Chapter 719

Yuan Huang slightly furrowed her brow, but this thought only briefly surfaced before she immediately abandoned it.

Because she knew that trying to recover the scattered treasures from the Heavenly Emperor's treasury would likely be very difficult.

Those thirty-odd divine lights had already, through the power of the spacetime storm, scattered in all directions and vanished without a trace.

Heavenly and earthly treasures, innate divine objects—even she could not trace all the treasures' traces in a short time, as they naturally concealed themselves.

In that thought, Yuan Huang's figure vanished from the spot.

……

In the void, vast and majestic qi surged rapidly in all directions.

However, by this time, many Heavenly Emperor relics had already been scattered deep into the spacetime storm; even the Dao Lords, no matter how strong their eternal will, could not find these hidden heavenly and earthly treasures, let alone the innate spiritual treasures.

Deep in the void, around Zhang Jian's eyes, his eternal will was extraordinarily vast, and his primordial spirit had reached an extreme sharpness, yet even he could not quickly trace the whereabouts of these Heavenly Emperor relics.

The spacetime storm generated by the collision between Yuan Huang and the Taiyi clan was too vast to allow for deduction or tracking of trajectories.

He could only rely on luck.

However, Zhang Jian was full of confidence about this.

If relying solely on luck, he might still have a chance to find part of the Heavenly Emperor's relics.

His luck has always been good.

"However, he still needs to add a bit of skill, which is like adding wings to a tiger..."

A golden light appeared deep in his palm.

Within the golden light, a flashing golden book was revealed.

It was the top-grade innate spiritual treasure, the Earth Emperor's Golden Canon.

He used this treasure to depict the shape of mountains and rivers and earth veins, recording part of this world's earth veins and feng shui layout; whenever a rare treasure landed, even if well hidden, it would slightly alter the surrounding feng shui, earth qi, and even spiritual qi patterns.

By mastering the Earth Emperor's Golden Canon, he is also one of the masters of the land in the Golden Element Heavenly Realm, naturally giving him some advantage in this regard.

However, Zhang Jian also knows he needs to speed up.

Other Divine Emperors who hold more fundamental authorities may not have the Earth Emperor's Golden Canon, but they likely have their own unique search methods.

……

Minghuang Continent, Chiyuan Prefecture

Above a great divine fire pool, Zhang Jian's true form appeared, his gaze sweeping forward—before him stood a magnificent and towering divine city, beneath him lay a blazing red fire ancestral vein, where countless innate fire-attribute spiritual veins converged.

Various powerful innate and acquired true fires gathered in the divine fire pool, flames blazing, temperature extremely high.

At this moment, Zhang Jian gazed at the Earth Emperor's Golden Canon deep in his palm; at this time, the Canon clearly recorded that part of the fire vein pattern here had changed, with countless fire veins converging toward one direction, as if forming an omen of myriad fire veins guarding and escorting.

This indicates the presence of a treasure, or perhaps a divine being artificially altering the pattern.

Zhang Jian believes the former possibility is not small.

This place has exploration value.

The only issue is to be cautious, as the nearby Chiyuan City is the divine domain of the Chiyuan Dao Lord.

The Chiyuan Dao Lord is merely a first-transformation Dao Lord, not worth fearing, but behind him stands the Minghuang Divine Emperor; if this were known to the Minghuang Divine Emperor, trouble would surely follow.

Zhang Jian's form turned into a stream of light and plunged into the boundless blazing fire spirit heavenly pool.

With his cultivation, stepping into the fire spirit heavenly pool now, he naturally fears neither acquired true fire nor innate true fire divine power.

Following the fire spirit heavenly pool's depths, amidst the countless fire veins' directions, after a moment Zhang Jian entered the deep mountain interior of the fire spirit heavenly pool, his gaze turned inward.

At this moment, at the source where countless fire veins intertwine, there lies a red fire ancestral vein.

This red fire ancestral vein is covered with terrifying prohibitions, laid by a Dao Lord with powerful bans to protect this ancestral vein, lest someone disturb the red fire ancestral vein and affect the earth spiritual vein flow of the Chiyuan Divine Prefecture.

At this moment, at the center of the red fire ancestral vein, there stands a divine pillar of earth fire entering deep into the ancestral vein.

On this pillar, at this time, an additional pearl has appeared.

