The Sacred Sacrifice

Xiao Chen had perilously annihilated the Otherworld Ancestral God Qiu Tian's "Divine Seed" and successfully seized the Cauldron. Yet, he resisted merging with that formidable Ancestral God flesh—he did not wish to shatter the Cauldron and unite it with his own body.

But since such a supreme Dao fruit had already been seized, he could not abandon it. Another's flesh and blood were, after all, another's. He resolved to use this Dao fruit to excavate the treasures of his own flesh.

In the Most Evil Ground, the Peerless Martial Ancestor had once passed down the True Scripture, and Xiao Chen had already obtained the ultimate martial mysteries.

At this moment, he sat cross-legged on the high altar built from piled boulders, silently contemplating the final few esoteric chapters of the Martial Ancestor True Scripture. Those were the Taboo Chapters, exactly as their name implied—martial techniques bordering on the demonic and forbidden. Ordinary people simply dared not cultivate them, for they did not appear to be righteous paths, filled as they were with the power of evil, and the cultivation process was even more bizarre, bordering on chaotic.

“Crunch, crunch, crunch…”

Beside him, the powerful Ancestral God flesh, which had already fully reorganized itself, suddenly emitted a series of hair-raising sounds, as if its mouth were chewing something.

"Bang!"

The powerful Ancestral God Cauldron abruptly sat upright, as if reborn, standing on the ancient altar. Its disheveled hair flew wildly, obscuring its face, as an aura of extreme danger surged forth.

At the same time, Xiao Chen appeared solemn and majestic, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. Within his flesh and blood, all divine light was restrained and not released, like a slumbering ancient god. Though he possessed world-shaking combat power, it was forcibly suppressed and contained.

The physical body of the Otherworld Ancestral God Qiu Tian stood opposite Xiao Chen, who was seated on the altar. Within that flesh surged terrifying divine power; specks of light glittered on the skin, filled with a demonic and mysterious energy.

He truly seemed reborn. Step by step, he walked to Xiao Chen's side, then "plopped" down, sitting cross-legged opposite Xiao Chen, less than three feet apart.

A gust of wind blew past, lifting Qiu Tian's disheveled hair and revealing his face. At this moment, a sinister thing occurred: his tightly shut eyes suddenly snapped open, shooting two beams of dreadful light.

The two beams burst forth like lightning, like venomous serpents—cold, piercing, dazzling, and fearsome to behold.

It seemed as if his divine consciousness had returned and he was thoroughly reborn!

An aura at the Ancestral God level shook forth. The entire dim dimensional space trembled, and the altar shook violently.

At the same time, Xiao Chen's momentum soared to its peak. His divine sense power surged like a tsunami. Without a doubt, he was stimulating the Ancestral God flesh, fully activating its potential, making it seem as if it had been reborn.

Suddenly, Xiao Chen's eyes snapped open. Two even more terrifying beams shot forth, shedding brilliant divine radiance, dazzling to the eye, like two golden lightning bolts tearing through the void, or like the essence of the sun coalesced, impossible to gaze upon directly.

Those two terrifying beams instantly plunged into Qiu Tian's eyes. At that moment, their pupils linked. The two beams were like divine bridges connecting heaven and earth, linking the two bodies together.

Blazing divine light shone between the two bodies.

With a "thud," Xiao Chen's body toppled over, motionless, as if it had lost all life force.

But the Ancestral God flesh blazed with extraordinary radiance, as if reborn against heaven, regaining vitality. Terrifying divine power shook the ten directions.

"Swish!"

Qiu Tian's eyes shot forth two brilliant beams of divine light, sweeping across the surroundings. At the same time, the divine body shone with precious light, crystalline and nearly translucent, like polished seven-colored divine jade, as if the divine body had suddenly reached its peak state.

Then he stood up abruptly.

Exchange of Life!

Xiao Chen had executed the taboo techniques recorded in the final chapters of the Martial Ancestor True Scripture. At this moment, he employed a heaven-defying method—not possession, but a pure exchange of life.

Possession merely involved the divine sense rushing out and seizing another's body. But the exchange of life was a hundred times more dangerous.

His divine sense not only fully surged out, but also carried away all life essence. Every force of life within his body burst forth, leaving his physical shell completely empty—nothing left, all transferred into the Cauldron.

At this moment, Xiao Chen's physical body was like a withered log, devoid of any life aura. The essence contained in every inch of flesh and blood had been drained.

One could say that his body had become a hollow vessel.

He did not wish to employ the Shatter Demon, Plant God technique to merge with the Otherworld Ancestral God's flesh and cauldron. To achieve the same goal and obtain the same Dao fruit, he executed a taboo method—Sacred Sacrifice!

Cultivation was inherently a process of defying heaven, filled with countless hardships and obstacles.

For in strengthening oneself, one must inevitably seize the "fortune of heaven and earth."

This so-called "fortune of heaven and earth" referred to everything outside oneself, including dust, plants, and the great world itself. It was a process that defied the natural laws of life.

Thus, the path ahead was inevitably blocked by natural moats and endless dangers, difficult to breach. Especially when aiming for the ultimate realms of power, it became even more arduous.

For this reason, the Martial Ancestor had created a taboo method—Sacred Sacrifice.

The so-called Sacred Sacrifice was to go against the current, to cultivate by defying heaven—but in reverse.

Strengthening oneself would incur heavenly punishment and suffering. But if one dispersed one's own life essence and offered it to the external world, it was naturally much easier.

Sacred Sacrifice reversed the path of defying heaven, cultivating in accord with heaven. By offering oneself to achieve external things, it was effectively self-destruction.

Thus, it was vastly different from the true meaning of cultivation, utterly insane, seeming entirely like self-annihilation.

