In almost the same instant in which Marquis Lu turned into a beast, Meng Hao could sense a rage welling up from the Mountain and Sea Realm, which grew clearer by the second. It would be impossible for others to sense how intense it was, or perhaps they would even believe it to be a figment of their imagination, but in any case, it affected people subconsciously, filling them with a loathing toward Outsiders.

Of course, Meng Hao could plainly detect this rage, which filled him with the desire to slaughter this Outsider. At the same time, he could sense the fluctuations of the Outsider’s actual body, which were coming from... the 33 Heavens beyond the starry sky.

“The rage of the Mountain and Sea Realm, huh?” Meng Hao looked at the roaring Outsider, whose surging cultivation base exceeded that of the 5-Essences Xiao Yihan. “It's a possession, and at the same time, not a possession.... It's the projected image of a powerful expert from outside in the 33 Heavens, which possessed Marquis Lu. However, the reason it was able to possess him so quickly was that he’s actually been this thing's host body for quite some time already.” Meng Hao’s eyes flickered as he advanced, using the power of his fleshly body to slam into the Outsider.

A boom rang out, and then they separated. Blood sprayed out of Meng Hao’s mouth, and it was the same with the Outsider. Furthermore, the Outsider’s chest had caved in, and was leaking violet blood.

“A powerful fleshly body. However, this is only a portion of the power of the Outsider’s real body.... Now that I think about it, whichever Outsider in the 33 Heavens is controlling this thing must be someone famous.” Meng Hao’s eyes glittered. Performing an incantation gesture, he sent the Essence of Divine Flame exploding out, instantly enveloping the Outsider.

The Outsider roared, causing numerous huge wooden logs to appear, the surfaces of which were carved with mysterious magical symbols. The logs also erupted with Essence power as they shot to meet Meng Hao’s Essence of Divine Flame.

After a moment of thought, Meng Hao waved his hand, causing the Divine Flame to dissipate. Then he performed an incantation gesture and pointed out with his finger. Instantly, numerous mountains began to descend. Meng Hao didn't stop moving, though; he unleashed one magical technique after another, all of which slammed into the Outsider, as he attempted to get a better understanding of its body and cultivation base.

The Outsider roared under the bombardment of divine abilities. Then its eyes flickered and it extended its hand toward Meng Hao, making a grasping gesture. That gesture caused Meng Hao’s heart to tremble, and he suddenly vanished. A moment later, the spot that he had occupied collapsed under a sudden onslaught of flame lightning.

That wasn’t the end of it though. Even as Meng Hao reappeared off in the distance, the Outsider’s eyes flickered with killing intent, and it threw its head back and roared, splaying its hands wide above its head, almost as if it were wors.h.i.+pping the sky above.

It was at this point that the starry sky began to tremble, and an aura which clearly did not come from the Mountain and Sea Realm began to spread out in all directions. The aura then began to congeal and take shape into the form... of a gigantic basilisk lizard!

It was fully 30,000 meters long and had towering energy. Meng Hao could sense the killing intent of the Mountain and Sea Realm explode to new heights. However, for some reason, it was being suppressed, and was unable to be released. It did not provoke the same type of transformations that had occurred in the Mountains and Seas when the Outsider appeared back in the Ruins of Immortality.

“True self, obliterate!” the Outsider roared. The scales on its body shattered, causing blood to spray out. The blood then shot out into the void, and in the blink of an eye, converged onto the right eye of the shocking basilisk. That scarlet-colored eye appeared to gleam with intelligence.

The eye turned to look at Meng Hao, filling his mind with intense pressure that caused his face to flicker.

“Paragon... Not 9-Essences, but at least 7-Essences,” he thought, shaken. A sensation of deadly crisis rose up, and his eyes flickered. He then made a grasping motion, summoning the power of the Mountains and Seas to defend himself.

It was at that point that a red beam shot out from the lizard’s eye, filled with terrifying destructive power. It shot directly toward Meng Hao, slamming into the converged power of the Mountains and Seas.

Rumbling echoed out as terrifying ripples spread out from the red beam. The power of the Mountains and Seas faded away, and the red glow in the huge basilisk’s right eye faded away.

Meng Hao waved his right hand, summoning the Paragon Bridge, which rumbled down to smash onto the body of the basilisk. As his battle prowess erupted, he waved his right finger through the air, causing the power of the Mountains and Seas to slash into the Outsider, sending blood spraying about everywhere.

That wave of a finger caused the starry sky to tremble. Marquis Lu, in the form of an Outsider, trembled and then let out a bloodcurdling scream. Performing an incantation gesture, he unleashed all of the power he could to fight back. However, a moment later, what seemed to be an enormous invisible finger appeared, apparently converged from the power of the Mountains and Seas, which pressed down onto him.

Blood sprayed out of his mouth as he fell back, his arms shattered, his chest caved in, exploding in a ma.s.s of blood and gore. As for the basilisk projection, it was crushed by the Paragon Bridge, and began to howl as it faded away.

