The Great Desert

As He Heng's sword light turned, he suddenly stabbed towards Wu Hua. Wu Hua's body, which should have been completely dead, suddenly moved. His eyes were extremely cold, revealing a chilling glint. He suddenly leaped up and unleashed the Shaolin Prajna Palm. It was powerful and heavy, the palm wind whistling and immense, instantly creating numerous explosive sounds in the air as it fiercely struck towards He Heng's chest.

"I knew you'd do this long ago," He Heng coldly sneered. His sword light flashed, and he fiercely chopped horizontally, striking Wu Hua's right hand.

"Ah!!"

Under the shining sword light, the dark night was torn apart. Wu Hua screamed madly. His right wrist was severed by He Heng's sword. His palm fell to the ground, blood gushing out.

"This..." Chu Liuxiang saw this scene and was stunned. How did Wu Hua come back to life? No, he faked his death!

At the moment Wu Hua screamed and Chu Liuxiang was stunned, He Heng's Longevity Sword moved again. It was like the changing of wind and clouds, the vast sky roaring. The sword qi surged out like the roaring waters of the Yangtze River, instantly extending a zhang, fiercely piercing towards Wu Hua's chest.

"Peng! Peng!"

This time, Wu Hua didn't have time to dodge. He was directly pierced through the chest by the sword qi. His internal organs were all ruptured, blood dripping and soaking the soil beneath his feet.

"You... I'm not reconciled!" Wu Hua's face contorted to the extreme. He laboriously raised his left hand, pointing fiercely at He Heng, his expression ferocious.

He was not reconciled! When his scheme was exposed and discovered by Chu Liuxiang, he had planned to use Chu Liuxiang's trust in him to fake his death, escape, and then plot his grand strategy. He never expected He Heng to appear and completely ruin everything.

He Heng coldly sneered, and the Longevity Sword spun. The surging sword qi flowed, churning Wu Hua's internal organs into a rotten, fragmented mess. Then, the Longevity Sword was sheathed, and Wu Hua fell to the ground with a thud, his eyes still wide open.

"Why did you have to do this!" Chu Liuxiang walked over with a hint of sadness, gently closing Wu Hua's eyes and sighing with deep sorrow.

He Heng glanced indifferently at Chu Liuxiang, not looking at Wu Hua again. To him, someone like Wu Hua was merely like floating clouds. If it weren't for the need to further alert Chu Liuxiang to his presence, he wouldn't have bothered to kill him!

The night was like water, dark and silent. The sky was extremely low, covered by rolling dark clouds. A light rain began to fall, washing over the land.

Chu Liuxiang buried Wu Hua and stared blankly at the sky, at the rain, lost in thought.

Scorching sun, wind and sand, yellow earth. The air was filled with endless dryness. The weather was extremely hot, making one feel as if their skin was being peeled off.

This was a vast desert, filled with yellow sand everywhere. Blistering winds swept through intermittently, and the air was extremely dry.

This was a forbidden zone of life, a terrifying place. In the desert, mortal life was incredibly insignificant.

During the day, it could be so hot that you'd want to peel off your skin, but at night, it could be so cold that your blood would freeze. Hills could turn into flat ground in an instant, and flat ground could become hills. When a storm arose, an entire city could be buried in the desert. Coupled with the almost non-existent water, at least ten people died of thirst every hour in the desert. Here, a pot of clear water was worth ten lives.

No matter how high your martial arts were, unless you reached the transcendent realm of the Great Heaven World's Dao Embryo Realm, even a Yang God martial artist could perish in the desert.

How could mortals contend with the might of heaven and earth? Without achieving the Dao Embryo, martial arts cultivation was still mortal. If you couldn't defy the heavens, you still had to eat and drink. True Bigu was something only achievable in the Dao Embryo Realm.

Before this, although some powerful individuals could achieve Bigu for a few days or tens of days, they could only abstain from food. They still needed to drink water.

Only those above the Dao Embryo Realm could dine on wind and dew, swallow the primordial qi of heaven and earth, and become those who consume qi and possess divine wisdom and immortality. Only then could they truly break free from external dependence, become self-sufficient, and possess the initial possibility of contending with the might of heaven and earth.

And at this moment, He Heng was riding a camel, slowly making his way through the boundless desert.

"The desert! It's been a long time since I've been to a place like this," He Heng said with some emotion, looking at the endless yellow sand around him.

He had been to deserts before, back in the Dragon-Snake World. To break through Core Strength and comprehend heaven and earth, he had traveled everywhere, and he had walked through a desert then.

That time, he wasn't very lucky and almost died in the desert. Now, although he was no longer the same, he was still far from reaching the Dao Embryo Realm and naturally lacked the power to contend with the forces of heaven and earth. However, he wasn't worried about being trapped and dying here; he had that confidence.

After all, this desert wasn't particularly large, only a few thousand li across. With He Heng's speed, a few thousand li could be covered in just a few days, so he wasn't afraid.

