Chapter 1584 - Mysterious Gate

Everything happened while Liu Wuxie cultivated. He took out an immortal stone and set it before him. When he circulated the Desolate Devouring Art, a terrifying surge of immortal energy gushed from the immortal stone with sizzling sounds.

Others wouldn't have attempted absorbing immortal energy so casually. Even an expert at the Quasi-Immortal Realm absorbed immortal energy cautiously, fearing it would injure them.

If one compared immortal energy to spiritual energy, ordinary spiritual energy would feel like a gentle breeze. In contrast, immortal energy would resemble a violent gale that could tear someone apart if they weren't careful. Only a powerful physique could endure the impact once immortal energy entered their body.

That meant only those at the higher levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm could absorb even a wisp of immortal energy. If they absorbed too much, their dantian would burst on the spot. This was exactly why the Heavenly Dragon Sect's immortal stone had lasted for so long and still hadn't been fully exhausted.

Liu Wuxie had refined his physique to perfection, achieving unity with heaven and earth. His physique withstood the impact of the immortal energy, greedily devouring it.

After the immortal energy entered the desolate world, the pale blue energy gradually turned golden, while its purity rose rapidly. As that purity climbed, the power of Liu Wuxie's mythical arts rose with it.

The desolate world began to throb, and each drop of immortal energy weighed over six hundred kilograms. The immortal stone's reserves were vast, and even after Liu Wuxie absorbed it for three days and three nights, they remained abundant.

Liu Wuxie halted his cultivation as the desolate world reached saturation for the time being and needed time to digest all the energy. If he continued absorbing immortal energy, he would only damage his foundation.

Cultivation could not be rushed. It required steady progress, and every step had to be refined to perfection.

More than one-tenth of Liu Wuxie's immortal energy had turned golden. If he forced himself to keep absorbing more, it would grow unstable, and he had already reached the limit he could control comfortably.

Too much would overflow, and too little would be lacking. After another five days had passed outside, Liu Wuxie had spent close to half a month inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron.

Even Liu Wuxie didn't know how far the sea demon had carried the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, drifting across the boundless ocean into the Oceanic Clan's region.

Sea demons could be found everywhere, along with powerful sea beasts stretching over ten thousand feet. Most of the time, they hid in the deep sea, rarely surfacing.

Liu Wuxie didn't dare to release his divine sense, knowing quasi-immortals existed among those sea beasts. If he alarmed them, the consequences would be dire, and the safest solution was to increase his combat strength first.

Once Liu Wuxie's immortal energy stopped increasing, he spent the remaining time cultivating the Heavenbound Immortal Finger. This pseudo-immortal art carried a lethality surpassing that of the Divine Eternal Fist when paired with his immortal energy.

In essence, executing the Divine Eternal Fist required the Heavenly Deity Monument to reach its full power, and the exhaustion came at a brutal price. One use would drain eighty percent of his immortal energy. On top of that, summoning the Heavenly Deity Monument demanded thousands of immortal runes, and even a quasi-immortal couldn't support that kind of consumption.

The Heavenbound Immortal Finger differed completely. As a pseudo-immortal art, it didn't demand an extreme amount of immortal energy to unleash.

Liu Wuxie's cultivation advanced steadily, inching closer to the eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm.

The Heavenly Dao Book unfurled and began to deduce the Heavenbound Immortal Finger. A tiny crack appeared at the book's right corner, warning Liu Wuxie that someone had discovered his heavenly dao and would obstruct it. That meant Liu Wuxie had to repair his heavenly dao as quickly as possible.

With the Heavenly Dao Book's analysis, Liu Wuxie felt confident he could grasp the Heavenbound Immortal Finger quickly. It was a finger technique empowered by immortal runes and immortal energy, capable of forming a prison.

The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron's internal space was infinite. Liu Wuxie could practice the Heavenbound Immortal Finger without restraint. Each time he cast it, its power rose gradually with every release.

After tens of thousands of repetitions, Liu Wuxie cast the Heavenbound Immortal Finger again. A colossal finger appeared in the sky and crushed down with overwhelming might, making the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron tremble.

The sea demon carrying the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron sensed danger at once and fled in panic.

After Liu Wuxie withdrew the Heavenbound Immortal Finger, he used the remaining time to comprehend the Dao of Heaven and Earth. He had time to spare and felt no urgency to return to the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain with experts of the Grand Unity Sect stationed at the border between the two astral domains.

Meanwhile, the Nalan Clan returned from the Oceanic Clan to Peach Blossom Island. They had reached an agreement to capture Liu Wuxie together. In return, the Nalan Clan would cede an island to the Oceanic Clan.

The Peach Blossom Gate's cave master emerged from the Snowfall Cave wearing a smile, having also reached an agreement with the pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves.

Four superpowers mobilized their entire forces to search for Liu Wuxie's whereabouts and turned the Thousand Islands Sea Region upside down. Yet, strangely, they still couldn't find him anywhere. The Oceanic Clan proved even more frightening because they mobilized countless sea demons to search for Liu Wuxie.

Even so, the four superpowers found nothing, and they had no idea where Liu Wuxie had gone. It was as if Liu Wuxie had vanished out of thin air and become a mystery.

The pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves scoured every corner of the Thousand Islands Sea Region. Even if Liu Wuxie hid underground, they believed they could dig him up. But more than twenty days passed, and still no news surfaced.

