Chapter 250: Throne of Bones: A Sudden Change of Countenance

At this very moment, even the two Transformation Spirit Giants, Lingjian Tianjun and Zhuhuo, felt a slight sense of suspicion and surprise regarding the mysterious Tianjun mentioned by Yang Xianlin.

However, although the other party was mysterious, since they had offered assistance, it was clear they harbored no malice, so Lingjian Tianjun immediately said:

"That fellow Daoist is likely not a cultivator from the Xiyan Continent and may just be passing through; the Century Impact has yet to end, so let us put this matter aside for now."

"This Century Impact is clearly more difficult to deal with than in previous years; merely resisting the first wave is far from being able to rest easy, so everyone must still remain vigilant."

"Yang Xianlin, as the commander-in-chief of the front line, the cultivators of Beiling Immortal City and all other reinforcing Immortal Cities are under your command; there are still many hard battles to be fought ahead!"

Yang Xianlin immediately cupped his hands in agreement:

"I shall strictly obey the Heavenly Venerable's command."

Afterward.

Under Yang Xianlin's command, thousands of cultivators from Beiling Immortal City began to clean up the battlefield, using Fire Element Arts and Talismans to incinerate the millions of corpses left behind on these tens of miles of land.

After all, strange existences like Corpse Demons cannot be judged by common sense; even if they are decapitated or dismembered, the accumulation of massive amounts of residual corpses will lead to the gathering of vast amounts of corpse Qi and death Qi. If left ignored, new monsters might be born from the remains, or the gathered, immense death Qi and corpse Qi might be absorbed by other powerful, mutated Corpse Demons, allowing them to advance.

Therefore, after every fierce battle on such a battlefield, cultivators must use arts and Talismans to burn everything once to be at ease.

Soon, flames rose one after another across the battlefield, connecting into a vast sea of fire; thick smoke blotted out the sky, and the firelight illuminated the entire horizon in a bright red glow.

While the cultivators of Beiling Immortal City handled things there, Lu Yuan and the other reinforcing cultivators retreated to a camp behind the Xianmo Great Array to temporarily settle down and rest.

This camp was set up on the edge of a mountain forest; the surrounding peaks served as both high vantage points and encampments for the cultivators, who either built arrows or carved out simple cave dwellings directly into the mountainside, with very crude conditions.

Given the special circumstances, Lu Yuan and the other cultivators from Longshan Immortal City did not mind much, and they quickly set up their own temporary cave dwellings and isolation Dharma Arrays themselves.

After all, the Century Impact would not end in a day or two; lasting three to five months or even a year or more was a very common occurrence, and they would be here for a long time.

Just like that, having finished tidying up their respective cave dwellings, Wei Bufan, who had previously gone to discuss tactical strategies with Yang Xianlin and the other True Monarchs, also landed at the mountain peak encampment and summoned Lu Yuan and the other Golden Core Cultivators, asking:

"How was the battle just now for everyone? Were there any casualties?"

Lu Yuan was now implicitly the leader of this group of supporting Golden Core Cultivators, so he immediately replied:

"Reporting to True Monarch Wei, our casualties in the battle just now were minimal; only one Foundation Establishment cultivator accidentally fell off the Flying Boat and perished, while the rest are merely exhausted, with no serious issues."

"Good."

Wei Bufan nodded and said:

"This was only the first wave of the impact; there are harder battles waiting ahead. Everyone, recuperate and prepare; I hope that after the impact, we can all return safely."

The group responded one after another, and Wei Bufan offered a few words of encouragement before leaving.

After he left.

Su Lingyue and the other eight Golden Core Cultivators gathered around Lu Yuan to discuss countermeasures, with most of them implicitly showing favor to Lu Yuan.

After all, on the Flying Boat, many had witnessed the methods of this Demon Patrol Immortal Official with their own eyes. The situation on the Century Impact battlefield changed in an instant, and one might encounter the danger of falling at any time; if a companion was powerful and willing to lend a hand, one might just save their own life.

Lu Yuan understood the thoughts of these Golden Core Cultivators well, so he did not keep people at a distance and dealt with them accordingly.

After everyone had left.

Lu Yuan finally had some leisure and began to ponder:

"As it stands, the cultivation and methods of a Transformation Spirit Giant are indeed extraordinary; if I were to face one head-on, I would likely still be inferior..."

"Of course, with the Supernatural Power of 'Tracing the Body and Hiding the Tracks', even at this level, they cannot keep me, so there is no need to be overly fearful."

Although it was only a distant, fleeting glimpse, he had caught a glimpse of true Transformation Spirit power from Lingjian Tianjun; that cultivation and Dharma Power fluctuation, as ethereal as the firmament and as vast as the sea, was enough to crush him as he was now.

After all, the God Embryo Realm of the mid-stage of Refining Qi into Spirit corresponds to the Nascent Soul, and he had only entered this realm for two or three years so far; strictly speaking, he was still roughly at the early stage of Nascent Soul, barely or not yet at the mid-stage.

And Transformation Spirit Giants are all old monsters who have cultivated for over a thousand years; the gap between them is not so easy to bridge.

