Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Fang Yuan didn't care that his prized possession had been stolen, because not just anyone could use it. He had painstakingly orchestrated this situation to gain the Gu worm's approval, thus obtaining the opportunity to use the Wisdom Gu without expending his lifespan. What was the point of others stealing it? If they forced their way in, they would only exhaust their own lifespans. In the end, the Gu worm would just return to him. Even the Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, whose strength was unparalleled in his time, ultimately failed to tame this Gu worm. He could only use unorthodox methods to barely utilize it. Otherwise, this Gu worm wouldn't have been left as its heir.

Now, someone actually dares to try and exploit him. Forcibly expending his own lifespan in battle is tantamount to courting death. Even a Venerable doesn't have such a long lifespan to squander. The longest-lived Venerable in history, the Primordial Immortal Venerable, only lived for 3 years. That's already a very long lifespan, even 1 years longer than a Great Emperor who lived a second life.

Even with such a lifespan, there's no way to effectively utilize the Wisdom Gu. Ordinary Venerables have even shorter lifespans, perhaps only around 1 years. After that, the lifespan Gu in the world will gradually deplete, eventually leaving none. Even Venerables will then have to exhaust their lifespans.

How could anyone possibly afford such a price? According to this world's worldview, that's certainly true. No matter how long-lived a race is, their lifespan is only a hundred years; even non-human races are no exception. But are there truly no exceptions? Clearly not.

Lanno's act of seizing the Gu worm wasn't without knowledge of its purpose; otherwise, it wouldn't have been there in the first place. The moment he acquired it, he felt his lifespan slipping away. However, unlike others who visibly age, developing wrinkles and age spots as their lifespan diminishes, he, while feeling his body aging, didn't experience significant changes in bodily functions. He estimated that he was losing approximately one year of lifespan every minute he held this Gu worm.

This is already an extremely high price to pay. Participating in a 10-minute battle will shorten your lifespan by 10 years, and conducting a one-hour scientific research operation will shorten your lifespan by 60 years.

If one wanted to dedicate an entire day to this research, one would need a lifespan of a thousand years to afford it. Clearly, no one could afford such a life-consuming Gu worm. However, if the user is not human, then that's a different story.

Some races possess lifespans so extraordinary that they seem to have no end, and some even defy the natural order, making natural death virtually impossible. However, these extraordinary races do not belong to this world. But at this very moment, such an ultimate being has descended upon this world. And the body he currently wields is that of such an ultimate being—a body possessing an incredibly long lifespan, virtually incapable of natural death.

In the world ruled by the Goddess of Creation, the firstborn son has virtually never died of natural causes. He was either thrown into the sun, his body destroyed, or he was maintaining a collapsing planet, nearly falling into the sun himself, resulting in his complete annihilation. Essentially, only a complete star could kill the firstborn son. And that's assuming the firstborn son couldn't escape. This thing is capable of interstellar travel. If it weren't for protecting the seed of an entire civilization, he would never have fallen into the sun under any circumstances.

Those firstborn sons who did not die of natural causes often lived for tens of thousands of years. Among the firstborn sons created by the ancient creator goddess to sow life, some even lived for millions of years.

Others don't have enough lifespan to squander. A lifespan of over 1000 years only allows for one day of using the Wisdom Gu; even a lifespan of ten thousand years couldn't withstand such extravagance. But if one had a lifespan of a million years or even longer, sacrificing lifespan to enhance wisdom when necessary would be entirely worthwhile. Moreover, Lanno never considered immortality his ultimate goal. A hundred years of life, or a few years of brilliant burning, as long as he fulfilled his historical mission, even if he died prematurely, it wouldn't have been in vain. This is the enlightenment of someone who has died once.

Therefore, after obtaining the Wisdom Gu, he used it without any hesitation. Although this body didn't have the same lifespan as his eldest son's original body, he could sense that even if he fought for a day and a night using the Wisdom Gu, this body wouldn't show any significant signs of aging. Based on this, even if it was just a body created by his eldest son, its lifespan would be on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.

"You're really courting death. Mortals only live for a hundred years. How long do you think you can use this Wisdom Gu? Before long, you'll weaken from old age. What a waste of your precious otherworldly body." The Giant Sun Immortal shook his head, continuing to buff his teammates from behind. He himself remained completely still, activating energy-saving mode.

The opponent has obtained an extremely precious Nine-Turn Gu Worm. Therefore, a direct confrontation is even more unwise. With so many descendants, letting them wage a war of attrition against him is the wisest course of action. Once his lifespan is nearing its end, he will naturally weaken and be easily captured. After capturing him and properly taming him, one might gain another powerful attendant.

The only downside is that if too much of their lifespan is consumed, their strength will also decline, making them far less useful as a henchman.

Lanno knew his own situation; for at least a few days, he didn't need to worry about his lifespan dwindling. So, at this moment, he activated the Wisdom Gu without reservation, and then he felt a burst of inspiration and ideas.

This feeling was comparable to an ordinary person unlocking a fourth-tier gene lock—a transformation akin to that of a human. This was also the first time he had encountered a mind-enhancing ability comparable to the effect of a fourth-tier gene lock. Abilities existed in countless realms, but those that directly affected the mind and the level of inspiration were extremely rare. Most of these abilities only offered limited enhancement to spiritual insight. Those that could rival the mental and willpower enhancement brought about by a first-tier gene lock were exceptionally rare.

