Harvest, Ambush

The efforts of countless years had brought the four of them vast amounts of Heavenly Dao merit. Each had condensed a Merit Golden Wheel, and the wheels were of extremely high grade, comparable to high-grade innate spirit treasures, with remarkable effects in protection, Dao comprehension, and cultivation.

If they were willing to exhaust this immense merit and use it directly to raise their cultivation, it should have been enough for all of them to soar to the heavens in a single step and break through to the initial stage of the Golden Immortal of Hunyuan realm.

Moreover, their gains went far beyond that!

Over more than thirty epochs, the four of them had traversed countless Three Clans Battlefields, personally comprehending the myriad laws and Great Daos lingering within them and the clashes and collisions between them. As they cleansed the Sha Qi, repaired heaven and earth, and verified their own Daos, they had all benefited immensely, their attainments advancing by leaps and bounds.

Now, Yuan Jie, Yuan Lun, and Yuan Ling had all broken through to the middle stage of the Golden Immortal of Daluo realm, while his true body had even broken through to the late stage of the Golden Immortal of Daluo realm—and he was far from having only just entered it.

Beyond that, by cleansing countless Three Clans Battlefields, the four had refined immense quantities of blood baleful resentment, along with the shattered remains of beings from the three clans and myriad races. Not only had they refined countless streams of pure source power suited to their own Daos, but they had also unearthed innumerable heavenly materials and earthly treasures, acquired spirit treasures, and even nearly a hundred innate spirit treasures from the battlefield ruins.

Although most of those innate spirit treasures had been damaged in the great war, with low-grade innate spirit treasures making up the majority and few middle-grade ones, while not a single high-grade or supreme-grade innate spirit treasure had been found, their value was still impossible to estimate.

Although they had used a considerable amount of source power to repair the earth veins, three-quarters of it remained. Altogether, it might have exceeded the total origin energy of three late-stage Golden Immortals of Hunyuan.

However, what left Yuan Jie somewhat regretful was that, after more than thirty epochs of effort, most of the Three Clans Battlefields that needed cleansing had already been cleared and restored. Very few remained, and this great opportunity of theirs was nearing its end!

Though he felt some regret, Yuan Jie did not delay. He gathered his thoughts and raised a hand, about to tear open the void and cross heaven and earth toward the next small Three Clans Battlefield that needed cleansing.

But suddenly, Yuan Jie's ancestral aperture between his brows began to throb violently. A bone-piercing sense of life-and-death crisis, rising from the deepest depths of his soul, instantly swept through his entire body. Every hair on his body stood on end, and alarm bells blared within his Primordial Spirit, frantically warning him.

Without the slightest hesitation, Yuan Jie instantly circulated his Daluo Dao Fruit, releasing boundless radiance of the Great Dao as he summoned the World Cauldron and the Cosmos Pearl.

The World Cauldron hung above his head, its body blooming with hundreds of millions of rays of world-glow. A phantom of a complete world enveloped him, suppressing the heaven, earth, time, and space around him and cutting off all external killing intent;

The Cosmos Pearl floated before him, radiating boundless brilliant divine light. The Dao of time and space circulated, causing the flow of time at the location where he sensed danger to become chaotic and the layers of space to stretch outward.

As the World Cauldron and Cosmos Pearl unleashed their power, a shrill tearing sound came from the void. A pitch-black longsword wreathed in endless nether poisonous Sha Qi was forced out from behind layer upon layer of spatial barriers. It was already not far from Yuan Jie.

One could well imagine that if Yuan Jie had not possessed such keen senses, detected the danger, and promptly used the World Cauldron and Cosmos Pearl, that pitch-black longsword would likely have already pierced his brow.

Although both his physical body and Primordial Spirit had reached the level of low-grade innate spirit treasures, and that longsword might not necessarily have been able to break through them,

Yuan Yan was still unable to suppress his fury at nearly being ambushed. He circulated his Daluo Dao Fruit, linked the World Dao with heaven and earth, and sensed an abnormal patch of void.

"You skulking rat, get out here!" Yuan Jie roared furiously, his voice shaking the cosmos as the power of the Great Dao, carrying his rage, spread with a thunderous boom.

