Although fusing with powerful Ancient Divine Beasts would take a long time, Chi Xue and the others weren't in too much of a hurry. In particular, they could clearly feel their strength rapidly increasing, and they were quite pleased with that feeling.
Venerable Sword Saint wasn't in too much of a hurry either. In his mind, once Chi Xue and the others had fused with the Ancient Divine Beasts and grown accustomed to their new realms, they would surely be able to join forces and destroy the Myriad Sword Demon Extermination Grand Formation. That would still be true even if he could only fuse with eight Golden Cores by then. Like Chi Xue and the others, he believed that without the formation, he would have a good chance of killing Ling Tian and the others—especially after Chi Xue's people and the cultivators from the alliance of God Realm powers captured more Ancient Divine Beasts in the future.
Of course, Venerable Sword Saint hadn't wasted any time either. He continued refining Ultimate Lightning Tribulation Power and Outer Realm Power, which had given his strength a very nice boost.
Time flowed on, and tens of thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye. By then, Chi Xue and the others had successively completed their fusions with the Ancient Divine Beasts, and their strength had grown tremendously. It was no exaggeration to say that every cultivator who had fused with an Ancient Divine Beast had reached the twelfth Heaven of the Near-Saint Realm. Most had even surpassed the mid-stage of the twelfth Heaven, putting them on par with Ling Tian and the others.
As for the strongest among them, Po Tian, Chi Xue, and the others had gained even more strength from fusing with the Ancient Divine Beasts, since the beasts