Chapter 1395 - Seventh-Level Primal Origin Realm

The cultivators behind Liu Wuxie rushed up the stairs at terrifying speed. After multiple brutal clashes, only about five hundred human cultivators and three hundred blood fiends remained, each one harboring a deep hatred for Liu Wuxie.

If it weren't for him, they believed they wouldn't suffer such devastating losses.

Then again, they had already sealed this outcome the moment they chose to hunt Liu Wuxie down—an eye for an eye.

The pressure weighing down on Liu Wuxie grew with every step he took, but it also tempered his soul sea. His primordial spirit had already reached the eighth-level Void Realm and stubbornly refused to break through.

Within the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, Gong Gong suddenly opened his eyes inside the demonic flames, making Liu Wuxie's heart jolt.

The moment Gong Gong awakened, a terrifying surge of witch energy erupted from his body, scattering the surrounding demonic flames.

"This is bad!" Liu Wuxie cursed inwardly. His whole attention was on resisting the crushing pressure from the staircase, and he had no spare strength to deal with Gong Gong.

An opening had already appeared on the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. If Gong Gong chose to leave, Liu Wuxie knew he absolutely wouldn't dare try to suppress the divine avatar by force.

When Gong Gong opened his eyes, he only looked around in blank confusion. His memories were still in the midst of awakening, and he stared at his surroundings in a daze before shutting his eyes again and sinking back into silent contemplation.

The demonic flame couldn't get close at all as Gong Gong floated quietly inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, motionless.

"Fortunately, I stripped the Great Dao of Water beforehand," Liu Wuxie murmured. He guided the demonic flame to refine the fragment of the Great Dao of Water, planning to use it to help himself break through to the seventh-level Primal Origin Realm before anything else.

As the pressure from the stairs continued to rise, Liu Wuxie could still bear it physically, but his primordial spirit hovered on the verge of collapse.

Farther down the staircase, ordinary cultivators at the eighth-level Void Realm had already reached their limit, and only those at the ninth level could still withstand the suppression weighing on their primordial spirits.

The staircase alone was enough to claim a batch of lives, and only cultivators at the ninth-level Void Realm had any real chance of reaching the top alive.

Liu Wuxie split off a sliver of his divine sense to watch Gong Gong's movements, ready to hurl the divine avatar out of the cauldron at the slightest sign of danger.

When Gong Gong reopened his eyes, they were noticeably clearer, as though a small portion of his memories had returned. The aura he released also began to rise, edging closer and closer to the Earth Immortal Realm, which left Liu Wuxie inwardly shaken.

If Gong Gong unleashed his full strength now while trapped inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, the cauldron would almost certainly explode.

Liu Wuxie had left an opening on it on purpose, yet Gong Gong still showed no intention of leaving.

Meanwhile, Liu Wuxie continued to circulate the Desolate Devouring Art, drawing all the surrounding spiritual energy into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and turning it into a sacred cultivation ground.

As the liquid spiritual energy nourished the interior, Gong Gong's aura grew stronger and stronger. This situation made Liu Wuxie feel like crying; he had thought he could refine Gong Gong, but instead, he had landed himself in this precarious dilemma.

He could only pray inwardly that Gong Gong wouldn't suddenly cause trouble for him, especially since he had attempted to refine Gong Gong's body earlier.

Time slipped by as Liu Wuxie continued refining the fragment of the Great Dao of Water. To his surprise, Gong Gong never showed any intention of stopping him, as if silently allowing him to refine it.

The fragment of the Great Dao of Water had originated from Gong Gong and could be considered his possession. Since Gong Gong made no move against him, Liu Wuxie saw no reason to provoke the divine avatar either. The two of them coexisted in this fragile, unspoken truce.

The fragment of the Great Dao of Water finally dissolved into a stream of water and poured into the desolate world. The instant it entered, the Witcher Realm began to tremble as a torrent of witch energy surged into Gong Gong, accelerating his awakening.

