Yu Guanzǐ and Fei Xing Daoren rushed through the void like two magpies that had caught the scent of carrion. They unleashed the Starry Sky Grand Shift technique as if it cost nothing, each shift propelling them across several star systems, leaving entire clusters of stars behind in the blink of an eye—truly like lightning striking, covering billions of li in an instant.
Senior Evil Dragon, to be clear, the Móhèn Lónggèn is a primordial dragon that hatched postnatally, possessing the innate talents of Devouring, Absorption, Fusion, and Genetic Enhancement. This type of primordial dragon's attributes lean heavily (eight parts) toward dark power. Since Yu Guanzǐ is a demon cultivator, he is perfectly suited to refining it into a magic tool.
As for Fei Xing Daoren, the name Falling Star Lake says it all; his cultivation method emphasizes the power of the stars, and the power of starlight also belongs to the extreme yin lineage. If he could capture the Móhèn Lónggèn, the resulting magic tool would perfectly align with his own cultivation characteristics, making it highly useful.
Especially since this three-headed dragon, the Móhèn Lónggèn, was somehow already imprisoned and sealed by someone else. Wouldn't destroying him now be as easy as taking candy from a baby?
Killing for treasure, or eliminating demons to seize their components to forge magic tools, is a common practice among cultivators. A primordial dragon like the Móhèn Lónggèn, without any reliable backing, once discovered by Yu Guanzǐ and Fei Xing Daoren, why wouldn't they rush over to claim its scales and divine soul to forge weapons and treasures?
Hurry up, hurry!
Unlike the Dark Deities or the Seraphim of the Angelic race, these beings, although also primordial creatures, possessed weak primordial power—only the strength of early or mid-stage Golden Immortals. Even flaying them wouldn't yield much usable material for refining high-quality magic tools. Compared to a primordial being like the Móhèn Lónggèn, whose offspring are already Golden Immortals and have matured over hundreds of thousands of years, Yu Guanzǐ and Fei Xing Daoren naturally discarded the Dark Deities and the Angels, focusing all their attention on the Móhèn Lónggèn.
Gǔ Xié Chén followed the pair with a cheerful smile. Beneath his feet, a water cloud constantly tumbling released a faint aquatic glow, yet its speed was hardly inferior to their Starry Sky Grand Shift ability. This water cloud was forged by Gǔ Xié Chén by combining the Jìnghuā Shuǐyuè Tàiyīn Dùn technique, Sun Wukong’s Cloud Somersault, and Erlang Shen's secret Làngjiào Zòngdì Jīnguāng Fǎ—a marvel unmatched in the Three Realms.
The cloud beneath his feet spun rapidly, releasing wisps of smoky, misty golden vapor that drifted away. Behind the cloud trailed a faint, lingering water-light spanning tens of thousands of li. Gǔ Xié Chén, standing serenely atop the cloud, hadn't even blinked, yet the cloud had already swept past dozens of star systems; its speed was astonishing.
The two fleeing figures ahead had just left Yunhua Mountain. Gǔ Xié Chén hurriedly relayed a few instructions and followed closely behind. A fight between two Golden Immortals against the Móhèn Lónggèn—how could he miss such a spectacle? If those two got themselves killed, Gǔ Xié Chén, considering they were all from the Daoist lineage, would naturally wait to scavenge their corpses and report their demise to the Three Realms, wouldn't he?
If the Móhèn Lónggèn was defeated by the pair, Gǔ Xié Chén would definitely draw closer to see if any benefits could be reaped. Who knew how many years that old dragon Móhèn Lónggèn had been trapped? How many ancient immortal artifacts had his descendants plundered to replenish his energy? That old dragon was incredibly wealthy, not to mention the innate magic tool that accompanied him.
