Live Refining Ferocious Beasts, Heading to the Ancestral Vein

A terrifying roar, filled with savage brutality, exploded like a thunderclap from behind a pitch-black mountain range ahead!

The rolling sound waves carried a ferocity far surpassing any of the corpses he had collected before.

Immediately after, the earth trembled violently, and a massive, indistinct black shadow, wrapped in surging Sha Qi, lunged out from behind the mountain!

Sure enough, the moment that colossal shadow pounced with a stench of blood, Guiyuan's form flickered, and he had already teleported like a ghost to ten thousand zhang away.

It was the Great Teleportation Technique.

He steadied his gaze and saw the Ferocious Beast's hideous form.

A tiger's body with a human face, fangs jutting outward like a wild boar, and a long tail over a zhang long that swept through the void like a steel whip, cracking the air with sonic booms.

"Could it be a Taowu?" Guiyuan's eyes flashed with a hint of surprise.

He had learned from Kunpeng that during the Ferocious Beast Calamity of yore, the Beast Emperor Shen Ni was slain by the combined might of the three progenitors—Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin. Under his command were four great Ferocious Beasts.

Qiongqi, Taotie, Taowu, and Chaos—each possessed Daluo-level power, leading their own clans as the main force among the Ferocious Beasts.

Compared to other Ferocious Beasts, the clans of these four great ones had higher Origin Foundations.

The Chaos Sha they controlled was purer and more overbearing, allowing them to be likened to the prodigies of the Ferocious Beast race.

They were the main army that ravaged the Primordial World during the calamity. Even Innate Beings of the same realm, facing a group of these four great Ferocious Beasts in one-on-one combat, might not necessarily win.

He had thought that after the calamity, these four clans had long been wiped out. He never expected there would still be stragglers.

"Good, very good!" Guiyuan was not alarmed but delighted, a fervent gleam in his eyes.

The Thirty-Three Heavens Fierce Sha Treasure he had refined earlier, though made of extraordinary materials and possessing astonishing power, was ultimately crafted from dead corpses and lacked the most crucial "spirit."

Or rather, it lacked a living, ferocious soul as its core.

If he could capture this living Taowu and refine it alive into the treasure, using its fierce Sha origin to nourish the artifact, it would surely elevate the power of this set of treasures to another level!

The Taowu's pounce missed, and its blood-red eyes locked onto Guiyuan. It let out a low growl, Sha Qi churning around it like a tangible force.

Though its intelligence was low, it instinctively sensed that this Daoist before it had a strange aura and was unafraid of its ferocious might.

"Roar!"

The Taowu's long tail lashed out violently, a whip of condensed, ink-black Sha Qi tearing through the sky, slashing down toward Guiyuan's head!

Where it passed, space rippled, carrying a yin-cold that corroded the soul.

Guiyuan, however, neither dodged nor blocked. He merely raised a finger.

"Great Sealing Technique."

Hum!

Countless pale-gold runes materialized out of the void, instantly weaving into a massive net that descended toward the Sha Qi whip.

The runes swirled, carrying the law force of sealing all things and binding everything.

Sizzle—!

The Sha Qi whip collided with the golden net, melting away like snow under the sun. Even the Sha Qi surging around the Taowu stagnated!

The Taowu's massive body stiffened abruptly, as if trapped in an invisible quagmire, its movements slowing.

It struggled fiercely, roaring repeatedly, its ferocious aura surging skyward as it tried to break free from this restraint.

"A cornered beast still fights." Guiyuan's tone was flat.

He moved his mind again, pressing his fingers together like a sword and tracing a mysterious trajectory in the air.

"Myriad Dragons Refining World Great Immortal Technique!"

The next moment, countless heavenly dragons formed a colossal furnace around the Taowu.

"Great Treasure Refining Technique!"

Guiyuan did not kill the Taowu; instead, he intended to refine it alive directly into the treasure.

Inside the furnace, countless flames scorched the Taowu's flesh and soul.

"Oww—!"

The Taowu let out a miserable howl. It could feel its power being forcibly drawn out and refined by this strange furnace.

