[Ding! Congratulations, host, on obtaining the Eight Fiend Sword.]
The Eight Fiend Sword had been forged from the bones of eight great ferocious beasts and originally belonged to the Rain Clan's legacy.
But just moments ago, the Rain Clan's ancestral grounds had suddenly suffered an attack from an unknown source.
More than 99.5 percent of the entire clan had been wiped out.
And so, that legacy had been severed.
Shi Xiu had previously fought Yu Zimo.
That counted as a bond between them.
Naturally, the legacy had fallen into his hands.
After hearing the system's explanation,
Shi Xiu was utterly stunned.
Had someone acted in secret?
The Rain Clan was also a massive clan in the lower realm.
Otherwise, they could never have married into the Shi family, much less become Shi Hao's enemies.
In any case, whoever had done it,
this act was absolutely earth-shaking.
They had rid the world of a scourge!
But to do it so discreetly, without alerting anyone,
was no feat an ordinary person could accomplish!
"Could this have been caused by the Heavenly Dao Treasure Body?"
Shi Xiu was a clever man, too.
After turning it over in his mind, that seemed to be the only explanation.
Ever since obtaining the Heavenly Dao Treasure Body,
he had felt as though he had become the very center of the universe.
Although part of his memory had been erased,
with the private guidance of the woman with Double Pupils,
his memories had not become completely disjointed.
He could deduce what he had forgotten.
Shi Xiu had now become the darling of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.
Whether in this lower realm or the so-called Upper Realm,
countless eyes were probably watching his every move right now!
Of course, not all of them harbored ill intent.
On the contrary, the vast majority wanted to draw closer to Shi Xiu.
They offered precious artifacts and gifted precious techniques.
Their ultimate goal was probably to have a girl from their family become his Dao companion.
[Ding! Congratulations, host, on fully absorbing the essence of the Eight Fiend Sword. Your cultivation has reached the grotto-heaven realm.]
To his surprise, the benefits really did come one after another.
First, he had obtained the Rain Clan's devastating weapon.
Then, unexpectedly, it had helped him break straight through the pinnacle of the blood moving realm.
With the system's aid,
the grotto-heaven realm, which others might need a long time cultivating to break into,
had come to him effortlessly.
It would not delay the upcoming battle at all.
With their memories completely erased,
the ferocious beasts before him continued fighting over the Mountain Treasure, which had already been emptied.
The sight was truly laughable.
And after snatching up the Suanni Precious Technique earlier,
Shi Xiu had formed a new plan.
He would hunt down the four great ferocious beasts before him.
Yes, you read that right.
After sending Shi Hao away,
Shi Xiu's ambitions had grown instead.
Originally, he had only wanted to see whether he could seize the opportunity to capture Qiongqi.
But now, he even wanted to capture the Vermilion Bird, the Fire Kingdom's sacrificial spirit.
These four ferocious beasts represented the very ceiling of combat strength among the beasts of the Great Wilderness.
If he could obtain their power,
Shi Xiu's strength might soar by leaps and bounds, perhaps even reaching the standard required to enter the Upper Realm.
The piece of information the woman with Double Pupils had given him earlier
had now been fully deciphered.
It seemed to concern the truth of this mortal realm.
As it turned out, under the rules of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths,
the lower realm had originally been condensed into existence through the power of some great figure.
Its initial purpose had been to imprison criminals.
In other words, those people saw everyone in the lower realm as prisoners.
Even the strongest among them were heavenly medicines in the eyes of true experts.
Every so often, a great calamity would descend upon the Desolate Region.
That was when the mighty figures of the Upper Realm came down to gather medicine.
In truth, they simply came at regular intervals to harvest a crop of supreme experts.
Aside from a rare few supreme powerhouses who could survive,
the vast majority of this world's supreme powerhouses would become food on the plates of those unknown powers.
Remaining in the Great Wilderness was therefore extremely unfavorable.
To truly survive, he had to ascend!
Back in Stone Village, the village chief had mentioned similar matters.
But the memories of people in the lower realm would all be erased.
