The First Venerable of All Paths

"Kid, I admit I miscalculated."

Suppressing his shock, Shuheng gritted his teeth and said, "But you don't really think this little barrier can trap me, do you?"

"I only need one strike to break through this thing!"

After saying that, the spiritual power within Shu Heng's body emanated and transformed into a huge giant rat behind him.

This giant rat was several meters tall, with sharp claws and fangs over ten inches long, making it look extremely extraordinary.

"Break it!"

With a sharp shout, the giant rat lunged forward, its sharp teeth snapping at the divine soul barrier in front of it.

"Snap!"

However, the moment the giant rat touched the soul barrier, it snapped in two as if it had touched steel.

"Awooo!"

The giant rat flew backward and crashed to the ground, letting out a painful howl.

"How is that possible?"

The rat's eyes widened in shock. "What is this thing? How can it be so hard?"

"Commander Shuheng, please enjoy yourselves. I'll gladly accept these two spiritual veins."

Looking at the furious Shuheng, Fang Xuan smiled calmly and focused his gaze on the two clumps of magma spirit in front of him.

"The Heavenly Eye opens, the spiritual veins are absorbed!"

Fang Xuan formed a hand seal, and the Desolate Calamity Heavenly Eye between his brows suddenly opened, releasing a gray beam of light that enveloped the small spiritual vein.

"Boom!"

As soon as the gray beam of light touched the spiritual vein, a powerful force of resistance erupted from it.

At the same time, the scorching and domineering power also transformed into flames and shot out, as if to force Fang Xuan back.

"Um?"

Fang Xuan's expression changed. He hadn't expected the fire spirit vein to resist so much, making it even more difficult to collect than he had imagined.

"What an idiot!"

Upon seeing this, the rat Heng within the divine soul barrier couldn't help but sneer.

"Kid, do you think this fire spirit vein is so easy to obtain? That's wishful thinking!"

Shu Heng sneered, "This fire spirit vein has long been heavily sealed by that lion king, connecting it to the entire underground magma. To collect this fire spirit vein, you either have to break these seals or collect the entire underground magma as well."

"But can you do it?"

Although the rat appeared carefree, it was actually very anxious inside.

The barrier before him was far beyond his imagination; if he didn't break it quickly, he feared he would be trapped here to die.

A glint flashed in Shuheng's eyes, and spiritual energy surged forth from his body, flowing into the giant rat.

"Bang bang bang!"

The giant rat's size increased dramatically, becoming more than twice its previous size.

Its forepaws became increasingly hard and sharp, comparable to those of a fourth-rank military soldier.

"Rats tear through the void, break through!"

With a loud shout, the giant rat suddenly swung its sharp claws and fiercely grabbed at the barrier.

"Clang! Clang!"

A deafening roar resounded, and the soul barrier shook violently, yet it remained incredibly strong and was not broken by the sharp claws.

"Damn it, what the hell is this piece of junk?"

Shu Heng immediately cursed, "Even a fourth-grade formation can be shattered by me in one strike, yet this barrier remains completely unharmed."

"Fang Xuan!"

Shu Heng took a deep breath and roared at Fang Xuan, "If you let me leave, I can help you collect the spiritual vein; otherwise, once the Alliance arrives, you will definitely not be able to leave here!"

"Commander Rat Heng should worry more about himself."

Fang Xuan turned his head and glanced at it, then smiled and said, "As for these two spiritual veins, I have my own way of dealing with them."

"What can you do?"

The rat roared angrily, "Do you think you can break the seal on the spiritual veins?"

Fang Xuan didn't speak, but silently closed his eyes and suddenly circulated his divine soul power.

The power of the third-grade divine soul surged forth like a tidal wave, engulfing the entire underground magma world.

Not only that, the Heavenly Eye of Desolation was also activated to its maximum, forming a huge vortex suspended in mid-air.

"open!"

Fang Xuan roared inwardly, and a violent suction force swept out from the desolate realm, engulfing the entire magma world along the traces of the spreading divine soul.

