Archfiend

Just as he was paying attention to all of this, the bodhi seed, in other words That Which Could Not Be Said, suddenly turned a little. Very quickly, he felt a kind of strangeness.

As if… he could ‘see’ the entire Clearcloud Realm.

He saw on the surface that the wind was still and the waves were quiet. The places destroyed by the Dream Walker might never appear again, by the remaining land would be defended in perpetuity.

Of the seven states, only four four were left. The citizens of each nation were all almost kneeling on the ground or at the seaside, thanking the gods for their forgiveness.

“This…” He thought of a possibility, and a thought turned in his mind. In an instant, he was looking at the leaders of Shangchen. Likewise, they were sitting on chairs, but they had relieved expressions on their faces.

He tested out his newfound ability several times. With nearly each turn of a thought, he could see a different place.

“Rocjourney entered my body… so I’ve been recognized as the Clearcloud Realm’s Realm Spirit?” he muttered to himself briefly. Perhaps this was the only explanation.

“So that’s how it was… the one to bring Arrival is certain to descend and become the master of the Clearcloud Realm. That’s the meaning. But, the symbol of Arrival refers to the fully unsealed Animus Armament, the Fishbowel Sword.”

Cool and collected, he brushed an eye over Moonless. His thoughts stirred again, and a massive tornado suddenly picked up on the ocean’s surface. With it, endless seawater surged.

“As long as I will it… I am the Clearcloud Realm’s god… I dictate all of their lives and deaths…”

“And I can sense deep, deep down, that if I die, the Clearcloud Realm will also be destroyed… It looks quite likely that I did replace the Realm Spirit’s position. Who in the world could’ve predicted this?” He curtailed his train of thought. Now wasn’t the time to think of these things. He urgently wished to return to Earth.

Xu Yangyi was unaware… what Earth was like now. Since his bloody battle at Nanzhou twenty years ago… he didn’t know whether someone had dared to move against his self-proclaimed land.

But suddenly, the seemingly peaceful bodhi seed gently shook. Rings of green light spread from its surface, and an ancient memory swiftly floated into view in his mind.

“This…” His eyes shook. “Is the Voidspirit Immortal Physique’s refinement art!”

Space went silent. Word for word, he studied the recorded contents of that That Which Could Not Be Said. He then knew why such an event had happened to his body.

“This… is the Voidspirit Immortal Physique’s ‘foundation-laying’ marker. It also represents the official activation of an immortal physique. Originally, Xiaoqing said that physical attacks wouldn’t be able to hit me, but there would be ‘distinctive traits’ among the stages. Yeah, she hasn’t cultivated the Voidspirit Immortal Physique. Of course she didn’t know… but…” he paused and murmured, “Is she the master of some immortal physique?”

“If she isn’t, and it’s just based on her realm, how can she even be so strong?” He continued looking. “There are probably quite a few successors for the Ten Grand Immortal Physiques, but corresponding ‘carriers’ are pretty rare. Maybe… the Voidspirit Immortal Physique isn’t about dodging physical attacks, but instead…!” His eyes snapped open in understanding. “A Minor Completion Voidspirit Immortal Physique… generates a fifty-meter-sized maelstrom outside the body! It can be resized, but it can’t be hidden! If any divine ability or magik artifact enters the void maelstrom… everything will be absorbed into it, including other stuff!”

“In other words, something has to get my ‘permission’ to get close to me. I’m almost immune to all attacks! Still… this void maelstrom has an upper limit, and that limit is…” He looked at his body. “The inside of my body can store three times the qi. This is Minor Completion.”

“As for the Voidspirit Immortal Physique’s advancement conditions…” Right now, he didn’t laugh at all. “A hundred Core Formation or above-level magik treasures with spatial properties… Are storage rings okay? Maybe I can eat up a hundred of the purest plants with wood spirit-roots… Can this even be done on modern Earth? Do those Core Formation cultivators even have a hundred magik treasures? Or plants with pure wood spirit-roots? Does modern Earth even have stuff like that anymore?”

Xu Yangyi took a deep breath and finally realized why his qi reserves would increase. It appeared that his distance from a Minor Completion Voidspirit Immortal Physique was still quite early. Presently, he’d barely expanded his qi by a fold. At the minimum, he would need two times the amount. At the same time though, he also figured out why it was so hard to refine the Ten Grand Immortal Physiques.

The qi sea’s expansion caused the requirements for major realm advancement to become even greater. In concerns to cultivators who could advance and then thank the heavens that everything had gone well, this condition really was too bumpy on the road of life.

“But it’s not just bumpy for me anymore…” he laughed bitterly, “The Eternal Alchemy Canon’s already expanded by reserves. This time, my foundation’s expanded even more than last time. If I stuff myself with this qi, that’ll actually be the same as prolonging my cultivation time. Maybe a single day isn’t scary, but numerous days gathered together might go up to ten years.”

“But what’ll be even harder is qi liquefaction.” He used Innersight again. “This qi sea of mine that’s been expanded by onefold… It’s not qi that I’m going to have to fill it with, but liquid qi!”

“For late Foundation Establishment to assail Core Formation, all qi has to be liquefied. All impurities have to be eliminated from the qi to liquefy it. And then from ‘formless’ to ‘with form’, it has to be condensed into a core. But, each condensation of one drop of liquid qi nearly empties all of my qi. While it’s true that my onefold-expanded qi sea will let me be the strongest initial Core Formation cultivator, assailing Core Formation is also going to be extremely difficult, huh…”

Removing his gaze, he suddenly laughed.

