Lower Plane

Within the vast, endless void, spatial storms occasionally raged.

Meteor after meteor streaked past, accompanied by thunderous booms that echoed through heaven and earth.

"The Lower Plane White Dragon Sovereign came from should roughly be in this direction." Futu Yun toyed with the White Dragon Spirit Pearl.

After obtaining this spirit pearl, he had already asked Mandala to help break its seal.

In the original novel, he would have needed to borrow the power of the Thunder Realm.

But in the end, it was merely a seal placed by someone at the Sovereign Stage.

Before Mandala, a Heavenly Sovereign, it was nothing more than a joke.

Thus, after Futu Yun cultivated the Boundless Golden Body, he directly led people to search in this direction.

The spatial node of White Dragon Sovereign's Lower Plane should be somewhere in this region.

However, finding it would still require a slow and careful search.

Although the Great Thousand World was connected to countless Lower Planes,

one first had to locate a spatial node in order to enter a Lower Plane from the Great Thousand World.

Before they were opened, those spatial nodes were often as tiny as dust and impossible to detect.

Therefore, finding that single spatial node within this boundless void was by no means an easy task.

Of course, it also depended on the strength of the ascenders who came from the Lower Planes.

For instance, Flame Emperor of the Boundless Fire Territory had directly moved the Dou Qi Continent into the Great Thousand World.

Even though it had not completely merged with the Great Thousand World, a connection had already been established, and the two worlds had long formed a stable passage.

Martial Ancestor of the Martial Realm had likewise brought the Heavenly Profound Continent into the Great Thousand World.

Futu Yun remembered that the original novel mentioned the Nine Nether Realm at the center of the Nine Nether Continent, home of the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan.

It was a planar space independent of the Great Thousand World, as well as the ancestral land of the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan.

It was said that in an extremely ancient era, the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan had also come from a Lower Plane and had initially been unremarkable.

However, after several exceptionally gifted ancestors emerged from the clan, the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan directly established itself in the Great Thousand World.

During the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan's most prosperous era, Heavenly Sovereigns appeared for three consecutive generations.

At that time, even the Phoenix Clan regarded them highly and treated them as equals.

That Nine Nether Realm was said to have been the Lower Plane of the Nine Nether Sparrows in ancient times.

Later, a mighty expert of the Nine Nether Sparrow Clan used heaven-reaching means to establish a connection with the Great Thousand World, turning it into the clan's ancestral land.

Such matters were commonplace in the Great Thousand World:

The Great Thousand World itself was connected to countless Lower Planes.

And those powerhouses who could actively break through the Plane Barrier and come to the Great Thousand World from a Lower Plane,

aside from a very small number of lucky exceptions, most possessed world-shaking talent and unyielding will.

As long as these favored children of heaven gained a foothold in the Great Thousand World, they could bloom with dazzling brilliance.

But the people from Dragon Demon Palace clearly did not possess such ability. In the end, they were refugees.

They were not ascenders, but fugitives fleeing disaster.

Having read the original novel, Futu Yun knew very well that these people were those so-called "lucky exceptions."

Lower Planes also varied in rank:

Both the Dou Qi Continent and the Heavenly Profound Continent belonged to relatively weak Lower Planes.

When Flame Emperor and Martial Ancestor had first ascended, they had been no more than Sovereigns.

Yet the Lower Plane where White Dragon Sovereign and the others resided could actually cultivate people to the Earthly Sovereign Realm!

Thus, although White Dragon Sovereign and the others came from a Lower Plane, they were not beings who had ascended by breaking through the Plane Barrier.

Naturally, the Lower Plane they inhabited was not fully connected to the Great Thousand World.

Even Dragon Demon Palace itself could not locate its exact position.

Otherwise, why would Futu Yun need to go through so much trouble? He could have simply captured someone from Dragon Demon Palace and made them lead the way.

There were as many geniuses in the Great Thousand World as stars in the sky.