If he could successfully peel off a layer of Móhèn Lónggèn's hide, the gains would be immense. Currently, Gǔ Wū Chén's domain was vast, with ever-increasing numbers of disciples in the Three Sects of Nine Nether Dao, Kunlun Mountain, and Zhongnan Mountain. Magic tools were becoming insufficient. If he didn't quickly collect some good items, must he expect these newly initiated disciples to fight Celestial Immortals armed with laser cannons?
With his hands clasped behind his back, Gǔ Xié Chén’s eyes glittered with spiritual light as he locked onto Yu Guanzǐ and Fei Xing Daoren ahead, following them closely.
They raced forward like this for several days, nearly reaching the entrance to the passage leading to the ancient battlefield, when Gǔ Xié Chén’s Samsara Dharma Eye suddenly glimpsed a streak of green light flashing past like lightning. His mind stirred, and he hastily retracted his escape light, leaving Yu Guanzǐ and Fei Xing Daoren behind. He stealthily pursued the direction the green light had fled.
If not for the Samsara Dharma Eye having achieved a certain level of mastery—though not yet reaching the legendary Buddhist Dharma Eye realm capable of surveying three thousand worlds in a single glance—it could now grasp any ripple within a radius of several star systems. Especially with a disturbance as significant as that green light, how could it escape Gǔ Xié Chén’s notice? The green light looked so familiar—it could only be Eir’loli!
Eir’loli, in her human form, flew forward stealthily, like a thief. She occasionally circled several times in the void or dove into the atmosphere of a planet to hide for a while. The body she had taken from Wūsùlì was now plump and full, clearly indicating she had replenished the vital essence depleted from this physical form during this time.
Even so, Gǔ Xié Chén still noticed that Eir’loli seemed slightly uncoordinated in her flight. Traces of black, sinister energy constantly seeped from her left shoulder and right leg. Clearly, the descendants of Móhèn Lónggèn had given her a difficult time recently; her injuries must have been inflicted by those descendants. No wonder she was flying so cautiously, like a startled mouse.
“After all, it's a stolen body. Even with so many supreme innate treasures, it’s not as nimble or obedient as her own body. She even has to re-cultivate her magical powers from scratch. Heh, you’re lucky you weren't slaughtered by Móhèn Lónggèn’s offspring!”
Gǔ Xié Chén nodded inwardly. Eir’loli’s miserable state made sense. Her source power came from the Reincarnation Divine Wood, but he had sabotaged her using the Divination Technique. She was forced to use Wūsùlì’s body. However, the Daoist methods Wūsùlì practiced were entirely different from the energy modes Eir’loli was familiar with. Gǔ Xié Chén wondered how she had endured these past few years.
Following along stealthily, Eir’loli crept closer to the capital of the Polaris Empire, which had become a dead zone. After carefully surveying the surroundings and scattering numerous small warning restrictions across the area, Eir’loli finally breathed a sigh of relief and quickly darted into one of the planets. Since not a single Dark Being remained, and the Star Alliance had subsequently endured continuous warfare, severely damaging the strength of various nations, no one had bothered with the planets left behind by the Polaris Empire, nor did anyone dare approach this dead land easily. Eir’loli using this place as a refuge truly surprised Gǔ Xié Chén.
Gǔ Xié Chén carefully trailed Eir’loli into the planet’s atmosphere and watched as she quickly plunged into a mountain range. He slipped in behind her, navigating twists and turns, until they reached an entrance to a base deep within the mountains, protected by dozens of alloy blast doors. Following the deep corridor downward, he finally arrived at a massive server room deep beneath the planet.
This must have been the control core for the former capital defense system of the Polaris Empire. Hundreds of super-brain units, each the size of Mount Everest, floated silently in the room, filling the vast space with a low, continuous hum.
At the center of these colossal super-brains, a humanoid light construct, several meters tall and colored deep azure, was tightly encircled by several ghastly green beams of light. Countless extremely fine electric arcs spread from the head of the azure construct, connecting to all the surrounding super-brains. A wave, situated between electromagnetic fluctuations and soul fluctuations, yet seeming to encompass both, constantly emanated from within the light construct, causing the tens of thousands of electronic lights on every super-brain to flicker rapidly.
