True Phoenix Precious Technique

"So you want me to retrieve that True Phoenix Bone for you? It seems to bear the complete True Phoenix Precious Technique. I never expected such a thing to exist in the Void God Realm."

Willow Deity's gaze finally settled on the phoenix bone, and she examined it with interest.

"Yes, Willow Deity. It's just that these beings were supreme existences in life, famed as invincible and worshipped in the temples of the heavens. I don't know..."

Immortal Kings were Supreme Giants. Even their sealed Primordial Spirits possessed divine might that reached the heavens. Little Shi wasn't sure whether Willow Deity, who had yet to fully recover, could suppress them.

"It's no matter. I may not be who I was back then, but neither are they."

The White-Clad God-Man formed from Willow Deity's power gave a soft laugh and entered the formation without hesitation.

"Roar! Roar! Roar!"

At the same time, the stone statues bound by countless Order Divine Chains stirred, unleashing earth-shaking roars. Like invincible beings, they awoke from the oldest of eras.

From dozens of pitch-black jars, bloody hands and arms reached out as well, slamming toward this unfamiliar intruder. They closed in from every direction.

"Hmph! A bunch of fallen beings. How dare you run rampant!"

The White-Clad God-Man's ethereal divine body blazed with light, recovering to its utmost. A long, jade-white hand shot out from the radiance. With a flick of ten fingers, one hand formed the True Dragon Seal, the other the True Phoenix Seal, unleashing a shocking vision of the Dragon-Phoenix Combined Strike.

True Dragons, True Phoenixes, Kunpengs, Heaven-Horned Ants, Qilins... The phantoms of the Ten Archaic Evils appeared one after another in the void, like scenes flickering past, then roared as one, joining forces to suppress the strange and the ominous filling the sky.

The White-Clad God-Man fought through the battle formation again and again, her bearing as flawless as jade, displaying peerless grace that looked down on all heroes and stood above the ages.

She fought until none dared claim victory! She fought until none dared call themselves supreme!

At last, the many strange beings no longer dared approach. From afar, they could only drive the unnerving wisps of black mist, hoping to corrupt Willow Deity.

Countless divine flames surrounding the White-Clad God-Man burned wildly. The chanting and sacrificial prayers of the divine phantoms seated within grew ever more thunderous, as they bowed repeatedly to the hazy figure at the center.

The black mist rapidly dissolved. It couldn't even breach the phantoms of the Three Thousand Divine Kingdoms protecting her.

At last, all things fell silent, and everything returned to stillness.

The White-Clad God-Man seated in the void smiled soundlessly, full of mockery. With the ease of someone strolling through an empty land, she descended and took the phoenix bone.

"Impressive! Now I'm even more certain she must be an old friend we knew back then..."

The two old men crouched in the corner of the ancient hall stared, their eyes shining.

Holding the phoenix bone, the White-Clad God-Man closed her eyes and immersed herself in it.

In an instant, countless Immortal Scripts burst from her body. Outside her, phoenixes danced and soared through the sky.

Before long, all the True Phoenixes perished, and scarlet divine flames shot into the heavens.

A primordial phoenix from the beginning of time burst out of a newborn universe resembling an eggshell. It reopened the universe, revealing the great destruction and great rebirth of the primordial cosmos.

Finally, the visions filling the sky faded, and she opened her divine eyes.

"Heh heh, well, Willow Deity, you can't take this phoenix bone with you. We two old immortals still need it as the formation's core to suppress the strange beings. Without it, we'll fall completely into boundless darkness."

Lord Bird and Lord Essence Jade hurried to their feet and spoke with awkward smiles.

"The original bone of an adult True Phoenix. I wonder if its owner was the one I met back then..."

Willow Deity rubbed the phoenix bone in her hand for a moment, then tossed it away without the slightest reluctance. The other man scrambled to catch it, thanking her over and over.

"Let's go. We've obtained the True Phoenix Precious Technique. It's time to return."

Points of rosy light fell, and the White-Clad God-Man and Little Shi vanished together.

The real world, Stone Village.

Boom!

Endless divine radiance poured down. A vast will returned from beyond the heavens to the Willow Tree's main body, and the hazy portal behind it disappeared.

Beneath the Heaven-Reaching Willow Tree, a handsome youth slowly opened his eyes.

Watching the White-Clad God-Man's phantom slip into the Willow Tree's main body, Little Shi couldn't hold back a question he'd kept buried in his heart for a long time. "Willow Deity, are you... a man or a woman?"

