Xiao Ping'an soon arrived at the secluded cultivation grounds of the Prison-Suppressing Emperor and the Yama Emperor.
The Yin soldiers and Yin Generals watched the approaching Overlord Heavenly Venerable, trembling uncontrollably as they silently backed away.
The overwhelmingly tyrannical presence of the Overlord Heavenly Venerable needed only to leak out a little to shatter them.
Xiao Ping'an looked at the enormous stone steles here, each radiating an incomparably mysterious presence. There was no telling what age they had been dug out of the ground from.
Xiao Ping'an barged straight into the secluded cultivation grounds of the Yama Emperor and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor, showing them no regard whatsoever.
The many Yin soldiers and Yin Generals watched Xiao Ping'an charge inside, their faces filled with awe.
When the sounds of an earth-shaking battle came from within, the clash of Ultimate Dao Laws struck them as even more unbelievable.
The Overlord Heavenly Venerable had actually started fighting the Prison-Suppressing Emperor and the Yama Emperor!
The battle lasted only a short time.
Yama's Son and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's Son looked toward the sleeping grounds, trembling with fear.
The Overlord Heavenly Venerable stood there, completely unharmed.
The Prison-Suppressing Emperor, meanwhile, was covered in blood and slumped on the ground.
His Nether Iron battle armor had shattered in many places.
Black Blood flowed from all over his body.
He held a battle halberd, barely propping himself up with it. A Dragon Marked Black Gold shield lay on the ground beside him.
On the other side, the Yama Emperor had been reduced to a pool of bloody pulp and shattered bones.
Yama's Son and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's Son turned pale with shock.
The Overlord Heavenly Venerable had defeated the Yama Emperor and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor single-handedly.
"Why?"
"Why did you try to kill us as soon as you got here?" the Prison-Suppressing Emperor asked coldly, unable to believe he was about to die.
But his injuries were far too severe.
Though he had been a little luckier than the Yama Emperor, whom the Overlord Heavenly Venerable had killed in an instant, he was now so badly wounded that he could not survive either.
Yongsheng appeared without a sound and gathered up the Yama King's shattered flesh and bones, along with his broken weapon.
Then, right there in the open, he began devouring the Yama Emperor's origin essence.
"You..." The Prison-Suppressing Emperor turned pale with shock.
He had thought they were allies who had come to take over the Underworld, but in the blink of an eye, they had become enemies.
And that mysterious man who had come with the Overlord Heavenly Venerable was actually "eating people"!
Indeed, the Great Dao Treasure Bottle was now devouring the Yama Emperor's origin essence at a frenzied pace. In the end, it even devoured every scrap of his flesh and bone.
"All right, you've said enough."
"Today is the day you die."
Xiao Ping'an raised a hand lightly, and the white bone saber shot out like a streak of crimson mist.
Heaven and earth changed color, and the sun and moon lost their light.
With a thunderous boom, the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's battle halberd shattered. He coughed up great mouthfuls of blood, kicked out his legs, and keeled over dead.
The mighty Prison-Suppressing Emperor was gone just like that.
Watching from afar, Yama's Son and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's Son felt a chill sink deep into their hearts.
The Overlord Heavenly Venerable was so terrifying that he had killed the Yama Emperor and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor with ease.
They saw Yongsheng devouring the Yama Emperor's origin essence, and after discovering this secret, they trembled uncontrollably.
Xiao Ping'an glanced back at the two of them, grabbed them and pulled them over, then used the Divine Deliverance Art.
Though their origin essence was quite good as well, Xiao Ping'an decided to keep the two of them to guard the Underworld while he was away.
After all, ordinary people could not endure the peculiar environment here.
Only Yin Gods like them would feel like fish in water here.
Xiao Ping'an soon delivered Yama's Son and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's Son, turning them into his most loyal servants.
As for the Yin soldiers and Yin Generals watching from afar, Yongsheng simply waved his hand, refining them all and devouring their origin essence.
These Yin Gods were too weak. They were merely souls born when those special corpses gained sentience after being stimulated by the Nether Earth's presence here.
But unlike Great Emperors and ancient emperors, they did not remain human after their corpses gained sentience.
Their corpses had become Yin Gods after gaining sentience. Black blood flowed through them, and they were no longer human.
In the original story, the Yama Emperor had lived almost until the Post-Desolate Ancient Era before passing away in meditation.
The Prison-Suppressing Emperor had lived until Ye Fan's time. Had Chuan Ying not killed him at the cost of his own life, he probably could have lived much longer.
At the end of the Mythological Era, the Prison-Suppressing Emperor had wielded the Heaven-Penetrating Nether Treasure and impersonated the Netherworld Emperor to attack Emperor Venerable.
Now he had died just like that.
Their origin essence had simply been absorbed by Yongsheng.
Watching Yongsheng, Xiao Ping'an casually swept his hand, and the earth split open to reveal an unfathomably deep chasm.