Apart from places like Immortal Mountain, which had some connection to the Upper Realm,
almost no one knew their own fate.
As luck would have it,
just as Shi Xiu was planning to hunt these four great ferocious beasts,
they seemed to have marked him as prey, too.
The most obvious was the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow.
This creature had just sent the Vermilion Bird flying with a powerful move.
Despite his wounded body, he spotted Shi Xiu on the ground at a glance.
"You're the master of that Golden Peng from earlier, aren't you?"
Although he had defeated the Vermilion Bird,
the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow himself was badly injured.
If he could devour a Golden Peng, it would surely do his body a great deal of good.
Thus, he circled in the sky.
His two eyes remained fixed on the human below.
In this enormous bird's eyes,
Shi Xiu was merely a human who had only just opened a single grotto-heaven.
He was not even enough to fill a gap between his teeth.
He only had to put pressure on this brat.
Then the boy would surely reveal the Golden Peng's whereabouts.
But this colossal creature had no idea
that Shi Xiu was also sizing up the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow.
Especially those two enormous bird legs.
If I could cut them off and roast them, they'd surely have a flavor all their own.
It was just a shame that brat Shi Hao had gone back early.
The boy was a master at stewing meat.
If the enormous bird overhead knew what Shi Xiu was thinking,
how would he feel?
Since he had no idea what level of expert his opponent was,
Shi Xiu used the Eight Fiend Sword right away!
As eight dazzling sword rays shot straight into the clouds,
they vaguely transformed into eight unimaginable ferocious beasts, hurtling toward the enormous bird with a roar!
"A paltry trick. Hmph!"
Although his opponent's move had startled him,
the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow quickly recovered.
The Eight Fiend Sword was indeed astonishing.
But its wielder's cultivation was limited, after all.
The enormous bird simply beat his wings twice.
Unknown, ghostly blue flames descended from them.
Whoosh!
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!
The two powerful forces instantly tangled together.
Wave after wave of shadowy energy ripples spread through the air.
In the end, the Eight Fiend Sword's sword energy proved no match.
It soon dissolved into nothingness in midair.
But those waves of dark flames refused to relent.
They lunged straight at Shi Xiu, like a savage, colossal beast with its jaws stretched wide!
They sought to swallow the person on the ground in a single gulp!
"Tch, interesting!"
[Six Paths Reincarnation Divine Ability]
Seeing that one move could not defeat his opponent,
Shi Xiu simply unleashed the Six Paths Reincarnation Divine Ability.
Aside from the Grass Character Sword Art,
this Six Paths Reincarnation brought together the Taotie Art, the Kun Peng Precious Technique, and the Eight Fiend Sword!
This was not merely three precious techniques stacked together.
Rather, the three precious techniques intertwined through Six Paths Reincarnation to create an entirely new attack.
There was no second like it beneath the heavens!
This time, the colossal beast formed from the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow's energy flames was instantly annihilated.
An ancient colossal beast that looked even larger than him,
and even fiercer, appeared majestically in the sky.
It swelled with the wind, growing larger and larger.
Its body stretched more than a hundred meters.
It suddenly lunged at the Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow.
"Accursed human brat! You dare resist me? I'll show you what heaven truly means!"
The Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow could have dodged this attack.
But if he could not even defeat a human brat before all these ferocious beasts,
he would lose far too much face!
Savage fury filled his entire body.
He spread his two sharp talons.
Then he charged straight at the colossal beast formed by his opponent's Six Paths Reincarnation Treasure Technique.
But this foolish enormous bird failed to notice
that the young man on the ground was gathering his strength.
The stance of his hands was precisely that of the [Grass Character Sword Art]!
Earlier, at the pinnacle of the blood moving realm, he had hesitated over whether to unleash this move with all his might.
But now he had opened a grotto-heaven.
Every aspect of his body's foundations had advanced beyond comparison.
Even if he unleashed the full power of the Grass Character Sword Art's first level,
he would still have strength to spare afterward!
So brace yourself, Heaven-Swallowing Sparrow!
Before you continue