Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1159 - Divine Mythical Force

Chapter 1159 – Divine Mythical Force

The night passed quickly. At dawn, the barracks still lay in slumber when a sudden metallic clang shattered the quiet. The heavy iron door swung open, and two guards strode in.

“You, come with us!” one of them barked. These guards radiated power, each at a high level of the Transcendent Realm. Weaklings would never survive in the Northern Foothill Mines.

Liu Wuxie rose to his feet, and He Yingwu followed close behind.

“I’m going with him,” He Yingwu said, making the guards exchange puzzled glances. In the past, slaves chosen for the Northern Foothill Mines often preferred death to going there. Today, someone volunteered.

“Follow us then,” one of the guards replied after a pause. The mines were short on labor, and every extra pair of hands meant more astral stones. That alone was reason enough to allow it.

The escorts led them northwest, and by afternoon, they crossed a rugged mountain range into a barren, ancient expanse. A mighty gale swept in from the astral domain, scouring the land bare and lifeless. In the distance, clusters of astral beasts roamed while winged predators circled overhead, ready to strike at any human they spotted.

The guards guided them carefully, skirting dense beast territories until, by late afternoon, the silhouette of the Northern Foothill Mines emerged on the horizon.

“We’ll enter after dark,” one of the guards instructed. Even high-level Transcendent experts avoided passing the entrance during daylight. Astral beasts guarded it fiercely, attacking and devouring anyone who drew near. At night, when the beasts retreated to rest, there would be a brief window to slip inside.

However, the underground held dangers of its own. Wind tunnels riddled the mines, and a single misstep could lead the raging astral gales to tear a person apart. Despite producing the highest-quality astral stones, the mines yielded the lowest output.

When darkness finally fell, the guards ushered Liu Wuxie and He Yingwu into the damp mining tunnels. Just as He Yingwu had said, there were almost no guards, slaves lacked interspatial pouches, and had to carry their stones to a collection point. Yu Wentai sent men once a month to retrieve them. Escape was unthinkable; the surface was far deadlier than the mines, making the underground the only place with a sliver of safety.

Most slaves served here for a set time. If they survived, they were sent back to their original mines with a small reward. The entire Northern Foothill Mines had only one local guard, whose primary duty was to watch the stones and keep them from astral beast theft.

As for the slaves, the guards left them to their own devices. There were many astral stones in the mine to dig freely.

After handing the two over, the escorting guards left in haste, unwilling to remain another moment. They had to return before dawn, or they would be trapped here for another day. None of them was willing to stay in the Northern Foothill Mines any longer than necessary. The ferocious astral winds felt painful to the touch.

“Follow this passage to the mining site. Submit at least five hundred raw stones every three days,” the local guard said, tossing each an iron pick. A cart waited further inside.

With picks in hand, Liu Wuxie and He Yingwu pressed deeper, the astral winds cutting into their skin. Soon, shallow wounds covered He Yingwu’s body.

“Brother He, I’ll teach you a body-refinement technique. Use it with the astral wind here to temper your body,” Liu Wuxie said, forming a seal and sending a golden light into He Yingwu’s mind.

The astral wind was a death sentence for other slaves, but for Liu Wuxie, it was the perfect place to temper his physique.

The technique, the Jade Soul Divine Physique, was akin to the Divine Thunder Physique and ideally suited for cultivation in such winds. Under Liu Wuxie’s guidance, He Yingwu began tempering his body. The pain dulled, and the cuts started to heal as his physique strengthened.

“Wuxie, I can never thank you enough,” He Yingwu said with gratitude. Without this technique, survival there would have been nearly impossible.

His choice to follow Liu Wuxie stemmed from both loyalty and necessity, as Chen Gang would have killed him if he stayed behind.

After two hours of walking, they reached the mine’s depths. It was still the middle of the night, so they sat down to rest while enduring the astral winds. Liu Wuxie used them to temper both the Divine Thunder Physique and True Dragon Physique. With every moment, their bodies toughened until ordinary astral winds could no longer harm them.

By dawn, pale light filtered through the tunnels, casting enough brightness to see. They forbade fires underground, so this was the only illumination.

“So many raw stones,” Liu Wuxie muttered, eyes gleaming. Having just entered the astral domain, resources were what he needed most. Astral stones here equaled the value of spirit stones in the True Martial Continent, and with them, survival became far easier.

The two worked tirelessly, mining while letting the winds strengthen their bodies. By day’s end, they were exhausted, and after a brief meal, Liu Wuxie sorted their haul. They had dug more than five hundred raw stones, a clear sign of the mine’s richness, though extracting them was more complicated than with ordinary ores.

He tossed the stones into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, where dozens exploded into liquid spiritual energy.

“Big Brother He, prepare to receive it,” Liu Wuxie said. He didn’t just plan to advance in his cultivation; he also had to help He Yingwu.

He Yingwu sat cross-legged without hesitation, absorbing the pure energy. He surged in cultivation and broke through to the fifth-level Heaven Profound Realm after decades of stagnation. With enough astral stones and time, he could rise even higher.

Once He Yingwu stabilized his realm, he stood guard while Liu Wuxie continued. The astral winds masked any sound, making discovery unlikely.

The guard didn’t enter the mines regularly. He only visited when it was time to collect the raw stones every few days.

Over a hundred more stones exploded within the cauldron, and the massive Divine Fruit from the Ancestral Tree fell, dissolving into a surge of divine force that poured into Liu Wuxie’s soul sea. The third divine gate rose before him, and the roaring force slammed into it. Cracks spread like spiderwebs before he shattered the gate with a sharp pop.

“This is the divine mythical force?!” Liu Wuxie exclaimed, shock reflected in his eyes.

Boundless divine mythical force, far beyond ordinary divine power, flooded into him. This was the energy needed to execute mythical arts. Immortal arts required immortal force, the refined energy of immortals, no longer true essence, but immortal essence.

As more than a hundred astral stones erupted, his aura soared, blasting through to the fourth-level Heaven Profound Realm. It didn’t stop, rising toward the fifth level. His solid foundation, long held back by the True Martial Continent’s limits, surged forward without a bottleneck within the Heaven Profound Realm.

Another two hundred stones exploded, and the gateway to the fifth level began to open. The pressure built until his body ached from the strain, yet his aura continued to rise.

He Yingwu watched in awe. Though they now shared the same cultivation stage, the phenomenon surrounding Liu Wuxie’s breakthrough rivaled that of the Transcendent Realm. Now he understood why Liu Wuxie had welcomed the Northern Foothill Mines: here, he could cultivate without restraint.