Chapter 1531 - Third-Level Earth Immortal Realm

Time crawled forward as cultivators scoured every inch of the blockade, yet they still failed to find a single trace of Liu Wuxie. The sealed region spanned hundreds of thousands of miles, and the three powerhouses at the Heaven Gaze Realm had locked it down so tightly that even a fly couldn't slip through.

That could only mean Liu Wuxie remained somewhere inside this region, but no one could tell where he hid. Many cultivators ransacked caves, pried into hollow trees, and even searched pools, yet it still felt as though Liu Wuxie had vanished from the world.

They never realized Liu Wuxie sat inside the Heavenly Deity Monument, cultivating in silence. He could only wait there until he finished refining the Sacred Soul Flower and cultivating the Nether Deity Harvest, and only then could he leave.

For now, safety posed no problem, as long as he refused to show himself. Even so, he couldn't treat that as a permanent answer, because he couldn't hide in the Heavenly Deity Monument for the rest of his life.

His only path forward was to improve his cultivation technique and strengthen his soul energy until it reached the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm. Only after reaching that level could he kill an opponent at the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm.

With the Heavenly Dao Book's analysis guiding him, Liu Wuxie derived the complete version of the Nether Deity Harvest. Its power multiplied tenfold, surpassing the version practiced by the Nether Deities, and the moment he began cultivating it, a pitch-black scythe formed before him.

Then an even more terrifying sight took shape as his soul energy condensed into a grim reaper gripping that pitch-black scythe. Only then did the Nether Deity Harvest reveal its true power.

Achiel remained within the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron and sank into deep thought as he stared at the slumbering Gong Gong.

"Sacred Soul Flower, come out!" Liu Wuxie called, and the Sacred Soul Flower appeared in his palm, surging with terrifying soul energy.

"Refine!" Liu Wuxie tossed the Sacred Soul Flower into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, and demonic flame wrapped around it, breaking it down into powerful soul energy that surged through Liu Wuxie's limbs before pouring into his soul sea.

Achiel sat inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron as a portion of that soul energy streamed into his body. He immediately circulated the Spirit Clan's cultivation technique, and his cultivation shot upward, reaching the eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm in the blink of an eye.

He could make multiple breakthroughs in a row because the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron brimmed with rich, liquefied spiritual energy, and the Sacred Soul Flower further transformed his physique and soul sea.

Even if Liu Wuxie stayed in the Heavenly Deity Monument for a thousand years, there was no guarantee he would break through, as his heavenly dao had grown too powerful. Before long, this heaven and earth would no longer be able to contain him. He could no longer rely on time alone to stack his breakthroughs.

The desolate world had already begun to fuse with this one. While ordinary people could advance an entire realm, Liu Wuxie had to break through one level while carrying an entire world on his back, and time alone could never make up that difference.

That was why members of the Heavenly Dao Society could swiftly reach the Earth Immortal Realm in the Heavenly Deity Monument. At the same time, Liu Wuxie couldn't even force a single level of breakthrough. The stronger his heavenly dao became, the slower his breakthroughs turned.

Liu Wuxie still needed to grasp many depths beyond the Earth Immortal Realm. Ordinary people could never compare to his dao, which had already transcended heaven and earth and even surpassed the supreme dao of an Immortal Emperor.

If time alone could accumulate cultivation, the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain would have already overflowed with countless experts, including many who had lived for tens of thousands of years. Time only bore witness, and relying on it to break through amounted to nothing but a mirage. What Liu Wuxie needed was harmony with heavenly dao, not a counterfeit immortal forged through countless pills.

Inside the Heavenly Deity Monument, time did not exist in any normal sense. Even if it looked as though hundreds of years passed within, only an instant would pass outside.

Time and space stood relative, and even if a thousand years passed inside the Heavenly Deity Monument, that didn't mean a thousand years truly passed in reality. After all, the eternal world held no flowing time; eternity froze everything in place.

For example, Mu Tianli would need at least tens of thousands of years to reach the Heaven Gaze Realm. Yet in this eternal world, he achieved it with time equivalent to ten thousand years, and that still didn't mean he had aged by ten thousand years.

