The Three Talents Orb. Within it contained the Qi of Heaven, Earth, and Man, manifesting as black, yellow, and red hues. When the three aspects—Fiery Might, Terrestrial Advantage, and Human Harmony—converged, a thunderbolt would strike down, reducing anything touched to dust. The "Heavenly Annihilation Formation" was devised by the Lord of the Heaven Reaching Sect based on innate numbers, drawing upon primordial clear Qi and concealing the mechanism of Chaos. Within it lay the Three Banners, aligned with Heaven, Earth, and Man, merging into a single essence. Should anyone enter this formation, where thunder roars, they would instantly turn to ash; should an immortal encounter it, their very limbs would be shattered into powder.

Embedding the Three Talents Orb onto the Three Banners increased the Heavenly Annihilation Formation’s power tenfold out of thin air.

The Houtu Orb was forged from the purified essence of primordial Wutu soil, refined into the innate Great Saint’s sacred body. By tempering his own soul into it, the Orb contained boundless terrestrial Qi, capable of summoning thunder from above and fire from below to slay foes. The "Earthen Fury Formation" adhered to the terrestrial path's numerology, concealing a condensed, dense body while showcasing subtle movements and myriad transformations. Within it lay a single red banner. When activated, thunder booms above while fire erupts below; any immortal or mortal entering this array would never see life again; even mastery over the Five Element arts could not secure escape.

Similarly, embedding the Houtu Orb onto the red banner caused the Earthen Fury Formation’s might to surge a hundredfold instantly.

The Golden Light Shuttle was refined from the primordial Great Saint’s dual eyes of Sun and Moon, containing Yin and Yang energies that seized the creation of heaven and earth. It could transform into myriad streaks of golden light to injure opponents. The "Golden Light Formation" seized the essence of the sun and moon, harboring the Qi of heaven and earth. Within it stood twenty-one treasure mirrors, suspended atop twenty-one tall poles, each mirror draped with an embroidered sheath. If an immortal or mortal entered the formation and yanked up the sheath, the mirrors would resonate with thunderous sound. With just one or two rotations, the golden light would shoot out, ensnaring the body, instantly liquefying flesh into blood and pus. Even one capable of soaring would struggle to transcend this formation.

Suspending the Golden Light Shuttle above the Golden Light Formation caused the treasure mirrors to move, transforming into ten thousand golden, vibrant rainbows dancing throughout the array. The might of the Golden Light Formation also increased a hundredfold spontaneously.

Furthermore, there was the Wind-Restraining Pouch corresponding to the Howling Wind Formation, the True Yin Mirror matching the Ice Condensation Formation, and the Celestial Blood Bowl countering the Blood Transformation Formation. The Karmic Fire Golden Lotus opposed the Blazing Flame Formation, the Vast Wave Banner corresponded to the Crimson Water Formation, the Golden Sand Bivalve to the Scarlet Sand Formation, and the **Pang corresponded to the Soul-Losing Formation. Gu Xiechen meticulously selected ten exotic treasures from the dozens of primordial artifacts acquired from the immortals of the Kunlun Sect, bestowing one upon each of the Ten Heavenly Lords, perfectly aligning them with their Ten Absolute Formations, causing the power of these formations to multiply by a hundredfold.

Given that the Ten Heavenly Lords had only recovered to the cultivation level of the Taihuang Huangzeng Tian, possessing these ten primordial supreme treasures meant their Ten Absolute Formations could, at the very least, contend with early-stage Golden Immortals.

In the recent days, upon the derelict mineral planet where Gu Xiechen concealed himself, the Ten Heavenly Lords enthusiastically drilled the Ten Absolute Formations, striving to master these ten primordial supreme treasures and elevate the power of their arrays to an entirely new echelon. These ten supreme treasures were all refined from the primary bodies or original forms of primordial Great Saints from another universe, harboring countless divine shifts, and their esoteric restrictions operated under cosmic laws vastly different from this universe’s Heavenly Dao, thereby making the power of the Ten Absolute Formations even more bizarre and unpredictable.

Sitting cross-legged atop a mountain heaped with slag and mineral waste, Gu Xiechen watched the fiercely struggling spirit of the Purple Wolf God suspended before him, along with the sphere of light condensed from his purple primary body.

He pointed a finger at the Purple Wolf God’s spirit. Gu Xiechen said calmly, "Don't blame me. The Lycan lineage and I share an insurmountable, deep-seated enmity. I swore an oath that I would utterly annihilate your entire race. Therefore, you can consider your death well-deserved."

With a flip of his palm, a burst of Solar Blazing Flame erupted, searing the Purple Wolf God’s spirit. In the blink of an eye, the last vestige of the Purple Wolf God’s consciousness was vaporized. All the insights into the Heavenly Dao he had gleaned during his countless years hidden within his primary body now became Gu Xiechen’s property. Gu Xiechen was delighted to discover that the Purple Wolf God’s comprehension of the Dao was heavily concentrated on speed; he possessed no other astonishing abilities save for his velocity.

