Cultivation Bottleneck

A few days later, Hell, Sea of Chaos:

"Sovereign, those Four Divine Beasts have swept their divine sense across all four Higher Planes and seven Divine Planes. They shouldn't have found anything. The four of them even personally ordered the Four Divine Beasts Clan to search for special divine beasts, the stronger the better, but no one knows what they are actually trying to do."

Sovereign of Blood Peak Pash arrived at Wukun City, where the Sovereign of Destruction resided. After enveloping the entire palace with his divine sense, he spoke.

Regardless of whether it is a High Sovereign, a Middle Sovereign, or a Low Sovereign, although their capabilities differ greatly, the energy they use is the same: Sovereign Power.

Therefore, when Sovereigns scan with their divine sense, everyone is aware of it. Even the divine sense of a Paragon High-God Sovereign can be detected by a Low Sovereign. If one uses Sovereign Power to protect a certain area, other Sovereigns cannot penetrate it with their divine sense.

"Special divine beasts?" A voice emerged from the depths of the pitch-black palace, belonging to the Sovereign of Destruction.

"It is very strange. They previously claimed it was for their descendants, but now they are capturing other divine beasts," Pash said, also somewhat puzzled.

"There is too little information right now. We must find a way to investigate further. It is quite common for Sovereigns to study divine beasts." Utrecht could not guess the reason either and could only pin his hopes on Pash.

Although the Four Divine Beasts resided on the Blood Peak Continent, according to the agreements and mutual understanding between Sovereigns, each Sovereign had their own territory, and they all resided in the planes corresponding to their attributes.

Because of this, the Blood Peak Continent was under Pash's jurisdiction. Only he could freely scan the entire continent with his divine sense. Even if the Four Divine Beasts were overbearing, they could say nothing about it.

After all, they were merely living on someone else's turf. However, under normal circumstances, Pash would not go out of his way to trouble a group of Sovereigns.

Therefore, the Sovereign of Destruction, who coveted the combined innate divine ability of the Four Divine Beasts, arranged for Pash to handle many of these matters. Otherwise, if he, the Sovereign of Destruction, were to scan the Tianji Mountain Range with his divine sense, his intentions would be too obvious.

"To make the Four Divine Beasts so cautious, even if the order was sent down to the Four Divine Beasts Clan, I fear only those core members know the actual situation. These individuals are also descendants highly valued by the Four Divine Beasts. Taking action against them might trigger a conflict between Sovereigns," Pash said, feeling somewhat troubled.

Getting caught in the shadow wars between Sovereigns was something no Middle or Low Sovereign wanted, but he had no choice—the Four Divine Beasts lived in his territory.

He dared not refuse the request of the Sovereign of Destruction, but if it involved life-threatening risks, he could still express his concerns tactfully.

After all, no matter how overbearing a Sovereign might be, they generally would not force their subordinates to do something extremely dangerous. Sovereigns cared about their reputation, too.

"Then what are your thoughts?" Utrecht asked. Although he was overbearing, he was not unreasonable.

"Why not ask Dunnington to step in and have him find an opportunity to use a Soul Seed to bewitch some of the core members of the Four Divine Beasts Clan?" Pash suggested.

"The core members of the Four Divine Beasts Clan are generally at least four-fold fused, and with the protection of their innate divine abilities, I estimate that in the entire Higher Planes, only Dunnington could accomplish this."

Soul Seed bewitchment was a unique method of the Death Law. Even the Life Law and Fate Law, which were not inferior to the Death Law in terms of soul-related aspects, could not achieve this.

There were indeed a few experts of the Death Law in the Higher Planes and Divine Planes capable of bewitching a seven-star Fiend who had fused four profound mysteries, but the only one in this world capable of bewitching a seven-star Fiend of the Four Divine Beasts Clan was likely the one and only Paragon High-God of the Death Law, Dunnington.

Even the seven Sovereigns of the death attribute might not be able to do it; Soul Seed bewitchment was an ability based on profound mysteries and had nothing to do with Willpower.

And Dunnington, the Paragon High-God of the Death Law, was the Sovereign's Emissary of the Sovereign of Destruction.

