Chapter 439: The Saboteur

The breakthrough came without warning.

A change occurred in Pang Jian's spiritual sea as the honey-like soul essence within the beehive nurtured and tempered his divine soul.

His spiritual sea swelled with waves, and a massive whirlpool appeared at its center.

The whirlpool swirled and twisted, repeatedly refining the spiritual power within Pang Jian's spiritual sea as if subjecting them to cycles of intense purification.

A fist-sized green stone soon took form.

At that moment, Pang Jian experienced an epiphany.

In his mind's eye, he could almost see how spirit veins formed spirit stones, spirit jades, and spirit crystals.

Spirit veins accumulated and refined the spiritual qi of heaven and earth through underground networks, gradually infusing the surrounding rocks with abundant spiritual power.

These rocks, enriched with dense spiritual power, first transformed into spirit stones, then into spirit jades, and finally into spirit crystals.

A similar phenomenon was now occurring within his spirit sea.

Pang Jian could see the whirlpool refining the spiritual power in his spiritual sea over several cycles, triggering a qualitative transformation that solidified his spiritual power into a green stone.

The mist-like spiritual qi condensed into his spiritual sea before turning into stone.

Gas, liquid, solid—these transformations aligned with breakthroughs in cultivation realms.

After reflecting on this discovery, Pang Jian retrieved spirit jades and spirit stones from his spatial bracelet and placed them around his body.

He then absorbed the surrounding spiritual qi with the Qi Nurturing Divine Cauldron Art, while simultaneously drawing on the rich spiritual power within the spirit jades and spirit stones.

His spiritual sea slowly shrunk.

The whirlpool at the center of Pang Jian's spiritual sea continuously devoured his spiritual power, causing the green stone to grow larger and larger.

Pang Jian keenly sensed that the spiritual power within the green stone was incredibly pure and refined.

It was at least ten times purer and more potent than the spiritual power in his spiritual sea.

Before long, the green stone at the whirlpool's base had grown to the size of a millstone.

The whirlpool at the center of his spiritual sea continued to spin and consume spiritual power, and the green stone kept growing with it.

The Profound Abode Realm, the Spirit Condensation Realm, and the Soul Wandering Realm all focused on the tempering of one's divine soul.

The Nirvana Realm, on the other hand, marked a transformation in one's spiritual sea!

Energized at this realization, Pang Jian turned his attention to his divine soul.

As part of advancing through the stages of the Soul Wandering Realm, Pang Jian's divine soul had endured harsh astral winds, scorching flames, and immersion in magma. These repeated temperings left behind impurities and hidden injuries on his divine soul.

The honey-like soul essence from the Nether Abyss Spirit Bees was now cleansing his divine soul, healing these hidden injuries and washing away any lingering impurities.

Throughout this process, he experienced a refreshing clarity of mind and an unprecedented sense of enlightenment.

Even his intelligence seemed to improve.

This unexpected breakthrough is the natural culmination of my progress.

His persistent efforts in tempering his divine soul had allowed him to reach the peak of the Soul Wandering Realm. This drove the remarkable transformation of his spiritual sea, propelling him toward the Nirvana Realm.

As time passed, Pang Jian's spiritual sea eventually shrunk to one-fifth of its original size.

The massive green stone at the base of the whirlpool had since grown to the size of a tiny fragmented land.

The fragmented land seemed to house a miniature yet complete world, with the sun, moon, and stars radiating a dazzling brilliance in its starry sky.

There was now a dark green fragmented land in his spiritual sea to go with his fiery pool, ice pool, the lightning vortex encasing the Thunder Pool, and the blackish-yellow fragmented land.

At a glance, his spiritual sea resembled an independent world.

I now have fire, ice, lightning, and earth in my spiritual sea along with the sun, moon, and stars in my dantian, Pang Jian noted. If I could manifest all the fundamental elements that form the foundations of the world, then wouldn't it be akin to creating a complete world in my spiritual sea, save for the absence of life?

Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth...

The life energy from the Wood element is attainable through Pang Ling.

Besides that, I'm still missing Water and Metal.

After reaching the Nirvana Realm, I should focus on incorporating the Water and Metal elements into my spiritual sea. That path seems best suited to me.

I need to construct a world complete with all the elements in my spiritual sea.

The surge in intelligence that came with the formation of the dark green fragmented land within his spiritual sea sparked a cascade of new ideas in his mind.

He even gained new insights into the Chaos Sword Technique that Li Zhaotian had taught him.

Lightning, earthflame energy, cold energy, solar energy, lunar energy, stellar energy, and earth energy—as my understanding of each energy increases, I can refine their coordination further.

Earth and cold energy can solidify into barriers at a moment's notice, while lightning, earthflame, and solar energy combine into a sudden burst of intense light to disorient and blind the enemy.

If I were to integrate my divine soul into these techniques, it would create even more wonders.

Pang Jian became fully immersed in his thoughts and paid little attention to the outside world.

