Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

When Prince Ren heard that voice in the distance, he felt relieved. Earlier, he invited Yan Zaizen on board not to discuss whether Lady Di should be left alive or not, but to stall for time. Luckily, he could stall for an extra minute or two, and this was sufficient enough for the Xiāo City Lord to arrive. If he didn't, then his Origin Consolidating Pill would've been lost, and his chances of breaking through to the mid-Origin Core Realm before the Xiantu Dao Trials would be like smoke — quickly dissipating with the wind.

Before Yan Zaizen's arrival, he crushed a transmission talisman that relayed a message to Lord Xiāo. In it detailed the circumstance they were in and their possible fate of death. Unfortunately, he knew this wouldn't move Lord Xiāo an inch, so he made a deal.

If the Xiāo City ensured all of their safety, including Lady Di, then he would give him an Aurora Manifestation Pill.

Originally, he obtained it from an ancient treasure trove and kept it a secret for his own preparations for the Xiantu Dao Trials. The pill was similar to the Origin Consolidation Pill, it could help one manifest their Aurora Soul. It was priceless. However, with the current circumstances, he felt it was worth it to prevent his own death. Unfortunately, Yan Zaizen had stolen the Aurora Manifestation Pill and even severed his connection with his spatial ring.

How was he to know that Yan Zaizen would be so decisive and rob them over their connection with Lady Di instead of killing them in anger?

Lord Xiāo's eyes were filled with greed when he heard of the Aurora Manifestation Pill in Prince Ren's possession. Normally, he wouldn't care about the Imperial Family's fate, but that pill was incalculable in terms of value. The development of the Aurora Soul typically required not just resources but enlightenment also, and despite having cultivated the soul for thousands of years, he couldn't manifest his Aurora. The Aurora Manifestation Pill was one of the few things that could bypass that enlightenment requirement.

Now there was a chance to obtain it, and he was going to take it.

Lord Xiāo had deep black hair and eyes, a middle-aged appearance filled with masculinity, a goatee, bronze skin, and robust body. He truly looked like a powerful city lord.

Yan Zaizen's brows furrowed and his eyes behind the mask narrowed. After some quick calculations, he knew he didn't have the ability to outrun this newcomer. Soul energy may be able to move at an incredibly fast speed, but when it came to flight, qi cultivation was king, while dashing speed on the ground had body cultivation at the throne. Not to mention, he didn't have any soul art based around movement to use, unlike this newcomer.

Lord Xiāo saw Yan Zaizen not move at his words, he couldn't help but feel uneasy, but when he considered his cultivation base and arts, he sped up with confidence.

Yan Zaizen didn't intend to let Lord Xiāo arrive in grand fashion while doing nothing, he waved his hand directly knocking Lady Di unconscious, and then she vanished in thin air, stored directly into his Meteor Ring at a remote corner.

"That worked?!" He was inwardly surprised at what had just happened. Despite performing the action himself, he didn't fully believe the Meteor Ring could store living things within it. I mean, he had his suspicions due to its differences to a normal spatial ring, but he wasn't absolutely sure.

Anyways, if Lady Di had died due to entering the Meteor Ring, who cares? Fortunately for him, she was just unconscious in the isolated world of the Meteor Ring. Unfortunately for her, she was just unconscious in the isolated world of the Meteor Ring.

When Lord Xiāo saw Lady Di disappear suddenly, his eyes widened with surprise and couldn't help but stop a few kilometers away from Yan Zaizen. What had just happened surprised him, but if she was dead, then what could he do? Should he fight this man with an Advanced Aurora Soul Cultivation to the death to save a dead person? What would be the point?

Yan Zaizen didn't care about his doubt. A flash of silver-blue light exploded violently around his body as several thousand sharp tendrils the size of arms erupted from his body. He took a step and soared towards Lord Xiāo with a fierce momentum.

Lord Xiāo snorted in response. His body erupting with an incredibly dense emerald green light filled with true-essence, the sheer pressure caused the surrounding mountains the tremble, the ground to fracture, and the sky to roil about violently. He stood there looking like a god of his own world, the sky quickly developed an emerald tint, and his energy waves fluctuated for dozens of li.

Yan Zaizen saw this and immediately realized what was happening. An aura-based qi-art was being executed. As he approached in range, he could feel his body suddenly grow heavier as if he had a mountain on his shoulders. If one didn't have a profound body cultivation, they could be squashed to sheer dust from this pressure alone.

Fortunately for him, this pressure was insignificant to him who possessed the Immortal Herculean Physique.

Yan Zaizen powered through the emerald sky without pause. Lord Xiāo was shocked seeing this. It didn't seem like Yan Zaizen was using his soul energy to resist the power of his aura, but simply resisted it normally with his physical body. His eyes narrowed in solemness. He grabbed at the space before him, causing the surrounding aura to condense into a ball of pure emerald energy.

Lord Xiāo shouted a battle cry that caused the ground to tremble and the spectators watching with a cultivation under the Origin Core Realm to drop to their knees.

He readied his arm as the energy condensed and landed in his palm. He viciously threw the ball of energy towards Yan Zaizen. Its speed was like lightning as it traveled through the sky causing the surroundings it passed to be compressed, as if the ball of energy was a planet with its own gravitational force.

Yan Zaizen reacted by using hundreds of soul tendrils to intercept the ball of energy, but as they got near, the tendrils bent in odd ways as if getting pressured by intense gravity. Some of the tendrils collapsed then and there. Yan Zaizen's eyes widened at this but didn't panic. He pushed forward until the tendrils collided with the ball of energy to intercept.