Thinking of this, Lu Yuan became slightly alert and decided that in the future, whenever a Transformation Spirit Giant might be present, he would never approach or use his Supernatural Powers casually.

Just like today, following Yang Xianlin and the others to watch the battle between Lingjian Tianjun and the Corpse Demon Heavenly Concubine was actually somewhat rash and reckless.

"After stepping into Refining Qi into Spirit and mastering 'Tracing the Body and Hiding the Tracks', my conduct seems to have become somewhat unscrupulous, underestimating the cultivators of the world; I must pay more attention to this."

Secretly warning himself in his heart, Lu Yuan then communicated with the Heavenly Book and began to consider whether he needed to light up another Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Technique with so much Merit Power for emergencies.

After a simple evaluation, the options he listed were 【Nail-Head Seven Arrows】, 【Returning Wind and Reversing Fire】, 【Roaming Spirit Controlling Qi】, 【Standing Without Shadow】, and 【Reverse Knowing Future】.

【Nail-Head Seven Arrows】 belongs to the category of curse-killing Supernatural Powers: write the target's Great Name and Birth Date and Time on a straw effigy, set up an altar, burn incense and worship, pace the Dipper steps, write Talismans and form seals to burn it, perform the bowing ritual three times a day, and after twenty-one days, the target will have their soul scattered.

In Lu Yuan's memory, this Supernatural Power is also quite famous; although it is not good for frontal combat, it clearly has miraculous effects when used for sneak attacks, especially against cultivators stronger than oneself.

Just like Lu Yuan now, he seems unable to defeat a Transformation Spirit Giant in a frontal battle, but if he uses this Supernatural Power, he would have the means to threaten or even kill a cultivator of that level.

As for 【Returning Wind and Reversing Fire】, this Supernatural Power can make the blowing wind roll back and the burning flames shrink back; in reality, it can make the development of things regress, returning all attacks launched by the enemy, and it also possesses supreme power.

This Supernatural Power belongs to an extremely strong defensive category; with it, Lu Yuan would have additional defensive means when fighting enemies, and it could also save his life at critical moments.

Including 【Standing Without Shadow】, this Supernatural Power allows one to enter a virtual state, shadowless and formless, making all attacks ineffective; it belongs to the advanced Supernatural Power of 【Earthly Fiend - Invisibility】 and can also serve as a powerful defense. But to some extent, in terms of application, this Supernatural Power seems to overlap slightly with 【Tracing the Body and Hiding the Tracks】, so its priority might be relatively lower.

In fact, it is not just 【Standing Without Shadow】; among the Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Techniques, there are a few that overlap slightly. For example, 【Supporting Heaven and Shaking Earth】, 【Carrying Mountains and Surpassing Seas】, and 【Pushing Mountains and Filling Seas】 all possess the Supernatural Power of supreme divine strength, and their effects are very similar; if needed, lighting up one is sufficient.

Besides these, the last two Supernatural Powers in his consideration range, 【Roaming Spirit Controlling Qi】 and 【Reverse Knowing Future】, are the ones Lu Yuan is focusing on.

The former is the refining of the spirit to leave the body, roaming the Great Void; it also contains the method of controlling Qi, refining the Primordial Spirit to control Qi and roam the ten directions—heaven and earth, east, west, south, north, life, death, past, and future.

In short, it is a Supernatural Power specifically for training the Primordial Spirit; it just so happens that the third stage of Refining Qi into Spirit is the Primordial Spirit realm, so the two can be said to complement each other perfectly. If he could master it, the benefits would surely be immense.

And 【Reverse Knowing Future】 goes without saying; it can perceive things that will happen in the future, is good at discerning Heavenly secrets, is a form of foreknowledge, can know the fate of all living beings, and understand all Karma.

This is the advanced version of the 【Sprouting Head】 Supernatural Power. 【Sprouting Head】 is merely being able to have a sudden impulse and generate a vague sense of good or bad fortune about things about to happen to oneself, but 【Reverse Knowing Future】 is thorough foreknowledge, penetrating the future and Karma and fate, a hundred or a thousand times stronger than 【Sprouting Head】.

Possessing this Supernatural Power, he could, to a certain extent, be called invincible.

However, although this Supernatural Power is strong, the Luck Power and Merit Power required to light it up are not just a little; it requires a full twenty thousand units of Luck Power, which is two thousand strands of Merit Power.

Lu Yuan's current Merit Power is less than eight hundred units, missing more than half.

On the other hand, the Merit Power required for 【Nail-Head Seven Arrows】, 【Returning Wind and Reversing Fire】, and 【Roaming Spirit Controlling Qi】 combined is only a little over one thousand strands.

After thinking it over, he decided to save up a bit more and make a choice based on the situation later.

After all, the Century Impact will not end for a while, and there will be many opportunities to harvest experience on the front lines in the future, at which point he will be able to gain even more experience.

Just like that.

Lu Yuan and these reinforcing cultivators settled down at this mountain encampment, silently guarding and cultivating.

