Chapter 1989 - Sixth-Level Profound Immortal Realm

Retreat was no longer possible. The three men could only hope to kill Blackie. Three rays of sword energy crashed into its chest and back.

Metallic clangs rang through the air, scattering sparks. Not one strike had pierced its skin.

Horror gripped them as they realized how badly they had misjudged Blackie’s strength. “We’re in trouble!” they screamed as its long arms swept around them before they could withdraw.

“Don’t crush them, Blackie!” Liu Wuxie called urgently. He still needed the three men. Letting Blackie squeeze them to death would squander their value.

Blackie completed the motion by snatching them up like an eagle seizing helpless chicks. They struggled in its grasp, but escape was impossible.

A sweep of the Bloodthirst Blade pierced their dantians. Liu Wuxie destroyed their cultivation in a single movement.

Hysterical screams burst from the men. They were Golden Immortals. How could a mere Profound Immortal have brought them to this?

“Devour them!” Liu Wuxie called forth the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and swallowed the three before they could utter another word. Demonic flames roared up from its depths, accompanied by screams of torment.

Less than half a breath later, nothing remained of them but liquid energy. It streamed into the Desolate World, releasing thick strands of Golden Immortal Realm laws. Each strand possessed exceptional strength, feeding the world and encouraging its growth.

With time, those laws would proliferate. One would become two, and their numbers would continue to rise.

Three interspatial rings dropped into Liu Wuxie’s hands. He swept his divine sense through their contents, and a small smile appeared on his lips.

“So they had a Frostweight Bird’s inner core,” he said with a chuckle, inspecting the white beast core resting in his palm.

“The prize they brought back from their journey, no doubt. Mine now,” he murmured, throwing it into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. With it, he intended to advance to the sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm.

Every increase in cultivation would improve his prospects of completing the missions. Rather than waste time, he summoned the Divine Purgatory Palace to crush the core.

The Frostweight Bird was ranked as an intermediate-grade immortal beast, with strength comparable to that of a Golden Immortal. The three men had expended considerable effort to kill it, and its beast core alone was worth more than ten million immortal stones.

Nearby, Blackie stood watch, ready to protect Liu Wuxie from an attack.

The Divine Purgatory Palace crushed the core apart, releasing white frost whose diamond-shaped crystals interlocked in a breathtaking pattern. A Frostweight Bird bore only snowy-white plumage from head to tail, without a single feather of another color. As the core dissolved, the frost gathered into the bird’s likeness.

“Now for the breakthrough,” Liu Wuxie said, directing the frost into the Desolate World. His aura rose as he pressed toward the sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm.

The Desolate Devouring Art pulled immortal energy from the surroundings into a vast funnel above him. Within the Desolate World, that energy rapidly crystallized. Nearly ten thousand crystals scattered over the ground.

Many slipped beneath the surface and became part of the desolate world, giving birth to primal chaos energy. The larval beast rolled over. It had grown markedly larger, and several vivid stripes now colored its body.

“Break open!” Liu Wuxie roared. The mysterious axe imprint shattered the gateway to the sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm. From beyond it came a terrifying flood of energy that left his mind ringing.

“What kind of power is this?” Liu Wuxie exclaimed, startled by the trace of primal chaos force within it. Recognition came immediately. In his previous life, the Primal Celestial Art had depended chiefly on precisely absorbing this force.

“Did it come from the immortal rice?” he wondered.

Immortal rice held plentiful primal chaos force. During his visit to the spiritual fields, he had secretly called upon the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron to draw some from the crops. Its disappearance had puzzled him then. Instead of entering his body directly, the force had vanished somewhere unknown within him.

Now that hidden force burst forth and swept across the Desolate World like a gale.

Every living thing within it grew at a pace the eye could follow, and even the Ancestral Tree surged with newfound vitality.

Primal chaos force had existed since the birth of the universe. It was as renowned as primal chaos energy, yet far older and more concentrated.

As the two intertwined, they gave rise to an energy greater than either alone.

“Is this... creation energy?” Liu Wuxie exclaimed. Before him, the legendary creation energy was taking shape.

It stormed through the Desolate World, imprinting the laws of creation onto the crystalline walls along its boundaries. An ancient profundity entered the runes, as though each held the secrets behind the creation of heaven and earth.

Liu Wuxie wasn't sure whether he should laugh or cry. Every gain in the Desolate World’s power would make his later breakthroughs more difficult.

His immortal roots grew as well. Like vines, they extended throughout the Desolate World, forming a meridian-like network that guarded his body.

The sight would have terrified an ordinary cultivator. A normal human body could hold no more than ten immortal roots. Liu Wuxie had hundreds. Nothing about his internal structure conformed to ordinary standards anymore.

