Desolate Devouring Art

Shen San immediately grasped Shen Can's strategy. Once they located the passage leading into the next region, they could guard the entrance and wait for Liu Wuxie to walk straight into their hands.

That approach was far more effective than searching blindly through the labyrinth of meridians. More importantly, obtaining the Divine Fire Core remained their highest priority.

Shen San gathered the remaining Shen Clan disciples and swiftly pursued Liu Wuxie along the route he had taken.

Every interspatial ring had already been stripped from the corpses scattered throughout the pericardium.

......

Liu Wuxie flew through the meridian with the agility of an ape, covering dozens of meters with every leap. He had disguised himself again to prevent anyone from recognizing him.

"Divine Tribulation Pupil, Ghost Pupil, find the gate to the Heart Palace," he muttered.

A powerful urgency pulsed through the Desolate World, which had most likely detected the Divine Fire Core. Unfortunately, the heart covered a vast region filled with countless interwoven meridians, forming an endless labyrinth. Searching every passage individually would require at least an entire year.

Liu Wuxie's mental energy flowed outward like a gentle breeze and traveled through the surrounding meridians. At the same time, Ghost Pupil pierced the crystalline walls and peered into the passages beyond them.

With all three forces working together, Liu Wuxie located the gate of the Heart Palace within a few breaths. Reaching it from his current position would require roughly an hour, and he could only hope he was not already too late.

As Liu Wuxie raced onward, cultivators occasionally emerged from adjoining meridians, nearly colliding with him.

"Liu Wuxie is terrifyingly cunning. I heard he slaughtered more than a hundred cultivators inside the pericardium," a cultivator said.

The conversation between the two cultivators reached Liu Wuxie's ears from a parallel meridian several dozen meters away. Their passages would soon converge at the junction ahead.

"I heard the same rumor. But he's only a True Immortal. How could he possibly kill that many experts?" the other cultivator asked.

From what they had heard, several low-level Profound Immortals were among the dead.

Liu Wuxie slowed down. With his various perception abilities, avoiding others was easy, and crossing paths with strangers would only invite unnecessary trouble. The moment the two cultivators emerged at the junction, he quietly circled them and slipped into another passage.

"Wait. Didn't that person look familiar?" one of the men asked, turning to stare after Liu Wuxie's retreating figure.

Liu Wuxie's disguise had altered his facial features, but it could not change his physique. Everyone possessed distinctive physical traits, and a figure as perfectly proportioned as his was particularly rare.

By then, most cultivators had received word that someone had discovered the route leading toward the gate of the Heart Palace.

"I thought he looked familiar too," the man on the right replied, his brows drawing tightly together.

He felt certain that he had seen Liu Wuxie before, yet he couldn't remember where.

"That's Liu Wuxie! I remember his silhouette from when he entered the gate of the Lung Palace," the man on the left exclaimed, slapping his thigh as realization struck him.

"After him!"

The two cultivators immediately gave chase. With no one else nearby, they saw a perfect opportunity to kill Liu Wuxie.

Murderous intent flickered through Liu Wuxie's eyes as he increased his speed.

"We'll split up and cut him off from both sides!" one of the men declared.

The meridians formed an interconnected labyrinth. The two cultivators separated and entered different passages, intending to trap Liu Wuxie between them when their routes converged at the next junction.

Liu Wuxie could no longer avoid the confrontation. Like rivers flowing toward the sea, the meridians would eventually merge at the same location.

The Bloodthirst Blade appeared in Liu Wuxie's hand. Both pursuers were sixth-level Profound Immortals, far beyond what he could kill through ordinary means. To defeat them, he would have to turn the surrounding forces to his advantage.

Heartfire also saturated every meridian within the heart. The slightest carelessness could result in severe burns.

"Since you've chosen to court death, don't blame me for showing no mercy," Liu Wuxie muttered, his gaze turning glacial as piercing murderous intent radiated from him.

He had already prepared the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron to swallow both men if necessary. Did they truly believe he was a helpless pushover with no hidden means?

Heartfire streamed into the cauldron and merged with the demonic flames, making the newly formed fire increasingly violent.

If his martial techniques could not kill the two men, Liu Wuxie would devour them with the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. With no better option available, he decided to seize the initiative. Once he eliminated one pursuer, dealing with the remaining man would become considerably easier.

The energy and laws of Profound Immortals could not push Liu Wuxie into another breakthrough, but devouring them would still nourish and strengthen the Desolate World.

As he raced through the meridians, Liu Wuxie absorbed every strand of heartfire along the way into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. The flames within soon raged like a volcano poised to erupt. However, the cauldron was also nearing its limit and could absorb no more.

"Liu Wuxie, I know it's you. Stop," a cultivator roared as he burst from an adjoining meridian ahead. It was the same man who had crossed paths with him moments earlier.

"How did you recognize me?" Liu Wuxie asked.

He felt no urgency to unleash the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. First, he wanted to know how the man had seen through his disguise.

"Liu Wuxie, hand over the Divine Metal Core," the man roared, ignoring the question as he drove his sword toward Liu Wuxie.

Without wasting another word, he launched his attack with ruthless decisiveness. The aura of a sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm expert erupted from his body like a raging ocean, causing the entire meridian to tremble.

Liu Wuxie's breathing quickened beneath the overwhelming suppression. His opponent refused to give him even a moment to recover and clearly intended to finish the battle with one strike.

"I'm afraid you won't live long enough to enjoy it," Liu Wuxie replied.

