Chapter 535

On the way back from the deep sea to the continent, Wu Tie entered seclusion aboard one of Elder Hu's three great warships.

Of the three Hu family specially-built warships, one is the flagship of the Hu family's direct-line clan, where Wu Tie could hardly seclude himself; the other two: one carries the experts of the Fox Tail, the other belongs to the top-tier guest elders retained by the Hu family.

Wu Tie was assigned to the warship where those guest elders resided, and on the upper deck he was given a three-part suite with inner and outer chambers.

Having activated all defensive prohibitions, Wu Tie sat cross-legged in the innermost chamber of the suite; the void beside him flickered slightly, and the Yin-Yang Daoist, using the special connection between his true form and his avatar, appeared directly beside Wu Tie.

The Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel rose slowly from above the Yin-Yang Daoist's head, exhaling Yin and Yang Qi that enveloped Wu Tie entirely and drew him into the vessel.

The Yin-Yang Daoist's form shifted, taking on Wu Tie's appearance; as Yin and Yang Qi rubbed together, they transformed into the acquired Five Elements, giving birth to heavenly fire and thunder, along with a surging gale. The Yin-Yang Daoist smiled faintly, then silently cultivated his mystic art, circulating his energy according to the method of the True Scripture of Battle Thunder and Lightning just granted by Elder Hu.

Wind and thunder howled, blazing fire surged; the qi of wind, fire, and lightning rose and fell tumultuously in the chamber, making it hum.

Inside the Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel, Wu Tie opened three long jade boxes containing three sets of Dao Treasure Pills, each corresponding to the Wind, Fire, and Lightning Dao; taking just one set enables an ordinary Embryonic Storage cultivator to perfectly fuse the three Daos with his divine fetus in an extremely short time.

"He's willing to spend the capital." Wu Tie chuckled.

Behind him, five-colored divine light rose; within the five-colored radiance, the five innate treasures of the Five Elements blazed with dazzling light, and terrifying surges of magical power collided, forming a perfect cycle and balance of the Five Elements.

Water Vessel, Bing Fire Mirror, Spirit Wood Pearl, Gold Dragon Whip, Wu Earth Cauldron.

These five items, nurtured in the boundless deep sea over countless ages, having swallowed immeasurable heavenly-earth essence and finally given birth as top-tier innate treasures, slowly merged with the Five Elements space; under the strong impetus of the five-colored divine light, Wu Tie completely refined the five treasures, making them effortlessly controllable and fully mastering all their marvelous powers.

Wu Tie opened his mouth and swallowed thirty Dao Treasure Pills; a massive medicinal power exploded, and wave after wave of Dao comprehension surged forth.

The medicinal power contained in those thirty Dao Treasure Pills is immense, and the comprehension of the three Daos is extraordinarily marvelous; having already severed the Yin-Yang Daoist and possessing a solid foundation, Wu Tie merely turned his thought, and heard a boom—the five-colored divine light trembled, the five Five-Element treasures suddenly converged inward, forming a cluster of variegated, mysterious light.

Wu Tie's divine fetus shrank a bit; the separated divine fetus lunged into that mysterious light, and with three thunderclaps shaking the void, a figure emerged—his bearing awe-inspiring, his every gesture stirring the void, like a heavenly deity descending—a handsome young man tumbled out of the light, the mysterious light swiftly entering his body and merging completely with him.

The handsome youth stood over fifteen feet tall, his eyes like sun and moon, radiant light rising all around his body, and a vertical eye opened slightly between his brows, within which five-colored divine light surged, as if it could at any moment transform into divine thunder and spray forth.

Judging by appearance alone, this handsome youth outshines the Yin-Yang Daoist in radiant brilliance and is even more awe-inspiring.

"Fellow Daoist!" the handsome youth's body flickered, and a plain gray Daoist robe appeared on him; though its style and color are utterly unremarkable, when worn by this handsome youth it gains an ineffable grace that sets off his extraordinary handsomeness.

"Fellow Daoist, from now on you are the Five Elements Daoist." Wu Tie smiled and nodded at the handsome youth: "Thank you, Five Elements Daoist and Yin-Yang Daoist, for your toil abroad."

"We were originally one—what toil is there?" the Five Elements Daoist smiled faintly, his body flickering and turning into a fine five-colored stream of light that shot out of the Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel; the five-colored light circled the Yin-Yang Daoist in the chamber three times, then became a wisp of fragrant breeze that easily pierced the deck's defensive prohibitions and vanished without a trace.

The Yin-Yang Daoist smiled faintly: "He's hot-headed… hey, Daoist, leisurely, carefree, utterly at ease—is such frantic haste really necessary?"

The supreme Daoist art of transforming one qi into the Three Pure Ones produces avatars that are not mere copies of the true self but possess their own distinct personalities; the Yin-Yang Daoist acts steadily and calmly, whereas this Five Elements Daoist, as the Yin-Yang Daoist said, is hot-headed and impatient—clearly a fiery temper.

Wu Tie also drifted out of the Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel.

