A terrifying roar, filled with savagery, exploded from behind a pitch-black mountain ahead, like a peal of thunder!
The rolling sound waves carried a ferocity far surpassing that of any corpse he had collected before!
A moment later, the earth shook violently. A colossal shadow, wreathed in overwhelming baleful energy, charged out from behind the mountain!
Just as the enormous shadow came hurtling toward him on a foul wind, Guiyuan's figure blurred. He had already teleported tens of thousands of yards away like a ghost.
It was the Great Teleportation Technique.
He looked closely at the ferocious beast's hideous appearance.
It had a tiger's body and a human face, with tusks jutting outward like a wild boar's. Its eighteen-foot tail swept through the air like a steel whip, cracking the very air.
"Is that Taowu?" A flicker of surprise crossed Guiyuan's eyes.
He had learned from Kunpeng that during the Ferocious Beast Calamity, Beast Emperor Shen Ni had been slain by the Three Ancestors of the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin in a joint effort. Under his command were the Four Fierce Beasts:
Qiongqi, Taotie, Taowu, and Hundun. All possessed Daluo-level power, each ruling over its own tribe and serving as a main force among the ferocious beasts.
Compared with other ferocious beasts, the Four Fierce Beasts had superior Origin Foundations.
The Chaos Sha they controlled was purer and more domineering. They could be considered the prodigies of the ferocious beast race.
They had been the main force behind the beasts' rampage across the Primordial World. Even Innate Beings of the same realm might not prevail in a one-on-one fight against one of the Four Fierce Beasts.
He had assumed that after the calamity, these four tribes had been completely wiped out. He had never expected any survivors to remain.
"Good. Very good!" Rather than alarm, delight flared in Guiyuan's eyes.
Although the Thirty-Three Heavens Fierce Sha Treasures he had previously crafted were made from extraordinary materials and possessed astonishing power, they had ultimately been forged from corpses. They lacked the most important thing: "spirit."
Or rather, they lacked a living ferocious soul as their core.
If he could capture this living Taowu and refine it into a treasure while it was still alive, using its baleful essence to nourish the artifact, he could surely raise the power of this set of treasures to another level!
The Taowu's pounce missed. Its crimson eyes fixed on Guiyuan as it let out a low growl, baleful energy roiling around it like a tangible substance.
Though it was not very intelligent, it could instinctively sense that the aura of this Daoist before it was strange: he did not fear its ferocious might.
"Roar!"
The Taowu whipped its long tail. A condensed, ink-black lash of baleful energy tore through the sky and struck down toward Guiyuan!
Ripples spread through the space it passed, and its blow carried a chill that corroded the soul.
Guiyuan neither dodged nor retreated. He simply raised a finger.
"Great Sealing Technique."
Buzz!
Countless pale-gold runes appeared out of nowhere in the air, weaving together in an instant into a vast net that descended over the lash of baleful energy.
The runes flowed with the power of laws that bound all things and sealed everything.
Hiss—!
The lash struck the golden net and dissolved as quickly as snow beneath the sun. Even the baleful energy roiling around the Taowu stalled!
The Taowu's huge body suddenly stiffened, as if it had fallen into an invisible mire. Its movements grew sluggish.
It struggled with all its might, roaring again and again as its ferocity surged skyward, trying to break free of its bonds.
"A trapped beast will still struggle," Guiyuan said calmly.
He moved his mind once more, joined his fingers like a sword, and traced an arcane pattern through the air.
"Myriad Dragons Refining World Great Immortal Technique!"
In the next instant, countless heavenly dragons formed a gigantic furnace around the Taowu.
"Great Treasure Refining Technique!"
Guiyuan did not kill the Taowu. He intended to refine it directly into the treasure while it was still alive.
Within the furnace, countless flames scorched the Taowu's body and soul.
"Graaah—!"
The Taowu let out a heartrending shriek. It could feel its power being forcibly drained and refined by the strange furnace.
