“Whoosh!” The darkness from the grotto instantly surged towards Li Qiye with extreme speed and surrounded him.

Upon closer inspection, this wasn’t a wave of dark energy but numerous bat-like fiends. They had sharp teeth and numerous hooks on their wings, sharp enough to cut a victim’s throat with ease.

They were Burden’s parasites, normally living off it. However, whenever Burden needed it, they would also attack by surrounding their prey. Their aura could induce paralysis.

“Scram!” Li Qiye roared with a punch.

“Boom!” The bats exploded into blood, unable to withstand a single blow.

In the next moment, boundless darkness came out of the grotto.

However, Li Qiye leaped upward for a downward kick. The entire grotto nearly exploded as the darkness was crushed by Li Qiye’s monstrous power, reduced to blood.

Meanwhile, the two progenitors have gotten up to get a better look. They also needed to block the massive waves emanating from the location of the fight.

“I am the supreme lord of all! The...” Burden crazily roared from inside the grotto.

It couldn’t finish before being cut off by an explosion and more earthquakes. A great battle ensued. The grotto started breaking apart with boulders flying everywhere.

The battle noises from below made the two progenitors feel bad. Of course, they weren’t worrying about Li Qiye but rather pitying Burden for the terrible beating.

“Ahhh!” Finally, a miserable cry reached the white clouds, instilling chills into the listeners.

The two exchanged glances, aware that Burden was finished.

Sure enough, boulders chaotically shot out from the entrance as a person flew up while carrying a large skull.

“Boom!” He tossed it into the ocean. Its eyes were still wide open in disbelief, not expecting to be killed in this helpless manner.

“You’re unbeatable, Sir, killing Burden in no time at all.” Cloudcrossing Progenitor praised.

“Would have been one or two moves if it wasn’t for the complicated grotto.” Li Qiye smiled.

The two smiled wryly. Martial Ancestor didn’t have that much confidence in killing Burden yet Li Qiye could do so in one or two moves. The gap between them was insane.

“Sigh, I have to change location again.” Martial Ancestor said while staring at the skull and shook his head.

He wanted to use this place for training. Who would have thought that Li Qiye would kill every last one here?

“It’s burning.” Li Qiye smiled at the ancestor.

“Right, right.” He calmed down and took off the roasted foot, cutting off a piece and blowing on it.

“Sir, are you eating again?” Cloudcrossing sat down and asked Li Qiye while feeling a little hungry. 

“No, I’m still full. Gonna go find another place to play.” Li Qiye smiled and flew to the sky.

The two of them bowed towards his direction until he was gone. They sat back down to eat.

“Sigh, Brother Wu, I think you don’t need to find the nine monsters anymore to train.” Cloudcrossing took a bite then said: “Sir is definitely using them to warm up. I’m sure they’ll be dead when you get there, all of them, no time for you to train.”

“Right, I wanted to stay here for ten years or so, seems impossible now. Looks like I need to find another dangerous area.” Martial Ancestor sighed in response.

“Well, there’s no lack of dangerous areas in this damned place.” Cloudcrossing smiled.

“Whatever, let’s just eat.” Martial Ancestor’s mouth was covered in grease from eating too fast. He eventually said: “This is really good, I never realized how good tendon can taste.” 

“Let’s find another next time for a feast.” The two of them became gluttonous and focused on filling their stomach.

Their laughter echoed in this ocean of blood and corpses.

***

Li Qiye continued heading into dangerous locations to kill monsters, training while journeying.

He didn’t rest a single day despite having a finished grand dao. He still worked harder than anyone else, wanting to polish this dao and its profundities.

This wasn’t only about him. He needed to polish an entire epoch’s cultivational outline. That’s why he needed to have an immaculate understanding of this grand dao.

He kept on deriving the dao to its limit. Even the tiniest law would be transformed to its max form. Then from this complicated yet powerful, he chose to make them as simple as possible and turn them into easy methods.

This was for the sake of the future descendants. They would have an easier time obtaining a firm foundation.

He wouldn’t have needed to do all of this for his own cultivation since he already had a perfect grasp on his grand dao.

For this goal, he separated his grand dao into seven cultivation incantations, as short as can be. Moreover, they could be combined together as well.

These seven could allow anyone to reach the peak of cultivation or even break through the limits. When all seven combined into its original form, that would be Li Qiye’s grand dao.

He carefully chose each word and phrase for the incantations then kept on transforming and deriving them. His focus was on simplifying the cultivation process.

After finishing this task, he sealed the seven incantations into his Primordial Tree, fusing them together.

Some of their names were: Chaos, Heavensplit, Divinization, All-things…

The seven were different and had their own focus. However, none was necessarily better than the others.

Unfortunately, creating a new cultivation system for an epoch was easier said than done. He continued to polish the tree so that it would have numerous dao fruits, large and heavy.

Meanwhile, he was also unstoppable. The strongest monsters all fell before him. He left nothing but a trail of blood and destruction since he didn’t need to hold back in the expanse. He could utilize his power while not involving the innocent.

This was an incredible feeling; no wonder why many progenitors liked this place.

The conditions here were quite harsh and dangerous compared to Three Immortals but the progenitors felt quite comfortable here, as free as a bird in the sky and a fish in the ocean.

“Boom!” Blood splashed out of a gigantic monster. It fell to the ground.

Another one of the nine has been killed by Li Qiye. As the years went by, he had taken several of them down and destroyed their territories. This one wasn’t lucky enough to survive either.

The next area was quite dangerous due to the colossal hurricanes and lightning bolts present. They were tearing space apart.

Even the great monsters didn’t want to stay here for long.