It is a pearl entirely wrapped in coiling flames, an innate treasure pearl, with surrounding innate divine fire bursting forth from within, faintly merging with the red fire ancestral vein.

Zhang Jian's eyes flickered slightly; upon the innate treasure pearl lay layers of innate phenomena and innate divine light.

But Zhang Jian knew it was definitely not an innate spiritual treasure.

If it were an innate spiritual treasure, several innate spiritual treasures within his body would certainly react.

Innate spiritual treasures also mutually sense each other.

This is like two tigers on a mountain peak—unless there is a host suppressing and refining them, their conflict is hard to reconcile.

Merely observing the innate treasure light it emits, it seems unlikely to be an ordinary item.

It might be a postnatal spiritual treasure refined from innate divine materials that allow for failure.

Zhang Jian raised his hand and gestured; a formless divine light transformed into a purple-yellow dragon-shaped radiance, nearly breaking the ban on the earth fire divine pillar, and then silently drew this pearl into the depths of his palm.

The red pearl sensed the surrounding qi changes, and immediately layers of fire clouds dispersed from within, further evolving from within into floating red crimson clouds, as if seeking to ignite the void, but upon encountering Zhang Jian's palm, the fire clouds were directly swallowed by it.

The red pearl offered no resistance, falling deep into his palm.

This spiritual treasure currently has no owner; he quickly infused part of his eternal immortal light into it, gaining partial insight into its mysteries.

"Middle-grade postnatal spiritual treasure, Imperial Qi Fire Source Pearl, containing five postnatal divine bans!"

"Auxiliary-type postnatal spiritual treasure!"

Zhang Jian held this Imperial Qi Fire Source Pearl in his hand, observing it.

This can be considered his first middle-grade postnatal spiritual treasure.

Its grade is higher than the lower-grade postnatal spiritual treasure he holds, the Nine Heavens Azure Lotus Diagram.

What is most rare is that this is a middle-grade postnatal spiritual treasure that aids cultivation and aids combat, containing within it part of the fire attribute Great Dao and the pure yang Dao mysteries, capable of amplifying the fire attribute qi in the depths of cave-heaven blessed lands and nurturing the grade of fire attribute spiritual veins.

Its interior contains the structure of innate ancestral qi of fire attribute and pure yang attribute.

Unfortunately, Zhang Jian does not primarily cultivate fire attribute.

Zhang Jian felt slight regret, but this treasure can be stored in the Zhang family treasury to motivate his subordinates.

His subordinates are not lacking in strong fire-attribute cultivators.

Feng Ling and the Red Flower Lady are both fire-attribute deities.

Not long after Zhang Jian departed, deep within the Huo Ling Heavenly Pool, a majestic deity whose entire body was entwined with boundless fire-flame divine light manifested its true form.

He is the Chi Yuan Dao Sovereign of the Chi Yuan Divine Prefecture.

A formidable Dao Sovereign of the Dao Path.

At this moment, he glanced at the many innate fire veins around the Huo Ling Heavenly Pool that had suddenly shifted direction; a hint of suspicion flickered in his eyes, but after searching repeatedly, he detected no anomalies, and his figure instantly vanished from the spot.

He was in a hurry.

……

Not only this Chi Yuan Dao Sovereign, but many Dao Sovereigns across the various Divine Prefectures, and even the immortals and deities under their command, sprang into action, conducting a carpet-like search.

The Imperial Treasure Vault shattered, and the news of extraordinary treasures falling into the world had already spread.

This explosive news even overshadowed the impact of the separation of heaven and humanity brought about by the opening of the mortal realm.

Many powerful beings had no time to engage in the gains and losses brought by the separation of heaven and humanity, focusing entirely on treasure hunting.

In the Mountain and River Divine Realm, many places had been turned over.

Consequently, internal conflicts within the Jin Yuan Heavenly Realm had obviously increased significantly.

Many immortals and deities lost their lives over this.

Although many immortals and deities lost their lives, some fortunate ones found extraterrestrial treasures, offered them to the Nine Divine Emperors, and thus received great rewards.

It is also possible that some immortals and deities had already found the supreme treasure but concealed it, which cannot be ruled out.

With these few fortunate examples, how could other immortals and deities not be moved?

