Along the way, Guiyuan continued collecting Ferocious Beast corpses, turning them into pills and refining them into his treasures.
A little more foundation was still a little more foundation. However, Guiyuan also discovered that the Ferocious Beasts were truly vile.
Damn it, the baleful energy was so dense that every spiritual root and spiritual treasure Guiyuan found was either damaged or polluted.
They were practically useless. Even the Great Dao within them had been eroded by the Chaos Great Dao, making it pointless to comprehend.
"Hey, I could use them for sacrifices and self-detonation later."
After giving it some thought, Guiyuan decided to keep them instead of refining them into the Thirty-Three Fiendish Treasures.
Hundreds of years passed in the blink of an eye.
At last, Guiyuan reached the edge of the Ancestral Vein of Changbai Mountain.
He raised his eyes, and his heart stirred.
What a magnificent Ancestral Vein of the Primordial World!
The mountain range stretched on for hundreds of millions of miles, majestic and vast, with deep foundations. It seemed faintly connected to the fortune of the entire Northern Continent.
Its peaks rose like swords, piercing the ashen sky. One could just make out the former splendor of countless mountains paying homage, with spiritual energy surging like a tide.
At its height, it must have been one of the Primordial World's foremost paradises, capable of giving birth to countless divine beings.
Sadly, now it was all broken walls and ruins, a desolate sight.
Inky baleful energy, so dense it seemed impossible to disperse, coiled around the mountains like a living thing, hissing.
The rocks were charred black, all signs of spiritual vitality gone. Only endless silence and ruin remained.
The ancestral vein that had once nourished the north was now a filthy source spewing baleful energy.
"What a waste." Guiyuan sighed inwardly.
But the next moment, his expression turned grave.
Deep within that overwhelming baleful energy,
a vast, savage pressure carrying an aura of chaos pulsed slowly, like a sleeping behemoth.
It seemed sluggish, as if gravely wounded, but its level far surpassed Taiyi!
"The Taowu King... is still here, just as I thought." Guiyuan's gaze flickered as his thoughts raced. A gravely wounded Daluo Ferocious Beast was both tempting and dangerous.
Just as he weighed whether to risk investigating, a sudden change occurred!
The air rippled in the distance, and a figure appeared without warning.
Guiyuan reacted at once. With a thought, the Great Concealment Technique enveloped him. His aura, karma, and very presence vanished, as if he had merged with the baleful energy around him.
He focused his gaze and saw that the newcomer was a beautiful woman.
She was tall, with snow-white skin and peerlessly cold features. A sharp, forbidding air surrounded her, allowing no irreverence.
What astonished Guiyuan most was that the Chaos Sha, which filled the area and was potent enough to erode a Taiyi foundation,
became as docile as a lamb around her. It could not harm her in the slightest. Instead, it retreated as if a subject had encountered its sovereign!
"How strange! Who is she?"
Guiyuan felt a faint alarm. Anyone who could ignore the baleful energy here was no ordinary person.
The moment the woman appeared, she showed not the slightest hesitation. Her icy gaze pierced straight into the depths of Changbai Mountain.
The next moment, she took a step forward, moving like lightning as she plunged straight into the overwhelming baleful energy, heading for the Taowu King's lair!
"Roar—!"
A furious, pained bellow shook the heavens and earth. All of Changbai Mountain trembled violently.
Terrifying shock waves from the battle erupted, churning the baleful energy like boiling water!
Guiyuan strained his eyes and looked through layer upon layer of obstruction. On the mountaintop, two colossal figures were already locked in a savage fight!
There was no dazzling display of divine arts, no clashing of laws—only the most primitive, brutal, and breathtaking hand-to-hand combat!
Claws tore and flesh flew. Every collision rang like clashing metal, and sheer force carved fissures into space!
One of them was the Taowu King. It resembled the Taowu Guiyuan had encountered before, but was over a hundred times larger, its ferocious might overwhelming.
Just as expected, a massive bloodied hole gaped in its chest. Black blood poured from it, clearly an old wound that severely hampered its movements.
The other monstrous beast had a human face and an animal's body, with two snakes hanging from its ears. An aura of bone-deep cold and laws governing wind and rain surrounded it. Its vast, surging blood energy was in no way inferior to that of the wounded Taowu King!
"This is..."
