"Brother Yao, what do we do next?"
"I'll enter the Void God Realm and find those two seniors. We'll seize heaven's secrets through the Inner Landscape and pinpoint that young Pu Demon." Chen Yao wasted no more time. Who knew how much of a disturbance this process would cause? He had to get the Broken Sword and remove Ghost Master's curse first.
The moment he entered the Void God Realm, he saw the two old men looking utterly solemn. Without another word, they entered the Inner Landscape and sought the whereabouts of the young Pu Demon Tree and the other Pu Demon Trees in the lower realm.
A Blazing Sun appeared in the Inner Landscape, jolting Chen Yao's mind completely blank. Second Under Heaven manifested a dragon body that blotted out the sky and sun, while stars glittered all over Immortal Gold Daoist as his flesh transformed into immortal gold. Both attacked the enormous sun with all their might.
It took a full hour before they finally seized heaven's secrets, learning where the Pu Demon Race created in the lower realm by the lingering will left after the Pu Demon King's death resided. They also confirmed the youth's location.
"Let's go, right now!" The two Immortal Kings branded the coordinates into Chen Yao's sea of consciousness and threw him straight out of the Void God Realm. Chen Yao immediately activated a Void Technique Bone refined by Willow Deity and transported his little team there.
A white-haired youth was walking through a mountain ridge with a wooden staff in hand, searching for fortuitous opportunities.
Just then, the void split open. The wooden staff in his hand gave a faint warning, but he paid it little heed.
Besides connecting to the Void God Realm, the Willow Branch refined by Willow Deity had another function: concealing heaven's secrets. The Pu Demon King's current condition was unimaginably poor, leaving him entirely without the premonition of danger an Immortal King should possess. Moving through Chen Yao was a second precaution to conceal the danger. Reincarnation Immortal Qi could likewise obscure spacetime and karma, making it safer still.
"Who are you!" The young Pu Demon Race member fixed them with an icy gaze, immediately spotting the three strangers crossing through the void. The one standing in the middle raised his hand and unleashed a ray of Five Elements Divine Light.
Whoosh! The five-colored divine light swept down, carrying away the seeds the young Pu Demon summoned. In the same sweep, it stripped away his Precious Technique defenses and scattered the orderly flow of magical power within him.
Slash! The Azure Phoenix True Feather Sword descended with unimaginable speed. Even a phantom of chaos qi appeared as it cleaved his body into two. Pale red mist emerged as well, corroding his flesh and devouring his vitality.
"Ah! All of you will..." The young Pu Demon tried to activate the wooden staff in his hand and turn the tables, but it gave no response. His eyes shifted, and he discovered that sometime after the five-colored divine light had swept past, a Willow Branch had settled onto the staff. The staff had lost its luster, and the spirituality within it had long since vanished without a trace.
"Stir-fried chestnuts!" Shi Hao followed close behind, phoenix divine fire blazing over his body. With a boom, he set his opponent alight like a torch.
"Aaaah!!!" He screamed miserably. Pu Demon seeds flew out on drifting tufts, trying to escape and be reborn in other bodies, but not a single one succeeded. Amid a series of explosive pops, they all became "fried chestnuts."
His two charred halves fell to the ground and reverted to his true form. He struggled once, then went still.
Chen Yao casually added a burst of Samadhi True Fire. His body immediately twitched, and several hidden seeds beneath the soil burst into flames, the souls within them dissipating completely.
Deep within the Void God Realm stood a towering tree, covered in dandelion-like tufts from which seeds hung. Pu Demon seeds danced through the sky, forming an Innate Killing Formation in an attempt to buy even an instant.
"You're still alive!" the Pu Demon King's remnant soul roared. He ignited his origin, but could barely muster the strength of an Extreme Dao Supreme. His injuries from back then had been far too severe. He had fought the True Dragon, Reincarnation Immortal King, and Endless in succession, and even his Dao fruit had shattered.
The great formation here tore his soul apart with a single strike. Seal after seal descended, about to imprison him completely.
"My Dao, my fruit! Return!" The Pu Demon King no longer cared about the losses incurred by recalling his Dao fruit across spacetime and began fighting for his life. If he did not fight now, he would truly have no chance left. Even if his Immortal King attainment suffered afterward, dropping him out of the ranks of giants or reducing him to a flawed king, it did not matter. Staying alive came first!
"Return, my fucking ass! I, Immortal Gold Daoist, am here to fuck you up!" Lord Crystal Wall transformed into a body of yellow dao immortal gold and controlled the Void God Realm's great formation to sever the emerging River of Time. The Dao fruit could no longer return to the Pu Demon King's body, leaving him trapped within the Void God Realm's seals.
"I refuse to accept this! I, Pu Demon, am invincible in this age! Neither Reincarnation nor Endless could subdue me-what can you do!"