But the Wisdom Gu truly exceeded his expectations. This Gu worm was indeed the crystallization of the wisdom of an entire world. The enhancement of wisdom and inspiration it brought was not only at the fourth-tier level, but also, because its system and gene lock system were completely different, the effects of the wisdom enhancement did not overlap, but rather superimposed. He felt that his inspiration was now inexhaustible, and he could see many flaws in the battle at a glance. Even after his thinking speed increased significantly, he was able to see the future. This was not the effect of the Cicada Spring and Autumn obtaining future information through brief time travel, but rather, he gathered data from the battlefield through his various senses and then deduced the future. The accuracy of this future was somewhat lower. It might be inaccurate due to deduction errors or lack of information. However, the more information he had, the more accurate the future he could deduce, and the further into the future he could see. Furthermore, he could choose different branches and paths in the future through his different decisions.

He had initially been severely suppressed, unable to unleash his full power, and was on the verge of a slow death in a war of attrition. But now, breaking through this impasse was effortless for him. Even though he didn't have enough of the other Wisdom-based Gu worms to complement the legendary Nine-Turn Gu Worm and create a lethal attack, even the ordinary use of the Nine-Turn Gu Worm was enough to bring him an epic-level boost.

"In the next 20 seconds, that guy Juyang's son will have a brief burst of power. The others will be drawn to him. I can use this opening to break through the encirclement. Then, I can use my newly developed high-speed movement technique to tactically infiltrate. Because of my distraction, the enemy's formation will break apart, leaving some isolated individuals." Lanno instantly completed his deduction and saw the future clearly. He then proceeded to distract the enemy according to the strategy he had just devised. Due to the varying speeds of their pursuit, the dozen or so experts immediately became separated. He seized this opportunity, using the spatial beacon he had left behind beforehand, instantly turning back to the center of the encirclement. This self-defeating action caught everyone off guard. The slowest and weakest pursuer was naturally left at the back, back in the original position of the encirclement. Lanno instantly teleported back, shifting the battlefield, and the weakest point in the original encirclement became the first to be caught, instantly becoming a lamb to the slaughter. "Next, I can unleash my ultimate move. But according to my estimation, each of them has a certain probability of having a trump card. I need to test out the type that allows them to survive and kill."

So what I need to do now is, no matter what happens next, use my strongest attack.” As he told himself this, the effect of the Cicada's Spring and Autumn Annals successfully activated, giving him a 5-second glimpse into the future. It was like the Crimson King's epitaph, except that this future was not unchangeable.

In the information he saw, a damage-sharing effect occurred the instant his attack struck. Everyone shared the damage of the blow, resulting in everyone suffering only superficial wounds and recovering quickly. This passive effect was something they had already activated. Long before the battle began, the Giant Sun Immortal Venerable had instructed his descendants to coordinate and unleash a bloodline-linked killing move to prevent any descendant from being ambushed and instantly killed if they were isolated.

With this killer move as a backup, his tactics of flanking and ambushing from behind to quickly eliminate weaknesses are no longer feasible.

But intelligence is ultimately valuable. Knowing the opponent's trump cards allows for the development of specific tactics, such as what we're seeing now. A killing move that was originally intended as an attack has been replaced with a sealing effect. More accurately, it's not a seal, but a stun.

Control skills have a higher threshold for effectiveness, but by anticipating the opponent's move and exploiting their weakness, a control skill can be successfully landed, instantly freezing the opponent in time.

Since no damage was caused, the shared effect of the bloodline connection did not activate. The unfortunate soul who was caught was not harmed, but was trapped in a state of mental and physical paralysis.

When the stagnation ended, he found that his location had completely changed. It was pitch black all around him. Moreover, he could sense that his surroundings were filled with matter, as if he had been instantly teleported underground.

"What's going on? What just happened? Why am I here?"

He was completely unaware of what had happened, because his mind and body had just frozen in time. For him, it was only a blink of an eye, and the scene before him had changed. It was as if he had been subjected to the Crimson King's time erasure; anyone would be stunned in such a situation.

He never imagined that someone would intentionally send an enemy into his immortal aperture during battle, which is, logically speaking, a cultivator's weak point. Sending an enemy in to cause trouble would be tantamount to suicide.

However, Lan Nuo's immortal aperture is now filled with the flesh and blood of his eldest son. The inside is completely activated, turning into a golden core. At this time, swallowing the enemy is equivalent to directly eating the enemy into a stomach full of digestive juices. The next step is to digest, peel off all the Dao traces on the enemy's body, and convert them into Dao essence into his own energy.

Since previous intelligence has already proven that instant kills won't work, let's forgo instant kills and instead trap the enemy and then inflict sustained damage.

The unfortunate soul swallowed up felt a powerful seal, like a boundary between five realms. Within this range, there was no way to unleash a killing move. Trying to do so would result in a severe backlash. Even more terrifying was the ever-increasing temperature within this range, gradually rising from thousands of degrees to tens of thousands, and even higher, approaching the level of a nuclear fusion reactor. This sustained extreme heat was breaking down the Dao traces on his body. While it couldn't completely incinerate them in a short time, he also had no way to escape. He managed a few bursts of energy, managing to break free from his previous position. But he quickly realized that breaking free was pointless, as he was still surrounded by metallic flesh. Even after forcefully escaping, he was still trapped, still being scorched by the high temperature. His survival instinct kept him constantly activating the bloodline-connected damage-sharing ability.

This is incredibly frustrating for the guys outside, as everyone is constantly suffering from this insidious source of damage. While the total damage isn't overwhelming, this continuous health loss practically wipes out everyone's healing abilities. All their self-healing skills have to be used to counter this unprovoked damage. And for Lanno, it's like the fuel he just ingested—making him even more resilient to burning.

[To be continued]

Please add this to your favorites and vote for it! (End of Chapter)