Under Li Qingshan’s hot-blooded, high-spirited, and somewhat strange command, Navy Li’l Fatty rushed out of the “womb” and returned to the big space-devouring beast’s colossal “stomach”.
This was obviously a farfetched description. Space-devouring beasts were inherently different from regular creatures. Compared to saying its “stomach” occupied most of its body, it was probably better to say that their interior was the stomach. Rāhu Xiaoming called that “space”.
Navy Li’l Fatty was rapidly compressed, but after the invisible pressure vanished, it immediately returned to its original size. Under Li Qingshan’s will, it swung its long tail and swam towards the depths of the “stomach”. They came across a few more strange regions, but none of them posed any threat.
Suddenly, a star appeared in the darkness, twinkling with various colours.
“What’s that?”
Li Qingshan was surprised. He could see clearly within the deep darkness, but the star seemed to have appeared suddenly. It clearly only possessed three colours, red, yellow, and blue, yet he had never seen something so resplendent before.
Each colour flowed and changed—scarlet red, crimson red, blood red… orangey yellow, bright yellow, soft yellow… azure blue, light blue, dark blue… There were so many different shades that it could not be described with words. The three colours merged together and changed even more, containing all the colours in the universe.
As they drew closer and arrived before the star, Li Qingshan understood why the star twinkled. Apart from the three colours, an invisible gas surged across the star. Whenever it blew past, the star would twinkle, and its shape and colour would change slightly.
“It’s so beautiful!”
Gu Yanying was enchanted by it as well. She was like a regular woman facing jewels, all the jewels available in the world in this case.
Rāhu Xiaoming said, “It’s a world.”
Li Qingshan came to a realisation. “Earth, fire, wind, and water. So this is the original form of a world. This must be the heart of the space-devouring beast then!”
As they drew closer, the star grew larger, and the brilliance it gave off became even more blinding. The heavy earth, the scorching fire, the wild wind, and the deep water formed a grand scene.
Even when they already knew that space-devouring beasts nurtured worlds, they still experienced intense shock when they saw it for themselves. The tremendous power it contained was enough for anyone to respond like that.
Perhaps millions of years in the future, all of this would turn into a new world, and the night sky would gain a star. Afterwards, countless creatures would form into existence and thrive, developing into countless cases of love and hatred, kindness and grievance, unions and partings.
Rāhu Xiaoming’s knowledge far exceeded theirs, but when he saw this, he could not help but think of the worlds he had destroyed with his very own hands. For a moment, he also fell silent.
On top of that, he noticed that Li Qingshan and Gu Yanying had entered a state of “comprehension”, which gave him even less reason to speak up and disturb them. Personally witnessing the course of a world was an extremely rare opportunity even for him, let alone them.
“Comprehension” involved endless wonders, but the logic behind it was quite simple. It was just like how when a mortal saw a newborn, they would experience the abstract notion of “life”, which would lead to many feelings. It could potentially change the way they acted.
Even a mortal would require a lot of knowledge and experience if they wanted to achieve something, let alone cultivators.
The nature of cultivation was a pursuit of truth and change. Only with a change in mentality would a change in cultivation occur, except to cultivators, opportunities like that only became rarer as they went. They had witnessed far too much life and death, rise and decline, so they could not comprehend anything major from that. Often, they required prolonged periods of accumulation and consolidation.
If they had not gone through sufficient accumulation and consolidation, that would lead to bottlenecks, and their cultivations would stop progressing.
Sometimes, what they could get out of a single thought, a single moment, could surpass centuries or millennia of cultivation.
That was why cultivators with great talent for comprehension possessed such a great advantage. Seeing a fallen leaf and knowing autumn had arrived was already something that regular people struggled with. However, those deviants and freaks that could understand the laws that the planets operated under from just a fallen apple. Regular people could not even dream of achieving something like that.
There were ways to make up for it, but it would take a hundred times the effort and hardships.
For the sake of what they could get out of this single thought, the three of them had truly faced great risk. Only now did they obtain something that was theirs.
No matter how large the world grew to, no matter how powerful Li’l Fatty became, they were all foreign entities. They could use them and borrow them, but they could not rely on them. Only their comprehension and cultivation truly belonged to them.
After who knew how long, Gu Yanying returned to her senses. Both her mind and body seemed to go through a baptism, such that she sensed she had become even closer to the kunpeng’s feather. Even if she did not have the kunpeng’s feather, the fourth heavenly tribulation would not be an issue anymore.
That was not just because of what she had witnessed right before her. Instead, from leaving the nine provinces until now, everything she had been through during that journey was unheard of to the cultivators of the nine provinces. She could not help but become even more certain about the path she had chosen. She wanted to fly higher and further away and see wider and more. She wanted to obtain true freedom.
Looking back at Li Qingshan, she saw that he still had not budged. From the star composed of earth, fire, wind, and water reflecting in his eyes, she knew his comprehension and what he had gotten out of this was even greater than hers. She stood to one side and waited quietly.
Li Qingshan did not just see earth, fire, wind, and water. He also saw the existence of space.
Without space, earth, fire, wind, and water were unable to condense. Without earth, fire, wind, and water, there was no point to space.
Earth, fire, wind, and water happened to coincide with the four transformations he had balanced, the Ox Demon Transformation, the Phoenix Transformation, the Tiger Demon Transformation, and the Spirit Turtle Transformation.
This definitely was not a coincidence. Instead, it was a foundation planted in him by the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine, forming a world within his body. Just how lofty of a sentiment was that? On top of that, probably the only possible way to balance these various extreme and pure powers was by imitating the way a world was created and operated.