“Speed?”

Sensing the Heavenly Dao insights within the Purple Wolf God’s spirit, Gu Xiechen nodded thoughtfully. He tilted his head slightly, nudging the Fire Crow, which had been squatting on his shoulder pretending to be a common sparrow, with his cheek. The Fire Crow perceived Gu Xiechen’s thoughts and let out a delighted, harsh caw!

“That call is hideous. Don’t make it randomly anymore,” he chided.

Lightly striking the Fire Crow, which was something of a half-avatar, Gu Xiechen extended both hands. The Lunar Glare Flame and Solar Blazing Flame spewed from his left and right palms simultaneously, incinerating the purple sphere suspended before him. Soon, the Purple Wolf God’s primary body melted into a mass of crystalline, translucent purple fluid.

The Fire Crow pounced with ecstatic delight, happily rolling around in the pool of purple liquid. Gu Xiechen’s expression darkened, and he rapidly moved his hands, forcing the purple fluid to rapidly seep into the Fire Crow’s body, invading its flesh through every pore, gradually merging with its marrow, bones, meridians, muscles, and internal organs. The Fire Crow’s feathers suddenly flared as an external substance—a primary body containing infinite power from a primordial Great Saint—invaded its flesh. Even with the Fire Crow’s power at the third rank of Celestial Immortal, the pain nearly made it faint.

Gu Xiechen shared a tight connection with the Fire Crow through his innate primordial spirit. The Fire Crow’s agonizing pain transmitted a piercing agony to Gu Xiechen as well. He decisively and temporarily severed the mental link between his innate primordial spirit and the Fire Crow, dedicating all his strength to the massive undertaking of fusing the Fire Crow’s physical body with the Purple Wolf God’s primary material.

Without Gu Xiechen sharing the burden of the agony, the Fire Crow dramatically and spectacularly passed out from the pain. But moments after losing consciousness, it awoke with a shriek of renewed suffering, only to faint again splendidly. In the span of a mere incense stick’s time, the Fire Crow repeatedly blacked out and came to, tormented to the point where flecks of crimson Golden Crow Heavenly Fire escaped its beak.

“One must endure hardship to rise above others!” Gu Xiechen focused intently, urging the fusion between the Fire Crow’s body and the purple fluid, muttering under his breath, “The pain now is temporary, but how can one see the rainbow without enduring the storm? You are my avatar, after all. Don't waste all the effort and precious energy I’ve invested. You must strive to be worthy!”

Days turned into nights. After seven days and seven nights, the Fire Crow’s entire body shimmered with purple light, and even its feathers transformed into the color of transparent purple crystal. Its eyes gleamed brilliantly as they darted around, emitting countless rays of light like two supreme purple gems. Its tiny claws appeared as if carved from crystal—seemingly fragile enough to shatter with a light touch, yet actually possessing incredible hardness, capable of easily crushing gold and cleaving jade.

Gu Xiechen nodded in satisfaction. He took the Purple Wolf God’s innate primordial spirit, whose true spirit had been wiped clean, and refined it slightly with the Lunar Glare Flame, splitting it into two halves. His main body and his avatar, the Fire Crow, each swallowed half of the spirit. Instantly, a vast torrent of soul origin power flooded into Gu Xiechen’s innate primordial spirit, which gulped it all down in one gulp.

In the Sea of Consciousness, Gu Xiechen’s innate primordial spirit suddenly erupted with blinding radiance. Primordial Yellow Qi churned both inside and outside his spirit body. Black and white beams of intense light shot from his eyes, swirling fiercely around his body like twin dragons, smashing a shackle that had suddenly appeared on his person into dust.

Infinite amounts of Yin and Yang Qi surged from the two Dark Orbs, rapidly injecting into Gu Xiechen’s body and converting into his own cultivation base.

Gu Xiechen’s bones cracked and popped audibly. Wisps of flame and threads of cold air suddenly jetted from his body. His figure blurred momentarily, and a ring of golden light swept across his surface. A force dragging him upward appeared out of nowhere only to vanish just as quickly. Immediately after, large patches of water clouds manifested beneath his feet, gently lifting his body skyward.

Reaching the peak of the Taiming Yuwantian power, bolstered by the immensely vast innate primordial spirit of the Purple Wolf God, Gu Xiechen managed to break through to the second rank of Celestial Immortal. Furthermore, the immense spiritual energy surging from the Lunar Dark Orb and Solar Dark Orb caused Gu Xiechen’s cultivation to climb rapidly; he now solidly possessed the peak strength of a second-rank Celestial Immortal.