Yet those who could ultimately break through their shackles and enter the Heavenly Sovereign Realm remained exceedingly rare.

Most heavenly prodigies remained stuck at the Great Ruler Grand Perfection Realm for their entire lives.

They gazed at the seemingly close yet forever unreachable Heavenly Sovereign Realm, only to eventually become white bones beneath the erosion of time.

The gap between a Heavenly Sovereign and an Earthly Sovereign was a truly heaven-and-earth difference.

Yet Futu Yun was merely at the Peak Divine Soul Stage.

Still, he intended to seize the opportunity in the original novel that was enough to allow one to break through to the Heavenly Sovereign Realm.

He intended to use this Heavenly Sovereign-level opportunity to help himself officially break through into the Fusion Heaven Realm!

According to the cultivation system of The Great Ruler, cultivation before the Fusion Heaven Realm only required tempering oneself.

Only from the Fusion Heaven Realm onward did one need to comprehend heaven and earth. Upon reaching the Sovereign Stage, one could stand above heaven and earth.

But that was not a true transcendence of heaven and earth. It merely meant standing above a region of heaven and earth.

A Sovereign's degree of fusion with heaven and earth was only higher than that of the Fusion Heaven Realm.

A Heavenly Sovereign, meanwhile, could completely merge with heaven and earth.

The essence of such power was to draw upon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to empower oneself. Upon cultivating to Saint Grade, one could control the mighty power of an entire region of heaven and earth.

For Futu Yun, controlling the mighty power of a region within the Great Thousand World was indeed rather difficult.

But if it was merely a Lower Plane, it was not impossible, especially if he obtained the Plane Spirit!

That Lower Plane had already been occupied by the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan.

But precisely because of that, they only needed to detect the aura of the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan.

Among so many void coordinates, they merely had to find the one tainted by the aura of the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan.

After all, these were spatial coordinates of the Great Thousand World.

Unless it was a Lower Plane that had already been invaded by the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan, its coordinates could not possibly carry the aura of the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan.

And Mandala, who came from the Ancient Heavenly Palace, was naturally extremely sensitive to the aura of the Extraterrestrial Evil Clan.

To the powerhouses of the Great Thousand World, these Lower Planes could be considered special places that often concealed enormous opportunities.

The crucial point was that Lower Planes were inherently of a lower order than the Great Thousand World.

If one could enter them, one could instead enjoy the feeling of being invincible, while gathering every resource within into one's possession.

However, even if people from the Great Thousand World found a spatial node, entering a Lower Plane was rarely successful.

This was likely restricted by planar laws:

To enter a Lower Plane, one had to use a native object from that Lower Plane as a guide.

Like the White Dragon Spirit Pearl in Futu Yun's hand, which contained White Dragon Sovereign's mark and could conveniently serve as a key.

This item allowed him to bypass the planar laws and smoothly enter that Lower Plane.

Of course, nothing was absolute. There were always ways to secretly infiltrate a Lower Plane.

At the Heavenly Sovereign level, as long as one had the spatial coordinates, even forcing one's way in was not impossible.

After all, a Heavenly Sovereign could completely merge with the heavenly laws of the Great Thousand World and had long transcended Lower Planes.

Therefore, apart from Mandala, Futu Yun had also brought quite a few Heavenly Sovereigns with him.

One group would enter the Lower Plane with him, while the other would guard this passage.

Ordinarily, the resources of a common Lower Plane were not worth mobilizing so many Heavenly Sovereign powerhouses.

However, if it was a Lower Plane that had birthed a Plane Spirit, the situation was entirely different.

A Plane Spirit was formed from the condensed essence of an entire plane and possessed no self-awareness.

Once it was brought under control, one could freely mobilize the power of an entire plane.

However, not every Lower Plane possessed a Plane Embryo.

Its condensation required numerous opportunities, and only a very small number of Lower Planes could give birth to a Plane Embryo.

And this Lower Plane happened to possess a Plane Embryo.