"Get in here!"

With a roar from Fang Xuan, the underground cavern began to shake.

Huge rocks kept falling, creating waves in the lava.

Immediately afterward, to Rat Heng's incredulous gaze, the entire magma world centered on the floating island beneath Fang Xuan's feet began to slowly move toward the gray vortex.

"impossible!"

Rat Heng's pupils contracted, and he screamed in disbelief, "How could you possibly shake the entire spiritual vein seal?"

However, Fang Xuan's entire focus was on collecting the magma world, so he had no time to pay attention to Shu Heng.

In his perception, the floating island beneath his feet was like a sealed foundation stone, containing extremely special crimson lines that were firmly connected to the two fire spirit veins.

Collecting spiritual veins individually is not impossible; all that's needed is to break the seal.

However, the blood-red lines in the floating island were laid down by the blood essence of that raging lion, and a trace of its faint will remains.

Forcibly taking it will inevitably damage the spiritual veins.

Therefore, Fang Xuan could only exert all his strength to collect the entire sealing foundation stone.

However, the spiritual energy and soul power consumed in this process are extremely large.

Just by shaking the entire sealing foundation, Fang Xuan's divine soul power was weakened by as much as 30%.

"Chaotic Holy Body, activate!"

Golden light swirled in Fang Xuan's eyes, and golden patterns appeared all over his body. At the same time, he summoned three thousand fragments of array diagrams to suppress the entire floating island.

With the pressure of collecting spiritual veins in the desolate realm greatly reduced, Fang Xuan quickly increased his speed, activated his divine soul, and fully enveloped the floating island.

"Boom!"

The cave shook more and more violently, and the entire magma world began to separate from the earth, shrinking continuously and merging into the spiritual veins.

The two spiritual veins burst into flames, releasing astonishingly hot energy, preparing for a final, desperate struggle.

But this was the moment Fang Xuan had been waiting for.

His hand seals shifted, the Desolate Realm Vortex opened completely, and at the same time he grasped the Undying Phoenix Fire and the Azure Lotus Karmic Fire with both hands, forcefully seizing the two spiritual veins.

"Get in!"

With a loud shout, Fang Xuan sent the two spiritual veins into the desolate realm.

Looking at the vanished magma world and fire veins, Shuheng was completely dumbfounded.

"He really did it!"

Shuheng swallowed hard and then began to attack the soul barrier frantically.

However, this soul barrier was personally set up by Li Guanlan, and no matter how many tricks Shu Heng used, he couldn't shake it in the slightest.

The giant rat he summoned was also shaken back by the power of the divine soul barrier, shattering directly and causing the rat to spit out a mouthful of blood.

Seeing the divine soul barrier shrinking continuously, completely cutting off his path to survival, a look of despair appeared in Shu Heng's eyes.

Li Guanlan, who was controlling the barrier with her mind, had her gaze fall on Fang Xuan, and her brows furrowed slightly.

Because she noticed that after Fang Xuan collected the spiritual vein, he suddenly stopped moving.

Moreover, his face frequently showed signs of pain, as if he was going through something.

Li Guanlan did not disturb him, but silently observed Fang Xuan's condition while suppressing Shu Heng.

She would immediately stop Fang Xuan if she sensed anything was wrong.

At the very least, Fang Xuan's life must be saved.

For Fang Xuan, bringing the spiritual veins into the desolate realm was only the first step.

How to resettle them has become a new problem.

He discovered that the spiritual veins that had been drawn into the desolate realm were beginning to wreak havoc on the entire realm.

Large amounts of lava poured down on the desolate land like a torrential downpour.

The barren mountain collapsed, and the main hall was damaged.

Along with the two spiritual veins, power also began to emanate outwards.

Sensing the changes in the desolate realm, Xiao Zhu and Fang Yutong also came out of their houses, looking in shock at the blazing sun in mid-air, from which scalding lava flowed continuously.

"Miss, it's Young Master Fang Xuan!"

Little Bamboo exclaimed, "What is he doing? Refining the Great Sun?"