The Bloodthirst Blade descended from above, unleashing Mountain Blade's full power for the first time since Liu Wuxie had refined the Divine Metal Core. He seamlessly overlapped Instant Flash with Mountain Blade, creating a surging blade force that combined a mountain's crushing weight with a thunderbolt's blinding speed.

The abrupt counterattack caught the man completely off guard, his face twisting in shock. Despite being a dignified sixth-level profound immortal, Liu Wuxie suppressed him and smashed his sword ray with the Bloodthirst Blade.

"How is this possible?! You're only an eighth-level True Immortal. How did you break my technique?!" the man screamed before swinging his sword again and releasing even greater power.

"You're nothing but trash. Let's finish this," Liu Wuxie said coldly.

Determined to end the battle before more enemies arrived, Liu Wuxie drove his opponent backward with another strike and summoned a pitch-black vortex directly in front of him. The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron swallowed the sixth-level Profound Immortal in an instant.

"ARGH!"

The man's agonized scream echoed throughout the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron as demonic flame and heartfire engulfed him together. He struggled frantically against the cauldron's suppression, but Demonic Purgatory Chains erupted from the depths and tightly bound him.

"I refuse to accept this," he screamed.

His desperate roar lasted only an instant. The flames reduced him to ashes in the blink of an eye, leaving behind nothing but his skeleton.

Even Liu Wuxie had not expected the combination of heartfire and demonic flame to unleash such terrifying destructive power.

At that moment, a powerful sword erupted behind Liu Wuxie and hurtled toward him.

"Get lost," Liu Wuxie snapped, spinning around and striking with his palm.

Demonic flames surged from his hand and condensed into an enormous fireball. The blast shattered the incoming sword ray and hurled the second man backward by dozens of steps. Liu Wuxie's combat strength was already comparable to cultivators at the pinnacle of the Spirit Immortal Realm.

"Liu Wuxie, die," the man roared. He lunged forward again and wove through the demonic flames.

"What impudence," Liu Wuxie retorted.

His murderous intent erupted without restraint. Even if his enemy were a sixth-level Profound Immortal, he would kill him without hesitation. At the Azure Flame Dao Hall, he had been forced to act cautiously. Now that his strength had risen, he finally bared his fangs.

He summoned the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron again. It descended with enough darkness to blot out the sky and completely enveloped the second man.

"This is bad!"

The man's expression changed drastically. Fear flooded his eyes as he witnessed the terrifying phenomenon created by the cauldron, and he hurriedly retreated.

"Don't you think it's a little late to run?" Liu Wuxie asked coldly.

Once Liu Wuxie decided to kill, he left his enemy no chance to escape. The black hole descended and swallowed the man whole. Agonized screams rang out before he vanished completely, refined into liquid energy that flowed through the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron.

The entire battle lasted only three breaths, yet Liu Wuxie killed two sixth-level Profound Immortal Realm cultivators in rapid succession.

Liu Wuxie owed his victory not to his own strength alone, but largely to the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron. In an open battlefield, defeating the two men would have been far more difficult. The meridians’ narrow confines had left them with little room to escape, allowing him to devour them with ease.

After killing the two men, Liu Wuxie continued toward the gate of the Heart Palace without pausing. He intended to seize the Divine Fire Core before anyone else, just as he had claimed the Divine Metal Core inside the Lung Palace.

Liu Wuxie pushed his footwork technique to its limits while avoiding the more heavily populated meridians whenever possible. Unfortunately, he was approaching the heart's central region, where encounters with other cultivators became increasingly likely.

"Young Master, what is this place? How are we supposed to cross it?" a Shen Clan disciple asked.

Shen Can stared silently at the crimson bridge before him.

A large crowd had already gathered on one side of the bridge, yet no one dared take a single step forward. A crimson gate stood at the opposite end.

"This is the Heart Bridge," Shen Can explained after taking a deep breath and studying the narrow crossing.

The Heart Bridge was a peculiar structure connecting the heart to its other vital regions. It resembled a thick rope stretched all the way to the heart's far end.

If the Heart Bridge snapped, the heart would immediately stop beating and send the person into cardiac arrest. Only establishing a new bridge could restore the heart's vitality.

A bottomless abyss opened beneath the bridge, filled with heartfire surging from its depths and threatening to incinerate anyone who fell. That made the Heart Bridge the only route leading to the crimson gate.

"If only we could fly across," many cultivators sighed.

The bridge measured only about a hundred meters, but its extreme narrowness and constant swaying made crossing on foot exceptionally dangerous.

Origin immortals could not enter the Ancient Origin Spatial Realm, while Profound Immortals could not fly. Even Shen Can could not take flight because an artifact was suppressing his cultivation.

Whether one sought to enter the Lung Palace or the Heart Palace, reaching either gate was anything but easy.

At last, a bold cultivator stepped forward and declared, "I'll try crossing it."

The moment his foot touched the Heart Bridge, the entire structure began swaying violently. He immediately lowered his center of gravity to steady himself, then cautiously continued.

Before long, the man reached the center of the Heart Bridge while everyone watched with sweat-dampened palms.

"Once someone opens the gate, the bridge will be fully connected. Then the rest of us will be able to cross it," someone said.

Discussion rippled through the crowd. At that moment, Liu Wuxie emerged from a nearby meridian and quietly joined the edge of the gathering.

"The Heart Bridge? Now this is interesting," Liu Wuxie muttered, rubbing his smooth chin as a peculiar gleam flickered through his eyes.

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