Book 21, The Peak – Chapter 9, The Next Five Thousand Years

“Experiments?” Linley instantly recollected how the Chief Sovereign of Destruction had acquired more than half of the blood essence of the Four Divine Beasts from Beirut.

“The source of a divine beast’s power comes from his blood essence.” Beirut shook his head. “However, executing an innate divine ability requires not just the lineage, but also the soul!”

“The uniqueness of a soul, however, stems from the bloodline as well.” Linley frowned. “It is precisely because the members of my clan have the lineage of a divine beast, that they all have unique souls as well. In addition, I’ve absorbed a drop of blood essence as well; this allowed the strength of my innate divine ability to increase substantially.”

“That is because you are a descendant of the Four Divine Beasts clan.” Beirut laughed calmly. “Alright, enough discussion of the Chief Sovereign of Destruction and whether or not he has finished researching the supreme technique of the Four Divine Beasts. That doesn’t have much to do with the two of us. Our greatest target is the Chief Sovereign of Light, Augusta!”

“Our enemy isn’t the Chief Sovereign of Destruction.” Bluefire laughed as well.

“The Chief Sovereign of Destruction? The power of any of the four Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts is unfathomable.” Beirut let out a sigh.

“Grandpa Beirut, which one is the most powerful, do you think?” Linley was very curious regarding the four Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts as well.

“That’s quite hard to say! In terms of Will, it should be the Chief Sovereign of Fate!” Beirut said with a frown. “However, the Overgod artifact which the Chief Sovereign of Fate wields is a soul-protecting Overgod artifact. It isn’t a weapon, and so in terms of attack power, he’s probably a bit weaker than the other three Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts.”

Linley was surprised.

He hadn’t chosen a weapon-type Overgod artifact? The Chief Sovereign of Fate really was quite unique.

“The Chief Sovereign of Fate never gets involved in worldly matters, and is always focused on developing various supreme techniques. Most likely, he feels that he doesn’t need any Overgod weapons, that he is already strong enough.” Beirut laughed calmly. “Now, the Chief Sovereign of Destruction is developing a supreme technique based on the blood essences of the Four Divine Beasts. Right, Linley...you are a member of the Azure Dragon clan as well. Perhaps you will be able to develop something from the blood essences of the Four Divine Beasts.”

As he spoke, Beirut waved his hand and produced four little azure flasks.

“These four flasks each contain 81 drops of blood essences from the Four Divine Beasts.” Beirut said. “This is roughly a quarter of the total amount of blood essence the Four Divine Beasts had.”

Blood essences was the distilled essence of blood; even creatures as enormous as divine beasts would have, at most, three hundred or so drops, which was already quite astonishing. Every single drop contained a terrifying amount of energy; if that hadn’t been the case, Linley wouldn’t have been able to, after using a single drop, strengthen his body so greatly that he would resist the attacks of an average Seven Star Fiend.

“Grandpa Beirut...” Linley was a bit surprised.

“I originally gave the Chief Sovereign of Destruction half, and I used up some in my own experiments. Only a hundred or so drops are remaining. You can take these four flasks of 81 drops each. I hope that you, too, can develop the supreme technique of the Four Divine Beasts. Given your spiritual energy, if you are able to develop it...you’d have a chance at challenging even the Chief Sovereigns of the Four Edicts.” Beirut laughed.

The Four Divine Beasts, when combining their power as Lesser Sovereigns, were able to unite their power into a fused innate divine ability that could threaten even Chief Sovereigns.

Linley’s fundamentals were much superior, compared to that of the Four Divine Beasts.

“Alright. I’ll accept it. But I am not confident in being able to develop a supreme technique.” Linley said, but in his heart, Linley still felt a bit of anticipation.

Perhaps he would be able to develop one.

“Linley, how is your training progressing?” Beirut asked.

“I...in fusing three different profound mysteries of different Laws, I’m only one step away. But this breakthrough truly is difficult.” Linley shook his head and laughed helplessly.

“How about this?” Beirut laughed, then said encouragingly, “As I see it, you’d best hurry up and go establish your own divine plane. The process of establishing a divine plane will cause you to gain insights into many things.”

“Establishing a divine plane will take a very long period of time. You might make some major breakthroughs.” Bluefire laughed as well.

After all, Linley had only been training for three centuries after becoming a Sovereign.

It would take a tremendous amount of time to establish each divine plane.

“It definitely will take a very long period of time, because I plan to simultaneously establish two divine planes.” Linley smiled.

“Two divine planes?” Beirut and Bluefire were both startled.

