As for why he did not go clear the main battlefield?
Naturally, there was no need.
The main battlefield of the three clans had been the most brutal and widespread, reducing nearly half of the Eastern Continent and Central Continent to ruins.
But after the war ended, supreme beings such as Ancestral Dragon and Primordial Qilin had mended heaven and earth with their Dao bodies and primordial spirits. Most of those who had died in that battle had also returned to heaven and earth, nourishing that scorched land and nearly restoring the regions they had shattered. There was simply no need for him to repair them.
As for the small number who had not returned to heaven and earth, they had been taken away by surviving experts of the three clans or the myriad races. They would not have been left behind, so there was no need for him to clean up after them. Even if he went, he would gain nothing.
"Good." Yuan Jie, Yuan Lun, and Yuan Ling nodded slightly.
Without wasting words, the three connected their auras with Yuan Yan's. Four Dao auras originating from the same source merged together as they communicated with heaven and earth, jointly deducing the heavenly secrets.
In less than a hundred years, the threads of heavenly secrets became clear before the four of them. Every battlefield thick with bloodshed and resentment, where the earth veins had shattered,
and which required cleansing and restoration, was deduced in full. This naturally included battlefields where Great Firmament Golden Immortals had fought and which required cleansing and restoration.
Without the slightest delay, Yuan Yan tore open space. Together with Yuan Jie, Yuan Lun, and Yuan Ling, he crossed through the void toward the nearest location.
A few breaths later, ripples spread through the void. The four stepped out of empty space and descended directly upon the edge of a Three Clans Battlefield where Great Firmament Golden Immortals had fought and which required cleansing.
Yuan Yan looked up, his gaze shifting slightly. What entered his sight was not shattered mountains and rivers, but a boundless Death Marshland.
A vast expanse of water stretched between heaven and earth. Even as a Great Firmament Golden Immortal, he could not see its end. The water was black as ink and carried a pungent scent of blood. Bloodshed and baleful qi filled the sky, condensing into tangible black clouds that blotted out the sun, moon, and stars, leaving not a trace of light between heaven and earth.
Yuan Yan's primordial spirit connected with heaven and earth, and in an instant, he understood this place's past:
This had originally been a region of famous mountains and a great river in the east of the Primordial World. The river had surged endlessly, running east to west before flowing into the East Sea, nurturing countless living beings along both banks. Yet an earth-shattering war had utterly destroyed this land.
The force of that battle had shattered heaven and earth, overturned Qiankun, collapsed the land, and broken the mountain ranges. The once-rushing river had completely changed course, and endless river water had poured forth, flooding a territory spanning countless miles and turning it into a boundless marshland.
Moreover, countless living beings had died tragically during the battle. Their towering resentment before death merged with the battlefield's bloodshed and baleful qi, lingering for ages. The bloodshed filling the sky blocked out the light, the rivers and waterways were completely clogged, and countless broken corpses sank to the bottom, merging with the marsh waters. In the end, this barren deathly sea, brimming with baleful qi, came into being.
This deathly sea was more than a hundred thousand times larger than the Three Clans Battlefields Yuan Yan had previously cleansed.
Moreover, the main force in this battle did not seem to have been the Dragon-Phoenix-Qilin Tribes. There were very few corpses from those three tribes in the sea. Nearly all the scattered remains belonged to the countless affiliated races under their command: birds, beasts, plant spirits, sea creatures—an incomparably diverse array.
Although the overall level of combat power in this battlefield was far inferior to the high-level battlefields he had cleansed before, with even Earth Immortals who had yet to emerge among the dead, its numbers were terrifying. There were more than a hundred million times as many as before. Countless corpses lay sunken beneath the waters, their resentment intertwining to form an exceptionally troublesome power of tribulation and baleful qi.
Gazing at the endless deathly sea, its baleful qi surging into the heavens, Yuan Yan fell briefly silent.
He had originally believed that cleansing the Three Clans Battlefields that needed cleansing would be a great opportunity. Now, however, it seemed that while it was indeed a great opportunity, it would not be so easily obtained.