Eir’loli clearly relaxed upon reaching this place. She chuckled softly, swaying her hips as she flew before the light construct. She gently patted the construct’s hazy face: “Darling, Mommy’s home. Come, call me Mommy!” The construct’s eye areas burst with a dazzling red light, and it let out a cold snort. “So naughty. After all the effort Mommy expended to resurrect you—or rather, to resurrect you all—this is how you repay Mommy?”
Eir’loli let out a wronged hum, then suddenly delivered a vicious slap across the light construct’s face. A burst of light rained down. This strike caused the construct’s form to slightly fade, and the energy fluctuations emanating from within also dimmed considerably.
“Understand this! It was I who sacrificed the last Life Seed left by Sageson to reconstruct your energy bodies; it was I who used one-third of my soul source energy to reforge your souls! Everything about you belongs to me, to me!”
Bouncing and screaming frantically, Eir’loli shrieked hoarsely, “I sacrificed so much, and you don't appreciate it? You dare not appreciate it? Have you forgotten that I am your Mother Goddess, your very Ancestor?”
She delivered more than a dozen more slaps to the construct’s face, raging: “Behave! Do exactly as I command, or I who created you can also destroy you! Feathered One, Pol Pot, Ducat, Little Xiao… Heh heh, this composite life form is truly meaningful!”
The construct merely stared at Eir’loli coldly. Eir’loli seemed somewhat manic, muttering curses, yet Gǔ Xié Chén managed to clearly discern the cause and effect of the situation. A chill shot straight up from the soles of his feet.
The Feathered One was dead, Pol Pot was dead, Ducat was dead, and Little Xiao was also dead. But the humanoid light construct Gǔ Xié Chén now saw was indeed their composite entity. Or rather, it was an imitation forcibly created by Eir’loli using the innate instincts of her true form, the Soul-Devouring Nether Flower.
That day, when Ducat detonated eleven Mother-Goddess-level fortresses, the Feathered One, Pol Pot, and Little Xiao were all reduced to scattered souls in the violent explosion. However, the sudden spatial and temporal shifts, along with the massive black hole generated by the blast, forcefully compressed the dispersed spiritual fluctuations and memory fragments of everyone who perished into a single memory crystal—the crystal infant Eir’loli had swallowed that day.
This memory crystal was equivalent to the memory projection of everyone who died in that explosion, integrating all their memories. Eir’loli’s true form, the Soul-Devouring Nether Flower, is the supreme grand artisan in manipulating souls and spirits, capable of shaping incorporeal bodies.
Sabotaged by Gǔ Wū Chén’s Divination Technique, all her descendants were slaughtered, and she herself was severely wounded while being hunted by the Móhèn Lónggèn’s bloodline. Eir’loli, deeply grieving, finally realized that her string of bad luck stemmed from the weakness of her offspring. Although she considered herself not much weaker than the Móhèn Lónggèn, the feebleness of her descendants caused her continuous failures.
Thus, a somewhat deranged Eir’loli destroyed the last Life Seed left by Sageson—in effect, severing Sageson’s last chance at revival. She used Sageson’s source vital energy to forge a semi-energetic, semi-mechanical body, exhausting one-third of her own soul source energy. From that memory crystal, she extracted the memory fragments of Ducat, Pol Pot, the Feathered One, and Little Xiao, integrating them into her own soul source energy to mold a brand-new soul.
This physical body was peculiar: it possessed the characteristics of a cultivator without an infant core, a cloud-based electronic life form, a mechanical biological entity, and a biomechanical beast. It held immense energy and terrifying devouring capabilities. It could freely transition between energy and solid states, resist most physical and energy damage, and rapidly recover injuries by devouring and absorbing all surrounding energy and matter.
Even more bizarrely, this physical body inherited the unique design of the Feathered One/Feathered Existences: it was a hermaphroditic creature capable of self-propagation and self-division. Given sufficient energy and medium, it could rapidly expand its lineage.
