Chapter 53: Divine Soul Cultivation

Seeing this, Qi Jingchun’s expression suddenly turned solemn. He pressed his lips together and lowered his head, though he did not open the eyes of that towering avatar.

Yet, he still gave off the impression that Qi Jingchun was gazing at the Liuli Dao-cave resting in his palm with the tender care one would bestow upon their own child.

Affectionate and sacred, his entire being radiated a holy, maternal brilliance.

Moreover, Qi Jingchun’s aura carried a hint of sorrow, as if he felt reluctant to embark on his impending distant journey.

Or perhaps there was a sense of gratification—like fledgling birds spreading their wings to soar into the sky, leaving behind a cozy home to make the whole world their dwelling...

Boom—!

A deafening roar erupted at the apex of the void. The sound was so great it bordered on the silent, and the entire void was violently shaken by this unknown and terrifying force.

The next moment, several streams of gilt-gold Grand Dao radiance, resembling natural disasters, slashed through the top of the void with a tearing sound. Shattering a tract of space along their path, they cascaded downwards, plunging straight onto Qi Jingchun’s ten-thousand-丈 avatar.

Hum, hum~

At that very moment, terrifying ripples visible to the naked eye erupted from within. The Grand Dao radiance formed a cylindrical pillar, instantly engulfing Qi Jingchun’s entire avatar.

This terrifying destructive force—one capable of shattering everything in the world and grinding it into powder—slapped against Qi Jingchun continuously like relentless waves.

As a result, cracks instantly appeared on Qi Jingchun’s towering avatar. The fractures spread with lightning speed until the entire form was covered in shocking fissures.

The next instant, Qi Jingchun’s avatar resembled a fragile piece of porcelain, seemingly on the verge of collapsing and annihilating at any second.

The wrath of the Heavenly Dao is not so easily resisted—at least not by a mighty figure of Qi Jingchun’s caliber, who chose to withstand it without unleashing his heaven-defying cultivation to fight back and survive.

Qi Jingchun had perhaps accepted his fate, knowing this was the end of his Grand Dao, holding no illusions of luck.

Thus, even as he was instantly engulfed by the wrath of the Heavenly Dao and faced with imminent destruction, he still did not deploy his vast divine abilities to fend off the fury of the heavens.

"Hmph!"

At this moment, the three saints—far away at the edge of the void—suddenly flickered and appeared around Qi Jingchun in the blink of an eye, though they remained outside the reach of the Grand Dao radiance.

The supreme saints of the Three Teachings stood by with folded arms, seemingly indifferent to Qi Jingchun, who was acting like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

Upon seeing this, the Confucian Saint wore an extremely stern expression. He could not help but flick his Confucian robe, let out a disgruntled cold snort, and averted his gaze, deliberately refusing to look at that rising star of the Confucian lineage who was sacrificing his life for the Dao.

"Is the lineage of the Literati Sage truly filled with stubborn fools cut from the same cloth as Qi Jingchun?"

The Confucian Saint muttered in deep thought. In truth, he knew very well in his heart that if Qi Jingchun were not of the Literati Sage’s lineage, a prodigious talent like him would never have died so quietly in this small backwater...

"Ahem~"

"Made by the Literati Sage, and undone by the Literati Sage..." The supreme Confucian Saint could not help but be stirred by the scene. After all, although Qi Jingchun was the mortal enemy of his own faction, Qi Jingchun was also a respectable human powerhouse of immense capability. Dying here had many causes, and the greatest injustice among them was that the internal conflicts within their Confucian faction remained unresolved...

While the four supreme saints watched Qi Jingchun sacrifice his life for the Dao, on the other side, Su Ling’s cultivation was currently experiencing a massive surge.

At this moment, his divine soul cultivation skyrocketed as if propelled by a rocket—so fast that its efficacy rivaled an entire year of him frantically pounding his own physical body!

Though phrased somewhat amusingly, the rebound force from beating iron was actually less effective than using self-inflicted methods to forge his physique, which was utterly absurd.

However, the situation here was vastly different. After all, the wrath of the Heavenly Dao possessed terrifying destructive power.

While it could not injure his formidable physique, to his fragile divine soul, it was no different from facing the most powerful impact in the world head-on.

Had Su Ling’s physical body not been excessively formidable, the divine soul residing within his flesh would likely have been directly crushed and annihilated by the wrath of the Heavenly Dao, leaving not even a wisp behind—that was the terrifying extent of it.

The moment before the wrath of the Heavenly Dao descended, Su Ling had still been quite relaxed and at ease.

Yet as the clothes on his body were instantly vaporized by this irresistible destructive force, he abruptly felt a distinct stabbing pain in his divine soul, as if thousands of silver needles were continuously piercing into his fragile soul, causing a slight pang of panic.

Bare-chested at this moment, Su Ling’s physique stood like a towering pine reaching into the heavens, continuously battered by wave after wave of terrifying Grand Dao radiance.

Su Ling’s vision was completely flooded with brightness, entirely occupied by this dazzling radiance. He could no longer see anything else, his eyes filled only with the manifested power of the Heavenly Dao’s wrath.

Su Ling could distinctly feel that every beam of Heavenly Dao radiance contained a myriad jun of immense force capable of shattering mountains, sweeping wildly across his entire being like a raging tide.

The power of the Heavenly Dao seemed intent on grinding Su Ling—a fellow traveler—into dust alongside everything else.

Yet unfortunately, this previously omnipotent power had still failed to inflict effective damage on Su Ling’s physical body after so long; not even a single hair on his skin had been vaporized...

If one ignored the distinct stabbing pain transmitted from his divine soul, the Heavenly Dao power acting upon his flesh felt akin to a top-tier massage therapist. One could only say it was exceptionally comfortable—a coexistence of pleasure and pain on an entirely different level.

The scene was unexpectedly joyful. After all, the wrath of the Heavenly Dao—which even mighty figures in the outside world avoided like the plague—had now unexpectedly turned into a rare sauna experience for Su Ling.

Su Ling’s physical body was continuously scoured by the force of universal annihilation. Under physiological reflexes, it simply felt comfortable to the absolute extreme.

This caused his body to tremble slightly, blood flow to accelerate, and his skin to flush red. Impurities were expelled from his body along with bodily fluids, but before they could even rise, they were instantly obliterated by the all-destroying power of the Heavenly Dao.

Nourished tirelessly by the power of the Heavenly Dao, Su Ling’s divine soul climbed step by step, seemingly without an upper limit.

It appeared that as long as the container of his physical body remained large and durable enough, the strength, resilience, and purity of his divine soul could continuously increase.

This could be considered taking wool-gathering to a whole new level. After all, not everyone possessed the daring and the strength to brazenly court the wrath of the Heavenly Dao that others avoided at all costs...

A moment later, bathed in this annihilating power of the Heavenly Dao where all things merge into inaction, the stabbing pain in Su Ling’s divine soul gradually began to recede.

It seemed that as his divine soul cultivation soared step by step, his resistance had simultaneously increased. However, the stinging sensation did not completely vanish, showing that the wrath of the Heavenly Dao could not be underestimated.

By this time, the physical comfort had diminished to a certain degree, allowing Su Ling’s consciousness to clear up so he would not remain lost in pure enjoyment.

"As expected, this muddy water was well worth wading into."

Su Ling effortlessly raised the arm that had been submerged in the Heavenly Dao radiance. His eyes were tightly closed, and his pores constricted to prevent the all-pervading power of annihilation from seizing the opportunity to invade.

Martial Dao True Qi was a versatile ability; at the very least, he no longer needed to worry about falling into dire straits due to a lack of oxygen.