With a thought from Dijiang, he unleashed Space Law and, with Houtu and Xuanming in tow, strolled leisurely across tens of thousands of miles, appearing soundlessly at the edge of the battlefield.
They stood atop an untouched cliff and watched coldly.
"Big Brother, they're actually fighting to the death over a mere immortal herb?" Houtu looked at the brutal slaughter below, her clear eyes filled with confusion.
Having just descended from Mount Buzhou, they had gathered immortal herbs that, while not carpeting the ground, were hardly scarce. The herbs they had collected were all of a higher grade than this one, which was why Houtu found it not worth dying for a low-grade innate spirit root.
"This is the terror of Tribulation Aura." Dijiang gave a cold laugh. "Their Primordial Spirits have already been completely clouded by Tribulation Aura. The greed and killing intent in their hearts have been magnified without limit. This spirit herb is merely a pretext. Even without it, once they met, they would fight until one side perished."
Just as the three of them spoke, a sudden change erupted in the battle below.
The Ink Jade Qilin forcibly endured a divine lightning strike from the Azure Dragon and abruptly rammed straight through the Scarlet Phoenix's chest. Yet immediately afterward, the Azure Dragon's claws crushed the qilin's skull.
Boom!
Three Peak Primordial Unity Golden Immortal divine beasts had actually perished together in mere moments. Their enormous bodies crashed heavily to the ground, their blood dyeing the land within a hundred-mile radius red.
At the very instant they fell, a broken section of dragon horn flung out by the Azure Dragon before its death, wrapped in violent mana, happened to whistle straight toward the cliff where Dijiang and the others stood.
"Courting death."
A cold gleam flashed through Xuanming's eyes, who had remained silent until now.
She did not use mana. She merely extended a slender, fair hand into the air and made a distant grasp toward the mountain-sized dragon horn hurtling toward them.
Crack!
A frigid law descended in an instant.
The imposing dragon horn abruptly halted in midair. A thick layer of deep-blue ice instantly formed across its surface, and then, with Xuanming's cold snort, it shattered inch by inch, turning into ice fragments that drifted away in the wind.
"What domineering Ice Law." Dijiang nodded approvingly. Though his younger siblings had been well protected, their talent for battle as Ancestral Witches was carved into their bones.
"Let's go. Time to collect some interest."
Dijiang led the two women down through the air, landing beside the three enormous corpses.
Peak Primordial Unity Golden Immortals counted as minor powerhouses in the present Primordial World. Their essence blood, scales, armor, and bones were all excellent materials for tempering the body and refining artifacts for the Witch Clan.
Dijiang raised a hand and waved. The Creation Jade Disk slowly turned within his sea of consciousness, releasing a force of devouring.
The origin essence blood that had yet to dissipate from the three divine beasts was instantly drawn out, gathering in midair into three fist-sized blood spheres brimming with vigorous life force.
Afterward, Dijiang uprooted the Nine-Leaf Swordgrass that had caused this calamity and casually tossed it into his own spatial storage.
"The bloodlines of these three clans do have some redeeming qualities."
Dijiang stored away the essence blood, his gaze sweeping across the devastated land as his eyes gradually deepened.
"Let's continue and take a look around elsewhere."
With that, Dijiang swept his sleeve. Space Law circulated, wiping away every trace of lingering karmic aura in the surroundings, before he turned into a streak of light with Houtu and Xuanming and vanished beyond the horizon.
After leaving the region around Mount Buzhou, the three of them headed east.
As they ventured deeper into the Primordial Wilderness Continent, scenes of increasingly brutal warfare among the three clans appeared before them with greater frequency.
The blessed grotto-heavens once shrouded in immortal mist had mostly turned into scorched earth. The spiritual springs and vast marshes that had once been crystal clear were now filled with severed limbs and foul, stinking blood.
Along the way, they saw countless living beings wailing and falling amid the flames of war.
At times, hundreds of thousands of Dragon Clan warriors tangled in slaughter with innumerable flying birds amid the clouds, broken feathers and shattered scales pouring down like a torrential rain. At other times, the Qilin Clan drove billions of beasts to trample one immortal mountain after another flat like a flood of steel.
Faced with all this, Dijiang remained absolutely calm. He led Houtu and Xuanming to conceal themselves in the void, watching coldly like passing travelers.
"Big Brother, is there truly no possibility for the living beings of this Primordial World to stop fighting?"
One day, the three stood above an inland lake that had been ravaged by war and nearly dried up.
Houtu looked at the mountain-like piles of corpses along the shore, as well as the weak creatures struggling to survive in the mud, and a trace of pity showed in her eyes.
She was born with control over Earth Law and was especially sensitive to the pulse and burden-bearing nature of the land.
Watching the Primordial Wilderness be torn apart alive and left riddled with holes, a faint ache would always rise from the depths of her Primordial Spirit.
Dijiang turned to look at Houtu and sighed inwardly.
Houtu was compassionate by nature; it was simply who she was.
That she would one day transform herself into reincarnation and complete Heaven's Way stemmed precisely from this great love she held for all living beings.
"They cannot stop." Dijiang's voice was calm.
"The Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin Clans all believe they can unify the Primordial World and monopolize the fortune of heaven and earth. Unconsciously, they have overlooked that behind this immense fortune lies endless karma."
Dijiang pointed at the tribulation clouds above, which had grown so dense they seemed almost ready to drip blood. "This great tribulation is a cleansing of the Primordial World by Heaven's Way. The more slaughter the three clans commit, the heavier the karma they bear. Only once they have exhausted their foundations and bled out their final drop of blood will this calamity truly come to an end."
Xuanming added coldly from the side, "The strong devour the weak. That is the law of the Primordial World. Since they chose to contend for supremacy, they must be prepared for death and the extermination of their clans."
Dijiang nodded. Just as he was about to lead the two women onward, the Creation Jade Disk, which had remained quiet within his sea of consciousness, suddenly trembled. It cast down an exceedingly obscure violet-gold radiance, pointing toward the depths of the lake.
"Hm?"
Dijiang stopped, silver light blazing in his eyes as Space Law instantly locked onto that stretch of dried lakebed.
Guided by the Creation Jade Disk, he sensed an extremely faint yet utterly pure innate spiritual light.
This spiritual light was concealed by an exceptionally sophisticated innate grand formation. Had the Jade Disc not warned him, he would have missed it.
"Come. There's something below."
Without hesitation, Dijiang swept his sleeve. Spatial power wrapped around the three of them, allowing them to ignore the mud and rock layers beneath the lakebed as they tunneled tens of thousands of zhang underground.
After passing through a hidden formation barrier, a small underwater estate, no more than a hundred zhang across, appeared before them.
The underwater estate was empty. Only atop a white jade platform at its center floated a fist-sized pearl, radiating a gentle blue glow.
Within the pearl seemed to lie a vast ocean. As ripples flowed across it, it emitted a mighty aura capable of suppressing the Four Seas and calming all waters.
"This is... the Sea-Calming Divine Pearl?!"
Dijiang's pupils constricted, and he recognized the origin of the object at once.
Houtu and Xuanming also sensed the powerful Water Origin contained within the pearl, and both revealed astonished expressions.
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