"I am an Innate Deity born from endless chaos. The distinction between male and female among humans has no meaning to me. I am simply myself."

The White-Clad God-Man glanced back with a smile, then her divine body vanished completely.

"Hmm, so you can be either one."

Someone murmured thoughtfully.

"Get lost!"

An Order Divine Chain wreathed in rich divine radiance lashed down over his head, sending the youth, his face stricken, flying into the depths of the village.

"Ahhh! Thank you, Willow Deity, for bestowing the technique!"

His long, anguished scream carried a hint of delight.

After returning from the Void God Realm, Little Shi began a period of seclusion and arduous cultivation.

Once he learned of the Void God Realm, Old Chief Shi Yunfeng specially asked Willow Deity to open a semi-permanent portal in Stone Village, so the village children could cross swords with the young geniuses from the great powers of the Eight Regions and temper themselves.

As the old chief put it, every child in the village had mastered several Precious Techniques of pure-blooded beings. They weren't inferior to the holy sons of the great sects or the direct descendants of prestigious clans.

For a long time, Stone Village's band of Bear Children would sweep through the starting grounds.

Several months later, Shi Hao emerged from seclusion, having made his initial breakthrough in the True Phoenix Precious Technique.

More than half a year remained before the Baiduan Mountain Secret Realm opened. Little Shi didn't want to go to the Heaven Mending Pavilion, and he had no interest in the bones of Kunpeng descendants or the counterfeit Kunpeng Precious Technique.

Besides, he already possessed the flawless Precious Techniques of the Ancient Demonic Bird Azure Heaven Roc and the Golden Winged Roc. He certainly wasn't short on roc techniques.

The Azure Heaven Roc and the Golden Winged Roc were both descendants of Kunpeng. Though they weren't direct descendants, their bloodlines were deeply connected.

When Kunpeng Son wreaked havoc in the Upper Realm, the Roc Lords of the Azure Heaven Roc and Golden Winged Roc lineages—two ancient giants at the sect master level—had come to assist him. They'd called Undying Being, Kunpeng's own son, "great-uncle." That alone showed how close the two sides were.

Restless after too much quiet, Little Shi thought of the True Dragon Nest in the Desolate Region—and of Red Dragon Gegu.

Then he suddenly came up with a bold idea!

Little Shi knew that Red Dragon Gegu would emerge more than twenty years later and head to the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital to challenge "him," who would have returned from the Upper Realm. But he had no way of knowing the True Dragon Nest's exact location.

The only information available was that the True Dragon Nest lay in the Desolate Region, buried in a small world beneath an uncharted mountain range, eight million li from the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital.

Still, that wouldn't stump Shi Hao.

With the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital as the center, he could search outward across a radius of eight million li. The True Dragon Nest would lie somewhere along the circle's perimeter. That would greatly narrow the search area.

So he used the excuse that his cultivation had slowed to ask for a year of travel, and requested that Willow Deity forge a treasure capable of detecting all kinds of divine treasures and Grotto-Heavens.

Willow Deity was sick of his pestering and casually tossed Shi Hao a treasure mirror.

Little Shi set off in high spirits, riding an adult Azure Heaven Roc at the Array Formation King level as he searched every li of the vast circle eight million li from the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital.

Fortune favored the persistent. More than half a year later, the treasure mirror in Little Shi's hand finally lit up, bursting with dazzling divine radiance unlike anything it had shown before.

ps1: Willow Deity formed the True Dragon Seal and the True Phoenix Seal here, but those were only a couple of casual moves, not the flawless techniques. She doesn't know the complete Ten Fiends Precious Technique.

As for summoning the Ten Fiends' phantoms, that was only symbolic. Don't read too much into it.

It should be perfectly normal for a Supreme Giant to casually conjure the phantom of one of the Ten Fiends or another Heavenly-rank vicious beast.

The complete Kunpeng Technique Willow Deity knows was obtained by Little Shi in the Kunpeng Nest, then given to her by Little Shi.

ps2: These stone statues are Immortal Kings from the Immortal Domain who were corrupted by darkness and joined the Foreign Realm in attacking the Immortal Domain, so they were suppressed.

See the original chapter 1961 as well. The Immortal Kings who escaped from the Void God Realm said they had been Dark Beings all along, merely residing in the Immortal Domain. Their supposed corruption by darkness was a smokescreen; in truth, they were spies from the Foreign Realm.