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"Composite immortal arts!" Yaoguang murmured to himself. At the same time, a certain resolve in his heart grew firmer than ever before. Without composite immortal arts, let alone facing over a hundred Dao Lords united as one in a battle formation, he had barely been able to break the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation—formed by a mere sixty-one Dao Lords led by Dao Lord Wudi—in direct head-on combat within a short time. He had been forced to rely on Void Flicker to harass them from the perimeter, waiting until their formation shifted and leveraging his seventeenth-level formation mastery to spot a flaw before finally seizing the opportunity to unravel it. If Dao Lord Wudi had been replaced by Dao Lord Jinguang of the Xingri Sect, the caliber of those sixty Dao Lords raised a notch, and their coordination honed through thousands or tens of thousands of years of drilling, those sixty Dao Lords might very well have possessed the strength to besiege and slay him. Yet now... With composite immortal arts in hand, he could truly unleash the full might of the Grand Dao Pagoda, a supreme sacred artifact. Only at this very moment did he genuinely possess combat prowess at the "Dao Sovereign" level— Prowess rivaling that of an Immortal King's reincarnation, or even an Immortal King's avatar! "They are all composite immortal arts centered on the Void Dao." Yaoguang quietly sensed them. The Supreme Grand Daos were hailed as supreme precisely because they were indispensable to the operating system of the entire universe. Destiny commanded all Great Daos. Karma linked all Great Daos. Time allowed the Great Daos to undergo change. And the Void served as the foundational bedrock that bore all Great Daos. For that very reason, the Grand Dao of the Void possessed the foundation to combine with any other Great Dao into a composite immortal art. Having integrated with the Grand Dao of the Void and raised his progress to 811/10,000—a mark representing a peak Immortal Venerable—an ocean of composite Dao arts centered on the Void Dao had flooded into his mind. Yaoguang instinctively filtered out the Daos he had yet to master, focusing his attention on arts that blended the Void with Time, Destruction, Soul, Origin, Flowing Light, Chaos, and the like. Even so, the resulting techniques still numbered in the tens of thousands. "While an Immortal Venerable can access composite Dao arts, they typically only fuse three to five, or even just two or three Daos into one. Only upon reaching the Immortal King level does the number of Daos in a composite immortal art surge beyond ten..." As for fusing a hundred Daos or more, that was likely the domain of Dao Ancestors. Yaoguang's progress currently stood at just 811, not yet having attained an Immortal Venerable's absolute limit of 999. The composite immortal arts at his disposal were primarily combinations of two or three Daos, with only a precious few incorporating four or five. Among them, three caught his eye immediately. Light Through the Heavens' Rift. Spacetime Collapse. Gate of the World. Light Through the Heavens' Rift was a composite immortal art born of four Great Daos—Time, Void, Flowing Light, and Chaos. It possessed miraculous power for traversing the void. Spacetime Collapse was the fusion of the Great Void Art, the Great Destruction Art, the Great Time Art, the Great Five Elements Art, and the Great Yin-Yang Art. Not only did its offensive devastation surpass that of the Great Destruction Art alone, but it could also completely eradicate every living being, material substance, formation, patch of spacetime, five-element energy, and yin-yang permutation within an entire region. If he were to face the Six Harmonies Yaoli Formation deployed by Dao Lord Wudi and the sixty Dao Lords again, so long as he was granted a brief moment to build up power within the Grand Dao Pagoda, a single strike of Spacetime Collapse would wipe out all sixty-one Dao Lords, including a pinnacle powerhouse like Wudi. Such destructive might had already surpassed the absolute limit of the lower realm. Even if used against a genuine Dao Sovereign, it might very well force that Dao Sovereign to unleash power far beyond the world's ceiling just to defend themselves, thereby compelling them to ascend prematurely. Compared to these two arts—one unparalleled in speed, the other overwhelmingly tyrannical—the Gate of the World was a path dedicated to suppressing the void and suppressing entire worlds. Within it lay the profundities of Space, Origin, Chaos, Soul, and Astral Daos. One art, one world. With a single strike, hundreds of millions of li of void would be suppressed beneath the portals formed by these Grand Dao powers, rendering everything utterly motionless. Of course, the true power of these arts still depended on the Grand Dao Pagoda in Yaoguang's hands. Over a hundred and fifty Dao Lords had allowed him to refine sixteen immortal artifacts using the Dao Sacrifice Method! How many of those sixteen immortal artifacts could ultimately be merged into the Grand Dao Pagoda would essentially dictate the final power ceiling of this supreme sacred artifact. If all went smoothly... Sixteen plus five made twenty-one Great Daos in the lower realm. Taking the maximum share of each Dao to be 9.9, the total Dao shares he would command would exceed two hundred! Even if this was an unorthodox, cobbled-together path that any Immortal Venerable would dismiss as gaudy and overcomplicated... There were no Immortal Venerables in the lower realm. The actual combat strength of the strongest "Dao Sovereigns" was estimated to be only slightly greater than that of ordinary immortals, roughly around the mid to late immortal stages. A supreme sacred artifact that an Immortal Venerable might deem gaudy could sweep through everything in the lower realm without meeting a single match! *Once I complete my accumulation in the lower realm, merge at least five hundred Great Daos into the Grand Dao Pagoda, and possess five thousand shares across various Daos, only then will I consider ascending. That way, even if I face the Void Immortal King, I might actually stand a fighting chance!