The Modern Martial Immortal

"I didn't expect such a good result." Even Yaoguang found himself a little surprised.

The Void-Refining Realm! The refinement of all things! Fiendish cultivators with their fiendish bodies, demons in their true forms, the divine bodies of the divine race, and even the grotto-heavens of humankind could all become fuel for a Void-Refining cultivator to strengthen himself.

That said, aside from some elders passing their cultivation down to the younger generation, not every cultivator was willing to be refined by a Void-Refining Realm cultivator. The moment they sensed that the situation had become irreversible, cultivators would almost always choose to self-detonate, preferring death over giving their opponent an easy meal, determined to tear off a piece of flesh on their way out.

And fiendish cultivators would do the same, eroding a cultivator's grotto-heaven with their own power. In the end, even if a cultivator managed to refine a fiendish cultivator, repairing the grotto-heaven afterward demanded a great deal of energy. If handled poorly, the gains would not be worth the losses.

But after Yaoguang's grotto-heaven had merged with the Void Heart, it had already begun transforming into a small world of its own, and its resistance to fiendish-flame erosion was extremely high. Under these conditions, Evil Eye's counterattack had failed to do much harm to his grotto-heaven.

"Beyond the boost to my cultivation, gaining a Dao Artifact is a pleasant surprise as well."

Yaoguang reached out with an empty hand, and the lightning halberd appeared in his grasp. There were not many cultivators of the Great Dao of lightning, nowhere near as many as those who walked the Great Dao of the void, but it was a Dao Artifact all the same, and it would always fetch a considerable price.

Aside from the cultivation and the Dao Artifact, Yaoguang turned his attention to the wealth of experience that had accumulated within the Daemon Hunter branch.

"Daemons, fiends. So the demon race and fiendish cultivators really are one and the same."[1]

The demon race cultivated the heavenly demon true body, while fiendish cultivators cultivated the heavenly fiend origin. No matter what kind of life it began as, once it walked the path of the fiendish cultivator, it would slowly turn into something akin to vapor and energy, formless and signless. Such a form of life would naturally fall under the category of a foreign race, and so the Daemon Hunter branch applied to it.

One Void-Piercing fiendish cultivator, and one Void-Refining fiendish cultivator...

At a single thought, all of that experience was poured into the Immortal Dao branch. At once, this branch, which had been stalled for some time, began to grow again, climbing all the way to 36% before it finally stopped. With the rise in progress, many insights into the Void-Shattering Realm flowed into his mind, including the various Dao Techniques that mattered most at this tier.

As Dao Techniques flashed past, one in particular stirred something in Yaoguang's heart. Soon, all the cultivation insights of that Dao Technique flooded into his mind.

There it is. Finally! Great Dao of origin, Sovereign Human Emperor. A flicker of delight crossed Yaoguang's eyes.

Relying on his mastery-stage Void Sword and Void Flicker, he could already trade blows with Void-Shattering experts. But the strength of his grotto-heaven wasn't enough, and his origin was too scant. He might be able to clash with a Void-Shattering cultivator for a short while, but if the fight was dragged out, his grotto-heaven would grow unstable and risk collapsing once his true qi ran dry.

Now that he had unlocked the Sovereign Human Emperor Dao Technique, related to the Great Dao of origin, and even gained insights that pointed straight toward the mastery stage, he would truly possess the ability to fight any Void-Shattering cultivator head-on.

I already have several Dao Artifacts to begin with. Once this Dao Technique is complete, there will be no real difference between an ordinary Void-Shattering cultivator and me. Yaoguang mused.

At this moment, he could be said to truly stand among the highest tier at the peak of the North Sea Star, the group second only to the Dao Lords. He had also just gained enough confidence to preside successfully over the upcoming Dao Artifact auction.

Besides the Sovereign Human Emperor, there is one other Dao Technique in this batch of information that is rather unusual.

Yaoguang's thoughts settled on a Dao Technique named Torrent of Time. Among the 1,088 Dao Techniques he had learned of before, not a single one had touched upon the Great Dao of fate, karma, or time.

But this time, a time-attuned Dao Technique had newly appeared, which caught him rather off guard.

The Great Dao knew no hierarchy of high and low; each was a single component in the construction of a complete world and cosmos. It was like life itself, before which all were equal.

