Chapter 43: Slaying the True Strange King, Immense Gains

In their vigilance.

Two wisps of gray, hazy thunder crossed ten thousand miles, piercing straight through the barrier manifested by the five great cauldrons.

And landed directly on the True Strange King, whose figure was shifting at extreme speed, manifesting all manner of defenses, trying to dodge and resist.

In an instant.

The True Strange King's form stiffened, and the last of his remaining lifespan was utterly destroyed.

As gray thunder radiance flowed around his body, it became like a spring, beginning to return to heaven and earth.

The manifested True Strange Dharma Body solidified, then turned to ash and scattered with the breeze.

The Nation's Fortune Great Barrier that had reappeared dissipated.

The five great cauldrons gathered in their radiance and fell from the sky.

In a flash, the five Return to Void Dharma Bodies that had been imprisoned—including the Heavenly Thunder Sect Master's Heavenly Thunder Dharma Body—broke free directly from within the great cauldrons.

Afterward, the thirteen Return to Void Dharma Bodies watched with full vigilance toward the direction from which the two wisps of gray thunder had come.

They further displayed their vast Return to Void divine sense, filling heaven and earth, seeping into the void.

Yet they detected nothing at all.

"Which senior is it?"

……

And after the True Strange King's lifespan ended and he perished, in a certain vast spacetime dimension of the Tianling Great Realm.

A figure, tainted by boundless sinful force and karmic force, endlessly devouring Dao resonance, with an aura of Great Dao perfection flowing about, yet with dim and clouded eyes, sensed at this moment the fall of the True Strange King, one of his chess pieces.

A sliver of clarity returned to his eyes, and a fierce killing intent surged skyward.

Without the slightest scruple, he began directly to sense the workings of Cause and Effect, searching through the cosmos to drag out the culprit who had caused his chess piece to fall.

But after a thorough search, aside from making the already tangled mess of Cause and Effect even more chaotic, he found not a single clue.

At this result, various guesses arose in his heart, and he raised his head and let out a roar that shook the entire spacetime dimension.

"Damn it, which old thing intervened to ruin this Emperor's chess piece?"

"Don't let this Emperor find out."

……

In the Great Universe, within the Cuivei Immortal Mansion.

Chen Daoxuan sat on the ground, sensing the vast Heaven-Earth-Man Three Talents Killing Opportunity within the Innate Gourd.

Sensing the fundamental fortune above the void three inches from his head, and the fortune and merit newly gained within the two Merit Dharma Realms, his face was full of relief and joy.

Originally, he had not intended to make a move against the True Strange King.

After all, the moment the True Strange King appeared, he had imprisoned five Return to Void Dharma Bodies within and withstood eight Return to Void Dharma Bodies without.

His divine might was unmatched, deep as an abyss, a prison, like a supreme Combined Body Heavenly Lord.

But at that moment, when Chen Daoxuan's thoughts shifted and he was preparing not to act, he did not know why, but instinctively felt that he could slay the True Strange King.

At the time, he had even subconsciously calculated his own various aspects.

A body of true treasures, those Soul Separation (Return to Void) talismans, as well as eighteen divine puppets that, when combined, could temporarily unleash Soul Separation Battle Power, and even the Return to Origin Heavenly Seal.

But after calculating these things, Chen Daoxuan also understood that these trump cards of his would likely be unable to deal with the True Strange King, who could withstand the attacks of eight Return to Void Dharma Bodies.

In the end, a sudden inspiration struck Chen Daoxuan's heart, and he thought of the Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder.

Although normally speaking, the might of the two wisps of Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder condensed by his right eye and the Innate Gourd was only at the Soul Egress (Divine Transformation) level.

In terms of the level of power, however, it was actually at the level of a Great Vehicle Immortal of the Great Universe.

Theoretically, it could wound a Great Vehicle Immortal.

It was simply too weak, only possessing Soul Egress (Divine Transformation) might.

Chen Daoxuan also immediately thought of the fact that the True Strange King should still be in a lifespan-extending state.

