Chapter 216: Calamity Poison Gu (Illustrated)

However, a major event has occurred in the Western Lands recently: after such a long time, the Great Yin Dynasty has finally found a way to restrain the Straw Gu.

With the Long Clan losing the utility of the Straw Gu, this war has once again become unpredictable.

In truth, there are many ways to restrain the Straw Gu; any method capable of restricting teleportation arrays can be used to limit it.

For instance, the Forbidden Air Formation the Long Clan used at the Geng Metal Mine Vein to strip the Straw Gu of its teleportation ability—other factions certainly possess similar formations.

It is just that the Long Clan Gu Cultivators use the Straw Gu for map-wide teleportation, while the effective range of such formations is extremely limited; the Straw Gu can simply teleport to the edge of the formation.

Therefore, in this war, the Forbidden Air Formation has had very limited effect on the Long Clan, who run all over the map.

There are also far too many Gu worms capable of killing the Straw Gu, but the Straw Gu is exceptionally slippery and refuses to fight any other Gu worm.

The moment it senses a bad situation, it flees into the Void Realm, making it impossible to catch. Thus, while there are many things that can restrain the Straw Gu, the Great Yin Dynasty has found absolutely no way to deal with it.

The Great Yin Dynasty exhausted the nation's strength researching it for several years, yet failed to develop an effective means to limit the Straw Gu. Instead, they have suffered heavy losses in recent years from the surprise attacks of the Straw Gu army; not long ago, their grain supplies were burned, and their teleportation array was nearly destroyed.

The Emperor of the Great Yin Dynasty finally grew desperate. He planned to inflict a thousand casualties on the enemy while suffering eight hundred himself, and ignoring the dissuasion of all his officials, he stubbornly threw a Realm Bead into a spatial rift in this region.

A Realm Bead is a powerful Innate Spiritual Treasure, and a rare one with spatial attributes at that.

Once a Realm Bead explodes within a spatial rift, it causes spatial turbulence in the area, forming powerful spatial storms and spatial currents, rendering the space extremely unstable and incapable of spatial teleportation.

This is a method used to restrict spatial teleportation arrays; the explosion of a Realm Bead disables all teleportation arrays in an area, and it applies equally to the Straw Gu.

Now, neither teleportation arrays nor Straw Gu Huts can be used in the Western Lands. It is not that they cannot be used, but rather that anyone attempting to use spatial teleportation capabilities at this time risks disappearing mysteriously.

That is correct; this measure has restricted the Great Yin Dynasty itself as well. Their large teleportation array, capable of transporting over a hundred people at once, is also unusable.

Moreover, spatial currents do not coincidentally limit themselves to just one place in the Western Lands. Once generated, the scope of their impact is truly vast, and they persist for a very long time.

It is not just the Western Lands and the Great Yin Dynasty that have been affected; surrounding regions will all experience the impact to varying degrees. This is the reason the Great Yin Dynasty had never dared to employ this method.

Otherwise, they would offend a large number of factions possessing teleportation arrays, and they would be poking a hornet's nest. Unless they used massive amounts of resources in advance to appease them, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Once such a method is employed, the Great Yin Dynasty will either face enemies on all sides or suffer a severely depleted national treasury. It is absolutely a case of inflicting a thousand casualties on the enemy while suffering eight hundred, a move made only out of desperation.

It seems the Great Yin Emperor was truly pushed to the edge by the Long Clan's Straw Gu and had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure.

Whether they were factions involved in the war or surrounding factions watching from the sidelines, all were shocked by the Great Yin Emperor's madness.

Perhaps it is also because his lifespan is nearing its end and he cannot wait any longer. For an old emperor, no matter how crazy he becomes for the sake of lifespan, it is not surprising; he could even drag the entire empire down with him to the grave.

The fact that the Straw Gu cannot be used during this period is indeed a major event, especially for the Long Clan, as the impact is simply fatal.

Therefore, the Long Clan has been quiet for a while, and Long Xuan's tasks have also decreased.

With a calmed mind, Long Xuan felt a surge of inspiration. He immediately successfully researched the second layer of the *Heavenly Demon Disintegration Divine Art* and the *Heavenly Demon Soul Devouring Technique*, and he immediately handed the new results to his clones to cultivate.