Moreover, it is said that when the treasure vault shattered, hundreds of extraordinary treasures flew out.

……

At this moment, the entire Jin Yuan Heavenly Realm was in turmoil.

Even outsiders powerful beings came upon hearing the news.

Left with no choice, the Jin Yuan Dao Court could only temporarily announce the sealing of the heavenly gate of the Jin Yuan Heavenly Realm!

Yet within the Jin Yuan Heavenly Realm, a frenzy of treasure hunting still erupted.

Thanks to this, the resistance to the separation of heaven and humanity had diminished considerably.

……

On another front.

Having obtained this middle-grade postnatal spiritual treasure, Zhang Jian subsequently felt even more confident.

Leveraging the profundity of the Di Huang Golden Canon, he conducted a carpet-like search across several Divine Prefectures over a thousand years, successively finding two treasures no inferior to the Emperor Qi Fire Source Pearl.

Combined, these already amount to having found nearly one-tenth of the Heavenly Emperor's relics.

This start has been quite smooth; although he did not obtain any particularly precious innate spiritual treasures, Zhang Jian remains fairly satisfied.

……

Not long afterward, Zhang Jian finally discovered the whereabouts of an innate spiritual treasure.

This time, he did not rely on the Di Huang Golden Canon.

Instead, as he passed by a Divine Prefecture, his gaze caught a portion of treasure light shooting up into the sky.

But upon arriving at the location where the treasure light shot into the heavens, his heart leapt.

He saw that several god-demon corpses had already been laid low around the area.

Moreover, a Dao Sovereign at that moment was kneeling before a figure, yet a hand gently pinched the Dao Sovereign's skull, already annihilating his primordial spirit.

This Dao Sovereign was known to Zhang Jian; he was a Second Transformation Dao Sovereign under the Dan Que Dao Palace.

Gazing at this figure, Zhang Jian's heart leapt, and his expression subtly changed.

Zhang Jian had not expected his luck to be this good—he had actually won the 'grand prize'!

But after a moment, he still clasped his hands and performed a respectful salute.

"Junior Zhang Jian pays respects to Senior Dong Di!"

"Dong Di?"

The Taichi Clan's expression eased as they slowly lifted their eyes, gazing at Zhang Jian with a hint of surprise.

"Dong Di—this is indeed a very ancient title; millions of years ago, when this seat was reincarnated in the Zhou Shan Realm, was it only then that people began to call me Dong Di!"

After a brief pause, his gaze fell upon Zhang Jian.

"What divine being are you from? When this seat was reincarnated as Dong Di, I should have never seen you before!"

A hint of curiosity flickered in his eyes.

Zhang Jian's cultivation level, he naturally perceived.

This is a Third Transformation Dao Sovereign.

Moreover, he possesses an innate divine body.

Strong as he may be, to this seat, he is merely enough to warrant a few more glances.

Zhang Jian slightly clasped his hands and said.

"Junior was born in the Zhou Shan Realm, once fortunate enough to receive the Senior's left-behind Chaos Star Sword Technique, Zhou Tian Star Chart, and Dong Di Nine Yang Severing Immortal Method, and benefited greatly from them!"

"Earlier, within the realm, I witnessed the Senior and the Empress Yuan Huang act in concert, hence I harbored a guess, supposing the Senior had returned..."

At this moment, Zhang Jian raised another hand; deep in his palm, a wooden slip carved from Fusang wood appeared.

The Zhou Tian Star Chart secret method in his hand was precisely recorded from the wooden arrow in the《Zhou Tian Star Chart Treasure Record》.

The Taichi Clan raised his hand to receive it, polishing the wooden slip in his hand, and a portion of his memories became very clear.

These were part of his memories from when he entered reincarnation in the Zhou Shan Realm.

By a fortunate coincidence, he was reborn as an ordinary youth in a small mountain village of the Zhou Mountain Realm, and ultimately, due to his special fate, he embarked on the path of cultivation.

From a mere wandering cultivator to the Eastern Emperor who inherited the legacy of the Solar Sacred Emperor, he had known hardship and glory, and had even established a unified dynasty, nearly achieving the so-called Holy King Dao Fruit of a great realm.

But in the end, his fortune ran out, and he perished together with a powerful expert of the extraterrestrial demon god clan within the Divine Pass.

