Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 971 - Divine Thunder Physique

No matter how excruciating the pain was, Liu Wuxie gritted his teeth and held on. He continued to channel the Divine Thunder Physique's cultivation technique, while the Desolate Devouring Art ran automatically within him.

Each time his body took damage, traces of the Heavenly Tree's essence seeped out, knitting his wounds with its restorative power. Yet, after every cycle of healing, Liu Wuxie could feel his physique growing stronger.

However, it came at a price, as the heavenly tree's essence diminished with each healing. He estimated that he would exhaust all of its energy by the time he made his breakthrough.

Time passed slowly, and the search for Liu Wuxie's whereabouts grew increasingly frenzied. They all wanted to kill him before the sacred ground closed.

As the world's laws were gradually being completed, some people successfully made a breakthrough to the Earth Profound Realm—the number of individuals attempting to make a breakthrough increased.

Those who succeeded in their breakthrough began to rally their companions to hunt others. And so, a bloody slaughter unfolded in this world. Then again, their top priority was to find Liu Wuxie's whereabouts.

"ARGH!" Liu Wuxie roared.

The lightning energy from the Thunder Saint Pearl reached unimaginable levels. His body lay in shambles, with no piece of flesh remaining intact. Even his face had been destroyed by the lightning energy.

Liu Wuxie was reduced to a skeletal frame, his flesh blasted into tatters.

Cultivating the Divine Thunder Physique wasn't just about tempering the flesh but also the bones. However, the only way to temper the bones was to completely strip away the flesh, allowing the lightning energy to penetrate deeply into the marrow.

Ordinary people would have long died from the agony. The torment was worse than being skinned alive.

The Heavenly Dao Book unfurled and firmly anchored his soul sea. As long as his soul sea wasn't destroyed, he could reconstruct the damage to his physique.

His internal organs remained intact, and the residual lightning energy began to temper them.

The Desolate World was unbreakable, especially after it had absorbed the laws of this realm, making it even more complete. A thick crystal barrier enveloped it, strong enough to withstand the assaults of even an Earth Profound Realm cultivator.

Under normal circumstances, Liu Wuxie would require forty-nine days to temper his body for the Divine Thunder Physique. But time was not on his side. He couldn't afford that luxury, not when staying underground provided only temporary safety. It was only a matter of time before someone uncovered his hiding place.

Lu Liang and the others could handle ordinary cultivators but would be in trouble if they faced someone at the Earth Profound Realm. The only way to shorten the process was to summon even more lightning energy to temper his physique.

The Thunder Saint Pearl had absorbed lightning energy for over ten thousand years, and Liu Wuxie couldn't drain it dry even if he absorbed it nonstop for a whole year.

This was why Liang Yi, Mu Yuanyi, and Luan Tianzhi had agreed to share the energy, as it was simply too much for one person.

Thin lightning arcs appeared. They were lightning runes intertwined into an intricate network on Liu Wuxie's skeletal frame. This was the outline of the Divine Thunder Physique.

The remaining process would be much easier if he survived the first trial. After all, the early stages were the most painful, lasting ten days and nights, putting Liu Wuxie through unimaginable torment. If it weren't for the Heavenly Dao Book guarding his soul sea, he would've died dozens of times.

The lightning had stripped away his flesh, leaving only bone. Every inch of him had to be reconstructed.

"Carry on with the Divine Thunder Physique!" he growled.

True essence began pouring into his body, surging through his limbs as he expedited the tempering process. The lightning energy from the Thunder Saint Pearl also became much calmer.

New flesh began to grow on Liu Wuxie's skeleton. Though slow, Liu Wuxie could sense that his new flesh and meridians were much stronger than before.

Moreover, his skeleton was etched with golden runes in the form of tiny lightning serpents. This was the early sign of the Divine Thunder Physique being formed, making it seem like his entire body was forged in lightning.

Although Liu Wuxie's meridians had been strong in the past, it was ultimately still a mortal's physique, and there was a limit to what his meridians could endure.

Through this tempering, his meridians transformed into thunder veins, allowing his true essence to flow more smoothly within his body. Even if he mobilized all his true essence at once, there was no resistance.

"What a frightening physique!" Liu Wuxie muttered.

He could feel the surge of power the Divine Thunder Physique brought to him before the transformation was complete. He had known the Divine Thunder Physique's cultivation technique in his previous life but hadn't had the opportunity to cultivate it. Thus, the cultivation method was stowed away in a corner of his memories.

Moreover, the Divine Thunder Physique wouldn't have been much help when he was already an Immortal Emperor standing at the pinnacle of the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm.

Now that he was at the True Profound Realm, he urgently needed the Divine Thunder Physique. The stronger his foundation now, the higher his achievements would become.

