Within the Heaven-Sealing Stele, God Emperor Suoka watched this unfold before his eyes, finally abandoning all struggle in despair.
"Power on the level of God Monarch Destruction..."
Agony filled his eyes.
As for the God Monarch Destruction he spoke of...
He was a God Emperor of the Destruction God race.
This God Emperor had taken "Destruction" as his title because he was widely considered the most exceptionally gifted being the Destruction God race had produced in hundreds of thousands of years.
At the same time, he was the foremost powerhouse beneath Dao Integration among all the God races.
He was ranked seventh on the Dao Lord Candidate Board!
However, neither the Destruction God race nor any other God race accepted that ranking.
They had always believed that if battle were joined inside a Divine Kingdom, even True Monarch Tianxiao in first place, True Monarch Kongxuan in second, and True Monarch Wusheng in third would never be able to hold him down.
Thus, God Monarch Destruction ought to stand at number one, or at the very least among the top three.
Suoka using "God Monarch Destruction" as a comparison for Yaoguang showed just how thoroughly despair-inducing the strength Yaoguang had displayed in this battle truly was.
***
"It's over."
Yaoguang gave a nod to the Void Piercing demonic cultivator. "Thank you for leading the way."
The demonic cultivator turned deathly cold, his heart plummeting into a bottomless abyss, yet... the sheer instinct for survival drove him to struggle anyway.
"Se... Senior... I—"
Before he could finish, Yaoguang waved a casual hand. A beam of Great Annihilation Sword Qi completely disintegrated him and the void where he stood into sheer nothingness.
Not a trace of residue remained.
Having slain the Void Piercing demonic cultivator, Yaoguang turned his gaze back to God Emperor Suoka, pinned beneath the Heaven-Sealing Stele.
Aware that with a Dao Lord's secret trove at stake, Yaoguang would never allow him to leave alive, the God Emperor did not demean himself by begging for mercy. Instead, he said coldly, "Our God race is united in purpose! Every last one of us is a subject of the great God Venerable Radiance! You have slain God Emperors of our Light God race; an imprint will surely be left upon you! When the great God Venerable Radiance returns from the starry expanse, he will never let you off..."
"If your faith in your God Venerable runs so deep, then once I reach Dao Integration in the future, I will send him down to join you all in a reunion," Yaoguang replied.
"How dare you defile the God Venerable! Yaoguang, you deserve death—!"
This God Emperor, who only a moment earlier seemed resigned to his fate, bellowed in fury. Dazzling radiance erupted from his being, coalescing into a colossal divine seal that lunged to brand itself upon Yaoguang.
Before this brand could strike him, the Void Sword and Great Annihilation Sword Qi, propelled by the Torrent of Time, shot simultaneously into the void sealed by the Heaven-Sealing Stele, instantly swallowing the God Emperor whole.
However, two of the Great Annihilation Sword Qi beams directed at that brilliant light passed straight through the divine curse as though the dazzling glow were nothing more than a phantom.
*Swish!*
Yaoguang's Void Flicker activated in a flash, vanishing him from the battlefield.
A moment later, he reappeared, his brow furrowing slightly.
Sensing carefully deep within his spirit, he discovered a faint streamer of light marking him, leaving him somewhat surprised. "I clearly wasn't struck by those rays of light, yet an imprint still lingers in my mental world. Does this technique involve the Great Dao of Karma?"
He channeled the Light of True Spirit, utilizing its power to disperse the streamer imprint, only to find the process agonizingly slow.
If he wished to purge this radiance completely without rest, it would likely take decades or even a century.
If he only chipped away at it in his spare moments between cultivation sessions, three to five hundred years might not even be enough to erase it entirely.
"Three to five hundred years..."
Yaoguang shook his head.
In three to five hundred years, he would already be making an attempt at the Dao Integration realm.
Of course, he would need to be mindful of that God Venerable Radiance returning to Beihai Star in the meantime.
Yet...
Setting aside the fact that God Venerable Radiance had yet to return, even if he did return and was hell-bent on seeking vengeance for God Emperor Qiming, God Emperor Suoka, and the others, was Dao Lord Penglai not still around?
Deciding not to worry further about the curse mark for now, Yaoguang began taking stock of his spoils.
Before long, he shook his head in mild resignation. "The Void Sword is a divine skill for shattering defenses; wherever its edge falls, nothing can withstand it. But it is precisely because it is so sharp that destroying Dao artifacts with it is like chopping up melons and vegetables... Each of these God Emperors possessed three to five Dao artifacts, and that God Emperor Suoka had as many as nine, which formed a complete set. Yet... one by one, every last one was torn to shreds by the Void Sword."
Naturally, shattered spoils still retained substantial value, and with enough time and effort, repairing them was not impossible.
Yet Yaoguang's own efficiency in refining Dao artifacts far surpassed the speed of repairing them, which naturally left him looking down upon these damaged items.
Even so, Yaoguang still collected the fragmented pieces.
When necessary, these Dao artifact shards could be reverted into materials to feed other Dao artifacts.
"Next..."
With a flash, Yaoguang arrived directly at the Dao Lord secret realm.
This secret realm had been opened within this blue supergiant star.
Influenced by the power of a Dao Lord, this supergiant was distinctly different from ordinary ones; not only was it far more stable, but its internal temperature was also staggeringly high.
Yaoguang observed it for a moment and swiftly identified the final layer of the formation enveloping the Dao Lord secret realm.
Indeed.
The final layer.
After being worn down over time by Demon Lord Jinni and the God Emperors of the Light God race, only the last of the three layers remained, and even this layer had been weakened considerably, its current perimeter restricted to a mere thousand li around the stellar core.
