Nine-Nine Soul-Scattering Gourd

Three calls were like tossing a stone onto a water's surface churned with waves—within this world shrouded in dust and smoke, where laws ran wild, they did not stir even the slightest ripple.

After the three calls, the only sound around him was still the howling wind.

Yet Yellow Dragon held his breath and focused, a clear light flickering in his eyes as he watched closely.

Sure enough, amid the clamorous world, tiny flecks of exceedingly faint red light began to appear, flickering in and out like candle flames guttering in the wind.

They were as tiny as dust, scattered sparsely far and wide, like the smallest motes of dirt. Each contained a faint ripple of spiritual fluctuation—they were precisely the fragments of true spirit scattered in all directions after Red Cloud Patriarch's self-destruction!

As though awakened by the inexplicable fluctuations of the Purple-Gold Gourd and Yellow Dragon's calls, these red glimmers began to flash as they resonated with the Purple-Gold Gourd.

Gradually, at an agonizingly slow pace, they broke free of the earth's hold and drifted, grain by grain, toward the gourd's mouth.

The speed was so slow it made one's heart burn with impatience, as if time itself had frozen beneath the misery of this land.

Yellow Dragon calculated silently. In the end, gathering the scattered red lights within this several-hundred-meter range alone took several days!

At the sight, Yellow Dragon's heart sank.

At this rate, if he wished to traverse this vast, boundless shattered land and collect every fragment of Red Cloud's true spirit scattered throughout it, who knew how many years it would take.

"Sure enough, this isn't a good job!"

A task that his Eldest Martial Uncle had personally assigned was indeed no small matter.

He did not dare move ahead of time, afraid that he might interrupt the Purple-Gold Gourd's collection of Red Cloud's true spirit and delay his Eldest Martial Uncle's great undertaking. That would be troublesome indeed.

But he could not simply sit here and wait, either.

Several days later, when no more red lights within the several-hundred-meter range entered the gourd, it dropped into Yellow Dragon's hand of its own accord.

As the area from which the Purple-Gold Gourd collected Red Cloud's true spirit steadily expanded, the soul-scattering red sand filling the sky actually began avoiding those areas.

Yellow Dragon moved to another area and shouted three times again. Soon, flecks of red light began appearing in this region as well, slowly converging into the gourd.

Seeing that the gourd was operating on its own without issue, Yellow Dragon returned to the area he had previously finished and released his Primordial Spirit to investigate this world steeped in deathly stillness and chaos.

Beneath the earth, the earth veins and spiritual veins had long since shattered inch by inch. Spiritual energy was utterly exhausted, while Sha Qi and turbid qi continuously seeped forth, without the slightest trace of life.

"Such a dead land is even worse than Penglai Immortal Island."

Yellow Dragon sighed softly, yet his eyes were brimming with excitement.

So long as he restored life to this region, he would gain merit, creation origin, and a reward from the Supreme Pure Saint—three harvests in all. What did it matter if he stayed here for tens of thousands of years? It was not as if he had never endured such a stretch before.

With his mind made up, he first summoned the Pure World White Lotus. It floated in the air, casting down soft, pure white radiance.

The white lotus slowly turned, scattering strands of purifying spiritual light that swept through the land like a spring breeze.

Wherever it passed, the dust and smoke filling the air, the violent residual energy, and the Sha Qi and turbid qi produced by the shattered earth veins and spiritual veins were all dispersed and purified.

The dark-red haze filling the heavens gradually vanished, replaced by the freshness of a mountain forest after rain. Though faint, it was truly there, and Yellow Dragon's nose and mouth felt refreshed at once.

After purification came the sorting and restoration of earth veins, the relocation of spiritual veins, and finally, the creation of life. This process was more familiar to him than anything else.

He first set about sorting through and repairing the shattered earth-vein network beneath his feet.

Only, the earth veins in this area had already been broken into pieces. Yellow Dragon pointed at the fractures in the earth veins, and with surging mana, gathered the countless fragments one by one. Like a seasoned hand, he used his own mana as needle and thread, carefully reconnecting and clearing the severed, clogged earth veins bit by bit.

At the same time, he separated a tiny spiritual vein from the Mysterious Yellow World and carefully transplanted it into the nodes of the earth veins he had just cleared.

