Ling Xuan used the force of the recoil to flip through the air. Flames surged around him as he gripped the Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear with both hands. Like a streak of crimson-gold lightning, he brought it down toward the giant bear's neck.
The giant bear raised its head and opened a bloody maw large enough to swallow a city. Dense, ochre-colored energy gathered inside its mouth, forming a hundred-meter-wide earthen sphere. With the force to crush the firmament, it charged toward Ling Xuan.
The earthen sphere collided with the flaming blade. With a thunderous boom, waves of energy spread like a tsunami.
Flames and ochre light intertwined. Heat and dust blotted out the sky, and the purple moss within a thousand meters vaporized instantly. Glowing vines were reduced to ash in the energy storm.
As the light dimmed, Ling Xuan landed steadily on the ground. A deep, bone-revealing gash had appeared on the giant bear's neck, and blood poured down like a waterfall.
The giant bear was thoroughly enraged. Its eyes, red as a blood moon, brimmed with murderous intent. Earth-attribute energy gathered furiously around it, transforming into nine solid earthen bears that coiled around its mountain-sized body.
"Pretty tough hide. I can try this move." Ling Xuan remained calm and casually stowed the Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear in his World Ring.
He slowly raised his right hand and turned his palm over. In an instant, the laws of heaven and earth trembled violently. The entire bank of clouds seemed to be torn apart by an invisible giant hand, revealing the dark, profound Void.
A black hand, several thousand meters wide, descended from within, radiating a terrifying pressure.
"Void Great Hand Seal!"
The hand seal was black as ink and blotted out the sky. With an overbearing force, it slammed down toward the giant bear.
Sensing this attack's power to destroy heaven and earth, the giant bear threw back its head and roared. The nine earthen bears roared in unison and lunged at the Void Great Hand Seal.
Rumble—
The impact sounded like heaven and earth collapsing. The nine fearsome earthen bears shattered piece by piece beneath the hand seal, turning into a rain of dust.
The hand seal's power did not diminish in the slightest. It continued pressing down on the giant bear.
The giant bear raised both arms with all its might, trying to withstand the fatal blow. But before this world-destroying power, its resistance seemed so insignificant.
With a mournful cry, its massive body was flattened into a bloody pulp. Blood and chunks of flesh splattered across the ground, a truly shocking sight.
"The Void Great Hand Seal really is overbearing. With my Star Level strength, I can easily crush a Universe Level beast."
The Zhetian Method had only reached the Four Poles Realm so far, not enough to boost his combat strength.
He had just relied on his Star Level strength to perform the Void Great Hand Seal.
"You've got the shape of it, but the Void Emperor's killing secret art is capable of far more than this," the Void Mirror Deity scoffed from within the Core World.
Ling Xuan scratched his head, an honest smile on his face. He offered no argument and instead clasped his hands respectfully. "Please, Senior, don't hesitate to instruct me."
"Of course I'm going to teach you. Otherwise, as the Great Emperor's sole successor, you'd be using the Void Secret Technique so badly that you'd tarnish his reputation."
With the Void Mirror Deity's guidance, Ling Xuan began a month-long retreat to study and comprehend the techniques.
During that month, Ling Xuan worked like a tireless warrior. By day, he traveled through the secret realm, hunting his mission targets and collecting rare materials. At night, he immersed himself in the Void Sutra, repeatedly attempting to comprehend the Law of Space with the Void Mirror's help.
Puff piloted the spaceship and explored the secret realm for him. Whenever she found something valuable, she woke him. If the sensors detected a powerful being, she steered clear in advance.
That day, the cheerful Puff found something valuable again. "Master, Master, I found a Spirit Essence Crystal Core!"
Ling Xuan quickly ended his cultivation and strode out of the training room.
Puff projected a simulated view of the outside. Deep in a small valley, wrapped in vines, a Spirit Essence Crystal Core the size of a millstone floated in the air. Runes flowed across its surface like a cascading river of stars, and its faint glow bathed the whole valley in a hazy purple mist.
"What a treasure. This has to be the most valuable thing we've found on this trip, right?" Ling Xuan's gaze burned, and even his breathing quickened.
