Chapter 3770: Thunder Lord
Within the Ancestor Realm wrapped in layers of lightning, atop the bronze divine tree, stood the magnificent and majestic Heavenly Venerable Hall.
A million years ago, after Lei Fa succeeded the Immovable Bright King Great Venerable to the throne of Heavenly Venerable, he used this hall as his own Heavenly Venerable palace.
In more distant ages, this Heavenly Venerable Hall had been the Thunder Clan's Heavenly Lord's Treasure Hall, said to have been left behind by the Thunder Clan's ancestor, the "Heavenly Lord."
This Heavenly Venerable Hall was one of the Thunder Clan's strongest foundations. When activated and driven by several Boundless cultivators, it could unleash power capable of contending with the Twenty Heavens.
At this moment, within the Heavenly Venerable Hall, the number of Boundless cultivators had reached as many as ten.
Three of them were the Thunder Marshals who had previously presided over the formation and were beaten back to the Guixu by Xiu Chen Heavenly God.
The other seven were remnant souls of ancient powerhouses.
The aura emitted by some of these remnant souls was not inferior to Great Unbound Infinite. In life, they must have been renowned figures, their names shaking the ages.
With ten Boundless cultivators simultaneously driving the Heavenly Venerable Hall and the bronze divine tree, and the branches and leaves of the bronze divine tree tightly connected to the power of the Ancestor Realm, the unleashed force was enough to make even Feng Tian tread carefully.
Of course, what truly restrained Feng Tian was not them.
It was a monster with a dragon body and a human head, covered in corpse-fiend aura, possessing four arms.
Its head was as massive as a mountain, with sparse hair, but each strand was like a lightning-whip. As its body and head moved, strands of hair lashed through the void, producing deafening "crackling" sounds.
Its eyes burned with two clusters of ghastly green ghost fire. Its mouth was severely decayed, with teeth exposed, making it ferocious and terrifying.
Most frightening of all, in one of its hands, it held the legendary first divine artifact of the Thunder Clan: the Thunder Lord Hammer.
Its identity was naturally self-evident.
It was none other than the legendary Thunder Clan ancestor, Half-Ancestor Thunder Lord, who had followed the Nether Ancestor in charging into the Abyss of Darkness and defeating the Twelve Ancient Clans.
"Heavenly Lord" and "Thunder Lord" were the two greatest sages in Thunder Clan history. One was born in the ancient era, reaching the Ancestor realm as a Qi cultivator, leaving the Ancestor Realm for the Thunder Clan. The other was born in the Nether Ancient Era, leaving the Thunder Clan its first divine artifact, the Thunder Lord Hammer.
Thunder Lord had naturally returned as a remnant soul, seizing his own Half-Ancestor corpse from back then. It was unknown to what level his cultivation had recovered, but his displayed combat power was at the Indestructible Infinite middle stage.
He swung the Thunder Lord Hammer, trading blows with Feng Tian.
It could be said that Thunder Lord was the strongest among the ancient powerhouses who had descended as remnant souls so far, even more formidable than the Yellow Spring Great Emperor Zhang Ruochen had encountered.
Clearly, he had arrived in the Real World earlier than all other ancient powerhouse remnant souls and had been cultivating for a long time.
Zhang Ruochen quickly assessed the current situation. Finally, his gaze locked onto the Ancestor Realm above. He mobilized the divine Qi within his body, continuously channeling it into the Earth Cauldron.
The Earth Cauldron slowly rotated, rose, and grew increasingly massive, releasing a profound destructive fluctuation.
Within the Ancestor Realm, Feng Tian discerned Zhang Ruochen's intention to use the Earth Cauldron to attack the Thunder Clan's Ancestor Realm. "With your current cultivation, you cannot break the Thunder Clan's Ancestor Realm. Don't bother helping me. With my divine abilities and Dao techniques, dealing with them is more than enough. Go assist Daoist Jing. You must suppress Four Yang Heavenly Lord and absolutely not let him escape."
"Refine these remnant souls for me. Refine them into soul pills."
Feng Tian sent out a mass of soul light, which flew out from the hole in the Ancestor Realm and descended toward Zhang Ruochen.
Zhang Ruochen extended his right hand, condensing a space vortex, and caught the mass of soul light she had sent out.
This mass of soul light was like a sea of stars, containing countless divine soul thoughts.
