The Birth of a Spiritual Treasure, Innate Five Directional Flags?

A Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal.

No matter the era, such a being was a hegemon in any region.

Now, a demon king descended, and the terrifying pressure that seemed to crush heaven and earth made all living creatures tremble.

Those beings who had been pinned down by Niu Ben's aura now wore sickly, ecstatic grins on their faces.

Since they couldn't have it, they didn't want this sudden Azure Ox to get it either.

With a Great Luo Demon King here, let's see how you keep acting arrogant!

Niu Ben raised his head, gazing at the colossal demon king beyond imagination. There was no fear in his eyes—only a surging, sky-high battle intent.

But he didn't strike immediately.

The radiance below was still dazzling; the treasure was clearly in its final stage of gestation.

The Great Luo Demon King merely cast a cold glance at Niu Ben and then ignored him.

In his eyes, this was just a slightly stronger ant, incapable of stirring up any trouble.

His massive body coiled in the void, like a black Divine Mountain spanning heaven and earth, waiting in silence as well.

And so.

A thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.

Boom!

The soaring, multicolored radiance suddenly contracted, pouring back entirely into the valley.

Silence fell over everything.

A small apricot-yellow banner, wreathed in Mysterious Yellow Qi, embroidered with golden lotuses, and radiating an endless aura of suppression, floated quietly in midair.

This is!

Niu Ben's heart jolted.

Could it be one of the Innate Five Directional Flags?

The names of these legendary treasures 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, The Xuanyuan Water-Control Banner.

These five banners were all Supreme Grade Innate Spiritual Treasures, unmatched in power.

His uncle, Primordial Heavenly Lord, wielded the Central Wuji Apricot-Yellow Banner.

Which one was this before him?

"Hahaha! An innate spiritual treasure indeed!"

In the void, the Great Luo Demon King let out a earth-shaking, maniacal laugh.

The laughter pierced metal and cracked stone, churning the chaotic currents for billions of miles around.

His laughter brimmed with uncontrollable ecstasy.

And even more so, with a greed that saw all living beings as mere pawns.

A Quasi-Saint is within reach!

Those three words roared and exploded like the Three Thousand Great Daos in the depths of his divine soul.

He had been trapped at the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal realm for a full million years.

A million years—enough for seas to turn to mulberry fields, for epochs to shift.

He had watched countless Great Experts rise and countless strong ones fall.

And he remained that pitiful wretch, always one step away but never able to cross it.

Above the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal was the Quasi-Saint realm, attained by Slaying the Three Corpses to prove the Dao.

That was the true existence that could overlook the river of time, Indestructible Through All Calamities.

To slay a corpse, one needed an innate spiritual treasure to host the Good, Evil, and Obsession Corpses.

Innate spiritual treasures were already exceedingly rare; every one that emerged would stir blood and storms, driving countless immortals and gods mad, fighting until heads cracked and blood flowed.

And before him, this small apricot-yellow banner unfurled, manifesting ten thousand golden lotuses, flowing with the supreme Dao resonance of "All evils retreat, Invulnerable to All Laws."

This was clearly a Supreme Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure!

A supreme treasure capable of letting him slay one corpse and instantly achieve Quasi-Saint!

"Hahaha! The Heavenly Dao aids me! The Heavenly Dao aids me!"

The demon king's heart pounded violently, madly, nearly bursting from his mountain-like chest.

"The treasure is mine!"

Just then, an ill-timed, rasping roar rang out.

A Golden Immortal old fiend's eyes turned bloodshot crimson; his Dao Heart was utterly devoured and shattered by boundless greed.

He had been trapped at the Golden Immortal realm for far too long.

So long that he had forgotten his reverence for the strong.

He only knew that if he missed this day, he would never advance another inch in this life or the next.

And so, he transformed into a desperate stream of light, charging recklessly toward that small banner.

He wanted to snatch food from the tiger's mouth.

He wanted to stake his life on a one-in-ten-thousand chance.

"You seek death."

The Demon King's icy words rang out, like ten-thousand-year-old black ice from the Nine Netherworlds, instantly freezing the souls of all present.

He didn't even turn his head, still staring fixedly at that apricot-yellow banner that had haunted his dreams.

As if even glancing at that Golden Immortal old fiend would be an insult to his status as a Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal.

He merely snorted lightly, with utmost contempt, a wisp of black demonic qi as fine as a hair shooting from his nostrils.

Whoosh!

That wisp of demonic qi, seemingly weightless, yet carried the terrifying might of annihilation laws.

It moved so fast it ignored space.

It moved so fast it twisted time.

In an instant, it pierced through the Golden Immortal old fiend's brow—his Purple Mansion.

No scream.

No struggle.

Not even a flicker of pain had time to show.

The Golden Immortal old fiend's body, along with his unwilling soul, exploded midair into a rain of blood, soul and spirit utterly destroyed, even his true spirit ground to nothing by that demonic qi.

From then on, across the Three Realms and Six Paths, no trace of him remained.

Blood drenched the sky.

The scarlet blood mist added a tragic hue to this dead void.

This scene plunged the nearby creatures, who had still harbored some hope, into an icy abyss, their souls trembling.

The faint greed they had just stirred was utterly crushed by that wisp of demonic qi, wiped clean.

This was a Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal.

Word of Law; a flick of the finger kills.

A Golden Immortal before him was no different from an ant!

Only then did the Demon King nod in satisfaction. His massive body moved slowly, stirring up endless gale winds that churned the entire void.

He reached out with a claw vast enough to blot out sun, moon, and stars. The claw's wind howled, tearing through layers of space as it grabbed for the apricot-yellow banner.

On that giant claw, every scale gleamed with a cold, dark light, like a Small World, indestructible.

He seemed to already see himself holding that treasure banner in his grasp, refining it, Slaying the Three Corpses to attain the Dao, and from then on overlooking the Primordial Wilderness in supreme glory.

But then.

"Did I say you could move?"

A cold, indifferent voice, yet filled with boundless dominance, rang out at that moment.

Niu Ben moved.

Boom!

A terrifying aura, no weaker than that Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal's, erupted from his seemingly unimpressive frame!

It wasn't magical power.

It was pure, condensed to the extreme—the qi and blood force of his physical body!

Qi and blood like a dragon, piercing heaven and earth!

He took a single step, and the void beneath his feet shattered inch by inch, facing that colossal being like an ancient Divine Mountain without any retreat.

So what if it was a Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal?

He was now a late-stage Primordial Unity Golden Immortal, cultivating the Great Dao itself.

Fighting across realms was nothing more than an everyday matter!

Boom!

Within Niu Ben's body, the phantom images of Earth Fiend Divine Oxen raised their heads in silent roars all at once.

Boundless, infinite power surged wildly from every cell, every acupoint, ultimately converging upon his fists.