Do not think that because the clones have only been cultivating the *Heavenly Demon Disintegration Divine Art* for a few years, their progress is slow; a person's soul aptitude is entirely determined by the strength of their innate soul.

Having lived two lives, Long Xuan possesses dual Three Souls and Seven Spirits. His soul aptitude is not just high; it has simply surpassed the highest limits of humanity.

This meant that his speed of refining the soul was far faster than refining the body and refining spirit.

If one were to say Long Xuan is a good-for-nothing at spirit-refining, then he is a genius at soul-refining—a rare, peerless genius in this world. His soul aptitude has absolutely surpassed the Heaven Grade.

Coupled with his five clones cultivating the *Heavenly Demon Disintegration Divine Art* simultaneously, it is equivalent to enjoying five times the cultivation speed on top of his monstrous aptitude.

Therefore, his soul-refining speed is terrifyingly fast. In just a few years, he has completely perfected the first layer of the *Heavenly Demon Disintegration Divine Art*, and now is the time to cultivate the second layer.

He had just finished researching the second layer of the technique, and the clones could take over seamlessly.

As for the *Heavenly Demon Soul Devouring Technique*, the clones can cultivate it simultaneously. The *Heavenly Demon Soul Devouring Technique* can split off countless split-souls to possess people in the vicinity, but splitting the soul into countless parts will inevitably result in each part having weak soul power.

Therefore, cultivating the *Heavenly Demon Soul Devouring Technique* cannot be effective against those whose cultivation realm is similar to one's own, and it is also difficult to be effective against those who specialize in soul cultivation.

Although this move is heaven-defying, it can only serve as a powerful ability for clearing out soldiers, allowing him to ignore the siege of countless low-realm cultivators in the future, fear no human-sea tactics, and even fight seven-in and seven-out among the Ten Great Armies.

Therefore, although the strength of this move did not exceed expectations, Long Xuan is still prepared to focus on cultivating it.

This day, the Yan clone hurried over. Just as Long Xuan was about to ask what had happened, the clone tossed an Insect Breeding Bag over.

Long Xuan was stunned. After taking the bag and peering inside, he was startled and hurriedly stood up.

"This is the Calamity Poison Gu? It's finally refined?"

Long Xuan was overjoyed. He hurriedly took out a green-skinned toad that was fast asleep inside and hugged it excitedly in his arms.

This toad was somewhat large and felt heavy in his arms, but Long Xuan was beaming, as if he were holding some kind of treasure.

"Right! What about that Ten Thousand Poison Bead? What happened to it in the end?"

Suddenly thinking of something, Long Xuan hurriedly raised his head and asked the Yan clone.

"It swallowed it in one gulp. It's right there in its throat; it seems to have become its internal core. All of its tyrannical poison spirit power is stored within that internal core."

"Its internal core can absorb toxins, release toxins, and can also be spat out to attack enemies from a distance."

"However, the internal core is completely one with the Calamity Poison Gu; it is a part of its body and must never be separated too far, otherwise, it will lose its essence and spirit. Whether the internal core is damaged or lost, the Calamity Poison Gu will suffer a great loss in strength."

"The Ten Thousand Poison Bead has completely become an inseparable internal core. Although the internal core can greatly enhance the Calamity Poison Gu's combat power, it will simultaneously become a weakness."

"Once the internal core of the Calamity Poison Gu is destroyed by an enemy, this Gu worm is basically considered scrapped. An internal core made from a Ten Thousand Poison Bead can never regenerate unless you find another Ten Thousand Poison Bead."

Hearing this, Long Xuan nodded. At this moment, he finally understood the role the Ten Thousand Poison Bead played in the process of refining the Calamity Poison Gu.

He had not expected the Ten Thousand Poison Bead to exist within the Gu worm's body in the form of an internal core; it was truly a peculiar Gu-refining process.

After the Ten Thousand Poison Bead became an internal core, its strength would only be higher than the original bead, and its power could never become worse.

It is just that this weakness is truly too fatal. While the internal core brings heaven-defying combat power to the Calamity Poison Gu, it also becomes its weakness—it fears being lost, it fears being attacked. Ye Xiu was the one who perished because of this weakness.