After severing the Five Elements Daoist, Wu Tie felt his divine fetus and fleshly body become more lucid; his sense of heaven, earth, and the universe grew clearer and more immediate. He sensed that his absorption of heavenly-earth essence, his comprehension of the heavenly-earth Dao, and his solo cultivation efficiency had increased severalfold.

Wu Tie took out the Divine Emperor's Token representing Sima Xian, handed it to the Yin-Yang Daoist, and nodded: "Thank you, fellow Daoist."

The Yin-Yang Daoist smiled faintly, received the token, and said softly: "It shall be so."

All the prohibitions on Elder Hu's three great warships were as nothing before the Yin-Yang and Five Elements Daoists; the Yin-Yang Daoist also transformed into black-and-white spiritual light, circled Wu Tie three times, then turned into a wisp of fragrant breeze and vanished without a trace.

Wu Tie chuckled a few times, sat cross-legged in the chamber, pushed his mana to the limit, and began cultivating according to the method of the True Scripture of Battle Thunder and Lightning.

In the chamber, wind and thunder surged, blazing flames roiled, and Wu Tie's aura rose step by step, quickly approaching the peak of the Embryonic Storage realm from the baseline of an ordinary beginner.

Previously, Wu Tie had spent over two months to sever the Yin-Yang Daoist.

This time, severing the Five Elements Daoist took only one and a half months.

Even with the aid of the newly erected ultra-gigantic ultra-long-distance spatial gate, Elder Hu's large force had not yet returned to the territory of the Great Jin Divine Nation; they were still flying over the sea.

Wu Tie delighted in having no disturbances; he sat quietly in the chamber, polishing his mana, tempering his divine fetus, merging with the Dao patterns, gradually increasing his cultivation and strength. With the endorsement of the thirty Dao Treasure Pills granted by Elder Hu, Wu Tie prepared to display even greater might when he next met Elder Hu and his entourage.

The Five Elements Daoist vanished without a trace.

The Yin-Yang Daoist, aided by the Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel, moved through the void at a speed far surpassing Elder Hu's fleet; the power of an innate treasure is boundless, and though the Yin-Yang Two-Qi Vessel is not a dedicated flying artifact, its speed has reached the utmost limit.

The Yin-Yang Daoist outpaced Elder Hu's large force, easily returning to the territory of the Great Jin Divine Nation; following Mr. Li's contact method, he quickly got in touch with Mr. Li and relayed the news that the Hu family had consecutively seized overseas five treasures comparable to state artifacts.

At the same time, the Yin-Yang Daoist told Mr. Li that the Hu family still intended to seize several more innate treasures nurtured in the northern barbarous domains of the Great Jin Divine Nation, and he hoped Mr. Li would make preparations early so as not to let the Hu family continue succeeding so smoothly.

Taking advantage of the fact that Hu Tu and the others had not yet fully refined the secondary essences of the five treasures, leaving them unable to divide their attention for full-force combat, now is the ideal moment to strike Elder Hu's Fox Tail and inflict heavy casualties on that contingent of his forces.

In the Great Jin Divine Nation, undercurrents surge.

Elder Hu's party was rushing at full speed; meanwhile, several months earlier, Linghu Jian had been gravely wounded in the Eastern Garden, and Linghu Qingqing's fury over it had also been reported to Elder Hu.

Upon hearing that his own second brother had been gravely injured while going to borrow the Black Heaven Cauldron, and according to the gossip of Hu Tu and others, Elder Hu was delighted upon receiving the news that day, even spending the whole night drinking in celebration; moreover, some Hu family grandson secretly remarked that he heard Elder Hu gloating over the misfortune, uttering words like 'bastard' and 'delusional'.

Linghu Jian is the bastard son of Linghu Qingqing, while Elder Hu is the legitimate eldest son.

Without a doubt, while Elder Hu vented his inner feelings, the Hu family descendants felt their emotions complex and tense, yet also full of anticipation, exhilaration, and high spirits.

Wu Tie reckoned the time was about right, then leisurely opened the formation's prohibitions and left the chamber where he had sat idle for over three months.

The fleet was passing through a spatial gate.

Having crossed that spatial gate, what lay below was no longer a deep-blue sea but a vast expanse of mountains and forests.

Thick clouds billowed from the three great warships, the clouds rolling and swiftly enveloping the vessels; these three warships are the Hu family's painstakingly built flagship vessels, their size and other indices far surpassing the standard warships of the Great Jin military.

Such warships are not to be seen by people; especially when traveling within the Great Jin territory, one must employ various means to conceal them.

All the way they chose sparsely populated rugged mountains, and all the way they used the Hu family's privately erected spatial gates to save travel time; after returning to land, the Hu force marched north for over half a month before plunging into the northern barbarous rugged mountains of the Great Jin.

