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nXu Qing’s life essence bluegreen dragon formed the heavenly dao of his first god trove. Being so familiar with it, it made the god trove very responsive, and also ensured that its natural and magical laws were the most complete.

nHis taboo poison formed his second god trove, and violet moon power made the third. Then he had the Emperor’s trove, plus one trove that had no spirit at all.

nThe ‘spirit’ was the heavenly dao. Without a dao in the trove, it would be very difficult to push it to the level of the great circle. In that case, the five troves couldn’t erupt volcanically, in which case the natural and magical laws couldn’t form spirit ash. Without the spirit ash, it wasn’t possible to form void soil, which in turn would make it impossible to effectuate the return of dao lineaments. 1

nThat was why Xu Qing’s most important goal during the god domain phase of the Great Hunt, other than winning the title of Grand Darkheaven, was to acquire heavenly daos.

nUp to this point, he had encountered quite a few living beings in the god domain that could have become heavenly daos. But for various reasons, he had rejected all of them.

nUntil now!

nThe three-headed six-armed statue with the moon mark emanated an aura that provoked a reaction from his third god trove. That was unprecedented, and it caused Xu Qing’s eyes to gleam!

nA moment later, the Captain’s voice reached him. “Hurry up, little Junior Brother. Time’s ticking!”

nThe Captain’s voice was quickly caught up by the wind and scattered in all directions.

nXu Qing nodded. Looking away from the statue, he glanced around at the storm, and felt the sting of the infinitude of dust particles that it contained.

nA moment later, he shot after the Captain.

nWhen the Captain saw Xu Qing following him, he accelerated toward the mountain that was the emperor’s tomb.

nThe wind was getting stronger, filling the land and sky, obscuring vision and bringing about a sensation of wickedness and destruction. The statues were already fading from sight because of the darkness of the storm. Even the mountain was starting to get hard to see.

nThankfully, the Captain was thoroughly prepared, and knew exactly where he was going. As he got close to the mountain, he spat out a huge mouthful of blood. The word ‘huge’ was no exaggeration. In fact, it was so much blood that it contained more blood than existed in the body of an average human.

nAt the same time, he waved his right hand, gathering up the blood and using it like ink to paint on the rocky surface of the mountain. He drew something that resembled an arc. However, that wasn’t the end of it. He kept spitting out more and more blood, until he’d done it a total of seventeen times. As Xu Qing looked on, he used that blood to paint a complete circle!

nNext, he began to sing a song that sounded more like weeping than singing.

n“Alas, I mourn mine father; who caught ill and passed away.

n“I know mine father well, and know his toil; he loved us and protected us each day.

n“But he abandoned me and parted ways; drifting in the nether, hearing troubled and vision astray; I recognize him not, weeping to the core, love changed into dismay.”

nHis voice thrummed with grief and sorrow. The wind even seemed to have trouble carrying the words away.

nXu Qing felt moved by the lyrics. What was more, if it weren’t for the fact that the Captain turned around and winked excitedly, Xu Qing might have assumed that the emperor buried here was actually the Captain’s father.

nAs the Captain’s song reached a fever pitch, he shoved his right hand into his torso, ripped out his liver, and put it into the middle of the circle of blood.

nHis voice suddenly sounded more sorrowful.

n“This filial sacrificial offering is for my father in the underworld; please sample it, lest all be lost. Amen!”

nThe rocky surface of the mountain trembled as the Captain ripped out his kidney, spleen, and lungs. One after another, he placed them in the circle of blood. The last thing he added was his heart!

nApparently, those things were his sacrificial offering! He was just waiting for the father to come eat!

nHeaven and earth rumbled. The mountain shook. The wind grew more terrifying. And as the Captain performed a double-handed incantation gesture, his eyes shone with crazy light. Taking a step forward, he slammed his head against the rocky cliff surface.

n“Amen!” he said, holding nothing back. A cracking sound rang out as the Captain’s head smacked into the rocky surface, causing a rift to open up.

nXu Qing was visibly surprised.

nThe Captain’s actions caused the emperor’s tomb to start shaking dramatically. After striking the circle of blood, a crevice opened up. The Captain’s expression turned even more crazy as he threw his head back and then slammed it back onto the surface of the rock.

n“Amen!”