Puff brought up a chart of life signs from the scanner. "But Master, a lot of beasts are gathered around it. There could be some danger. There are several Universe Level beasts nearby, and a human World Lord is heading this way."
"They haven't detected us, have they?" Ling Xuan asked, staring at the data.
"Don't worry, Master. The Crimson Flame isn't an ordinary D9-class Spaceship, and its scanner is very high-end. Puff can block their signals." Puff patted her chest, sounding confident.
"Good."
The Crimson Flame drifted down like a fallen leaf, landing quietly in a large pit at the edge of the valley.
The moment the hatch opened, damp air carrying the scent of rotting vegetation flowed inside. Ling Xuan took a deep breath. Only after confirming that no beasts were nearby did he step out.
The closer he got to the depths of the valley, the heavier the air became.
Dewdrops on the vines glimmered with an eerie purple light beneath the Spirit Essence Crystal Core's glow. They moved without a breeze, and the rustling was mixed with the faint sound of bones grinding together.
Ling Xuan's pupils narrowed slightly. Something felt wrong. Wherever there was treasure, there were usually fierce beasts guarding it, yet here it was frighteningly quiet.
He gripped the Fire God Absolute Domain Blade, ready to strike at any moment, while contacting the Void Mirror within his Origin Core.
When he rounded a boulder covered in moss, the sight before him stopped his breath. The Spirit Essence Crystal Core was just thirty meters ahead, floating above a naturally formed stone platform. Its faint glow spread in ripples, coating the surrounding vines in a dreamlike hue.
But before he could take another step, the earth beneath his feet suddenly trembled.
Alarm bells rang in Ling Xuan's mind. He tried to retreat, but it was already too late.
Boom! The ground heaved violently, and a massive mouth lined with sharp teeth burst from beneath the earth. Dark green scales gleamed with a metallic chill, while eerie blue lightning flowed over the bone spikes along its back.
A nauseating stench poured from its gaping jaws. Ling Xuan could even see chunks of flesh writhing in the giant lizard's throat.
"Damn!" Ling Xuan's pupils contracted. He instantly activated the Great Void Art, and his whole body slipped into the Void like a drop of ink dissolving in water.
The giant lizard's teeth snapped shut just beside his clothes. Its powerful bite dragged a deep furrow through the earth, sending stones flying.
Ling Xuan raced through the Void, his heart pounding wildly in his chest as cold sweat ran down his back.
When he reappeared several thousand meters away, the scanner on his arm flashed red and blared an ear-piercing alarm. This was a World Lord Level beast!
"How could this be..." Ling Xuan murmured, his back instantly drenched in cold sweat. Memories surged through his mind: the unprovoked attack during the Coming-of-Age Ceremony had been exactly the same.
Those beasts had approached them without any warning, just like this one. The scanner had only detected them after they attacked.
"Master, I'm sorry." Puff's soft voice trembled as if she were about to cry. Her eyes were red, her ears drooped, and her tail hung limp behind her. "Puff didn't detect it. Puff is so useless..."
Ling Xuan reached out and ruffled her hair. "Silly girl, it's not your fault that this beast can block the scanner. I'm sure there's some secret behind it."
The beast had noticed Ling Xuan, too. Its cold eyes brimmed with murderous intent.
"Let's go." Ling Xuan hurried back into the Crimson Flame, preparing to pilot it away.
Roar! The World Lord Level beast moved at incredible speed. It crossed the short distance in an instant, opened its bloody maw, and tried to swallow the entire spaceship.
"Master, what do we do? The Crimson Flame isn't fast enough to outrun it."
"Beast, since you're asking to die, don't blame me for being ruthless." Seeing that it would not let him leave unless he killed it, Ling Xuan flew into a rage.
"Senior, please help." He contacted the Void Mirror in his Origin Core.
In an instant, the entire world seemed to be stirred by an invisible giant hand. Every ray of light twisted and bent, converging toward Ling Xuan.
The clear blue sky was swallowed by ink-black darkness. Lightning danced like serpents within it, but these were no ordinary bolts. Each one carried an ancient, timeworn aura.
An ancient black bronze mirror covered in Dao patterns slowly emerged from Ling Xuan's body and floated into the air.
