Chapter 478: Runic Divine Seed, The Terrifying Chen Chu (I)

After reaching a higher realm, every breakthrough of one Heavenly Realm triggered a resonance between heaven and man.

This resonance was a process of creation. When one broke through to the Seventh Heavenly Realm, the heavens and earth bestowed a True Martial Phantom, giving it reality. At the Eighth Realm, the body was granted something called a "life reconstruction."

The first breakthrough to the Seventh Heavenly Realm was of the utmost importance. After all, without a beginning, how could there be a future?

At that moment, under the resonance of heaven and earth, the life force deep within Chen Chu's body was fully ignited. Under the influence of the True Martial Phantom, his blood and flesh began to reconstruct and evolve.

This transformation and rebirth of flesh allowed the human body, which was originally incompatible with transcendent energy, to return to an innate state, where every breath would resonate with the transcendent energy of heaven and earth.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Moreover, the four external constructs slowly rotating behind Chen Chu’s head also began to transform into real worlds.

These four constructs were based on spatial runes as their foundational framework, imbued with four elemental runes and sustained by semi-energy-based divine materials. Yet, up until now, they had remained mere illusions, special energy spaces.

With this opportunity, however, they could truly acquire the characteristics of a world.

This was the reason Chen Chu had delayed his breakthrough by a day. Originally, this step was only supposed to happen when breaking through to the Ninth Heavenly Realm, but the opportunities presented by the path of heavenly kings had allowed him to advance earlier.

"Eighth Realm, someone else is breaking through to the Eighth Realm!"

Outside, everyone turned their eyes toward the direction where the aura of the breakthrough was coming from, as well as the massive world phantom slowly descending from the sky, covering several kilometers.

"Don’t tell me... the one breaking through is Ah Chu!" Xia Youhui's mouth gaped open in disbelief as he looked into the distance.

Although he had grown used to being shocked by Chen Chu over and over again, it still felt unreal that in just ten days, Chen Chu had advanced from the middle stage of the Seventh Heavenly Realm to breaking through to the Eighth. Xia Youhui was still hesitant to believe it.

Standing atop a tree, An Fuqing spoke calmly. "Among the ones in seclusion here, only three have cultivation above the Seventh Heavenly Realm. With Ji Wuji already breaking through and Li Daoyi coming out of seclusion, who else could it be?"

Lin Yu gasped. "As expected of someone who’s reached the end of the path of heavenly kings, he’s already broken through to the Eighth Realm."

After the Heavenly King Youming tampered with everyone’s memories, all they recalled was that Chen Chu had come close to reaching the end of the path of heavenly kings, rather than the entire path to divinity.

Lin Xue smiled bitterly. "It feels like ever since this guy returned from Kyrola, breaking through realms has become as easy as drinking water for him."

"This guy... has gotten even stronger," Li Hao’s eyes were serious as he spoke.

While many of his old classmates below were still in awe of Chen Chu’s breakthrough to the Eighth Heavenly Realm, Li Daoyi, who had been posing up in the sky, suddenly widened his eyes.

Looking at the slowly descending yellow earth world phantom, Li Daoyi’s mouth fell open. "Don’t tell me... that’s a world! That guy actually opened a world within his body at the Seventh Heavenly Realm!?"

Realizing this, Li Daoyi felt an immediate headache and instinctively put away his Thunder Prison's true form behind him.

Compared to the massive world projection that covered several kilometers, his dual Innate Thunderbolts now seemed rather ordinary.

Sure enough, with this guy around, I can't ever show off. No, once we enter the mythical world, I need to stay far away from him, or he’ll steal all the spotlight again.

With that thought, Li Daoyi turned into a bolt of lightning and descended from the sky, landing not far from Xia Youhui and the others.

Nearby, Ji Wuji, who was standing on the ruined wall of a cultivation room dozens of meters high, twitched the corner of his mouth and instinctively lowered his hands from behind his back.

Damn, this monster broke through to the Eighth Heavenly Realm so quickly, and he even opened a miniature world inside his body. How can anyone even compete with that?

A middle-aged man with a scar was shocked. "The one breaking through over there, is that another one of the new students?"

The middle-aged man standing on the roof nearby gave a bitter smile and nodded. "It should be. I recall that the seclusion area over there was divided up for those new students."

Below, a young man in his thirties, at the late stage of the Sixth Heavenly Realm, was excited. "Has our human race become this strong? Two prodigies breaking through to the Eighth Heavenly Realm before even graduating."

The scarred man spoke gravely. "This genius breaking through now is even more extraordinary. Didn’t you feel it? The range of transcendent energy he stirred up during his breakthrough spanned over ten kilometers."

Gasp! Ten kilometers!

As everyone was still staring in shock at the phenomenon in the sky, endless golden flames suddenly appeared above the earth world and transformed into a phantom of a fire world.

Boom!

With the emergence of this second world, transcendent energy within a twenty-kilometer radius was drawn toward it, gathering into a violent whirlwind.

The display left everyone utterly speechless.

"What kind of cultivation art does he practice? H-How is he able to open two worlds at the Seventh Heavenly Realm? Wait, there’s more—"

Boom!

A black gale converged above the fire world phantom, forming a third world phantom filled with black tornadoes. The surge in transcendent energy now spanned a twenty-five-kilometer radius.

This overwhelming display of power shocked the advanced experts stationed at Base No.1, many of whom emerged onto turrets or defensive structures hundreds of meters high.

