Swallowing the Stars: Heart of the Martial God

Chapter 184 Corrosion

"The Mountain-Sitting Guest? Are you sure?" Upon hearing this, the founder of the Giant Axe was shocked, his face filled with astonishment and doubt.

The name of the Mountain-Sitting Guest is renowned throughout the universe. He acts mysteriously and his strength is unfathomable. If one were to become involved with him, things would become even more complicated.

"Teacher, I'm 100% sure. If it weren't for the Mountain-Sitting Guest, with my strength, which universe's strongest person could rescue someone right under my nose, escape unscathed, and leave behind a pile of treasures without getting a good beating from me?" Ling Xuan said decisively.

After receiving Ling Xuan's affirmative reply, the founder of the Giant Axe took a deep breath and calmed the turmoil in his heart.

The giant axe founder instantly felt relieved and directly addressed the strongest of the three races: "Hahaha, didn't you want to know why the Flame Emperor didn't intervene? I'll tell you now. The one who rescued the Northern Prison Lord wasn't one of our humans at all, but the Mountain-Sitting Guest! If you have the guts, go and demand an explanation from him!"

Upon hearing this, the tense atmosphere instantly froze.

On the Zerg Queen's beautiful projection of her will, her delicate brows suddenly furrowed, and a hint of panic flashed in her eyes.

That is one of the most dangerous beings in the universe. Not only are its methods bizarre, but even the origin of the primordial universe seems to be exceptionally "tolerant" of it. If the Zerg were to offend it rashly, they would likely suffer a great loss.

The snake shadows surrounding the Dream Demon Ancestor froze instantly, its huge silver-white snake head trembling slightly, its cold vertical pupils filled with undisguised fear.

He had witnessed the methods of the Mountain-Sitting Guest before.

Back when he was still under the command of the Beast Ancestor, the Mountain Guest could toy with the Beast Ancestor as easily as playing with a child. Although he is now stronger than the Beast Ancestor, he is still far from being able to do that.

The black spherical phantom of the Machine God also stopped rolling, its eerie light flickering as it weighed the pros and cons.

Silence lingered in the void for several breaths before the Dream Demon Ancestor, barely managing to muster his courage, snorted, "Giant Axe, you say you're the Mountain-Sitting Guest, then you're the Mountain-Sitting Guest. Who knows if you're just trying to shift the blame?"

The mechanical race's father god quickly echoed, "That's right, Giant Axe, you just think that our three races dare not confront the Mountain-Sitting Guest. With the strength of our three races, what do we have to fear from the Mountain-Sitting Guest?"

This sounds more like self-consolation.

The Zerg Queen, however, poured cold water on the idea, her tone calm to the point of indifference: "Since it wasn't done by humans, then this matter has nothing to do with the giant axe."

She didn't want to drag the Zerg into a fire pit for something uncertain, whether it was going to war with humans or becoming enemies with the Mountain Lords.

She came here only thinking that if the Lord of the Northern Prison was really human, she could use this opportunity to suppress the arrogance of humans.

They forced humanity to hand over the Lord of the Northern Prison and execute him on the spot.

But humans have made it clear that this matter has nothing to do with them, they can't give an explanation, and their attitude is extremely tough. Continuing is just a waste of time.

Upon hearing this, the Dream Demon Ancestor fell silent instantly.

The Zerg are unwilling to get involved. With only the Demon Race and the Machine Race, they can barely compete with the current humans in terms of the number of the strongest. If a war breaks out, it will undoubtedly give the Zerg an advantage.

Seeing this, the Machine God cursed the Zerg as "cowards" in his heart, but he didn't dare to insist on starting a war.

After all, no one wants to gamble with the future of their community.

Seeing that their arrogance had vanished, the Giant Axe Founder curled his lips into a mocking smile: "What? Silent now? Weren't you quite the braggart just now? Now you're scared? Let me tell you, stop throwing mud at humanity, otherwise, even without the Mountain Dwellers, humanity isn't afraid of your three races joining forces!"