With the earth veins initially restored and the spiritual vein planted, Yellow Dragon circulated his mana again and unleashed the divine ability, "Sweet Dew Technique."

He drew water spiritual qi from the Mysterious Yellow World, mixed it with his own pure mana, and turned it into a skyful of sweet spiritual rain rich with vitality, which fell in a gentle patter.

The rain seeped into the parched earth. The seeds of grasses and trees he had scattered beforehand were nourished by the life force within the spiritual rain, breaking through the soil one after another and sending forth tender green shoots.

In the blink of an eye, faint traces of life appeared like scattered stars across the dark-red, dead earth.

The land revived, vegetation sprouted, and life began to reappear within this dead land.

Throughout the process, wisps of pure creation origin slowly seeped from the earth where life had returned.

Yellow Dragon had prepared for this long ago. He used the Creation Origin Condensation Technique to gather the leaking creation origin together and store it within his body.

With his Golden Immortal-level cultivation, aided by the Sweet Dew Technique and the Pure World White Lotus, his speed in restoring heaven and earth was many times faster than when he had restored Penglai Immortal Island in the past.

Whenever the Purple-Gold Gourd finished gathering the red lights within an area, Yellow Dragon followed it onward, continuing to purify, restore, foster life, and collect creation origin.

Once an area had initially recovered its vitality, if the Purple-Gold Gourd had yet to finish its work, he would seize the time to carefully comprehend the lingering law dao-rhythms left behind by the Quasi-Saint battle at the edges of those regions where the laws remained chaotic and violent. His cultivation and comprehension of the Dao also steadily improved without his noticing.

Time flowed on. Suns rose and moons fell, and tens of thousands of years passed in the snap of a finger.

If one looked down from a great height, one would discover that more than half of this completely dead, dark-red land stretching hundreds of millions of miles had already regained its verdant vitality.

Though the remaining lesser half was still shrouded in dark-red haze, one could also see flecks of green steadily devouring the dark-red regions.

After tens of thousands of years of unceasing collection, the Purple-Gold Gourd had gathered more and more fragments of Red Cloud's true spirit. Its own aura also became increasingly clear in sensing the remnants of Red Cloud's true spirit.

Later on, the range of suction produced by the gourd's mouth grew wider and wider, while its speed became faster and faster.

Within the gourd, countless red glimmers had gathered into one, vaguely forming an exceedingly faint red cloud!

On this day, Yellow Dragon had just restored life to a new area and was about to comprehend the law dao-rhythms within the chaotic region ahead.

"Riiip—!"

Suddenly, the space before him split open without warning!

Within the rift churned frenzied spatial turbulence, radiating an aura that made Yellow Dragon's heart quail.

Yellow Dragon's expression tightened. He flashed backward, clutching the protective item bestowed by his senior granduncle in one hand, the Five Elements Tower suspended above his head as he remained fully on guard.

Yet no mighty being came charging out of the rift.

Instead, another scarlet beam of light, enveloping an object, shot out of the spatial rift with lightning speed!

The instant the scarlet light passed through the rift, the spatial rift closed at once, as though it had never existed.

The red light hovered in midair. As its radiance faded, it revealed its true form: a gourd entirely crimson, its Dao patterns born of nature!

"The Nine-Nine Soul-Scattering Gourd!"

Yellow Dragon's eyes filled with disbelief.

After Hongyun had self-destructed, this treasure had also been swallowed by the spatial turbulence—yet it had actually burst back out of it!

As though sentient, the Soul-Scattering Gourd paused slightly in the air, then sensed the presence of Hongyun's true spirit within the Purple-Gold Gourd.

It circled the Purple-Gold Gourd several times, its body trembling faintly. Then it suddenly came to a halt, its mouth aimed at the Purple-Gold Gourd. A dim red gleam flew out from within and entered the Purple-Gold Gourd.

Yellow Dragon saw clearly that although the amount of red light was small, the spirituality contained within it was a hundred times richer than all the fragments of true spirit he had gathered over the years combined!

After that red light flew out, the crimson radiance on the Soul-Scattering Gourd visibly dimmed by several degrees. As though it had lost its spirituality, it slowly drifted down, landing precisely in Yellow Dragon's outstretched palm.

It was warm to the touch, as though it still carried a trace of its former master's warmth and obsession.