"What is Master cultivating in there? I can sense an immense power in his body," Ruan Ying commented.

They couldn't see through the thunderstorm that enveloped Liu Wuxie, so they could only judge based on the aura within.

"Based on Master's talent, he must be cultivating a heaven-defying divine art."

Ever since the four assassins had become devoted to Liu Wuxie, they had viewed him as their god.

Gu Yu was equally astonished. Everything that was happening to Liu Wuxie right now was beyond his comprehension.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and the underground world finally welcomed a group of uninvited guests.

They had scoured the ground, flipping through every rock and boulder, before they found the underground world, hoping to find treasures.

The twelve fiends also did not stop their search for Liu Wuxie. They knew they had to kill him before he finished refining the Thunder Saint Pearl and that they would stand no chance once he was done.

To make matters worse, the ancestral tree's aura had leaked out when Liu Wuxie's flesh was stripped away. It was only a matter of time before the twelve fiends would track him down.

"Gather!" Liu Wuxie raised his hands to the sky, allowing lightning energy to enter his body through his limbs.

A bizarre scene unfolded next as the lightning energy could no longer damage his body and even helped to accelerate his healing. This was a sign that the tempering of the Divine Thunder Physique was finally complete.

From now on, he would have to absorb more lightning energy for the Divine Thunder Physique to grow. The more lightning energy he used to temper his body, the more powerful his physique would become. And at the highest level, Liu Wuxie could even transform into lightning.

Liu Wuxie's muscles and flesh regenerated at an astonishing speed. Tiny lightning serpents danced and slithered beneath his skin. Liu Wuxie could unleash them at will, each one carrying a devastating surge of lightning energy.

With that, the Thunder Saint Pearl's energy had dwindled to about one-third of its original. Even the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron was absorbing the laws within.

The pearl added a trace of lightning energy to the desolate world. With this enhancement, Liu Wuxie discovered that the laws of the desolate world had grown stronger and more comprehensive.

Liu Wuxie had transformed the once-barren desolate world. Now it pulsed with four seasons, yin, yang, light, and lightning. It also had the Abyssal Realm, the Poison Realm, and the Netherworld. The world could now encompass all things.

Liu Wuxie's facial features began to reform. He would have been shocked if he had seen himself. Lightning itself seemed to sculpt his features, refining them into divine perfection.

His nose was sharp and defined, like a divine blade chiseled by the heavens. Sword-like brows arched upward, reaching for the sky, while eyes crackled with lightning as if space trembled beneath his gaze. His lips, thin and precise, held the power to command life and death with a single word. A smooth forehead and perfectly rounded ears lent him an air of divine grace, like a deity had taken human form.

He had regenerated all his flesh and felt lighter than ever, like a feather. The Divine Thunder Physique expelled the impurities from his body, resulting in this newfound lightness.

He continued to absorb lightning energy through his pores, drawing from both the surrounding storm and the Thunder Saint Pearl.

As the lightning energy flooded his body, Liu Wuxie could feel his breakthrough stirring. He stood on the brink of entering the Spirit Profound Realm. He had waited far too long for this moment.

"Desolate Devouring Art, it's up to you now," Liu Wuxie muttered.

The surrounding space continued to collapse as the Desolate Devouring Art devoured it. The devouring laws fed directly into the desolate world, allowing it to expand without limit.

"What's going on? Why is it devouring laws from the outside world to expand the desolate world?" Liu Wuxie exclaimed, stunned.

Until now, the desolate world had expanded slowly. But he hadn't expected the Desolate Devouring Art to devour the surrounding world to strengthen itself. Wouldn't that mean he could swallow the entire sacred ground, integrating it into the desolate world, if he were strong enough?

He had never heard of a heaven-defying cultivation technique capable of devouring entire worlds. Perhaps only the Desolate Devouring Art could accomplish such a feat. Like its name, he believed it could devour heaven and earth.

......

Spiritual energy surged into the underground mine, but no one noticed the disturbance.

"What's happening? Why is spiritual energy flowing underground? Could there be a treasure?" someone cried.

No one could guess that Liu Wuxie was making a breakthrough in the underground mine, mistaking it for a phenomenon caused by the emergence of a treasure.

More cultivators flocked to the underground mine, hoping to uncover the truth behind the commotion.

Within two hours of clearing the rubble, the cultivators broke through the stone gate and stormed into the underground mine.

"This way!"

Dozens of cultivators rushed into the underground mine in response to the surge of spiritual energy. At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before they located Liu Wuxie.

......

As Liu Wuxie focused on his breakthrough, he also divided his attention to sense the benefits of the Divine Thunder Physique. When he circulated his true essence, lightning arcs gathered on his palm. If he could infuse this energy into his techniques, it would boost the Golden Flame Strike's power tenfold.