In the past, when he fought against the Demon King in the Asura Field, he had relied on his control over earth, fire, wind, and water to turn the tides, but from that moment onwards, the Demon Suppression Statuary had been deeply suppressed. When he comprehended the Ape Demon Transformation, he broke this balance again, but now, he witnessed a whole new type of balance.
In hindsight, a major reason why he could balance earth, fire, wind, and water was because he was located in the Asura Field. The Asura Field served as his “space”.
Once he left the Asura Field, the powers faced influence from everything in his surroundings, so the extremely subtle balance no longer existed. All that remained was a rough balance.
But now, he saw an opportunity. The Ape Demon Transformation just happened to represent space.
I understand now. When I cultivated the first four transformations, the balance had already been established. After that, what I need to balance is no longer the divine and demonic natures. Instead, I need to construct a world within me. The Ape Demon Transformation is not a troublemaker that breaks the balance between the demonic and divine, but a crucial power for truly creating a world.
When Li Qingshan thought up to there, the Ape Demon Transformation broke through to the second layer. Originally, he was worried that even the slightest increase in his cultivation would lead to the fourth heavenly tribulation, but he no longer had that worry now.
Power leaked out and scattered from his body. His aura declined, but his power became much more consolidated and condensed.
A great sword forged from scrap metal could never match a treasured sword of regular size. Perhaps it could be used to smash people in battle, but if it were to be improved, it had to be further forged and reforged.
He powered the Spirit Turtle Transformation at full force, deducing from the rudimentary form of a world before him.
If he had not seen it with his own eyes, the deduction process alone would have been an almost-impossible mission. Everything he saw today was what he had obtained, and he was still comprehending the laws that the small world operated on. As such, everything was as simple as it could get.
After completing his inference, a model took shape in his head. He began to imitate it.
Firstly, he compressed and reassembled his powers, constructing them with a better method. If he were in his daemon form right now, his stature would definitely be shrinking rapidly.
No, that still doesn’t work. The Ape Demon Transformation is too weak. Space cannot contain the earth, fire, wind, and water unless I increase the Ape Demon Transformation to the fifth layer as well. The first and second layers aren’t really an issue, but later on, the power will begin to grow abruptly, and the fourth heavenly tribulation will definitely descend upon me, Li Qingshan thought with furrowed eyebrows.
He came up with an idea very soon. “Please watch over me!”
“Alright!” Gu Yanying and Rāhu Xiaoming were both serious. Their paths had coincided together, and their lives were in each other’s hands, so watching over him was but a trifle.
Li Qingshan shut his eyes and burst into great flames. Vaguely, it was possible to make out a phoenix dancing within the fire.
The phoenix’s nirvā?a, rebirth in flames!
This was the first time Li Qingshan had proactively used the Nirvā?a Rebirth. In the past, he had always been beaten to his death, using the Nirvā?a Rebirth because he had no other choice.
The feeling this time was very different. He was in the best shape he had ever been, both in terms of his body and his mind. On top of that, he had a world providing him with spiritual qi.
With the rebirth, everything was now on a clean slate. Before his powers had even begun to recover, he devoted himself to constructing a new balance.
The ox demon stood still while the tiger demon leapt about. The spirit turtle submerged while the phoenix soared.
The ape demon spread his arms that constantly elongated, embracing them all.
With a rumble, his daemon core shattered, and a world was born within his body.
Li Qingshan was overjoyed. The world was so measly and insignificant. It was still in a primitive, rudimentary form, but it was complete with everything despite its size. By everything, that was earth, fire, wind, water, and space.
However, his aura had become much weaker, all because he suppressed the ox, the tiger, the turtle, and the phoenix to the second layer.
In the beginning, the transformations of the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine were all very weak. With his foundational cultivation at the second layer, it would not be strange at all if his powers regressed to Daemon General. Even at most, it would be Daemon Commander. However, he was clearly still a Daemon King right now.
If making Navy Li’l Fatty take a risk by devouring the space-devouring beasts was a gamble and going from a bicycle to a motorbike, then right now, he went from a steam engine to a nuclear reactor. He underwent a change in quality.
With that, he could continue cultivating the Ape Demon Transformation. That was not exactly difficult to him. Once his Ape Demon Transformation reached the fifth layer, then the power of the other transformations could completely recover. By then, he would possess unprecedented power, basically equivalent to having undergone the fourth heavenly tribulation.
However, the most wondrous part of that was according to his calculations, he still would not trigger the fourth heavenly tribulation once that occurred. He would maintain his cultivation at Daemon King, allowing him to return to the nine provinces and reunite with Xiao An with ease.
“How is this possible? Just what is your cultivation method?”
Rāhu Xiaoming was astounded. This was not an aura that a Daemon King was supposed to possess. Regular cultivators often relied on undergoing tribulations to change like this. How could he just jump around on the same spot as before and immediately learn how to fly?
“The Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine!”
Li Qingshan told him the truth, both out of trust and confidence. He also wanted to learn some related information from Rāhu Xiaoming. After all, brother ox definitely would not be a figure without renown.
Rāhu Xiaoming thought about it for a while before shaking his head. “I’ve never heard about him.”
A cultivation method like this definitely should not have been unknown, so the only explanation was it had been newly-created, and it had only been taught to him. Perhaps it was made for him.
“I really am a little envious of your good fortunes. Don’t tell me that’s your father?”
“My father is a father. That’s my brother!” Li Qingshan laughed aloud and waved his hand. “Devour away, Li’l Fatty!”
