The Chaos Green Lotus Sprouts! The Spiritual Qi of the Entire Western Lands Has Been Drained Dry?

The atmosphere beside the super-sized Merit Pool at the back of Mount Sumeru, which Taiyuan had transformed with a grand flourish, was so tense it felt like water might drip from the air.

Jieyin's Prayer Beads, which he never let out of his hands, were clenched so tightly they creaked. His usually impassive eyes were fixed on the center of the pool, and he had stopped breathing.

Zhunti was even more nervous. He subconsciously gripped the Sky-Turning Shovel with both hands, his knuckles white. Fine beads of sweat had even appeared at his temples.

"Elder Brother, are... are we really planting it?"

Zhunti swallowed, his voice trembling slightly. "This thing is the seed of a Chaos Supreme Treasure. Can our little Western Lands withstand the trouble it'll cause?"

Taiyuan stood with his hands behind his back, his robes snapping in the breeze stirred by the surging spiritual energy. His expression was solemn, though inwardly he was feeling a little uneasy too.

It was the Chaos Green Lotus, after all.

The supreme divine object that had birthed Pangu God. Even if it was only a seed, and even in this top-grade bed of Nine Heavens Breathing Soil, Three Lights Divine Water, and Chaos Airflow, there was no telling whether it would sprout successfully.

"Plant it."

Taiyuan spoke a single word. His voice was quiet, yet filled with unquestionable resolve.

Fortune favored the bold.

If they wanted to establish themselves in the Primordial World, where Saints were everywhere and Great Luo immortals were worth less than dogs, and if they wanted to stop caring about Hongjun, that old riddler, this seed was the Western Sect's greatest source of confidence for the future.

"Go."

Taiyuan gently raised his hand. The lotus seed, emerald green and surrounded by thirty-six mysterious restrictions of the Great Dao, slowly floated upward.

It traced a graceful arc through the air, carrying the hopes of all three of them, before dropping with a plop into the pool's roiling Chaos mud.

Silence.

A deathly silence.

Apart from the faint ripples spreading across the water where the seed had fallen, Mount Sumeru seemed to have hit pause.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths passed, and nothing happened.

"Is... is something wrong with the seed?" Jieyin had just started to ask.

BOOM!!!

Without warning, a muffled rumble, as if it had come from the depths of the Primordial World in ancient times, exploded beneath Mount Sumeru.

Then—

The pool, which had been smooth as a mirror, began churning violently, as if it had come to a boil.

A gigantic vortex, black as ink and radiating a terrifying force of devouring, appeared where the seed had fallen.

At first, the vortex was only the size of a palm. In the blink of an eye, it expanded to a hundred yards, then a thousand, until it occupied the entire Merit Pool!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

A gale sprang up.

This wasn't an ordinary wind. It was a torrent of spiritual energy made visible.

Above Mount Sumeru, the clouds of Innate Spiritual Qi that had accumulated over ten thousand years, thick as a bank of clouds, collapsed in an instant. Like floodwaters finding a breach in a dam, they became visible tornadoes of spiritual energy and were greedily devoured by the terrifying black vortex.

That wasn't all.

The exotic flowers and plants covering the surrounding mountains also suffered.

Their lush green leaves began to yellow and curl at a visible rate. The Spirit Fruits hanging from the branches shriveled rapidly, as if all their essence had been drained away.

Even Zhunti's true form—the Innate Bodhi Tree that had only just managed to recover its vitality—began to tremble violently. Its branches and leaves rustled, conveying an intense sense of fear.

"Elder Brother! How is this a spiritual root? It's a fiend of unparalleled evil!"

Zhunti watched the world-shattering scene before him, heartbroken, his voice almost breaking into tears. "It's draining the roots of our Western Lands! If it keeps sucking like this, all the fields we worked so hard to plant will be ruined!"

Jieyin's face had gone deathly pale. The Prayer Beads in his hand snapped apart with a crack, and he staggered as if he might collapse.

"Elder Brother... stop... stop it!"

Taiyuan stood at the center of the gale, his robes whipping wildly. His expression had turned grim as well.

He had calculated everything, but he hadn't expected the Chaos Green Lotus to have such an enormous appetite.

How was this sprouting? It was eating them alive!

In just a few breaths, it had devoured half the spiritual energy Mount Sumeru had accumulated over ten thousand years. If they didn't stop it, it might drain even the newly repaired leyline beneath the Western Lands.

Then the Western Lands really would become a wasteland that could never recover.

"I can't stop it!"

Taiyuan gritted his teeth, a trace of madness flashing in his eyes. "If you want to eat, then I'll let you eat your fill!"

"System! Exchange!"

"Turn all the spiritual fluids and spirit stones I've stored away—even those junk Magic Treasures made of scrap metal—as long as they contain spiritual energy, into energy fluid!"