The four clan leaders of the Four Divine Beasts clan stayed at Dragonblood Castle for several months. And then, after once more entreating Linley to take revenge if he could, they left the Yulan Plane and went back to the Infernal Realm. As for Linley himself, he said a few things to Delia and Bebe, then went to establish a divine plane.

He left behind his original body, which focused on analyzing the blood essences of the Four Divine Beasts!

Linley’s original body was the physically strongest body out of the five, and it also contained the lineage of the Azure Dragon. Thus, it was quite appropriate to rely on his original body to do the research.

As for Linley’s four powerful clones, they left the Yulan Plane and headed towards chaotic space.

Within the vast, endless void of chaotic space, the streams of chaotic energy swirled and exploded as beautifully as fireworks.

Linley himself stood there within the chaotic streams. A few thousand kilometers away from Linley was the Yulan Plane.

“Linley, to simultaneously establish two different divine planes is something which has never been done before.” Beirut chortled. “We are definitely going to have to watch and learn.”

“I’ve never even established a divine plane.” Bluefire laughed as well.

Although the three were quite relaxed, Beirut and Bluefire both sent out their Sovereign sense, so that if any enemies drew near, they would instantly know and be able to flee into the Yulan Plane.

“Alright. I’m preparing to begin.”

Linley’s body suddenly divided into two. An earthen yellow robed Linley and a blue robed Linley now stood shoulder to shoulder. These were two of his divine clones; his earth clone and his water clone.

Seeing this, both Beirut and Bluefire fell silent as they quietly watched this.

“Rumble...” A stream of earthen yellow liquid began to swirl around Linley’s divine earth clone, while at the same time, a stream of blue liquid began to swirl around Linley’s divine water clone. As time moved forward, the two streams of ‘liquid’ grew thicker and thicker as the amount of Sovereign power grew greater and greater.

The power to create a divine plane was something which the heavens had bestowed upon Sovereigns.

Everyone who had fused with a Sovereign spark and had become a Sovereign knew that as long as they activated a hint of the Laws contained within their Sovereign sparks, they would be able to create a divine plane. This sort of divine ability wasn’t something one could gain through training; it was inherent to a Sovereign spark. Which was to say, it was bestowed by the heavens.

The creation process didn’t require the Sovereign to ponder bitterly and tiresomely; the Sovereign only needed to have his soul be completely occupied by pondering the creation process.

The creation of a single divine plane was the same as a session of meditating. It would result in insights!

Different attribute Sovereign sparks would naturally be different.

Linley possessed two Sovereign sparks; thus, he decided simultaneously establish two divine planes.

At this moment, Linley’s two Sovereign bodies were more than a thousand kilometers apart from each other.

“The creation of a divine plane truly is exhausting. The process of collecting enough Sovereign power alone will take up centuries.” Linley sighed mentally. At present, the ‘streams’ of energy that were swirling around Linley’s divine clones had already turned into two vast, thick, rivers of water. It was as though two titanic pythons of water that were ten thousand meters long were swirling around them.

Linley finally stirred.

After centuries had passed, he had finally collected enough Sovereign power from the Elemental Sea.

“Rumble...”

Simultaneously and suddenly, the two enormous pythons of earthen yellow liquid and green liquid suddenly contracted, instantly transforming into two giant spheres of liquid that completely surrounded each of Linley’s two divine clones. The two giant ‘globes’ of water trembled, the powerful energy contained within them causing the surrounding space to constantly shatter.

Fortunately, this was chaotic space; there wouldn’t be much damage caused.

“Bang!!!”

After compressing to a certain limit, the two water globes suddenly exploded! “Whooooooosh.” Instantly, enormous special tears that were a million kilometers long were created. The power of this explosion was simply too great; it was absolutely stunning. But of course, this was because too much Sovereign power had been built up; the true power of this, if unleashed on a Lesser Sovereign, would at most injure them.

Explosions rang out unabated in the void, and spatial tears stretched off into the distance, with no end in sight.

The earthen yellow globe had exploded towards the right side, as it spewed forth its contents.

The green globe had exploded towards the left side, as it spewed forth its contents.

“Rumble...” Earth elemental essences and water elemental essences suddenly began to gather.

The exploding surges of Sovereign power were like generals; each bit of Sovereign power was able to control trillions of elemental essence particles. In the blink of an eye, within a range of more than a hundred million kilometers of the explosion, a large amount of Sovereign power began to take over the vast amounts of elemental essences in this area, and a miraculous, profound change began to occur. The Sovereign power stretched to a hundred million kilometers in scope, and the elemental essences stretched to billions of kilometers.

