Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1626 - Refining the Immortals Will
Chapter 1626 – Refining the Immortal’s Will
The sudden appearance of that massive crowd didn’t just jolt the entire Immortal Slaughter Palace, but it threw Tranquil Peace City into chaos as waves of experts streaked through the sky to investigate.
The moment they took off, nearly everyone jumped to the same conclusion. “Did Liu Wuxie return?”
Speculation surged like wildfire, filling the heavens with overlapping voices. “Liu Wuxie is insane if he dares to charge straight into the Immortal Slaughter Palace!”
However, the instant they arrived, the uproar died. The mysterious group didn’t come from the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain at all. At first glance, they resembled humans, yet subtle differences in their features immediately set them apart.
Inside the main hall, the palace lord stepped out at the sound of a familiar voice.
Ji Yuzhen dropped to his knees. “Disciple greets Master!” After more than a year away, he had finally returned to the Laman Astral Domain.
“Ji Yuzhen!”
The palace lord was shocked.
When he had taken Ji Yuzhen in, he had guessed that the boy had some connection to Liu Wuxie, but he was never entirely certain.
“Master, I have returned.” Ji Yuzhen rose smoothly to his feet. He read the palace lord’s expression at a glance and understood perfectly well that the palace lord had used him from the start.
“What’s going on?” The palace lord’s shock deepened when he sensed Ji Yuzhen’s aura. In less than a year, Ji Yuzhen had reached the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm and was only a step away from the Quasi-Immortal Realm.
Behind him stood a vast formation of experts, all radiating powerful cultivation. Several had reached the Heaven Gaze Realm, and countless more stood at the Void Realm.
“Master, it’s a long story.” Ji Yuzhen gestured toward the crowd of more than a thousand people as he continued, “Please arrange a place for them to rest. They came to join the Immortal Slaughter Palace.”
A few experts stayed behind in the hall while the elders guided the rest away to settle. After repeated disasters and waves of desertion, the Immortal Slaughter Palace now had no shortage of empty residences.
Ji Yuzhen scanned the surroundings as they moved, and a frown crept across his face.
“Master, why does the sect feel so empty?”
“This is also a long story…” The palace lord answered with the same sigh Ji Yuzhen had used earlier, and the words carried a heaviness that didn’t need explanation.
When they returned to the main hall, Ji Yuzhen sat below the dais while the accompanying experts took seats to one side.
“Master, allow me to introduce them. They’re experts from the Loulan Race.”
The palace lord rose and cupped his fists toward the Loulan experts in greeting.
“Yuzhen, tell me what happened to you over the past year.”
With Ji Yuzhen’s current cultivation, he no longer needed to bow his head, as he already had the right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the palace lord.
No one could believe that someone from a backwater like the True Martial Continent had risen to this height in just a few years. The thought stirred a dangerous suspicion in everyone’s hearts. Did the True Martial Continent hide some mystery that allowed Liu Wuxie and Ji Yuzhen to grow so quickly?
Ji Yuzhen began recounting everything.
After Liu Wuxie had activated the teleportation array and transported everyone, Ji Yuzhen had stayed behind on Celestial Jade Star. The Loulan Race’s ancestor had originally intended to kill him, but he had offered another method at the critical moment, one that promised a way off the star and a chance to hunt Liu Wuxie down.
Over the next year or so, Ji Yuzhen had arranged for the Loulan Race to slaughter every lifeform near Celestial Jade Star, accelerating the fall of the astral domain itself. He had seized that collapse and plundered without restraint. With his smooth tongue and calculated offerings, he had quickly gained the Loulan ancestor’s favor, who had then taught him various techniques in exchange.
With an entire astral domain’s resources pouring into him, Ji Yuzhen’s cultivation had soared day after day.
Not long ago, Celestial Jade Star had fallen into decline, and the phenomenon of ten suns rising to the sky had appeared once more. Ji Yuzhen had seized that opening and led the Loulan experts out. They had returned to the Blood Fiend Battlefield before rushing back to the Immortal Slaughter Palace without wasting a breath.
The palace lord couldn’t help sighing as he listened. Ji Yuzhen’s ordeal had turned into a blessing in disguise.
Liu Wuxie had left him behind on Celestial Jade Star, yet that abandonment had handed Ji Yuzhen an enormous harvest. Now the entire Loulan Race was under his control.
“Master, where did the other elders go?” Ji Yuzhen asked, his confusion evident. He had only seen a handful of the Immortal Slaughter Palace’s upper echelons so far.
By rights, the sect should have erupted into celebration. With the Loulan Race behind him, Ji Yuzhen had effectively returned with an army, and even ordinary second-tier forces couldn’t withstand that weight. The upper echelons should have rushed out to welcome him.
The palace lord’s shoulders slumped as a deeper exhaustion surfaced in his eyes. An elder seated in the hall stepped forward and recounted everything that had happened over the past few months, from Liu Wuxie’s infiltration of Anlu Star to his escape from the Laman Astral Domain after taking a direct hit from an Immortal.
