Three thousand five hundred years had passed since the great array was activated.
For those three thousand five hundred years, Lu Changsheng had completely transformed into a heartless array-maintenance machine and fruit farmer.
The great array consumed an immense amount of energy.
Even with the outer Spirit Gathering Array replenishing it, the scrap metal and low-grade spirit stones serving as its foundations still crumbled under the day-in, day-out strain of its operation.
Lu Changsheng had to keep a constant eye on it.
Whenever an array pattern dimmed, he had to rush over at once and carve it anew with his blood essence and magical power.
Whenever an array disc cracked, he had to grit his teeth through the pain and dig into his already meager stores to replace it.
During this time, he also experienced an extraordinarily perilous brush with death.
It happened when the great array had been running for eighteen hundred years.
The Half Beast Horn, which had been firmly suppressed and could only take a beating, seemed to sense that it was on the verge of being completely ground away.
The last vestige of resentment within it, belonging to a Fierce Beast king, suddenly erupted without the slightest warning!
That day, the entire sky turned blood-red.
The Half Beast Horn at the bottom of the pit began to tremble violently, unleashing a terrifying howl that pierced the soul.
Immediately afterward, a Chaos Fierce Beast phantom, ten thousand zhang tall and bearing nine heads,
its whole body ablaze with black flames of baleful energy, broke free from the Beast Horn and slammed into the innermost suppression barrier of the great array.
"Crack—!"
A grating sound of shattering rang out.
The dozens of inner arrays Lu Changsheng had painstakingly set up shattered in an instant under that impact, like fragile glass!
The frenzied shockwave of destruction rebounded through the arrays and rushed straight toward Lu Changsheng, who was watering the Red Sun Fruit Tree.
"Holy crap!"
Lu Changsheng was so terrified that he dropped his bucket.
Without the slightest hesitation, he scooped up the Red Sun Fruit Tree and the pile of spirit herbs, burned his blood essence, turned into a streak of golden light, and fled a full fifty kilometers without once looking back.
Only after confirming that the Fierce Beast phantom could not break free of the outer array's restraints did he dare to stop and gasp for breath.
That counterattack destroyed nearly a third of Lu Changsheng's arrays.
To repair the great array, he not only used up all his stockpiled supplies, but even gritted his teeth and tossed the few battered magical treasures he carried for self-defense into the array's core as materials.
"That was terrifying... That dead scrap of bone has been dead for who knows how many years, and its lingering will could still scare a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal to death."
Lu Changsheng sat fifty kilometers away, gazing at the black smoke rolling in the distance, his heart still pounding.
From then on, he never dared go anywhere near the array's core again, hunkering down at the control node on the very outskirts.
Fortunately, that counterattack seemed to have exhausted the Beast Horn's last reserves.
Over the long years that followed, the Beast Horn never stirred up any more trouble,
and could only let the 360-Layer Heavenly Cycle Array grind away at it like a millstone, stripping its outer shell bit by bit.
Now, three thousand five hundred years had passed.
Lu Changsheng was still sitting beneath that Red Sun Fruit Tree.
Over these past thousands of years, the tree had grown to more than three zhang tall by absorbing refined spiritual energy, its branches laden with bright red fruit.
Lu Changsheng plucked a fruit and popped it into his mouth, gazing pensively at the center of the great array ahead.
At this moment,
the enormous Half Beast Horn, once as black as ink, had changed beyond recognition.
Its thick outer layer of black matter, which had radiated an aura of destruction, had been completely ground away and reduced to nothing.
What appeared at the center of the great array was a section of material that was dark red throughout, crystalline and translucent like some kind of top-grade ruby.
Intricate, ancient innate patterns flowed across it, and it radiated an exceptionally pure source of fire, carrying even a hint of the aura of creation.
At the end of destruction came new life.
This was the Fierce Beast king's horn's true core material!
"At last... it's ground clean."
Lu Changsheng stood up, his voice trembling faintly with excitement.
Two thousand years of setting up the array, plus three thousand five hundred years of grinding it down.
He had spent five thousand five hundred years of his life on this!
That meant the most dangerous and difficult step was already behind him, endured through sheer, consummate caution.
"Old tree, little grass, do you see this? I'm finally about to make it!"
Lu Changsheng excitedly patted the trunk, his eyes reddening.
No living being in the Primordial Land would spend five thousand five hundred years staring blankly at a dead thing. And no cultivator would use such a foolish method to purify baleful energy.
Only a Merit Incarnation like him, who valued his life more than the heavens, would do something so utterly baffling.
"Now, the last step."
Lu Changsheng took a deep breath, reined in his excitement, and let his expression grow solemn once more.
Though the Beast Horn's will to destroy had been ground away, that only meant it was no longer aggressive and had become a top-grade, ownerless crafting material.
What could truly bring him an ocean of Heavenly Dao Merit
was pulling out this Beast Horn and reconnecting the miniature Earth Vein beneath it, which had been severed for countless ages!
Mending the heavens and earth—that was true great merit!
"The array is still running, and the spiritual energy is still flowing."
Lu Changsheng strode over to the great array's control node.
He brought his hands together, then flung them apart, rapidly flicking his fingers to cast a series of profound hand seals that sank into the array patterns underground.
"Three hundred and sixty layers of the Heavenly Cycle, turn defense into offense! Rise!"
Lu Changsheng roared.
The great array spanning five kilometers around them shuddered violently.
Under his control, the array power that had been used to grind down and suppress the horn abruptly changed course,
transforming into two enormous, visible hands made entirely of gathered spiritual energy, which reached straight down into the pit.
"Boom!"
The two massive spiritual-energy hands seized the dark-red, crystalline Beast Horn.
"Pull it out!"
Veins bulged on Lu Changsheng's forehead as he poured out every last bit of the magical power he had painstakingly accumulated, enough to reach the peak of the early Heavenly Immortal stage.
"Rumble, rumble—"
The earth began to shake violently.
Under the immense force pulling at it, the Beast Horn, which had been lodged at the break in the Earth Vein for who knew how many epochs, began to loosen bit by bit.
Each inch it was pulled free caused the surrounding layers of rock to collapse over a wide area.
A dull sound, like a wound being torn open, came from deep beneath the earth.
"Put your back into it! It's almost out!"
Lu Changsheng gritted his teeth.
Just then, the Half Beast Horn finally broke free of the Earth Vein's restraints and was yanked into the air by the two giant hands of spiritual energy.
The instant the suppression was lifted,
the severed miniature Earth Vein seemed like a giant dragon released from its shackles, letting out a deep rumble like a dragon's growl.
At the two broken ends of the Earth Vein, dense innate earth spiritual energy gushed forth, so thick it seemed to solidify.
"Now!"
Lu Changsheng paid no attention to the precious Beast Horn hanging in midair.
He brought his hands sharply together!
The great array's spiritual energy gathered at the bottom of the pit, forming a powerful compressive force that drove the two severed ends of the Earth Vein together in a violent collision.
"Bang!"
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