Chapter 678 - Mysterious Southern Cross Holy Fist, Origin of the Ao Yin Civilization

Cassius's Golem Covert Martial Arts technique progress was at a staggering 84.9%, which was just 5.1% shy of ninety percent. Though it seemed easy enough to complete within ten days, it's actually far from effortless.

Cassius's Golem Covert Martial Arts grew harder to advance the further along he was. Since it was approaching ninety percent, it would need massive amounts of life vibration energy to fill. Moreover, the life vibration energy had to be of high quality.

For example, the most recent advancement from a complete Ultimate Dark Form slain by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist had contributed a total of 3.0%. Furthermore, the Ultimate Dark Forms besieging Blood Vulture Dominator Fist were not ordinary dark creatures. If Cassius wanted to meet his goal before the time-travel ended, he had to hunt at least two formidable Ultimate Dark Forms. Given how big the World of Calamity was, that would be quite challenging.

As for the matter of the True Progenitor of Blood Yumila and Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist, which was one of Cassius's originally planned targets, that had to be set aside. Plans had to keep up with changes. Cassius's ascetic training had consumed too much time. Thus, the secondary aims had to be shelved. After all, the Black Abyssal Sea was too far from the Crystal Sand Sea. By the time Cassius arrived, the time-travel would be over.

Then, killing intent surged from Cassius.

"Guess I'll find Ultimate Dark Forms nearby. Consider it a celebration for breaking through to perfection’s level..."

Just the barest hint of his Will drew clouds together. A sudden deluge of lightning, thunder, and howling whirlwinds gathered. Such an obvious commotion naturally caught Blood Vulture Dominator Fist's attention. He knew Cassius wanted to go on a killing spree...

That suited Blood Vulture Dominator Fist perfectly. He had said he would join Cassius to turn the entire World of Calamity upside down. That was no empty boast. Blood Vulture Dominator Fist had truly not fought to his satisfaction in the last battle with Xiadu's projection.

Now that Cassius wished to kill, it was perfect. Blood Vulture Dominator Fist fully supported him. He wouldn't rest until all dark creatures in the World of Calamity were slaughtered down to the last. Blood Vulture Dominator Fist wanted to make the World of Calamity a bloody hunting ground. However, his wish would be hard to realize in its current state.

Cassius could only turn the World of Calamity in the real world's timeline into his hunting ground. That would count as a roundabout fulfillment of Blood Vulture Dominator Fist's desire. No one knew how Blood Vulture Dominator Fist had fared in the real timeline after mutually wounding the Totem King.

Was there a chance he could regain his might? If Blood Vulture Dominator Fist could still be saved, Cassius would not hold back his life vibration energy. His only fear was that he had gone to the point of utter obliteration. If so, Cassius could only kill the Totem King again to let him depart in peace.

The two blurred figures vanished from within the Black Abyssal Sea's sudden storm, shooting toward land. Time was short and the tasks were difficult, so Cassius had to chase efficiency. The more he gained in his time-travel, the more confident he'd be upon his return. Absolute strength was the root of all.

***

Unending earthquakes were echoing from within a giant volcano on the Crystal Sand Sea. Ten thousand years of entanglement had only resulted in an endless stalemate. The huge volcano's special environment made the battlefield of Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist and Yumila entirely different from that of Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and the Totem King.

There had been an origin of calamity on Blood Vulture's battlefield, giving the Totem King the home-field advantage. Hence, the balance had shifted over time. However, there was no origin of calamity at the volcano, so neither side could claim a home advantage.

Furthermore, since the environment was sealed underground, outside interference was near zero. There was only the brutal struggle between the True Progenitor of Blood and Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist. However, late in the fight, a bizarre change appeared. It was like two ouroboros snakes devouring each other and tangling into a circle. It was an extremely cruel, hopeless dead loop.

In the volcano, a scarlet bat monster spread its wings like a broad black cloak.

"Mystic Mists, Eternal Maw, Blood Codex..."

Mysterious characters appeared upon it, twisting and writhing as they flowed like blood. The True Progenitor of Blood Yumila was the master of all blood energy. It launched another attack at Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist.

Yumila had unleashed his three core abilities countless times in an attempt to shatter Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist's Reverberating Force prison. However, none had succeeded. Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist had turned all his energy and life into a cage.

Unless Yumila also burned his life to perish together, he could never break free.

Bang!

Terrible energy erupted as the blood sovereign unleashed a crimson cataract. Endless blood energy frenziedly stained and corroded the purple python occupying every inch of the volcano.

Yet, in an unusual turn of events, Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist did not counter. Instead, he was caught in shock. The serpent's head lifted, gazing into the distance as if it could see a distant sea.

He had felt a young man using the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist break through to the Ultimate Fist realm! He could feel the resonance between fellow practitioners of the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist.

Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist's Will shook violently, shattering his icy mood.

"Has the arrangement I left in the ruins borne fruit?

Heh...

I didn’t leave my body there in vain... I have a successor... I have a successor!!"

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Bang bang bang bang!

Bursts of blood energy crashed down one after another at this untimely moment. Yumila, wreathed in a crimson waterfall, unleashed all manner of eerie, evil abilities. A grotesque bat face enlarged swiftly, its huge maw devouring heaven and earth.

"Sonic Snake, you can't hold on anymore?

Gahahah...

let me see you off!"

Boom!

A massive tail split the air as dreadful energy erupted, smashing Yumila's body to pieces! Sonic Snake Ultimate Fist unleashed a stormlike assault as countless fists tore Yumila's bat form again and again. No matter how he shifted and darted, he couldn't avoid being blasted apart on the spot.

"Has this old thing suddenly gone mad? I've never seen him this fierce since our ten-thousand-year standoff began..."

