Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1625 - Astral Domain Force
Chapter 1625 – Astral Domain Force
The Faceless Clan had held the upper hand only a moment earlier, yet the instant the matriarch and patriarch struck together, that advantage shattered.
Stunned silence rippled through the ordinary elves. They couldn’t fathom how two leaders could command dual powers when light and dark magic were opposing forces.
“Retreat!” the Faceless Clan’s patriarch ordered urgently, already sensing the danger if he dragged out the battle.
Hua Feiyu and Tian Can alone didn’t truly threaten the Faceless Clan. What terrified them more was the Elven Race itself that had awakened and unified in the same breath.
The Faceless Clan had swept in like a storm, and it vanished just as quickly, leaving nothing behind but turbulence in the air.
Even as the battlefield quieted, black miasma crept over Liu Wuxie’s features. The act of transmitting his magical understanding to the two leaders had stirred the inner demon again, and the darkness inside him answered like an old wound reopening.
Hua Feiyu flew in, alarmed as the black fog thickened and began to swallow Liu Wuxie.
“Wuxie, how are you holding on?”
“Patriarch Makurat, we need the second chapter of the Heart-Calming Mantra—now!” Hua Feiyu shouted.
Holisse stepped forward and revealed the truth. “He’s suffering from an inner demon. Only the Elven Race’s Heart-Calming Mantra can save him. Our light lineage holds the first chapter, your dark lineage holds the second. Only the complete mantra can dissolve it.”
Makurat still looked lost, as if he had missed a critical turn. “The Heart-Calming Mantra requires the Nine-Colored Lotus. Can we even build it in time?”
Liu Wuxie had saved the Elven Race today. Without him, the Faceless Clan would have destroyed the planet. They couldn’t even imagine the cost of losing him.
“We already built the Nine-Colored Lotus,” Holisse replied. Vanya clamped onto her arm so tightly that her knuckles whitened. If Liu Wuxie died, she wouldn’t survive it.
“Good. Let’s go to the Nine-Colored Lotus immediately.” Makurat agreed at once to hand over the second chapter.
Hua Feiyu scooped Liu Wuxie up and leapt back toward the Light Elves’ settlement. They had prepared the Nine-Colored Lotus in advance, but no one had expected things to spiral into such chaos, especially when Hua Feiyu had come only to borrow the second chapter of the Heart-Calming Mantra.
They eased Liu Wuxie onto the Nine-Colored Lotus, its petals shimmering in nine distinct hues.
“Elders, lend me your strength,” Makurat ordered the dark lineage elders who had arrived with him. Holisse and Makurat couldn’t complete the full casting alone, as they needed nine people in total to invoke the complete Heart-Calming Mantra.
“Alright!”
The elders from both lineages sat down and steadied their breath.
Holisse raised the first chapter, letting it hover as she formed seals. Makurat mirrored her, lifting the second chapter into the air. The two halves drew together as if they had waited centuries to reunite, and they fused in an instant.
After so many years, the Heart-Calming Mantra finally became whole. Chants rose from the Nine-Colored Lotus, and nine sacred beams descended, wrapping Liu Wuxie in a radiant cocoon and bathing him in nine-colored light.
The mantra’s power burrowed into Liu Wuxie’s body, forming a colossal Buddha’s hand that reached straight for the inner demon.
The inner demon answered by condensing into a heart-demonic god, thrashing and snarling as it fought the grip. The two forces locked in a brutal stalemate, neither able to crush the other.
The elders chanted harder, and the sound grew clearer, purer, more domineering. Nine-colored radiance draped over Liu Wuxie until it felt as if nine Buddhas had descended to witness the struggle.
The inner demon bucked and tore at the restraints, but the Buddha’s hand held firm and refused to yield an inch.
If this had been the first outbreak, the mantra would have purged it instantly. However, the inner demon had erupted once already, and that earlier awakening made it far harder to erase.
The chant rang righteous and solemn, as though it guided Liu Wuxie toward a different path entirely. A thread of Buddhist energy sparked within him and continued to grow.
Inside the desolate world, change surged, and a brand-new realm opened. The Buddhist Realm brimmed with Buddhist energy.
The Buddhist Clan differed from other races. They cultivated Buddhist arts that surpassed ordinary mythical arts, and even the Great Yin-Yang Mythical Art traced roots to the Buddhist Clan’s Great Karma Mythical Art.
With the birth of the Buddhist Realm, Liu Wuxie’s cultivation structure refined itself again, tightening into something more complete than before.
Then suddenly, a vast will slammed down from above, and the inner demon shattered.
“This…!” Liu Wuxie reeled inwardly as that force exceeded anything he had expected. “Astral domain force!”
He had once obtained world force after becoming the True Martial Continent’s planet lord. Now, the astral domain force brushed his body. Did that mean the astral domain itself had acknowledged him? Even the thought felt outrageous.
Astral domain force surpassed world force. If he could truly wield it, he could call upon an entire astral domain in battle, and the scale of that terror defied reason.
Yet the power remained hazy. He couldn’t cultivate it through comprehension alone; he had to earn the domain’s acknowledgement.