After a moment of silence, Yuan Yan and the others jointly deduced a method of cleansing and restoration.
Only after several hundred years of deduction did the four devise a feasible plan.
The first step was to use supreme divine abilities to purify or refine the endless bloodshed and resentment within the sea, along with the remains of countless living beings, thoroughly removing the root of the filth and restoring the black deathly waters to clarity;
The second step was to reshape the mountains and terrain, carve out river channels, and guide the great river that had changed course due to the heaven-shattering battle back into its original waterway. This would prevent the deathly waters from spreading everywhere and contaminating more waterways, avoiding harm to the myriad races of the Primordial World, breeding further slaughter, and bringing about boundless disaster.
With the plan decided, Yuan Yan and the other three acted at once, each displaying his methods as they began purifying the deathly sea.
For example, Yuan Yan first used the Yin-Yang Furnace. Later, finding its efficiency too low, he employed the Yin-Yang Myriad Transformation Divine Light to transform everything away. He then used it to create a formation capable of transforming all things, all laws, and all Daos, converting everything into Yin-Yang Source Power.
Yuan Jie, for example, moved in harmony with heaven and earth, drawing upon the laws of heaven and earth as though he himself were a world, converting everything into world power.
Because this marshland was simply too vast, even with the four working together, it took a full fifty thousand years to cleanse it completely.
After that, however, carving river channels and returning the great river that had changed course amid the heaven-shattering battle to its proper path became much easier.
In less than ten thousand years, Yuan Yan and the others had carved out the river channels and restored the water veins, guiding the marsh waters into the river region. The marshland receded, and their work was complete.
Time flew by, and thirty-six yuanhui passed in the blink of an eye.
That day, upon a relatively small Three Clans Battlefield, a faint bloodshed and baleful qi permeated heaven and earth. The earth veins were covered in cracks, vegetation had withered, and the land lay barren.
Boom! Yuan Jie raised his hand and cast out the World Cauldron and the Innate Four Symbols Formation Flags.
The World Cauldron floated in midair, its body blooming with immeasurable worldly radiance. The Innate Four Symbols Formation Flags stood in the four directions, evolving the sun, lesser yin, lesser yang, and lunar yin into a vast and boundless Four Symbols World-Refining Formation.
Practice made perfect. In less than a hundred years, Yuan Jie had refined the bloodshed, resentment, and corpses within the small Three Clans Battlefield into pure world power.
Then, with practiced ease, Yuan Jie purified the fragments of earth veins corroded by bloodshed and resentment, moved and reconnected them, and used the world power gained from refining the bloodshed, resentment, and corpses to repair the earth veins filled with cracks and fissures.
As the final crack in the earth veins was repaired, this small Three Clans Battlefield recovered by more than half. Innate Spiritual Qi and Dao Rhyme Spiritual Essence surged forth, life returned to the mountains and rivers, and a beam of Merit golden light descended from the heavens into Yuan Jie's Sea of Consciousness.
In an instant, deep within Yuan Jie's Sea of Consciousness, the already profoundly mysterious Merit Golden Wheel, condensed over a long time, silently expanded a little further. The Merit radiance upon it grew ever more substantial, and its Dao aura became ever more steady.
Feeling the Merit Golden Wheel slowly turning within his Sea of Consciousness and sensing his increasingly profound cultivation realm, Yuan Jie's lips curved slightly upward, and a trace of gratified warmth appeared in his eyes.
Thirty-six yuanhui had passed. Throughout those long years, neither he, Yuan Lun, Yuan Ling, nor their true body, Yuan Yan, had rested for even a moment.
They had first worked together to cleanse every Three Clans Battlefield where Great Firmament Golden Immortals had once fought and which required cleansing, reconnecting and restoring the earth veins shattered by the war. Then they had separated to cleanse the smaller Three Clans Battlefields where no Great Firmament Golden Immortals had fought but which likewise required cleansing.
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