Ji Yuzhen drew in a sharp breath. Having climbed from the Primal Origin Realm to the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm in such a short duration, he thought of himself as a monstrous genius. Yet Liu Wuxie had advanced just as fast while dismantling the Immortal Slaughter Palace piece by piece. Even Ji Yuzhen couldn’t imagine himself replicating Liu Wuxie’s feats.
The Loulan experts exchanged stunned looks. On the way back, they had discussed joining hands with the Immortal Slaughter Palace to kill Liu Wuxie, but the reality now looked far more treacherous than they had imagined.
Although Liu Wuxie was only at the first-level Heaven Gaze Realm, he already possessed the means to slay quasi-immortals.
“Master… are you certain Liu Wuxie did all of this alone?” Ji Yuzhen asked, disbelief thick in his voice. Only a deity was capable of such things.
“How I wish it were not true.” The palace lord answered, looking far older than before. Gloom dulled his edge until he seemed to have lost the will to sharpen it again.
“Master, what do we do now?” Ji Yuzhen asked, losing his confidence. He had planned to attack the Heavenly Dragon Sect, but it had collapsed abruptly.
Not only did the Heavenly Dragon Sect remain terrifyingly strong, but the Heavenly Dao Society had also expanded at a frightening pace. Its overall strength now rivaled a first-tier force, and the only thing holding it back was the absence of an immortal.
“We wait,” the palace lord said.
“Wait for what?” Ji Yuzhen frowned, unable to read the intent behind his words.
“We wait for the immortals to return. Only an immortal can kill Liu Wuxie.” The palace lord spoke with bleak certainty.
With Liu Wuxie’s rising cultivation, their chance to kill him had vanished. Only if someone among them reached the Immortal Realm could they have a chance, but that path looked nearly impossible.
“When will the immortals return?” Ji Yuzhen pressed.
“Soon.” The palace lord didn’t elaborate. By the laws of the astral domains, the Skyfall Realm shook violently every ten thousand years, allowing the immortals within to return to the four astral domains. The next cycle drew nearer by the day.
Recently, the structure of heaven and earth had begun shifting at an unsettling pace. Some planets expanded at terrifying speed, while others collapsed even faster. Each time a planet expanded, it fed its planet lord, pushing that lord’s cultivation higher with the backlash of growth.
The True Martial Continent had also begun swelling, and the three-year deadline crept toward its end. That meant the interstellar teleportation array would be complete soon. Worse still, the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain had begun drawing the True Martial Continent toward it. Soon, it would become part of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.
……
Meanwhile, Liu Wuxie continued devouring the spiritual energy around him, drawing it in like a tide.
Elves from both lineages gathered around the scene, disbelief stamped across their faces.
Several elders of the dark lineage clustered together, whispering under their breath, “Liu Wuxie is too terrifying. At this rate, won’t his body explode?”
“His physique isn’t ordinary,” another elder replied with bitter self-mockery. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have created so many miracles.”
The gateway to the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm had already manifested. Liu Wuxie drove his immortal energy into it repeatedly, hammering with relentless force. After breaking through, he would rise higher still, and the Great Five Elemental Immortal Art and the Heavenbound Immortal Finger would become his sharpest blades for slaughter.
Above him, the finger flickered in and out of existence. Liu Wuxie drove his cultivation forward while simultaneously comprehending the Heavenbound Immortal Finger, refusing to slow for even a single breath.
As time slipped by, the Heart-Calming Mantra’s energy weakened until it no longer carried the same crushing strength as before. Inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, the strand of the immortal’s will sank deeper and deeper, struggling like a trapped beast.
“Brat, you dare refine my will?” The Immortal Slaughter Palace’s ancestor raged through the inner demon’s control.
“Divine Purgatory Palace, suppress!” Liu Wuxie drew on the Divine Purgatory Palace’s power and slammed it down. Demonic Purgatory Chains wrapped tight, and demonic flame surged to refine what he had pinned.
Even under that pressure, the immortal will still struggle fiercely, truly living up to its name.
“Don’t even dream about escaping now that you’ve fallen into my hands.” Liu Wuxie snorted, then dropped an even heavier will upon it. It was the will of an Immortal Emperor. The moment it descended, the immortal’s will screamed in agony, pinned so thoroughly it couldn’t even twitch.
“What is this power?!” The immortal will cried again, terror spilling through the words.
“Be destroyed!” Liu Wuxie detonated the immortal will and forced it into pure energy, then drove the surge straight into the gateway of the second level.
A will lacked flesh, yet it remained undeniably real, akin to divine sense, but sharper and denser, infused with spirit, intent, and soul. With that, Liu Wuxie forcibly refined an immortal’s will.
The gateway to the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm finally pried open, and a more terrifying force poured out from behind it. The gate shattered into countless fragments and sank into the desolate world, merging into its foundation.
Immortal runes multiplied in an instant, surging from mere thousands into tens of thousands. Ordinary low-level Heaven Gaze cultivators could never carry so many immortal runes within them.
Even so, immortal runes alone didn’t decide combat strength. No matter how many runes he bore, Liu Wuxie still couldn’t match an actual immortal.
