Dragon Devouring was one thing.
But Hong Yuan was no beast. He would not stand by and watch this world descend into chaos, which was also one reason he had spared Yang Qingxuan's life.
Yang Qingxuan would remain the Xuan Emperor. Hong Yuan would push him to the forefront to stabilize the realm.
Though all Yang Qingxuan's spirit apertures had shattered, the nourishment of numinous energy over so many years meant that even without true qi, his physical strength alone could probably let him hold his own against an ordinary practitioner of the orthodox dharma's greater celestial circuit.
Defeating one was out of the question.
But wasn't Hong Yuan still here?
He had destroyed this world's supernatural system of true qi cultivation, but he would also leave behind a system of force cultivation, spreading his influence even farther.
Splash! Splash!
Numinous energy gathered and beat against Hong Yuan like waves, yet his body seemed to have become an endless abyss capable of swallowing all things.
The true self aperture's ability was to govern all the other apertures, bringing their power into unity.
Yang Qingxuan seemed capable of wielding seven or eight layers of astral qi, but his power could not condense into a single whole. In a sense, it was like seven or eight Yang Qingxuans at the perfected first layer of astral qi joining forces, though that was not entirely accurate.
Although Hong Yuan had previously only perfected three layers of astral qi, those three layers had fused into one and gathered at a single point. His power had actually surpassed Yang Qingxuan's seven or eight layers of astral qi.
Hong Yuan was not absorbing numinous energy solely through his spirit apertures. Thunderous rumbling erupted throughout his body, a strange sheen emerged, and the dragon vein true-form astral art