By resolving the Elven Race’s feud, Liu Wuxie had indirectly reduced bloodshed across the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain. The domain had answered that shift and granted him its recognition.
Countless experts had cultivated for tens of thousands of years without receiving such empowerment. Their deeds had never moved the domain itself.
Liu Wuxie, however, kept his intent clean. His actions had repeatedly pushed the astral domain toward stability and prosperity, and the domain responded in kind.
The Heart-Calming Mantra was at risk of getting stuck in a deadlock with the inner demon. If it had stalled too long, Liu Wuxie would have faced real danger. Astral domain force ended that struggle with a single, crushing verdict.
Holisse and Makurat exchanged a glance, shock etched on their faces. Neither believed they could withstand the pressure that had descended through Liu Wuxie just now.
Up until now, Liu Wuxie had relied on the Great Five Elemental Immortal Art to kill a quasi-immortal, but the strike would drain him dry afterward. Now, the astral domain force bolstered him, and if he were to unleash that immortal art again, he could slaughter quasi-immortals far more easily.
With the continuing shift to the heaven and earth, more quasi-immortals would inevitably step out of seclusion. Liu Wuxie could already feel the future tightening and becoming harsher than he had prepared for.
The greatest danger didn’t come from the astral domains but from the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm. The cracks in the Heavenly Dao Book kept widening, warning him that something immense had begun to close in.
He needed speed. He needed cultivation. If he could reach the higher levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm, he would finally be able to face the immortals head-on. Yet even then, killing an immortal wouldn’t come easily.
Immortals commanded immortal arts. Mythical arts collapsed before them like paper.
“Refine the will of an immortal!” Liu Wuxie decided on the spot, choosing madness over caution.
The inner demon carried the will of an immortal. If he absorbed it, he could seize a sliver of immortal intent.
He had once stood as an Immortal Emperor in his past life, but in this life, he still hadn’t stepped into the Immortal Realm. When he reached that height again, he wouldn’t need anyone else’s will. Yet for now, even a fragment could sharpen his edge.
He summoned the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and began devouring the remnants of the inner demon. Holisse and Makurat traded another look, this time filled with alarm.
If Liu Wuxie failed to suppress it, every breath they’d spent chanting the mantra would turn into ash. Still, they believed he wouldn’t gamble without a reason.
The Heart-Calming Mantra had already weakened the inner demon. Liu Wuxie wouldn’t have dared to attempt this refinement before, not when he could barely suppress it, let alone consume it.
Holisse and Makurat stayed silent and poured more power into the mantra, using it to nourish Liu Wuxie’s body and steady the refinement.
The Heart-Calming Mantra didn’t only purge inner demons, but also expanded wisdom without limit, polishing the mind as it cleansed the heart.
Liu Wuxie sat cross-legged, practicing the Desolate Devouring Art, drawing boundless spiritual energy from the surrounding space. He intended to refine the immortal will and push himself into the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm.
By all logic, refining the Heretic God’s remains should have carried him there already, but the desolate world had grown too vast. Every breakthrough demanded a terrifying mountain of resources.
The mysterious rune energy tied to Vandore and the dark lineage’s inheritance had rooted itself in his body. He couldn’t pass it to the Elven Race, and he didn’t intend to.
If he refined that energy, he could break through, and then time itself would laugh at most forms of magic.
Minutes turned heavy. The nine elves on the Nine-Colored Lotus began to gasp for air, their magical force draining into dangerous depths.
Liu Wuxie became a bottomless maw, like a black hole that refused to fill. The realization stunned them, as every dantian had limits, yet Liu Wuxie’s felt endless.
Then thunder rolled.
A vast vortex formed overhead, swallowing spiritual energy and compressing it into liquid that poured down over Liu Wuxie like a celestial torrent.
From within the clouds, a finger began to take shape. It was the Heavenbound Immortal Finger.
Back in the Laman Astral Domain, Liu Wuxie had only pushed the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art into an immortal art. Now he seized this moment to elevate the Heavenbound Immortal Finger as well, stacking the odds in his favor for the wars still to come.
……
Meanwhile, only three days had passed in the Laman Astral Domain, yet the Immortal Slaughter Palace already felt like a grave.
Liu Wuxie had slaughtered most of their upper echelons, and disciples fled in waves, especially the newest recruits, who slipped away under the cover of night.
No one could see a future there. With the leadership butchered, the sect had turned into an empty shell.
The palace lord sat alone in the grand hall, looking older than the stone beneath him. As a dignified quasi-immortal, he had never tasted failure.
The few surviving elders scrambled to soothe the panicked disciples, hoping to keep the sect from falling apart completely.
Then a violent ripple tore through the sky.
For a heartbeat, the palace lord thought Liu Wuxie had returned to finish the slaughter. He had already called on an immortal’s power and still failed to kill Liu Wuxie. It was proof enough of how monstrous the enemy had become.
If Liu Wuxie marched in with an army, the Immortal Slaughter Palace would collapse for good.
“Master, I have returned!”
A powerful aura swept across the Immortal Slaughter Palace, and a massive crowd followed behind it, every one of them radiating formidable cultivation.
