Yuan’s Ascension

Half a day later, Wu Yuan abruptly halted, his gaze locking onto a canyon a hundred thousand li away.

Four Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses? Wu Yuan could vaguely sense the powerful, unrestrained auras emanating from the canyon.

Good. It’s been half a day, and I've only killed a hundred or so Amethyst Cradle cultivators. My efficiency is too low. Wu Yuan's eyes gleamed with anticipation. But the blood mist I’ll gain from killing one Void Refiner-level powerhouse is equivalent to hundreds of Amethyst Cradle cultivators.

There are four of them here. Excellent.

Whoosh! With a step forward, Wu Yuan shrouded himself in his Soul Will, suppressing his aura as he silently approached the canyon.

Within the canyon, nearly a hundred cultivators were brazenly celebrating.

"Drink!"

"Come, Daoist Gao Jin, drink. We owe this victory to you. Without you, how could we have killed that Void Refiner Eminence?"

"Yes, it’s all thanks to Daoist Gao Jin and Daoist Qi Pu. Come, drink." The three Void Refiner Eminences and one Elysian Field powerhouse laughed and chatted as they drank exquisitely brewed immortal wine.

More than eighty Amethyst Cradle cultivators were also partaking in the celebration, their guards apparently down.

An ordinary Amethyst Cradle team would need to be extremely cautious while venturing on the mainland. But a team led by four Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses was an exceptionally powerful force. They had few reasons to be wary or retreat, so they weren’t overly concerned.

Hm? Gao Jin, the Void Refiner Eminence sitting in the host seat, suddenly sensed something. His head snapped up. "Enemy!"

Boom! Gao Jin instantly sprang into action. Sheets of crystalline ice erupted from his fingertips, unfurling in rippling waves of jade-green brilliance. In an instant, everything within ten thousand li was completely enveloped in countless layers of ice.

In this frozen world, the temperature plummeted rapidly.

"Enemy?"

"An enemy?" The other three Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses also stood up, their vast Soul Wills surging outward.

Whoosh! In the sky above, an area with a hundred-li radius remained untouched by the layers of ice. At the center of this anomaly stood a crimson-robed figure, his face obscured.

Though only at the Amethyst Cradle phase, the strands of earthy-yellow light circulating around him repelled the encroaching frost.

"Amethyst Cradle phase."

"Dao Field!"

"He's a peerless genius from the Origin Eldritch Field." The expressions of the four Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses changed simultaneously.

They understood all too well what it meant to encounter an opponent who had comprehended a Dao Field. They were even more cognizant of the Origin Eldritch Field, a place that nurtured peerless geniuses on par with those of the Immortal Hall—prodigies with the potential to become High Immortals at least.

As for the dozens of Amethyst Cradle cultivators, they were gripped by terror.

"I'm not from the Origin Eldritch Field," Wu Yuan said with a smile.

"Sir." Gao Jin stood up, his icy gaze fixed on Wu Yuan. "No matter who you are, we don't wish to provoke you. Please leave."

Although confident in his strength, Gao Jin preferred to avoid the trouble of facing such a mysterious, peerless genius.

"Hahaha, you don't want to provoke me?" Wu Yuan's smile widened. "This is the Eldritch-Immortal Battlefield. How can provocation be avoided?"

"Since I've come, you only have two choices: either fight and kill me, or be killed by me." Wu Yuan's eyes narrowed as he looked down at them.

"Arrogant!"

"Such an arrogant brat." Gao Jin, Qi Pu, and the other two Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses were instantly enraged. Those who dared to wander the Eldritch-Immortal Battlefield for extended periods no longer cowered in the face of death.

"Kill!" Gao Jin roared, and five massive cauldrons materialized around him, accompanied by hundreds of flying swords that screeched as they charged toward Wu Yuan.

"Kill!"

"Soul attack." The other two Void Refiner powerhouses did not hesitate to launch soul attacks, their usual move against peerless geniuses.

Peerless geniuses might have formidable battle prowess, and their Dao comprehension might be deep, but their souls were not necessarily powerful.

Hum~ Whoosh~ Two different soul attacks, formless and soundless, pierced the sky and infiltrated Wu Yuan's upper dantian lobe.

Here, Wu Yuan's soul essence sat in lotus position. Above his head hovered a golden tower, which radiated brilliant light upon detecting the attacks.

It effortlessly dispelled the soul attacks from the two Void Refiner Eminences.

This was a soul spirion artifact, the Soul Calming Golden Tower, bestowed by High Immortal Nan Yin.

Soul attacks? Wu Yuan remained unfazed.

The black pagoda didn’t need to do anything. With just Sword Soul Sourcelight and the Soul Calming Golden Tower, he could withstand any soul attacks below the Earth Immortal phase.

In the next instant, Wu Yuan struck.

Whoosh! A stream of earthy-yellow light appeared. Initially only a few li wide, it suddenly expanded like a canopy. Countless flying swords screeched as they shot out in all directions!

It was as if the heavens themselves were being torn apart. Layer after layer of frost was annihilated, closing in on the cultivators.

This? Not good! Gao Jin paled. As the one controlling the domain, he was most sensitive to its changes.

Before Wu Yuan's sword domain, Gao Jin's ice domain crumbled pathetically.

And one had to remember that Wu Yuan was at a mana disadvantage, which meant his Dao comprehension far surpassed theirs.

"Flee!" Gao Jin instantly retreated, intending to escape.

The other three Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses, though half a beat slower, also fled in different directions.

"Flee?" Wu Yuan looked down.

