Chapter 99: Invasion of the Chaotic Sea

Xu Zhong entered the space where the Seven Piercing Arrows book was located.

He habitually bowed three times to the scarecrow, then looked toward the cauldron and the yin-yang fish within it.

The yin-yang fish manifested the scene where Yuan Yi was located.

At this moment, Yuan Yi no longer seemed to be Yuan Yi; he resembled Wei Yan more. He stood amidst the void, taking a step to the left revealed the Underworld Realm, and a step to the right showed the Sea of Chaos.

He was caught between the two, seemingly holding something in his hand.

Xu Zhong glanced at what he held.

Suddenly, faint roars echoed in Xu Zhong’s ears, reverberating within his body and shaking his vital core.

In the next instant, sharp pain erupted in his head, as if it was about to be torn apart.

He had not yet opened his vital core nor learned to protect his soul. Even the slightest damage to his soul would cause him great trouble.

Xu Zhong’s heart raced with fear as he quickly withdrew his gaze.

But in the next moment, something strange happened.

From the cauldron before his eyes, thick white mist surged forth incessantly like a rushing fountain.

Accompanying it came gusts of eerie wind, moving as fast as lightning.

At this moment, Xu Zhong found himself enveloped in the fog, unable to see anything.

Around him was a cold, sinister aura—deathly and foul. These energies clashed fiercely with the overwhelming yang energy coursing through Xu Zhong’s body. Upon detecting his yang energy, they burst forth toward him.

In this instant, Xu Zhong felt like a lone boat adrift in a vast sea.

Facing the raging waves, a deep sense of helplessness welled up within him.

But the next moment, Xu Zhong held his breath and cast the Black Tortoise Seven Mansions technique, reversing yin and yang, retracting yang energy inward, and replacing it with yin energy within his body.

Instantly, the oppressive sensation of the waves vanished without a trace.

In the following moment, the yin energy inside him quickened its flow.

This mist was inherently imbued with yin energy.

For cultivators who practiced yin attribute techniques, this was like paradise.

But for Xu Zhong, it was a profound confusion.

His foundation as the God of Thunder Marsh was rooted in the purest yang energy cultivation method.

“This place is strange,” Xu Zhong thought in alarm.

He felt no trace of yang energy at all.

All things are born of yin and yang.

When yin reaches its extreme, yang is born; when yang reaches its extreme, yin is born.

Yet here, there was only yin energy.

“Is this the Sea of Chaos?” Suddenly, Xu Zhong seemed to understand something.

He looked into the distance and saw a divine turtle slowly approaching.

Using the Spirit Perception technique, he saw nothing but a mass of bleached bones.

This divine turtle was enshrouded in yin energy, a skeletal bird of bones.

Not a shred of flesh remained on its entire body.

The divine turtle slowly came beside Xu Zhong, but it seemed not to see him, passing right through.

“Gulp!” Xu Zhong swallowed nervously.

He sensed an unprecedented terrifying power emanating from the turtle.

Behind its head, the reincarnation heavens stacked and nested, almost equal in number to those of the Primordial Supreme Emperor.

This divine turtle was likely a creator-level Qi refiner.

“Is this truly the Sea of Chaos?” Xu Zhong glanced around.

The blue radiance in his pupils remained undiminished.

It was the Spirit Perception technique still in effect.

After moving his gaze away from the divine turtle, he saw even more terrifying things.

A white dragon soared upward, carrying the sun and moon in its mouth; behind it, a monstrous creature with nine heads spewed flames, with a torrent of floodwaters behind it.

He also saw ancient giants bearing towering mountains on their backs, walking across the heavens and earth; a beauty walking along a river playing a flute, whose melody drew countless birds to pay homage.

On the summit of a high mountain, he saw a fire phoenix soaring amidst blazing flames; its inferno was so intense that even the clouds at the horizon caught fire, setting the sky ablaze in an instant.

Xu Zhong was dumbfounded, his mouth wide enough to fit an egg.

He simply could not believe what he was witnessing.

“No, that’s not right!” Xu Zhong looked at those divine beasts and creatures, feeling that although they appeared immensely powerful, their strength was only superficial, not intrinsic.

In other words, these divine beasts and divine birds possessed a mighty aura but lacked true inner power. They emitted barely any strong magical fluctuations; on the contrary, those fluctuations were even weaker than Xu Zhong’s.

At that moment, Xu Zhong noticed the spiritual energy fluctuations around him.

The spiritual energy was thin and sparse, barely at the level of an ordinary cultivation ground.

The amount of spiritual energy here was only enough for a Qi refiner at the Material Formation stage to cultivate.

Yet these beings were all innate deities.

“The total amount of spiritual energy in the world remains constant,” Xu Zhong recalled.

The Sea of Chaos was isolated from the world; its spiritual energy did not connect with the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, so it diminished little by little.

Perhaps at first, it could still supply innate deities for cultivation, but over time, the total spiritual energy here would only decrease, growing ever more scarce.

Therefore, these innate deities possessed the Dao resonance of innate deities but lacked their true abilities.

“This must not be an illusion. I can’t conceive of such an illusion,” Xu Zhong doubted himself. “Then how did I enter the Sea of Chaos?”

He had clearly been in the cave heaven within the Seven Piercing Arrows book, yet in the blink of an eye, he found himself here.

It was indeed baffling and hard to believe.

At that moment, a shadow seemed to pass overhead.

Xu Zhong looked up and saw an immensely sacred deity gazing down.

The sun, moon, stars, thunder, rain, wind, and the cycles of the four seasons all revolved around this deity.

This deity seemed the sole sovereign of heaven and earth; a mere glance commanded irresistibly submission.

Xu Zhong stumbled slightly underfoot, nearly falling into the endless mist below, but he managed to steady himself.

“He is stronger than anyone here,” a terrifying thought flashed through Xu Zhong’s mind at that instant.

To maintain his power, he might resort to consuming humans.

“Although none here possess the power of innate deities, their magical strength and spell power far exceed mine.”

A storm was brewing; the longer he remained here, the greater the danger.

“How do I get out?” Xu Zhong stopped pondering how he had entered and instead began considering his escape.

Everything around him was so vivid it felt like a dream.

But in the next moment, he seemed to awaken from a nightmare, filled with terror.

That deity, who stood above the Nine Heavens, cold and indifferent to all things, suddenly launched an assault on the divine birds and beasts he had seen.

In an instant, the fire phoenix was extinguished, the white dragon shattered, and the nine heads of the nine-headed monster exploded.

The giant carrying the mountain transformed into a mountain itself, standing firm upon the earth.

The deity stretched out a hand, refining those fire phoenixes, white dragons, nine-headed monsters, and other deities into the purest immortal spiritual light and human pills, then swallowed them all.

Though Xu Zhong had anticipated this scene, he had not expected it to happen so swiftly.

At that moment, the deity’s gaze swept toward Xu Zhong.

Suddenly, Xu Zhong felt countless needles sprouting from his eyes, a fierce pain radiating from deep within.

Unable to endure the agony, he instinctively covered his eyes and forced himself not to utter a sound.

When the stinging pain faded, Xu Zhong opened his eyes to find all the bizarre visions had vanished.

He looked blankly at the dense mist before him; the man-eating deity had disappeared.

In its place was a faint, distant song.