Fang Yutong shook her head and said, "It's not the Great Sun, it seems to be a fire-attribute spiritual vein."

Xiao Zhu Zi followed Fang Yu Tong to the Dao Seeking Sect for several years, so her knowledge and experience were naturally higher than that of ordinary people.

"A fire-attribute spiritual vein?"

Little Bamboo asked in surprise, "Is Young Master Fang Xuan going to renovate this secret realm?"

She didn't know that this desolate realm came from the wilderness and was refined by Fang Xuan; it was not some kind of secret realm.

Fang Yutong thought so too.

"He seems to be in trouble."

Fang Yutong said with some worry, "But there's nothing I can do to help."

Xiao Zhuzi's heart tightened, and she clenched her little hands, looking nervously at Fang Xuan.

"This is bad, the power of the spiritual vein is dissipating."

Fang Xuan's eyes narrowed, and he quickly activated the array to firmly bind the power of the spiritual vein.

Otherwise, if the spiritual vein is allowed to continue to dissipate and disappear as spiritual energy, all his previous efforts will be in vain.

Fortunately, the Three Thousand Formation Diagrams were imperial weapons forged by the Great Emperor, possessing the power to suppress all heavens.

Although it's just a fragment, sealing two spiritual veins is naturally no problem.

"We can't let the three thousand array diagrams suppress things indefinitely; we must completely settle the spiritual veins."

With a thought, Fang Xuan carved out a massive pit, a thousand meters deep, at the edge of a certain desolate area.

Immediately afterwards, Fang Xuan did something that shocked Fang Yutong and the other person.

He held the spiritual vein in his arms and rushed into the deep pit.

"Boom!"

The desolate realm trembled violently, and a large amount of scorching heat surged out of the deep pit and spread in all directions.

Beneath the deep pit, Fang Xuan continuously manipulated the Three Thousand Array Diagrams to suppress the spiritual veins.

However, the resistance from the spiritual veins far exceeded his expectations; they were struggling frantically, trying to break free.

"Now that you're inside, do you think you can escape?"

Fang Xuan's expression turned cold, and a golden-red firebird and a blue lotus flower immediately appeared behind him.

Undying Phoenix Flame, Azure Lotus Karmic Flame!

"Since you refuse to submit, then I will refine you!"

Although this will damage the source of the spiritual vein, at least it will not cause too much of the spiritual vein's power to dissipate.

Just as Fang Xuan was preparing to refine the fire spirit vein, a flame demon core suddenly appeared from the void and plunged into the spirit vein.

That was the demon core of the Fiery Lion; it appeared on its own and actively suppressed the spiritual veins.

Faintly, Fang Xuan could also hear a low roar.

"Did I hear that right?"

Fang Xuan was somewhat puzzled.

To his surprise, the spiritual veins suddenly quieted down and stopped emitting power to the outside world. Moreover, the two spiritual veins miraculously merged together.

"Spiritual veins merging?"

Fang Xuan was delighted, as this would improve the quality of the spiritual vein.

The rolling lava flowed outwards again, forming a new world of lava.

If you look closely, you can also see a fiery demon core in the magma world, appearing and disappearing.

"Are you trying to use this opportunity to be resurrected?"

Fang Xuan understood immediately and coldly snorted, "If you stay here obediently and help me transform the desolate realm, I might give you that chance. But if you dare to cause trouble, I won't hesitate to destroy your last wisp of true spirit!"

As if sensing Fang Xuan's killing intent, the Flame Demon Core trembled slightly, and then a large amount of spiritual power surged out from the spiritual veins, rushing towards all directions of the Desolate Realm.

In mid-air of the desolate realm.

Spiritual clouds gather, and spiritual rain falls, nourishing the earth.

Countless tender shoots sprouted from the soil and grew strong.

For the first time, life appeared in this desolate world.

Sensing all of this, Fang Xuan nodded in satisfaction.

"You're smart to know what's good for you. I'll find you more fire-attribute spiritual veins in the future to help you evolve."