"Also, refine those ten pieces of Sun Essence Gold I swindled from Di Jun, along with those hundreds of ten-thousand-year-old Fire Spirit Grass plants!"

Taiyuan was throwing caution to the wind now.

Since he was already aboard a pirate ship, he could only press on to the bitter end.

At his command, more than half the contents of the System Space were emptied in an instant.

Rumble—

The sky, which had grown dim as the spiritual energy dried up, suddenly split open with a massive crack.

Countless streams of golden, red, and green spiritual fluid poured down like waterfalls, flowing straight into the frantically spinning black vortex.

It was an enormous hoard of resources.

It was enough energy to cultivate ten Grand Luo Golden Immortals to perfection.

And he threw it all in as if it were free.

"Not enough! It's still not enough!"

Taiyuan felt the vortex's pull ease by only the slightest amount. His resolve hardened, and he immediately activated the divine ability he had comprehended while sleeping in the Purple Heaven Palace.

"Words Follow Law!"

Taiyuan formed hand seals. His voice crashed like spring thunder, and an invisible force of law descended with it.

"Lock spiritual energy!"

"Gather Qi!"

HUM—

The leylines beneath the Western Lands seemed to hear the command of a sovereign.

The earth energy that had been escaping was forcibly locked in place, while the spiritual energy within a radius of hundreds of millions of miles was forcibly drawn together. It formed streams of pure spiritual energy that surged toward Mount Sumeru, one after another.

He was draining his own merit and magical power to do this.

His face instantly turned as pale as paper, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"Elder Brother!" Jieyin and Zhunti cried out in alarm and rushed to help.

"Don't come over! Hold the formation!"

Taiyuan roared, his eyes bloodshot as he stared fixedly at the center of the vortex.

At last.

After devouring energy equivalent to the combined reserves of an entire mid-thousand world—

The terrifying black vortex slowly stopped spinning.

Its frenzied devouring force faded rapidly, like the ebbing tide.

In its place came a...

faint, yet utterly pure and noble fluctuation, brimming with boundless vitality.

Crack.

A faint but unmistakable sound rang through the depths of all three of their souls.

It was the sound of the seed coat splitting.

In the middle of the pool, whose muddy water had turned foul and murky, a gleam of green suddenly appeared.

The light wasn't blinding, yet it illuminated the entirety of dim Mount Sumeru.

Then—

A slender, tender sprout, crystalline and jade-green, trembled as it broke through the water.

It stood only an inch tall.

It had only a single leaf.

Yet that leaf, no bigger than a fingernail, seemed to bear three thousand miniature vast worlds. Every vein traced an incomparably mysterious path of the Great Dao.

The Chaos Green Lotus had sprouted.

"Phew..."

Taiyuan let out a long breath. His legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

It had worked.

He had won the gamble.

Before he could even feel happy, a strange fluctuation spread from the sprout.

It was returning what it had taken.

The vast amount of spiritual energy it had devoured was transformed by the Chaos Green Lotus into a higher form of energy—Chaos Primordial Qi.

This Qi was a faint purplish gold. Like spring rain, it gently sprinkled across Mount Sumeru.

The withered vegetation instantly turned green again, growing even more robust than before and evolving into spiritual roots.

The spiritual springs that had nearly dried up gushed forth again, their water purer and sweeter than before.

The three people standing beside the pool were hit first.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Jieyin and Zhunti didn't even have time to react before they felt an unimaginably pure power force its way into their bodies.

The bottleneck that had trapped them for so long was as fragile as a sheet of paper before this power.

Late-stage Grand Luo Golden Immortal!

Perfected Grand Luo Golden Immortal!

The aura around them surged higher and higher. Daoist rhythms flowed around them, and visions of golden lotuses and Bodhi trees appeared behind them, a hundred times more solid than before.

Even Taiyuan's magical power, depleted by the strain, was instantly replenished and became even purer and more substantial. His Glass Pure World Body shone brightly, showing faint signs of transforming to an even higher level.

"Is... is this Chaos Primordial Qi?"

Zhunti felt the surging power within him and was so excited he could barely speak. "Elder Brother! I broke through! I really broke through!"

Jieyin was equally stunned. He pressed his palms together and bowed deeply to the sprout. "Elder Brother truly is a divine man! With this thing, how could our Western Lands fail to prosper?"

Taiyuan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked at the sprout swaying gently in the breeze, seemingly harmless. At last, a relieved smile appeared on his face.

"We can talk about prosperity later."

"But now, we finally have something to our name."

The spiritual energy on Mount Sumeru had surged more than a hundredfold.

This place was no longer merely a blessed cave abode in a corner of the Primordial World.

It had become a true little Chaos holy land.

Taiyuan looked at the sprout, his heart settling at last. But he had no idea that the fluctuation of Chaos Primordial Qi, though concealed by the great formation, had still leaked out slightly—and certain interested parties had already sensed it.