The mirror was plain and unadorned, its surface covered in cryptic symbols. They seemed alive, each one containing the profound truths of the Void.
The instant the Void Mirror appeared, an ancient, timeworn, and boundless aura surged outward. Wherever it passed, space shattered in layers like fragile paper, revealing deep, pitch-black spatial rifts. Endless currents of the Void howled out of them, but the moment they drew near the Void Mirror, a mysterious force tamed them. They circled the ancient mirror, forming a massive vortex of Void Power.
This was Extreme Emperor Might, a terrifying power that made all things in the world bow down in worship.
Beneath this terrifying pressure, the World Lord Level beast's enormous body trembled violently. Its hard scales stood on end, and golden-red blood seeped from between them.
Summoning every ounce of strength it had, the beast let out a desperate, defiant roar. The sound waves rolled outward, but the moment they touched the Emperor Might radiating from the Void Mirror, they hit an invisible wall of solid bronze. They twisted and faded, leaving only a strange whimper in the air.
The Void Mirror hummed three times. The sound seemed to come from the dawn of chaos itself, each note carrying the power to open heaven and earth.
"Kid, watch closely. I'll only demonstrate it once. This is the real Void Great Hand Seal."
The runes on the mirror blazed with light. Mysterious Void symbols detached from its surface, swiftly gathering and intertwining in midair along an incomprehensibly profound trajectory.
In the blink of an eye, the outline of a gigantic palm that blotted out the sky took shape within the Void.
Runes flashed across the palm, each one like a miniature universe containing endless stellar power and the Law of the Void. This was the peerless divine ability with which the Void Emperor had stood undefeated throughout the ages—the Void Great Hand Seal.
"W-what kind of power is this?" Puff's voice was full of shock and awe. Her soft pink ears trembled violently with fear.
She knew nothing about the Void Emperor, but the terrifying sight before her let her instinctively sense how frightening this power was. It felt as if everything in the world would be reduced to dust before it.
The Void Great Hand Seal swept down toward the World Lord Level beast with the power to destroy heaven and earth.
Wherever it passed, space twisted completely, and the flow of time became chaotic. Everything lost its natural order beneath the might of that giant hand.
The beast struggled desperately, drawing on every last bit of its strength to raise a thick shield of World Power. Its eyes were full of terror and despair as it roared again and again, but it was all in vain.
Before the Void Great Hand Seal, the shield the beast had poured all its strength into forming was as fragile as paper. It was pierced in an instant.
The hand seal struck the beast without hindrance. A muffled boom rang out, like heaven and earth collapsing. The sound surpassed every other sound in the world, making the very soul of the world tremble.
The beast's enormous body was sent plummeting from the air and driven deep into the earth by an unstoppable force, carving out a bottomless crater.
The ground around the crater cracked like a spiderweb, fissures spreading to the horizon as if they would tear the whole world apart.
Dust filled the air and refused to settle, shrouding the entire battlefield in chaos.
At last, the dust settled. The beast lay at the bottom of the crater, lifeless.
Terrifying cracks covered its massive body, deep enough to reveal bone, as if countless blades had cut into it all at once.
Blood gushed out and gathered into rivers, staining the surrounding earth into a sea of blood. The stench of blood lingered in the air.
"Come to think of it, this world of yours is rather strange. It actually lets me stay awake for long periods," the Void Mirror Deity murmured.
"If the Great Emperor could have been in this world as well, perhaps he really could have reached the Immortal Dao. Time in that world was just too precious."
"Don't worry, Senior. This world will soon see the rise of a Great Emperor who inherits the Great Emperor's techniques. That will count as a continuation of his life, too," Ling Xuan said.
The Void Mirror fell silent and turned into a streak of light as it returned to Ling Xuan's Bitter Sea.
"Uh... did I just say something wrong?" Ling Xuan turned and asked his Intelligent Life, Puff.
"Master, I think you were trying to comfort him while rubbing in how much you'd benefited," Puff ventured cautiously.
"How dare you, Puff? How dare you defy your emperor?" Ling Xuan feigned fury and turned his palm over, pinning poor little Puff beneath the wicked Void Great Hand Seal.
"Master, you're a tyrant!" Little Puff's eyes filled with tears as Ling Xuan squished and kneaded her.
