Chapter 456: One Step Closer to Void Tribulation
It was true—Jiang Chen hadn’t grasped as many Daos as Chao Xin. But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t fighting alone. Nangong Wan and Shangguan Ning were right there with him.
They didn’t have physical bodies to fully channel the laws they touched, but even as souls they could still draw on the essence of heaven and earth. It wasn’t enough to crush Chao Xin outright, but it was more than enough to hold their ground.
"Wan’er, your turn again." Jiang Chen yielded control, letting Nangong Wan rise to the surface within the Void Tribulation Soul.
She wasted no time. Her will surged out, pulling strands of the Great Dao from the heavens themselves, weaving them together into a storm that crashed against the shield of laws Chao Xin had thrown up around himself.
Now it came down to one thing—who understood the Great Dao more deeply.
The laws Nangong Wan commanded far outstripped those Chao Xin had mastered. Piece by piece, she tore apart the barrier he had thrown up.
"No!" Fear and fury flashed in Chao Xin’s hollow eyes.
But he had nothing left. His tricks were spent. Martial techniques were useless here. Trapped in the Void Killing Prison and crushed under the weight of the Daos Nangong Wan drew from heaven and earth, even moving a finger felt impossible.
"Wan’er, finish it!" Jiang Chen’s eyes gleamed coldly. "His innate talent and body are exceptional. We have to kill him before his bloodline power is completely spent!"
"Got it! Crimson Feathers Void Killing Prison!" Nangong Wan answered without hesitation, unleashing her spatial execution art once again.
A sea of crimson feathers stretched for hundreds of thousands of miles, then collapsed inward all at once.
The falling feathers turned into blades, tearing into Chao Xin with unstoppable force.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions ripped through the void as his gathered spatial power shattered and vanished in an instant.
With nothing left to shield him, the storm of crimson blades slammed into his skeletal body again and again.
"No―! I refuse!" Chao Xin’s scream shook the heavens.
For ten million years he had fought against fate, clawed his way through endless trials—only to fall here, on the edge of victory.
Bang!
His skeleton burst apart, breaking into countless fragments of bone. At the same time, his soul was torn to pieces, erased forever.
[Ding! Plot alteration detected! You’ve seized a major opportunity from Protagonist Lu Yi. Lu Yi’s Heavenly Fate Value has dropped by 30,000!]
[Ding! You’ve gained 60,000 Villain Value points!]
Jiang Chen’s eyes lit up in surprise. Amazing—I just cut thirty thousand straight off Lu Yi’s Heavenly Fate Value!
Lu Yi’s Heavenly Fate Value had already been nearly halved, leaving him with just under sixty thousand. This hit sliced it almost in half again, dropping it to a bit over twenty-seven thousand.
If I chip away another fifteen thousand, he’ll be finished, Jiang Chen thought, a faint smile tugging at his lips. With that, he let his body return to its human form and withdrew the Void Tribulation Soulring’s power.
His gaze shifted to the shattered remains of Chao Xin. At a single thought—Death Calamity Dark Star Moon Dao Embryo—a strange force swept out, wrapping around the broken bones.
Faint lights rose from Chao Xin’s shattered bones, streaming straight into Jiang Chen.
What he drew in was pure cultivation power—enough to match the full foundation of a Late-stage Nirvana Cleansing realm cultivator.
It couldn’t compare to Chao Xin’s peak as an Early-stage Void Tribulation realm powerhouse, but since his realm had already fallen to Peak-stage Nirvana Cleansing realm, pulling out this much was still remarkable.
The real prize, though, was the Daos hidden within that power. Many of them were paths Jiang Chen had yet to touch.
This was where the true value lay.
Before this, the enemies Jiang Chen killed had all been in the Nirvana Peering realm. The Daos they’d grasped were ordinary at best—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, ice, thunder, stone, and other common branches.
Jiang Chen had already mastered these common Daos, so taking them again through the Death Calamity Dark Star Moon Dao Embryo would be pointless.
But Chao Xin was no ordinary opponent—he had been a true Void Tribulation realm powerhouse, someone who had grasped more than forty-nine laws of the Great Dao.
With his death, Jiang Chen had seized them all in one sweep, a number far beyond what he held before.
Even the Space Dao was among them, though Chao Xin himself had never fully unraveled its depths.
Of course, what Jiang Chen gained was only fragments—about a quarter of each Dao at most, the current limit of the Death Calamity Dark Star Moon Dao Embryo.
To truly step into the Void Tribulation realm, he would still need to pick thirty-three Daos and bring them to completion.
Even so, this harvest would spare him countless years of effort.
"Great harvest." Jiang Chen nodded with satisfaction.
This pure cultivation essence won’t be touched for now. Better to keep it hidden, a trump card for emergencies like the one with Chao Xin, he thought.
For the next stage, I need to focus on cultivating other methods and deepening my grasp of different Daos. When the time is right, I’ll use this pure cultivation to gather a full set of forty-nine Daos and make the formal step into the Void Tribulation realm.
With that plan in mind, he activated the Wordless Heavenly Book, probing Chao Xin’s remains for any trace of qi and blood he could still absorb.
But after lying as a skeleton for nearly ten million years, almost nothing was left. The Wordless Heavenly Jade barely drew in a drop.
Even so, Jiang Chen uncovered something far more precious.
Clinging to the remnants of Chao Xin’s bones were faint strands of strange, gray-blue energy.
With a wave of his hand, Jiang Chen pulled the bone fragments into his palm. So this is the primordial essence of the Obsidian Indestructible Body.
Good thing I had Nangong Wan finish him quickly. If not, this bloodline essence would’ve been burned away. Now it’s time for the Eternal Boundless Body to show its worth. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
Right then, a system alert rang out in his Sea of Consciousness.
[Ding! Primal Chaos-level bloodline—Obsidian Indestructible Body—detected! Integration with the Eternal Boundless Body is possible. Proceed?]
Jiang Chen drew in a sharp breath, startled. A Primal Chaos-level bloodline!
The Primal Chaos realm is the very first stage of the Fourth Step of the Cultivation Path—bloodlines of this level are nothing short of extraordinary. It may not rival the Endless Dark Blood Moon Bloodline, but even so, its power is terrifying.
So this was meant to be Lu Yi’s stroke of fortune from Heavenly Fate. His system revolves around fusing everything together—even bloodline powers. With the Obsidian Indestructible Body, his rise would’ve been unstoppable.
But that path is mine now. A grin crept across Jiang Chen’s face.
System, fuse the Obsidian Indestructible Body with the Eternal Boundless Body.
[Ding! Obsidian Indestructible Body successfully merged with the Eternal Boundless Body. Power is now synergizing with the Death Calamity Dark Star Moon Dao Embryo, stripping the excess, refining the core, and advancing through fusion!]
[Ding! Your Heaven-Defying Fate Changer, the Death Calamity Dark Star Moon Dao Embryo, has evolved into the Underworld Calamity Indestructible Dao Embryo!]