Yumila opened his mouth to roar. However, a fist struck him and his face collapsed!

Boom!

The volcano shook and the earth trembled. For unknown reasons, the underground battlefield that had always been a battle of steady attrition kept rising in intensity.

***

Cassius never imagined that hunting an Ultimate Dark Form would be so easy. At the root of it, it was because he was too strong!

At the moment, Cassius was a peak, freely moving Southern Dipper Holy Fist. Ordinary Ultimate Dark Forms couldn’t even withstand a single exchange. Blood Vulture Dominator Fist only watched as Cassius single-handedly suppressed the Ultimate Dark Form, King of the Abyss, breaking all eight arms and legs with absolute dominance.

Cassius and Blood Vulture had tracked the signs of the behemoth and pursued it. When they encountered King of the Abyss, Cassius’s Golem body descended then and there, standing like a towering god in the Black Abyssal Sea.

He was like an indestructible mountain. No matter how King of the Abyss rammed, struggled, or used his mightiest techniques, he couldn't harm the Golem in the least. Such was their absolute disparity of power. Only the five beings of ancient times had such yawning gulfs from other Ultimate Dark Forms or Holy Fists. Now, a sixth had appeared.

A single palm unleashed the triple might of the Southern Dipper, and King of the Abyss nearly exploded on the spot! Only Cassius's deliberate restraint had spared him. In the end, however, he couldn't escape becoming a meal.

Golem Covert Martial Arts converted King of the Abyss straight into surging life vibration energy. Cassius spent it before the body even grew cold.

[Golem Covert Martial Arts: Mental Unification 84.9% (Final Stage)] 87.6%

A 2.7% rise proved that King of the Abyss was quite strong. It was comparable to, if not stronger than, the Ultimate Dark Form previously slain by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist. After all, they were in the life-forbidden Black Abyssal Sea. Any Ultimate Dark Form roaming the area was indeed uncommon.

After harvesting the first Ultimate Dark Form, Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and Cassius set out again toward the coast. Their luck had been good to encounter their first Ultimate Dark Form in just two days. King of the Abyss had likely been drawn by the aura of Cassius's earlier Ultimate Fist breakthrough. It had likely come to spectate, only to end in tragedy. With Blood Vulture and Cassius both present, escape was impossible.

Whoosh, whoosh!

Two meteors swept fiercely through the sky. On the way, Cassius and Blood Vulture talked about many things. These were things he had once wanted to learn from White Bird Holy Fist but never had. Blood Vulture was quite talkative as he explained many secrets and important matters of those years to Cassius. For example, how the Southern Dipper lineage had knocked Xiadu down from conceptual level in that war.

The key lay in the five keystone runes left by the Ao Yin civilization. By borrowing their power, Xiadu ceased to be an omnipotent concept and gained a conscious mind.

He also relayed how Xiadu's true body had been split afterward and imprisoned within the three Gates of Heaven. It had also involved the Ao Yin civilization where an ultimate being who practiced an alternate Southern Dipper Fist somehow arrived in their world. He called himself Southern Cross and his martial art was called Southern Cross Fist. He shared a kinship to the three Southern Dipper fist arts.

However, Southern Cross Fist could not be cultivated in their world. Practitioners could not sense the Southern Cross constellation when gazing at the stars. Only the Cygnus, Star Python, and Giant Vulture constellations could be sensed and respond to practitioners. Thus, the Southern Dipper lineage birthed the three Southern Dipper fist arts, not four or five.

Blood Vulture had learned some things about the Ao Yin civilization through this mysterious Southern Cross. Its full name was Ao Yin Kalo, which meant "those who pursue the Southern Dipper starlight."

According to ancient Ao Yin lore, every location where human civilization existed would draw the gaze of endless calamity at some time or another. It was always the same for every world of brilliant, flourishing history. It was only a matter of time.

Calamity, the world's dark side, was exceedingly powerful. Only the unchanging Southern Dipper constellation could light the endless darkness. The Southern Dipper constellations would show humanity the way. Hence, the Ao Yin civilization was a group that pursued the Southern Dipper constellation.

They entered worlds tainted by calamity, left seeds of resistance, then departed for the next place in need. However, the Ao Yin alone could not oppose calamity. Only by letting native human civilizations continually produce rebels could a blazing flame arise. Ao Yin merely lit the spark.

Though Southern Cross had never stated his identity, Blood Vulture had guessed it through various clues. He had to be a Southern Dipper practitioner of some other world who had suppressed or resolved his world's calamity after many trials.

However, he had not settled down. He continued in the footsteps of the Ao Yin civilization, searching for new calamity-plagued worlds to contribute strength.

The main forces in the great war where Xiadu was split and sealed into the three Gates of Heaven were Southern Cross and the three Southern Dipper Holy Fists. Moreover, Southern Cross had paid the biggest price, using his own flesh to forcibly seal Xiadu's Will and weakening it to a shadow of its former self. Otherwise, even sealed, the Will emerging from Xiadu's true body might have returned to conceptual level.

Since Southern Cross's body had sealed Xiadu's Will, Cassius had seen the Southern Cross Fist with seventy-seven golden acupoints during the Hongli Empire's fall. After the war, Southern Cross's remnant Will remained potent, wandering the lands of the real world like a ghost. Perhaps, he would continue to do so until the day Xiadu was utterly destroyed.

Then, Southern Cross could return to his body and be revived. At this point, Cassius suddenly recalled something from his earlier time-travels. He had once entered the Blood Race mountains where an ancient ruin bore Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist's legacy.

When the heavy mist filled the air, he encountered a guiding ghostlike voice. For some reason, that voice had guided him to the entrance beneath the roots, as if aiding him from the shadows. Could that voice be the remnant Will of Southern Cross!?