With a turn of the water clouds beneath him, Gu Xiechen instantly soared several thousand miles toward the sky before swiftly returning to his original spot.

Having advanced to the second rank of Celestial Immortal and broken through that primordial shackle, just as Gu Xiechen had sensed before, his comprehension of cloud-soaring had improved by a significant margin. Coupled with True Monarch Taiyin’s experience in aerial navigation, his Cloud Soaring Technique could be called unrivaled in the Three Realms. His cloud speed was incredibly fast, almost reaching seventy percent of the speed he achieved using the Star Field Great Teleportation—a truly astonishing velocity. Naturally, this speed did not compare to flying with the True Heaven Two Energies Light-Splitting Sword, but how many such miraculous flying swords existed in the Three Realms?

Ten times the power—the strength of a second-rank Celestial Immortal was a solid tenfold increase over the early rank. Standing atop the cloud, sensing the surging true energy within him, Gu Xiechen suddenly burst into roaring laughter. Following his laughter, a small tribulation cloud drifted over, releasing three negligible bolts of lightning which Gu Xiechen swallowed in a single gulp.

Only upon genuinely breaking through to the second rank of Celestial Immortal here did Gu Xiechen truly grasp why Celestial Immortal cultivators like the Wood Daoist had not ascended to the Heavenly Court.

The space where this Star Alliance Six-Star Civilization resided was experiencing issues, likely due to the ancient Heavenly Court’s conflicts with those Outer Realm Primordial Great Saints. The local space had been infiltrated by exotic world spiritual energy, and some Heavenly Dao rules had been affected. To ascend now, one required a cultivation base of at least the sixth rank of Celestial Immortal to be guided to the Heavenly Court. In other words, the strongest attainable cultivation level in the spacetime of the Star Alliance Six-Star Civilization was at the peak level of the sixth rank of Celestial Immortal.

Of course, Gu Xiechen vaguely sensed that if he unleashed his full power, drawing the attention of this spacetime’s original Heavenly Dao rules, he might still be forcibly drawn up to ascend.

“However, the Wood Daoist and the others seek worldly power and wealth. Perhaps they don't wish to ascend either?” Gu Xiechen let out a few cold chuckles.

It was precisely because they reached the Celestial Immortal realm yet refused to ascend that heavenly tribulations descended upon every breakthrough in rank here. This served as a small compensatory measure by the Heavenly Dao for the immortals here who could not ascend proactively. Wasn't the endlessly lethal Eternal Starlight injured in its true spirit due to successive major tribulations, ultimately becoming Gu Xiechen's prey?

The Fire Crow, which had also consumed half of the Purple Wolf God’s primordial spirit, suddenly shrieked and shot toward the heavens. It transformed into a streak of purple light, darting wildly across the sky. Its flight speed was simply comparable to Gu Xiechen's cloud transit, perhaps even faster. Its speed gradually approached the high velocity Gu Xiechen achieved when using the Star Field Great Teleportation—this was simply astonishing.

Golden Crow Heavenly Fire erupted from the Fire Crow's body. Enveloped in thick firelight, the Fire Crow’s form rapidly expanded, eventually becoming a gigantic Three-Legged Golden Crow nearly a hundred zhang wide. Bringing forth surging flames, it swooped down toward the ground and clawed fiercely. Silently, a plume of fire erupted, vaporizing one-third of the mineral planet, which was hundreds of kilometers in diameter, with a single strike.

In the Xuantai Pingyu Tian, the Fire Crow’s cultivation soared directly to the realm of Xuantai Pingyu Tian—the fourth rank of Celestial Immortal. Gu Xiechen’s confidence in dealing with Asura Viking and the others increased significantly.

“Alright, come back, you birdbrain,” Gu Xiechen beckoned to the Fire Crow.

The Fire Crow strutted proudly in the void, shaking its massive wings mightily and vigorously wiggling its rear end before slowly landing back on Gu Xiechen’s shoulder, shrinking back into the dull, fist-sized sparrow, standing there dazed on Gu Xiechen’s shoulder, playing coy.

Patting the Fire Crow’s head vigorously, Gu Xiechen stretched his arms wide, muttering to himself, “Wood Daoist, Meilin, it’s time to settle our accounts…”

Two slender arms suddenly wrapped around him from behind, and Jin giggled, embracing Gu Xiechen: “Brother, look at my practice of the Baji Xuan Gong—does it look like something now?”

Her small hands rested before Gu Xiechen. In Jin’s hand was a piece of hard, re-fused mineral slag. With a gentle squeeze from her delicate hand, the slag crumbled into dust. A very decent result; just from this display, it was clear she possessed at least tens of thousands of pounds of strength, and her physical resilience was comparable to that of an ordinary massive stone. This girl had only been practicing the Baji Xuan Gong for a few months to achieve this level of cultivation. Her foundation for the Dao path was truly excellent.

