Chapter 515 - 452: Plucking Your Dao Fruit!

Beneath the withered tree at the Cyan Mountain Daoist Temple, Qi Yun closed his eyes. With his heart and spirit immersed in the Purple Mansion Dao Realm, he quietly gazed at the line of text flowing with majestic, multicolored radiance at the top of the Magic Technique Panel.

"Forcibly harvest the Dao Fruit..."

Qi Yun’s heart thought paused slightly on this line of text.

BUZZ...

As his heart thought flowed, the void before him—reflecting the light of the sky and the shadows of the clouds—suddenly rippled and swayed violently, like a lake into which a stone had been tossed! The scene rapidly blurred, pulling away and rising higher!

In the next instant, a corner of a familiar and magnificent scene unfurled before his eyes like a scroll painting. It was the transcendent illusion of All Marvelous Heaven!

At this moment, All Marvelous Heaven no longer had the dullness it suffered when it was sealed. Daoist Intent cascaded like a celestial river, while Spiritual Mechanism surged like a star sea.

In the deepest and highest reaches of that vast void, Dao Fruits of varying shapes and sizes—each exuding a palpitating, boundless Daoist Intent and supreme majesty—slowly rotated and drifted along profound trajectories. There were far too many to count. Every single one represented a path to heaven, tying together the lifelong cultivation and authority of a True Monarch!

Yet from Qi Yun’s current perspective, these Supreme Beings—which Great Masters usually looked up to and True Monarchs cherished—seemed like delicacies displayed on a jade plate right before him, ready for him to pick and savor at will!

A sense of condescending indifference and control, stemming from his Primordial status, welled up within him.

"I shall... give it a try."

Qi Yun’s eyes flickered slightly. He slowly raised his right hand and reached forward. His fingers effortlessly pierced the void before him, reaching into All Marvelous Heaven.

Almost at the exact same time, within the real All Marvelous Heaven.

BOOM!!!

Without any warning, a giant hand materialized out of thin air. It was condensed to the extreme and so massive that it blotted out the sky. Its five fingers were as distinct as mountains, and the lines on its palm were as profound as Daoist diagrams!

The moment the giant hand appeared, the surrounding void let out an overwhelmed CREAK, and the endless Daoist Intent and Spiritual Mechanism were forcibly pushed aside and solidified! An indescribably terrifying coercion spread out like a physical tsunami!

"What?!"

"Has the World Honored One returned?!"

Such a drastic change instantly alarmed the True Monarchs! Streaks of unparalleled Divine Thoughts were cast in unison toward the giant hand that had so abruptly appeared!

However, they had already suffered the painful lesson of being "fished" by the World Honored One’s sealing backup plan, nearly ending up like turtles trapped in a jar. At this moment, even upon witnessing a scene far more terrifying than the appearance of the World Honored One’s Buddha’s Hand, the True Monarchs tacitly maintained their restraint and vigilance after their initial shock!

No one rushed forward to investigate. No one hastily made a move to test it. Even the contact from their Divine Thoughts was exceptionally cautious and restrained.

Qingyuan Dao Seeking True Monarch furrowed his brows. The Ancient Sword illusion behind him emitted a low HUM, but he firmly suppressed it.

Vast Sea Dust True Monarch wore a solemn expression as the Water Essence Daoist Intent around him rippled slightly, forming an invisible layer of defense.

All the True Monarchs felt as if they were facing a formidable enemy, yet they were hesitant to act for fear of causing collateral damage. They were waiting. They were watching.

BOOM!

The mysterious giant hand seemed entirely oblivious to the countless vigilant, bewildered, and fearful gazes cast from its surroundings. It reached toward a Dao Fruit with a mellow Daoist Intent within the illusion, posturing to pluck it.

That Dao Fruit displayed a wondrous phenomenon of five swirling colors all over. Red, green, yellow, white, and black—the five-colored radiance circulated endlessly, mutually generating and yet faintly suppressing one another. Within the Dao Fruit, the Five Elements Daoist Intent evolved and blended, exuding a majestic Daoist Intent that was stable, balanced, and capable of bearing and evolving all things.

It was exactly the Five Elements Dao Fruit, representing the origin authority of the Great Dao of the Five Elements, currently in some sort of ownerless, dormant state.

"You’ll do."

Qi Yun’s heart thought was set.

In the next instant, the giant hand slightly opened its five fingers, its Daoist Intent restrained, and forcefully clenched down with an absolute, irresistible will!

"He... he wants to harvest the Dao Fruit?!"

"Forcibly harvest it?! How is that possible?!"

"Dao Fruits possess spirits and their own statuses. Unless acknowledged by their master or the Great Dao, who could forcibly touch them? Let alone harvest them?!"

The horror in the True Monarchs’ hearts could no longer be suppressed! The scene unfolding before them was wildly shattering their deep-rooted understandings!

Under the watchful eyes of everyone.

THUD.

A strange sound echoed as if a physical object had been firmly grasped. The mysterious giant hand solidly and thoroughly grabbed the Five Elements Dao Fruit—which was flowing with vast Five Elements Daoist Intent—in its palm!

BUZZ!!!

The moment the Five Elements Dao Fruit was grabbed, it abruptly erupted in an unprecedentedly violent resistance. The five-colored radiance of red, green, yellow, white, and black frantically surged, clashed, and annihilated!

The Mountain and River Illusions inside collapsed, forest oceans burned, rivers flowed backward, raging flames scorched the sky, and metals wailed! A terrifying force—majestic enough to trouble an ordinary True Monarch, representing the chaos of the Five Elements and the descent of all things into the Returning Ruins—erupted from within the Dao Fruit like an angered volcano, viciously crashing against the multicolored giant hand holding it.

However...