In the Dragon-Snake World, Wang Chao could achieve preliminary Bigu. Was he worse than Wang Chao back then?

The cultivation technique He Heng was currently practicing was called the Valley Spirit Undying Technique. It was a divine technique that had transcended the mortal realm and could be called a marvelous technique.

In the Great Heaven World, there were countless divine techniques. To distinguish and classify them, cultivation techniques were generally divided according to cultivation realms.

Techniques that could only cultivate up to the Yang God realm and lacked the ability to condense the Dao Embryo were ordinary mortal techniques.

Techniques that could condense the Dao Embryo were another level, and techniques that could condense the Dharma Aspect were also another level.

Techniques that contained the fundamental mysteries of heaven and earth, allowing one to comprehend reality and achieve the Cave True Realm, were called True Scriptures, such as the He Family's Myriad Longevity Technique.

Techniques that could prove the Dao of Pure Yang were yet another tier. Generally, these were the fundamental techniques of major Mystic Sects.

The techniques and dao arts above that level were beyond He Heng's imagination. Even in the entire Great Heaven World, there were probably only a few, existing only in legends.

Like the legendary Daoist Three Cave Scriptures: Cave True, Cave God, and Cave Profound. The supreme Buddhist secret scripture, Supreme Enlightenment Worldly Understanding, and the Demonic Sect's Other Transformation Freedom Scripture, and other techniques from ancient myths of Dao Venerables and Buddhas, their existence was almost unverifiable.

The He Family's town-protecting divine technique, the Myriad Longevity Technique, was merely a Cave True Realm level technique. He Heng's current Valley Spirit Undying Technique was a Dharma Aspect Realm level technique. It took the true meaning of the undying valley spirit. When cultivated to an extremely profound level, it could control the changes of the rise and fall of yin and yang across the four seasons.

This was given to He Heng by his father after he showed great progress during the New Year's visit home. Of course, this was only the part before the Dao Embryo Realm. He Heng was not yet qualified to obtain the later content.

If the complete Valley Spirit Undying Technique were placed in Huang Yi's wuxia world, it could completely crush the so-called Four Great Divine Books. After all, those Four Great Divine Books only reached the Dao Embryo Realm when cultivating to Shattering Void. The complete Valley Spirit Undying Technique, however, contained the cultivation method for the eighteen layers of the Dao Embryo Realm's cycle of years, as well as the method for condensing the Dharma Aspect. How could it compare to a few techniques that only offered a path to condensing the Dao Embryo?

Although He Heng was only cultivating the earlier part, its profound mysteries were evident.

The Valley Spirit Undying Technique draws from the true meaning of the undying valley spirit. It is the most orthodox Mystic Sect technique. Its core lies in cultivating oneself and improving survival ability, rather than pursuing powerful offensive capabilities.

Its most significant characteristic is allowing one to prematurely absorb some primordial qi of heaven and earth before the Dao Embryo Realm. This absorbed qi is naturally incomparable to the terrifying absorption of true Dao Embryo experts who swallow heaven and earth. However, for a martial artist like He Heng, who hasn't even awakened his Yin God, the consumption is far less than that of a true Dao Embryo expert. Through the Valley Spirit Undying Technique, he can achieve preliminary self-sufficiency, abstaining from food for months and water for over ten days while maintaining peak condition.

It is precisely because of this cultivation technique that He Heng is not worried about being trapped and dying in the desert. Therefore, He Heng only brought a pot of clear water with him this time and set off.

These past few days, he hasn't been in a hurry to leave the desert. Instead, he has been walking slowly, not eating anything, and spending his days on the camel, inhaling and exhaling the primordial qi of heaven and earth, and comprehending nature.

It's as if he has severed all ties with the mortal world, not eating worldly food, like a banished immortal about to ascend.

This is, of course, just a saying. What He Heng is actually doing is purifying himself and detoxifying.

Throughout a person's life, from birth, they eat and drink every day. These things inevitably leave impurities in the body. Over time, they accumulate more and more, mainly stored in three places, which are the so-called Three Corpses' locations.

To achieve the Martial Dao Three Peng Realm, one must cut away these impurities, achieve an Immaculate Body, and then achieve clarity of body and mind, reaching the realm of Great Freedom. Only then can one comprehend the existence of their Yin God and awaken it, achieving the Yin God Realm.

Practicing Bigu with the Valley Spirit Undying Technique, abstaining from worldly food, is a form of detoxification and the beginning of entering the Martial Dao Three Peng Realm.

These past few days, He Heng has not eaten anything and has only drunk a few sips of clear water, but he feels his spirit becoming more vigorous, his mind clearer, and his spiritual cultivation reaching a higher realm. He has faintly glimpsed a trace of the profound meaning of the Earth Law.

On the tenth day of He Heng's journey through the desert, a patch of emerald green appeared before him. It was a landscape completely different from this great desert. He Heng immediately noticed it.

"Have I finally arrived?" He Heng smiled faintly and slowly walked towards the oasis.