The patrol duties were the responsibility of the cultivators from Beiling Immortal City, and they had no other obligations, so they could cultivate peacefully in their cave dwellings during the day until the second wave of the assault arrived.

And what exceeded the expectations of most cultivators was this.

They had assumed the Corpse Tide would retreat and return within ten days or half a month, yet for nearly a month that they waited, the defensive line remained calm and tranquil, with not a single Corpse Demon to be seen.

However, scout cultivators sent back news indicating that the Corpse Tide was lingering and gathering just over five hundred miles away, its numbers having almost recovered to the level of the first wave of the assault, so it was feared that a second wave would be launched soon; thus, not a single one of the reinforcements relaxed.

Just like that, exactly one month after the first wave of the assault.

"Ang—"

A dull and highly penetrating horn sound rang out over the encampment, startling all the cultivators who heard it in their cave dwellings, who then immediately walked out and flew to the designated assembly point.

Lu Yuan, Su Lingyue, and the other cultivators from Longshan Immortal City assembled immediately, then proceeded to the very front line under the leadership of Wei Bufan.

The very front line was naturally the same plain where they had guided the massive Corpse Tide last time; when more than ten Flying Boats wrapped in immortal light arrived at high speed, they saw the horizon in the distance rolling with dark clouds, the corpse aura and death aura blotting out the sky and sun, as countless ferocious corpse monsters ran wild and soared, converging into a sea of world-ending destruction surging toward them.

Amidst such a scene, the two Transformation Heaven Monarchs, Lingjian and Zhuhuo, stood at the very front of the battle line, their divine senses sweeping across all directions, their brows slightly furrowed:

"Hmm?"

As Transformation Heaven Monarchs, their divine senses could easily sweep across more than a thousand miles; under their divine sense investigation, they quickly discovered three extremely obscure, sinister, and eerie auras deep within the Corpse Tide, dozens of miles away.

Two of them were exceptionally familiar; they were none other than the Corpse Bone Heavenly Demon Concubine they had pursued before, and the corpse of the Supreme Elder of the Star River Sect, known as the Black Star Heavenly Corpse.

But the other aura was extremely obscure and unfamiliar, one they had not encountered before.

"A Heavenly Corpse King has actually appeared again?"

The expressions of Lingjian Tianjun and Zhuhuo Tianjun turned cold, and their divine senses broke through the thick dark clouds and death aura to investigate closely, after which they saw that deep in the sea of corpses, a massive throne cast from corpses had appeared.

The corpse throne maintained its proper outline, yet it was covered in a layer of cruel, ghostly light; a vast carpet woven from corpses spread out for several miles, with countless chaotic remains forming the base, armrests, and back of the chair—twisted torsos, sharp fins and horns, gnarled bony arms... and countless things that made one's hair stand on end, indescribable, deformed, and ugly, all composing this eerie and terrifying throne.

The corpse carpet before the throne pulsed continuously, as if it were breathing unconsciously in its sleep, or as if it were carrying some peerlessly terrifying abyss monster, and the air was permeated with an indescribable aura, as if filled with blood, destruction, and despair.

And seated upon the throne was a young man, handsome as jade and peerless in his looks; he seemed to have sensed something and immediately raised his eyes to look.

Under the divine sense investigation of the two Heaven Monarchs, Lingjian and Zhuhuo, it was as if the man's eyes were connected to the netherworld, and within the boundless ghostly light that flickered between brightness and darkness, a scene beyond imagination was evolving:

In it, heavenly palaces stood atop the clouds, with ethereal colorful mists, as if they were the dwellings of gods; everything was supreme, beautiful, perfect, and holy, making one forget what year it was.

There was the boundless, winding world of mortals, with billions of figures bustling about; among them were peddlers and pawns, infatuated men and resentful women, and a thousand kinds of worldly emotions of love and hate playing out in turn like a passing show.

There were ten-thousand-foot-tall Asura gods stepping on dragons and snakes, their figures blotting out the sky and sun, as boundless good and evil karmic retribution transformed into an endless sea of fire, alternating in turn.

There were billions of livestock undergoing the changes of reincarnation—birds, beasts, fish, and insects—being born, growing, dying, whether as beasts of burden, food, killed by humans, or devouring one another, their suffering endless.

There were billions of hungry ghosts with bloated bellies and green faces with fangs, slaughtering and devouring one another, gorging themselves, yet never able to be full, spending their days craving food and suffering the agony of unfulfilled desire.

And there was the boundless sea of blood, mountains of knives and seas of fire, bitter cold and scorching heat, tongues being pulled and bodies torn apart; the cries and pleas for mercy in the layers of hell were deafening, yet they remained submerged in the sea of suffering, never to be liberated for eternity.

Heaven, Human, Asura, Animal, Hungry Ghost, and Hell—the Six Paths of Reincarnation gathered in this person's eyes, exhausting all the changes of the world and radiating a sense of terror that dominated all things.

And it was at the very moment their divine senses made contact and met this person's gaze that, nearly a hundred miles away, the two Heaven Monarchs, Lingjian and Zhuhuo, groaned simultaneously, their expressions changing drastically:

"Not good!"