But this was the brilliance of the Martial Ancestor. "Oneself" was merely a temporary self; that "external thing" was the true "self."

It was entirely going against the current! In this way, obtaining the Dao fruit by following heaven was naturally much easier.

At this moment, everything Xiao Chen did was the process of reversing the defying-heaven path of cultivation.

He turned his true self into withered wood, completely withdrawing his divine sense and life essence, creating an "external thing." Then, his divine sense and life essence poured into the Ancestral God flesh, temporarily forming a self. Thus, by sacrificing this temporary "self," he achieved the "external thing" he had personally created, thereby reversing the defying-heaven path and attaining true fruition.

Xiao Chen prepared to perform a living sacrifice on the Ancestral God flesh, achieving the "external thing"—which was his own withered-log-like "self."

Exchanging the "self" was the first step; the living sacrifice was the second. One could see just how sinister and taboo the Taboo Chapters were.

Exchanging the "self," then Sacred Sacrifice—this surpassed even the Shatter Demon, Plant God technique, truly an unparalleled method. One could imagine how heaven-defying the Martial Ancestor of that age had been.

"Whoosh!"

A divine flame ignited. Xiao Chen, having taken over the Ancestral God flesh, began to implement the Sacred Sacrifice. His entire body blazed with divine radiance, solemn and majestic.

He began to perform a living sacrifice of his current "self." The boundless divine power belonging to the Ancestral God Cauldron burned, and dazzling divine flames engulfed this precious body.

On the altar, light was dazzling. The Ancestral God flesh sat motionless, allowing the body to burn and offer to the "external thing." During this process, the Ancestral God Cauldron's expression was solemn, issuing a special and mysterious sound from its mouth.

At the same time, ancient sacrificial tones resounded through heaven and earth, as if thirty thousand Buddhas were chanting simultaneously, or ninety thousand demon lords were devoutly praying.

The sacrificial tones shook heaven and earth; sacred songs coiled around, divine radiance shone everywhere, and the Ancestral God flesh blazed with ten thousand rays of light, burning fiercely.

Strands of the purest divine radiance were refined and drawn forth, surging toward the "external thing" lying on the altar ahead.

Using the boundless divine power contained within the temporary "self"—the Ancestral God flesh—to sacrifice to the "external withered wood," sacred radiance shone in all directions. The entire dim dimensional space instantly brightened.

That originally empty, lifeless "external thing" gradually gained luster. Xiao Chen's original body was slowly moistened by the mysterious power offered by the demonic method.

Just as Xiao Chen was executing his astonishing methods in the dimensional space, performing the Sacred Sacrifice to achieve the "external thing," an unexpected incident occurred in the real world.

Above the Southern Sea, Ancestral God-level divine sense fluctuations shook the four fields. The sea below undulated with waves, and the majestic palace in the sky trembled violently.

The Otherworld Ancestral God El, dwelling in the Western Sea, once again extended his powerful divine sense. Not only did it charge into the magnificent palace, but it also probed toward the dimensional space sealed by the Demon Diagram.

"A sturdy Demon Diagram. Qiu Tian must have expended considerable effort when he refined it."

"Great Ancestral God, what are you doing?" the nine-heaven half-ancestor guarding the Demon Diagram asked in alarm.

"I have a faint sense of unease. It seems that Qiu Tian of your clan has encountered trouble, so I came to investigate," El replied coldly.

How could the nine-heaven half-ancestor believe this? Their clan's Ancestral God Qiu Tian had long had a feud with the Ancestral God named El; the two clans had always been opposed and conflicted. He naturally thought El had come to cause trouble for Qiu Tian.

"Please, O exalted Ancestral God, do not trouble us. My clan's Ancestral God is in the midst of transformation and will soon emerge from seclusion. If you move against him now, I believe the Ancestral Gods of other clans will not stand idly by," said the nine-heaven half-ancestor, having resolved to risk everything. To protect his clan's Ancestral God, he boldly offended an Ancestral God.

"Ant! You dare to doubt me!" El's voice was icy cold as he rebuked. "You lowly half-ancestor, what do you know? I am the eternal, undying Ancestral God, able to perceive all things in this world. There is definitely something unusual happening within this dimensional space. If you do not step aside and something happens to your clan's Ancestral God, you will be a sinner for eternity."

El's dwelling was not far from where Qiu Tian lay dormant, and he had been watching whether Qiu Tian could successfully transform, for they were rivals. This was what allowed him to sense the anomaly—purely the keen intuition of an Ancestral God. Although the dimensional world was sealed by the Demon Diagram, isolated from the real world, he still deduced that Qiu Tian might be in danger.

Rival though he was, he was not so despicable as to take advantage of another's plight to harm one of his own kind. Thus, sensing the anomaly, he immediately extended his divine sense.

"Please, great Ancestral God, do not interfere in my clan's affairs," the nine-heaven half-ancestor said, his faith in Qiu Tian absolute. He did not believe the words of an Ancestral God from the opposing side.

"Begone!"

In the Otherworld, hierarchy was strict. Even facing a nine-heaven half-ancestor—an expert on the verge of touching the Ancestral God domain—El still regarded him as an ant, rebuking him coldly.

Vast divine might shook the Southern Sea. El's divine sense transformed into a giant hand, reaching toward the magnificent palace.

"Bang!"

The nine-heaven half-ancestor was sent flying like a scarecrow, blood spraying from his mouth as he smashed through layers of palace halls, crossing hundreds of miles before finally stopping above the Southern Sea.

El's primordial spirit manifested as a giant hand that blotted out the sky, making the entire world tremble. The hand formed of light grabbed at the Demon Diagram, intending to tear it open and rush inside.