Gong Gong's expression lit with joy. The witch energy felt so pure that he seemed to return to the dawn of the universe itself. Under that nourishment, Gong Gong developed a faint sense of dependence on Liu Wuxie. The witch energy was like a mother's milk nourishing him as if he were a child.

Liu Wuxie focused solely on his breakthrough. Under the impact of the Great Dao of Water's fragment, the gateway to the seventh level inside the desolate world finally shattered, and a torrent of energy gushed out from behind the gate into the desolate world.

Shortly afterward, Liu Wuxie's primordial spirit and soul sea began to expand. In the blink of an eye, his soul sea rose straight to the ninth-level Void Realm.

After his breakthrough, the pressure pressing down on Liu Wuxie from the staircase began to ease. Had he failed to break through in time, those behind him, especially Elder Shi, would have eventually caught up.

Elder Shi had already stepped onto the seven thousandth step, and in just a few dozen breaths more, he would close the distance to Liu Wuxie.

Liu Wuxie threw his head back and let out a roar, tossing fifty astral crystals into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. The astral crystals melted into a torrent of energy that split into two streams, one pouring into Gong Gong's body and the other into the desolate world.

Nourished by the astral crystals, Gong Gong's aura soared. Although Liu Wuxie couldn't gauge it precisely, he roughly estimated it to be around the first- or second-level Earth Immortal Realm, mainly because Gong Gong's aura kept flickering.

At times, Gong Gong's presence felt as mild as a mortal's; at others, it swelled with the might of a powerhouse at the Earth Immortal Realm, making it impossible for Liu Wuxie to read. Then again, that was only natural—Gong Gong had just awakened, and his memories remained hazy.

Liu Wuxie picked up his pace and sprinted toward the summit, drawing a furious roar from Elder Shi. The elder had been only moments away from catching up when Liu Wuxie broke through at the last possible instant.

As the summit drew closer, the gate ahead released a gentle light that continuously tempered Liu Wuxie's soul sea. When he raised his head, he saw a mirage slowly forming within the gate.

The sight made Liu Wuxie narrow his eyes. The scenery matched Shangguan Xue's description perfectly—mountains hanging upside down, rivers flowing in reverse—everything here was the complete opposite of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.

No matter what awaited him, Liu Wuxie knew he had no path of retreat, even if a mountain of blades or a sea of fire lay beyond the gate. His senior brother could be waiting on the other side, after all.

When Liu Wuxie was still a hundred steps from the summit, the crushing pressure intensified once more. The Heavenly Dao Book opened inside him to shoulder part of that pressure, while the Soul Shield shrouded his soul sea to ease the burden.

Liu Wuxie didn't slow down, and his astonishing climbing speed left everyone else dumbstruck. Several cultivators at the eighth-level Void Realm had already collapsed where they stood on the stairs with their soul seas crushed.

Though many cultivators had reached the eighth-level Void Realm, their soul seas remained weak. After all, they had forced their way into the eighth level by relying on pills.

As the death toll climbed higher and higher, everyone realized that those who failed to reach the ninth-level Void Realm would forever remain stranded on the sixth level.

Among the dead were several who had managed to comprehend soul runes, only to have their soul seas shattered by the pressure.

"Almost there! I'm almost there!" Liu Wuxie gritted his teeth. His legs felt as heavy as lead, and sweat drenched his entire body.

Elder Shi's speed also began to drop. Though Liu Wuxie hadn't broken through to the Earth Immortal Realm, his soul sea already stood firmly at the ninth-level Void Realm. The reason Elder Shi slowed down wasn't that he had reached his limit, but because he had to protect the other Grand Unity Sect experts behind him.

Elder Shi and several other ninth-level Void Realm experts released their soul energy to help those at the eighth-level Void Realm withstand the pressure.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The other groups had already fallen apart, and with their companions dead, they had to fend for themselves. The ninth-level Void Realm experts among them wouldn't waste their soul energy to protect strangers.

