Dao Artifact

The Yaoguang Realm was destroyed!? Who would have nothing better to do than destroy an attached world!? These questions had only surfaced in the minds of Susan, Yang Han, Hela, and the others for a brief moment before they already received their answer. "He has arrived." *** Longxiang City. Beside the Star Gate. Everyone looked up into the distance, all seeing that fleeting flash of intense light deep in the starry sky above the nine heavens. Due to the vast distance, that intense light's flash, observed by them only now, must have occurred quite some time ago. Yet many could still tell from that radiant glare... "A world has been shattered." A world was shattered. And that position... Tang Fenghua, quick to react, glanced at the nearby Star Gate. Connecting it to why the Star Gate couldn't be activated, his eyes flew wide, and he looked toward the horizon's edge. His mind immediately reached out to Murong Hui, Hall Master of the Heavenly Palace Hall. "Quick! Quick! Check which position in the starry sky above our Cangwu corresponds to the Yaoguang Realm!?" Murong Hui did not tarry in the face of Tang Fenghua's urgent query, quickly investigating and providing an answer: "The Yaoguang Realm's position corresponding to the starry sky above our Cangwu Realm is at..." Before he could finish, the emotional turmoil within his divine mind surged violently: "Wait!? This is..." "What happened, Hall Master Murong? Answer me!" Tang Fenghua urgently pressed. Under his questioning, Murong Hui barely came to his senses from the shocking scene he had witnessed. Immediately after, his divine mind trembled: "A... a terrible thing has happened... The Yaoguang Realm... has been destroyed!" Tang Fenghua, who had already suspected as much, felt his heart plunge into a bottomless abyss upon hearing Murong Hui's words. He looked at the Star Gate... Matching this with how Huang Wei had personally stepped in these past few days yet could never properly calibrate the Yaoguang Realm's coordinates... Even as Murong Hui's mutters of "how is that possible" kept echoing in his ears, no matter how unbelievable it felt, he had to accept this reality. The Yaoguang Realm... was gone. Full of worry, Tang Fenghua turned his gaze toward Yaoguang. And Yaoguang simply continued to look up, gazing at the vault of heaven. Tang Fenghua knew that with Yaoguang's strength, even without the aid of the Heavenly Palace Hall, he could still see through the nine heavens and peer into the vast cosmos. In other words, by now he already knew the Yaoguang Realm had been destroyed. He knew that the Yaoguang Realm, where he was born and raised, had been reduced to cosmic dust. Yet he showed not the slightest reaction... "Master Yaoguang..." Tang Fenghua couldn't help calling out, wishing to offer some comfort, but did not know where to begin. *** The domain of Master Yaoguang, the pillar of the sect, had been destroyed! With such a massive incident taking place, Murong Hui immediately reported it to the sect's other stabilizing pillar, Li Hanqiu. However, Li Hanqiu did not respond. He then quickly contacted Sect Master Li Qingshan as well. Having received the news, Li Qingshan did not pause for a second, immediately contacting Yaoguang through the Virtual Spirit Realm. "Yaoguang, you..." "I saw it," Yaoguang said. "He has arrived." Knowing the inside story, Li Qingshan's heart sank instantly. Not only had the other party arrived, but he had directly destroyed the entire Yaoguang Realm. Evidently, in his view, without the Jiang family, the existence of the Yaoguang Realm was completely meaningless. From this alone, one could see how domineering and ruthless True Disciple Jiang's style was. Once he arrived in the Cangwu Great World and learned that Yaoguang was the one who wiped out the Jiang family... "Go into hiding for a while," Li Qingshan said. "Hide where? In the Cangwu Great World? Aren't you afraid he'll directly destroy the Cangwu Great World too?" Yaoguang asked. "Impossible. The Cangwu Great World is the very foundation of the Cangwu lineage. Only with the Cangwu Realm around can fresh blood and spirit stone resources be continuously supplied to the Cangwu lineage. No matter how enraged Jiang Tianzun might be, he could never destroy the Cangwu Great World," Li Qingshan said firmly. "He cannot destroy the Cangwu Great World, but destroying the Nine Cauldrons Sect would be no trouble at all," Yaoguang said. "I will have the core members of the Nine Cauldrons Sect disperse into smaller groups." Li Qingshan looked at Yaoguang. "As long as the green hills remain, there is no fear of lacking firewood. As long as our people survive, the Nine Cauldrons Sect will live on. I believe that with your talent and abilities, your future prospects will certainly not be inferior to Jiang Tianzun's. When that day comes, with a single rallying cry, you will surely restore the glory of the Nine Cauldrons Sect." "Give the order," Yaoguang said. He directly had Li Qingshan issue the order for the Nine Cauldrons Sect to disperse and hide in every corner of the Cangwu Great World. Yet he also knew that even so, many would find it difficult to escape the coming purge. Because Jiang Tianzun had the entire Cangwu lineage standing behind him. When the time came, with a single word from him, all sects in the Cangwu Great World would unite to ferret out the personnel of the Nine Cauldrons Sect hiding in every corner. In fact... he wouldn't even need to give an order. From how those Golden Cores of the Wuji Astral Palace and the Immortal Alliance had rushed to the Cangwu Great World to curry favor with Jiang Tianzun by rebuilding the Artifact Sect, one could tell just how much weight he carried in the Taiyi Immortal Sect. At that time, even if Jiang Tianzun simply left, those sects, eager to curry favor with him, would voluntarily step forward to slaughter every last disciple of the Nine Cauldrons Sect hiding in every corner. "Azure Blue Golden Core!" Yaoguang rose into the air, traversing the void and arriving directly at the mountain peak where the Zixiao Institute was located. As soon as