And yet, in the eyes of many, the life of a top-tier tycoon and the life of a common citizen plainly did not carry the same weight. So it was that the three thousand Great Dao were also divided into supreme Great Dao, core Great Dao, and ordinary Great Dao.

The Great Dao of the void was the foundation of all existence, its floor exceedingly low and its ceiling exceedingly high. The remaining three supreme Great Dao, however, were the true picture of supremacy.

On the North Sea Star, there were many cultivators who practiced the divine abilities of fate, karma, and time, yet for them to smoothly integrate with the Dao and become Dao Lords was out of the question. Even deriving a Dao Technique from such paths was exceedingly rare. The Torrent of Time before him, however, was a Dao Technique that could reach the mastery stage.

Yaoguang attuned himself to the Dao Technique for a moment and quickly grasped its profundity.

This is double casting... Through the influence of the Great Dao of time, the cultivator can release a Dao Technique at twice the speed. If a mastery-stage Great Dao of time is used to cast a proficient-stage Dao Technique, it becomes fourfold, and for a Dao Technique only just at the beginner stage, the casting speed is raised tenfold!

In the time another would need to release a single Dao Technique, he would unleash ten, a veritable torrent of Dao Techniques. This one technique was nearly equivalent to doubling a cultivator's combat power.

Both the Sovereign Human Emperor and the Torrent of Time are extraordinarily important Dao Techniques. If used well, either is enough to let the weak overcome the strong. The Penglai Dao Lord is the best example! She could force the Heavenly Sea Sword Pavilion to shut its gates and refuse battle, and she wrested away the Jade Scale Demon Paragon's territory to establish the Penglai Immortal Sect, all because the Great Dao of origin she cultivated—and the Dao Techniques derived from it—were powerful enough.

Yaoguang placed great value on these two Dao Techniques. Still, compared with the Sovereign Human Emperor, the Torrent of Time was clearly more complex, and it would likely take a lot of time to master.

It was like asking someone who had already sat the college entrance exam to take it again; even he would need to spend considerable time reviewing before he could be confident of getting their old score.

As he pondered, he withdrew the grotto-heaven that had been warping the space around him. With the grotto-heaven retracted, his gaze quickly swept across his surroundings.

Spiral Dream City was a great city home to several hundred thousand cultivators. Though it had become a dead city under the ravages of the fiendish cultivators, the neighboring cities could not possibly ignore what was happening here, whether out of concern for the fiendish cultivators' movements or for other reasons.

This was all the more true because of the energy fluctuations that had radiated outward during Yaoguang's great battle with the Yin Lunar Sect's Void-Piercing and Void-Refining fiendish cultivators, ripples that even Golden Core cultivators five thousand kilometers away could sense.

As the news passed along, by the time Yaoguang finished his cultivation, the area had drawn not only a number of Golden Core cultivators but even three Void-Piercing cultivators.

These three had long since recognized Yaoguang, and while he had been refining the Yin Lunar Sect's Void-Refining fiendish cultivator, they had taken it upon themselves to stand guard around him as protectors.

When Yaoguang withdrew his grotto-heaven, seemingly finished with his cultivation, they swiftly stepped forward and saluted from a distance. "Greetings, Deputy Sect Master."

"Thank you, Deputy Sect Master, for slaying the evil fiends and safeguarding the Xuan, Wu, and He states."

Their words were brimming with reverence as they paid their respects.

Yaoguang glanced over the three of them. Every Void-Piercing cultivator was a figure of standing on the North Sea Star.

One of these three was a rather outcast elder of the Heavenly Dao Sect, with the Daoist title Mo Ye. The other two were the Hidden Mist Perfected Lord, who garrisoned the Wu state, and the Sword Plume Perfected Lord of the Wing Sword Sect in the He state. Both of their forces were vassal forces of the Heavenly Dao Sect.

After all, this was territory bordering the Yin Lunar Sect. Unless an elder within the Heavenly Dao Sect had been banished here, who would willingly come to the front line and face the deadly threat of the Yin Lunar Sect directly?

Only those Void-Piercing cultivators with no territory and no backing would risk their lives, paying the price of guarding the Heavenly Dao Sect's borders in exchange for claiming a state, founding a sect, and propagating their lineage.