That was one of the few lifetimes closest to recovering his Dao Fruit.

That lifetime left a profound impact on him.

It was a rare lifetime in which he fought for humanity, fought for billions of living beings, and even more rarely, possessed familial affection, friendship, even love, and comradeship.

Moreover, countless living beings shielded him from overt and covert attacks, dying for him.

This meant a great deal to him.

He had once been the Taiyi Clan of the innate divine race, and also the Supreme Eastern Emperor of the demon race, solely ruling over the hegemony of billions of universes, revered by all heavens, yet he had never truly experienced that.

At this moment, his gaze fell upon Zhang Jian, and as his eyes swept over, Zhang Jian felt an overwhelming pressure, his expression changing slightly.

At this time, the Taiyi Clan turned his back and asked indifferently.

"The Zhou Mountain Realm is one of the mortal realms under the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Court. As a human powerhouse born in the Zhou Mountain Realm, you ought to ascend into the Heavenly Court, but the Central Heavenly Realm where the Heavenly Court resides is quite distant from the Golden Origin Heavenly Realm. Why have you entered this place, and moreover, seem to have become the Earth God of the Golden Origin Heavenly Realm?"

He casually turned the corpse of the Dao Master in his hand into flying ash, his gaze sweeping over, golden light flickering in his pupils.

Zhang Jian pondered slightly, thought it over, and then spoke truthfully.

"This junior has come under the command of the Southern Pole Longevity Emperor..."

He immediately recounted his dealings with the Southern Pole Longevity Great Emperor and himself, knowing that at this time, concealment would be of little use and would only bring unwarranted disaster upon himself.

He did not wish to invite lethal calamity for no reason.

Who knows whether the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan, spoken of in myth and legend, has a good or bad temperament?

Upon hearing this, the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan showed a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"That junior of the Southern Pole? I did not expect the Southern Pole to have such entanglements with those few divine beings of the Phoenix Clan, and furthermore, to be implicated in this matter upon this Emperor's person. The Southern Pole speaks correctly—those few powerhouses of the Phoenix Clan have already been stained with karmic calamity; if this calamity is not resolved, it is difficult to attain purity!"

"..."

Zhang Jian felt helpless in his eyes.

He also felt a sense of difficulty in his heart; now that the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan knows the full story, if he wishes to resolve this calamity, the difficulty will likely be greater.

However, he currently cannot concern himself with these matters; even with unfinished business, he must first seek a way to escape.

Although he possesses various innate spiritual treasures on his person, facing this Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan, Zhang Jian has not the slightest chance of escape.

He can only hope that the good karma between them will prevent the worst outcome.

The Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan seemed to sense the unease deep in Zhang Jian's Dao heart, and upon seeing this, he spoke.

"You and I share some karmic connection; this Emperor will not make things difficult for you, but as for your mission, this Emperor cannot help you!"

His gaze lingered slightly on Zhang Jian for a moment, then he continued.

"We shall meet again!"

His expression remained calm, yet his form stepped into the void in a single stride and vanished without a trace.

At this moment, Zhang Jian felt his heart ease; the pressure brought by this Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan was truly terrifying.

Fortunately, his timely words had finally stirred a flicker of change in the heart of this ancient hegemon.

His guess was correct.

That Eastern Emperor was indeed closely related to the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan, being his reincarnation.

Of course, it could also be that his sacred fate was not yet exhausted, his fortune not yet spent, which is why the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan did not act against him.

But as he watched the departing figure of the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan, his heart felt somewhat heavy.

This Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan does not seem easy to get along with.

Earlier, the Yuan Phoenix provoked him, and likely he will not let it rest.

There should also be some deeper reasons behind this.

These, Zhang Jian temporarily does not know.

But he knows that moving forward, to resolve this calamity, the difficulty will only increase.

Zhang Jian pondered slightly, but also did not take it to heart.

As long as the green mountains remain, there is no worry of lacking firewood; having preserved his life, he may yet have a chance to accomplish this.

His gaze then swept once more over the center of the valley; at this moment, the great treasure in the valley had obviously been taken by the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan.

At this moment, he drew a deep breath, then transformed into a divine light and chose another direction to depart.

After encountering the Eastern Emperor Taiyi Clan, his bad luck has already been exhausted.

Not long afterward, he finally encountered an innate spiritual treasure.