Heights Beyond Reach

Having cultivated the Primordial Avatar and gained a small plane, He Yu had reaped a rich harvest on this trip and was deeply satisfied. Still, many things remained to be done. The Great Beast Calamity was already imminent, and he had to prepare everything he could before it arrived.

He Yu was actually deeply frustrated about this Great Beast Calamity. He had transmigrated just one year before the calamity—wasn't that just playing a cruel joke on him? Thinking back on everything he had been through, cold sweat broke out all over him. If he had settled down by that little river and cultivated in peace back then, he might have turned into a Giant Beast in this calamity without even understanding why!

Whatever the case, he had made it this far. The first batch of natural living beings in the Primordial World would all be hard-pressed to escape this Great Beast Calamity. He was the one with the best chance of resisting it. He possessed twenty-five Demon Cores, and the Celebratory Cloud Green Lotus now wielded immense power. Before, he had been wary of the aura of gods and demons, but now all he had to face was the Power of Heaven and Earth.

The Power of Heaven and Earth consisted of the heavens' thunder fire and gale, and the earth's torrents and great mountains.

He Yu was also somewhat relieved. Because of the constraints of the era, the first era of the Primordial World could not tolerate Earth Immortal power. Thus, the Power of Heaven and Earth in this calamity would peak at the late Loose Immortal stage. Such power was far beyond what He Yu could reach. At full strength, he was at most equivalent to the peak of the early Primordial Spirit stage—a gulf as wide as heaven and earth separated him from a Loose Immortal. His only support was the Primordial Avatar.

The Primordial Avatar had now been successfully cultivated and had reached the early Loose Immortal stage. It could also use all of He Yu's Daoist arts and methods. It might have been able to put up a fight even against the mid-stage Loose Immortal Power of Heaven and Earth. But the Power of Heaven and Earth he was about to face was at the late Loose Immortal stage. With the Primordial Avatar as it was now, even together with He Yu himself, they had no chance at all. He could only strengthen the Primordial Avatar.

"The Source of Heavenly Dipper? I need to find it as soon as possible." He Yu pondered as he slowly approached the Hedgehog Demon King. The hedgehog had yet to regain consciousness. He Yu's demon qi had sealed its awareness; unless the qi was expelled, it would never wake up.

Looking at the hedgehog, He Yu felt a pang of regret. By merging with its body through Earthly Baleful Qi, it had already attained the Earthly Baleful Demon Body, much like the Wu Race. Its soul, Demon Core, and Earthly Baleful Qi had fused perfectly with its flesh. He Yu was certain that, given its current condition, absorbing the aura of gods and demons would make it terrifyingly powerful. He had no way of knowing just how powerful, but it would certainly lead the Giant Beasts. If he could have controlled its source of awareness, He Yu would have been delighted to have such a powerful subordinate. Unfortunately, the hedgehog's source of awareness had fused with its body, leaving no way to extract a fragment. Naturally, that meant He Yu had lost the chance to control it.

How could He Yu allow a powerful being that would one day escape his control to exist? By now, he had learned the rules of the Primordial World all too well.

The strong were revered, and the weak were prey!

The strong ruled the weak without need for reason or morality... Once the hedgehog grew immensely powerful, He Yu would undoubtedly become a tasty morsel in its jaws.

"Sigh! I have plenty to do right now. I can't waste my energy on the hedgehog and the crocodile." He Yu truly had a lot to take care of: finding the Source of Heavenly Dipper, scavenging the Primordial World for spiritual treasures and spirit roots, and choosing twenty-five Demon Kings to bring under his control. These would all be his support in the Era of Giant Beasts! Otherwise, even with the Primordial Avatar, he would be hard-pressed to take a single step.

Zzzt!

The Primordial Avatar swung the Primordial Sword. A wisp of golden light and smoke surged forth, enveloping the hedgehog. With a faint sizzling sound, the Hedgehog Demon King was completely annihilated, dissolving into wisps of black smoke that scattered in every direction. Even an early Loose Immortal would be injured by the Primordial Dazzling Light; destroying a mere hedgehog was naturally easy. Its body, soul, and awareness were all annihilated.

Whoosh! After destroying the hedgehog, the Primordial Avatar became a streak of golden-black light and shot into He Yu's sea of consciousness. As soon as it entered, his sea of consciousness grew even more stable. Having merged with the small plane, it had become a fledgling world. With Taichu, at the early Loose Immortal stage, suppressing it, it was naturally stable. Under the influence of the Light of Taichu and Earthly Baleful Qi, it also began to grow slowly.

After killing the hedgehog, He Yu immediately rode his demon cloud toward the Violent Crocodile village. The Violent Crocodile Demon King had also absorbed Earthly Baleful Qi; it, too, could not be allowed to remain.

He flew swiftly along the familiar route and soon arrived at the Violent Crocodile village. Hovering in the air atop his demon cloud, he let the Primordial Avatar inside him open its eyes, golden light blazing from them. At the same time, every demon and living being in the village below came into He Yu's sight. The Light of Taichu illuminated the entire Primordial World. Though he could not see through the whole world even by focusing his gaze, there was no problem seeing everything within a radius of about a thousand li.

As the Primordial Avatar focused its gaze, He Yu spotted the Violent Crocodile Demon King. A gigantic black crocodile lay in the enormous palace at the center of the village. Its body was ten zhang long, covered in savage spikes, and radiated a fierce, soul-shaking menace.