SIZZLE...

Just as that chaotic Five Elements power was about to completely detonate and break free from its restraints, wisps of multicolored radiance—seemingly thin yet indescribably condensed, chaotic in color, and containing a Daoist Intent that governed everything and encompassed the Ten Thousand Laws—seeped out from the palm and the gaps between the fingers of the giant hand.

"Suppress."

In the unseen world, an indifferent syllable seemed to resound from the very source of the Great Dao.

BOOM!

The entwining chaotic multicolored radiance suddenly unleashed a terrifying might that caused the entirety of All Marvelous Heaven to dim! Under the suppression of this Primordial multicolored radiance, the boiling, chaotic power within the Five Elements Dao Fruit that sought to destroy everything instantly fell silent and submitted!

The five-colored radiance was no longer riotous, instead circulating obediently. The collapsed mountains and rivers, the burning forest oceans, the backward-flowing rivers inside... all anomalies swiftly subsided and reformed, restoring their original balance and vitality.

The Five Elements Dao Fruit, which had seemed on the verge of self-destruction just a second ago, was now lying quietly and submissively in the palm of the multicolored giant hand. It faintly emanated a warm, five-colored glow, like a tame trinket that its master had played with for a long time.

...

A deathly silence blanketed All Marvelous Heaven as everyone witnessed this. At this moment, a shock bordering on utter bewilderment appeared on the faces of all the True Monarchs!

To forcibly harvest an ownerless Dao Fruit... and in an instant, to completely suppress and tame it in a way they entirely failed to comprehend or even perceive the underlying principles of...

...

Beneath the withered tree at the Cyan Mountain Daoist Temple.

"Phew..." Qi Yun gently let out a breath.

Within All Marvelous Heaven, the giant hand simultaneously and slowly opened its five fingers, placing the incredibly "tame" Five Elements Dao Fruit perfectly back into its original suspended position. The Five Elements Dao Fruit trembled slightly as its five-colored radiance circulated. It paused for a moment before resuming its slow rotation along its original trajectory, as if the thrilling scene from moments ago had never happened.

"That went smoothly..." Qi Yun thought. "Since an ownerless one can be harvested... what about... one with an owner?"

As his thoughts drifted, Qi Yun’s gaze shifted slightly, flickering with a strange light.

The next second, a majestic and mysterious gaze fell upon All Marvelous Heaven once more. This time, he didn’t look at those ownerless Dao Fruits. Instead, he looked at the Dao Fruits of the True Monarchs...

!!!

In an instant, the True Monarchs—who had dual-cultivated their lives with those Dao Fruits and were intrinsically connected to their Dao Foundations—simultaneously felt an unprecedented, bone-piercing, and terrifying chill that penetrated the deepest depths of their Divine Souls and Dao Foundations without warning. This was regardless of where their true bodies were located in Profound Yellow, or what they were doing at the time.

In the unseen world, it felt as though an indifferent, placid pair of eyes had materialized out of thin air right above their heads, directly over their Dao Fruits.

"What is that?!"

"Who is spying on me?!"

"I can’t deduce anything! The heavenly secrets are completely chaotic!"

"This feeling... is even more unsettling... than facing the World Honored One!"

The expressions of the True Monarchs drastically changed! They frantically circulated their Magical Power and channeled their Dao Fruits, attempting to use their own Great Daos to sense, deduce heavenly secrets, and trace karma in order to find the source of this terrifying chill and peering sensation.

However, they found absolutely nothing!

The only feedback was an even deeper layer of fog, along with a lingering, icy sense of powerlessness at being "watched" by a higher-tier entity!

"Could it be..." A True Monarch’s voice grew hoarse as he thought of a possibility. "Above... True Monarch?"

Qi Yun’s "gaze" didn’t linger on any single Dao Fruit for too long. He was merely "feeling" and "evaluating" what kind of reaction this peering would provoke against an owned Dao Fruit, and... whether his abilities could truly reach and affect these existences intrinsically tied to the lives of True Monarchs.

Eventually, his "gaze" slowly locked onto a target, falling upon a Dao Fruit with a highly distinct shape.

That Dao Fruit was entirely of an azure blue so profound that it seemed capable of devouring all light, resembling a slowly rotating, inwardly collapsing black hole! Traces of gloomy nether qi and deathly Daoist Intent flowed around the edge of the black hole, emitting a terrifying aura that was greedy, freezing, capable of devouring all things, and returning them to annihilation.

This was precisely the Dao Fruit of one of the presiding True Monarchs of the Yellow Springs Netherworld—Nine Nether Sun-devouring True Monarch.

The Nine Nether Dao Fruit!

Upholding the Holy Sect’s fine tradition of "favors can be ignored, but grudges must be repaid," Qi Yun decisively pinned the target of this "experiment" on this Nine Nether True Monarch from the Yellow Springs Netherworld.

BOOM—

In an instant, Qi Yun’s right hand, which he had just retracted, slowly rose once more! With his five fingers slightly parted, he steadily reached toward the continuously rotating azure "black hole"—the Nine Nether Dao Fruit—within the reflected illusion of All Marvelous Heaven before him!

At the same time, within the real All Marvelous Heaven!

RUMBLE!!!

The mysterious giant hand, which had dispersed not long ago, condensed out of thin air once again, aggressively making its appearance! And this time, it appeared directly above the Nine Nether Dao Fruit!

The sheer size of the giant hand blotted out the sky. The shadow it cast completely enveloped the already gloomy-looking Nine Nether Dao Fruit! Its five fingers, like five heaven-supporting pillars, slowly closed in. With a supreme, domineering aura capable of crushing everything and plucking the stars and moon, it grabbed down at that Dao Fruit!

"Bastard! How dare you!"