After pinning Puff down, Ling Xuan returned to the valley and collected the Spirit Essence Crystal Core.
The Void Mirror's display of power had already scared away all the competitors nearby.
With Extreme Emperor Might unleashed, not a single creature dared approach to test it.
Even the World Lord who had been heading this way had flown off in a spaceship.
The power he had just witnessed was beyond his understanding.
Only after collecting the Spirit Essence Crystal Core did Ling Xuan return to retrieve the beast's corpse.
"What's this?" Ling Xuan found a World Ring inside the World Lord Level beast's corpse.
The ring contained a space over a thousand kilometers long and wide.
There were also quite a few treasures inside, including a relatively advanced yet somewhat outdated scanner.
It was advanced because it could effectively conceal life signs and signals while a living being was dormant, making it undetectable even to the Crimson Flame's scanner.
It was outdated because its model was far too old. As soon as it was used in a fight and produced intense energy fluctuations, the scanner could no longer hide it.
That was probably because it had been made from relatively precious materials using extremely primitive technology.
Ling Xuan checked the map and saw that the beast's location was not far from Mangu Temple—less than a hundred million kilometers away.
"I see. That beast was behind the beast tide. It was cautious, all right. It never showed itself during the tide. Otherwise, the Immortal Elder would definitely have killed it."
The corpse of a World Lord Level beast was extremely valuable. Many materials from its body could be used to make precious weapons and armor.
Even its meat was a potent tonic, and plenty of people were willing to buy it.
"Finally, the World Ring contained plenty of treasures and materials. They must have been scavenged from the remains of some powerful figure who died during an ancient war. The Human Race probably never finished clearing them out."
Ling Xuan put the World Ring on his hand. "Nice. It fits perfectly."
"Puff, keep searching this secret realm. I still have a few Universe Level beasts to kill," Ling Xuan ordered, then continued checking his spoils.
The Spirit Essence Crystal Core was huge, a full cubic meter in size—enough for ten people to use.
Ling Xuan took a deep breath and carefully cut a palm-sized piece from the edge with the Fire God Absolute Domain Blade.
As soon as he held it, a warm, surging power flowed into his palm, as though he were holding a mass of energy about to erupt.
He sat cross-legged, cupped the crystal in his hands, and circulated his Genetic Origin Energy to stimulate its surface, allowing its energy to flow along with his Genetic Origin Energy.
The crystal melted into liquid, merging with Ling Xuan's Genetic Origin Energy and flowing into his body.
But a moment later, shortly after the liquid entered Ling Xuan's body, it was rejected and pushed back out. It turned into a small Spirit Essence Crystal Core again.
"What's going on?" Ling Xuan wondered. "I can't absorb it?"
There had been nothing wrong with the steps he had taken. So what had gone wrong?
Full of questions, Ling Xuan decided to ask for help from outside. He emailed the Temple Envoy to ask what was going on.
Before long, the Temple Envoy sent him a call request.
Ling Xuan accepted.
"Ling Xuan, congratulations on your fortune!"
As soon as the call connected, the Temple Envoy congratulated him, startling Ling Xuan.
Fortunately, the Temple Envoy didn't ask him to keep a single person's share and send the rest over, like the old brigade commander had.
"Although the Spirit Essence Crystal Core is unusual, it isn't rare in the universe. Otherwise, our Human Race wouldn't have maintained control of it for so long," the Temple Envoy explained. "It has a limit to how much it can improve you. Once you exceed that limit, it can't help you improve any further. That's your situation now."
"I see," Ling Xuan said, understanding. "Can I sell it, then?"
"Of course. But the Spirit Essence Crystal Core is extremely precious. You can keep some for your family. Anything left over should be sold to the Human Race first."
Ling Xuan nodded. "Naturally. But I don't plan to sell it just yet."
"Fine. Let me know when you're ready to sell." The Temple Envoy ended the call.
"Master, I've detected three Universe Level beasts," Puff said.
"Let's go."
Thanks to "Book Friend 20181211223457315" for the monthly ticket, and thanks to "Kong丨Shen" for the monthly ticket. Thanks to "Book Friend 20200419121004600" for the monthly ticket.
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