With one hand, he used the World Cauldron to expand the world phantom, firmly suppressing time and space and locking down the pitch-black longsword so that it could not flee into the void again. With the other, he controlled the Cosmos Pearl before him. The pearl transformed into a streak of light, carrying the power of the Great Dao that crushed chaotic time and space, and smashed straight toward that abnormal patch of void, seeking to suppress and kill the ambusher.

"You junior, merely at the middle stage of the Golden Immortal of Daluo realm, yet you dare act so arrogantly before this ancestor?"

A cold, hoarse voice, filled with endless venom and arrogance, slowly drifted out from the depths of the void.

At that moment, the spatial barrier shattered with a thunderous crash. A white-haired old man clad in a black Daoist robe stepped out from the turbulent currents of the void. Though handsome in appearance, his brows and eyes carried a sinister, vicious air.

Nether poisonous Sha Qi churned around the old man. He raised a hand and threw a punch, his fist wreathed in endless Nine Nether poison and the power of the Dao of destruction as it blasted toward the incoming Cosmos Pearl.

The Dao of time and space collided fiercely with the Nether-Poison Dao. Under the collision of ultimate origin power, layer after layer of spatial barriers instantly collapsed and vanished, while mournful cries of the Great Dao rang out between heaven and earth.

At the same time, the pitch-black longsword suppressed by the World Cauldron began to tremble violently under the old man's urging of Dao power.

Black sword qi surged across the blade, and endless nether poisonous sword qi madly battered the World Cauldron's world phantom.

Amid dense metallic clangs of "Clang! Clang! Clang!", the longsword actually tore free from the World Cauldron's suppressive force by sheer strength.

Though it still could not break through the World Cauldron's phantom world-defense, the longsword instantly sliced through the void, transforming into a streak of black light and flying directly back into the old man's hand.

Holding the pitch-black longsword, the old man slashed out. Empowered by the sword, the might of the Nether-Poison Dao surged, instantly driving back the Cosmos Pearl's assault.

In an instant, the aura between heaven and earth froze solid.

Yuan Jie stood with the World Cauldron suspended above his head and the Cosmos Pearl in hand. Two high-grade innate spirit treasures protected him as the World Dao and the Dao of time and space intertwined into a net. Opposite him, the old man held the pitch-black longsword, nether poisonous qi towering to the heavens around him, while the cultivation pressure of a perfected Golden Immortal of Daluo realm blanketed everything.

The two stood on opposite sides of the void, their Dao auras blooming without restraint, colliding and clashing. A deadly killing intent, ready to erupt at the slightest touch, filled heaven and earth.

"Rumble—" The two utterly different Dao auras collided, instantly tearing apart the stable space around them. Heaven, earth, time, and space fell into complete chaos, with fragments of time and turbulent spatial currents scattering everywhere.

After only an instant of confrontation, Yuan Jie's expression changed slightly. The old man's Dao aura was far more vast than his own, pressing down upon him without cease. Even as he resisted with all his strength, his own Dao aura was continuously being compressed. He had already fallen into a disadvantage!

"Perfected Golden Immortal of Daluo—" Yuan Jie's heart sank at once, and a trace of gravity flashed through his eyes.

Indeed, he was a top-tier innate divine being. After cultivating the Nine Yin-Yang Evolutions, both his physical body and Primordial Spirit were comparable to low-grade innate spirit treasures. He also possessed five high-grade innate spirit treasures for protection, making his combat power far beyond that of an ordinary middle-stage Golden Immortal of Daluo. Even against a late-stage Golden Immortal of Daluo, he had the strength to fight—and perhaps even win.

But within the Golden Immortal of Daluo realm, the gap between every minor stage was enormous. Though it was not quite the difference between heaven and earth, one higher minor stage could generally defeat or even kill someone of a lower stage with ease. He was most likely no match for a perfected Golden Immortal of Daluo!

And while he had innate spirit treasures at his side, did the old man not have them as well? The pitch-black longsword he had revealed was clearly a middle-grade innate spirit treasure.