His Soul Will extended across an eighty-thousand-li radius.

Whoosh! Whoosh! The sword domain burgeoned, and a large number of flying swords converged, forming four blindingly bright earthy-yellow divine swords.

"Go!" The four divine swords moved, each slashing through the sky.

Like bolts of lightning, they tore toward the fleeing Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses.

A moment later, the area fell still once more. The canyon was now half-collapsed.

A crimson streak of light tore through the sky, vanishing as swiftly as it had appeared.

…

"Warning!"

"Amethyst Cradle cultivator with estimated late-stage Void Refiner power. Comparing combat imagery, the individual is likely the ninth-rank fighter, Ming Jian." In the main hall of the Voltari Temple on Battlefield 36, the monitoring division swiftly received the relevant combat imagery.

"Monitor him closely!"

"Ming Jian seems to have changed his outward appearance, but his combat tactics cannot be disguised. Each time he faces a formidable opponent, he is forced to unleash his full power."

"Track the location he showed up at." A flurry of commands was issued, though they amounted to little more than 'monitor.'

The Voltari Temple's higher echelons had already given the order—so long as Ming Jian didn’t go berserk, he need not be dealt with.

And what constituted 'berserk'? Usually, it referred to waging a 'king's war'—leading a massive force to assault a war base.

Another batch slain! Wu Yuan shifted back into the guise of an elderly man in black robes. Indeed, my killing efficiency is much higher on the mainland.

For powerful immortal cultivators, only their soul aura was truly unique. Outward appearances were mere illusions, changeable at will, with hardly any flaws.

To be an immortal cultivator was to be a master of transformation.

When facing Void Refiner opponents, I shouldn’t unleash my lifebound flying sword in every battle. Wu Yuan decided. Otherwise, there's no challenge at all.

He partook in slaughter not only to accumulate blood mist and earn ethercrystal laurels, but also to hone himself!

…

Days passed one after another.

For ordinary Amethyst Cradle cultivators, venturing into the mainland war zones was usually a journey of no return, with nine out of every ten perishing. Even Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses had to tread carefully.

Yet Wu Yuan found it all rather pleasant.

A group of Amethyst Cradle cultivators? He crushed them effortlessly.

A single Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouse? He often dispatched them using only a few dozen third-grade spirit flying swords.

When facing three to five Void Refiner/Elysian Field powerhouses, he would typically engage them for half a day, testing out his techniques before finishing them off with first-grade spirit flying swords or his lifebound flying swords.

In short, he swept through everything in his path, leaving a trail of carnage! None could withstand his full power. In truth, even half his strength was enough for him to dominate all foes.

To avoid being tracked by the Immortal Court, Wu Yuan never followed a fixed route or stayed in one area. When the mood struck, he might linger, indulging in wanton slaughter, or suddenly vanish and reappear thousands of li away.

After every ten days to half a month of nonstop battle, he would retreat to the nearest war base to reflect, meditate, and quietly comprehend the Dao for a time.

The blood mist accumulated, and his Dao comprehension steadily improved.

His ethercrystal laurel count on the battlefield-wide leaderboard soared. After just half a year, his cumulative ethercrystal laurels approached four hundred million!

"This Ming Jian has been on a relentless killing spree."

"He's gone mad with bloodlust."

"Occasionally, geniuses from the Origin Eldritch Field will join the battlefield, reaching the legendary or king ranks, but few have ever rampaged like him." In the Blood Eldritch Temple, the four Archimmortals and Archeldritch overseeing Battlefield 36 were shocked.

They had been secretly observing Wu Yuan all along. But what they didn't know was this: While the top ten peerless geniuses of the Fourth Origin Eldritch Field might match Wu Yuan in raw power, most fell far short in terms of soul strength.

In terms of enemy-hunting efficiency, none could match even a tenth of Wu Yuan’s abilities.

…

Deep within a vast mountain range, a massive cavern lay hidden. A spirion battleship took up the entire space.

Even if a peerless genius of the same cultivation phase tried to ambush him, they wouldn’t be able to breach the ship’s defenses in a short time.

In the meditation chamber of the battleship.

Haha, it’s just as I predicted.

The black pagoda pillar has begun to absorb the mist again. The Origin Blood Droplet isn't a one-time treasure but can be continuously generated, just like blood mist. Wu Yuan sat in a lotus position, sensing the activity within his upper dantian lobe.

His heart brimmed with excitement and joy!

If a single Origin Blood Droplet had such miraculous effects, what about two Origin Blood Droplets?

Previously, in the outer space war zone, it had taken nearly two years for him to accumulate the blood mist to its saturation point, even with the assistance of Pei He and Bing Roushui.

But this time, after just half a year of killing enemies alone on the mainland, the blood mist had already reached the upper dantian lobe's maximum capacity.

This time, the pillar's absorption rate is clearly faster. Wu Yuan quickly discerned.

He devoted a fraction of his attention to observing this process. Meanwhile, the vast majority of his mental energy remained focused on quietly deducing the profundities of the Longevity Dao, striving to break through the bottleneck of the eighth-level Domain stage.

Endless cycle of life, the source of Wood returns to one... Once I reach the ninth-level Domain stage, it won’t be long before I grasp the True Intent of the Longevity Dao. Wu Yuan remained calm.

Over the past half a year, through constant battle and contemplation, combined with the Dao Temple inheritances, his mastery of the Longevity Dao had been advancing at an astonishing pace.

Now, with the Longevity Dao alone, Wu Yuan could rival the most elite geniuses of his age in the Origin Eldritch Field.