"I shall devour your divine soul and essence; let's see how you manage to regenerate and return then," a cold smile curled on Lei Dong's lips. With a sweep of his divine sense, he generated a vortex of suction, drawing out the essence spirit of Demon King Zhagu inch by agonizing inch, grinding it into dust, and transforming it into pure Chaos Spiritual Energy.

This time, the method Lei Dong employed in the devouring was different from the usual. While absorbing the Demon King's essence spirit, he simultaneously preserved its memory imprints. It is widely known that most demonic beasts and cultivators, starting from the Nascent Soul stage, would inscribe their memories onto their souls. This ensured that even when separated from their physical bodies, their souls remained a complete life form.

However, the Higher Demon Race took this a step further, embedding even their life imprints within their souls. This was the secret behind their ability to transform the body of a host into that of a Higher Demon after seizing possession.

Collecting memories from a soul is simple; spells akin to Soul Searching Arts can read the memories hidden within. But what Lei Dong did was far more thorough; he directly peeled away the memory imprint portion from the soul's essence spirit.

As a result, Lei Dong obtained a complete memory set of Demon King Zhagu. From the moment it crawled out of its shell and began forming memories, right up to the instant of its demise by Lei Dong's hand—every detail was laid bare. Even the exact route back to the Demon Realm was perfectly mapped in its memory. Despite the Demon King's desperate pleas, begging for mercy, or attempts at threats and bribery, Lei Dong remained unmoved, absorbing its soul essence spirit until nothing remained. To Lei Dong's immense delight, refining the essence spirit of a Mahayana-stage Demon King yielded an abundance of Chaos Spiritual Energy, its life tier being so high that it filled his Dantian to bursting. It was nearly a hundred times the amount he gained from a Void Refinement-level entity. Previously, after dissecting the primal spirits of the several Void Refinement-level foes he had slain, he obtained approximately one Chaos Crystal's worth of Chaos Spiritual Energy per being. Yet, from this single Demon King alone, the decomposed Chaos Spiritual Energy amounted to over a hundred Chaos Crystals—a truly terrifying number. What made Lei Dong's heart pound even more intensely was the sheer volume of the golden Chaos Primordial Source; it filled him to about twenty to thirty percent of a complete Chaos Primordial Source.

Seeing so much Chaos Primordial Source, Lei Dong's eyes almost turned green. To gain such immense rewards—roughly a hundred times that of a Void Refinement level— simply by killing and devouring the essence spirit of one Mahayana-stage Demon King! This wasn't to say that the power of a Mahayana-stage expert was a hundred times that of a Void Refinement expert; rather, it was a distinction in life tier. Compared to the Void Refinement level, Mahayana-stage powerhouses were significantly closer to the Chaos Primordial Source.

It seemed, then, that by devouring the souls of just four initial-stage Mahayana powerhouses, Lei Dong could directly refine one Chaos Primordial Source. The Chaos Primordial Source was something countless powerful cultivators—even Mahayana experts—dared not even dream of. Even the Supreme Beings of the Three Realms would fight and kill over a single Chaos Primordial Source, locking themselves in endless conflict.

Lei Dong felt an explosion of exhilaration. He immediately sat cross-legged upon the meteorite, entering a temporary secluded cultivation state, preparing to use the Chaos Primordial Source filling his Dantian to temper his physical body. This was an extremely extravagant act; even the Supreme Beings of the Three Realms would hesitate to use the Chaos Primordial Source for such a crude, almost 'guzzling' method of body tempering. This was because the Chaos Primordial Source possessed infinite profound uses and could even be used to create life.

But Lei Dong did just that. Several days later, the equivalent of over a quarter of a Chaos Primordial Source was entirely absorbed by him. Consequently, his innate talent was elevated by a massive degree. Lei Dong's original talent, while reaching the genius level, was only considered ordinary genius-level, still a great distance from the darlings of the cosmos like Wan Yan or Tian Mo, or Dongfang Fu. After being washed by that vast amount of Chaos Primordial Source, in terms of sheer aptitude alone, he was now infinitely close to the super-genius level exemplified by Dongfang Fu.

Following this, Lei Dong pressed his advantage, immediately commencing the cultivation of the Chaos Art he had just inherited, using the Chaos Spiritual Energy. The Chaos Art was a cultivation technique continuously refined by three generations of Supreme-level figures: the Death God, the Underworld King, and the Demon Emperor. It only reached perfection in the hands of Demon Emperor Yan Chixing in his later years. After the Demon Emperor's death, this particular set of techniques fell silent. Lei Dong only acquired the inheritance of the Chaos Art during his third inheritance when he reached the Void Refinement stage—a testament to how formidable this technique was. This was the first time he utilized the Chaos Art to refine the Chaos Spiritual Energy and temper himself towards evolution. He was astonished by the speed when he activated it; it was many times faster than he had imagined for a peerless genius. As the name implied, the Chaos Art did not rely on the common spiritual energy between heaven and earth for cultivation; it required Chaos Spiritual Energy.