In the void, the strongest members of the three major races turned pale and then red, but they never dared to utter the words "declare war" again.

Finally, it was the Mechanical Father God who spoke first, his tone tinged with resentment: "We will remember this matter for now. But if we discover in the future that the Lord of the Northern Prison is connected to humans, we will not let this go!"

After he finished speaking, his black spherical phantom disappeared first.

Neither the Dream Demon Ancestor nor the Zerg Queen lingered any longer, each carrying complex thoughts as they withdrew their projections of will.

"Hahaha, you wanted to bully an honest person, now you know you messed with the wrong person, right?" The Giant Axe Creator laughed triumphantly.

……

In a remote corner of the universe, more than 90 billion light-years away from humanity, lies a completely dark realm.

There is no light here, no stars to be seen, only absolute silence and bone-chilling cold spreading everywhere. This is a typical void in the universe.

As the universe evolved, galaxies were born one after another, and a certain distance naturally existed between them; numerous galaxies converged and combined to form "star regions", and the distance between star regions was even more vast; as for star sectors, the distance between them was astonishing.

Between human territory and other territories lies a vast, dark, and desolate void.

In the universe, there exist voids with diameters of hundreds of millions or even billions of light-years, completely shrouded in darkness, so quiet that they send chills down your spine.

However, in this desolate and empty land, there suddenly stood exquisite courtyards and palaces.

In one of the courtyards, an imposing old man with a frosty face and piercing gaze looked down at the young man from the Yan God Clan before him. His voice was so cold it seemed to freeze the void: "Cao Benqi, you have truly disappointed me beyond measure! The illustrious reputation of the Lord of the Northern Prison has been completely ruined by you in a single day!"

The old man recalled what Cao Benqi had done while posing as the warden of the Northern Prison, and felt utterly ashamed and disgraced.

It is an immense disgrace that they could not even defeat a universally acknowledged weaker universe master, and were chased like stray dogs by several universe masters from the Northern Frontier Alliance, fleeing all over the universe.

You see, he had just passed on the identity of the Lord of the Northern Prison to Cao Benqi, and not long ago he had acted in this capacity himself, so he had developed a certain sense of identity as the Lord of the Northern Prison. Now, however, he had been made to lose face by his disciple Cao Benqi. He couldn't help but think to himself that he would be too embarrassed to take on any more disciples in the future and go out to make a living as the Lord of the Northern Prison.

"Teacher, your expectations of me are too high. I have only just broken through to become a Universe Venerable, and you immediately ask me to kill the Lord of the Universe..." Cao Benqi muttered softly, his tone full of grievance and resentment.

"Didn't I give you a chance? I even gave you ten spots as a top-tier universe overlord! If you feel you're not confident in killing a universe master, why don't you go after those top-tier universe overlords?" The Mountain Guest glared angrily and rebuked him sharply.

He meticulously disguised himself as the Lord of the Northern Prison, acting as he pleased, so that when his disciple's strength was still weak, he could help him avoid direct conflict with the Lord of the Universe. Even bullying a top-tier cosmic overlord would be more practical than recklessly challenging the Lord of the Universe.

After all, other universe lords might be too proud to bully the weak, but the Lord of the Northern Prison has no such concerns.

Moreover, Cao Benqi, having obtained the blood of the Beast God from humans, has reached the level of perfect genes. He possesses both the strongest secret techniques bestowed by the primordial universe and precious treasures bestowed upon him by himself. Yet, he cannot even defeat a Spirit Rhinoceros Lord. How could this not make the Mountain-Sitting Guest feel angry and puzzled?

Cao Benqi grew increasingly resentful. Though he dared not show it on his face, his heart was roaring with rage: "The treasures are indeed wonderful, but I have not yet been able to fully unleash their power! If those guys from the Northern Frontier Alliance knew that I was the disciple of the Mountain Hermit, how dare they chase me so recklessly? They would surely be scared out of their wits!"