Having deduced the formation's characteristics, Yaoguang slashed directly at it with a Void Sword.
Immediately, as if sensing the danger, the formation swiftly mobilized its power in defense.
"A formation spirit?"
Yaoguang quickly discerned something.
The Void Sword gathered the power of the void and crashed brutally into the formation.
*Buzz! Buzz!*
A formation that would have taken three God Emperors of the Light God race ten or even several dozen years to grind down visibly shuddered under the blast of Yaoguang's Void Sword.
This mighty Dao art, acclaimed as peerless in piercing defenses, advanced with unstoppable momentum, instantly destabilizing the formation's internal structure.
A single strike had visibly degraded its stability.
"It truly lives up to the name Void Sword!"
Yaoguang could not help but smile. "When it comes to breaking through defenses and cracking formations, to say nothing of other Dao arts, even the Great Annihilation Sword Qi falls far short by comparison. The damage dealt to this formation by my single Dao art is probably no less than an entire day of effort from three God Emperors."
The key point was...
That strike had merely been a probe and had not even targeted the formation's weakest point.
Moreover, he had not drawn upon the Torrent of Time to unleash two or three Void Swords at the exact same location in an instant. Otherwise, the results would have been even more immediate.
"At a slow pace, half a month; at a brisk one... ten days will suffice,"
Yaoguang concluded.
Without further hesitation, he unleashed one Void Sword after another in rapid succession. As he rattled the formation, he continuously searched for its weak points.
Under these conditions, his assault grew increasingly fluid. In the end...
In just eleven days, Yaoguang's Void Sword gouged a clean breach straight through the entire formation.
Seizing the opportunity, he flickered forward, swiftly entering the secret realm and arriving directly at the formation's central core.
As he rapidly drew in the formation shrouding the secret realm, a wave of azure radiance spanning a thousand li swiftly converged, ultimately condensing into a single banner that landed in Yaoguang's hand.
The banner seemed to attempt resistance once it reached his grasp, but Yaoguang promptly suppressed it using the might of the Wuji Sword.
"Not bad. This set of portable formation banners alone is worth no less than a high-grade Dao artifact."
A smile crossed Yaoguang's face.
His divine sense immediately swept outward in all directions.
The outer and middle tiers of the secret realm had long since been looted clean by Demon Lord Jinni and the Light God race, but the core treasures remained in the formation's inner sanctuary.
For example...
"The core area of this immortal's cave is a mobile palace!"
Yaoguang's divine sense washed over the structure, swiftly enveloping the palace, which measured over three hundred li across.
As for the grade of the palace...
"Another high-grade Dao artifact. That's at least twenty billion secured."
As for whether anything else remained preserved within the palace...
Once he refined it, he would naturally be able to see clearly.
He rapidly analyzed and familiarized himself with the Dao artifact palace.
Relying on his own consummate attainments in both [Artifact Refining] and [Formation], it took him a mere three days to grasp the method to refine this Dao artifact palace.
"Zhuanlun Hall."
Yaoguang recognized the origin of this high-grade Dao artifact.
From its provenance, he also deduced the identity of the Dao Lord who had perished here.
"So it was Dao Lord Zhuanlun of the Dragon Elephant Temple," he reflected with a sigh.
The Dragon Elephant Temple.
One of the supreme Buddhist temples from a hundred thousand years ago.
Back then, the Buddhist path possessed Eight Great Temples, and the Dragon Elephant Temple had been one of them.
Yet a hundred thousand years ago, the Dragon Elephant Temple's greatest patron had vanished without a trace.
Over the following twenty thousand years, outsiders calculated the Dao Lord's remaining lifespan, ultimately concluding that he had either passed away or ascended through the Gate of the Immortal Realm into the Immortal Realm.
What followed, naturally, was retribution and old grudges being settled.
The Dragon Elephant Temple was carved up and devoured, vanishing into the long river of history.
"He has been dead for eighty thousand years, only to be discovered now..."
Yaoguang stirred his divine sense, tracing the palace's refinement methods and formation imprints to swiftly penetrate and take command of it.
This process did not require much effort either.
In just one month, he had established preliminary control over the palace.
Having taken control, his understanding of this high-grade Dao artifact deepened considerably.
"As expected of a Dao Lord's signature supreme treasure. This high-grade Dao artifact boasts astonishing defensive capability and is a magnificent vessel for traversing the cosmos. Its value... is even higher than my initial estimate of ten billion; it could probably reach thirty billion."
That was already the price of a top-tier high-grade Dao artifact.
With these thoughts, Yaoguang flashed inside the palace.
Because he had already refined the structure, all of its inner secrets lay bare before him.
Pills, Dao artifacts, crafting materials...
All told, their combined value was easily no less than eighty billion.
"Under a hundred billion... It falls a bit short of a Dao Lord's stature, but considering that Dao Lords whose lifespans are near an end usually exhaust their fortunes in one desperate gamble, that means his resources were likely spent during his last struggle. Most of this eighty billion was probably accumulated by Dao Lord Zhuanlun in his final ten thousand years at most."
Yaoguang pondered briefly. "Amassing eighty billion in under ten thousand years... that's not bad at all."
After all, this eighty billion had essentially fallen into his lap for free.
Wait, eighty billion picked up for free?!
Eighty billion?!
Equivalent to eighty Dao artifacts?!
Add to that the [Demon Hunting] experience gained from slaying the three God Emperors just now...
Yaoguang's mind swiftly turned toward the [Merchant] branch.
There, the accumulated "experience" was so vast that even maxing out [Alchemy] from scratch would be effortless.
"So, the experience... is full?"
Chapter 435