* Five thousand unorthodox Dao shares might be pieced together from scraps and look flashy rather than pure, but with sheer numbers on that scale, they could still pack a punch. Furthermore, if his supreme sacred artifact truly managed to assemble five hundred Great Daos, the "experience" gained along the way would surely propel his own realm beyond that of the Void Immortal King. It was no exaggeration to say that the moment he stepped into the Immortal Realm, an all-out, decisive war between him and the Void Immortal King—and by extension, the Nine Great Conglomerates—would begin. It would also signal the start of the Ancient Immortal Realm's final counterattack against the Hunyuan Realm. "The only question now is whether five hundred Great Daos are even circulating in the lower realm..." Yaoguang murmured to himself. Out of the three thousand Great Daos, far too many had already been claimed and dominated by the Hunyuan Realm. This could be seen from the fact that only forty-nine Great Daos flowed from the entire Beihai Gate. The gates of the Immortal Realm in the Xingri Sect and the Fuyao Realm likewise did not offer many varieties of Great Daos. After a long while, Yaoguang exhaled a breath. "I'll search through every Gate of the Immortal Realm one by one. I refuse to believe I can't find them." He lifted his gaze to look out across the starry expanse. Through the Grand Dao of the Void, he could sense the colossal entity coiled in the direction of the Xingri Sect. Indeed. In the battle over Beihai Star, far too many Void Dao Lords had fallen. All of their shares had been "stored" away by him using the Grand Dao Pagoda. Yet the demise of so many Void Dao Lords had also drawn the attention of that Void Immortal King. At this moment, that monstrous entity—formidable even among Immortal Kings—was once again making its way toward Beihai Star. Rushing back and forth... It possessed remarkable patience, to be sure. *With a terrifying Immortal King who monopolizes thirty-five hundred shares sitting at the pinnacle of the Void Dao, ascending in my true body would be walking straight into a trap... Therefore, I can only rely on my Time Dao clone to ascend.* Yaoguang's cultivation in the Time Dao was not particularly high, but when he had glimpsed the full scope of the Ancient Immortal Realm using Higher-Dimensional Cognition, he had been able to vaguely discern that no singularly overpowered entity dominated the Time Dao. After all, cultivating the Time Dao was exceedingly difficult, completely unlike the Void Dao. Even if there truly was an Immortal King along the path of Time, so long as that king was not so overwhelmingly dominant as to hold more than 3,333 shares, his Time clone, Shaohua, would still have room to maneuver. "Plans never keep up with changes." Yaoguang pondered for a moment, deciding to make a trip to the Fuyao Realm to retrieve Shaohua. At the speed of a Time Dao Lord, even with the pinnacle Dao artifact-grade battleship Yaoguang had left him, flying over from three billion light-years away would still take several centuries to a millennium. He, on the other hand... He carefully digested the Light Through the Heavens' Rift art. *With this immortal art, aided by the supreme sacred artifact of the Grand Dao Pagoda, my travel time will be shortened once more. Covering the distance of over ten billion light-years from Beihai to the Xingri Sect will take a mere twenty to thirty years.* Yaoguang settled his mind. Since he intended to have Shaohua ascend, certain preparations needed to be adjusted. At the very least, he had to change Shaohua's appearance back. As for their soul aura... They shared the same soul; surely no one could mistake their identity. "Beihai Star does not have a single Time Dao Lord. Furthermore, I will be the last one to ascend, so no one will be able to see whether I am entering the Immortal Realm through the Void Dao or the Time Dao." As Yaoguang spoke, a hint of regret appeared in his expression. "I just wonder what awaits on the other side..." He had no intention of asking Dao Lord Penglai. For some reason, even though the two of them could now be considered members of opposing camps, he still had no desire to push Dao Lord Penglai too far. Perhaps over time the past would fade, or perhaps after ascending to the Immortal Realm they would drift to opposite ends of the heavens. She would enter the Nine Great Conglomerates, rising steadily to become the president of Xiyu, while he... He would traverse the cosmos, gathering his strength until the hour of decisive battle arrived. *** Beihai Star settled into stillness following the great battle in the extraterrestrial void. Over a hundred and fifty Dao Lords had perished... Such grim slaughter struck terror into every surviving Dao Lord. To say nothing of the Void Shattering cultivators beneath them. Never had they imagined that ascending after becoming a Dao Lord would entail such horrifying perils. The hundred-plus Dao Lords who had fallen in that single battle... Exceeded the total number of Void Shattering experts who had perished in the several centuries since the Dao dispute began. For a time, all Void Shattering experts fell utterly silent out of sheer dread, sealing their doors and remaining in seclusion. None dared show themselves openly, let alone stir up any trouble. Compared to Dao Lords, Void Shattering cultivators were the stratum most frequently encountered by the ordinary practitioners of Beihai Star. The fearful behavior of the Void Shattering True Monarchs naturally trickled down to influence the Void Refinement and Void Piercing cultivators below them, which in turn affected the Golden Core practitioners. Under these circumstances, Beihai Star—already unusually peaceful—became quieter still. Over the following decade or so, not a single Void Piercing-level battle could be seen. Yaoguang paid no heed to these changes. Over the course of a dozen years, he made a trip to the Fuyao Realm and brought Shaohua back. As Shaohua altered his form, he quickly took on an appearance identical to Yaoguang's. Moreover, because Yaoguang had specially refined a supreme sacred artifact for Shaohua that harmonized both the Void and Time Daos, Shaohua could even unleash Void Dao arts. Coupled with the fact that their soul auras stemmed from the same origin, even if Shaohua claimed he was not Yaoguang, not a single Dao Lord would believe him. Leaving Shaohua on Beihai Star to prepare for ascension, Yaoguang set out once again, heading straight for the greatest gathering place of Void Dao Lords he could sense. And that place... Was none other than the center of the universe—the Yongsheng Sect.