Dark Golden Three-Eyed Skull

Upon hearing the old man's demand, all three cultivators were taken aback. "Elder Gou, this doesn't comply with the reg—" "Hm?" Hearing this, the elder cast a cold, appraising glance over them. The three had no choice but to swallow their words back down. Circumstances were beyond their control. The elder cultivator cupped his hands in salute, hitched the relics back up, and departed the valley. Along the way. "Brother Zhao, the laws of the celestial vessel explicitly dictate that once realm-annihilation relics are collected, they must be handed over to the Immortal Pivot Court. Anyone who violates this law is punished as a traitor committing treason. Yet now he wants us to deliver them to Severing Immortal Tower..." "Exactly! Who across the celestial vessel doesn't know that Severing Immortal Tower and the Immortal Pivot Court are at each other's throats right now? That old bastard wants to curry favor with Severing Immortal Tower, yet he won't do it himself and only orders us around. If something goes wrong when the time comes, we definitely won't be able to escape the blame." The senior cultivator, addressed as Brother Zhao by the other two, looked equally grim, but he did not join in their complaining. Instead, he shot them a warning glance to shut up. Then, after transmitting an unheard message to them, the two finally settled down. The trio did not take flight, merely following the footpath step by step out of the valley. The scenery before them shifted abruptly, as though they had returned to the void of the star sea. Yet this void was unlike the chilling, deathly stillness of the outer Pitch-Black Star Sea. A gentle, balmy breeze blew in from the void, carrying vigorous vitality. In a daze, one could faintly glimpse specks of seven-colored starlight twinkling intermittently. In stark contrast to this harmonious and warm scenery was an exceedingly grotesque sight: a colossus towering between heaven and earth, standing upright in the void. His eyes were tightly shut and his body shriveled, resembling a corpse long dead. Yet his chest rose and fell ceaselessly, his breath stirring warm breezes that blew in all directions. Had it merely been a dying giant, it would not have been so shocking. But what was truly horrifying was that a thick branch protruded from the giant's mouth. It grew tenaciously upward, forming a lush, leafy canopy. Looking closer, branches pierced right through the giant's entire body. The lower half of his torso had already dissolved into a dense, tangled mass of fibrous roots. They swayed with the wind from time to time, like living creatures. In this bizarre spectacle, it was impossible to tell whether a tree was parasitizing a man or a man was turning into a tree. The three were already accustomed to the sight and merely sighed. "It looks like this Dao-Seeking giant is on his last legs. Who knows what the Immortal Pivot Court can bring out next?" "Severing Immortal Tower talks a big game, claiming they will thoroughly resolve the vessel's energy woes. They've been spouting that for so long, yet they haven't produced a single tangible result." "We'll see. Supposedly they truly made a revolutionary breakthrough this time. Otherwise, that dog Gou wouldn't have suddenly tried to curry favor like this." ... They bantered back and forth, exchanging idle remarks. As they left the valley and stepped into the void, a streak of green suddenly emerged beneath their feet, forming an aerial path leading toward the distance. There was no need for flight techniques; the green path itself moved rapidly forward. Only upon stepping into the void did the overall layout of the celestial vessel enter their view. Suspended continents were scattered everywhere, resembling stars across the firmament. In the void stood the giant parasitized by the bizarre tree. Extending from the colossal tree were countless thread-like green paths that flickered in and out of view, connecting the various continents. Li Fan's divided soul remained hidden within the realm-annihilation relics, secretly observing all of this. This form of cultivation civilization, vastly different from that of the Xuanhuang Realm, thoroughly piqued his interest. "A celestial vessel..." "Back then, Sun Piaomiao, the ancestor of the Medicine King Sect, roamed the void in spirit and recorded the beacon coordinates of eighteen cultivation worlds. Among them was an enormous ship that drifted untethered through the void, trading between various realms. It contained a world of its own, called Xuanshang." "I wonder if it has any connection to this celestial vessel." Li Fan then looked toward the giant who was continuously being drained, radiating vitality into his surroundings. "The Dao-Seeking clan?" The intangible green pathway shifted through the void at astonishing speed. Before long, Cultivator Zhao and his companions arrived before Severing Immortal Tower. It appeared as a circular sphere of light shimmering with dark gold. Looking closely, it was built atop the skeletal remains of a giant as well. However, this was not a complete corpse, but a single massive skull. What shook Li Fan's heart was that in the center of this skull, an eyeball still remained! The eye had not lost its vitality with the death of the skull. Though tightly shut, it still subtly shifted and rolled. An inexplicable sense of crisis surged in his heart, and Li Fan's divided soul acted decisively, escaping from the realm-annihilation relic he possessed. He lingered in the void, choosing not to follow the trio inside Severing Immortal Tower. His judgment proved correct. The colossal eyeball suddenly snapped open, sweeping its gaze across the surroundings. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, it closed once more. Only then were Cultivator Zhao and his companions permitted to enter Severing Immortal Tower. Li Fan's divided soul stopped staring at the three-eyed skull, waiting patiently in the void outside Severing Immortal Tower for their return. "A dark golden skull, three eyes." "It's very similar to the one where I originally discovered the 'Mo' Formula. Only the one here on this vessel..." "Seems a bit weaker?" Bigger did not necessarily mean stronger. The dark golden three-eyed skull Li Fan had encountered before had not even retained its third eyeball, having been reduced entirely to a culture medium for the gray mold of the "Mo" Formula. Yet it had still given Li Fan an extreme sense of danger, as if it could return to life at any moment. That was why Li Fan had kept it sealed with the Seven-Colored Divine Light all along, never recklessly tampering with or studying it. Although the three-eyed skull before him was even larger, and its eyeball was still alive, it gave Li Fan the impression that it was thoroughly dead, with no hope of revival. It was an abstruse, mystic intuition. "I haven't seen many things from outside the Xuanhuang Realm across my reincarnations, yet not long after arriving here, I've encountered almost all of them." "It seems this celestial vessel truly has some remarkable tricks up its sleeve." "Without the complete resources of a world, they inevitably must scavenge what they need to survive from the dark star sea, putting everything to use. It seems the foundation of this celestial vessel may be far beyond my imagination..." Li Fan's thoughts churned as he calculated where to find a breakthrough point. From the trio's earlier conversation, he had learned that the vessel was currently caught in a power struggle between the Immortal Pivot Court and Severing Immortal Tower. This was a development that Li Fan, an outsider, was more than glad to see. "Only in troubled waters can one catch fish. I must find a way to stir up some chaos aboard this vessel." Before long, Cultivator Zhao and the other two emerged from Severing Immortal Tower. In stark contrast to their indignation upon arrival, their faces were now lit with delight, and their eyes betrayed an excitement they could hardly suppress. Standing upon the intangible green pathway, they waited until they had reached the center of the void before engaging in heated discussion. "I never imagined Severing Immortal Tower had actually found a way to utilize the power of realm annihilation!" "With endless relics floating in the void, we truly won't have to worry about running out of energy ever again!" "Now we're in for quite a show!"