“This damned woman!” Gǔ Xié Chén frowned. Her methods were too extreme. For the sake of powerful descendants, she sacrificed the only partner with whom she shared the same origin throughout her long life, and she sacrificed one-third of her soul source!
However, would this body, forged at such a painful cost, meet her design specifications? “Must I live in agony?”
Immediately following, Pol Pot’s furious voice emerged: “Stop the nonsense! It’s better to live miserably than to die quickly! I don’t want to die; I want to live! Great Mother Goddess, I am willing to dedicate everything for your glory! But can you separate me from them?”
After cursing a few times, Pol Pot roared angrily: “My individual strength cannot match the combined might of these two mechanical minds! I truly wish to serve Mother Goddess, but they are obstructing my actions! Oh dear heavens, I truly have no way!”
Then, the androgynous voice of the Feathered One, unsettling enough to raise the hairs on one's body, chimed in: “Supreme Mother Goddess, is what I am now truly my original soul, or merely a deceptive ghost? I always feel that my current state is different from my former self.”
The Feathered One sighed and grumbled: “I absolutely refuse to merge with them! Separate us, Omnipotent and Supreme Mother Goddess, let us be apart! Perhaps then I can figure out if I am still the former me.”
Gǔ Xié Chén shook his head. None of you are the former you! You are merely false memories simulated by Eir’loli from that memory crystal using her innate abilities. She is only exploiting the unique powers contained within your memories!
The Feathered One possessed a unique understanding of semi-energetic bodies, while Ducat and Little Xiao were practically incarnations of mechanical life. Combining their memories perfectly suited the control of this unprecedented, strange life form. But what about Pol Pot? Why did Eir’loli incorporate Pol Pot’s memory template into this body?
Eir’loli angrily hissed, slapped the light construct across the face again, and then began chanting a bizarre incantation.
As the spell resonated, the light construct began to twist violently. The soul fluctuations it emitted grew increasingly bizarre, gradually shifting from four distinct fluctuations to being dominated by just one, which took control of the entire body. Pol Pot’s voice, filled with ecstatic joy, came from within the body: “Honorable Mother Goddess, this, this is wonderful! Although they still exist, I am the primary conductor of everything! I can use their power, while they can only be commanded by me!”
Eir’loli pursed her lips smugly and sighed languidly, delicately flicking her orchid finger: “If I couldn't even manage such a minor task, would I still be your Mother Goddess?”
She pointed a finger, and a handkerchief embroidered with five-colored Bagua and seven-colored landscape paintings flew out. With a clang and a jingle, a Star Alliance standard White Wing-class battleship, along with several small, fast assault ships, emerged from the handkerchief. These vessels reeked heavily of blood; some chunks of flesh still clung to the decks. Evidently, Eir’loli had seized the ships after slaughtering their crews and hadn't bothered to clean them before bringing them back.
Gǔ Xié Chén watched Eir’loli and the light construct with intense focus. He truly wanted to see what strengths this newborn offspring possessed, after all the boasting. The construct... perhaps it should now be called Pó’r Sageson?
Pol Pot raised both hands, and countless arcs of electric light shot from his fingertips. A hundred enemy super-brain hosts trembled simultaneously. Pol Pot’s brainwaves connected with these hosts, integrating the massive computing modules into a single whole. A giant light screen descended from above.
On the screen, the schematic of the White Wing-class battleship was laid bare, with every tiny screw detailed before them.
Pol Pot squinted in thought for a moment, then suddenly announced: “Energy, Mother Goddess, I need massive energy and large quantities of high-quality materials!”
Eir’loli silently tossed out hundreds of large divine crystals and a heap of innate-level materials. Gǔ Xié Chén detected a lingering aura of supernova remnants on these materials. Clearly, Eir’loli had just detonated a supernova, causing a cosmic anomaly akin to the creation of the primordial chaos in subspace, enabling her to collect so many innate materials. "So you also understand this method!" Gǔ Xié Chén frowned. This proprietary technique—Eir’loli had mastered it too? This made him decidedly uncomfortable. Perhaps he should seize this moment...
