When Lin Tian stepped out of the cave abode where he had been cultivating in seclusion.
The Little Beast Emperor had already sensed his master Lin Tian emerging, and burst through the window at the same time.
However, the Little Beast Emperor had yet to gain effortless control over the power of the Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation.
And so.
When the Little Beast Emperor emerged from seclusion.
All of a sudden.
Space shattered between heaven and earth.
Across hundreds of thousands of miles, heaven and earth cracked beneath the crushing pressure of the Little Beast Emperor's Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation, formed from twelve red millstones!
For a moment, fierce astral winds rose everywhere. Earth, fire, water, and wind could not sustain this utterly terrifying slaying formation!
"Holy shit!"
Lin Tian nearly cried out in shock.
He reacted immediately, shaking the ancient, lusterless Nine Nether Vine on his body.
The Nine Nether Vine enclosed the entire area for hundreds of thousands of miles.
It kept the Little Beast Emperor's utterly terrifying aura from leaking out.
Then.
The Hongmeng Eight-Nine Profound Art, which had already evolved through three layers, devoured all the vast power of the Little Beast Emperor's Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation in an instant!
"Devoured one strand of Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation power. Evolution points increased by 3,500." "Devoured one strand of Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation spiritual energy. Evolution increased by 2,700." "Devoured one strand of world-destroying millstone origin power. Evolution points increased by 15,700."
System notifications rang incessantly through Lin Tian's sea of consciousness.
When Lin Tian heard the notification mentioning the World-Destroying Millstone.
He froze briefly, then was swept up in wild delight.
Could it be? Was the Little Beast Emperor actually the incarnation of the World-Destroying Millstone, that supreme treasure of slaughter counted among the Four Great Treasures of the Primordial World?!
As that question arose in Lin Tian's mind.
He could not help recalling the scene of his first encounter with the Little Beast Emperor.
Without a doubt, within that heavenly tribulation's slaying formation, nine heavens azure lightning had bombarded the Little Beast Emperor without a moment's respite for tens of thousands of years.
Back then, the Heavenly Dao had clearly intended to pursue him to the bitter end, determined to strike the Little Beast Emperor dead!
In truth.
Lin Tian had always been secretly wondering what kind of unusual creature of the Primordial World the Little Beast Emperor was.
Now.
After the system notifications sounded.
Lin Tian finally confirmed it in his heart: the Little Beast Emperor was the World-Destroying Millstone, the innate supreme treasure that should have belonged to Shen Ni, the Fierce Beast Emperor who had unleashed the Fierce Beast Calamity, driven the Primordial Three Clans into retreat after retreat, and nearly destroyed the Primordial World once again!
Though wild delight filled Lin Tian's heart, he betrayed nothing outwardly.
His divine sense enveloped the Little Beast Emperor, who was bounding about joyfully and howling nonstop.
His attention settled on the faintly visible red millstone mark between the Little Beast Emperor's brows!
At that moment, he could confirm that the Little Beast Emperor himself was an incarnation of the World-Destroying Millstone.
Indeed.
He could now understand why, while comprehending the Innate 108-Celestial-Circuit Star Formation, the Little Beast Emperor had been able to derive his own Post-Heavenly Earthly Branch Slaying Formation from it, then use millstone marks as the formation cores for all twelve branches!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Just as Lin Tian was marveling at this.
Barely audible sounds of rushing wind arose beside him and the Little Beast Emperor.
As those sounds rang out.
Gusts of chilling wind, as though sweeping up from the depths of the Nine Nethers, coiled throughout the surrounding tens of thousands of miles.
Indeed.
Even Lin Tian's ancient, lusterless Nine Nether Vine could feel those gusts of chilling wind, as though they were about to burst through the all-encompassing net it had cast.
For a moment, Lin Tian could not help feeling deeply gratified.
It was not only the Little Beast Emperor.
The Nine-Headed Ghost Bird, Ghost Chariot, had also made astonishing progress during these thirty thousand years of contemplation!
At that moment.