Thinking of his disheveled state when he was being chased, Cao Benqi's anger burned fiercely. He felt wronged, believing that he had suffered hardships that he should not have to endure, but his teacher only knew how to blame him and did not understand his hardships at all.

The Mountain-Sitting Guest seemed to see through Cao Benqi's thoughts. His expression softened slightly, but a complex look appeared in his eyes. He said, "Cao Benqi, don't harbor any illusions. As my disciple, you should rely on your own strength to establish yourself in the universe, rather than constantly invoking my name. If you were truly capable, why would you be chased around by those petty villains?" The Mountain-Sitting Guest paused slightly, then continued, "Fine, I'll give you one more chance. From now on, focus on your cultivation. When you are strong enough, go and seek revenge against the Lord of the Spirit Rhinoceros. If you disappoint me again, you will no longer be my disciple!"

Having said that, the mountain hermit waved his long sleeves and turned to leave, leaving Cao Benqi standing there, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

“Teacher, if you were willing to support me, my Yan God Clan could stand firm in the universe even if it directly separated from the human race. How could we be in such a sorry state today? That damned Ling Xuan actually wanted to kill me.”

……

Time is flying by again.

After failing to challenge the Lord of the Spirit Rhinoceros last time, Cao Benqi suddenly fell silent and stopped making rash moves. It was unclear what he was accumulating.

Ling Xuan had no chance to cause trouble for the other party; it wouldn't be appropriate to deliberately pick a fight with someone who was in seclusion.

"Let's deal with this batch of fallen King-level Immortals first." Ling Xuan has been overseeing the Giant Axe Arena for tens of millions of epochs.

With its super-large clone, the Nine Netherworld Avatar, which is considered to defy the heavens, it has continued to expand over the long years. The Nine Netherworld Sea has now expanded to a maximum of twelve light-years.

The divine power is truly inexhaustible, completely inexhaustible.

For this reason, most of the powerful beings who have fallen in the human race are resurrected by him through time reversal. In this way, other universe lords in the human race can save their divine power and do not need to spend too much energy on such complicated matters.

Moreover, after Ling Xuan successfully broke through and advanced to become the Lord of the Universe, the genetic multiplier limitation that had always bound him disappeared without a trace, allowing him to cultivate the "Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Technique" again.

He has now cultivated the Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Technique to the 17th level.

The number of activated microparticles in the body reached as high as 18446834, and the gene multiplication rate reached 35125 times.

Even just the divine power contained within this being is enough to rank it among the top in the entire hierarchy of universe masters, only slightly inferior to super powerhouses like the Giant Axe Founder and the Chaos City Lord who stand at the pinnacle of the universe.

"Time reversal." Ling Xuan slightly raised his eyes and uttered four words softly.

Before he finished speaking, ripples suddenly appeared in the void within a radius of thousands of miles centered on Ling Xuan's location, and the flow of time began to reverse wildly—like an image being played in reverse, everything that had happened in this square was being replayed at an extremely fast speed.

The immortal figure who once worshipped him here flew in reverse, the respectful bowing gesture was reversed, and even their shouts of "Emperor Yan" became the reversed pronunciation of "Emperor Yan," making the entire area seem like an independent field where time had flowed backward.

Ling Xuan calmly gazed at the retraced timeline, his fingertips twitching slightly as he set the point of retracing the timeline to the period when this group of immortal kings had come to the Giant Axe Arena to pay homage to him.

"Return to your places." Ling Xuan spoke softly, and an invisible force instantly enveloped the fallen beings among the immortal kings who were worshipping him.

At the same time, the surrounding spacetime began to flow in reverse, like a compressed spring rebounding, quickly recovering towards the current spacetime node.

Those immortal kings enveloped in power did not dissipate with the reverberation of time and space. Instead, they were as if "stripped" out of the past and remained steadily in the current square.