"Late Golden Core? So it absorbed all of the Earthly Baleful Qi!" He Yu was somewhat surprised at the Violent Crocodile Demon King's strength, though it was more or less what he had expected. He had absorbed a good deal of the hedgehog's Earthly Baleful Qi, yet it had still reached the peak of the mid-Golden Core stage. The crocodile had absorbed all of its Earthly Baleful Qi, so it was naturally much stronger than the hedgehog.

Rumble!

The power of a Loose Immortal surged from the Primordial Avatar within him, forming a hundred-zhang golden-black giant hand that extended from He Yu's crown toward the palace where the crocodile lay. With overwhelming force, it smashed through the roof, grabbed the Violent Crocodile Demon King, and lifted it into the air. Under the terrifying might of a Loose Immortal, the crocodile could not resist at all.

"Ah! G-Great King?" Seized by the giant hand that had descended from the sky, the Violent Crocodile Demon King struggled with all its might but could not budge it in the slightest. When it saw He Yu's enormous demon body and the golden-black giant hand extending from his crown, it was both shocked and bewildered.

"Bang!" Facing the crocodile's shock and confusion, He Yu gave a cold laugh and clenched his giant hand, crushing it into a bloody heap of flesh. Then a flare of golden light blazed, and it dissolved into wisps of black smoke.

The village below was now in utter chaos. The giant hand had descended from the sky, the palace roof had shattered, and the Violent Crocodile Demon King had vanished. The countless demons in the village were terrified, crying out and panicking. He Yu paid them no mind and flew off on his demon cloud.

The Source of Heavenly Dipper lay at the pinnacle of Cangqiong. To find it, he needed to pass through the Firmament Gale, which was beyond his current cultivation. But for the Primordial Avatar, it would be easy. However, sending the Primordial Avatar on a long journey required him to entrust his entire consciousness to it, so he had to protect his own body. The outside world held all kinds of dangers; the safest place was naturally his own Demon King Palace. Thus, He Yu rode his demon cloud at full speed toward Demon King City.

Not long after returning to Demon King City, He Yu's first order of business was to summon his Ten Demon Marshals, five Demon Generals, and the ten most powerful Demon Kings under his command. He ordered them to surrender a fragment of their source of awareness. The twenty-five Demon Kings were puzzled, but they had no choice but to obey He Yu's command. Every one of them handed over a fragment of their source of awareness.

"This king will be going into seclusion for a while. Guard this place well. If anyone dares disturb me, don't blame me for showing no mercy!" Having taken control of the twenty-five Demon Kings' sources of awareness, He Yu immediately gave his orders. Then he entered Demon King Palace, shut the doors tight, and set up the only crude defensive formation he had managed to devise: the Lesser Five Elements Formation.

Sitting at the heart of the Lesser Five Elements Formation, He Yu activated it and opened the crown of his head. The Primordial Avatar shot out as a streak of golden-black light, flying through a window in the roof and rising into the heavens. At that moment, all of He Yu's consciousness was entrusted to the Primordial Avatar, which was just like his own body. The sudden sensation of going from being a crab to being human filled him with excitement.

Clouds swept past in quick succession as He Yu rose like a beam of light, swift as lightning. The speed of an early Loose Immortal was already terrifying, and with the Primordial Avatar unhampered by a physical body, the two qualities complemented each other perfectly. He truly relished the feeling of such speed. Yet even flying upward at this incredible pace, he still saw no sign of the Firmament Gale layer. The Primordial World was simply too vast. From high above, He Yu looked in every direction, but the horizon was boundless; he could not even see the four seas. Though he considered himself the ruler of the Primordial World, what he truly controlled was only a region around the Mount Buzhou Range—perhaps no more than a drop in the ocean compared with the whole Primordial World.

He had no idea how much time passed, but the Firmament Gale layer remained nowhere in sight. He Yu could not help sighing. His speed now was probably no slower than an Earth Immortal's, yet even after all this time he still could not see the Firmament Gale. The heavens were simply too high. Above the Firmament Gale layer lay the Firmament Thunder Fire layer, and above that was the Heavenly Realm. The distance from the Firmament Gale layer to the Firmament Thunder Fire layer was more than ten times the distance from the Primordial World's surface to the Firmament Gale layer. The distance beyond that to the Heavenly Realm was another tenfold. The total was terrifying beyond measure.

"The Heavenly Realm is already so hard to reach, and they say there are thirty-three Heavenly Layers above it, with the distance between each one multiplying. Beyond the thirty-third layer lies the barrier of the Primordial World. After Hongjun became a Saint, Purple Heaven Palace stood in the boundless chaos above the Thirty-Three Heavens. What level of cultivation would it take to reach Purple Heaven Palace?" He Yu pondered. Even a Heavenly Immortal flying at full speed for a year probably would not get anywhere near Purple Heaven Palace! And that did not even account for the dangers in the chaos: chaotic tides, reverse-flowing vortices, explosive gales... Without great magical power and divine abilities, anyone who entered the chaos would be dead beyond dead!

Possessing Pangu's Information, He Yu knew many secrets of the Primordial World, including descriptions of the heavens. Before, he had only known that they were high. Now that he had experienced it for himself, he finally understood just how high they were—high enough to scare the life out of anyone!

Given the height of the Primordial World, even reaching the Heavenly Realm, let alone flying above the Thirty-Three Heavens, might take He Yu's demon body a full year—and he still might not make it! By the same logic, the Primordial World's land and four seas were more than ten times as vast as the heavens were tall. What an immense territory—it could exhaust even an Earth Immortal or Heavenly Immortal!