“But I have this.”

He took a deep breath and stood up. Overflowing with emotion, he observed the long-not-seen outside world. “Once every ten years in the Clearcloud Realm, the spiritual force of hundreds of millions of people gathers. It’ll definitely be able to push my liquid qi to completion.”

“I’ll assail Core Formation in at least twenty years!”

His gaze brushed over the nightmare space. He didn’t know how long he’d slept for, but as far as his eyes could see, the region was incomparably serene. Although spatial cracks from the great battle in the past littered the area, they didn’t collapse.

Moonless wasn’t too far away and looked at Xu Yangyi complicatedly. Eventually he said, “You woke up?”

Xu Yangyi nodded. “How long have I been out?”

“I didn’t count,” Moonless said indifferently, “About one or two years.”

Xu Yangyi deeply studied him. “So are you or are you not Fang Cheng?”

“I don’t know.” At this moment, Moonless didn’t reveal the faintest trace of being Fang Cheng. “I only remember that a Dao Master took a strand of my essence soul many years ago, and left behind this contingency. This is the second time you’ve asked me, and I hope it’ll be the last. And I wish even more that I am only me, not anyone else. Look, what if those memories of that Fang Cheng now never even appeared?” 

Silence. A long time passed. Their gazes both looked beside them.

There was a gold formation. Six ring-shaped talismans hovered in its surroundings. In the formation, however, there was a screen of light. And on this screen of light, a vast ocean was reflected!

“The Bermuda Triangle…” Their breathing became somewhat rushed. This was the path leading to Earth!

But on this formation were the two back-to-back figures of Enihilus and the Dream Walker. Their butterfly wings had long since shattered into bits. Here, they were only two withered corpses, having dried up and lost their luster.

“Shouldn’t they have been crushed by Butterflymother Southflower before?” Xu Yangyi said suspiciously.

“Not sure.” Moonless stood up and patted his changpao. “This is what I saw when I woke up.”

Xu Yangyi stared with rapt attention, but his brows suddenly shot up.

His spiritual sense… had actually moved!

It was like… something was pulling on him, and causing his spiritual sense to move towards the two corpses. But all of a sudden, without waiting for him to make considerations, the two corpses began to crackle. Enihilus and the Dream Walker’s corpses appeared as if they were molting. Layer after layer of skin flew away in the air, but space was shockingly revealed inside!

Swish! In the next second, a shadow quickly darted towards Xu Yangyi’s belly! It was as fast as a shooting star!

His reflexes were nearly conditioned. The Fishbowel Sword answered and came forth, cutting the shadow without the slightest hesitation!

Yet in this twinkling, a dizzy spell rocked Xu Yangyi’s mind. Endless memories bubbled into him like a tide.

Someone training with a sword. Surrounding trees suddenly turning into demons. Someone running, but an earthquake struck without warning. These scenes were many, broken, and also mottled. However, they certainly gave no regard to any rationale.

At the same time, a strong thought of sleepiness attacked. And yet, black light flashed, and all the fragments and thoughts of sleepiness vanished without a trace in his mind!

Only then did he see the object in front of him clearly.

It… was a palm-sized butterfly.

It somewhat resembled the Dream Walker. On its two unfolded black wings, there were two eyes. They weren’t veined and wrinkled, but on the contrary solid. And on its wings, plumes of smoke, incredibly similar to the Dream Walker, lingered.

Huh? Huh! As soon as Xu Yangyi saw the butterfly, a rather dissatisfied consciousness was transmitted to him. He cast his senses, but was stunned.

“The Dream Eater?” A little disbelieving, he looked at the butterfly in front of him. This… was the Azurecloud Seed’s evolution! In kind, it was also the larva form of Butterflymother Southflower!

“You survived? And… evolved as well?”

Just as he finished saying these words, the Dream Eater radiated an even greater discontent. Only after casting his senses for a long time did Xu Yangyi realize that the present Dream Eater could already intermittently use spiritual sense to convey a few simple thoughts, such as now… 

It wasn’t easy for me to come back! Dad, you used a sword to hit me!

Xu Yangyi awkwardly laughed and immediately undid the prison. With a swoosh, the Dream Eater flew into his qi sea and began to rest.

“Well, that’s a really unexpected delight…” He pensively rubbed his chin. “If the Azurecloud Seed wants to evolve into a Dream Eater, it needs to devour a Core Formation-level Nightmare. Looks like that Core Formation-level Nightmare I didn’t know anything about happened to be the Dream Walker. Still, the Dream Walker was barely late Foundation Establishment. I didn’t expect that he would be able to let the Dream Eater evolve. Was it because it was extremely precious, or some other reason?”

He didn’t continue thinking and gazed at his qi sea. As he swept over the Dream Eater, the butterfly sensed him. It merely moved its wings a little to express affection.

He noiselessly sighed. Nurturing Southflower’s larva was very dangerous business. But likewise, the gains were abundant! This was because he’d already sensed the Dream Eater’s changes when it had entered his body.

It could create dreamlands and devour all dreamlands!

Unless the Dream Eater revealed itself, those under Core Formation absolutely wouldn’t be able to discover any trace of it! This was on account of it existing between the ‘permanent’ and the ‘impermanent’, as well.

But what caused his gaze to burn hotly was that this devouring of dreamlands definitely wasn’t as simple as pure creation!