A Daluo Golden Immortal.
In any age, such a being was a ruler of their domain.
Now a Great Luo Demon King had descended. His terrifying might seemed ready to crush heaven and earth, making every living creature tremble.
The creatures who had been pinned in place by Niu Ben's aura now wore sickly grins of delight.
If they could not have the treasure, they certainly did not want this Azure Ox, who had appeared out of nowhere, to have it either.
With a Great Luo Demon King here, let's see how arrogant you can be!
Niu Ben looked up at the demon king, whose size defied imagination. Not a trace of fear showed in his eyes. Instead, a towering will to fight blazed within them.
But he did not strike at once.
The radiance below still shone brilliantly. The treasure was clearly in the final moments of its formation.
The Great Luo Demon King merely cast Niu Ben a cold glance, then ignored him.
In the demon king's eyes, Niu Ben was nothing more than a slightly sturdier ant, incapable of stirring up a storm.
His enormous body coiled in the void like a black Divine Mountain stretching between heaven and earth. He, too, waited in silence.
And so it went.
A thousand years passed in the snap of a finger.
Boom!
The Seven-Colored Radiance that had soared into the heavens suddenly drew inward, pouring back into the valley.
All sound fell away.
A small apricot-yellow banner hovered quietly in midair, wreathed in Mysterious Yellow Qi, embroidered with golden lotuses, and emanating an endless power of suppression.
Could it be?
Niu Ben's heart gave a violent leap.
The Innate Five Directional Flags?
The name of that legendary treasure flashed through his mind.
The Wuji Apricot-Yellow Banner,
the Green Lotus Treasure-Colored Banner,
the Dili Flame-Light Banner,
the Suse Cloud-Boundary Banner,
and the Xuanyuan Water-Control Banner.
All five were Supreme Grade Innate Spiritual Treasures of peerless might.
His martial uncle, the Primordial Heavenly Lord, wielded the Central Wuji Apricot Yellow Banner.
Which one was this?
"Hahahaha! It truly is an Innate Spiritual Treasure!"
The Great Luo Demon King's wild laughter shook heaven and earth.
It rang hard enough to crack metal and stone, sending the chaotic currents across billions of miles into a frenzy.
His laughter brimmed with joy he could not contain.
And with the greed of one who regarded all living beings as straw dogs.
A chance to become a Quasi-Saint!
Those words rang through the depths of his soul like the divine voice of the Three Thousand Great Daos.
He had been trapped at the Daluo Golden Immortal realm for a full million years.
In a million years, seas could turn to mulberry fields and eras could give way to new ones.
He had watched countless mighty figures rise and countless others fall.
Yet he remained the wretch who stood one step from the threshold and could never cross it.
Beyond the Daluo Golden Immortal realm lay the Quasi-Saint realm, attained through Three Corpses Severance.
Such beings could truly look down upon the river of time, Indestructible Through All Calamities.
But Slaying the Three Corpses required Innate Spiritual Treasures to house the Three Corpses of good, evil, and obsession.
Innate Spiritual Treasures were vanishingly rare. The emergence of even one could unleash a storm of blood and send countless immortals and gods scrambling for it until their heads were broken and bloodied.
And this small apricot-yellow banner manifested ten thousand Golden Lotuses as it fluttered, its supreme Dao resonance declaring, "All evil retreats; Invulnerable to All Laws."
It was unmistakably a Supreme Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure!
A supreme treasure that could let him sever one corpse and become a Quasi-Saint on the spot!
"Hahahaha! The Heavenly Dao favors me! The Heavenly Dao favors me!"
The demon king's heart hammered so violently that it seemed about to burst from his mountain-sized chest.
"The treasure is mine!"
Just then, an ill-timed roar sounded.
The eyes of an old Golden Immortal monster turned bloodred. Boundless greed had swallowed and shattered his Dao Heart.
He had been trapped in the Golden Immortal realm for far too long.
So long that he had forgotten to fear the strong.
He knew only that if he missed this chance, he would never advance another inch in this life.
So he became a streak of desperate light and hurtled toward the small banner.
He meant to snatch food from a tiger's jaws.
He meant to wager his life on a one-in-ten-thousand chance.
"Courting death."
The demon king's icy words rang out like ancient black ice from the Nine Netherworlds, freezing every soul in an instant.
He did not even turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on the apricot-yellow banner that haunted his dreams.
As though sparing the old Golden Immortal monster another glance would insult his standing as a Daluo Golden Immortal.
From his nostril, he blew a thread of black Monster Aura as fine as a hair, with casual contempt.
Whoosh!
The wisp looked light as air, yet it held the terrifying power of annihilation.
It was so fast that space meant nothing to it.
So fast that time warped around it.
In an instant, it pierced the Purple Mansion between the old monster's brows.
There was no scream.
No struggle.
He did not even have time to show a trace of pain.
The old Golden Immortal monster's body and unwilling soul exploded in midair, scattering blood through the sky. Body and soul were destroyed, and even his True Spirit was utterly ground away by that wisp of Monster Aura.
From that moment on, no trace of him remained in the Three Realms or the six paths of reincarnation.
Blood spilled across the sky.
Crimson mist lent a brutal splash of color to the deathly still void.
The sight plunged the nearby creatures, who had still harbored a sliver of hope, into icy dread. Their very souls trembled.
The wisp of Monster Aura crushed the greed that had just stirred within them, leaving none of it behind.
Such was a Daluo Golden Immortal.
With Word of Law, he could kill with a flick of his finger.
Before him, a Golden Immortal was no different from an ant!
Only then did the demon king nod in satisfaction. His massive body moved slowly, stirring endless gales through the entire void.
He reached out with a colossal claw that could blot out sun, moon, and stars. Its rushing winds tore through layer upon layer of space as it seized for the apricot-yellow banner.
Every scale on the claw gleamed with a cold black light, as though each were an indestructible Small World.
He could already picture the banner in his grasp. Once he refined it, he would sever a corpse, attain the Dao, and forever look down upon the splendor of the Primordial Wilderness.
But then—
"Did I give you permission to touch it?"
A cold, indifferent voice rang out, filled with boundless authority.
Niu Ben moved.
Boom!
A terrifying aura no weaker than that of the Daluo Golden Immortal erupted from his seemingly modest frame!
It was not magic power.
It was the purest, most concentrated force of flesh and blood!
His vital energy surged like a dragon, piercing heaven and earth!
He took one step forward, shattering the void beneath his foot, and faced the behemoth that loomed like a Primordial Divine Mountain without yielding an inch.
So what if he's a Daluo Golden Immortal?
I'm in the late stage of the Primordial Unity Golden Immortal realm, and I cultivate a Great Dao technique.
Fighting above my realm is nothing out of the ordinary!
Boom!
Within Niu Ben, phantom Earth Fiend Divine Oxen raised their heads and let out silent roars in unison.
Endless power surged from every cell and every aperture in his body, gathering at last in his fists.
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