"Dunnington may not be willing to do such a thing. He won't go and offend the Four Divine Beasts Sovereigns," Utrecht said with a faint smile. "Paragon High-Gods are very proud. He won't do everything I ask."

Even a Rule Sovereign could not necessarily command a Paragon.

After all, for a Paragon, the benefits a Sovereign could offer were of little significance.

Furthermore, Sovereigns held Paragon High-Gods in high esteem, treating them entirely as friends of the same level, and generally would not force them.

"Then I will return first and investigate further in secret," Pash said.

"Hmm, good. Have the Fiend Castle pay more attention as well to see what the Four Divine Beasts Clan is up to," Utrecht added.

Sovereigns built their own forces precisely for moments like this. The Fiend Castle covered Hell, and investigating many things through them might be more convenient than using a Sovereign's divine sense.

"Yes, Sovereign," Pash bowed and then quickly flew back to his own continent.

A few hours later, after flying over ten billion li, Pash returned to his Lianyun Mountain Range. He covered the continent with his divine sense, found several trusted emissaries, the managers of the Sovereign's Army, and the masters of the Fiend Castle, and informed them to keep a close watch on the Four Divine Beasts Clan.

"They don't even know what the Four Divine Beasts Clan is looking for? How are they supposed to find it!" Pash sighed helplessly.

The people he had just summoned were also confused, not knowing what the Sovereign of Blood Peak wanted to do, but they dared not ask further. Pash was also at a loss; he couldn't explain it clearly either, so he could only observe if there were any anomalies.

Sean, who was far away at the edge of the Zhongyuan Continent material plane, naturally knew nothing of what was happening in Hell.

The only thing he needed to do now was to devour godheads to strengthen his body, while simultaneously trying his best to comprehend the Darkness Element Profound Mystery and, before it reached perfection, fuse it with the Shadow Clone Profound Mystery.

In the blink of an eye, several more years passed.

The spatial turbulence outside remained just as violent. One day, Sean slowly opened his eyes.

"I am still one step away from perfecting the Darkness Element Profound Mystery, but I just can't seem to cross this final hurdle," Sean said, frowning slightly.

It is said that the profound mysteries of the elements themselves are the most basic and easiest to comprehend. Most Low-Gods of the elemental laws in this world became gods by comprehending these profound mysteries, only to get stuck on other profound mysteries and fail to become Middle-Gods.

But Sean was the opposite; he had relied on his God-Eater Rat bloodline to perfect the Shadow Clone Profound Mystery first, and now he was stuck on the Darkness Element Profound Mystery.

Fortunately, he had already begun the initial fusion of the Darkness Element and the Shadow Clone.

And because he now had two clones, his Saint-level original body had been studying the Earth Laws all these years. In this plane space, his speed in cultivating the Earth Laws was a hundred times faster than in the material plane.

These past few years had also allowed him to grasp the basics of the Earth Pulse profound mystery. He was still far from perfection, and he was currently attempting to fuse the Earth Element and the Earth Pulse profound mystery while still at the Saint level.

"It seems that no matter how high one's talent is, relying solely on closed-door cultivation is not enough to comprehend them. The same goes for fusing profound mysteries," Sean had roughly understood the reason he couldn't break through his bottleneck.

Even the Paragon High-Gods of the Higher Planes, despite their brilliant talent, grew gradually through countless life-and-death battles. It was almost impossible to rely on daily closed-door cultivation to comprehend profound mysteries, let alone fuse them.

This seemed to be the way the laws of the universe weeded out the masses of experts, combined with the Plane Battlefield specifically designed to eliminate top-tier Asura-level experts, thereby controlling the population of such beings in this world.

Sean even suspected that in the future, the manifestation ability in his mind might be limited by the level and quantity of his fused profound mysteries.

It was just that he hadn't reached that level yet, and the book in his mind wouldn't tell him.

But regardless of whether such a limit existed, he had to reach a high level in profound mystery fusion; otherwise, even with the abilities of a God-Eater Rat, he would never become a peak Commander.

The reason Bebe was able to make all the Commanders in the original story tremble with fear on the Plane Battlefield was actually because he had several powerful helpers working with him; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to catch a single shadow on his own.

Without fusing profound mysteries, no matter how super a divine beast you are, you will never be at the peak.