“It would be a real pity to let you die like this,” Meng Hao said. Even as Marquis Lu in Outsider-form began to collapse into pieces, Meng Hao appeared next to him and reached out to grab the top of his shattering head. It was a Soulsearch!

However, what he was Soulsearching was not just Marquis Lu’s soul. Rather, he was also using it as a bridge... to connect to the soul of the almighty expert above in the 33 Heavens.

That expert might be a Paragon, but Meng Hao would still perform the Soulsearch anyway. He wanted to know... exactly how much of a difference there was between his divine sense and that of a Paragon!

RUMBLE!

Marquis Lu’s head trembled, and his eyes were fixed on Meng Hao. As of that moment, Meng Hao could see all of his memories, and at the same time, he could sense a faint and fraying thread connecting Marquis Lu to the 33 Heavens above the starry sky. Without a moment of hesitation, he began to follow that thread.

In almost the exact same instant that he began to follow the thread, his mind trembled, and he sensed a powerful will on the other end, something that he couldn’t match up to by even ten percent.

He only made brief contact with that ent.i.ty via divine sense, and yet the backlash almost destroyed him. He shot backward, eyes gleaming. He wasn’t thinking about how he had almost been destroyed, nor was he thinking about his injuries. Instead... he was thinking about the rare chance he had!

It was an opportunity to dramatically increase the power of his divine sense!

A roar was echoing out from that towering divine sense, as if the Soulsearching Meng Hao had instigated was an unprecedented provocation of the Paragon in the 33 Heavens.

Divine sense rumbled out, shooting directly toward Meng Hao to eradicate him.

All of these things take some time to describe, but this battle of divine sense actually happened in an instant. Meng Hao’s divine sense began to collapse almost immediately, and he followed the tiny remaining thread back into the Mountain and Sea Realm.

At the same time, the divine sense from the 33 Heavens’ Paragon followed him!

Blood instantly sprayed out of Meng Hao’s mouth, and his face went deathly pale. He shot backward, and Marquis Lu’s head exploded into a haze of blood. At the same time, that boundless divine sense power shot out from the blood toward Meng Hao.

Meng Hao’s eyes flickered as killing intent exploded out from all directions, enveloping everything. The divine sense was instantly suppressed, and simultaneously the thread connecting it to the 33 Heavens was severed due to Marquis Lu’s death.

The pressure of the entire Mountain and Sea Realm had severed the divine sense from its true form. Next, Meng Hao, eyes glittering, suddenly opened his mouth and sucked in a huge breath.

As he did, rumbling sounds echoed out, and the divine sense was absorbed into his body. His mind felt like it was about to explode, and blood oozed out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. However, at the same time, the power of the Dao Divinity Scripture rotated madly within him.

After cultivating the Dao Divinity Scripture, Meng Hao had long since come to realize that it was actually a supreme Daoist scripture designed to allow the person who cultivated it to consume the divine sense of others and make it their own.

However, this time, he was consuming the divine sense of a Paragon. Although it was only a bit of the entire thing, to Meng Hao, it counted as a significant increase. He was shaking, and blood was pouring out of his orifices. A mist of blood surrounded him, and pain wracked his body; he felt like he was about to explode.

He coughed up one mouthful of blood after another, and his body shook so violently it felt like it would collapse. His Eternal stratum operated madly, forcing him to stay alive. Over and over again, blood sprayed out of his mouth, and he hovered on the brink of collapse.

He was a mangled ma.s.s of blood, and the flame of his life force was teetering on the verge of being extinguished. And yet, his eyes were s.h.i.+ning brightly.

Then, a roar echoed out from beyond the starry sky, from the 33 Heavens, a roar of rage that could destroy Heaven and Earth.

A moment later, Meng Hao shuddered, and then the collapse of his body stopped. The Paragon’s divine sense had been forcefully absorbed and suppressed, but only temporarily; he needed to quickly find a suitable place to go into secluded meditation and fuse with it.

His eyes were shot with blood, and his body was incredibly weak. However, his divine sense had experienced explosive growth, and was at least twice as powerful as before...and he had just begun the absorption!

With that vastly more powerful divine sense, he looked over at the cultivators of the Seventh Mountain and Sea, who stood there trembling, not even daring to look at him. Most of them had heads bowed, and were kneeling in wors.h.i.+p.

Meng Hao wiped the blood off of his mouth, then coldly looked up into the depths of the sky. Just now, he had experienced a brush with death; consuming the divine sense of a Paragon had been a very risky thing to do.

Even the Paragon out in the 33 Heavens had never even considered that someone would do something so wildly insane. That was because that person didn't know Meng Hao, and didn't know his philosophy that not acquiring something was the same as losing it.

Meng Hao was the type of person who, when encountering a Paragon whom he couldn’t kill, would scheme to take that person’s divine sense.

“Rewards come only with risk. How true, how true!” Meng Hao licked his lips.