nThe mountain shook even more violently, and the existing crevice opened up further, while more crevices opened up.

nAfter executing nine strikes in a row, the blood circle collapsed, revealing a tunnel leading into a cave. However, there was a glowing shield of light that created a final barrier into the cave.

n“Hahaha! Finally got it open!” The Captain’s face was slick with blood, and his expression was as crazy as ever. Having successfully opened up the cave, he didn’t forget to look back at Xu Qing and laugh heartily. “Little Ah Qing, this is a back door your Eldest Brother left behind in a past life. With the Wordless words, getting inside will be simple, plus the shield of light will keep out any dangers. Hahaha! The treasures are just waiting for us inside. Let’s do this!”

nThe Captain raced forward. However he only went a few steps before he realized that Xu Qing wasn’t following him. He looked back, stunned.

n“What are you doing, little Junior Brother?”

nXu Qing had been planning to follow the Captain inside. But upon hearing what he said about ‘keeping out any dangers,’ his eyes gleamed with determination, and he activated his Violet Lord god state. Millions of soul threads spread out to take the shape of Violet Lord, backed by the blessing of Ninedawns. His battle prowess skyrocketed, and he shoved his hand in the direction of the last and nearest statue.

nGodsource spread out, making a huge hand that could crush anything in its path. Astonishingly, he was planning to kill one of the statues and use its soul as his heavenly dao!

nAt the same time, he shed the invisibility from the Wordless Book of Stone.

nThe statue shuddered. Its eyes snapped open, and they glowed with an underworld light. At the same time, the statue instantly transformed into a flesh-and-blood form. Opening its mouth, it shouted, “Restrain!”

nHeaven and earth reeled as chains of white bone popped out of nowhere and latched onto Xu Qing’s illusory hand, immobilizing it.

n“Devour!”

nA reverse force of devouring then swept out of the statue’s mouth and toward Xu Qing.

nXu Qing grunted as the power slammed into him, forcing him to back up several steps. Next, wild energy fluctuations rolled out as the statue rushed toward Xu Qing, its three heads all glaring angrily at him and its six arms all performing incantation gestures.

nXu Qing remained calm as he negated the power of devouring. With eyes that flashed like blades, he looked at the incoming statue, backed up, and then made a grasping gesture with his right hand. The air in front of him split open, and fire erupted out as a black spear appeared. Xu Qing grabbed it. At the same time, a vicious beast with the body of a jackal and the head of a dragon emerged from within him and fused with the black spear, bolstering it.

nIt was none other than the jackal-dragon, who loved combat and fighting!

nXu Qing’s eyes glittered with cold light as he hurled the spear at the incoming statue! Flames spread out in all directions. The Ninedawns jackal-dragon howled. The black spear thrummed with a heaven-rending, earth-crushing sound that was like a sun ripping apart the darkness of night.

nA boom rang out as the charging statue lurched to a halt and threw four hands out to grab the spear and stop its momentum.

nXu Qing didn’t hesitate to throw his left hand over his head. Four fingers pointed straight up, forming a pointed tip to the blade that was his arm. At the same time, a vortex appeared in the sky, causing an ancient temple to appear. The temple revealed an altar with a divine likeness bearing a saber. The statue stepped forward, emerged from the temple, and slashed the saber down. Heaven and earth lit up. That temple was called Supreme Vastness, and the statue had Xu Qing’s face. The saber conformed to a heavenly dao, and was in fact a heavenly saber!

nConsidering how high Xu Qing’s cultivation base had climbed, this saber was anything but ordinary. It was no longer a projection.

nThe awakened statue shivered and lifted its remaining two arms like a weapon. At the same time, the three heads all opened their mouths and howled. Wild colors flashed in the air as the heavenly saber descended, slicing the ‘weapon’ apart. The arms shattered, and one of the heads crumbled!

nThe heavenly saber faded away.

nThe statue, meanwhile, was flung backward by about 300 meters. Its four remaining eyes let off streams of black smoke as they charged back toward Xu Qing, its four arms stretched out to grab him.

nXu Qing frowned. Without any hesitation, he shot backward and managed to enter the screen of light in the cave just before the statue arrived.

