The Ultimate Breakthrough! Reaching the Array Formation Realm and Becoming a King! The Mountain Treasure Appears!

Time flew by, and life in Stone Village passed peacefully.

Since wiping out Bei Village and bringing back the Suanni's precious body, Stone Village's stores of resources had reached an unprecedented peak.

Beneath the willow tree at the village entrance, Ye Xuan's cultivation had reached its most crucial moment.

At dawn, the morning glow spilled across the land.

Ye Xuan sat cross-legged on a bluestone, eyes tightly shut.

No dazzling runes swirled around him. Only an aura as steady as a mountain stirred slowly.

This was the tenth day of his seclusion.

Leaving aside the difference in the flow of time over in the Primordial Wilderness, by the calendar of the Perfect World, he had cultivated for a month at most.

For an ordinary cultivator, a month might not even be enough to grasp the threshold of the Blood Moving Realm.

But for Ye Xuan, who possessed the Innate Human Race Dao Body and Chaos Heavy Pupils, that was already enough to cover a path that took others decades.

"Spirit Transformation Realm, complete."

Ye Xuan murmured inwardly.

The blood and qi in his body no longer simply surged. They brimmed with vitality.

Every drop of blood, every bone, every inch of his sinews and veins glowed, as if each possessed a life of its own.

Giving life to the body and remaking the true self—that was the pinnacle of the Spirit Transformation Realm.

Then his aura changed.

The Engraved Patterns Realm!

At this stage, cultivators no longer drew on the primal runes of Fierce Beasts. Instead, they inscribed their own "Dao" within themselves.

Ordinary cultivators who reached this stage often sought the true blood of powerful Primordial Remnant Species, engraving the runes of Fierce Beasts like Suanni and Qiongqi onto their bones to gain their power.

But Ye Xuan did not.

His bones were crystal-clear, like the finest white jade Immortal Gold.

He had no need to borrow the power of Fierce Beasts.

He was an Innate Human personally molded by Nuwa. His body was the most perfect vessel in heaven and earth, bearing the Innate Dao Rhyme of the Primordial Wilderness.

"Inscribed!"

Ye Xuan's Divine Sense cut like a blade.

He drew on the Innate Ancestral Qi within his body, combining it with the primal life runes Willow Deity had taught him, and began engraving his bones.

No Suanni's savagery, no Qiongqi's ferocity.

What he inscribed were intricate, archaic Innate Dao Patterns.

The patterns seemed to have formed naturally, like projections of the Great Dao upon the human body.

As the final stroke fell,

"Hum—"

All the bones in Ye Xuan's body trembled in unison, ringing like a great bell.

The Engraved Patterns Realm—achieved!

And these were Innate Engraved Patterns, surpassing those of all Primordial Fierce Beasts.

But that was not the end.

Ye Xuan's aura continued to climb, like a mighty dragon long held back, now charging at its final bottleneck.

The Array Formation Realm!

This was the dividing line in cultivation in the lower world.

Once across it, one could be called a king. In the outside kingdoms, one could claim territory, take the throne, and rule over a region.

At this stage, one needed to inscribe various killing arrays within the body, turning it into a weapon.

"Form!"

Ye Xuan's mind stirred.

He did not choose to inscribe an array.

Instead, he chose to make himself the heart of one.

His five organs corresponded to the Five Elements, his limbs to the Four Extremes, and his spine became a great dragon reaching to the heavens.

He refined his entire body into a seamless grand array.

This was no killing array. It was the nascent form of a Body Becomes Saint array.

"Boom!"

A thunderous roar erupted from within Ye Xuan.

Terrifying pressure burst forth from him, sweeping across all of Stone Village in an instant.

Little Shi Hao, who had been feeding the Green Scaled Eagle at the village entrance, was knocked onto his backside. The jerky in his hand fell to the ground.

Shi Yunfeng, who had been discussing matters with the villagers, felt his chest tighten. The walking stick he never left behind clattered to the ground.

"This pressure..."

Shi Yunfeng turned toward the village entrance in shock.

A figure was slowly rising to his feet.

Faint Chaos Qi swirled around Ye Xuan.