With a gentle sweep of his right hand, the Pangu Banner materialized in his grasp. The Primeval Lord of Heaven had left the complete refining method inside the Pangu Banner and erased all its inherent restrictions, so Gǔ Xié Chén had fully refined and completely controlled it. Consequently, the Pangu Banner lay obediently in his palm, revealing not the slightest trace of its presence.
Pol Pot let out a long roar toward the heavens. He opened his mouth wide, swallowing the divine crystals, while electric light flickered from his head, pulling the innate materials into his body. His body gradually swelled, and before long, he expanded into a blue sphere of light nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter. Within it, a thunderstorm of lightning was faintly brewing. “Honorable Mother Goddess, allow me to show you the power of your devout descendant!”
Ten thousand strands of electric light erupted from Pol Pot’s body, slamming fiercely onto the White Wing-class battleship. The battleship's hull undulated like flowing water; its armor rapidly shifted, gradually forging itself into a massive suit of armor. The internal structure of the ship underwent a marvelous transformation. Vast quantities of alloy tubes formed a complete skeletal structure; the original engine units and energy core melted down to become the internal organs; and the ship’s control super-brain morphed into a shining, metallic brain. With a final clatter, the White Wing-class battleship was condensed by the electric light into a colossal humanoid figure ten thousand meters tall.
Pol Pot’s hundred-kilometer-wide body suddenly split open. A sphere of light, nearly ten kilometers in diameter, shot out, transforming into a particle storm that blasted the humanoid body formed from the battleship. The metal form flickered briefly, gradually taking on a state that was half-matter, half-energy. A halo nearly a hundred meters thick enveloped the body, and its eyes slowly opened, emitting intelligent, human-like light. After taking a deep breath, this body knelt in homage to Eir’loli. Eir’loli laughed toward the sky in delight, her form trembling beautifully like a drunken peony.
After laughing triumphantly for a while, Eir’loli finally nodded with satisfaction: “Very good. Possessing peak power right upon birth—very good! My dear child, to commemorate someone, your name shall be... 00Sageson!”
Sageson knelt and bowed deeply to Eir’loli, then slowly rose. He forcefully beat his chest and roared in a booming voice: “From this day forward, I am Sageson... Honorable Mother Goddess, I require vast amounts of energy and materials! I can sense it; I can evolve to become even stronger! Devouring and absorption are the sources of my strength!”
Gǔ Xié Chén nodded inwardly. Eir’loli’s true form, the Soul-Devouring Nether Flower, relies on devouring souls to strengthen itself. Her genetics seemed further influenced by the Móhèn Lónggèn—that three-headed old dragon also relied on devouring ancient immortal artifacts to maintain its power.
Consequently, it was perfectly logical that Eir’loli’s newly created descendant possessed the trait of increasing its power through devouring.
A mere White Wing-class battleship, coupled with a heap of Divine Crystals and innate materials, could yield offspring boasting the cultivation of a Third Grade Celestial Immortal? El-loli’s novel method for generating descendants was astonishingly potent, yet undeniably costly!
What if he had Polpot modify a Mother God-level Super Fortress, or perhaps even a Nuwa-level Fortress?
Could she truly conjure descendants reaching the Golden Immortal level? That notion was utterly unbelievable.
Gazing at the giggling El-loli and Polpot, who was intensely absorbing energy and matter within his form, Gu Xiechen suddenly launched himself high into the air, the Pangu Banner unleashing a torrent of chaotic energy that slammed down towards the crown of El-loli’s head.
It was a full-force strike, an ambush delivered with absolute power. The moment the Pangu Banner manifested, the void within a radius of tens of thousands of miles instantly stiffened; it wasn't just space and time, but even the wills of El-loli and Polpot were momentarily frozen.
