Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1632 - Sarira
Chapter 1632 – Sarira
Liu Wuxie didn’t dare to act rashly. He decided to probe the situation first before making any move, yet the longer he studied the dragon’s head, the more it seemed to resemble a peculiar mask.
He couldn’t quite describe what kind of mask it was. A strange familiarity tugged at him, as though he had seen it somewhere before, but no matter how he rummaged through his memories, he couldn’t recall where.
From a distance, it looked like a dragon’s head, but up close, it looked more like a human face. It could be described as “Stone face.” This first impression only deepened the longer he stared. He tried using Ghost Pupil, but it failed to pierce through.
When his divine sense seeped into the stone face like mercury, an invisible force shoved his Ghost Pupil back completely, like a formless palm barring the way.
“This is interesting. It can actually repel my Ghost Pupil,” Liu Wuxie murmured, a strange glint flickering in his eyes. The stone face had to be extraordinary if it could block him like this.
The Mad Demon Ancestors had guarded this place for more than a thousand years, yet even they had never unraveled the secret.
Since Ghost Pupil couldn’t penetrate it, Liu Wuxie could only summon the Heretic Blade, retreat a short distance, and slash down.
Sparks exploded in every direction, yet the stone face remained unscathed. Instead, the Heretic Blade released a mournful screech as the stone face rebounded the strike, and the backlash jolted Liu Wuxie hard.
The Heretic Blade stood comparable to the Quasi-Immortal Realm, yet the stone face still held firm. Worse, that rebound nearly shattered the laws inside the Heretic Blade, leaving Liu Wuxie incredulous.
“No wonder the Mad Demon Ancestors couldn’t do anything to this stone face. If even I can’t open it, they had no chance,” Liu Wuxie muttered. Only then did he understand how it had stayed intact for so many years.
The Heavenly Dao Book had indeed warned him that something lay inside the stone face. Without that reminder, he would have turned around and left long ago.
The situation stalled as more cultivators crept closer in secret, assuming Liu Wuxie had already departed the Mad Demon Gate.
However, Liu Wuxie’s divine sense easily covered a three-thousand-mile radius, and nothing within that range escaped him.
He decided, “It looks like I can only take it with me.” If he couldn’t unravel the mystery here, he would take it away and deal with it later.
His instincts told him that solving the stone face’s secret would push him into the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm. Once he reached that step, he would gain far better odds against other quasi-immortals.
Yet heaven and earth had already begun to shift, and quasi-immortals emerged from seclusion one after another, whipping the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain into turmoil as everyone fought for dominance.
In times like these, the four astral domains would reshuffle. Only first-tier sects could survive the upheaval, and most second-tier sects would collapse under it, just like the Mad Demon Gate.
Liu Wuxie seized the stone face and prepared to lift it.
“Rise!” he growled. Power surged through him, and violent laws poured into the stone face.
The entire stone palace groaned as though it might collapse. Rock fragments rained down around him, forcing him to halt. He knew that if he pushed further, the palace would crumble and everything within three thousand miles might collapse with it.
He realized the stone face’s roots had fused with the underground world itself. Forcibly ripping it out would prove troublesome and might even trigger an upheaval across the entire planet. Mad Demon Ancestors hadn’t moved it for the same reason, leaving it sealed there.
Liu Wuxie’s temper flared. “I refuse to believe I can’t pry open the secrets inside this stone face.” He decided to use immortal arts to break it. If even immortal arts failed, he would have no choice but to abandon it and leave.
“Great Five Elemental Immortal Palm!” Liu Wuxie unleashed his immortal art and reached toward the stone face. The technique condensed into a terrifying palm that descended from above, enveloping the entire stone face.
As the giant palm exerted pressure, the stone face began to creak and groan. The force exceeded the Heretic Blade’s strike by more than a dozen times.
The palace shook violently under the immortal art’s weight, and stones fell even faster. Outside, rushing cultivators discovered the underground palace as a massive fissure split open in the ground, exposing everything happening within.
“What is Liu Wuxie trying to do? Why is he trying to crush that stone face?” The stone face was only about the size of an adult’s head, yet its toughness had reached a level even quasi-immortal artifacts couldn’t crack.
“Could there be some kind of peerless treasure inside?” Everyone had long heard of Liu Wuxie’s fortune, how treasures seemed to appear wherever he went. Seeing this now, they realized the rumors were true.
The surrounding cultivators sighed. “Even if there’s treasure inside, who would dare to snatch it? He killed even the Mad Demon Ancestors.”
Their cultivation didn’t even come close to that of the Mad Demon Ancestors, and no one dared to risk their lives by going against Liu Wuxie. His notoriety had already spread like wildfire, and what he had done to the Immortal Slaughter Palace had shaken everyone. A saying even began to circulate. “Better to offend an immortal than to offend Liu Wuxie.”
If they offended an immortal, that immortal might not bother lowering themselves to their level. Even if others were offended, there might still be a path to reconciliation. But offending Liu Wuxie practically sealed one’s own death.
Liu Wuxie didn’t even know people had already given him a new nickname of Fiend God Liu.
As he poured more force into the Great Five Elemental Immortal Art, cracks finally spidered across the stone face, and a terrifying aura seeped out through the fissures.