He was not deliberately releasing his aura, yet the pressure of his Life Level left even an experienced old man like Shi Yunfeng trembling at the knees.

"A k-king?"

Shi Yunfeng's voice shook, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

"The Array Formation Realm! That's the aura of the Array Formation Realm!"

"Heavens! A king of the Array Formation Realm in his teens?"

"If he were in the kingdoms outside, those princes and sovereigns would be so ashamed they'd smash their heads against a wall!"

The villagers were stunned, too.

They did not understand the divisions between cultivation realms, but instinct told them that Ye Xuan was countless times more terrifying now than that old Suanni had been.

"Big Brother is amazing!"

Little Shi Hao got up, brushed the dust off his bottom, and gazed at Ye Xuan with stars in his eyes.

"I need to grow up quickly, too, and become as strong as Big Brother!"

Ye Xuan drew in his aura. The suffocating pressure vanished at once, as if it had never existed.

He clenched his fist, feeling the power within him—enough to move mountains and fill seas.

"The Array Formation Realm..."

"With my physical strength alone, I should be able to easily subdue Fierce Beasts in the Array Formation Realm now."

A satisfied smile appeared on Ye Xuan's lips.

The people of Stone Village came to their senses and crowded around him, their faces alight with joy.

"Congratulations, Young Immortal Master, on achieving mastery!"

"That's wonderful! Our Stone Village has produced a king!"

"We have to celebrate tonight!"

Shi Yunfeng was so excited his old face flushed red. He picked up his walking stick and was about to arrange a feast.

But just as they were celebrating,

"Rumble—"

A terrifying roar suddenly came from the depths of the Great Wilderness.

It was so loud, thousands of times louder than thunder, as if the sky itself had collapsed.

Then—

The clear sky darkened in an instant.

An aura of destruction, savagery, and violence surged from the depths of the Great Wilderness like a tidal wave, instantly enveloping a vast region tens of thousands of miles across.

"What's happening?!"

The smile froze on Shi Yunfeng's face.

The villagers stared toward the horizon in terror.

In the deepest, most central reaches of the Great Wilderness, four utterly terrifying figures were fighting like mad between heaven and earth.

They were four colossal creatures, each radiating the Venerable's might, enough to make heaven and earth change color.

The first was a giant bird.

It was enormous, its wings stretching thousands of feet wide and blotting out the sky.

Its body was pitch-black, without a single stray feather, and dense Black Mist swirled around it.

It opened its huge mouth, which looked like a black hole.

"That's the Sky Swallowing Sparrow!"

Shi Yunfeng's voice trembled as he recognized the peerless vicious bird, notorious throughout the Great Wilderness.

Legend had it that the Sky Swallowing Sparrow could swallow tens of millions of people from an entire kingdom in a single bite. Wherever it went, the land was left barren for a thousand miles, and no living thing survived.

The second creature looked like a giant tiger, but it had a pair of wings on its back and sharp spines covering its body.

Every step it took crushed a mountain. Its roar boomed like thunder, making the void tremble.

One of the Four Great Primordial Evils—Qiongqi!

The third was a giant ape with golden fur all over.

It wielded a massive Black Iron Staff, towering between heaven and earth. Its golden fur shone brilliantly, as if it had been cast from gold.

It leaped between the mountains, and every swing of its staff split the earth open into a deep chasm.

Zhu Yan!

High above them was a fourth figure.

It was a small, fiery-red bird. Though it was not large, white Leaving Fire swirled around it—that was Southern Bright Leaving Fire, which burned all things.

The Primordial Divine Bird—Vermilion Bird!

The Four Venerables!

Four creatures standing at the peak of the Eight Lower Realms had gathered in the Great Wilderness, fighting so fiercely that heaven and earth seemed to fall apart.

"What are they fighting over?"

Ye Xuan narrowed his eyes and activated his Heavy Pupils, his gaze piercing through layers of dust and chaotic currents of energy.

At the heart of the Four Venerables' battle,

a gleaming white bone fragment floated in the air.

It looked utterly ordinary, yet it radiated a hazy, holy light. No matter how terrifying the Four Venerables' attacks were, they could not damage it in the slightest.

The Mountain Treasure!

Ye Xuan's heart stirred.

Sure enough, this day had finally come.