During the spacetime reversal, the backlash from the origin of the universe quietly descended, and waves of invisible impacts swept towards the "stripped" immortal king.

But with just a thought, Ling Xuan's immense divine power enveloped them, absorbing all the backlash—his aura remained completely still, and he didn't even furrow his brow, as if this backlash, which would make ordinary universe masters wary, was nothing more than a gentle breeze.

A moment later, time and space returned to normal, and the scene in the square returned to the current era.

Those immortal kings who were pulled back from the past still maintained the posture they adopted when they paid homage tens of thousands of years ago.

They looked around blankly at the familiar yet unfamiliar giant axe arena, until they felt the familiar imperial aura emanating from Ling Xuan, which brought them back to their senses, their eyes filled with shock and gratitude.

"Greetings, Emperor Yan!" The group of immortal kings who had just been reborn from the time travel had not yet fully recovered from the disorientation of time travel. When they saw Ling Xuan stand up, they all bowed down.

Ling Xuan slowly raised his hand, his gaze sweeping over the bowing figures below, his tone calm and even: "Now that you have been resurrected, you may all step down."

There was no need for further appeasement, yet it carried an undeniable air of authority. "Yes!"

The kings dared not delay for a moment. After responding in unison, they quickly transformed into streams of light and orderly withdrew from the Ziyuan Star Palace.

Just as the palace had returned to quiet, Zhulong King—no, he had obtained numerous opportunities to inherit the legacy of the Beast Gods and a large amount of resources, and had now broken through to become a Universe Venerable, although he was still among the weakest, he was at least a Universe Venerable—suddenly teleported to his palace on Tianzhou Island.

"Teacher." Upon seeing this, Ling Xuan immediately stood up to greet him, his tone carrying a rare gentleness.

Although Zhulong was of average talent, he always treated him with sincerity, and he always remembered this kindness.

Venerable Zhulong rubbed his hands together, glanced around the hall, and said with a touch of emotion, "In the blink of an eye, you've been guarding this Giant Axe Arena for tens of millions of epochs. I still vividly remember how you looked when you were just a little guy at the cosmic level."

These words contained a touch of melancholy at the fleeting nature of time, as well as amazement at Ling Xuan's current achievements.

“Yes, time is becoming increasingly worthless.” Ling Xuan sighed softly, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the patterns on the jade table in the hall.

Tens of millions of epochs of time, which in my previous life was simply the legendary transformation of the sea into mulberry fields.

Venerable Zhulong waved his hand, then changed the subject, casually asking, "So when do you plan to break through to become the strongest in the universe?"

“No rush.” Ling Xuan shook his head, a hint of certainty flashing in his eyes. “I can trigger a breakthrough opportunity at any time, but I want to accumulate more foundation.”

"Well, you know more about cultivation than I do." The Candle Dragon King waved his hand. He wasn't there to inquire about when Ling Xuan broke through. As a Universe Venerable who rose to his position through resources and time, he wouldn't interfere with a genius like the Flame Emperor.

He paused, his eyes suddenly brightening. "Speaking of which, I came here today to discuss something with you—I recently discovered a promising talent, and I originally wanted to take him on as my disciple, but there are too many Cosmic Venerables eyeing that child, and I don't have much of an advantage. So I came to ask you if you have any plans to take him on as a disciple?"

"A promising talent?" Ling Xuan's gaze sharpened instantly.

My ancestor's talent for cultivation isn't that great, but his judgment seems pretty good.

The long years did not make him stronger, but his eye for finding powerful backers improved more and more.

Seeing his interest, Venerable Zhulong opened the virtual projection and introduced, "This child is called Meng Yan. He is the first place winner of this year's Giant Axe Arena Genius Battle. Just like you back then, he has conquered the cosmic-level Primordial Tongtian Mountain. Now, the entire human race is saying that he is a super genius who is only seen once in tens of millions of epochs. Look at his fighting style, it is fierce yet delicate, and his control over the laws of fire is far superior to others of the same level..."

(End of this chapter)