capturing you. One of the main reasons they entered Shanhai Pass is to find an opportunity to hunt you down!”

Although the Great Dao manifests in Shanhai Pass and endless Tribulation Qi shields all Celestial Secrets, the Dragon Hunting Tower had already vaguely sensed that their target was inside Shanhai Pass even before they entered.

King Bao Tong didn’t know Wu Dao’s secret, but from the ravenous and greedy attitude of the Dragon Hunting Tower’s upper echelon, it wasn’t hard to guess that Wu Dao’s Physique must be related to some crucial plot of theirs.

Under these circumstances, if Wu Dao were to reveal himself, it would be like a lamb walking into a tiger’s den. The Dragon Hunting Tower would surely spare no effort to eliminate him, leaving him no chance of a lucky escape.

“Heh. Them targeting me is exactly what I want.”

Upon hearing this, Wu Dao simply smiled calmly, showing no hint of apprehension or fear.

‘The Dragon Hunting Tower hunts practitioners of the Body Dao. To them, I, with my Primordial Magnetic Great Body, am an unparalleled delicacy to a starving man.’

‘If I put myself in their shoes,’ Wu Dao thought, ‘if I were one of the Dragon Hunting Tower’s leaders and an opportunity arose, I would undoubtedly mobilize all my forces to target me without reservation. That would be the perfect moment to make my move on the Burning Chaos Furnace.’

“Do you have the clearance to know the Dragon Hunting Tower’s coordinates within Shanhai Pass?”

As his thoughts swirled, Wu Dao asked another question.

“This…”

King Bao Tong felt a sense of helplessness, even starting to regret his encounter with this madman, Wu Dao. Still, he replied:

“Although the Dragon Hunting Tower invests heavily in our training, and my status as a Celestial Treasure Master grants me certain privileges…

“…their coordinates in Shanhai Pass are something only Dragon Hunters of the Great Emperor Sequence are qualified to know.”

After all, the Tower was once known as the Chief Calamity of Hongyuan.

Countless powers in All Heavens would love nothing more than to grind the Dragon Hunting Tower to dust, especially since they also hunt Desolate Gods with abandon.

If their headquarters weren’t kept secret, who knows when they might be surrounded and wiped out.

“A Great Emperor, you say?”

Upon hearing this, Wu Dao’s gaze, as profound as the boundless cosmos, fell upon King Bao Tong. Within his pupils, flashes of the Great Dao’s Thunderbolt seemed to birth and extinguish all of creation.

…

OMMM—

In a daze, King Bao Tong felt as if he were waking from a long dream.

He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion, his consciousness still stuck at the moment he was being suppressed by the Zuyuan Alliance’s Quasi-Emperor.

But now, as he surveyed his surroundings, he found only desolate darkness and utter barrenness. It was as if his previous experience had been nothing but a dream.

“Damn it! When did a forbidden zone capable of destroying even a Quasi-Emperor appear here?”

From beyond the endless darkness, faint shouts of panic and shock drew nearer. It seemed to be the Zuyuan Alliance’s reinforcements.

‘A forbidden zone?’

King Bao Tong was startled by the voices.

Only then did he discover that the dark abyss they were in was suffused with a terrifyingly heavy aura of annihilation, constantly pulling them toward the source of the darkness. They were utterly powerless to resist.

‘Could it be… the Quasi-Emperor triggered the forbidden zone’s field, and so this entire section of the cosmos was instantly ground to dust along with him?’

King Bao Tong couldn’t make sense of it.

But in this life-or-death crisis, they had no time for contemplation. They hastily played their various trump cards, resisting the erosion of the Power of Annihilation.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH—

「In the Endless Chaos Sea.」

Wu Dao retracted his gaze from the artificial forbidden zone. With a faint smile, he continued his task, his Incarnation resuming its journey across the All Heavens.

‘I naturally wouldn’t make such a basic mistake.’

To prevent the Dragon Hunting Tower from noticing anything unusual, he had manipulated Particles to rewind the consciousness of King Bao Tong and his companions to the moment before their encounter, leaving behind no trace of their conversation.

‘Only a Great Emperor has the authority to know the Dragon Hunting Tower’s location. In that case, I’ll just help King Bao Tong and the others become Great Emperors. It’s not a difficult task.’

‘I’ll create a mysterious forbidden zone. Within it, I’ll place a heaven-defying stroke of Creation. It won’t take long for King Bao Tong and the others to obtain it and ascend to the Great Emperor realm.’

‘Once he becomes a Great Emperor, a shift in the Magnetic Field of his consciousness will guide him to the right place to meet me again, at which point he will reveal the Dragon Hunting Tower’s exact location.’

‘As for leaving behind a Primordial Magnetic Seed or using other, more direct methods… it all comes back to the same principle: don’t take others for fools.’

‘A Great Emperor is a core member of the Dragon Hunting Tower. No matter how special a Celestial Treasure Master might be, the Tower would undoubtedly have measures to ensure one hundred percent loyalty.’

For this reason, Wu Dao also erased all information about himself from the memories of King Bao Tong and his companions.

Even for the artificial forbidden zone, he had expended considerable effort, altering the deep spacetime Magnetic Field to ensure it had a believable aura of antiquity.

‘The prerequisite for any scheme is strength.’

Wu Dao mused. ‘The plan is more or less complete, but my own strength isn’t there yet.’

‘To make a move on the Burning Chaos Furnace, even in the unique environment of Shanhai Pass, I need battle power at the Primordial Peak at a minimum. Whether it comes from external aid or my Main Body, I must reach that tier.’

‘In the short term, even with my growth rate, it’s impossible to reach the Primordial Peak.’

‘But the sixth Dao Tribulation waits for no one.’