"What’s happening over there?"

"The aura feels like someone’s breaking through to the Eighth Heavenly Realm."

"The Eighth Realm? Are you seriously telling me that’s just the aura of an Eighth Heavenly Realm breakthrough? Three world projections, transcendent energy swirling for dozens of kilometers... even a Ninth Heavenly Realm breakthrough usually isn’t this intense!"

Whoosh!

The air rippled with a spatial distortion, and Xie Chen suddenly appeared, his deep gaze focused on the distant scene in surprise.

"Condensing a world's prototype right after breaking through to the Eighth Heavenly Realm—doesn't he fear that the transcendent energy gathered during the breakthrough won't be enough to both remold his body and condense a world?"

This was just like when Chen Chu broke through to the Seventh Heavenly Realm, and Li Qingtian had worried that the True Martial Phantom Chen Chu had condensed was too powerful, fearing that his spiritual will and vitality wouldn't be enough to refine sufficient power of the heaven and earth.

Using the resonance between heaven and earth to transform a mere energy space into a true world wasn't just about the supernatural phenomenon from heaven and earth; it also required absorbing an immense amount of transcendent energy in one go.

Condensing even one illusory world required an astronomical amount of energy, let alone the fact that Chen Chu had now revealed a third world projection.

Moreover, all of the transcendent energy gathered was being absorbed by the world projections. How would he have enough left to ignite the True Martial Phantom and begin remolding his body?

As the three world projections stacked upon each other, everyone was left in shock. Above the world of black wind, thunder rumbled, and a world filled with endless lightning appeared.

Boom!

With the appearance of the fourth world, transcendent energy within a range of more than thirty kilometers was thrown into chaos, surging toward the four illusory worlds, which devoured the energy.

The concentration of energy became so thick that white mist formed, making the sky look as though four distinct realms had appeared: a solid earth, burning flames, howling winds, and roaring thunder.

"Four worlds?! He's gone mad!" One expert at the Eighth Heavenly Realm, powerful yet possessing a weak aura, was filled with shock.

An Fuqing’s expression also turned serious. "The four light wheels behind his True Martial Phantom are actually four worlds—what a bold move."

Even someone as composed as An Fuqing couldn't help but feel awe right now.

Compared to her own upcoming creation of a secret sword scripture and the sword world she planned to condense at the Eighth Heavenly Realm, Chen Chu's four worlds were far more terrifying and significantly more challenging.

A three-headed, six-armed phantom, hundreds of meters tall, stood atop the four worlds.

This battle phantom towered in the sky, with four light wheels spinning behind its head, surrounded by a Blood Sea Hell. Wielding a halberd, it resembled an ancient war god stepping through time and space.

"There's even more?!" By now, everyone was numb with shock.

This was just a breakthrough to the Eighth Heavenly Realm, but such terrifying phenomena indicated that the one breaking through possessed profound strength. It even suggested that he could challenge those who had just broken through to the Ninth Realm!

Xie Chen’s face turned solemn. "Four world prototypes: earth, fire, wind, and thunder. He plans to merge them into one when he becomes a king, and master a supreme law!"

Creating a world was a unique cultivation path. After reaching the Seventh Heavenly Realm, one cultivated a blank secret scripture for worlds, continuously adding more illusory worlds at the Eighth and Ninth Heavenly Realms.

When one reached the peak of the Ninth Heavenly Realm, during the breakthrough to become a king, the worlds would merge into one, mastering a supreme law.

There were various world combinations, such as metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; earth, water, wind, and fire; earth, fire, wind, and thunder; and so on.

The type of world one created would determine the law they mastered, like the Heaven-Destroying Divine Thunder, the Heavenly Apocalyptic Flame, or the Void Annihilation.

Of course, these worlds were singular planes filled with violent, destructive energy, not full-fledged grand worlds capable of nurturing life.

For cultivators, however, that didn’t matter. They didn’t aim to be creators of life; the purpose of creating these planes was to master a supreme law.

These kinds of laws were far stronger than ordinary laws, allowing those who mastered them to crush anyone of the same realm upon ascending to king.

It sounded powerful, but this path was incredibly difficult. Cultivating the blank secret scripture after the Seventh Heavenly Realm left one with limited strength in the early stages, making them the weakest of their peers.

This weakness persisted until the Ninth Heavenly Realm, when the worlds they had created grew more substantial and became real, at which point their strength would improve.

In addition to the massive resources and energy required, this path also demanded an astronomical amount of talent—each step required deep comprehension of the world and gradual perfection of one's worlds.

Throughout history, only one human expert had succeeded in using the power of world creation to ascend to king, and he had eventually become a heavenly king. This showed just how difficult this path was.

It required fortune, boundless willpower, immense determination, and extraordinary talent—none of which could be lacking.

Thus, even Xie Chen was left in awe of Chen Chu’s courage and talent.

Chen Chu had unparalleled power after the Seventh Heavenly Realm, enough to transcend realms; he had created a top-level secret scripture in just one month, comprehending four world prototypes in the process.

And now, in less than a year, he had broken through to the Eighth Heavenly Realm, with a soul foundation twenty times the norm.

Such talent couldn’t even be described as monstrous anymore. It was as if the entire fate of humanity in this generation had gathered around him.

Xie Chen had previously thought Chen Chu was destined for becoming a heavenly king, but now he was certain that Chen Chu was bound to become one of the supreme rulers, perhaps even stepping beyond to become an emperor of civilization.