he arrived, Lei Yun and the others responsible for his daily life came forward to greet him. Evidently, they had no idea that the Yaoguang Realm had already been annihilated. And Yaoguang... had no intention of explaining it to them. Waving a hand, he went straight to his workshop. Though the workshop at his residence was not as massive or well-equipped as the dedicated workshops of the Zixiao Institute, it still spanned a thousand meters across, with various flying sword blueprints visible everywhere. Yet arriving here now, he felt an inexplicable sense of emptiness. The Su family. That old man named Su Chiming. And other relatively familiar faces... Though one could hardly say he had deep feelings for them, still... For all of them to be gone in a single stroke left his heart feeling somewhat hollow. However, he knew very well that now was not the time to indulge in such emptiness. The Yaoguang Realm was destroyed; what came next—the survival of the Nine Cauldrons Sect and himself—was the truly monumental ordeal. "An Azure Blue Golden Core just one step away from the true Void Piercing Realm." Not enough time. Not enough time. No matter how he cultivated from here on, there would not be enough time to acquire the power to contend against such an expert. For an Azure Blue Golden Core of this caliber, claiming he possessed the strength to clash head-on with the Void Piercing experts from the war against the Moon Demon Empire was by no means an exaggeration. The only breaking point he could think of... "The Sky Cleaving Plate." Yaoguang took out this top-tier spirit treasure once more. The Sky Cleaving Plate possessed the power to slay a Radiant Sun Golden Core. If it could take another step forward and be enhanced into a Dao artifact, slaying a Void Piercing cultivator would no longer be wishful thinking. Only if it underwent a successful metamorphosis would Yaoguang have a sliver of hope to turn the tables against this Azure Blue Golden Core, Jiang Tianzun. "Originally, I thought about dismantling it. Given how precious these materials are, they might have been refined into two or even three Dao artifacts in the future. Now... I can only take a desperate gamble." Yaoguang took a deep breath. A desperate gamble. At present, his only option was to take a gamble using his Dao Attunement divine ability. Moreover, two major spirit treasures had been lost previously, both ending in failure. Although the Sky Cleaving Plate had the finest quality, causing a top-tier spirit treasure to instantly transform into a Dao artifact... No one could be absolutely certain of success. Under such circumstances, it truly deserved the word "gamble." Even as he thought, Yaoguang's movements did not slow in the least. As the Dao Attunement divine ability was unleashed, the entire Sky Cleaving Plate trembled faintly, continuous ripples radiating from the spirit treasure. And the intensity of the ripples radiating outward surpassed both the previous spirit treasure and the Heaven Disrupting Ruler. Amid the trembling ripples, there immediately followed a resonance of the Great Dao. This was a power that even Yaoguang, who had nearly condensed a true spirit, could only vaguely sense. Within the Heaven Disrupting Ruler, five powers had presented themselves: life, death, illusion, mind, and soul. In contrast, the types of power presented within the Sky Cleaving Plate to Yaoguang's perception were far fewer. There were only two: Void Shattering and Void Traversing. Having faintly sensed the characteristics of these two powers, Yaoguang swiftly guided the spirit treasure's potential toward Void Shattering. Void Shattering. One did not need to guess: shattering the void. If it could shatter even the void, its lethality was readily imaginable. However, this guiding had lasted only a moment when Yaoguang realized that the Dao charm contained within the spirit treasure could not support the Sky Cleaving Plate's transformation toward Void Shattering at all. "Not good! The Sky Cleaving Plate is going to shatter..." In haste, he quickly withdrew his guidance over the Dao artifact and focused on concentrating the Dao charm to stimulate its potential toward Traversing. During this stimulation process, the Sky Cleaving Plate expanded rapidly, its size reaching thirty meters across, with ripple after ripple diffusing into its surroundings, as if seeking to swallow this entire space. Furthermore, this devouring energy was domineering in the extreme; the formations within the workshop were like paper before it, unable to withstand it for even a fraction of a second, torn to shreds instantly. "I cannot allow this Dao artifact to continue its transformation on Zixiao Peak." Right then, true essence erupted within Yaoguang's body, and his astral force field bound the transforming Dao artifact as he shot into the air with it, rushing into the void. As they surged into the sky, the Sky Cleaving Plate continued to grow! Thirty meters, sixty meters, one hundred meters, three hundred meters, one thousand meters... Before Yaoguang had even broken through the Blazing Sun Heavenly Lightning layer to reach above the nine heavens, this transforming supreme treasure had actually expanded to ten thousand meters across. Energy powerful enough to distort its surroundings radiated ceaselessly from this supreme treasure. Even the dense clouds and mists around him were constantly warped by these energies, as though forming a black hole centered on the treasure... No, not a black hole! A wormhole! "The Sky Cleaving Plate has finished its transformation, completely evolving into a true Dao artifact! In fact, because the materials used to craft it were so high-grade, after metamorphosing through Dao Attunement, its performance can be called exceptional even among Dao artifacts..." Yaoguang quietly sensed the various divine wonders of the fully transformed Sky Cleaving Plate, and soon grasped the true mysteries it possessed after ascending to a Dao artifact. "Once activated... it will directly form a wormhole, allowing me to traverse the universe with it just like those Chaos Cavity Realm experts!"