The Pangu Banner, trailing ten thousand feet of spiritual light, struck El-loli’s skull. Poor thing, this physical body was merely Usuli’s flesh; El-loli hadn't even fully mastered the immortal or arcane energies within it, so how could she possibly withstand such a sudden assault from the Pangu Banner?
With a piercing shriek, El-loli’s physical form vanished, turning to dust. Her primordial divine soul shot skyward, fleeing haphazardly into the distance, only to be intercepted by Gu Xiechen’s Kui Water Yin Thunder, which blasted it into fragments with a single bolt.
Left hovering in the void were several Innate Supreme Treasures, glittering brilliantly, among them the Heaven and Earth Profound Yellow Exquisite Pagoda! However, this time, the pagoda made no move to shield El-loli; the reason remained unknown.
Gu Xiechen roared with laughter, snatching all the treasures into his grasp. He countered instantly with a punch, sending Sagesson—who was charging in from behind, swinging massive fists—flying backward. Gu Xiechen’s physical body was currently monstrously powerful, the kind of freak capable of standing toe-to-toe with Yang Jian or the Monkey King. A casual punch carried the force of ten thousand tons. Sagesson’s semi-energized right arm instantly disintegrated, and his massive frame was hurled immense distances, smashing through three Super Brain Mainframes along the way. Baring his teeth, Gu Xiechen made a face at the dumbfounded Polpot and erupted in laughter. “Polpot, perhaps I shall call you by that name!”
Polpot immediately shook his head vehemently, crying out in alarm, “No! It has nothing to do with me! I am not Polpot! I am merely a projection left by his lingering soul, a being less substantial than a ghost. In truth, I should have dissipated entirely from this universe long ago!”
Gu Xiechen scrutinized the terrified, ashen-faced Polpot for a moment. After a brief period of contemplation, he casually tossed down the mountain-sized Divine Crystals and the countless innate materials. Pointing at the strangely shimmering objects, Gu Xiechen smiled. “I will not kill you, for we have no quarrel. Even though you have inherited all of Polpot’s memories, you are not him.”
After a moment of consideration, Gu Xiechen stated calmly, “Unfurl your soul body and allow me to place a mark within it. Obey me, and you can acquire infinite materials to develop countless descendants; you can establish your own nation. Henceforth, you need only follow my directives.”
Polpot asked hoarsely, “To release my soul body for you to place a mark means my life and death rest entirely in your hands. What if I refuse?”
Gu Xiechen flicked the Pangu Banner with sharp finality. Sagesson, who had been screeching and charging toward them, was instantly shredded by thousands of strands of chaotic airflow, vanishing completely. One stream of chaotic energy seemed to sweep past Polpot’s feet by accident, dissolving a small portion of his body into countless motes of light.
This memory projection of Polpot was ten thousand times more terrified of death than the genuine article. As soon as Gu Xiechen threatened him, he immediately released his primordial spirit, opening his soul body completely.
Gu Xiechen chuckled sinisterly and embedded nearly a hundred vicious restrictions, drawn from the Great Desolation Sutra, deep within Polpot’s soul. He paid special attention to sealing the three memories relating to Ducart, Xiao Xiao, and the Feathered Ones, before transforming into a stream of watery light and swiftly departing. “I grant you time to develop vigorously. When I return, I expect to find a new empire flourishing within the territory of the Extreme Star Empire!” “An empire belonging to beings that are half-mechanical, half-energetic!” “Work hard; I have high hopes for you!”
The mountains of Divine Crystals and innate materials roared down from the high heavens, instantly scattering across nearly half the planet.
Polpot, shaking his battered body, rushed toward the ground. He stared at the wealth of materials before him and shrieked with exhilaration. A modified Nuwa-level Fortress descended from the sky, conveniently crashing down directly on top of Polpot. Gu Xiechen’s voice echoed faintly from a distance.
“First, exert all your strength to modify this thing. When I return, I intend to take it with me!”