Nine Star Hegemon Body Arts

Chapter 5281 Return to Simplicity

A head flew through the air as a winged Heaven Devil collapsed. This marked the seventeenth stronghold of the devil race Long Chen had destroyed on his own. The ground was littered with corpses.

With a wave of his hand, Long Chen sucked in thousands of corpses into the primal chaos space. Amongst them were two three-vein Emperors, a level of power he hadn’t encountered before. The might of these Emperors was several times greater than that of two-vein Emperors, yet still far from the strength of a nine-vein Emperor. Having already fought against a nine-vein Emperor, Long Chen easily crushed these three-vein Emperors with a few strikes.

Once three-vein Emperors started appearing, Long Chen knew he had gotten one step closer to the depths of the Endless Desolation. The deeper he went, the denser the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, and the more complete the laws of the Heavenly Daos were.

Only this kind of environment could raise powerful Earth Devils. After all, big fish couldn’t grow in tiny streams. The stronger the lifeform, the more they needed to stay in the depths of the Endless Desolation.

After slaying his enemies, Long Chen placed Evilmoon back on his shoulder. Through this period of slaughter, Evilmoon had absorbed an immense amount of blood soul energy and was fully recovered.

However, the Earth Cauldron remained weak, having expended too much energy. Fortunately, the primal chaos space was continuously nourished by Emperor-level corpses, allowing the Moon Trees and Fusang Trees to recover quickly. Their vitality, in turn, helped Huo Linger recover well.

As long as Huo Linger had enough flames to consume, her recovery would be quick. On the other hand, Lei Linger’s recovery speed was much slower. The devil corpses didn’t release enough thunderforce during decomposition, and without encountering devil creatures that wielded thunderforce, Long Chen was unable to help Lei Linger recover faster.

Given how little thunderforce was released from these devil creatures, it was clear they hadn’t experienced the tempering of heavenly tribulation. Had they undergone such a baptism, their bodies should have been brimming with thunderforce.

For these creatures to grow so powerful without the baptism of heavenly tribulation suggested they were not bound by the same laws as the nine heavens and ten lands. This revelation was a new discovery for Long Chen.

Lei Linger’s recovery remained slow, but Long Chen knew there was no way to rush it. Only the native lifeforms of the nine heavens and ten lands carried the thunderforce born from heavenly tribulation.

Unfortunately, Long Chen only encountered masses of devil creatures in this place, so he could only press on.

As Long Chen ventured deeper, the devil creatures grew stronger. Three-vein Emperors became common, and he even encountered strongholds with five or six of them at a time, along with hundreds of two-vein Emperors and tens of thousands of ordinary Emperors. Though they weren’t enough to pose a serious threat to Long Chen, the increasing numbers made the clean-ups longer.

With each victory, Long Chen fed the primal chaos space with powerful corpses, accelerating the recovery of the Moon Trees, Fusang Trees, and Huo Linger. She resumed refining pills with the Earth Cauldron, which also started to recover as it absorbed more spiritual qi of heaven and earth. Its dark runes once more lit up.

Over the next two months, Long Chen continued this cycle: cleaning up a stronghold, resting, and devouring the pills refined during the slaughter. As he borrowed the power of these devil creatures to help him digest the energy of these medicinal pills, his cultivation realm rapidly improved. The corpses then nourished Huo Linger, and Huo Linger continued to refine pills with the Earth Cauldron.

Then, during one pursuit of a group of three-vein Emperors, a loud explosion echoed within Long Chen’s Dantian. His Root Qi surged, spreading through his body before returning to his core.

Just that one dispersion and condensation made Long Chen feel like his Root Qi had memorized all his meridians. His essence, qi, and spirit underwent some kind of transformation, and even his physical body felt fortified, though the sensation was subtle and hard to pinpoint.

This feeling was extremely vague. Although he felt like he had gotten stronger, he didn’t sense any significant changes in his constitution.

Without warning, his aura exploded to a new level, many times greater than before. With one slash of his saber, he cleaved through the group of three-vein Emperors, leaving a massive tear in the void that didn’t heal for a long time.

Long Chen stared at the tear in the void for a long time. Just now, his aura had naturally flowed into his attack, and though it was merely an ordinary qi strike, its power was overwhelming.

“Is this the power of the Sage King realm?” Long Chen murmured, his voice quivering with awe.

The transformation felt familiar, reminding him of the changes he had experienced when first entering the Qi Condensation realm. He hadn’t anticipated that his path in the immortal world would lead him back to such a simple, primal state of cultivation.

“Is this the principle of the Grand Dao returning to simplicity? Returning to the origin?” Long Chen pondered aloud. It was as though, after entering the Eternal realm, the complexities of cultivation had faded away, revealing something pure and fundamental.

“Eternal but not eternal. What seems right but is wrong, what seems wrong but is right…” Long Chen instantly felt like the clouds had split open and he was seeing the world in a new light.

The Eternal realm had baffled him for a long time. He had discussed it with Yue Zifeng, Gu Yang, Bai Shishi, and the others. However, their understanding of the Eternal realm was completely different from his.

Due to possessing three different bloodlines and cultivating the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, Long Chen had a completely different path than everyone else’s. As a result, they couldn’t corroborate their understanding of the Eternal realm with each other.

While everyone else’s Eternal realm revolved around condensing Eternal runes, his Eternal realm revolved around condensing Eternal qi, which was concentrated on his Spirit Root.

In other words, his six realms of Eternity revolved purely around his Spirit Root. He didn’t need to worry about anything else.

“Hahaha!” Long Chen raised his head and laughed. After understanding this, he felt enlightened.

Seeing the Root Qi pulsing within his Dantian, as if resonating with him, Long Chen was overjoyed. For the first time since its return from Long Aotian, his Spirit Root no longer felt foreign—it had finally undergone a second rebirth and fully merged with him.

At this time, when he looked at the clump of Root Qi in his Dantian, he saw it slowly pulsing as if communing with him. He was overjoyed.

Previously, although his Spirit Root had returned to his body, it still felt slightly foreign to him. But now he had finally formed a kind of spiritual resonance with his Spirit Root.

“Now that I’ve reached the Sage King realm, I can go deeper. I can challenge stronger devil creatures.”

Just like that, Long Chen grandly headed deeper into the Endless Desolation.