Out of more than five hundred cultivators, only around four hundred remained. The blood fiends fared even worse, suffering greater losses because their primordial spirits were weaker than the soul seas of human beings. Of the more than three hundred blood fiends from earlier, only a handful remained alive.

Blood from the fallen stained the pristine white steps in a crimson hue.

"Ten more steps left!" Liu Wuxie drew in a deep breath as he stared at the gate. He relaxed slightly after confirming that Gong Gong still hadn't made any move.

If Gong Gong truly intended to act, he wouldn't have waited until now. That alone meant the divine avatar had no intention of killing him.

Every step Liu Wuxie took left him gasping heavily. When he finally stepped onto the last stair, a dragon's roar echoed across the sky as he strode into the massive gate without a hint of hesitation.

The moment Liu Wuxie passed through the gate, he felt as though he had stepped onto clouds and was plummeting from the heavens at terrifying speed. He completely lost control of his body and hastily executed his footwork to stabilize himself as much as he could.

"Don't tell me that I'm going to fall back to the first level?" Liu Wuxie murmured.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. It felt instead as though he had left the sixth level altogether and entered an entirely different world. He still didn't know what the sevenfold heaven truly was, but he knew this place was unlike the previous six levels.

Towering trees rose all around him, belonging to species he had never seen before. Countless cone-shaped mountains hung upside down from the sky like gigantic funnels, while on the ground, other mountains pierced into the clouds, cloaked in lush greenery and vibrant blossoms.

A river even flowed uphill, just like the scene Liu Wuxie had glimpsed in the mirage beyond the gate.

The spatial laws here differed entirely from those he was familiar with, and even the flow of time was unlike that of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain. When he lifted his gaze to the heavens, he saw three red suns hanging in the sky.

"The three red suns!" Liu Wuxie exclaimed. The crimson tint that had filled the sky gradually faded, and the three suns returned to their normal radiance.

"Could this be the fusion of three worlds?" Liu Wuxie murmured. That was the only explanation he could think of. The four astral domains could be considered a single complete world, and this planet clearly existed beyond their bounds.

When his feet touched solid ground, Liu Wuxie immediately used his footwork and shot into the distance before he could properly observe his surroundings. The people behind would soon arrive, and he had to run while he still had the chance.

Though the laws here differed from those of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, they did not hinder the Great Spatial Mythical Art much.

As more people fell from the sky, they landed at the same spot where Liu Wuxie had first appeared. By the time they got their bearings, Liu Wuxie had already vanished without a trace.

"Where is this place?" Elder Li asked after landing, staring at the strange world around him in confusion. The environment was nothing like what they had imagined, especially with the airflow moving at an unnaturally sluggish pace.

The river flowing in reverse hammered their minds with absurdity, and the mountains hanging upside down in the sky only deepened their disorientation.

"This is no longer the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain," Elder Shi said with a frown. He had traveled to nearly every corner of the four astral domains, yet this was his first time seeing a place like this.

"What should we do then? Does that mean that we can't return?" The other cultivators muttered anxiously; some even broke down and cried when they realized they were no longer in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.

They might possess lofty cultivation, but what was the point if they could never return home? It would mean they were doomed to remain trapped here and die in this foreign land.

"What's the point of crying? There must be a way back!" Elder Shi barked, cutting through the panic and forcing everyone to calm down.

The other cultivators soon chose to follow the Grand Unity Sect's lead. In such an unfamiliar place, their only real hope of survival lay in banding together. If they continued to act alone, they might not even know how they died.

"Everyone, focus on healing your injuries, and we'll find a way out after that," Elder Shi said, inwardly satisfied as he watched the crowd's attitude shift toward the Grand Unity Sect. He needed time to make his breakthrough to the Earth Immortal Realm, and the others needed time to recover as well.

Aside from Elder Shi, several other cultivators at the pinnacle of the Void Realm also felt their cultivation stirring. They felt like they could make a breakthrough at any moment.