Chapter 2247 Venturing Along the Mountain Stream

Scratching his head in utter confusion, Ao Feng took a closer look, only to realize that the energy within the Condensed Earth Essence in his hand, after the shattering of the light barrier, was flowing outward ceaselessly.

It appeared that the light barrier had been created to prevent the Condensed Earth Essence from diffusing, and its destruction resulted in the inability of the Condensed Earth Essence to maintain its form.

Wait, so where did the spiritual energy go? Ao Feng thought anxiously.

Tracing the flow of spiritual energy, the result of his investigation made his body stagger from shock.

To his disbelief, both the light barrier and the spiritual energy from the Condensed Earth Essence were being absorbed by the young man. That fellow was leaving no sc.r.a.ps at all!

But… how was the young man doing it?

The spiritual energy of the Condensed Earth Essence was so pure that even Ao Feng himself would have difficulty absorbing it!

Gritting his teeth, Ao Feng quickly took out a jade container to store the bean-sized Condensed Earth Essence before sealing it off. Then, he furiously turned his gaze to Zhang Xuan and confronted him. “Friend, I am thankful to you for your pill earlier, but what do you mean by absorbing the spiritual energy in the Condensed Earth Essence? What do you expect me to present to His Sovereignty after all you have done?”

While he was grateful to Zhang Xuan for helping him earlier, the main purpose of their mission was to obtain the Condensed Earth Essence. If the young man had sucked it dry, it would have meant that their mission was a failure!

Do you know how much I have sacrificed in order to complete this mission? Not only did I promise everyone a pinnacle G.o.d Essence Pill and a favor, I even nearly lost my life in the midst of the mission. Yet, you stole the spoils of war right before my eyes…

Isn’t that a bit too much?

Perplexed by Ao Feng’s suddenly outburst, Zhang Xuan turned to look at the jade container and realized that there was less than a tenth of the Condensed Earth Essence left.

Taken aback, he quickly looked at his own body before freezing on the spot. “Ah? My cultivation has reached… Conferred G.o.d King? When did it happen?”

This was shocking. Even though it was only a cultivation stage, he had still managed to raise his cultivation from G.o.d King realm pinnacle to Conferred G.o.d King realm primary stage!

Just… why did he not notice anything?

He must have been so focused on absorbing the spirit essence that his body subconsciously started cultivating on its own under the effects of the Mind of Void. As a result, he ended up absorbing the Condensed Earth Essence involuntarily!

If I were to tell you that I’m here only to absorb the spirit essence and not to take your spiritual energy, would you believe me?

Zhang Xuan at least knew enough to know that Ao Feng would beat him to death if he said those words, so he scratched his head awkwardly and replied, “This… I honestly didn’t mean for this to happen, and I’ll give you an explanation later. For the time being, let’s head out. I’m afraid that they won’t be able to hold on for much longer…”

Ao Feng turned around and saw that the G.o.d Kings were indeed at their limits. Just a moment later, and they would have succ.u.mbed to the phantasmagoric spirits.

Having their Condensed Earth Essence taken away had caused the phantasmagoric spirits to fall into a greater state of rage, resulting in their attacks being far more violent than before. All eleven of the G.o.d Kings had already sustained severe injuries, so the wise thing to do right now was indeed to retreat.

“Humph!”

Knowing that this was indeed not a good time to question the young man, Ao Feng gritted his teeth and leaped out of the light barrier. His body morphed once more into a ma.s.sive golden dragon, and he wrapped the crowd around his body before das.h.i.+ng off.

He knew that the young man inside the light barrier possessed strength beyond him, so he could not be bothered with escorting him out with them as well.

“I’ll be waiting for you outside,” Ao Feng said to Zhang Xuan via zhenqi telepathy.

Zhang Xuan shook his head before focusing his attention back on absorbing the concentrated spirit essence around him.

Five minutes later, he was finally done absorbing the entire spirit essence, and his clone had also managed to advance its strength to G.o.d King realm pinnacle. With that, his clone would be able to match any Conferred G.o.d King with ease.

But at the same time, with the erosion of the light barrier, Zhang Xuan was immediately swarmed by hordes of phantasmagoric spirits. He swung the Crimson Heaven Sword in his hand to open a pathway for himself to retreat, but all of a sudden, he halted his footsteps.

“Should I head deeper in to see if there’s more Condensed Earth Essence around?”