Looking at them, Yaoguang nodded and said, "The Yin Lunar Sect's fiends have already been brought to justice. If any more fiendish cultivators come to attack, there is no need for courtesy. Kill them outright! And if a Void-Piercing fiendish cultivator appears, report it to me immediately!"

His tone grew slightly heavier as he went on. "The Heavenly Dao Sect's reinforcements are often too far to be of help, but now that I garrison the southern domain, I will never again allow the Yin Lunar Sect to run rampant here. By the same token, I do not want anyone playing both sides, concealing the fiendish cultivators' rampages for one reason or another. Is that understood?"

"Rest assured, Deputy Sect Master. Since we have already pledged ourselves to the Heavenly Dao Sect, we will hold firm to our position," the Hidden Mist Perfected Lord said at once.

The Sword Plume Perfected Lord seemed quicker on the uptake, and he chimed in, "The Wing Sword Sect lies within the southern domain, so of course we take your orders, the lord of the southern domain, as our guide. Rest assured, Deputy Sect Master, we will spare no effort in guarding Hezhou on your behalf."

Hearing the Sword Plume Perfected Lord's words, the Hidden Mist Perfected Lord beside him caught on as well.

Yaoguang had said the Heavenly Dao Sect was too far to reach, which meant that from now on, the southern domain was his to decide. They had only to follow Yaoguang's commands. The orders of the Heavenly Dao Sect would rank behind those of the lord of the southern domain.

In that instant, the perfected lord hurriedly added, "From this day forward, should you have any command, you just need to give the word. I will surely do my utmost to carry out anything you entrust to me."

Yaoguang gave a slight nod. He paid Mo Ye no further mind and prepared to depart. But at that moment, Mo Ye stepped forward. "Deputy Sect Master, please wait."

"Hmm?" Yaoguang looked over at this elder who came from an orthodox Heavenly Dao Sect lineage. "What is it?"

"The Void-Refining fiendish cultivator you slew this time... Was it the leader of the Evil Eye Peak, one of the Yin Lunar Sect's twenty-three peaks, Evil Eye?"

"That is correct." Yaoguang nodded slightly.

"Deputy Sect Master, do you know why I chose to come to a perilous border like that of the Xuan state?" As Mo Ye spoke, he seemed to feel the question was a touch sentimental, and he gave a self-deprecating laugh. "A thousand years ago, when Deputy Sect Master Song opened up new territory, my family settled in the Xuan state and has been living there ever since. Eight hundred years ago, when Deputy Sect Master Song was killed for betraying the sect, the Yin Lunar Sect seized the chance to invade in force. In a single battle, all 1386 people of my family perished. Not a single one was spared..."

A trace of pain flashed through his eyes. "Six hundred years ago, when I reached the Void-Piercing Realm, I requested of my own accord to come to the Xuan state, wishing to stand against the Yin Lunar Sect. Yet in all the years the sect master oversaw the southern domain, the goal was only to play it safe and hold our ground, never to press forward and expand. Six hundred years... I have wasted six hundred years..."

When he finished, this Void-Piercing cultivator fixed his bright, piercing eyes on Yaoguang. "Now the southern domain has a new lord, and in talent, in method, in boldness, you surpass even Deputy Sect Master Song. In you, Deputy Sect Master, I see the chance for the southern domain to once again counterattack the Yin Lunar Sect and open up new territory. And so I beg you, Deputy Sect Master. In the future, should you go to war against the Yin Lunar Sect, I am willing to serve as your vanguard, to charge and kill on the front line against them."

Hearing Mo Ye's words, something stirred in Yaoguang's heart.

"For six hundred years you have thought constantly of striking back at the Yin Lunar Sect. You must know a lot about them, am I correct?" Yaoguang asked.

Mo Ye's spirit lifted, and he quickly said, "All these years I have never stopped gathering intelligence on the Yin Lunar Sect!"

"Compile it and send it to me," Yaoguang said.

The southern domain bordered the Yin Lunar Sect, and friction between the two had never ceased. This time the Yin Lunar Sect had even sent a Void-Refining expert to kill his way into the southern domain and target those in charge. Sooner or later, the two sides would have to fight an all-out battle.

Only by knowing both oneself and the enemy could one stay undefeated through a hundred battles.

1. TL note: This is a reminder that the term "daemons" in the raw is literally made up of both "fiend" and "demon", so the umbrella term of "daemons" is used. There should be a reference note in the first appearance of this term. ☜

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