Summit in Sight

He knew well that although his physical body had just broken through and reached that realm, having newly entered the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal stage, his power had surged wildly and still needed time to consolidate and adapt before he could fully stabilize at this early Zenith Heaven level and completely acclimate to the far stronger pressure of this region.

He forcefully suppressed the intense urge to immediately continue climbing upward, his gaze sharp as lightning as he swept his surroundings.

He found a nearby narrow, wind-sheltered corner where the pressure was relatively weakest due to the peculiar mountain terrain, teleported over at once, sat down cross-legged again, and faced the heavens with his five centers aligned.

This time, he activated the Wood Scripture, but his main purpose was not to increase his magical power.

Instead, he guided the madly converging Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, the vast, ocean-like blood energy within his body that had just broken through, and his innate Wood Vitality—combining all three—to meticulously polish, consolidate, and adapt this formidable Dao body that had just completed a life leap.

Every pore breathed on its own, communing with heaven and earth, engaging in a deeper level of friction and probing with the vast pressure of Buzhou Mountain.

The absolute strength of his physical body, its astonishing resilience, and his fine control over power were all steadily and observably improving and becoming thoroughly stable.

After who knows how much more time, when Lord Wanshouyuan opened his eyes again, the surging, tide-like blood energy that had manifested visions around him had completely retracted inward, and his skin's luster was warm and smooth like jade.

It seemed ordinary and unremarkable, but in reality, it contained explosive power capable of tearing apart stars with bare hands.

He stood up and lightly clenched his fist, causing the surrounding space to emit a faint, distorted hum.

Sensing his current state, although the Pangu Pressure around him was still terrifying beyond compare, it already felt considerably lighter than before the breakthrough. He could move without that suffocating sense of being crushed at any moment.

It wasn't that the pressure had weakened, but that the foundation of his physical body's pyramid had undergone a qualitative leap, and his endurance was now incomparable to before.

He began to continue his climb.

His footsteps landed, still steady, and the mountain rock trembled slightly with each step.

His speed was noticeably faster than during his True Immortal period. Though still not swift under this terrifying pressure, every step was firmer, more relaxed, and more effortless.

A physical body at the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal level, combined with the nearly infinite vitality and recovery power provided by the Wood Scripture, gave him an immensely abundant capital to resist this vast pressure.

But the path to the mountain peak remained long and arduous.

The pressure coming from above was like layer upon layer, an endless, formless myriad of great worlds, constantly crushing down, testing his newly ascended Zenith Heaven physical body and also tempering his peak True Immortal magical power.

The latter, in providing sustained endurance and unleashing divine abilities and transformations, was ultimately still a notch inferior to those fellow cultivators whose magical power had also reached Zenith Heaven.

Along the way, he encountered several terrifying energy tides unique to Buzhou Mountain, completely without pattern.

These were destructive energy torrents formed by a certain mechanism mixing the Pangu Pressure, the residual Chaos Qi within the mountain, and liquefied Innate Spiritual Qi. They erupted violently like geysers, sweeping across heaven and earth like a storm of annihilation, instantly engulfing large swaths of the mountain.

Each time a tide struck, it was like being slammed head-on by a chaotic wave weighing billions of jun, and the chaotic, violent Law Fragments within could erode the Dao body and disintegrate the Five Elements magical power.

Lord Wanshouyuan had to rely mainly on his newly broken-through physical body to withstand the impact, while supplementing it with a protective shield formed from his peak True Immortal magical power, focusing on protecting relatively vulnerable orifices like his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

After each violent tide passed, he relied on his physical body's powerful recovery to quickly adjust.

Though he was sometimes shaken by the impact, even suffering minor abrasions on his skin, appearing somewhat disheveled.

But every time he successfully endured it, his early Zenith Heaven physical cultivation was polished even more condensed and pure under this extreme pressure and impact, and his control over his own power became increasingly exquisite and subtle.

And his magical power, through this cycle of intense consumption and rapid recovery, was also tempered to become more refined and solid.

Although his realm had not broken through, it had reached the absolute limit of the True Immortal level, and the threshold to the Zenith Heaven Dao Fruit was now truly only a single layer as thin as a cicada's wing away.

After one particularly fierce and prolonged energy tide, almost comparable to a small-scale Heaven-Opening Tribulation.

Lord Wanshouyuan relied on his unmatched physical body to endure most of the impact, but his internal magical power was considerably depleted this time.

The tide slowly receded. His blood energy was still churning violently within him. Just as he was about to regulate his breathing and recover, he suddenly felt the vast power deep within his physical body, which had just calmed down, boiling uncontrollably again.

It wasn't the loss of control from going berserk, but a feeling of breakthrough where success would come naturally, like a ripe fruit falling!

"Hum!"

A light hum of the Dao, not originating from his ears, but from every vibration of his Dao body, resonating with the surrounding heaven and earth.

The blood energy within him roared and surged through his wide, tough blood vessels like heavy mercury, emitting a surging Dao sound like the Yangtze River flowing into the sea.

The natural Zenith Heaven Dao patterns on his bones became even deeper and clearer, shining with an immortal luster;

His muscle fibers seemed to have transformed into coiled, knotted dragon sinews from ancient times, and the toughness, strength, and resistance to various energy impacts of his skin had all risen to a brand new level!

His physical cultivation, under this relentless extreme pressure, had advanced another step, crossing into the mid-Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal stage!

A trace of joy flashed through Lord Wanshouyuan's heart, but more than that, it was a calm understanding and witnessing of his own efforts bearing fruit.

He slightly moved his limbs, quickly adapting to this newly gained physical power, feeling his body become a little lighter and more at ease against the surrounding pressure. He raised his head, his gaze like a torch, looking upward.

He saw that the chaotic mist and the thick, unbreakable clouds of Innate Spiritual Qi that had always shrouded the highest reaches, seemingly endless, had somehow become much thinner.

Through the gaps in the thin, shifting clouds, he vaguely saw... the end!

It was an incredibly vast, flat place, seemingly within reach of the vast blue sky of the Primordial World!

There were no higher or more dangerous rocks, only a boundless, ancient sky emitting an aura of supreme distance, supreme vastness, and supreme hardness.

The firmament of the Primordial World seemed right before their eyes, close at hand!

The summit of Buzhou Mountain, after countless hardships and two major breakthroughs of his physical body, was finally about to be reached!

Even with Lord Wanshouyuan's eternally unchanging state of mind, he couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement and exhilaration that was hard to suppress.

He took a deep breath of the air, still extremely heavy but seemingly carrying a trace of the summit's unique scent, and mustered his full concentration.

He pushed the physical power of his mid-Zenith Heaven stage to the utmost he could currently control, and his peak True Immortal magical power was also ready to be unleashed. His blood energy surged like dragons and elephants within him, though suppressed by the vast pressure from truly soaring into the sky, it still roared and rumbled within his body like muffled thunder.

He took a step, heading toward the final journey, toward the summit of Buzhou Mountain, which had supported heaven and earth since the Creation of the World and contained endless mysteries, making one final, all-out effort to climb!

He knew well that this last stretch of the path would also be the most terrifying, the most extreme final trial of pressure.