Chaos Spiritual Energy was the purest essence, the fundamental energy for the proliferation and evolution of all things since the birth of the cosmic chaos. Furthermore, when Lei Dong passed his Void Refinement tribulation, he had undergone the rigorous tempering of the Underworld King's Body Refining Art. In terms of physical constitution alone, he already far surpassed ordinary Void Refinement experts; otherwise, he could not have maintained the 'Sovereign World' state for so long.

With all these factors combined, Lei Dong's cultivation advancement truly became meteoric. After a brief period of seclusion lasting only a few dozen days, Lei Dong completely utilized the Chaos Spiritual Energy refined from Demon King Zhagu, causing his cultivation to soar dramatically, directly breaking through the mid-stage of Void Refinement to reach the high stage.

Opening his eyes, Lei Dong felt the immense power surging within his body, an inexhaustible and vigorous strength. Sensing the location of his subordinate, the Blood Sacrifice Ghost Servant Gui Ci, Lei Dong stepped into a spatial rift. In just about an hour, he traversed over a million li of space.

He arrived outside a shattered, ruined world. His outstretched wings and the intentionally broadcasted fluctuations of his divine sense signaled his arrival, prompting Gui Ci and the other ghost servants to rush forward to greet him. After exchanging thoughts with Gui Ci through their divine senses, Lei Dong learned the outcome of the previous battle. Unsurprisingly, with the assistance of Lei Dong's three armies, the Black Giants' faction had routed the Demon Race army, forcing them into repeated retreats. After waiting in vain for Demon King Zhagu to return, the Demon Race army finally fled in disarray.

Having received aid, the Black Giants and the Green Beings invited Lei Dong's three armies to be guests in their world. As a banquet was underway, Lei Dong made his entrance. Lei Dong already had a plan; he instructed his three armies to remain with the Black Giants' faction to offer more help, gain deeper trust, and gather intelligence, while he pursued a different objective. He ordered them to hand over all the Nascent Souls and Primal Spirits they had collected. Upon receiving the souls, Lei Dong absorbed them, refined a batch of Chaos Crystals and Primordial Source, and entrusted them to Gui Ci to distribute these cultivation resources based on the merits of each army and individual soldier.

Having completed this, Lei Dong immediately flickered away. He kept his ten-thousand-year pact with Ji Ziyan firmly in mind, unwilling to delay even a moment. From the memories absorbed from Demon King Zhagu, Lei Dong learned that this place was called the Barren Lands, an area so extremely far from the Demon Realm that even traveling on the most advanced warship would take over a thousand years to reach. The Black Giants and Green Beings belonged to races under the command of a supreme powerhouse in this Barren World named the Barren Ancestor. The current situation bore some resemblance to when the Immortal and Demon Races joined forces to attack the Mother of All Spirits. However, now the Immortal, Demon, and Monster Races were united in attacking this Barren Ancestor. The Mother of All Spirits, once the victim, had transformed into the aggressor. Their objective, naturally, was the Chaos resources within this Barren Land, and rumor had it, even Chaos Primordial Source.

But these things held no relevance for Lei Dong; his sole focus now was to rapidly enhance his strength. Theoretically, if he were to join the Barren Race faction and oppose the Three Realms Expeditionary Force, his devouring talent might allow him to grow stronger with every battle. However, the Three Realms Army possessed overwhelmingly superior comprehensive strength. Each race had one of the Ten Great Experts at the peak of the Mahayana stage overseeing them, backed by a host of mighty generals and seas of fierce soldiers. And the Barren Ancestor seemed to be cornered into a desperate situation. No matter how strong Lei Dong's talent was now, even with his Devouring Talent, directly confronting the Three Realms Expeditionary Force would be risky. He might cause a momentary frenzy, but he would certainly draw the focused siege of the High Experts within the Expeditionary Force. At that point, even with heaven-defying means, escape would be difficult.

The best course of action was to infiltrate the enemy's interior and strike from behind, which was always faster and safer than frontal combat. This was precisely why Lei Dong had intentionally preserved Demon King Zhagu's memory imprints earlier. Following the memories absorbed by Lei Dong, as he neared the Demon Realm's stronghold in this Barren World, Lei Dong first found a secure location to begin devouring Demon King Zhagu's life factor sequence.

Following this, Lei Dong began to regenerate his own life factors based on the sequence of the Higher Demon Race. An expression of extreme agony contorted Lei Dong's face. Even with his current robust physique and willpower, enduring such intense transformation was nearly impossible; this was far more complex than merely growing a pair of wings. He needed to completely convert all of his life factors into those of a Higher Demon. Otherwise, given the unfathomable, mysterious methods of the Higher Demons, there was a risk they might detect that Lei Dong was an imposter.

After a full several hours, Lei Dong’s entire body of life factors was successfully converted. At this point, Lei Dong towered seven or eight zhang tall, transforming into a pure-blooded Demon with a ferocious visage, his skin naturally adorned with intricate, complex runes.