Since he was already there, if he could find more Condensed Earth Essence, he might just be able to push for a breakthrough to Conferred G.o.d King realm pinnacle while returning what he owed Ao Feng.

So, he quickly activated the disguise amulet to alter his aura to appear to be no different from that of the phantasmagoric spirits in the surroundings.

Initially, the phantasmagoric spirits were attacking him relentlessly, but slowly, their movements came to a halt as they scanned their surroundings in confusion.

Plant spirits possessed only an elementary level of sentience, so they were unable to process complex situations. Zhang Xuan’s disguise was nearly flawless, so not even they were able to tell the difference between him and their own kind.

“The disguise amulet is truly formidable,” Zhang Xuan muttered as he quickly rushed alongside the mountain stream.

There had to be something along this mountain stream that the rest of this land did not have for it to be able to produce the Condensed Earth Essence.

Trailing ahead, the number of phantasmagoric spirits in the area gradually began to decrease. A moment later, Zhang Xuan came to a halt as he scanned the area right in front of him warily with a frown.

For some reason, he could sense a very familiar aura coming from there.

It was a sensation similar to what he had felt from the gray energy in the abyss beneath the Sky of Spirit Origin, which wielded the ability to neutralize his Heaven’s Path zhenqi.

“This is weird…”

The further Zhang Xuan proceeded, the stronger the aura became. Eventually, it reached a point where even Conferred G.o.d Kings would be unable to withstand it.

Zhang Xuan had to wrap the Pathos of Heaven’s zhenqi around his body in order to remain unaffected.

He continued flying for around ten minutes before he finally arrived at the bottommost area of the mountain stream. Glancing downward, he felt his heart skip a beat.

The bottommost area of the mountain stream was a ma.s.sive plot of empty land spanning over an area of tens of thousands of mu. There were no plants or any life at all on this plot of land, only a huge depression in the ground.

Zhang Xuan was unable to see anything while standing on the ground, so he flew into the air to get a bird’s eye view over the area.

He soon realized that the depression in the ground was actually a humongous palm print!

“Was this left behind by a G.o.d Monarch?” Zhang Xuan frowned.

Even with his current strength, he would not be able to execute such a powerful palm strike. That could only mean that the palm print was left behind by a G.o.d Monarch.

There was just one problem with that.

The G.o.d Monarchs were unable to enter this area.

If so, how did that person leave this palm print?

Looking at the humongous palm print beneath him, a thought surfaced in Zhang Xuan’s mind. “Could it be that the rift in the sky of the Firmament was caused by a battle?”

The Flooding Sea carried a great resemblance to the missing piece from the sky of the Firmament, and if he thought about it, the abyss beneath Spirit Origin Royal City did resemble a palm print as well.

If so, could the rift and the abyss have been caused by a battle between two G.o.d Monarchs?

Perhaps the fight had gotten out of hand, such that it resulted in Little Chick’s demise in the end.

But if that was the case, as the strongest G.o.d Monarch of the Firmament, Luo Ruoxin should have intervened and halted the battle, especially if it was causing such ma.s.sive damage to the world. Why did she not do so?

Just what happened in the past four to five decades of the Firmament?

Why would the heavens be fragmented into multiple pieces, falling all the way to the Master Teacher Continent to enter his and Kong s.h.i.+’s bodies?

The many questions in Zhang Xuan’s mind made him become more and more confused.

Circling around the palm print, Zhang Xuan was not able to find any Condensed Earth Essence in the area, and there was nothing that looked particularly amiss to him. So, he could only heave a deep sigh and head back to where Ao Feng and the others were.

While he did not manage to advance his zhenqi cultivation all the way to Conferred G.o.d King realm pinnacle, at the very least, he did manage to overcome his bottleneck as a G.o.d King. At the same time, his soul had also grown significantly stronger.

He was no longer far away from becoming a G.o.d Monarch.

All in all, he had earned quite a lot from this journey.

The only issue was that… he had no idea how he should face Ao Feng.

The latter had rallied their group together for the sake of obtaining the Condensed Earth Essence, but he had ended up absorbing more than ninety percent of it. That made him feel deeply embarra.s.sed.

“Forget it! If it doesn’t work out, I should just take him in as my disciple. Though, I must say, he doesn’t look like a brilliant kid…” Zhang Xuan murmured hesitantly.

This was the greatest compromise he could bring himself to make.