Deep within the Myriad Sha Abyss.
Lu Yuan lowered his eyes, his vast Divine Sense extending ever deeper through the Sha Sea.
The sensation just now had been extremely faint.
An ordinary creature might even have overlooked it entirely.
Lu Yuan had just completed his first bloodline transformation, and both his body and Divine Sense were far more sensitive than before. That trace of something unusual naturally couldn't escape his notice.
It was as though something had touched his body.
Or as though some chilling will had slipped in through the gaps between his scales.
"What the hell?"
Lu Yuan stopped devouring.
The Sha Sea, which had been pouring madly toward him, gradually grew calm as well.
Without that terrifying suction, the black-and-red seawater fell back, striking the rocky walls of the abyss with a series of muffled booms.
The ferocious beasts hiding in the distance breathed a little easier.
Lu Yuan had eaten enough of them to frighten them badly.
This colossal beast had devoured everything in his path, lowering the level of the entire Sha Sea considerably. Any ferocious beast that ventured a little too close risked ending up in his belly along with it.
Now that Lu Yuan had suddenly stopped, they naturally felt relieved.
But the next moment.
An even more chilling presence rose from the seabed.
A Taiyi Realm ferocious beast king was watching from a distant cave. Its already tense body suddenly went rigid.
Its eyes instantly turned blood-red.
"Roar..."
The low growl had only just escaped it when the sound became distinctly disordered.
Several weaker ferocious beasts nearby collapsed straight to the ground, their bodies convulsing as the awareness in their scarlet eyes rapidly faded.
Lu Yuan sensed it too.
This presence was clearly different from ordinary Fierce Sha Qi.
Though pure Sha Qi was violent, it would quickly be converted by his own ability once it entered his body.
This thing, however, carried a very obvious mental corrosion.
Chilling, mad, chaotic.
Lu Yuan frowned slightly.
"It comes with impurities too?"
The words had barely left his mouth.
An exceedingly ancient roar suddenly came from the bottom of the abyss.
The sound was illusory.
As though it had traveled across an unimaginably long stretch of time.
Boom!
The scene before Lu Yuan's eyes abruptly changed.
The Myriad Sha Abyss vanished.
The black-and-red Sha Sea disappeared along with it.
In its place was a gray chaos so vast it defied description.
Boundless.
With no up or down.
No sun or moon.
Still less any mountains or rivers of the Primordial World.
Lu Yuan's gaze instantly turned grave.
He didn't panic.
The scene before him was clearly an assault on the mind.
As long as his body remained in the Myriad Sha Abyss, these images couldn't harm him at his core.
The next instant.
An incomparably brilliant axe light suddenly flashed at the far end of the chaos.
Boom—!
The axe light cut across the endless chaos.
Vast swathes of gray currents were cleaved apart.
Countless figures, larger than he could imagine, roared in fury amid the axe light.
Lu Yuan couldn't even make out their complete outlines.
They were simply too large.
Some had bodies coiled like dragons.
Some had countless arms.
Others had forms that simply couldn't be understood through the perceptions of ordinary living creatures.
Every figure radiated a terrifying presence that seemed capable of crushing the chaos.
Even though Lu Yuan was only sensing it through these fragmented images, waves of stinging pain shot through his Divine Sense.
"Chaos Demon Gods?"
The thought had only just arisen.
The scene changed again.
An enormous figure was cleaved in two by the axe light.
Blood spilled into the chaos.
Some of its remains were swept up in the torrent of the world's creation and fell toward a newly born world.
Before the figure fell, it seemed to sense Lu Yuan's gaze.
A pair of frenzied eyes snapped open across the endless ages.
"Pangu—!"
The furious roar exploded.
Lu Yuan's consciousness jolted violently.
The chilling will finally bared its true fangs.
Vast clouds of black mist surged in from every direction.
Countless distorted faces appeared in the mist.
Filled with the same madness and resentment, they rushed toward Lu Yuan's Divine Sense like a tide.
Lu Yuan's expression changed slightly.
"So that's what it is."
A remnant will of a Chaos Demon God.
After Pangu created the world, countless of the three thousand demon gods had been killed or wounded.
Fragments of their bodies fell into the Primordial World.
Their lingering resentment and Sha Qi fused over the long ages, eventually becoming one of the major sources of the ferocious beasts that later appeared in the Primordial World.
With such an enormous amount of Fierce Sha Qi accumulated in the Myriad Sha Abyss, it was only natural for remnant demon god wills to be mixed in.
Lu Yuan had devoured only a little before.
After those scattered remnant wills entered his body, they hadn't yet had any noticeable effect.
But the amount of Sha liquid he had devoured now was staggering.
Little by little, it had added up.
These previously scattered demon god grudges had actually gathered together inside him.
The black mist around him grew thicker and thicker.
A distorted face ten thousand li across slowly took shape.
It stared fixedly at Lu Yuan.
Nothing but boundless madness remained in its eyes.
"Die!"
An ancient divine thought slammed viciously toward him.
If it had been an ordinary cultivator.
Faced with a will left behind after the great calamity of the world's creation, even someone with considerable cultivation would likely have lost control of their mind.