“These are...the Profound Mysteries of Vitality? And the Profound Mysteries of Gravitational Space are included as well? So Vitality and Gravitational Space can actually fuse in such a perfect manner.

“Ah, ‘Illusory Fog’ and ‘Ice Edge’ and ‘Waterbody’ are able to fuse together so perfectly, merging into space? Utterly inconceivable.”

While establishing these two divine planes, the process involved quite a few profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth and the Laws of Water, as well as miraculous ways of using them. Linley gaped, stupefied. His soul was completely merged with the divine plane he was creating, and they thus contained the imprint of his soul.

Naturally, he would sense everything which was happening with complete clarity.

One insight after another flowed towards him like the endless waters of a flood. Linley was completely shocked and speechless. He couldn’t help but be completely lost in them...

..............

“Riiiiiiip...” A spatial tear from the Yulan Plane formed, and two figures charged out.

It was Beirut and Bluefire.

“Linley has already been creating these two divine planes for 1300 years. Why isn’t he done yet?” Beirut said, rather puzzled. “He is simultaneously creating these two divine planes. He should be more or less finished by now.”

“Perhaps there is something special about the divine planes he is making.” Bluefire said.

The two of them looked carefully at the two large divine planes that were directly ahead of them. The divine planes had already begun to take rough shape.

“What!” Beirut was greatly shocked.

“This Linley...” Bluefire was stunned as well. As they had looked at the two divine planes, they naturally discovered what was special about them...

These two divine planes...actually intersected!

“Has Linley gone insane?” Beirut said frantically. “Within that ten thousand kilometer region of intersection between those two planes, he’s actually fused two types of Sovereign power, and two types of elemental essences...this...!”

Indeed. After spending roughly a thousand years, Linley had already created the two divine planes, and only needed to do some finishing touches. But right at this moment, Linley’s soul was stirred, and he actually began to use his fused Sovereign power to form a small plane that was only ten thousand kilometers in size, at the empty space between the two planes.

This plane was a plane of fused Sovereign power!

After having sensed and watched the two previous divine planes be born, this time, Linley wanted to rely on his own power to give it a try.

But who would have imagined...

Previously, he had completely depended on the methods imprinted into his Sovereign spark, making the creation process simple. Now, however, it was very hard, as he was relying completely on himself to create this plane that was merely ten thousand kilometers in size. In the past three hundred years, Linley had solved one complicated problem after another regarding how to more perfectly use his two types of Sovereign power to control two different types of elemental essences.

Acting according to a blueprint was easy, but creating from scratch was very hard.

The two Sovereign sparks only contained methods for creating a ‘divine plane of earth’ and a ‘divine plane of water’. They held no information on the creation of a fused divine plane. Linley thus had to borrow and test various methods and come up with his own ways based on his own insights in order to build this place.

But this meant that he made repeated mistakes that he would have to correct. Naturally, he would gain insights as well. Although Linley was technically creating a fused divine plane, in reality, Linley was training!

............

“It’s been three thousand years! Linley actually still has yet to complete that fused divine plane.” Beirut and Bluefire looked at each other, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

The current Linley was completely absorbed in his work.

He had no sense of the passage of time at all. His current goal was to come up with any measures necessary to perfect and complete this fused divine plane of merely ten thousand kilometers!

..............

Within the fused divine plane.

One side was filled with water that reached the heavens, while the other side was filled with towering mountains. Linley hovered in the air above.

“Haha...” Linley laughed so hard, his eyes turned into slits. He finally let out a breath of relief.

“I finally succeeded!” Linley stretched his senses out slightly, and immediately knew how much time had passed. “I only spent a thousand years creating those two divine planes, but I spent four thousand years creating this fused divine plane.” Linley felt quite moved. This time...Linley had, amazingly, spent five thousand years of time!

Given how fast Sovereigns trained, five thousand years was indeed enough to make astonishing improvements.

But Linley, absorbed in his high-difficulty work, had gained astonishing insights during the past five thousand years.

“I didn’t imagine that over the course of creating the divine planes, I would end up finishing my fifth fusion of the profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth. I’ve even fused four profound mysteries of the Laws of Water.” Linley didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. All of his new insights had come because he wanted to create his own fused divine plane, and so it was normal that he had some accomplishments in the Laws of the Earth and the Laws of Water.

But of course...

In the past five thousand years, Linley’s greatest gains were still in his insights into fusing the profound mysteries of different Laws!