On that day, a massive mirage appeared above the Thousand Islands Sea Region, shaped like a giant wheel hanging upside down from the sky. Cultivators who had seen this mirage a month ago rushed back again, drawn by it.

Countless experts stood above the ocean, staring at the mirage. "What a spectacular sight!"

As the wheel began to rotate, a pitch-black gateway appeared. Through it, everyone could see an entire world hidden within.

"Could this be a lost secret realm?" Cultivators debated among themselves, yet many hesitated to enter, fearing they might never return.

The gateway expanded, and an ancient aura gushed out from within. If Liu Wuxie had been present outside, he would have recognized it instantly as the Gate of Samsara.

"It's an ancient secret realm, and there must be countless treasures inside!" Many cultivators who had missed the Peach Blossom Gate refused to let this chance slip and charged toward the gateway, desperate to seize the advantage by being one step ahead.

Once someone led the way, more cultivators dashed inside the gate.

The Gate of Samsara continued expanding as seawater churned upward and dragged countless sea demons in. As for the pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves, the Peach Blossom Gate, the Oceanic Clan, and the Nalan Clan, they hovered above the sea and watched the gate.

"Look! A weapon just flashed across the gate!" Someone shouted after glimpsing a beam streaking through the gateway, and the crowd instantly assumed it was a peerless artifact, driving them into greater frenzy.

"Second Uncle, do we keep searching for Liu Wuxie, or should we enter the secret realm?" Nalan Tiancheng asked, staring at the secret realm hanging above the Thousand Islands Sea Region.

He possessed high cultivation, yet he had been stuck at the higher levels of the Heaven Gaze Realm for years without progress. If he could seize a few heaven-defying treasures in the secret realm, he would step into the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm and even challenge the Immortal Realm in his lifetime.

"Let's wait a little longer," Nalan Qiwen said. He felt tempted too, but their mission was to find Liu Wuxie, and they couldn't afford to fail. The patriarch had ordered them to kill Liu Wuxie regardless of the cost.

That was also true for the Peach Blossom Gate, whose priority remained killing Liu Wuxie. The Oceanic Clan and the pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves didn't share that same unity or urgency.

The pirates relied on the great cave lord's protection and only united when their interests aligned. Most pirates held no feud with Liu Wuxie, so their stance on killing him remained uncertain.

The Oceanic Clan felt the same way. The secret realm promised even greater profit, and they didn't want to sacrifice that possibility solely for Liu Wuxie.

If they failed to catch Liu Wuxie, the Nalan Clan would never hand over jurisdiction of the island, and that "profit" would be nothing but empty words until they captured him.

All of a sudden, Liu Wuxie felt his body rising, and confusion flashed through him.

"Have I been discovered?" Liu Wuxie halted his cultivation and released his divine sense. The moment his divine sense passed through the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, he saw seawater surging upward, carrying the sea demon with it.

The Gate of Samsara's suction grew stronger, and the power of samsara itself crushed his divine sense the instant he released it.

"Screw it!" Liu Wuxie assumed a quasi-immortal had found him, so he forced himself to break out and prepare to flee no matter the cost.

The instant Liu Wuxie appeared, he struck with his palm and blasted the surrounding water apart, then hovered in the air. When the water cleared, he stared around blankly.

Liu Wuxie quickly realized something was wrong. The mysterious gate tugged at him. "There's no quasi-immortal?"

The moment Liu Wuxie appeared, everyone saw him clearly, especially the quasi-immortals who could spot him from tens of thousands of meters away.

"It's Liu Wuxie!" an elder of the Peach Blossom Gate shrieked the instant he recognized Liu Wuxie. No one could have anticipated that Liu Wuxie had been hiding right beside them all along.

In the next instant, countless experts from Nalan Clan, Peach Blossom Gate, Oceanic Clan, and pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves charged together. They had sealed off the entire Thousand Islands Sea Region so Liu Wuxie wouldn't escape.

Three experts at the Quasi-Immortal Realm and countless others at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm rushed toward Liu Wuxie at once.

"Fuck!" Liu Wuxie cursed as he found himself trapped with no clear route of escape.

As the suction above intensified, Liu Wuxie steadied himself to avoid being dragged in by force. The weaker sea demons weren't so lucky, and the Gate of Samsara devoured them in an instant.

When the quasi-immortals closed in, Liu Wuxie knew he had to choose a direction, yet every path looked grim. The pirates of the Seventy-Two Caves seemed weaker, but they held the advantage in numbers, and the quasi-immortals would catch up if the pirates delayed him for even a single breath. Diving into the sea was no longer an option either, because the Oceanic Clan had already ordered all sea demons to withdraw from the region.

"Liu Wuxie, prepare to die!" Nalan Qiwen yelled, and his voice turned into a sonic wave that blasted Liu Wuxie back dozens of steps. A surge of Quasi-Immortal Realm laws nearly tore Liu Wuxie's body apart.

Even if Liu Wuxie could kill cultivators at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm, he had no chance against a quasi-immortal unless he reached the Heaven Gaze Realm. The Quasi-Immortal Realm already carried a wisp of power belonging to an immortal, and no mortals could contend with it.

Liu Wuxie's eyes hardened. He shot upward toward the mysterious gate, choosing to throw his life to fate, as entering the gate was still better than being torn apart by three quasi-immortals.