The Desolate World functioned like a central network, able to accommodate all things and absorb everything in heaven and earth. With creation energy surging through it, Liu Wuxie needed only a little more than ten breaths to attain the sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm. At the same time, that energy remade and strengthened his physique, which had already reached unity with heaven and earth.

He still could not match Blackie’s physical strength, but the distance between them had narrowed. His body alone now possessed enough power to kill ordinary cultivators at the Divine Immortal Realm with ease.

The three men had also left him over thirty million immortal stones. That harvest would cover his consumption for some time.

Over five million immortal stones shattered, releasing torrents of liquid energy into the Desolate World. Combined with the nourishing power of creation energy, they fueled the world’s continued expansion.

Liu Wuxie could neither halt the process nor foresee its outcome. The Desolate Devouring Art had reached only the second transformation. What further changes lay ahead remained unknown to him.

About fifteen minutes passed before his cultivation stabilized. The immortal energy gathered around him began to disperse.

His eyes snapped open, sending two brilliant rays outward. Blackie jumped, mistaking them for an attack. Then it turned toward Liu Wuxie and gave him a long, meaningful look.

Monster though it was, Blackie possessed considerable intelligence. Human language was simply a means of expression it had difficulty mastering.

Pops and crackles sounded through Liu Wuxie’s body as he rose to his feet. With his physique advancing in unity with heaven and earth, an indescribable comfort spread through him. He felt like a starving man who had suddenly found a feast waiting before him.

“Throw a punch at me, Blackie,” Liu Wuxie said. He wanted to measure his physique’s new strength.

Blackie answered with gestures, apparently asking whether to use all its power or hold some back.

“Use half your strength,” Liu Wuxie replied. He had no intention of gambling with his life, so fifty percent would suffice. Dying because he had invited Blackie to strike at full strength would be a particularly foolish end.

Blackie lifted a fist the size of a pot and lunged. It appeared before Liu Wuxie and drove the punch into his shoulder.

The impact sent him flying. Half his body went numb, and he immediately circulated immortal energy to restore control of his limbs.

That single blow would have reduced any other cultivator at the Divine Immortal Realm to mangled flesh. By Liu Wuxie’s estimate, his physique was now somewhere between a peak Divine Immortal and a first-level Golden Immortal.

Combined with his immense reserves of immortal energy, his newfound strength would allow him to protect himself even against a first-level Golden Immortal, though defeating one remained beyond him.

Blackie looked at Liu Wuxie in disbelief. Its punch had failed to injure Liu Wuxie, and it could scarcely accept that result.

“Time to move,” Liu Wuxie said with a satisfied nod, hurrying toward the Cloud Mist Manor with Blackie beside him.

Over the past few days, cultivators had flocked to the Cloud Mist Manor for the promised thousand-year-old Cloud Mist Pearl King. Many sought nothing more than a chance to try their luck. Such a treasure was way more valuable than a Frostweight Bird’s beast core. Even a Great Golden Immortal who refined it would have a seventy percent chance of advancing one level.

Only ten Cloud Mist Pearl Kings had appeared during the tens of thousands of years since the manor’s founding. One emerged once every thousand years, making it exceptionally rare.

Liu Wuxie increased his pace along the route he remembered. An hour later, an enormous manor rose into view.

Dense mist shrouded the estate, blocking out the sunlight and lending the manor the atmosphere of an underground world.

The light was far dimmer than outside, though visibility remained adequate. A veil of fog seemed to lie over every person.

“You’re at the Cloud Mist Manor. No one enters without authorization,” two disciples said, stepping into Liu Wuxie’s path.

“I’ve come to answer your call for experts,” Liu Wuxie replied. A Profound Immortal possessed scarcely any standing in the Celestial Weave Domain. He had grown accustomed to dismissal wherever he went and therefore stated his purpose without delay.

The manor’s public offer promised a Cloud Mist Pearl King to whoever discovered why its pearls were disappearing.

Liu Wuxie had encountered that opportunity by chance. His true purpose was to uncover the manor’s relationship with the Mountain Guardian Sect and find a way to sever the latter’s supply of Crimson Cloudstone.

The two disciples exchanged doubtful glances. The notice stipulated that anyone answering the call must be at least a Divine Immortal.

“Forgive us, but we cannot admit Profound Immortals,” they said courteously, gesturing for him to depart.

Liu Wuxie frowned. Had he made the entire journey only to be stopped at the entrance?

At that moment, several men climbed up the mountain. Each possessed substantial cultivation at the pinnacle of the Divine Immortal Realm.

“So you’ve been hiding here, Liu Wuxie!” the three said, laughing when they spotted him.

Enemies were indeed bound to cross paths. These were the Ji Clan disciples who had stolen immortal rice during the recruitment assessment. Ji Pei's intervention had spared them the punishment, allowing them to enter the sect without further obstacles.

They had heard the Cloud Mist Manor’s announcement as well and had come to try their luck at winning the Cloud Mist Pearl King.