‘I need to take some risks to master Primordial Peak power ahead of schedule.’

‘For example… by completing the Extreme Dao Bell. That means striking a deal with a tiger: finding the Slaughter Emperor!’

‘Back then, the Heaven-Burying Emperor revealed that the core of the Extreme Dao Bell was in the Nine Heavens Pass. This was another way of saying that the Slaughter Emperor’s own foundational Dao Source was hidden there.’

‘The reason the All Tribulations Masters escaped the final reckoning was that they must have borrowed the power of a Dao Artifact.’

‘It was a desperate, self-imprisoning act—a gamble that someone in the future would enter the Dao Artifact’s core from the outside and release them.’

‘So, in which Dao Artifact is the Slaughter Emperor trapped?’

‘There are two Dao Artifacts in Shanhai Pass. The first is the Dao Celestial Stele.’

‘This Dao Artifact is somewhat unique. Its true form is a vessel for the fortune of the Great Dao. Its main body is situated in the Ten Celestial Passes, while its subsidiary parts suppress the other Celestial Gates.’

‘At the same time, its function is similar to that of a Main God. With enough battle merits, one can exchange them for anything within the Dao Celestial Stele.’

‘In a way, the Dao Celestial Stele is a temporary Dao Artifact. If Shanhai Pass were breached and Hongyuan’s Dao fortune were to dissipate, the Dao Celestial Stele would also cease to exist.’

‘Furthermore, its very essence is the Great Dao. Only the overall Lord of Shanhai Pass, the Martial Ancestor, has the authority to command it. No matter how heaven-defying the Slaughter Emperor may be, it’s impossible for him to hide within the Dao Celestial Stele.’

‘If it’s not the Dao Celestial Stele, then that only leaves the number one Dao Artifact, Buzhou Mountain, which plugs the gap in the Celestial Domain’s Chaos!’

When Wu Dao first came to this conclusion, he had been rather astonished himself.

‘As Hongyuan’s very first Heaven Opening Dao Artifact, Buzhou Mountain’s Mighty Power and status are beyond question. Throughout history, no one has ever been able to shake it.’

‘But the Slaughter Emperor managed it.’

‘This madman of the Hongyuan Heavenly Realms, a Five Tribulations Master, was not purged by the Five Tribulations Daoist after his defeat. Instead, he inconceivably managed to move Hongyuan’s number one Dao Artifact and has remained hidden there to this day.’

‘Never underestimate the heroes of the world. Those words are indeed true.’

‘Especially not a peerless tyrant like the Slaughter Emperor, who even became a One Tribulation Master.’

Wu Dao suspected that even without him, a cunning schemer like the Slaughter Emperor must have prepared other ways to escape.

It was impossible that he would pin all his hopes on an uncontrollable monster like himself.

‘If it’s Buzhou Mountain, then I can basically confirm the coordinates.’

「Deep within the Realm Sea of the Eight Celestial Passes.」

Through his Incarnations scattered across the various forbidden zones of Shanhai Pass, Wu Dao focused his senses, feeling the vast and majestic pulsations of Buzhou Mountain’s Magnetic Field.

Buzhou Mountain plugged the Chaos breach in Buzhou Heaven. Before it stood Shanhai Pass; behind it lay Buzhou Heaven.

The network of its domain permeated every inch of spacetime in both Shanhai Pass and Buzhou Heaven, its influence extending even deeper to affect the All Heavens and Myriad Realms.

Just as a magnetic field has main roots, primary veins, and finer branches, so too did Buzhou Mountain.

Deep within Shanhai Pass, which stood before the mountain, lay the thickest of Buzhou Mountain’s main veins, their every pulse and breath influencing all existence across the Ten Celestial Passes.

Among them, the largest of these main veins—so large it could be called the thickest of its root veins—was located within the Buzhou Abyss Prison, which straddled the spacetime boundary between the Nine Heavens Pass and the Ten Celestial Passes.

At the same time, the Buzhou Abyss Prison was also the jail where the Shanhai Pass Commander’s Law Enforcement Team used the domain field of the Buzhou Mountain Domain to imprison war criminals from the battlefields of the Ten Celestial Passes.

It was said that within the Abyss Prison, all spirit and Dao were nullified. Even an expert at the Mixed Element Pass level wouldn’t be able to cause the slightest stir if they entered.

‘The Third Extreme Dao Bell, the very core of the Extreme Dao Bell, must be inside the Buzhou Abyss Prison as well. It seems I’ll have to meet with that madman eventually after all.’

‘The essence of the Extreme Dao Bell is infinitely close to that of a Dao Artifact.’

‘One Dao cannot abide another. Upon meeting, one must be devoured.’

‘The Slaughter Emperor couldn’t have brought the Extreme Dao Bell into the core of Buzhou Mountain, but he also wouldn’t let any successor obtain it easily.’

‘In the future, when the time is right, unless I give up on the Burning Chaos Furnace, I will eventually have to venture into the Buzhou Abyss for a formal meeting with the Slaughter Emperor.’

‘However, that’s a matter for those at the Absolute Peak of the All Heavens Emperors.’

‘Setting aside other factors, unleashing the full Mighty Power of a Supreme Treasure like the Extreme Dao Bell requires, at minimum, battle power at the Absolute Peak of the All Heavens Emperors.’

‘Otherwise, you can’t even press the ‘activation button.”

‘As for a Dao Artifact, the minimum requirement is Mixed Element Battle Power.’

This wasn’t an excessive requirement. In fact, it was already quite low.

After all, each step up the Dao represents an infinite gulf. The gap between the Primordial Chaos realm and a Dao Artifact was immeasurably vast.

It was just like a technological weapon: without an activation button and a control program, it would be impossible to wield with mere Human Power.