“This is the Buddhist Clan’s aura!” Shock flashed across Liu Wuxie’s face.
The Buddhist Clan rarely interacted with the Human Race, and even Liu Wuxie had never seen a true Buddhist Clan cultivator.
As the aura leaked and intensified, the experts hovering overhead grew restless. Greed urged them to dive down and seize whatever hid inside the stone face, but reason held them back. They knew they would die the instant they moved.
Liu Wuxie had already prepared himself. If anyone dared to act, he would retaliate at once with the Heavenbound Immortal Finger and wipe them all out.
With the cracks spreading, Ghost Pupil finally slipped inside, and Liu Wuxie saw countless buddhist runes within. Those runes were the very things that had blocked his power, and they had even absorbed the Heretic Blade’s impact.
“Open!”
Liu Wuxie spotted a strange bead inside the stone face, about the size of a quail egg. It was crystal clear, unlike any ordinary prayer bead.
Liu Wuxie narrowed his eyes.
“This is a sarira?!” Only Buddhist Clan powerhouses could condense their entire cultivation to form a sarira.
His eyes lit up. The owner of this sarira had to stand above the Immortal Realm.
When humans reached their peak, they became immortals. When the Buddhist Clan reached its peak, they attained Buddhahood and became Buddhas. Hence, there was this saying that reaching the summit meant becoming an immortal or becoming a Buddha.
A sarira equaled the full cultivation of a Buddhist powerhouse. If Liu Wuxie refined it, it would be no different from refining an immortal. Even if it carried only one ten-thousandth of its owner’s power, it would still surpass quasi-immortals by countless times.
A quasi-immortal wasn’t truly an immortal. It was someone who had only stepped toward the Immortal Realm’s threshold.
A resonant chant rose from deep inside the stone face, and everyone heard it. They felt as though they had bathed in buddhist light.
The sarira released a faint radiance that wrapped around Liu Wuxie. This no longer felt like a clash of brute force but a collision of soul and body. The buddhist light washed through his soul sea and physique, tempering him further, especially his soul sea, as it cleansed every trace of impurity and sharpened his thoughts into clarity.
“This is a sarira! One comparable to an immortal!” An uproar exploded in the sky, and everyone stood stunned.
The stone face would soon split open completely, and the scene inside had already become visible to everyone.
“If Liu Wuxie refines it, he’ll reach the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm!” said a pinnacle Heaven Gaze Realm cultivator, grinding the words through clenched teeth.
“If I can absorb it, I will definitely comprehend the Immortal Realm!”
Most of those gathered had reached the Heaven Gaze Realm, yet not a single quasi-immortal stood among them.
They had remained stuck at this realm for far too long, unable to take another step.
“The Mad Demon Ancestors guarded this place for countless years, but in the end it fell into Liu Wuxie’s hands,” someone sighed, lamenting fate’s cruelty.
Liu Wuxie had only just arrived at the Mad Demon Gate, yet he had found a treasure as heaven-defying as a sarira. If it were an ordinary sarira, no one would have cared, but this one was different and only one of its kind in the entire Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.
As for who had sealed it there, no one knew.
“Come!” As the stone face neared its breaking point, Liu Wuxie reached in and seized the sarira. The chant vanished instantly, and silence fell again, yet Liu Wuxie couldn’t calm his racing heart.
“Time to leave,” he murmured. His figure flashed, and he vanished. More experts rushed in from afar, and he knew he couldn’t linger here any longer.
If anyone learned he had obtained a treasure like this sarira, greed would swarm without end. He had to find a quiet place, refine it, and break through to the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm.
He also intended to retrieve Nightmare City after he broke through. In the future, he could house the Heavenly Dao Society inside Nightmare City, and even immortals wouldn’t be able to harm them there. After so many years of nurturing, Nightmare City had already grown infinitely close to an immortal artifact.
The crowd could only watch him leave, stomping their feet in frustration with nothing else they could do.
After departing the planet, Liu Wuxie flew farther away, seeking a place with no one around so he could break through in peace. He flew for a full day and night, leaving the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain behind and reaching the very edge of the astral domain.
Reverse currents of space-time churned everywhere, and no one would come here under normal circumstances.
He landed on an abandoned planet and pulled out array flags, setting up a spiritual array around himself.
This planet had lain deserted for countless years, with not even a blade of grass left behind. The harsh astral wind alone could tear apart cultivators at the Earth Immortal Realm.
After finishing his preparations, Liu Wuxie found a cavern to settle in. He entered, sat cross-legged, and circulated the Desolate Devouring Art to draw in the sparse spiritual energy lingering in the atmosphere.
The air itself grew restless from his devouring because his absorption speed had become terrifying. After advancing, the Desolate Devouring Art had reached an outrageous level.
Liu Wuxie didn’t refine the sarira immediately. He couldn’t afford a single mistake. He needed to bring his energy, spirit, and soul into perfect condition first. He had only recently broken through, and he still needed time to consolidate his cultivation.
As time passed, news of Liu Wuxie wiping out the Faceless Clan began spreading through the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain. In recent days, the Grand Unity Sect had been making frequent moves, and people could hear the Great Divine Sun Bell more often.
