Amidst the ruins.
The entrance to the interaction zone begins to twist and writhe slowly, like a TV image with a weak signal, flickering uncertainly.
Suddenly, two figures shoot out from it, landing lightly on the ground to one side.
Revealing the figures of Moon God and Zhaoyu Pavilion.
Zhaoyu Pavilion holds a gemstone in his hand, golden and amber-like, tossing it gently.
"Inside, we’ve gathered thirty-two units of Divine Marrow from the gods and living entities. Not bad at all."
Moon God stands silently beside him.
Having mingled with this group for so long, he has become familiar with many basic units of common knowledge.
Divine Marrow serves as both food and consumable for gods like them.
Whether it’s the Heart-Burning Furnace or daily activities, the energy they require can be extracted from Divine Marrow.
This substance is essentially a collection, a concentrated form of countless brains.
Within that interaction zone, at least tens of millions of living beings, dozens of gods, extracted all their brains just to form this one piece of Divine Marrow in Zhaoyu Pavilion’s hand.
He watched countless people die, as the gods struggled desperately, yet were easily ignited and harvested by Zhaoyu Pavilion.
"The interaction zone is just a seed we’ve planted. We’re simply harvesting the fruits now," Laf said, noting Moon God’s displeasure and offering a consolatory smile.
"We’ve wandered around nearby for quite a while. Perhaps it’s time we return to the Eternal Palace? Supplies are running low," Rongxin chimed in.
"Alright then." Laf smiled and nodded, "Let’s make one last stop."
"Oh? Where?" Rongxin seemed intrigued, guessing something.
"Moon, take us to the interaction zone you came from. With your strength, it should be a large interaction zone, promising quite a harvest," Laf’s eyes burned intensely, fixating on the silent Moon God.
"It’s already destroyed." Moon God’s heart tightened, instinctively uneasy, unwilling to take the three there.
Even if he doesn’t care much for the gods and people of his own interaction zone, it remains his homeland.
He watched Zhaoyu Pavilion obliterate an interaction zone, populated by millions, within minutes.
With a bit of calculation, he knew what the outcome would be if he guided them to his zone.
"Since you’ve already left, you can’t go back. Better to turn everything from before into your accumulation, and then get a suitable Heart-Burning Furnace at the Eternal Palace," Laf persuaded.
"It’s already destroyed. I can’t actually find it either," Moon God’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"I said it once already. I don’t want to repeat myself," Laf’s smile slowly turned cold.
"If you don’t want to talk, then don’t." Moon God, never one to yield easily, darkened as he was pressured.
He had fought valiantly within the Great Spirit for centuries, never before threatened like this.
"It seems we’ll need to determine the hierarchy within our group...."
Laf seemed to have awaited this day.
He tore off his outer robe, revealing a muscular upper body wrapped in black bandages.
His head of grey-white hair drifted lightly in the breeze.
"To hail from a large interaction zone sure breeds arrogance..... But that arrogance must be mindful of the recipient!"
As soon as he finished speaking, his figure suddenly vanished.
A piercing, shrill whistle exploded in the air.
In an instant, he appeared like a flash beside Moon God, a hand striking towards him.
Though fast, the move wasn’t impossible to react to.
Moon God’s pupils shone blue, the power belonging to Spirit Flying Heaven surging within him, activating.
Numerous spiritual lines swiftly attached to his right palm, enhancing its strength, meeting this attack head-on.
Buzz!!
Both palms connected simultaneously.
Ripples of air currents spread from them, exploding outward incessantly.
Within a hundred-meter radius, all debris jumped simultaneously, as if trembling under immense shock waves.
"Decent foundational strength," Laf pressed down with one hand, overwhelming Moon God with tremendous force, his legs sinking into the ground.
"But without divine might, you still haven’t adapted to learning how to strike in reality...."
His face leaned closer to Moon God, eyes flickering with tiny black specks.
"Let me see what you’re made of then?" Moon God’s expression remained unchanged, determined to thoroughly probe Laf’s true strength this time.
Besides divine might, he still possessed Yue Dewen and his own martial arts elements.
What was called the Twelve Talismanic Skills of Great Dao Teaching had long been refined and transformed into his novel martial arts.
After all, Celestial Venerable Yujing, was a sub-identity designed to conceal the Spirit Flying Heaven system architecture.
Pop.
A surge of force pulled them apart, creating distance.
In an instant, Moon God’s back quickly arched, flesh and blood forming into a moon-white disk.
Twelve kinds of talismanic skill patterns and blue symbols automatically surfaced on the disk.
"Interesting," Laf’s chest lit with black-red firelight. Flames enveloped him instantly.
Boom!
The flames exploded, a colossal figure over five meters tall burst through, armed with two serrated weapons, charging straight at Moon God.
This figure bore sharp bull horns, its face hidden beneath a black keratin helmet, only visible as black-red magma flowing from inside.
Beyond that, Laf’s body was clad in black armor.
In the armor’s seams, magma flowed as though its body was entirely composed of magma.
"The Martial Arts Atlas I practice, Black Sand Yama Path, is highly suited to me. Although not among the strongest cultivation techniques at the Eternal Palace, it boosts my overall attributes by at least twelvefold in a short time."
"So, do you still plan to fight?" He asked one last time.