After falling into Zhang Ruochen's hands, the soul light still echoed with harsh curses, threats, and seductive voices.
But they were sealed by Feng Tian's Death rules and could not escape.
Zhang Ruochen made a preliminary investigation and found that the soul light contained at least five remnant souls of ancient powerhouses.
He immediately realized he had underestimated Feng Tian's strength. While simultaneously dealing with Thunder Lord, the suppression of the Ancestor Realm, the Heavenly Venerable Hall and the bronze divine tree, and the siege of over a dozen Boundless cultivators, she could still capture and kill five Boundless cultivators and severely wound Four Yang Heavenly Lord.
Now that she had breached the Ancestor Realm and Four Yang Heavenly Lord was under attack by Daoist Jing, she should be handling things more easily.
He just wondered if she had been injured in the previous battle.
The Thunder Clan had been able to pass down through so many eons without being destroyed, their foundation was indeed unfathomable. Even the Ten Clans of Hell might not be able to compare.
Of course, their ability to be this strong was necessarily related to the approaching Calamity of Quantities and the loosening of Heaven and Earth rules.
There might be greater secrets behind this.
After all, the Thunder Clan had countless connections with the Nether Ancestor and the Quantity Organization.
"Boom!"
Zhang Ruochen mobilized the Earth Cauldron, which he had driven to its limit, and attacked Four Yang Heavenly Lord.
Four Yang Heavenly Lord manipulated the ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars, arranging them in a ring formation to block the "Heaven Net Earth Trap" divine ability pressing down from above.
Although Four Yang Heavenly Lord's cultivation was incomplete and he was severely injured, the ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars possessed extraordinary power. The divine flame they released was even more abnormal, burning and refining the Heaven Net Earth Trap cast by Daoist Jing until it became increasingly faint.
The Earth Cauldron spun rapidly. It was not just the power of a divine artifact; the Fate power released from within the cauldron pulled at the Heaven and Earth rules, causing drastic changes, continuously crushing the rule divine patterns Four Yang Heavenly Lord had released outside his body.
This was using the Earth Cauldron, with Great Unbound Infinite cultivation, to forcibly break the Dao of an Indestructible Infinite.
Logically, this should be absolutely impossible.
Crossing a major cultivation realm was like the separation between Heaven and Earth.
As the Earth Cauldron drew closer, Four Yang Heavenly Lord felt an unprecedented crisis. The divine blood within him burned explosively, and his cultivation surged rapidly.
"Roar!"
With a long howl, Four Yang Heavenly Lord used the ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars to break through the Heaven Net Earth Trap.
At the same time, the Earth Cauldron collided with one of his four protective divine suns. The Earth Cauldron carried that divine sun and heavily slammed into Four Yang Heavenly Lord.
"Pfft!"
Four Yang Heavenly Lord spat blood. His body, already battered by Feng Tian, developed new cracks.
Hatred burned in his heart as he glared at Zhang Ruochen flying in from afar.
He had stepped into the Indestructible Infinite, yet he was still injured by a Great Unbound Infinite. Most infuriatingly, this Great Unbound Infinite was still a brat wet behind the ears.
He was not given time to rage. An even greater crisis descended.
"Vertical Character Art!"
Daoist Jing unleashed his strongest divine ability.
"Whoosh!"
A beam of light continuously tore through space, landing on Four Yang Heavenly Lord.
His newly cultivated Indestructible Dharma Body could not withstand it. The Vertical Character Art pierced through, leaving a bowl-sized hole in his chest.
Strands of Void power swirled around the hole in his flesh.
Daoist Jing's Vertical Character Art was fierce. It not only pierced through the Real World and the Void World but also blasted a bottomless vortex into the Wuding Divine Sea.
Taking advantage of Four Yang Heavenly Lord's severe injury and his divine soul and consciousness being at their slowest, Zhang Ruochen grabbed the leg of the Earth Cauldron and smashed it with full force onto Four Yang Heavenly Lord, sending him flying eastward.
"Boom!"
Daoist Jing stomped heavily onto Four Yang Heavenly Lord, crushing him down into the Void World.
His hands did not pause for a moment. The tips of all ten fingers were shattered, dripping blood.
Using his ten fingers as brushes and his blood as ink, he drew one Five Elements seal after another at the fastest speed, striking them onto Four Yang Heavenly Lord.