If a breakthrough of one level required a hundred years, then that fixed requirement remained a hundred years. By that same logic, Liu Wuxie had also spent a thousand years in the eternal world, because from the very beginning, the eternal world had never known the flow of time.

However long you needed to break through, that span would "pass" inside the eternal world even though time remained frozen. Without the Heavenly Deity Monument, Liu Wuxie would need at least a thousand years to reach the Earth Immortal Realm because of the desolate world. But if he wanted to comprehend heavenly dao, the Heavenly Deity Monument didn't suit him, because it differed too much from the outside world.

The same restriction applied to his healing of the injuries. He needed to absorb the laws of heaven and earth to mend himself, but with time frozen inside the Heavenly Deity Monument, he couldn't properly treat those injuries.

The Heavenly Deity Monument's greatest use lay in cultivation breakthroughs, using frozen time to boost cultivation with the help of treasures.

The moment the Sacred Soul Flower's energy poured into Liu Wuxie's soul sea, the Heavenly Dao Book opened and closed, as if breathing. A drizzle formed inside his soul sea, and soul energy hammered down like a torrential storm.

That "water" was Liu Wuxie's soul energy, and before this, it had only been a foot deep. In the blink of an eye, it surged high enough that it nearly flooded his soul sea. Once the vessel filled, its contents would spill, and his only options were to expand that vessel, divert the soul energy elsewhere, or compress and refine it further until he purified it.

None of those paths was easy, because every time the desolate world expanded, it needed to absorb elements from heaven and earth.

"The Desolate Devouring Art seems to have hit a bottleneck. Is there a second volume of it?" Liu Wuxie murmured as he cultivated.

His absorption of spiritual energy hadn't changed much, and he began to suspect the Desolate Devouring Art might have a second volume. Even the internal space of the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron had stopped expanding and had begun showing signs of merging with the desolate world.

Liu Wuxie sensed that if the two truly merged, the result would be unimaginable. As for what it would actually do, he still couldn't say.

The Desolate Devouring Art encompassed everything in the world, yet Liu Wuxie had only barely brushed its surface so far. He couldn't afford to dwell on it now, because the crisis in his soul sea pressed closer by the moment. He immediately drove his soul energy into the border of his soul sea, crashing again and again as he tried to expand it.

It didn't take long before rumbling shook through his soul sea, and the pain made Liu Wuxie feel as though he died and revived over and over again. Even so, he had no choice, because the Sacred Soul Flower still hadn't been fully refined, and the soul energy inside his soul sea kept rising.

If that soul energy overflowed before he expanded his soul sea, it would explode, just like a body failing to contain a heaven-defying pill. If the vessel failed to hold the power, the consumer would suffer backlash from berserk energy.

Blood seeped from Liu Wuxie's lips, and every impact tore through him with fresh agony.

The Heavenly Dao Book guarded the core of his soul sea, preventing his primordial spirit from shattering. If one impact failed, he could slam into the border again and again until he succeeded. Under countless impacts, his soul sea finally expanded, and the soul energy that threatened to overflow dispersed along the widening edges.

𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Liu Wuxie's soul energy surged stronger, matching the first-level Heaven Gaze Realm before steadily climbing toward the second-level. At the same time, his physique underwent a drastic transformation because the Sacred Soul Flower contained countless heaven-and-earth laws. When those laws poured into the desolate world, they summoned the gate to the third-level Earth Immortal Realm.

"Now!" Liu Wuxie wanted to seize the moment of his breakthrough to expand his soul sea.

With his soul energy strengthened, he believed he could even kill powerhouses at the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm with the Soul Forge Art and Nether Deity Harvest through a sneak attack.

As the gateway to the third-level Earth Immortal Realm burst open, boundless energy flooded into the desolate world. This time, the desolate world didn't expand at all. Only his true essence increased, while immortal energy grew at a painfully slow pace.

"Primordial Immortal Aura, come out!" Liu Wuxie still carried thirty-odd strands of Primordial Immortal Aura, and even after giving out some, he still had plenty. Each time he refined a strand, a few more strands of immortal energy appeared in the desolate world.

If anyone else refined a single strand of Primordial Immortal Aura, they could convert it into a few hundred strands of immortal energy.

