Chapter 140 - 96: Ancient Immortal and Ancient Immortal, Heaven and Earth Are Ruthless, Treating All Things as Straw Dogs

Chapter 140: Chapter 96: Ancient Immortal and Ancient Immortal, Heaven and Earth Are Ruthless, Treating All Things as Straw Dogs

It was somewhat like studying—after mastering it, one gradually cultivated themselves into an existence similar to the Celestial Dao. This not only didn’t negatively impact heaven and earth but actually benefited them. The more such Cultivators there were, the stronger the Celestial Dao would become. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

But the Ancient Immortals were different. According to Pang Xiao’s Description, the Ancient Immortals viewed the Celestial Dao as nothing more than a giant, delicious feast. They used various methods to continuously encroach upon the Celestial Dao, snatching its Power to make it their own. This top-down Cultivation method also meant that in the Ancient Immortal World, Mortals were no longer humans, but Walking livestock.

Every time an Ancient Immortal wanted to break through their Realm, they needed massive blood sacrifices. Furthermore, besides eating Mortals, Ancient Immortals would also devour each other, as the value of consuming one Ancient Immortal far exceeded that of eating countless Mortals. Therefore, in the Ancient Immortal World, everyone from the Ancient Immortals at the top down to the Xi Cultivators at the bottom had to eat their way up if they wanted to become stronger.

If Cultivators cultivated the "Dao"—the path—then the Ancient Immortals cultivated the "Dao of the Mouth." It was written with the character for ’Dao’ placed above the character for ’mouth’—swallowing everything bit by bit. This was the Cultivation method of the Ancient Immortals.

Unlike Cultivators, who could simply break through once their Realm reached the required level, the breakthrough method for Xi Cultivators in the Ancient Immortal World was very unique. Because of the uniqueness of the ’Dao,’ coupled with the fact that they gained Power through continuous devouring, the number of Golden Core Stage and Nascent Soul Stage among the Sinisters was limited. Of the three thousand Great Daos and one hundred thousand lesser Daos, the number of Nascent Soul and Golden Core Stage Cultivators in the Ancient Immortal World remained constant at two thousand and sixty thousand, respectively. While some Nascent Soul and Golden Core Cultivators mastered multiple Daos, the vast majority only possessed a single Dao for their entire lives.

Thus, the condition for breaking through from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core was that a Golden Core Stage Xi Cultivator had to perish, forcing them to spit out the Dao they had occupied. Then, one had to seize that precious window of time to immediately Break Realm. Otherwise, it could be snatched away by other Peak of Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators on the same Dao.

Although this Cultivation method resulted in the Ancient Immortal World having far fewer Practitioners than the Cultivation World Lu Chen was in, they were forced to devour a ’Dao’ to achieve the Supreme Golden Core. Consequently, Golden Core Stage Cultivators in the Ancient Immortal World were vastly stronger than the Golden Core Stage Cultivators in the Cultivation World.

Using Lu Chen as an analogy, it was equivalent to all one hundred thousand Golden Core Stage Cultivators of the Ancient Immortal World possessing Divine Techniques above the ’Dao Entry Level.’ This was terrifying because ’Entering the Dao’ and ’Harmonization Dao’ were completely different concepts. One was merely entry-level, while the other was complete mastery; the gap between them was like heaven and earth. Looking at it through Experience Points, taking Skills from ’Breaking Realm’ to ’Entering the Dao’ only required 30,000 Experience Points, while going from ’Entering the Dao’ to ’Harmonization Dao’ required a full 1,000,000 Experience Points. The sheer magnitude of this gap was plain to see.

Because of the Ancient Immortals’ Cultivation method, which was akin to that of Demon Fiends, Cultivators never referred to them as Cultivators, but rather as ’Sinisters.’ The term likened them to a pack of vile creatures that only knew how to greedily take. But it had to be said, most of the time, snatching something was indeed much faster than learning it.

Therefore, after the war between the two worlds began, the Cultivation World possessed a clear advantage at the start, as their True Immortals vastly outnumbered and outclassed those of the Ancient Immortal World. However, because the Ancient Immortals’ Power was all stolen, as long as they occupied even a small piece of territory in the Cultivation World, they could mass-produce a large number of Cultivators at the Golden Core Stage and above. Furthermore, even if existences at the Ancient Immortal level fell in the cross-realm war, they could quickly make up for the loss of Power by devouring that Ancient Immortal’s corpse. Once an Ancient Immortal devoured a large number of other Ancient Immortal corpses, it effectively meant they had mastered more Daos, causing their Power to skyrocket.

But the True Immortals of the Cultivation World were different. Every True Immortal in the Cultivation World had gradually cultivated for tens of thousands of years. For every one that fell, it would take at least ten thousand years to produce another True Immortal. With this shifting balance of power, by the middle stage of the war between the two worlds, the Immortals and Buddhas in the Thirty-Three Heavens began to grow overly cautious. They no longer dared to fight the Ancient Immortals to the death with their full strength like they did at the beginning.

Without the True Immortal Buddhas to stop them, an even larger number of Sinisters were able to rush into the Cultivation World. They greedily devoured the Cultivation World’s Celestial Dao while continuously hunting down its Cultivators. After all, to the Sinisters, devouring a Cultivator at the Golden Core Stage or higher was equivalent to devouring an extra Celestial Dao. It was a tremendously nourishing supplement. Although a single Golden Core Stage Cultivator couldn’t provide them with enough of a ’Dao’ to Break Realm, as long as they devoured enough, they could still complete breakthroughs that were impossible back in the Ancient Immortal World, even if they failed to snatch the ’Celestial Dao’ of the Cultivation World.

As a result, the war between the two worlds shifted from an advantage to a disadvantage from the top down. Under such global circumstances, the Cyan Cloud Sect, as the leader of the Orthodox Dao in the Cultivation World, naturally bore the brunt of it.

Because of the Sinisters’ ability to grow stronger through devouring, an unwritten rule was later established in the Cyan Cloud Sect: any Cultivator of the sect who was no match for a Sinister must flee if possible; if escape was impossible... they must undergo Soldier Resolution on the spot.

No matter what, they absolutely could not allow a fellow sect Cultivator’s corpse to fall into the hands of the Sinisters. Because if that happened, the fate awaiting them would be incomparably tragic.

Dismembered and devoured piecemeal... this wasn’t just a figure of speech, but the grim reality of falling into the hands of the Sinisters.