Countless corpses lay within, frighteningly ancient.
It was as though every living being in the universe had been buried there, corpses accumulated over who knew how many tens of thousands of years.
Yongsheng's eyes shone. "At the end of reincarnation, everything will draw to a close. The Underworld is the final destination of all living things... I really do love this Underworld to death."
Xiao Ping'an watched the exhilarated Yongsheng frantically devour the origin essence here.
Soon, wisps of Chaos Qi rose from Yongsheng's body, an astonishing sight.
Looking at the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art he had deduced himself, Xiao Ping'an felt deeply excited.
Indeed, he had never expected that after transmigrating to this world, he would possess such talent and ability.
Relying only on the partial descriptions of the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art in the original story, he had managed to deduce the art itself.
The Great Dao Treasure Bottle above Yongsheng's head grew blacker and blacker, dark as ink. Countless divine chains of Great Dao order shot out, sweeping up swath after swath of corpses.
Although the immense passage of time meant they contained much less origin essence, there were so many of them.
There were practically endless corpses here, and every kind could be found among them.
For Yongsheng, it was truly like a rat falling into a rice jar.
Yongsheng was now refining them frantically, devouring an incalculable amount of origin essence.
Even Xiao Ping'an was stunned.
The Underworld truly deserved its reputation as a treasure land, one perfectly suited to cultivating the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art.
He wondered how many years Yongsheng would have to spend devouring here before he could clear away all the corpses.
Xiao Ping'an's idea was for Yongsheng to extract and devour all the origin essence here to cultivate an Acquired Chaos Body.
As for the countless bones, Xiao Ping'an thought he might as well have Yongsheng refine a new weapon from them.
The bones were all of good quality. If he extracted only their essential and divine substances, he could surely refine an extraordinary divine weapon.
At the very least, it ought to be on the level of an Extreme Dao Weapon.
Xiao Ping'an took out the white bone saber, gave it some instructions, and left it here to refine the bones alongside Yongsheng.
After Yongsheng devoured their origin essence, the white bone saber extracted the divine substances from the remaining dregs, reducing them to ash and then to nothingness.
Xiao Ping'an watched as they refined countless corpses in the blink of an eye.
Although more corpses were added here every day, at the speed Yongsheng and the white bone saber were refining them, the bones and bodies naturally grew fewer and fewer.
Xiao Ping'an eagerly awaited the day Yongsheng became a Chaos Body.
The Yama Emperor and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor had died truly frustrating deaths.
They had simply died at Xiao Ping'an's hands, then been devoured and refined by Yongsheng in the blink of an eye.
Xiao Ping'an also learned about the Prison-Suppressing Emperor and the Yama Emperor's research. They too had been exploring the path to longevity, and had already begun collecting various kinds of true blood, hoping to create chaos and Immortal Blood and thereby become immortals.
In theory, they believed they could create a Chaos Body, unite ten thousand bloodlines as one, and attain a true immortal spirit body.
After looking through their research, Xiao Ping'an could not help but marvel. It seemed the people of this era truly had wild imaginations.
Ever since the corpse of Wang Bo, a Chaos Body, had been refined into the five continents of the Big Dipper, many of the Chaos Body's secrets had spread.
At present, however, the Underworld had yet to create that chaos monster.
For now, research in this area remained largely theoretical.
Xiao Ping'an saw some ancient stone steles here, their presence frighteningly old.
Having read the trilogy, he naturally knew that these steles might have come from the Chaotic Ancient Era, or even the Immortal Ancient Era, or an even older epoch.
There was nothing strange about that.
Three Supreme-level corpses had also been unearthed here, and Yongsheng had already devoured and refined them all.
The origin essence of the God-Slaying Insect True Immortal, along with countless Saint-level God-Devouring Insects, had long since been given to Yongsheng to devour.
At this moment, Xiao Ping'an and Yongsheng were slaughtering freely here.
Ranks upon ranks of Yin soldiers and Yin Generals were reduced to ash after their origin essence was forcibly extracted.
With the Prison-Suppressing Emperor and the Yama Emperor gone, Xiao Ping'an could cover the sky with one hand in the Underworld. No one dared defy his will.
Xiao Ping'an had an idea: he would bring the entire Underworld and all the Netherworld Soil under his control.
He wanted to clear away every corpse here.
If Yongsheng could not devour them all, he would simply use the power of Dao dissolution to reduce them completely to ash.
Or he could make this place part of his family's foundation. Whenever a talented descendant was born, or someone suited to cultivating the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art appeared, he could send them here to devour countless origin essences and transform into an Acquired Chaos Body.
After spending just one month here, Xiao Ping'an felt that it was all a little unreal.
He had never been so frenzied before.
Even though the Underworld's Yin soldiers and Yin Generals had submitted to him, he did not like them, because they had all been born as Yin Gods.
They were people who should have died, but whose corpses had gained sentience.
In a way, they were a bunch of ghosts.