Liu Wuxie's true essence was too pure, and even the true essence of powerhouses at the Heaven Gaze Realm couldn't compare to his.

After he broke through to the third-level Earth Immortal Realm, the expansion speed of his soul sea increased, swelling by one-third in the blink of an eye. The surging soul energy gradually calmed, and he no longer had to fear it overflowing his soul sea.

Soon after, Liu Wuxie used the remaining time to consolidate his cultivation, pushing himself as close to the pinnacle of the Earth Immortal Realm as he could.

The Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain was filled with enemies. Safety existed only within the walls of the Heavenly Dragon Sect. Yet even the Heavenly Dragon Sect would restrain his growth, because his dao differed from everyone else's, and he couldn't raise his cultivation through seclusion alone.

He needed to reach the higher levels of the Earth Immortal Realm before he could qualify to confront the Grand Unity Sect head-on. Liu Wuxie never moved without planning, and he knew the Grand Unity Sect had likely stationed countless experts around the Heavenly Dragon Sect by now. The moment he appeared, they would kill him without hesitation, even if it meant risking an all-out war.

As time passed and Liu Wuxie remained unseen, his earlier claim that he would go into seclusion for a year seemed confirmed. By the time the Grand Unity Sect would receive news of his arrival in the Spirit Martial Astral Domain, he would have already climbed higher, and Liu Wuxie was exploiting that gap in time.

A thousand years vanished in the blink of an eye, and Liu Wuxie stood at the pinnacle of the third-level Earth Immortal Realm. His soul sea roared as terrifying soul energy surged like waves, battering its crystalline walls.

With a single thought, Liu Wuxie released his soul energy, letting it spread outward.

"According to rank, my soul energy should rival experts at the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm," Liu Wuxie murmured. He didn't know exactly how strong experts at the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm were, but he had fought the Divine Son before, and he could feel his soul energy now far exceeded the Divine Son's.

Outside, only fifteen minutes had passed as countless cultivators continued searching for him.

Liu Wuxie soon noticed something else that unsettled him. As his grasp of eternity deepened, the Heavenly Deity Monument began to shift, and time inside accelerated. In the past, a thousand years in the eternal world would equal only a few breaths outside, so this change had to come from the lack of eternity laws, even though Liu Wuxie had refined them.

Unless Liu Wuxie could break through to the Quasi-Immortal Realm and engrave eternity laws independently, he would never complete the Heavenly Deity Monument.

Achiel finished his breakthrough, opened his eyes, and released a powerful shockwave of soul energy that threatened to burst out of the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron.

"Time to leave now," Liu Wuxie said, rising to his feet as crackling sounds rippled through his body. A loud boom rumbled from his abdomen, and his physique had reached a terrifying height.

"That feels great!" He stretched, his bones snapping as spiraling air currents formed around him.

With a casual punch, Liu Wuxie made the surrounding airflow explode, and he felt confident he could kill ordinary experts at the first-level Heaven Gaze Realm even without using true essence. Once he paired that with immortal energy and the Divine Eternal Fist, he believed killing opponents at the second-level Heaven Gaze Realm wouldn't pose a problem.

Only the power of the domain could truly threaten him, because breaking a domain wouldn't be easy unless his strength surpassed the domain itself.

With a flicker, Liu Wuxie left the Heavenly Deity Monument. Strangely, he still stood at the bottom of the canyon, because he had never left at all and had remained there the entire time, relying on the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron to conceal his presence. The moment he appeared, countless people instantly discovered him.

"He's here!" Dozens of cultivators remained at the bottom of the canyon, and they had stayed there the entire time.

The rest had scattered to search, but once they heard Liu Wuxie was still in the canyon, they immediately rushed back.

Liu Wuxie even spotted a few members of the Nalan Clan among the crowd, drawn by the Sacred Soul Flower. The three powerhouses also hovered in mid-air, yet they didn't hurry to act, choosing instead to watch how Liu Wuxie would face the siege of so many people.

They had already locked down the surrounding space, so they didn't worry about Liu Wuxie escaping.

"Brat, hand over the Sacred Soul Flower!" It had only been fifteen minutes, and they refused to believe Liu Wuxie had already refined it.