It rammed wildly, clawing and tearing, but could not shake the furnace in the slightest. Whenever the furnace trembled a bit, Guiyuan used the XuanYuan Controlling Water Flag to stabilize it.

Innate Treasures were indeed handy.

Guiyuan stood in the void, looking down at the Taowu struggling within the Sha Qi furnace, his gaze icy cold.

His hands continuously formed seals, sending refining incantations into the furnace.

"With the Great Soul Technique, extract its ferocious soul!"

"With the Great Suppression Technique, stabilize its origin!"

"Melt the soul into the treasure, the fierce Sha returns to its place!"

Inside the furnace, the Taowu's roars gradually weakened. Its body blurred and melted within the black flames.

It finally transformed into a strand of the purest fierce sha origin, within which a twisted beast soul struggled wildly.

Guiyuan raised his hand and beckoned, and a long banner wreathed in sha qi flew out from within his body.

It was the "Myriad Sha Banner," one of the Thirty-Three Heavens Fierce Sha Treasures.

The fierce sha origin and beast soul that the Taowu had transformed into, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, all vanished into the banner!

"Buzz—!"

The long banner shook violently, and a phantom image of a Taowu roaring at the heavens immediately appeared on its surface!

A fierce sha aura, far more brutal and terrifying than before, surged into the sky, stirring the winds and clouds in all directions!

Guiyuan grasped the banner pole, feeling the vast power contained within and the beast soul that had been completely refined and now obeyed only him. He nodded with satisfaction.

"With this fierce soul as the spirit of the Myriad Fiends Banner, it has only just taken its initial form. Now it can suppress even a Taiyi wherever it pleases."

After a moment, Guiyuan suddenly raised an eyebrow. From the Taowu soul, now transformed into a fierce soul, he sensed a trace of obscure information.

"The Taowu King isn't dead? It's entrenched in the ancestral vein of Changbai Mountain in the northern part of the Primordial World, draining the spiritual energy of the northern lands?"

This news surprised even Guiyuan. The Taowu King was the ruler of the entire Taowu race, one of the four Ferocious Beast kings he had mentioned.

A Daluo-level Ferocious Beast, and it was still alive.

Just gravely wounded. Guiyuan's first thought was that if his Thirty-Three Fiendish Treasures could have a Daluo soul suppressing them...

Their power would likely reach at least the level of a High-grade Innate Treasure.

"Gravely wounded, gravely wounded..."

Guiyuan swallowed hard. The temptation was far too great—a Daluo on the verge of death from its injuries, and a Ferocious Beast at that.

If he killed it, how much merit would he gain?

Guiyuan stood on the spiritual vein beneath his feet. Its energy was chaotic, lacking follow-through, worn down by sha qi ahead and without replenishment from spiritual energy behind—hence the difficulty in recovery.

As for why there was no replenishment of spiritual energy, it was likely because the ancestral vein was occupied by that Taowu.

If spiritual energy were the blood within blood vessels, then spiritual veins were the blood vessels, and the ancestral vein was the heart. The ancestral vein needed to continuously channel spiritual energy into the spiritual veins.

This kept the spiritual veins active. But now, not only was the sha qi wearing away the spiritual energy, the ancestral vein was also blocked.

Before coming, Guiyuan had thought the ancestral vein was damaged, but he hadn't expected the situation to be even worse.

"A Daluo..."

Guiyuan took a deep breath. Fortune favors the bold. It wasn't time yet. If he could refine the Thirty-Three Fiendish Treasures as much as possible, combined with the divine abilities he had mastered, along with the Xuanyuan Controlling Water Flag, he might just be able to cause trouble for this gravely wounded Daluo Ferocious Beast.

"But I need to go and scout the situation first, see exactly what's going on. If it's truly impossible, I'll try to break through to Daluo and then come back to deal with this bastard."

With that, Guiyuan began traveling using the Great Teleportation Technique. Changbai Mountain's ancestral vein lay at the border between the north and the east, also situated on the Northern Continent.