Lu Yuan, however, suddenly felt that something was a little odd.
After this thing entered his consciousness...
It didn't seem quite as big as he had imagined.
Outside.
Lu Yuan's true body had already reached a hundred thousand li in length.
His body was enormous.
His consciousness space was just as vast.
When it had first appeared, that ten-thousand-li face had looked rather intimidating.
But once Lu Yuan had truly steadied his mind.
His own consciousness rapidly took form.
A gigantic dark-gold whale spanning the boundless void slowly opened its eyes.
Boom!
Two golden suns lit up.
The ten-thousand-li face visibly paused.
Lu Yuan lowered his head and glanced at it.
The difference in size between the two suddenly became a little awkward.
The demon god's remnant will trembled wildly.
It seemed not to have expected that the body it had rushed into would have a consciousness space this vast.
But in the end, nothing but madness remained in the remnant will.
After a brief pause.
It roared again.
Vast clouds of black mist churned, forming countless black spears that stabbed viciously toward Lu Yuan's consciousness.
Lu Yuan couldn't be bothered to investigate further.
Having just completed a transformation of his level of existence, he happened to want to test how much stronger his will had become.
The enormous phantom of the Grand Void Sky Whale raised its head slightly.
Then.
A whale cry rang through the consciousness space.
"Ang—!"
The sound wasn't shrill.
Yet it was incredibly heavy.
The first wave of sound spread outward.
A large number of black spears shattered on the spot.
The second wave rippled outward.
Dense cracks appeared across the distorted face.
The demon god's remnant will finally sensed danger.
For the first time, a trace of instinctive fear appeared in its frenzied eyes.
It began to retreat.
Lu Yuan looked a little surprised at the sight.
"Trying to leave only now?"
The thing hadn't announced itself when it came in.
Now that it had found it couldn't win, it wanted to run.
How could it be that easy?
With a thought from Lu Yuan.
The third whale cry erupted!
Boom—!
The entire consciousness space trembled.
The black mist dispersed in vast swathes.
The ten-thousand-li demon god face could no longer hold itself together.
Bang!
It exploded completely.
Countless fragments of gray-black mental force scattered in every direction.
The chaos scene that had persisted all this time shattered with it.
The axe light, the demon gods, and the scene of the world's creation all vanished.
Lu Yuan's consciousness returned to his body.
Within the Myriad Sha Abyss.
His enormous golden eyes slowly opened.
The lingering chill in his body was rapidly fading.
Lu Yuan had thought it was over.
But soon,
he discovered that the shattered remnants of the Fiendgod's will had not simply vanished.
Countless fragments of spirit drifted through his body.
His special devouring and conversion power had appeared once again.
One wisp.
Then two.
More and more fragments of the remnant will were converted.
They then formed an exceedingly pure spiritual power that began to merge with Lu Yuan's Divine Sense.
Lu Yuan's eyes gradually lit up.
"I can eat this too?"
He examined the sensation carefully for a moment.
It really worked.
Although the gains from converting the spiritual fragments were much smaller than those from Sha Qi,
even a mosquito was still meat, however small.
What was more,
there were probably many more remnants like this in the Myriad Sha Abyss.
He had just been thinking there were too many impurities inside.
But now it seemed
the impurities were part of the ingredients too.
Lu Yuan's mood immediately improved considerably.
"All right, then."
"The flavor's a bit complex, but it's quite nutritious."
He lowered his head again.
His Divine Sense reached toward the Sha Sea once more.
This time,
there was far less wariness in Lu Yuan's eyes.
Outside the Myriad Sha Abyss,
inside the Beast Emperor Palace,
Shen Ni's previously calm expression suddenly changed.
The finger that had been tapping slowly on the armrest of his imperial throne stopped at once.
Qiongqi keenly noticed that something was amiss.
"Your Majesty, what's wrong?"
Shen Ni did not answer.
His gaze passed straight through the great hall, toward the Myriad Sha Abyss.
Just now,
a mark of his will that he had left in the depths of the Myriad Sha Abyss
had vanished.
That mark had been attached to a remnant of a Fiendgod's will.
He used it to sense changes in the depths of the Myriad Sha Abyss.
For the mark to have been erased outright
meant that something had happened to the remnant will itself.
Shen Ni fell silent for a few breaths.
His gaze gradually grew serious.
"He destroyed that remnant will."
Qiongqi's expression changed instantly.
"So quickly?"
Several fierce beast giants nearby also turned their heads.
They knew better than anyone how troublesome the remnants of Fiendgods' wills in the Myriad Sha Abyss were.
Those things might have been limited in direct combat,
but their spiritual erosion was extremely terrifying.
Even Taiyi Golden Immortals could lose their minds outright after entering.
How long had Lu Yuan been in there?
And he had already wiped out a remnant will from the depths?
The black-armored giant could not help frowning. "Your Majesty, if we keep letting him eat like this, I'm afraid..."
Shen Ni raised a hand.
The black-armored giant stopped immediately.
There was no anger in Shen Ni's eyes.
Instead, there was a growing interest.
"Keep watching."
Only this time,
he was no longer as relaxed as before.