As he cultivated, the awakened Bee Sovereign used the golden bees in the bizarre mist to monitor Fan Ao's pursuit of the Five-Clawed Gold Dragon.

The Bee Sovereign hovered above Absolute Heaven in his humanoid form, which closely resembled Pang Jian with the exception of his transparent wings.

His golden compound eyes, when magnified thousands of times, revealed the visions from all the golden bees under his control.

The Bee Sovereign let out a soft exclamation when he saw a man appear in the bizarre mist.

A silver mask concealed the man's face, and his body was covered in silver armor.

The man had detected a golden bee the moment he entered the bizarre mist and did not hesitate to kill it instantly.

The Bee Sovereign only saw a fleeting image of the man before losing track of him entirely.

"It's another True God of the human race…and he's hiding his identity too," the Bee Sovereign muttered, expression darkened at the loss of one of his golden bees.

He then shifted his attention to the golden bees closer to Fan Ao and Long Zhan.

At this point, the Five-Clawed Gold Dragon had used the Dragon Race's blood escape technique countless times, and his thousand-zhang-long majestic body had since shrunk to just one-tenth of its original size.

Long Zhan had been reduced to a mere hundred-zhang-long Five-Clawed Gold Dragon.

Meanwhile, the pursuing Fan Ao stood atop the golden platform like a golden deity. His Divine Dharma Idol showed no signs of exhaustion.

Whoosh!

Fan Ao closed the gap between him and Long Zhan once more.

The contrast between the Rank Nine Five-Clawed Gold Dragon and Fan Ao's figure was striking—Long Zhan seemed no larger than a tiny golden serpent.

The increasingly exhausted Long Zhan knew he could not run for much longer. As his frustration grew, he could not help but vent his resentment and lament his misfortunes.

"Fan Ao! The ancient Thunder Dragon will know you killed me!

"If I die, you won't survive for long either!

"Curse you! You only ascended to the True God Realm through the Dao of Metal before me through sheer luck!

"You were never superior to me!

"Once I ascend to the rank of a Fey God, I'll be able to kill you, Fan Ao, three times over!

"The heavens are unjust for allowing you to monopolize this Heavenly Dao for so long!" Long Zhan cried.

"Hasn't the ancient Thunder Dragon of your Dragon Race occupied the Dao of Lightning for tens of thousands of years?" Fan Ao scoffed. "I've only occupied the Dao of Metal for three thousand years. How does that count as monopolizing?"

Nearly a hundred rays of golden divine light, imbued with the sharp Dao of Metal, shot out from the golden platform beneath Fan Ao.

"Gold, iron, copper, silver!" Fan Ao shouted.

The divine light transformed into chains of gold, iron, copper, and silver, akin to the mineral veins found within the landmasses of the Abyss.

Infused with the profound mysteries of the Dao of Metal, these chains of gold, silver, copper, and irons locked onto Long Zhan as he attempted to flee once more, trapping him within a cage.

"Fan Ao! Even in death, I refuse to submit to you!" the Five-Clawed Gold Dragon roared madly.

His golden scales split apart one by one, and his blood rained down like torrential rain.

Boom!

A towering figure clad in silver armor suddenly appeared.

His equally imposing Divine Dharma Idol grasped the cage formed from the chains and tore it apart.

"A True God!"

Long Zhan did not hesitate to flee from the shattered cage, repeatedly unleashing the Dragon Race's blood escape technique without pause, hoping to put as much distance between himself and Fan Ao as possible.

He had no idea what had transpired in the outside world that would cause a True God of the human race to conceal their identity and rescue him from Fan Ao's relentless pursuit.

Regardless, he knew he had to seize this opportunity to cling to survival.

As long as the newly arrived True God could stall Fan Ao for a while, Long Zhan could use the Dragon Race's blood escape technique to leave the range of Fan Ao's perception.

The bizarre mist was vast and boundless. Finding him again would be like searching for a needle in a haystack once he was out of range.

***

After his pursuit was thwarted, Fan Ao knew it was no longer possible to lock onto Long Zhan.

"I never expected one of my own to prevent me from killing Long Zhan." Fan Ao looked at the silently departing man. "Why?"

He knew that man was one of the True Gods.

There were only fifteen True Gods, and he had seen each of them countless times during their councils through the Stargazing Platform's white jade pillars.

However, despite probing several times, he could not discern the man's identity.

The technique the other party employed, the aura of his divine soul, and the nature of their divine power all felt unfamiliar. It was clear the other party was deliberately concealing their identity.

Whoosh!

The man clad in silver armor vanished, leaving only a piece of yellow parchment drifting in the bizarre mist.

Fan Ao swiftly withdrew his Divine Dharma Idol and reverted to his original appearance on the golden platform.

Shifting from a standing posture to a seated one, he sucked the yellow parchment into his palm and lowered his head to examine it closely.

"So, the Dragon Lair Sect aims to use my death and Long Zhan's ascension to Fey God as a bargaining chip for securing an alliance."