Defensive Innate Spiritual Treasure

Ahead.

Less than fifty miles away from him.

The rock strata beneath the ground suddenly turned as black as ink, and the air was permeated with a Sha Qi capable of driving one's soul to madness in an instant.

The intensity of this Sha Qi was even ten times more terrifying than that of the Earth Dragon Mystic Immortal he had encountered back in the day.

"We're here."

Lu Changsheng halted his escape technique and slowly poked half his head out from the underground.

What came into view was a bottomless canyon.

The entire canyon was shrouded in a layer of thick, grey-black mist.

This mist was no ordinary miasma; it was Heaven and Earth Calamity Sha formed from the resentment of countless fallen powerhouses, residual fragments of laws, and the broken grievances of the earth's veins!

This was the Phoenix Fall Valley that Nuwa had spoken of.

"Such terrifying Sha Qi."

Lu Changsheng watched the roiling grey-black mist and couldn't help but swallow hard.

In this place, let alone a True Immortal, even an ordinary peak-stage Mystic Immortal expert would be eroded in less than an hour if they rushed in without a top-tier protective spiritual treasure, their Primordial Spirit corrupted until they became nothing but a monster driven by slaughter.

Yet, for Lu Changsheng, it felt as if he had returned to his happy home.

"The heavier the Sha Qi, the more the laws of heaven and earth here need repairing, and the more bountiful the merit will be!"

The fear in Lu Changsheng's eyes gradually faded, replaced by a fanaticism akin to seeing gold scattered across the ground.

He did not immediately swagger inside.

Instead, he once again employed his old tradition.

At the edge of the canyon, he found a relatively hidden cave, then skillfully pulled over a dozen concealment and defensive formation disks from beneath his wings.

He set up a thick turtle shell of defenses around himself.

Only after finishing all this did he sit cross-legged in the center of the formation and take a deep breath.

"Time to get to work!"

Lu Changsheng closed his eyes, his mind sinking into his dantian.

He carefully drew out a wisp of Great Dao Merit, transforming it into a golden thread of fire thinner than a strand of hair.

Following the gaps in the formation, he slowly probed it into the roiling Calamity Sha mist.

"Sss—"

The moment that pure, flawless Great Dao Merit touched the Calamity Sha mist.

It was as if a drop of ice water had fallen into a pot of hot oil.

The mist on the periphery of the entire Phoenix Fall Valley instantly roiled violently, emitting a series of teeth-gritting, dissolving sounds.

Under the purification of the Great Dao Merit—the supreme origin of heaven and earth—those violent law fragments and boundless grievances rapidly melted away, transforming into wisps of pure Xiantian Spiritual Qi that fed back into this broken land.

"Hum..."

As the first wisp of Sha Qi was purified.

In the dark, the Heavenly Dao sensed the act of repair taking place here.

A tiny but dazzlingly golden grain of Heavenly Dao Merit pierced through the void and fell directly into Lu Changsheng's body.

"Profit!"

Feeling that long-lost sense of fullness in his dantian, Lu Changsheng's exhausted spirit was instantly invigorated.

The pressure accumulated over eighty thousand miles of nerve-wracking travel vanished the moment that grain of merit was credited.

"Continue! Drain the Sha Qi from this valley!"

Lu Changsheng increased the output of his merit fire thread.

Like a diligent cleaner, he silently performed the grueling labor of repairing heaven and earth at the edge of this forbidden zone where no one dared to tread.

Time flew by during this monotonous purification process.

Five hundred years.

One thousand years.

Two thousand years.

Three thousand years passed.

The layer of Calamity Sha mist outside the Phoenix Fall Valley, once so thick it was nearly impenetrable, had been forcibly carved into a hundred-foot-wide path of clarity by Lu Changsheng.

Over these three thousand years, Heavenly Dao Merit had nourished his physical body and Primordial Spirit like a continuous, gentle rain.

Driven by this massive amount of merit, his early-stage True Immortal cultivation had naturally broken through to the mid-stage, and he had even faintly touched the threshold of the late-stage.

However, Lu Changsheng's mind was no longer focused on improving his cultivation.

His gaze was locked firmly onto the end of the passage he had purified.

That was the core area of Phoenix Fall Valley, the very location of the shattered Xiantian Micro Spiritual Cave.

As the Sha Qi was continuously extracted, the core of the spiritual cave, which had been concealed for countless years, finally revealed a glimpse of its true form.

Deep within the underground fissure at the end of the passage.

A faint, yet pure treasure light radiating Xiantian Profound Yellow Qi was flickering weakly.

"Found it!"

Lu Changsheng's eyes snapped open, his breathing becoming incredibly rapid.

He didn't even bother to dismantle the concealment array around him, instead transforming into a streak of dark golden light and rushing along the safe passage he had cleared toward the core of the spiritual cave.

When he stopped at the edge of the massive underground fissure and saw the object emitting the treasure light clearly.

He was completely stunned.

Deep in the fissure, a shield roughly the size of a palm was suspended in the air.

The shield was a heavy, archaic Profound Yellow color, its material neither gold nor jade, and it was engraved with dense, naturally formed Xiantian defensive Dao patterns.

Unfortunately, this shield was severely damaged.

Its edges were covered in terrifying cracks, as if it had once endured some earth-shattering blow.

The surface, which should have been smooth and flawless, was dim and lusterless, with only the core essence struggling to keep that faint glimmer of treasure light from extinguishing.

Yet, even so.

The moment Lu Changsheng laid eyes on this shield.

The Great Dao Merit suppressed within his body actually produced a rare, resonant leap of joy!

"A Xiantian Spirit Treasure... and a defensive one at that!"

Lu Changsheng reached out a trembling wing, wanting to touch the broken shield.

"Not only that..."

His voice turned hoarse with excitement.

"The Dao aura remaining on this... it is a supreme treasure condensed from the Heaven and Earth Profound Yellow Qi! Although broken, as long as it can be nurtured and repaired with merit..."

"This is practically an absolute turtle shell tailor-made for an incarnation of merit like me!"

Lu Changsheng stared at the broken Profound Yellow Shield in the fissure, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

A Xiantian defensive spirit treasure!

These were the most sought-after treasures in the entire Primordial Land.

While those offensive spirit treasures were certainly impressive, in the midst of a Great Calamity, defensive artifacts were the foundation of survival.

Whoever could hold out for one moment longer under the bombardment of others would be the final winner.

And for a miser like Lu Changsheng, who regarded the path of caution as his golden rule, a single Xiantian defensive shield, even a broken one, was worth more than ten intact Xiantian offensive weapons!

"Mine... this is mine now!"

Lu Changsheng suppressed the urge to howl at the sky, carefully extending his dark golden claw and slowly reaching into the underground fissure, which was still leaking wisps of Sha Qi.

The moment his claw touched the surface of the shield.

"Hum—"

The shield seemed to sense a compatible aura, emitting a low hum.

It did not erupt with the resistant pressure typical of ownerless spirit treasures; instead, it drifted naturally onto Lu Changsheng's palm.

It was incredibly heavy to the touch.

Despite being only the size of a palm, it felt as if he were holding the weight of half a mountain.

That heavy, desolate, and indestructible aura, even in its broken state, allowed Lu Changsheng to truly experience what it meant to be a "Xiantian object."

"Good treasure! Truly a good treasure!"