"Then let me test what twelvefold enhancement can achieve," Moon God’s face remained unchanged.
His defenses fully activated.
Having experienced the Heart-Burning Furnace’s power once, this time, he intended to fully comprehend it.
"Courageous...." Laf strode forward. Wherever he stepped, the ground was scalded by extreme heat, leaving blackened smoke in its wake.
"So then....."
From the crevices of his body, streams of magma rushed outward.
The magma twisted and shaped itself, quickly forming arms and tentacles.
At the ends of some tentacles, hideous red-gold eyes sprouted, blinking as they watched the Moon God from all directions.
"We can start now."
Hiss!!
In an instant, dozens of arms and tentacles exploded outward simultaneously.
Everything around seemed to slow down.
Space and time appeared to freeze and flow at this moment.
The Moon God could clearly see the air ripples pierced open before the tentacles and arms launched forward.
Those densely layered patterns of ripples formed a towering wall of air, pressing towards him head-on.
Without the amplification of divine power, there was no time to dodge such speed at all.
Boom!!
The ground shattered, and within a radius of over ten meters, the ruinous black earth was torn open with a massive breach.
Amidst the splattering explosion of dirt, the Moon God’s arms were covered with countless black spiritual lines, lightning-fast as they blocked the relentless incoming tentacles and hands.
Puchi.
But without divine power, his speed and strength were far inferior to Laf’s eruption.
Even in martial arts realm, the opponent was not any weaker than him.
Prediction matched prediction, leaving him with no advantage whatsoever.
Within just a few seconds, cuts began to appear on his body.
These were injuries caused by tentacles slicing through his skin where he couldn’t dodge in time.
Whether it was the martial arts of the Great Dao Teaching, or the martial arts of the Moon God’s Sensing Sect, all the moves he executed at this moment faced a huge problem.
Without the combination of divine power and momentum, parts of these techniques naturally had significant flaws.
Even though he had honed them significantly during this time, without momentum and divine power, the might of his martial arts was greatly weakened.
"It’s over."
Laf raised his right hand.
More than a dozen tentacles on his body wound together, forming a bundle that swept across.
Swoosh!!!
The tentacles instantly extended to twenty meters, transforming into the sharpest blade, cutting across a large fan-shaped area, and then stopping instantly in front of the Moon God’s nose, who couldn’t dodge in time.
The entire confrontation lasted no more than twenty seconds. Laf even attacked with a playful attitude, casually making his move.
And the result was exceptionally clear.
"Do you understand?" Laf withdrew his hand, his voice emanating from beneath his armor.
"You have no choice."
The Moon God panted heavily but didn’t respond.
He turned his head and glanced at the ground behind him.
Behind him, on the blackened earth, at some unknown point, a wide, bottomless fissure with edges burning and emitting black smoke had appeared.
That was the residue left by Laf’s final strike just now.
And he hadn’t even realized how the opponent made the move....
Though he still had trump cards, but.... now it seemed... even if he unleashed them, the ultimate outcome would most likely be death.
’I must create my own furnace as soon as possible!’ In the Moon God’s heart finally arose a yearning for the Heart-Burning Furnace.
Everything outside the celestial canopy had too many limitations. Compared to within the canopy, his power was weakened by more than half.
"Lead the way." Rongxin clapped his hands from the side, "In the large interactive zone, we might find new martial arts atlases and make a huge profit."
*
*
*
Taoyuan, Sea of Oblivion.
On a certain rock wall, from afar, it looked like a massive dark red bat was crouching there.
Around the bat, red birds fluttered incessantly, each carrying an object in its mouth.
Most of these objects were a grey-black hue, but they came in all manner of forms.
Weapons, gear, scrolls, miscellaneous items, clothes, even some broken utensils, items resembling children’s toys, among others, everything imaginable was present.
The massive bat extended its hand, constantly taking items from the birds’ mouths. Then, with a flash of black light in its hand, it dissolved these things, turning them into varying sizes of black-blue crystals.
All crystals were directly tossed into its mouth, chewed, and eaten like jelly beans.
The bat was Zhang Rongfang.
He had been here for a full five days.
In these five days, he had continuously been retrieving items from the Sea of Oblivion, searching for possible clues and methods.
Items of value, he set aside, while extracting the Spirit Core from the rest and absorbing it himself.
Compared to the initial suggestion of White Scale to absorb by sticking them to his forehead, he found that crushing and eating them allowed for faster absorption.
After all, he could control his blood for direct nutrient absorption.
Chewing them enhanced the contact area in a way. Faster absorption was only natural.
Finally, he refined this batch of miscellaneous items into Spirit Cores and devoured them all in one go.
Zhang Rongfang clearly felt his body growing larger again.
The strength of his consciousness and spirit brought about greater control over blood and flesh.
And his body could already rapidly expand with the accumulation of flesh and blood.
Thus, this transformation seemed quite normal.
After swallowing all the remains, Zhang Rongfang looked down at the black sea surface below.
There, a huge black whale slowly surfaced, its back adorned with a twisted, anguished human face, gazing at him in longing.
"Do you also wish to merge with me?" Zhang Rongfang suddenly asked aloud.
The human-faced black whale shuddered slightly, hurriedly submerged, disappearing beneath the sea.