Guiyuan's pupils contracted. A title suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"The Xuanming True Body! So the Twelve Ancestral Witches have appeared as well!"
He understood now why she wasn't afraid of the baleful energy.
The Ancestral Witches were formed from Pangu's blood essence. They were born in control of laws, cultivating no primordial spirit and tempering only their physical bodies.
The Xuanming Ancestral Witch must have controlled laws related to ice, rain, and baleful energy. As for the Chaos Sha here,
although it wasn't exactly nourishment for her, it would still have difficulty eroding her.
As his thoughts raced, the fight on the mountaintop reached its peak.
The Xuanming Ancestral Witch roared. Her fists pounded like giant drums, and icy baleful energy gathered around her claws as she struck the Taowu King's wound again and again.
The Taowu King howled in pain. Its ferocity was fully roused; its claws swept out, and its long tail lashed back like a whip that could shatter the heavens.
The Xuanming Ancestral Witch's fists were as cold as ice, her claws condensed from baleful energy. Every strike targeted the hideous wound on the Taowu King's chest.
The Taowu King roared repeatedly, its aura growing weaker. It seemed on the verge of defeat.
Just then—
"Roar—!"
A piercing howl rang out—not from the Taowu King, but from all across Changbai Mountain at once!
The next moment, Guiyuan's pupils narrowed.
Between the mountain peaks, one lurking Taowu Ferocious Beast after another exploded without warning!
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
They burst like bloody fireworks, blooming in dreadful splashes across the wilderness.
Essence-rich blood energy and Chaos Sha surged into the Taowu King's battered body like countless rivers rushing into the sea!
Its aura surged in an instant!
Its previously weakened pressure burst skyward, drawing wails from the laws of heaven and earth. It forcibly unleashed a sliver of power belonging to the Daluo realm!
"Not good!" The Xuanming Ancestral Witch's icy expression changed for the first time.
The Taowu's blood-red eyes fixed on her, and its massive claw swung down with brutal force.
The strike carried baleful energy straight into the unseen River of Time!
The attack was no longer confined to the present. It came at Xuanming from the past, present, and future, across all three dimensions of time!
The baleful energy around Xuanming shook violently, and her True Body cracked under the strain.
She tried to resist, but the attack from the depths of time was intangible and everywhere at once.
"Crack—"
Xuanming's True Body suddenly shattered, and blood gushed like a waterfall. She grunted, her aura instantly fading, and the Taowu's massive claw struck her, sending her flying!
"Now!"
Guiyuan, who had been hidden nearby all along, let his eyes blaze.
"Great Spacetime Technique!"
His figure blurred. Seemingly ignoring the distance between them, he appeared in an instant along Xuanming's path and caught her.
She felt heavy in his arms, her body wracked by baleful energy and injuries, already at the end of her strength.
The Taowu King had landed a hit, its ferocity growing even greater. It tore through space and lunged again!
Without hesitation, Guiyuan wove together two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Great Daos and simultaneously manifested Eight Gods Return to the Ultimate.
"Primordial Heavenly Dao!"
His true body appeared alongside the phantoms of his eight incarnations. Nine streams of primordial energy stretched across the sky like pillars, slamming into the oncoming Taowu!
"Boom—!"
The impact resounded across the Changbai Mountain range.
The Taowu's charge suddenly faltered, and this immense force knocked it back for an instant.
Seizing that opening, Guiyuan acted again with a thought.
The Xuanyuan Controlling Water Flag floated out from his true spirit, expanding in the wind until it became a vast curtain of water that blotted out the sky.
Within the curtain, an endless ocean unfolded. Its waves surged, and space itself turned upside down.
The Xuanyuan Reversal Array was complete!
The formation became a massive, watery-blue cage, temporarily trapping the Taowu, which had just steadied itself.
"Go!"
Guiyuan held the gravely wounded Xuanming close and activated the Great Spacetime Technique once more.
Their figures merged into layer upon layer of space and vanished without a trace.
Almost the moment they disappeared—
"Roar—!"
With a furious bellow, the Xuanyuan Reversal Array was forcibly torn apart, and the curtain of water burst into a shower of spiritual light.
The Taowu broke free, its baleful energy surging sky-high.
But the spot where they had been was already empty.
"Roar!"
The Taowu King let out an even more terrifying roar, unleashing surging waves of baleful energy as if raging at the one who had just attacked it!
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