Desolate Devouring Art

Chapter 40 - Third-Level of the Xiantian Realm

The Wan Clan’s elder was also stunned, his mouth hanging open.

“That’s right. It’s me!” Liu Wuxie said, drawing his blade. His blade left behind a cold arc in the air and appeared before the Wan Clan’s elder, who tried to block it but was too slow. This cold arc sliced across his neck, and his body shriveled until he was nothing but a piece of skin.

Tian Lie was so horrified by this scene that he screamed. The Wan Clan’s elder was in the seventh level of the Xiantian Realm, but he was killed with a blade, which was too unbelievable. When the other disciples in the Houtian Realm saw this scene, they could only watch as the Wan Clan’s elder died. There was nothing they could do about it.

“I-It’s Liu Wuxie!” they cried out, finally seeing his face in the dim light. He wore a harmless smile, and no one would have guessed that he had killed so many people in a single night.

“This is impossible! How can trash like him kill so many of us?!” members of both clans roared, unable to accept what they had seen.

“Trash?” Tian Lie laughed bitterly. No one could take that blade head-on unless they were in the Spirit Cleansing Realm. He continued, “If he’s trash, what are we then?”

A bitter smile rose on Tian Lie’s face. He had entered the Sunset Mountain Range full of confidence, and this outcome was like falling from heaven to hell. The one they had looked down on had become someone they couldn’t even look up to. It was too much to bear, and everyone was going insane.

Why did he hide himself so deeply?” they wondered, puzzled and perplexed. Liu Wuxie looked at them with disdain as he raised his blade and slowly approached, disappearing into the crowd like an afterimage.

“Shit! Everyone disperse and run! Send the news back to the clan!” Tian Lie yelled, ordering everyone to scatter and escape. He hoped that someone would make it back to Azure Billow City to warn the Tian and Wan Clans to prepare.

The remaining seven members of the two clans dispersed, running for their lives. Tian Lie charged forward, hoping to stop Liu Wuxie and buy everyone time to escape.

“No one can escape tonight!” Liu Wuxie split into three and headed in seven directions, swinging his blade as he went. His blade left behind afterimages, its aura forming a dragon that soared in all directions. One by one, the fleeing members fell, their bodies shriveling.

Tian Lie stopped in his tracks, his eyes bulging. Liu Wuxie had killed seven people with a single stroke of his blade, its aura forming a dragon. Such a feat could only be accomplished by someone who had cultivated for at least fifty years. Was Liu Wuxie even human?

“Your turn!” Liu Wuxie walked towards Tian Lie slowly, his murderous intent surging. If not for the Song Clan, the Xu Clan would have been raided and divided by the Wan and Tian Clans. Even his father-in-law would have fallen into their trap and been captured.

“D-Don’t come near me!” Tian Lie cried out, fear gripping him. He didn’t want to die, not when he had so much left to enjoy.

Liu Wuxie stepped on the dried branches as he approached. Tian Lie backed up until he was against a cliff, trembling and pale.

“Tell me the Tian Clan’s next plan.” Liu Wuxie sneered. Knowing his enemy was key to victory, and he needed to know their next move in order to counter it. So he wasn’t hurrying to kill Tian Lie.

“Little bastard, don’t even think about getting a single word out of me!” Tian Lie gritted his teeth with his Xiantian Spirit soaring to the sky. His headband snapped, and he looked like a fearsome demon with his sword stabbing at Liu Wuxie. He planned to drag Liu Wuxie down with him.

“Still so stubborn!” Liu Wuxie nimbly dodged Tian Lie’s sword, causing his attack to miss. Sensing that something was wrong, Tian Lie tried to flee, but Liu Wuxie swung his blade down with a snort. The aura from his blade flew out, hugging the ground, and soon a scream echoed through the woods.

“ARGHHHH! MY LEGS!” Tian Lie’s legs were gone, severed by Liu Wuxie’s blade aura, blood splattering everywhere. He could only lie on the ground, howling in agony as he had lost his legs. As Liu Wuxie slowly approached, Tian Lie’s face twisted in pain, and he glared at him with hatred.

“You little bastard, I hope you’ll die a terrible death! Your Xu Clan isn’t far from annihilation now!” Tian Lie spat out vicious curses. The blood he had lost pooled around him, staining the grass red. The pungent smell of blood attracted several powerful demonic beasts, but none dared to come close.

“What is the Tian Clan’s next move?” Liu Wuxie rested his blade on Tian Lie’s right shoulder, speaking to him not with force but as if they were old friends. His tone was devoid of emotion, and his calmness made Tian Lie afraid.

Most people would experience some emotional changes after killing over thirty people—anxiety, excitement, or even fear. It was human nature. But Liu Wuxie was eerily calm as if he had done something insignificant.

“Don’t bother wasting...ARRRGHHH!” Before Tian Lie could finish his words, he lost his right arm with blood gushing out. But Liu Wuxie didn’t stop there and rested his blade on Tian Lie’s left shoulder with a harmless smile on his face. This terrified Tian Lie even more, and Liu Wuxie was no different from a demon in his eyes.