Having emerged from his cave abode, Ghost Chariot was showing Lin Tian and the Little Beast Emperor the new divine ability he had comprehended over those tens of thousands of years!
And this new divine ability of Ghost Chariot's.
Was a combination of the Void Traversal divine ability Lin Tian had manifested within his cave abode and his own Substitute Death with a Clone leap.
This divine ability had evolved from Substitute Death with a Clone into Void Traversal with a Clone!
In other words.
Ghost Chariot could use a clone to traverse the void, then replace that clone with his true body at the very instant it completed its traversal.
This shortened the distance of his Void Traversal, sparing him the flashy maneuver of constantly substituting clones to maintain a speed infinitely close to that of light.
A moment later.
The gusts of nine nether yin wind surging through heaven and earth came to a halt.
A figure several thousand zhang in size hovered before Lin Tian and the Little Beast Emperor.
Ghost Chariot lowered his nine heads, all twenty-seven faces looking toward Lin Tian at once.
In truth.
Whether Ghost Chariot was showing respect or fury, those twenty-seven faces were equally terrifying.
After all, those twenty-seven faces formed a bizarre composite of different Primordial World Creatures that Ghost Chariot had slaughtered on the Eastern Continent and fused into his innate bloodline.
It was precisely because of this.
That Ghost Chariot's body, originally only ten zhang in size, had grown to several thousand zhang through continual combination and fusion!
If he wished to advance his divine abilities and cultivation further, his only option was to reconcile the rejection and conflict among the various Primordial World Creatures within his body. With each successful fusion, his body would shrink a little, until, once everything was fully integrated, his form could return to less than a hundred zhang as before.
Rather than its current ostentatious, exaggerated size of several thousand zhang.
Such was often the path of cultivation in the Primordial World.
At first, power expanded without restraint. Once that expansion reached a peak, after one entered the middle Great Unity Golden Immortal stage, the task became one of contracting and controlling that power.
Without perfect, precise control over every bit of power within their bodies, even innate beings with the deepest foundations and highest grades could never cross the heavenly chasm between a Great Unity Golden Immortal and a Great Encompassing Golden Immortal!
And a peak Great Unity Golden Immortal like Ghost Chariot.
In truth, his Origin, divine abilities, and other qualities were all worthy of renown in the Primordial World. Yet he had lingered at the peak supreme golden immortal level for far too long without glimpsing a path into the Great Luo Golden Immortal Realm, so he had turned to the profoundly sinister method of fusing with other Primordial World Creatures at the peak supreme golden immortal level, hoping to become a Great Encompassing Golden Immortal.
Instead, this sinister practice had led Ghost Chariot down a crooked path with no way back.
But at this moment.
After Ghost Chariot emerged from his cave abode, although his body had not shrunk, his formerly flamboyant, exaggerated aura had become more than twice as restrained!
For Ghost Chariot, this was an excellent beginning indeed.
No wonder he had momentarily let his delight go to his head, forgetting to report to his master Lin Tian before displaying his newly comprehended divine ability within the Nine Nether Vine's enclosure spanning hundreds of thousands of miles.
An instant later, Ghost Chariot realized how rash he had been.
Then.
He shifted his several-thousand-zhang body awkwardly and sent Lin Tian a message through his Spirit Awareness:
"Master, I let my delight go to my head. Please forgive me."
"These thirty thousand years of cultivation brought me ten times the progress of a million years of bitter cultivation alone! Ghost Chariot thanks you a thousand times over, master, for granting me this opportunity and fortune!"
Lin Tian acknowledged him.
Then he shook the ancient, lusterless Nine Nether Vine.
He swept both the Little Beast Emperor and Ghost Chariot into the Nine Nether Vine.
Then he stepped onto the tiny Mount Buzhou hovering before him.
As he took that step.
All of a sudden.
The scenery changed, and the stars wheeled across the heavens!
The foot of Mount Buzhou, which would originally have taken a full ten thousand years to reach, instantly appeared before Lin Tian, the Little Beast Emperor, and Ghost Chariot!
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