"Heighten vigilance… in this vicinity the Great Jin Divine Might Army once suffered greatly." Elder Hu's order quickly reached every member of the party: "Be careful; in these northern mountains many giants and giant beasts possess the bloodline of primeval demons, their battle strength is tyrannical, and they are unreasonably brutal—like wild beasts, lacking spiritual intelligence, with whom no reason can be had; the only recourse is to strike them down."

Not long after Elder Hu's vigilance order was issued, a towering mountain range that pierced the clouds appeared ahead.

Mountains hundreds of miles high rose in layered, continuous succession, their summits covered in deep snow, while low, rumbling howls carrying immense intimidation constantly approached from afar.

The fleet sped forward; Wu Tie, standing on the prow of the great warship to view the scenery, suddenly felt a pang of alarm.

A terrifying roar shot to the heavens; a thousand-foot-tall giant burst from a mountain peak, brandishing a heavy stone pillar, he leapt up several thousand feet and smashed his club down upon a turtle-shell boat.

Poor turtle-shell boat—its volume is small; at a glance it looks about the size of the giant's toe.

The stone pillar in the giant's hand is huge and extraordinarily heavy; under the giant's terrifying strength, a single strike sent sparks flying from the turtle-shell boat, which plunged straight from thousands of feet high into the ground with a deep 'boom'.

The giant bellowed angrily, gripping the stone pillar with both hands, and like villagers pounding rice cake, he brandished the pillar and rained down blows on the turtle-shell boat buried in the earth.

With a series of booming impacts—'dong, dong, dong, dong'—the turtle-shell boat, painstakingly forged by the Hu family as a private warship of extraordinary defensive strength, managed to block the terrifying giant's hundred-plus fierce blows, only then developing countless cracks before shattering to pieces in a earth-shaking roar.

The giant grinned malevolently, opened his mouth, and let out a wild roar toward the three leading warships of the fleet.

He lunged, seizing the mountain where he had just hidden; a hundred-mile-high peak cracked with a 'click' at its base, and the giant swung his right hand, sending the hundred-mile-high summit 'whirling' aloft on a gust of foul wind to crash down upon the three warships.

Old Master Hu stood at the prow of the central giant ship, coldly eyeing that terrifying giant.

"Where is my son?" Old Master Hu bellowed mightily.

"The child is here!" Having obtained the Wu Earth Divine Cauldron, Hu Xiang shouted loudly; the cauldron's offspring, square four-legged and solid in form, soared into the sky, spraying a stream of mixed yellow and black light. With just a sweep at that hundred-li-high peak, a tremendous boom sounded; the peak shattered, strands of yellow vapor spewed out, and the Wu Earth Divine Cauldron easily swallowed them in one gulp.

The next moment, Hu Tu surged forward; from the spout of the Water Mother Bottle gushed a murky surge, towering waves rolling with a deafening roar, the turbulent, heavy water crashing hard against the giant's chest.

Then came a series of piercing bone-breaking sounds; the thousand-zhang giant staggered, unable to keep its footing, spewing blood as it stumbled back hundreds of steps.

The thousand-zhang giant let out a shrill howl, waving its stone pillar, trying to lunge again.

Hu Shuo, wielding the Golden Dragon Whip, gave a cold snort; swinging the whip with his right hand, a tremendous boom rang out as a bolt from the blue fell from the sky, a stream of mixed gold light striking down like a heavenly pillar collapsing, lightly tapping the giant's head.

The giant's entire body was shattered into fragments by the offspring of the Golden Dragon Whip, its broken bones and flesh even spraying hundreds of li away.

The whip's power was overwhelming; the heavy blow smashed dozens of hundred-li-high mountains, leaving a gigantic trench a thousand li long, several li wide, and a hundred li deep on the ground.

"Power to destroy a nation! Power to destroy a nation!" Old Master Hu burst into hysterical laughter, 'hahaha', slapping his belly with both hands, sending up wave after wave of flesh. He shrieked hysterically: "Ah, the power to destroy a nation... the National Guardian Divine Artifact—this is the true might such an artifact should have. Child, how much have you refined of this Golden Dragon Whip?"

Hu Shuo held the Golden Dragon Whip aloft in a mighty grip, his voice low: "Father, this innate supreme treasure is not so easily refined. I've given it my all these past months, yet I've managed to refine less than one percent."

Old Master Hu nodded repeatedly: "With just that little refined, it already has such power; once you fully master this treasure, Child... heh, heh... our clan... heh, heh... that Duke of Yuzhou, Huo Xiong, doesn't know good from ill—he actually rejected our clan's kindness and even injured your second uncle!"

Old Master Hu gave a scornful smile and said slowly: "In a few days, after we collect these treasures from the Northern Frontier, we'll return openly to Anyang City; there, before your second uncle, we'll openly slay Huo Xiong, giving your second uncle a proper vent for his anger."

Old Master Hu beamed, and the five fine sons of the Hu Clan holding divine treasures also beamed.

They laughed while warily watching their own brothers.

Once again, roars echoed from the distance as giants kept emerging from the mountains.

A notably aged giant gripped a stone pillar and bellowed hoarsely: "Great Jin... divine might... damned... kill!"