Gu Xiechen turned and patted Jin’s head hard. Faint golden flames flickered in Jin’s violet eyes, indicating her Divine Eye ability had also progressed significantly. Furthermore, a faint purple line traced her brow, resembling a closed eye, within which a fiercely potent essence was subtly gestating. Gu Xiechen couldn't help but marvel. Was the combination of Baji Xuan Gong and the Divine Eye technique leading Jin to truly cultivate a third eye?

Ah, a female Erlang Shen? Gu Xiechen mused internally. The myriad golden lights swirling rapidly in his Sea of Consciousness disrupted the surrounding Golden Star formation, clearly indicating that those Golden Stars dared not clash in the slightest with this one, whose authority was unmatched.

“Very good, it really has some resemblance,” Gu Xiechen smiled, gently pinching Jin’s cheek. Regardless of how Jin viewed him, he only regarded her as a little sister.

Jin rubbed her cheek forcefully against Gu Xiechen’s lapel, speaking distractedly, “Brother, I can see your future!”

Gu Xiechen looked at Jin in surprise and laughed, “Can you really see my future? What is my future like?”

Jin stuck out her tongue and burst into laughter, “I can’t say; if I say it, it won't be true. The River of Destiny does not allow interference, even for those of us who possess the Divine Eye, we cannot tamper with the flow of the River of Destiny.” She paused, continuing, “However, what I saw might only be a small part of Brother’s destiny. You are so strong; your destiny is very difficult to discern.” Faint purple light leaked from Jin’s eyes as she continuously scanned Gu Xiechen up and down.

Gu Xiechen smiled. Could this little girl truly see through his destiny?

Shaking his head, Gu Xiechen tugged Jin’s cheek. He smiled and asked, “Then, what about your own destiny?”

Jin fell silent for a moment. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek tightly against Gu Xiechen’s chest. Dreamily, she said, “The Divine Eye cannot see its own destiny. It’s like how we can never see our own backs.”

After a moment, Jin smiled again. “Sister Fuya will become your wife. But, Brother, you need to hurry back to Yafike. Finish what you’re doing here and go back quickly. Sister Fuya and the others have run into serious trouble and are starting to struggle to hold on.”

She held up a few fingers and stated grimly, “Six months. Sister Fuya and the others can hold out for six more months.”

Gu Xiechen froze, frowning, “Who is the enemy?”

Jin narrowed her eyes, the purple light in them growing intensely concentrated. She said in a low voice, “Li Sheng’s third son’s star. Behind them are three colossal dragons. Killing weapons cast from black crystal are rushing towards Yafike and the others through their blood connection.”

“The Elder Council.” Hearing Jin’s description, Gu Xiechen instinctively thought of this mysterious organization. He couldn't help but feel a surge of anger. How had Fuya Ming and the others provoked this group?

However, there was sufficient time.

Gu Xiechen looked toward the distance where celestial light surged. The Ten Heavenly Lords’ practice of the new Ten Absolute Formations was reaching its conclusion. Sensing from the flow of magical power, the new Ten Absolute Formations had already unified into a single entity; the ten primordial supreme treasures had been initially integrated into the new arrays.

There was indeed enough time. Gu Xiechen pursed his lips into a slightly cruel smile.

Because of the Purple Wolf God’s death, the dark creatures had descended into a frenzy. These people were fanatical divine believers; their god had been slain, and they were determined to find someone to vent their fury upon. Let the massive army of dark creatures and Asura Viking exchange blows until they were mutually exhausted; that would be the moment for Gu Xiechen to act.

The Polaris Empire had already been utterly destroyed by the dark creatures. All Gu Xiechen required was the death of the Wood Daoist and Meilin. Or, perhaps out of deference to Jin, the Wood Daoist might be spared, provided he could survive having thirty-six swords stabbed into his back by Gu Xiechen—after which Gu Xiechen would still allow him to leave.

Afterward, it would be time to return to Yafike and teach a severe lesson to those members of the Elder Council who unnecessarily troubled Fuya Ming. Once all this was finished, Gu Xiechen could find a place to cultivate in peace.

Thinking of this, Gu Xiechen let out a loud cry to the heavens.

Hearing Gu Xiechen’s whistle, the Ten Heavenly Lords simultaneously unleashed their strongest magical power. Streams of clear light rose from the Ten Absolute Formations, spreading outwards. In the blink of an eye, they covered a stellar region spanning millions of miles. With the roar of wind, fire, thunder, and lightning, all nearby celestial bodies evaporated simultaneously, leaving not a single trace behind.

Gu Xiechen took the lead, soaring into the sky on his cloud. The Ten Heavenly Lords followed closely behind.

The group trailed closely behind the tail of the massive dark creature army, heading straight for the battleground between the Polaris Empire and the Viking Empire.