Though Lu Yun had only recovered to his peak strength and was thus leagues away from the Wei river god, he came from the future. Marvelous cultivation methods and battle styles abounded in his repertoire; it’d take only one small opening for him to doom the river god beyond any hope of reincarnation.

Sacred Origin Runes flared with dark-golden light overhead as Lu Yun crossed his arms in front of his chest and voiced a long hum. In this moment, all of the rivers, mountains, plants, and the rippling Wei River… everything in the vicinity was isolated from the world.

Shrieking and wailing, the river god watched with horrified eyes as beams of cerulean blue erupted from its chest. A ball of blue light roughly the size of a human head flowed out of its chest, and its eyes dimmed the moment it appeared.

Its large body began to dissipate and return to the world. As it was only a tribute spirit and not a divine spirit, it could no longer exist after losing both its priest and divine decree.

……

“The divine decree of the Wei river god!” a delighted shout echoed. “If I get my hands on that, won’t I be the god of Wei River and rule over all fifteen thousand of its kilometers?”

The gleeful voice cut off the next second as it seemed to realize some things were better left unsaid. Hidden in the murky depths, it shot at Lu Yun, revealing itself to be an enormous spotted python, a riot of multiple colors splashed across its five-hundred-meter long body. Three feet thick and spitting out rainbow poison mist, it launched itself at Lu Yun to swallow the divine decree in the human’s hand.

This spotted python was far weaker than the river god from earlier, but it was neither a divine spirit nor a tribute spirit, so what remained of the Sacred Origin Runes on the ground couldn’t restrain it.

It was a gremlin of the water, which also didn’t make it a monster spirit. Monster spirits had their own power and could call upon monster spirit abilities, whereas gremlins made use of their natural talents and strong physical bodies. 

However, though it was weaker than the river god, that still didn’t mean Lu Yun could easily fend it off. Its overbearing body came crashing down and smashed through everything the human youth had set up.

Wei River instantly boiled over as gremlins, monsters, and various divine spirits in its watery depths went mad with greed when they saw the divine decree. Ah Bao and Ah Niu scrambled to drive them back, striking them down wherever they popped up.

Roar!! 

An enormous challenge rang out as an exotic beast charged out of the tribe. It rushed to Lu Yun’s side in one thousandth of a second and ripped the python’s head off with a swipe of its iron-like claws.

The pixiu!

In a critical moment of need, the tribe’s guardian showed itself. It blazed with the aura of a divine spirit and flooded the vicinity with its stormy presence, snarling and tearing the ground with fearsome power.

All of the beings that’d rushed out of the river ran off with whines and yelps, their tails between their legs after an utter rout. The pixiu was incomparably strong and had torn apart even the Bi Fang! It’d only been afraid before because the river god possessed a divine decree. Now that the river god was no longer, it was the unchallenged sovereign of the area.

ROOOOARRRRR!!

It threw its head back again and sent its voice across five hundred kilometers in all directions. Everything that heard it fell to the ground in a prostrate position of surrender, while cheers rang out from the Yan Tribe.

“Big brother Lieshan!” Ah Bao bounced back to Lu Yun’s side and tugged hard on his clothes. There was the tiniest bit of fear in her eyes as she had to meet enemies here with her own strength. She was no longer in the mountain, and thus unable to nimbly call upon her real power.

This was also the greatest reason why Lu Yun hadn’t wanted her to take the field.

“Eat this.” He shoved the divine decree into Ah Bao’s mouth. Off to the side, Ah Niu swallowed surreptitiously as he, too, wanted the decree since he was the Yan Tribe’s tribute spirit.

……

Ah Bao fell into a deep sleep after she devoured the river god’s divine decree. 

Despite the lack of a boss, everything was deathly silent in the Wei River. The pixiu residing in the human tribe was a great deterrent—it was the mightiest powerhouse in the area after Ah Bao when there was no river god around.

Meanwhile, the Yan Tribe busied themselves with celebrations. They hadn’t thought that Lie Shan would truly succeed and eradicate the river god that’d plagued them for so many years!

Free from the river god’s exploitation and with the pixiu as great reassurance, the tribe entered a phase of high speed development. Their strength bounded forward based on the breathing and body tempering methods that Lie Shan taught them, and they rose to the position of the greatest human tribe of the Wei River.

Throughout all of this, Lu Yun sat cross-legged by the banks of the river and contemplated it blankly. He didn’t cultivate or deduce new cultivation methods, just stared into space at what was happening around him and the world.

He sat for three years, and nothing changed about him during this time. He remained looking like a thin eighteen-year-old boy.

Kerrrrrack!

Spring thunderstorms raged during the third year, sending a tremor through him and focusing his eyes on the gaily blowing spring rains in front of him.

“That’s right, as we model ourselves after heaven and earth and the great dao itself is of nature… why am I rigidly sticking to specific cultivation methods?” He stood up and looked at the sky, suddenly opening his arms and taking in a deep breath. Rainwater streamed toward him and collected as an enormous ball of water, then dispersed when he breathed out.

Lu Yun’s eyes lit up—he seemed to be communicating with nature right now, taking in the most basic, fundamental energy of the world: chaos!

Rumble—

Echoing booms as if rolling thunder sounded from his body, and every pore on his skin opened wide, breathing in the energy of the world.

This was the realm of breathing in tandem with heaven and earth.

Lu Yun opened his mouth and sucked it all to his stomach, then used his body as a forge to meld the energy into his body.

“With the body as sky and earth as forge… Creation as craftsmanship for will, yin yang as fuel for qi, and all living beings as bronze for cultivation!”

Hummm.

An invisible fire rippled out from his body and the shadow of the Tome of Life and Death flashed through his eyes.

“Breathing method? Body tempering? No, this is refining qi!” A smile floated onto his face. “With heaven and earth as a furnace and collection of the qi in the world, we reach the level of fusing all living beings!”

He didn’t call upon formula dao to trace out this qi refinement method. Instead, he let it progress as it would to its natural conclusion. What he overlooked was that the world trembled gently when the qi refinement method appeared.

Countless experts had opened their eyes at the same time and looked in the direction of the Wei River, and a giant hand probed soundlessly from the sky, intending to grab Lu Yun.

But at the same time, another giant hand reached down and smashed apart the first hand.

“Fuxi!” a furious voice traveled in from the distance.

A refined man with the body of a snake opened his eyes in front of a verdant segment of bamboo. He looked into the air.

“Do you think you can do whatever you like just because you have Leize and Huaxu backing you up??” A man covered in white bones popped into existence and glared at the man with a snake’s body.

“Well, of course. That’s precisely why I do whatever I want. What can you do about it? Beat me up for it?” Fuxi grinned brilliantly.