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nThe statue closed in, and its four hands slammed into the shield. The shield trembled, but it kept the statue at bay.

nThe Captain was right. The shield of light really did keep dangers away. The statue stood just outside of it, glaring coldly at Xu Qing. Then, after a long moment passed, it returned to its spot and reverted to stone. That said, the portions where it sustained damage wouldn’t easily be restored.

nSeeing that, Xu Qing didn’t wait for the Captain to say anything before striding back outside of the shield of light. There, he performed an incantation gesture and unleashed a torrent of divine abilities. The statue awoke again, and the fighting resumed.

nBooms rang out and terrifying shockwaves spread. Xu Qing occasionally fell back and occasionally pressed the attack.

nOn the other side of the shield, the Captain watched. Though he was surprised, he now realized that Xu Qing wanted to use the shield of light as an area to seek refuge while he tried to wear down the statue.

nHe was inclined to remind Xu Qing that the statues here couldn’t be killed. He had done his own research into that, and knew that even if you managed to destroy one, it would cause other unexpected complications. But then he realized that if he explained that, it would likely diminish his prestige as the Eldest Brother. And prestige was extremely important.

nThus, he put a look of admiration onto his face and said, “I’ll help you, little Junior Brother!” With that, he rushed out and joined Xu Qing in trying to deal with the statue.

nJust like before, the statue continued to sustain damage, and eventually the heavenly saber appeared. But this time, something different happened.

nThe heavenly dao was shaped like a saber, with the taboo poison of a god’s curse as the body of the blade, and daybreak light as the light of the blade! The Ghost Emperor mountain formed a decapitation altar, and D-132 became the trough! The golden crow connected them, and the violet moon was the seal! The timescape was the container, and it was driven by the sundial life lamps!

nGod Decapitation Altar!

nAs the executioner’s blade fell, it severed the final remaining head on the statue and caused the rest of its body to collapse. As the pieces fell to the ground, bits of moonlight erupted from within.

nStruggling to control his breathing, Xu Qing opened his third god trove, sending out a force of attraction that grabbed the moonlight and sucked it in. All of a sudden, a lamp appeared in the darkness of the god trove!

n***

nOn another part of this strange planet, on the other side of the mountain that was the emperor’s tomb, a person was beginning a very gruish and mysterious ceremony. The ceremony used a sun as its origin, a moon as its strength, and a star as the force of attraction. That was why there was a huge triangular totem on the ground.

nWild winds screamed around the totem, within the middle of which a person was seated cross-legged.

nThis person wore voluminous clothing that looked like it was tailored for a man. However, the wind caused the cloth to press tightly against what was obviously a very voluptuous form. Her features were exquisite, and featured skin as fair as snow. However, the facial expression that was visible contained coldness and murder.

nThis person was none other than Sir Firedark.

nThe ceremony being carried out caused glittering light to flash, not up into the sky, but down into the ground. It pierced through the planet and then connected to the emperor’s tomb.

nIn the blink of an eye, Sir Firedark vanished without a trace.

n1. This note is regarding ‘void soil’ which relates to the Void Returning level. The author did something really wonky with the ‘Void Returning’ cultivation level. Specifically, there are two Chinese characters that look very similar and are pronounced similar. One of them means ‘void’ and the other means ‘ruins.’ For the majority of the novel, he uses the ‘void’ character, which is why I rendered the cultivation level as Void Returning. For roughly the first 800 chapters up to this point, he uses that character something like 300 times, with only a few instances of using the ‘ruins’ character (seemingly just typos). However, starting in this chapter, he switches to using the ‘ruins’ version of the character more often. Later on, he goes all-in on the ‘ruins’ interpretation, even linking some of the explanations of the cultivation level to the ‘ruins’ interpretation. Thankfully, at least ‘void’ and ‘ruins’ both conjure a similar sensation of ‘a place that has nothing (much) in it.’ I’m not sure why the author did this. Perhaps he changed his mind about which character to use. Perhaps he didn’t think much about this level, and then the typo became the reality, and when it came time to explain the cultivation level, he forgot what he’d originally decided. Or who knows what else it could be. It’s not as big of a deal in Chinese, because the characters look almost identical. If I had known several hundred chapters ago about this, I might have named the cultivation level something different. But given how many hundreds of chapters and references there are, I’m going to maintain the original continuity. This means that there might be some small tweaks made in editing so that everything sounds correct. I’ll include footnotes as necessary about that. ☜

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