Within the layers of seals, the Pu Demon King tried to contact his Small World in the lower realm and return there, while ordering his other soul fragments to flee immediately.
"You have no chance left." Willow Deity appeared, holding a phantom of that peculiar wooden staff, with a Willow Branch coiled around it. Drawing on the Void God Realm's power to trace its connections, along with the coordinates divined earlier, she descended directly across the distance.
In the Pu Demon Race's Ancestral Land in the lower realm, a Heavenly God-level Pu Demon Tree stood at the center. An Ancestral Temple rested upon it, enshrining a Pu Demon seed. Beyond the central grounds grew Pu Demon Trees, most of them avatars of the Heavenly God Pu Demon, with a smaller number being the true bodies and avatars of the clan's juniors.
At that moment, blazing light erupted from the Ancestral Temple, and a vast, majestic power descended. A Soul-Spirit Fragment of Lord Bird arrived through a passage that the Ancestral Sacrificial Spirit had created and maintained by operating the Void God Realm. He dragged the Pu Demon King's soul fragment from the seed into the Void God Realm before it could even react.
"Pu Demon, go meet your tribulation!" Second Under Heaven's Primordial Spirit manifested a dragon body, unleashing power unquestionably within the immortal domain. He blasted straight through the void here, established a connection to the Void God Realm, and pulled the souls of every being present into it!
Looking at the bodies that had fallen into slumber after losing their Primordial Spirits, Second Under Heaven spat out a mouthful of Dragon Flame. Even as a mere fragment of his Primordial Spirit, he could still unleash divine abilities capable of destroying heaven and earth. This strike blasted apart the Small World's origin. Chaos surged in, and the world shattered. Boundless currents of chaos qi and void storms engulfed the Small World, destroying every empty shell.
Before chaos engulfed everything, Second Under Heaven also sought out the seeds the Pu Demon King had hidden in various corners and destroyed them one by one.
"Why! Why were you able to notice me!" Every soul of the Pu Demon King in the Void God Realm was suppressed and sealed in succession. Those they could not seal in time were killed outright with the Soul-Destroying Formation. Soon, peace returned to the Void God Realm.
Throughout the Void God Realm's layers, the cultivators present were bewildered and alarmed. The roar from an unknown source and the tremors in the Void God Realm had left them deeply unsettled. Many had departed at once.
Not long afterward, Domain Envoys descended everywhere, announcing that routine maintenance was being conducted deep within the Void God Realm and there was no need for alarm.
Outside, following Willow Deity's guidance, Chen Yao attached Reincarnation Immortal Qi to her Willow Branch and extended a portion of its power into the Void God Realm, unsure what they intended to do.
Deep within the Void God Realm, the Pu Demon King's suppressed remnant soul saw a strand of Reincarnation Immortal Qi emerge around Willow Deity.
"Reincarnation!" Terror seized him. "You!"
"Come on. Didn't you want to recall the fruit of this lifetime? We'll help you!" Reincarnation Immortal Qi seeped into the Pu Demon King's soul. He tried to struggle, but how could the formations deep within the Void God Realm, designed to suppress Immortal Kings, be so feeble? Besides, he was nowhere near his peak and had even fallen out of the immortal domain.
"No wonder you found me! So it was this thing, rumored to reveal the future! You really did hide it away back then. But you cannot protect this key that belongs to our realm. This realm will surely be destroyed! Just as it was back then!" the Pu Demon King snarled.
"Farewell. We still have many fellow Daoists who need help. Thank you, Pu Demon King." Second Under Heaven sneered. Under their control, the immortal qi forcibly sent the Pu Demon King into reincarnation. Then, just as the Dao fruit of his current lifetime was about to become nourishment for the innate potential of his Reincarnation Rebirth, they halted the cycle. The rebirth process broke off, and the shattered Dao fruit was absorbed by the immortal qi.
The Reincarnation Immortal King had personally tested this back then. The remnant soul or lingering obsession left after a king's death could undergo reincarnation, and interrupting it midway would devour the Dao fruit. Unfortunately, kings who still possessed their Primordial Spirits did not count as dead and could not be reborn, so it could not be used on the kings deep within the Void God Realm.
The immortal qi swallowed the Pu Demon King's shattered Dao fruit like a whale, growing wildly stronger. A considerable amount of creation power automatically flowed back into Second Under Heaven, Immortal Gold Daoist, and the Sacrificial Spirit Progenitor, making their auras rise steadily. The nourishment from sacrificing a giant's shattered Dao fruit was simply too potent.
Absorbing so much power would greatly accelerate their recovery. The three Immortal Kings soon took their leave. Willow Deity returned with the Immortal Phoenix King's share to nourish her, allowing her to emerge sooner while ensuring that her cultivation would be sufficiently high even in her newborn state.
Before you continue