Cultivation: From Poor Peasant to Celestial Lord

Chapter 325: Chapter 169: Mountain God Body Protection, Foundation Establishment Breakthrough

”RISE—!!!”

As Chu Bai let out a furious roar, a five-colored Spiritual Light surged from the White Jade Altar at the center of the Underground Palace, pouring into the long-vacant White Jade Throne like a waterfall of stars flowing in reverse.

At that moment, the combined Spiritual Power of over a thousand Qi Cultivation Perfect Cultivators, supplemented by the Earth Treasure, the Profound Yellow Earth Essence, finally triggered a fundamental transformation deep within the dying Earth Vein.

Outside, the very heavens and earth began to churn.

The ground at the foot of Lingma Mountain, which had been collapsing, suddenly ceased its grinding tremors. In their place, a deeper, more immense pulse began to throb.

It was as if an ancient heart, dormant for millennia, had been violently injected with scalding blood and forced to beat once more.

THUMP!

The muffled sound, like the very heartbeat of the world, detonated in the depths of every person’s soul.

Then, under the feverish gazes of Xia Xing and the others, and to the utter shock of the three Deities outside, countless dark gold boulders, each weighing thousands of tons, lifted themselves from the ruins.

They collided violently in mid-air, locking together with perfect precision. Bathed in a blinding, heavy, ochre-colored Divine Light, they formed a magnificent body at the very edge of the chaotic void—a vessel mighty enough to prop up the heavens.

It was a rock giant, a hundred zhang tall.

It wore a jagged stone crown and bore the magnificent Taiyue on its back. Its eyes, formed from two massive Golden Essence Crystal Stones, blazed with roaring Spiritual Fire.

Ancient, cloud-like runes were etched into every inch of its skin. They were the Celestial Dao Brands left from its investiture as an Imperial Decree True God by the Cyan Earth, and they radiated an inviolable majesty.

This was one of the True Gods of this world—the Lingma Mountain God.

The moment the giant rose to its full height, the chaotic void that had been collapsing inward and devouring everything was forcibly held back by the dense Gravity Field emanating from its body.

A safe zone, three li in radius, solidified like iron at its feet, becoming what seemed to be the only sanctuary in this shattered world.

Inside the Underground Palace, the cultivators watching this unfold on the light screen erupted in thunderous cheers.

”We survived! We’re alive!”

”This is Divine Power! This is the power we created together!”

”Hahahaha! That pathetic Wandering God? In front of this hundred-zhang Dharma Body, he’s nothing more than a midget!”

The cultivators stared at the giant’s-eye view projected on the screen. They watched the Ancient Gods—beings who were normally unassailable, who treated mortals as nothing more than dust—now forced to look up at them. An unprecedented and nearly delirious sense of false security filled every heart.

They naively believed they had mastered a God. They thought that through sheer numbers, they had actually overcome the unbridgeable chasm between Realms.

But Chu Bai, at the very heart of the operation, felt no joy whatsoever.

His face was ashen, and thick beads of sweat rolled down his skin.

The moment his Divine Thought took control of the colossal shell, a bone-chilling cold shot through him, transmitted along its nerves of rock.

Weight.

An unimaginable, crushing weight.

If controlling his own body was like waving a feather, then piloting this Divine Body was like an ant trying to move a mountain.

The slightest curl of a finger or twitch of a muscle consumed vast amounts of Spiritual Power and Divine Thought.

Though the Spiritual Power from the thousand cultivators was immense, it was a chaotic and undisciplined torrent. Every time it circulated through the Divine Body’s meridians, it felt like a dull knife carving away at Chu Bai’s very soul.

Worse, when he looked out through the giant’s eyes, he didn’t see fear. He saw... absolute greed and incandescent rage.

A chill flooded Chu Bai’s heart.

He knew with perfect clarity that while he possessed a shell at the Foundation Establishment Level, he had none of the techniques required to wield it.

Even if this group of Qi Cultivation Cultivators poured every last drop of their Spiritual Power into it, they could never execute a true Foundation Establishment Profound Technique.

At best, this hundred-zhang Divine Body was a giant meat shield with incredible defense. It could take a punch, but it couldn’t throw one back.

Sure enough, the situation outside took a bizarre turn.

The Night Patrol God’s three-zhang-tall black iron frame did indeed look like a child’s before the hundred-zhang giant.

But the red light in its pitch-black, double-layered pupils, which had been focused on the ”examinees,” suddenly flared to a terrifying intensity, radiating a destructive urge now aimed at a peer.

”PURGE... THE... GREAT... MENACE...”

A grinding, metallic roar rumbled from the Wandering God’s throat.

In its logic, this behemoth—which had not truly been revived but had instead usurped a divine throne—was a far greater transgression than the Evil Demons skittering about.

It ignored the small stone gate of the Underground Palace and slowly turned, aiming its Black Iron Mace—an weapon that radiated an aura of deathly stillness—squarely at the newly-steadied Lingma Mountain God.

Meanwhile, in the eastern sky, the Prison-Suppressing Evil Flood Dragon, freshly escaped and covered in wounds, let out a deafening roar.

”ROAR—!!!”

The draconic roar was filled with explosive rage.

In the dragon’s perception, this Mountain God that had just burst from the earth had drained every last trace of Earth Vein Spiritual Energy from the surrounding hundred-li radius.

That was the energy it needed to heal its wounds, the very resource it planned to use for one last gamble before this world’s destruction. Now, this puppet had snatched it away and devoured it completely!

The fury of having its meal stolen instantly overrode any apprehension it felt toward a peer of similar scale.

As for the most sinister of the three, the Beastkeeping Commissioner, it hovered in mid-air. Its Bone Whip dangled loosely as its cold, slitted pupils stared intently at the five-colored Spiritual Light seeping from the giant’s joints.

It wasn’t seeing rock. It was seeing the surging, succulent lifeblood of a thousand cultivators roiling within.