It charged madly and clawed at the furnace, but could not shake it in the slightest. Whenever the furnace wavered even a little, Guiyuan used the Xuanyuan Controlling Water Flag to stabilize it.
Innate Treasures really were useful.
Guiyuan hovered in midair, gazing down at the Taowu struggling within the furnace of baleful energy, his eyes cold.
His hands formed seal after seal, sending one treasure-refining incantation after another into the furnace.
"With the Great Soul Technique, extract its ferocious soul!"
"With the Great Suppression Technique, fix its essence!"
"Fuse soul into treasure; return the baleful force to its place!"
The Taowu's roars gradually weakened. Its body grew indistinct and melted within the black flames.
At last, it became a drop of the purest baleful essence, enclosing a twisted beast soul that thrashed wildly within it.
Guiyuan beckoned, and a long banner wreathed in baleful energy flew out from within him.
It was the Myriad Sha Banner, one of the Thirty-Three Heavens Fierce Sha Treasures.
The Taowu's baleful essence and beast soul flowed into the banner like a hundred rivers returning to the sea!
"Hum—!"
The banner shook violently, and the phantom of a Taowu appeared upon it, roaring toward the heavens!
An even more violent and terrifying baleful aura surged skyward, churning the winds and clouds in every direction!
Guiyuan gripped the banner's shaft, sensing the boundless power within it and the ferocious soul, now completely refined and utterly obedient. Satisfied, he nodded.
"Only with this ferocious soul as the spirit of the Myriad Fiends Banner does it begin to take shape. Now it can suppress Taiyi cultivators with ease."
A moment later, Guiyuan suddenly raised his brows. From the Taowu soul, now transformed into a ferocious soul, a mysterious message had surfaced in his mind.
"The Taowu King is still alive? He's entrenched in Changbai Mountain, the Ancestral Vein in the northern reaches of the Primordial World, absorbing the spiritual energy of the Northern Continent?"
The news surprised Guiyuan. The Taowu King was the ruler of the entire Taowu tribe, and one of the Four Fierce Beasts' kings he had mentioned.
A Daluo-level ferocious beast was still alive.
But it was gravely wounded. Guiyuan's first thought was that if he could use a Daluo soul to suppress one of his Thirty-Three Fiendish Treasures—
its might might reach the level of at least a High-grade Innate Treasure.
"Gravely wounded... gravely wounded..."
Guiyuan swallowed. The temptation was simply too great. A Daluo on the brink of death—and a ferocious beast, no less.
How much merit would he gain if he killed it?
Guiyuan stood atop the spiritual vein beneath his feet. Its energy was chaotic and depleted, its strength unable to recover. Baleful energy wore it down from the front, while no spiritual energy replenished it from behind.
The reason it received no spiritual energy was probably that the Taowu had occupied the Ancestral Vein.
If spiritual energy were the blood in the veins, then spiritual veins were those veins, and the Ancestral Vein was the heart. The Ancestral Vein had to continuously supply spiritual energy to the spiritual veins to keep them active. But now, not only was baleful energy eroding the spiritual energy, the Ancestral Vein was blocked as well.
Before coming here, Guiyuan had assumed the Ancestral Vein was damaged. He had not expected the situation to be even worse.
"Daluo..."
Guiyuan took a deep breath. Fortune favored the bold. It was not time yet. As long as he did his best to refine the Thirty-Three Fiendish Treasures and combined them with the divine abilities he had mastered—
and the Xuanyuan Controlling Water Flag, he might be able to challenge this gravely wounded Daluo ferocious beast.
"But first, I should scout the place and see exactly what the situation is. If it's truly beyond me, I'll try to break through to Daluo first, then come back to deal with that fellow."
With that, Guiyuan set off using the Great Teleportation Technique. The Changbai Mountain Ancestral Vein lay at the border between the north and east, still within the Northern Continent.
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