At this moment, Long Xuan had already made up his mind: he must ensure that the Calamity Poison Gu never spits out its internal core under any circumstances. As long as it does not spit out its internal core, it will be foolproof.

Overall, he was very satisfied with this Calamity Poison Gu and could not help but itch to stroke its back repeatedly. And to say the least, it was quite smooth.

While stroking its smooth back, Long Xuan pondered the issue of its metamorphosis.

He had already known the metamorphosis method for the Calamity Poison Gu back when he was writing the Gu formula summary.

The Calamity Poison Gu relies on devouring various poisons to increase its growth level and relies on devouring the most toxic poisons to complete its metamorphosis.

This sentence was in the summary. At the time, when he was deliberately filling in this sentence, the progress did not disappear, which meant his idea was feasible.

Now, he only needed to find the most toxic poison for the Calamity Poison Gu, and it could immediately undergo metamorphosis.

The metamorphosis route of the Calamity Poison Gu is that each metamorphosis requires a poison formula, and it must be the most toxic poison formula.

This also required him to frequently grind for heaven-defyingly toxic poison formulas, which made his liver ache.

He had already been hiding in the secret chamber grinding for several years and really did not want to continue grinding. Was there any shortcut to directly find a poison that met the metamorphosis requirements of the Calamity Poison Gu?

Long Xuan showed a thoughtful expression. After a long while, a flash of light suddenly appeared in his eyes, and a plan came to mind. He already had an idea in his heart.

There are no heaven-defyingly toxic poisons in the Western Lands. There is no poison in the Western Lands that meets the metamorphosis requirements of the Calamity Poison Gu.

How could the advanced materials needed for such a heaven-defying Gu worm be easy to find? Therefore, his first thought was still to create his own poison formula, but the time must absolutely not be too long.

Thus, he thought of a lazy idea. This idea could create a deadly poison, but it would not waste too much of his time.

His creative idea was to borrow the magnification ability of the Heavenly Mechanism Eye and his powerful soul power to extract metal elements.

In his past life, the toxicity of the element Polonium was 100 billion times that of cyanide; it only required 0.1 grams to poison 100 billion people to death.

The toxicity of the element Plutonium is 486 million times greater than arsenic; five grams could poison all of humanity to death.

The more Long Xuan thought about it, the brighter his eyes became. These elemental poisons from his past life were simply invincible. How did they compare to the strongest poisons in this world?

Even if they could not compare, with this level of toxicity, would it not be more than enough to let the Calamity Poison Gu undergo one metamorphosis?

How about letting the Calamity Poison Gu devour these elemental poisons to complete its metamorphosis?

It is just that he did not know if he had the ability to produce these metal elements, but it was absolutely worth a try.

The manufacturing principles of Polonium and Plutonium could be found online in his past life, and he happened to have seen them by chance. It is just that there are no technological means in this world, and he did not know if using the abilities of various Gu worms for assistance could synthesize these two elements.

If it could truly succeed, then his Calamity Poison Gu would truly be invincible.

Danger often comes from the unknown. Those terrifying poisons from his past life were all unknown to the people of this world. How would they know the method to detoxify them? Once poisoned by these deadly toxins, the possibility of surviving would absolutely not be high.

Long Xuan showed a crazed smile and immediately decided to research these elemental poisons right away.

The Soul Armor and the Water Bear Gu seemed to be able to defend against those radioactive elements. He did not need to consider the danger of doing this experiment at all; at worst, he would let the clones do it.

Polonium is more lethal than Plutonium, and the metamorphosis process must be easy first and then difficult. Therefore, Long Xuan decided to research Plutonium first.

At this moment, he began to court death again. He forgot about the situation when he was refining the Wine Gu and insisted on distilling the wine, which almost resulted in the Wine Gu drinking itself to death.

Too much is as bad as too little; things turn into their opposites when they reach the extreme. The Wine Gu was not afraid of wine but still almost drank itself to death. Although the Calamity Poison Gu is not afraid of poison, would it really not be poisoned to death?

Starting with such a big move, he was truly not afraid of accidentally poisoning the Calamity Poison Gu to death.

Those elemental poisons are not normal poisons; they have already surpassed the category of high toxicity. How could a normal creature easily withstand them? He was truly treating the Calamity Poison Gu as an omnipotent god.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 217 =====