No matter how high a cultivator's cultivation, their physical body always remained within the Five Elements.
As long as the Five Elements were sealed, it would be like becoming a living corpse. The divine soul could no longer drive the physical body.
The divine soul thoughts contained within the physical body would also be locked within the flesh, bones, and organs.
Daoist Jing knew this opportunity was precious. If Four Yang Heavenly Lord recovered even slightly, even if he did not self-destruct his divine source, just activating some self-harming secret techniques that instantly boosted combat power would allow him to escape easily.
Four Yang Heavenly Lord's four natal divine suns trembled violently, then transformed into four shooting meteors, crashing toward Daoist Jing.
Zhang Ruochen was about to intercept when he sensed that the other ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars seemed to possess their own consciousness. Instead of crashing into Daoist Jing along with the four natal divine suns, they collectively fled, rushing toward the deep starry sky above the Wuding Divine Sea.
"Interesting!"
Zhang Ruochen chased after the ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars.
As for Daoist Jing's side...
Zhang Ruochen believed that, as an Indestructible Infinite, the fat Daoist must have many tricks up his sleeve. Blocking the four divine suns should not be difficult.
If he still let Four Yang Heavenly Lord escape under these circumstances, Zhang Ruochen would have to suspect whether he was an undercover agent hidden within the Heavenly Court.
The Blazing Sun Clan's direct lineage had a special cultivation technique. The divine suns they cultivated were extremely difficult to destroy, like natal war artifacts.
Earlier, one divine sun had been struck by the Earth Cauldron without exploding, which showed this.
It was only back then that the Heavenly Beginning Old Heavenly Lord had self-destructed his divine source, destroying one of Four Yang Heavenly Lord's divine suns.
Zhang Ruochen felt that these ten fleeing divine suns were even more extraordinary. Their weight, light, and heat far exceeded Four Yang Heavenly Lord's four natal divine suns.
Zhang Ruochen simultaneously struck out with the four cauldrons, locking down the four directions. He then activated the Earth Cauldron, condensing the scene of a primordial world, before finally suppressing the ten divine suns.
"So it's the remnant soul of the Blazing Sun Ancestor!"
Zhang Ruochen captured a divine soul thought of the Blazing Sun Ancestor. After soul-searching, he learned the origin of the ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars and the reason for Four Yang Heavenly Lord's breakthrough in cultivation.
But time was too short. Four Yang Heavenly Lord had not yet had time to fully refine the Blazing Sun Ancestor's remnant soul.
Zhang Ruochen did not have time to refine these ten Golden Crow Great Sun Stars. He temporarily stored them in the Earth Cauldron.
When Zhang Ruochen arrived in the Void World, he found that Daoist Jing had completely sealed Four Yang Heavenly Lord's physical body. The four natal divine suns had been collected into his Daoist robe.
The robe looked like it contained four rabbits, bumping left and right, quite lively.
Daoist Jing was very pleased, stroking his beard and saying, "This traitor Four Yang Heavenly Lord has finally been captured by me. When taken back to the Heavenly Court, he will surely be executed publicly as a warning to others and to comfort the spirits of the dead. This time, the Heaven-Slaying Assembly should be held at the Five Elements Temple. Of course, Zhang Ruochen, you have helped me a great deal. We are even now!"
"It's not over yet! Please, Daoist, attack the Thunder Clan's Ancestor Realm."
Zhang Ruochen was worried about Feng Tian's side. After all, she was inside the Thunder Clan's Ancestor Realm and would certainly be constrained on all sides. She might not be as relaxed as she appeared on the surface.
Daoist Jing showed a hesitant expression.
From his perspective, he naturally hoped that Feng Tian and the Thunder Clan would mutually destroy each other, allowing him to step in and reap the benefits later.
Zhang Ruochen said, "Daoist, you have already formed a clan-exterminating enmity with the Thunder Clan. If Thunder Lord and the Thunder Clan's Boundless cultivators escape, imagine how they will retaliate against the Five Elements Temple?"
"They wouldn't dare!"
Daoist Jing had just suppressed Four Yang Heavenly Lord and was in high spirits, his battle intent soaring. "Let us join forces and drive the Universe Cauldron. Today, we will break the Thunder Clan's Ancestor Realm. Without the Ancestor Realm, let's see how the Thunder Clan can rise again. By the way, that bronze divine tree belongs to me."