“I don’t have a lot of patience. Speak up if you don’t want to die a painful death.”

Tian Lie trembled with fear, lying on the ground helplessly as his blood flowed out. Liu Wuxie had broken his will, and he didn’t want to endure inhuman torture. He just wanted a quick death and begged, “I’ll tell you, but give me a quick death.”

“Speak!” Liu Wuxie sat on the clean ground far away and sheathed his sword, ready to listen to Tian Lie.

“We joined forces with the Terrabreak Army to deal with your Xu Clan. We plan to seize Xu Clan’s assets when Xu Yilin enters the Sunset Mountain Range and even use the Terrabreak Army to kill Xu Yilin...”

It was more or less the same as Liu Wuxie had speculated from the information Zhou Hu had disclosed. He already knew about that and wanted to know what the Tian and Wan Clans would do next. He needed to hold the initiative in his hands. He asked, “Anything else?”

“We’ve already dispatched a team into the Iris Gold Mine. Even if we can’t seize it, we’ll destroy it and make the Xu Clan lose the Iris Gold Mine. At that time, Xu Clan’s Weaponry Workshops would have to close down, and the Xu Clan would crumble in three days even if we didn’t do anything.”

This piece of information was important to Liu Wuxie. If the Xu Clan lost their Iris Gold Mines, they would have to close down their weaponry workshops sooner or later unless they could find new materials to forge weapons.

“How long will it take for this team to reach the Iris Gold Mine?” Liu Wuxie looked at Tian Lie, hoping he wasn’t too late.

“In a few days!” Tian Lie’s vitality was fading, and he could barely speak due to blood loss. His wounds were no longer bleeding, meaning he had practically bled out all his blood.

Liu Wuxie drew his blade, and a head flew off. The essence from the corpse was absorbed by the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, forming a droplet of the mysterious liquid that fused into his dantian.

Rumbling sounds came from his dantian when the mysterious liquid fused, signaling that he was about to make a breakthrough. After killing so many people tonight, he had accumulated enough of the mysterious liquid for his breakthrough.

Liu Wuxie first cleaned up the battlefield before disappearing to find a secluded place to make his breakthrough to the third level of the Xiantian Realm.

Liu Wuxie found a hidden cave and went in. He opened Zhou Hu’s interspatial pouch containing over fifty spirit stones and 100,000 gold coins. He took out ten spirit stones to set up a Spirit Convergence Array. The spiritual energy in the Sunset Mountain Range was dense, and the surrounding spiritual energy within a radius of ten thousand meters swiftly gathered, forming thick spiritual clouds outside the cave.

The spirit stones drew in the dense spiritual energy from these clouds and gathered it around Liu Wuxie. When he circulated the Desolate Devouring Art, he was like a gluttonous beast devouring the surrounding spiritual energy.

As his dantian expanded, the mountain ranges in his dantian began to grow with trees rising from the ground, containing wood essence. The mountains and rocks in the world within his dantian also contained metal essence, and oceans and lakes appeared. The world in his dantian was like a portrait, projecting the entire desolate world.

When the various elements intertwined, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron produced ten-odd droplets of brown liquid fusing into his dantian, and a horrifying aura spread throughout the cave. Rumbling sounds came from the cave, like roaring thunder, causing it to shake with cracks spreading out in the surrounding walls.

As a powerful aura emanated from Liu Wuxie’s pores, it was like needles stabbing into the surrounding walls, widening the cracks.

As Liu Wuxie’s aura continued to rise, the ten spirit stones on the ground cracked, and the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron rapidly devoured the spiritual energy within them.

The spiritual energy within a radius of ten thousand meters was sucked dry, and many demonic beasts raised their heads in confusion, not knowing what had happened. Some martial cultivators also looked at the surroundings blankly, wondering who had emptied all the surrounding spiritual energy.

“What happened?! Why did the surrounding spiritual energy disappear?” Martial cultivators entered the Sunset Mountain Range to train as dawn broke.

“Probably some powerhouse is making a breakthrough.” That was the only possibility, and no one took it seriously as they continued their journey.

The ten spirit stones were emptied, and Liu Wuxie’s cultivation was stabilized in the initial phase of the third-level Xiantian Realm. When he opened his eyes, they released two beams that shot out, charging out of the cave and leaving two marks on two trees outside, like marks left by swords.

Each level in the cultivation could be divided into the initial, intermediate, late, and pinnacle phases. If someone else had absorbed as much spiritual energy as Liu Wuxie, they would’ve reached the fourth or fifth level of the Xiantian Realm.

Liu Wuxie’s dantian was massive, but he had only reached the initial phase. With each breakthrough in the future, he would need at least ten times more spiritual energy and resources than others. Just thinking about it was a headache, but his dantian was still expanding. The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron was devouring spiritual energy every second, but the mysterious liquid's production had slowed. Azure Billow City was remote and lacked spiritual energy.

When Liu Wuxie stood up, his body began to crackle like rumbling thunder. He tested his current strength by throwing a punch forward, causing the space before him to explode with a sound like a cracking whip.