So Xiao Ping'an did not regard them as human either, and felt no burden on his conscience when he killed them and devoured their origin essence.
Emperor Venerable still knew nothing of the astonishing upheaval in the Underworld.
Of course, even if Emperor Venerable knew, what of it? What could he do to Xiao Ping'an?
On this day, Xiao Ping'an came to the Underworld's treasury.
The Underworld had accumulated wealth for countless tens of thousands of years, and there was no telling how many treasures had been gathered inside.
Soon, he arrived at a palace in the Underworld. Inside it was a small world.
There, piles of Divine Source rose like great mountains.
There were also countless kinds of medicinal herbs unique to the Netherworld Soil, ranging from ten thousand to several tens of thousands of years old.
Although their grades were not particularly high, their uses were very special.
There were also some exceedingly rare materials.
Xiao Ping'an also found some of the Nine Great Divine Metals here. Some pieces were the size of a fist, some the size of a finger, and the largest was as big as a washbasin.
Xiao Ping'an had collected the weapons of the Yama Emperor and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor and smelted at least two cubic units of divine metal from them.
Aside from Dragon Marked Black Gold, the most abundant was a special material called Nether Iron, which could also be used to refine Extreme Dao Weapons.
The Prison-Suppressing Emperor's battle armor, for example, had been made from it.
It truly had been on the level of an Extreme Dao Weapon.
Although Xiao Ping'an had smashed it apart, he had already extracted the material and could use it to refine a new weapon at any time.
He refined it into the rough form of an Extreme Dao Weapon, then put it away.
Whether he used it himself or left it to his descendants, it was a rare treasure.
Besides these, there were other heavenly and earthly treasures.
If his guess was right, most of the countless treasures accumulated here should have been taken away by the Netherworld Venerable before he left.
After all, with his strength, storing them in his own space and taking them away would have been as easy as lifting a hand.
After looking around, Xiao Ping'an did not go to contemplate Dao in the places where the Netherworld Venerable had cultivated and sought enlightenment. Instead, he hurried off to find the Fortune Source Eye.
The Fortune Source Eye was a rare thing. Using it to forge someone's Great Dao foundation could all but guarantee they became a Great Emperor. Its effect was much like that of the Demon God Flower, and at the very least, it could enable Alternative Dao Attainment.
Soon, under the guidance of Yama's Son and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor's Son, Xiao Ping'an arrived at a remote place.
There were enormous stones there, one after another, along with Source Heaven Divine Patterns.
Among the jumbled rocks was a black hole, only the size of a human head and shaped like an eye.
It led deep into the earth and occasionally released colorful clouds of mist that made one's entire body feel comfortable.
It also gushed forth a substance resembling divine primordial fluid.
It was Xiao Ping'an's first time seeing the legendary Fortune Source Eye, and he could not help laughing aloud.
All of this Fortune Source Eye's essence was still here. It had not been squandered by the Yin Gods or Supremes of the Underworld.
Xiao Ping'an immediately used supreme magical power to dig out the Fortune Source Eye.
Then he swiftly left the Underworld and returned to the Tyrant Body Ancestral Star, where he sealed the Fortune Source Eye inside his eldest son.
After all, he had four children: three sons and a daughter.
Forget treating them all exactly equally. Xiao Ping'an loved them, and he would simply give them the Fortune Source Eyes in order of age as he found them.
The younger brothers and sister could wait a while.
After all, Xiao Ping'an already had a lead and knew roughly when and where to look.
These were his own children, and every one of them possessed a Heavenly Tyrant Body bloodline unmatched throughout the ages.
With the addition of the Fortune Source Eye, how terrifying would their bloodlines and physiques become?
Xiao Ping'an looked forward to it greatly.
He hoped that one day they too would be able to break the Heavenly Heart Imprint and walk upon the ten thousand Daos.
Great Emperor scriptures and Dao protectors would not be lacking either.
It could be said that Xiao Ping'an had already given these children the best things he could provide.
After sealing the Fortune Source Eye inside his eldest son's body, Xiao Ping'an immediately flew back toward the Underworld.
Splash, splash.
The Yellow Springs River surged onward, its spray thick with deathly Qi.
Xiao Ping'an had come not only to seek the source of the Yellow Springs River, the mysterious Yellow Springs, but also to find the Corpse Emperor's corpse.
At this point, the Corpse Emperor had yet to prove his Dao and become an emperor. He should still have been asleep, undergoing his transformation.
Xiao Ping'an thought, I'll fish him out and let Yongsheng devour him.
That old thief had remained sealed away until Ye Fan's era. Over those long years, who knew how many living beings he had devoured?
Xiao Ping'an wanted him to die sooner and be reincarnated sooner.
The Yama King and the Prison-Suppressing Emperor had both been devoured by Yongsheng already. If Yongsheng devoured the Corpse Emperor too, what could Emperor Venerable do to him?
By now, he regarded the Underworld as his own territory, his own property.
(End of chapter)