The End of Destruction Is New Life

Three thousand five hundred years had passed since the 360-Layer Heavenly Cycle Array was activated.

For these three thousand five hundred years, Lu Changsheng had completely transformed into a heartless array maintenance machine and fruit farmer.

The consumption of the array was immense.

Even with the replenishment from the outer Spirit Gathering Array, the scrap metal and low-grade spirit stones used as the array's foundation would crumble under the day-after-day high-intensity operation.

Lu Changsheng had to keep a constant watch.

Wherever the array patterns dimmed, he had to rush over immediately to re-inscribe them with his own essence blood and mana.

Wherever an array disk cracked, he had to grit his teeth and dig into his meager savings to replace it.

During this period, he even experienced a terrifying life-or-death crisis.

It happened when the array had been running for one thousand eight hundred years.

The half-section of the beast horn, which had been suppressed and forced to take a passive beating all this time, seemed to sense the crisis of being completely obliterated.

The remnant source of resentment belonging to the beast king within it suddenly erupted without warning!

That day, the entire sky turned blood-red.

The half-section of the beast horn at the bottom of the pit shook violently, emitting a terrifying roar that pierced the soul.

Immediately following, a phantom of a chaotic fierce beast, ten thousand feet tall with nine heads and burning with black Sha Qi flames, broke free from the horn and slammed fiercely into the innermost suppression light screen of the array.

"Crack—!"

A teeth-grinding sound of shattering echoed out.

The dozens of inner-layer arrays that Lu Changsheng had painstakingly set up were instantly pulverized like fragile glass under this impact!

The violent destructive shockwave followed the backlash of the array and surged directly toward Lu Changsheng, who was watering the Red Sun Fruit tree.

"Holy crap!"

Lu Changsheng was so scared he dropped his water bucket.

Without a moment's hesitation, he grabbed the Red Sun Fruit tree and the pile of spirit herbs on the ground, burned his essence blood, transformed into a streak of golden light, and fled a full hundred miles away without looking back.

Only after confirming that the beast phantom could not break free from the constraints of the outer arrays did he dare to stop and gasp for air.

That counterattack destroyed nearly a third of Lu Changsheng's arrays.

To repair the array, he not only exhausted all his stock but even gritted his teeth and threw the few broken magic treasures he carried for self-defense into the array eyes as materials.

So terrifying... This dead bone scrap has been dead for who knows how many years, yet its remnant will is still enough to scare a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal to death.

Lu Changsheng sat a hundred miles away, watching the black smoke rolling in the distance, still feeling a lingering fear.

From then on, he never dared to go within half a step of the array core, staying firmly hidden at the outermost control node.

Fortunately, that counterattack seemed to have exhausted the last of the beast horn's reserves.

In the long years that followed, the beast horn never stirred up any more trouble.

It could only let the 360-Layer Heavenly Cycle Array grind away its outer shell bit by bit, like a stone mill.

Now, three thousand five hundred years had passed.

Lu Changsheng was still sitting under that Red Sun Fruit tree.

Over these thousands of years, having absorbed the purified spiritual energy, the tree had grown to over three zhang tall, its branches laden with bright red fruit.

Lu Changsheng plucked a fruit and popped it into his mouth, his gaze deep as he looked toward the center of the array ahead.

At this moment.

The half-section of the giant beast horn, which had originally been as black as ink, had changed completely.

The thick layer of black matter that had radiated a destructive aura had been completely ground away, turning into nothingness.

Appearing in the center of the array was a section of material that was dark red throughout, crystal clear like some kind of top-grade ruby.

Complex and ancient innate patterns flowed across its surface, emitting a fire-attribute source fluctuation that was extremely pure and even carried a trace of the aura of creation.

At the end of destruction lies rebirth.

This was the core source material of this beast king's horn!

"Finally... it's ground clean."

Lu Changsheng stood up, his voice trembling slightly with excitement.

Two thousand years of setting up the array, plus three thousand five hundred years of grinding.

It had cost him five thousand five hundred years of his life!

This meant that the most dangerous and difficult step had been survived by him through his extreme method of playing it safe.

"Old tree, little grass, did you see that? Buddy is finally going to make it!"

Lu Changsheng patted the tree trunk excitedly, his eyes turning red.

No other creature in the Primordial Land would spend five thousand five hundred years staring at a dead object. Nor would any other cultivator use such a clumsy method to purify Sha Qi.

Only he, an incarnation of Heavenly Dao Merit who valued his own life more than the heavens themselves, would ever do something so utterly inconceivable.

"Next, it is time for the final step."

Lu Changsheng took a deep breath, reining in his excitement as his gaze turned solemn once more.

Although the destructive will within the beast horn had been obliterated, that only meant it was no longer aggressive; it had become a top-tier, ownerless material for artifact refining.

What would truly bring a massive amount of Heavenly Dao Merit was to pull this beast horn out and then reconnect the micro-ley line that had been severed for countless ages beneath it.

Repairing the heavens and earth—that was the true great merit!

"The formation hasn't stopped, and the spiritual energy is still circulating."

Lu Changsheng strode to the control node of the grand formation.

He pressed his palms together, then suddenly spread them wide, his ten fingers flicking rapidly to cast a series of profound dharma seals that sank into the formation patterns beneath the ground.

"Three hundred and sixty cycles of the heavens, shift from defense to offense! Rise for me!"

Lu Changsheng roared.

The grand formation, spanning a radius of ten miles, shuddered violently.

Under his control, the power of the formation, originally used for grinding and suppression, instantly altered its trajectory.

It transformed into two visible, massive palms formed entirely of condensed spiritual energy, which reached directly into the bottom of the pit.

"Boom!"

The two giant spiritual hands gripped the dark red, crystalline beast horn with a death-like hold.

"Pull it out for me!"

Veins bulged on Lu Changsheng's forehead as the mana he had painstakingly accumulated to the peak of the Early Heaven Immortal stage poured out without reservation.

"Rumble—"

The earth began to tremble violently.

The beast horn, which had been wedged in the fracture of the ley line for who knew how many eons, began to loosen bit by bit under this immense pulling force.

For every inch it was pulled, the surrounding rock strata collapsed in large sections.

A dull sound, like a wound being torn open, echoed from deep within the earth.

"Push harder! It's almost out!"

Lu Changsheng gritted his teeth.

At that very moment, the half-section of the beast horn finally broke free from the shackles of the ley line, and the two giant spiritual hands yanked it violently into mid-air.

The instant the suppression was lost, the severed micro-ley line, like a dragon freed from its bonds, emitted a low, dragon-like roar.

From the two broken ends of the ley line, a thick, impenetrable surge of innate earth spiritual energy erupted.

"Now!"

Lu Changsheng paid no mind to the precious beast horn hovering in the air.

He slammed his hands together!

The spiritual power of the formation formed a powerful compressive force at the bottom of the pit, pushing the two broken ends of the ley line until they collided with a thunderous impact.

"Bang!"