BOOM!

An endless sea of lightning filled heaven and earth, drowning countless devil creatures. An expert covered in lightning rampaged through their midst, slaughtering the devil creatures.

That person’s appearance was blurry. He seemed like a human-shaped bolt of lightning. The weapons in his hands were also formed of lightning and could constantly transform. They were completely invincible.

In just an incense stick’s worth of time, that expert slaughtered all the devil creatures, leaving behind a mountain of corpses.

Space exploded, and the world turned dark. Some kind of energy caused Long Chen’s scrying to come to a sudden stop.

This was Long Chen’s seventh time using the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art to go back in the flow of time and peer into that ancient battle.

But he didn’t gain anything with his first six attempts. Whatever he saw was far too profound for him to even attempt understanding, or there hadn’t been enough time for him to see anything before his vision was cut short.

This chaotic domain had countless battle scars that were imprinted in the Heavenly Daos. They were random and without order. There was no way to find any pattern to them.

Long Chen didn’t gain anything, but because of his continuous attempts at peering into the mysteries of the past, he was receiving a backlash, made worse by the terrifying eruptions of power from that battle. His soul was aching.

But this ended up provoking Long Chen’s stubborn nature. The more he couldn’t obtain something, the more he wanted it.

As a result, on his seventh try, at this seventh location, Long Chen received a delightful surprise.

“That senior definitely had a legendary lightning spirit body. His entire body was practically completely transformed into lightning, and he had no more flesh and blood. How terrifying.” Long Chen was full of admiration.

That person had actually abandoned their own flesh and blood body to become an incarnation of lightning. Just how much bravery did that require? Or was it simply craziness?

Long Chen quickly recorded the shape of the runes, as well as how this technique circulated one’s energy. He then transferred all this to Lei Long. What delighted him was that Lei Long instantly comprehended what he transferred to it, and it actually became able to use the lightning art.

Long Chen was wild with joy. While that senior had possessed a lightning spirit body, he had still been a human. But Lei Long was a spiritual body composed of heavenly tribulation lightning. For Lei Long, controlling lightning runes was as easy as a person controlling their limbs.

To Lei Long, this kind of high level art was just a slightly more difficult movement. It learned it in just a bit, and it would simply need some time to train in it before it was mastered.

However, Lei Long also needed Long Chen’s power. It needed the support of Long Chen’s spiritual yuan to bring out the full power of this magical art.

Originally, he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to comprehend much of this person’s lightning arts. Even comprehending a third of them would require a huge amount of time and energy. But now that he tested teaching Lei Long, he realized that this wasn’t even a problem.

“Lei Long, you absorb the lightning chains while studying these lightning arts. When you figure things out, teach them to me. This is very important to me.” Long Chen gave this mission to Lei Long.

Once Lei Long fully comprehended these lightning arts, considering their mental and spiritual connection, it wouldn’t be long before Long Chen could learn them as well.

After obtaining these lightning arts, Long Chen didn’t bother wasting any more time. These ancient techniques were too difficult to obtain, and also too difficult to comprehend. He didn’t have that much time to waste.

Long Chen killed one of the ancient family alliance’s disciples, and he learned some information that wasn’t behind restrictions.

First of all, it was now confirmed for him that Mo Nian was fine. Furthermore, his life was very lively recently. He continuously appeared out of nowhere, causing an uproar in the ancient family alliance.

He also learned some information about what Mo Nian had done. In just the past year, he had killed over a thousand geniuses of the ancient family alliance. He had defeated nine rank nine Celestials, killing three of them. He had dug up thirteen hundred and six ancestral graves within the ancient family alliance. He had plundered their resources hundreds of times. Many of the ancient families had had every last bit of their wealth plundered.

When he thought of that, Long Chen’s expression became odd. Could it be that he had been infected by that fellow? He had also plundered Pill Valley.

He lamented inside that as one would expect, ink stained. Mo Nian’s surname, Mo, meant ink, and now it seemed he had been turned black by Mo Nian as well. Long Chen suddenly felt that before he had met Mo Nian, he had been an extremely kind and sunshiney youth!

Other than learning about Mo Nian, he also learned why the Dark Forest had gathered the powers. Their reasoning wasn’t that off from what Long Chen had expected.

The Dark Forest was using the Ancient Battlefield and the Forest of Life as bargaining chips to work together with them. Their goal was to hold Pill Valley in check.

In truth, Long Chen was speechless towards their foolishness. Ever since Pill Valley and the powers other than the Righteous path had accepted the Heaven Devouring Forest taking root in the Martial Heaven Continent, the various powers had obtained countless benefits from the Spirit World. The Forest of Life and the Ancient Battlefield had essentially become trial regions for them to temper their disciples.