And since the Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder could destroy everything, it could naturally also destroy lifespan.

So Chen Daoxuan took a gamble, directly using his right eye to unleash the two wisps of Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder.

After using that one Primordial Destruction Heavy Pupils to unleash the Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder, the instant he saw the True Strange King perish.

Chen Daoxuan used the Kunlun Mirror to leave the Tianling Great Realm and return to the Great Universe.

……

Sitting directly on the ground and spending some time to calm his emotions, Chen Daoxuan then began to examine the gains from slaying the True Strange King.

The vast Heaven-Earth-Man Three Talents Killing Opportunity within the Innate Gourd.

Chen Daoxuan calculated briefly and found that this Heaven-Earth-Man Three Talents Killing Opportunity was entirely sufficient for him to condense the Innate Gourd to a full forty-nine Innate Divine Prohibitions.

There was even some left over.

As for the gains in fortune and merit.

His vast fundamental fortune had originally been pure gold, with only a tinge of cyan fortune.

But now, that original tinge of cyan fortune within the fundamental fortune had grown immensely.

It occupied roughly three-tenths of the pure gold fortune.

In other words, he was only at the Soul Egress (Divine Transformation) realm, yet within his fundamental fortune, under normal circumstances, the cyan fortune that only a Combined Body Heavenly Lord possessed already accounted for thirty percent.

……

As for the gains in merit.

Above the two Merit Dharma Realms, there were newly added a full hundred Human Path Merit Clouds and a hundred Heavenly Dao Merit Clouds respectively.

This was more than double the ninety-nine Merit Clouds he had obtained from saving the Primordial Spirit Realm.

"What on earth did that True Strange King do?"

"Did he commit some other deeds that angered heaven and the people, hateful to the gods?"

Looking at the vast merit he had obtained, Chen Daoxuan, who did not know the reason behind it, was overjoyed yet full of doubt in his heart.

If the True Strange King was merely a matter of extending lifespan, or even the fall of a nation, then slaying him could never possibly have yielded such a harvest of fortune and merit.

Otherwise, those Return-to-Void cultivators would not have merely descended their will and their dharma bodies.

……

After pondering for only an hour without grasping the key, Chen Daoxuan did not continue to dwell on it.

However, he had already made a decision in his heart: for the next several hundred, or even over a thousand years, unless his cultivation realm achieved a major breakthrough, he would not prepare to return to the Tianling Great Realm in the short term.

To avoid being pinned down by those Return-to-Void cultivators, or even the Combined Body Heavenly Lords.

After all, those two wisps of Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder of his had directly slain the incomparably mighty True Strange King; on the surface, it appeared far too powerful, far too unknown.

……

His thoughts flowing, Chen Daoxuan gathered his mind and began to nurture the Primordial Destruction Heavy Pupils within his right eye, which had suffered some minor damage from this first use.

It took half a year for Chen Daoxuan to nurture and restore that Primordial Destruction Heavy Pupils to its original state.

Afterwards, Chen Daoxuan did not go into closed-door cultivation directly, but instead used the Kunlun Mirror to return to the Primordial Spirit Realm, where he discussed the Dao and cultivated with Lu Lingwei for several years.

Only then did Chen Daoxuan return once more to the Great Universe and begin to fall into a state of closed-door cultivation within the Cuivei Immortal Mansion.

Holding the Innate Gourd in his hands.

Preparing to use the vast Heaven-Earth-Man Three Powers Killing Opportunity obtained from slaying the True Strange King this time, to cultivate the Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder — this Innate Killing Immortal Art inheritance.

To refine this Innate Gourd until it was filled with forty-nine Innate Divine Prohibitions, and even condense an Innate True Prohibition, elevating it into an Innate True Treasure.

As he began cultivating the Innate Calamity-Destroying Immortal Thunder for the second time, condensing the second Innate Divine Prohibition into the Innate Gourd.

Chen Daoxuan discovered that the time spent and the difficulty faced had both increased.

……