BOOM!!!

The moment it did, an explosion of emerald light erupted, disintegrating all tendrils that went to intercept, and the residual force made its way like an ocean wave towards Yan Zaizen.

"Shit!" Yan Zaizen immediately covered himself in his remaining tendrils until it formed a spherical barrier of silver-blue light, and the wave of emerald energy collided ferociously with the barrier.

The moment it did, the solidified soul energy constructed into a barrier developed a myriad of cracks and seemed only to require a single finger to shatter it. However, it didn't shatter as Yan Zaizen kept reinforcing it with his soul energy. Yan Zaizen, however, was sent flying backwards even faster than his forward momentum.

It was only after several hundred meters of distance did he stop in mid-air. His eyes filled with surprise. "The true essence ball exploded and turned into a wave? But his arts should revolve around mountain concepts, how did it explode?!" He calmed himself, realizing that his thoughts were too narrow in combat, and his experiences were simply lacking.

That attack contained two conceptual laws, not one. The law of mountains and waves. These two laws incorporated caused a surging and oppressive force that could not be underestimated to be created.

As for Lord Xiāo, his eyes widened even more so. One must know, he prepared this strike with about 40% of his true essence, and it was a superior-grade art practiced to Major Success infused with two conceptual laws. He's been preparing for that art since he received the message from Prince Ren. By preparing his energy earlier, he could deliver an explosive unexpected attack at the start.

He was almost sure that Yan Zaizen should be killed, hell, even an initial-True Essence Cultivator caught by surprise would be severely injured let alone a soul cultivator who took it head on.

Unfortunately for him, Yan Zaizen's soul energy was far stronger than the average Advanced Aurora Soul Realm, and his corporeal form could rival an initial-True Essence Cultivator in strength. With soul energy ability to produce nearly all its energy instantly, how could a mere 40% of his qi kill Yan Zaizen?

Yan Zaizen realized the circumstances of this, and his mood turned slightly better, but he didn't dare to relax. He couldn't be careless. He reformulated his thousands of tendrils once more in almost an instant, and his eyes shone with a violent light. The world started to change once more, but this time the change was smaller but far more intense. His dao aura filled with tyrannical intensity and unyielding ferocity erupted, filling his tendrils with motes of white light. Each tendril grew three times thicker and far more resplendent than before.

When Lord Xiāo saw the thousand of tendrils reform almost instantly and stronger than before, he inwardly groaned. This is why soul cultivators were so damn troublesome to deal with. Unlike qi cultivators who have to gather their energy and release it cautiously lest they explode their qi-pathways and meridians, soul cultivators could release all of their energy without care. Not to mention the sheer speed of soul energy was astonishing. This reason was also why he prepared beforehand. He contemplated whether he should just withdraw.

However, Yan Zaizen didn't care about his thoughts or frustrations.

PNEUMA DISRUPTION!

He exploded out a wave of soul energy that was terrifyingly fast. It was empowered by his dao and backed by the full force of his soul cultivation base. The only issue was that his mastery of it was only at the peak-initial mastery. Despite that, this was an exceptionally powerful soul attack.

"WHAT?!" Lord Xiāo was shocked by the soul attack that he was overly familiar with being launched by this masked cultivator. However, he couldn't think about it too closely as he executed his soul-defensive qi-art as well as a soul art that Yan Zaizen was familiar with - Anima Shield!

The wave of soul energy violently shook his soul form. His eyes widened as he felt the foreign dao of another integrated within the attack, this soul energy was tyrannical and unyielding in its persistence. It didn't come as a single wave, but a dozen.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" He screamed ferociously in pain as his initial defenses collapsed quickly, blood spewed from his mouth, and his eyes dimmed as his soul was damaged with just the first wave, let alone when all twelve hit.

His appearance was ugly and his face even more so. Pain to the soul was incomparable to any other type of pain and its effects were horrendous. Let alone healing the damage, it could take centuries. His eyes filled with grievance and fear.

He was about to take his leave and flee, this wasn't worth it. He'll force that the Prince to give him the Aurora Manifestation Pill in exchange for bringing him away safely.

He looked towards Prince Ren direction and was about to fly over, but Prince Ren could see his intentions and immediately interrupted with a shout backed by his Half-step Origin Core cultivation base. "He robbed us!" He feared that the Xiāo City Lord would simply run away, and they would all suffer losses with no gains.

Those words resounded out for hundreds of li and caused him to stop immediately. He looked towards the group once more and realized that no spatial fluctuations were emitted from them.

"Shit!" He clenched his teeth and produced a talisman, he shattered it decisively. A silhouette of an emerald mountain appeared in the space above, and spatial energy erupted from it.

"What?!" Yan Zaizen was startled as this gigantic mountain silhouette appeared above the sky. "That's...the Mountain at the center of Xiāo?!" He was inwardly shocked as his pupils turned into needles. Recalling what Tao informed him, this mountain was a sky-ranked armament used by the Xiāo City Lord to defend the city.

Yan Zaizen didn't realize that the Pneuma Disruption he just used infused with his dao threatened the Xiāo City Lord greatly. It could threaten those at the mid-True Essence Realm at its current strength, let alone the Xiāo City Lord at the initial-True Essence Realm. He immediately used a one-time rare talisman that could send the mountain to his side. He was taking this seriously and even putting his life on the line.