But did the Dark Forest really think that just that would be enough for these powers to unite with them against Pill Valley? That was just a fantasy. Medicinal pills were the lifeblood of cultivators. What power would turn against Pill Valley?

The disciple he had killed didn’t know many of the details, but Long Chen trusted that the various powers all thought the Dark Forest was a group of idiots. They would just take advantage while they could.

If the Dark Forest really started a war with Pill Valley, they would just try to smooth things over. In any case, they just had to take care to not offend either side. Long Chen clearly saw through thoughts.

This time, in order to express their sincerity, the Dark Forest didn’t restrict the number of people allowed into the Spirit World, and had set up an entrance to the Spirit World that allowed the Corrupt path to kill any adventurers from the Martial Heaven Continent.

Through his soulsearch, he also obtained a map of the Ancient Battlefield. Only now did he realize the Ancient Battlefield had safe passageways that allowed a person to avoid the spatial cracks.

Realizing this, Long Chen started to sweat. After scheming all day, all that happened was that he became dumber. If he had accidentally been devoured by a spatial crack, he’d have nowhere to cry.

With the map, Long Chen found that the Ancient Battlefield was a long strip. At the end of it was a region that was said to be where a Sovereign had fought. There were countless treasures there, and there was even a chance to comprehend what the Sovereign had left behind.

The most alluring thing was that rumor was that the Sovereign had killed a top devil expert, and had sealed their divine weapon there. Anyone who obtained it would obtain that devil expert’s inheritance and gain a power rivalling a Sovereign.

“This is mine! That’s mine too! This is all mine!” Long Chen’s eyes blazed with greed as he looked over the map. He couldn’t believe he had wasted so much time in this outer region. He charged directly to the core.

With the map, his progress was rapid. He constantly made turns, avoiding the chaotic regions.

When he passed a particularly huge chaotic region, a divine pressure appeared, one that invoked reverence and worship.

“Yes, this is the pressure of a Sovereign. It’s just like the Sovereign Blood Seal. But their auras aren’t the same. They’re two different generations of Sovereigns,” thought Long Chen.

This region in front of him was a boundless, desolate world of chaotic space. The space here was like a mirage. The scene was constantly changing.

The sky collapsed, the stars vanished. Mountains and plains became nothing. In front of this power, the world couldn’t remain stable.

It was like the world had died in this region. But when he carefully focused himself, what he saw in front of him was simply mist. It was impossible to see through this mist.

Gods, devils, immortals, all sorts of images would flit through this space. It felt possible to hear a Grand Dao’s music, yet that music also sounded like the wailing of ghosts.

“This is where a Sovereign once fought? Let me try sensing it again!” Long Chen clenched his fists, a heroic feeling rising in his heart.

A Sovereign was an existence that stood at the peak of the marital path. They were unrivaled, completely suppressing everyone else in their generation. No one could contend against them.

Everyone had to respect a Sovereign. If it hadn’t been for the Sovereigns, the Martial Heaven Continent would no longer exist. They had been the protective gods of this world.

Thinking of how he was standing on the battlefield that a Sovereign had once fought on, Long Chen couldn’t help feeling excited. He entered the mist.

This was a world of both illusion and reality. With each step he took, reality changed.

With one step, lightning rang in the air and a torrent of rain fell. With another step, a gentle breeze blew by in the sunlight, the fragrance of flowers and birdsong in the air.

As he advanced, reality continued to change. Immortals descended from the heavens, ghosts demanded his life, the sun, the moon, the stars all changed. The transformations continued. He felt like he was in a world where spacetime was in chaos.

“The power of a Sovereign is capable of breaking the laws of heaven and earth. Could it be that the real ability of a Sovereign is to change the laws of the world?” wondered Long Chen. This chaotic space was actually extremely hard for him to endure.

As he walked, it was like he suddenly went from walking on the ground to walking up a wall, and then he suddenly felt like he was upside down. Space and time were in chaos here.

This was different from the clashes of laws he had felt before. There were no spatial cracks here. That was because the power here had reached the level that it formed a resonance with the world instead of simply cracking it.

However, the two powers that were present were not harmonious, resulting in this chaotic region. Everything was in chaos here.

“Even the laws of heaven and earth were thrown into chaos. How could I possibly go back and sense anything from that time?” Long Chen couldn’t even muster up the bravery of circulating the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art to try and see the Sovereign’s battle. He was afraid that kind of power could easily exterminate him even through the river of time.

More importantly, this chaotic space meant he couldn’t do it even if he wanted to. This chaotic space was a complete mess with no start or end.

If the previous regions were like balls of wool where he could follow one thread down to the past, this was a sea of turbid water. Trying to sense anything was nonsense.

As he advanced deeper, he grew dizzy and light-headed. At some unknown time, the chaotic space became still. For some unknown reason, he entered a barren land.

Within this barren land was a seductive figure that caused Long Chen’s expression to change.