Cultivation: From Poor Peasant to Celestial Lord

Chapter 331: Chapter 169: Mountain God’s Divine Protection, Breakthrough to Foundation Establishment

The layer of Protective Divine Light—built from the Spiritual Power of over two thousand cultivators and coordinated by the Micro Level Guiyuan Technique—was frustratingly tough.

As the Iron Mace struck, the barrier of light merely dented before instantly snapping back into place, driven by the circulation of the Five Elements. It didn’t leave so much as a crack.

In the sky, the Prison-Suppressing Evil Flood Dragon was growing even more frantic.

It relentlessly spewed its Corrosive Dragon Breath, even risking a close-quarters assault to tear at the barrier with its teeth.

But its Dragon Breath, which could normally corrode solid rock with ease, was like water hitting boiling oil when it met the self-regenerating Five Elements Shield. It accomplished nothing more than kicking up a great plume of white smoke, failing completely to reach the physical form within.

As for the Beastkeeping Commissioner, its insidious Bone Serpents couldn’t find a single opening, forced to slither uselessly across the surface of the Divine Light.

”This damn shell... it’s too tough!”

A sense of absurdity washed over the three Foundation Establishment Divine Spirits. They clearly possessed an overwhelming advantage in cultivation level, yet facing this lifeless hulk that could only take hits and run, they felt a frustrating powerlessness, like a predator with no way to sink its teeth into its prey.

Seeing this from within the Underground Palace, the cultivators, who had been holding their breath, finally began to relax.

”Haha! They can be as powerful as they want, but they still can’t break through Daoist Chu’s defense!”

”If we just keep running, we’ll be saved as long as we can hold out until the Secret Realm fully merges with the Great Zhou!”

However, Chu Bai, at the center of it all, had a face so dark it looked like a storm was about to break.

Only he knew just how fragile the situation truly was.

’It’s no use...’

Chu Bai directed the Divine Body to smash through a small mountain blocking their path, his eyes glued to the pursuers behind them.

’The Divine Body is tough, but it has no real offensive capabilities. I can use my Divine Thought to make it punch and kick, but to Divine Spirits who are masters of Law Incarnations, these purely physical attacks are as slow as a snail and as soft as cotton.’

A moment ago, during their flight, he had tried to have the Mountain God turn and throw a punch at the Wandering God.

The Wandering God had simply turned ethereal, allowing the punch, which carried colossal force, to pass right through it. The massive inertia had nearly thrown Chu Bai himself off balance.

’Without an attack empowered by a Decree, it’s impossible to lock onto a Divine Spirit’s Origin.’

’We can only take hits, not fight back... It’s a vicious cycle.’

Chu Bai’s anxiety grew. To sustain this massive energy drain, he had no choice but to push the Guiyuan Technique to its absolute limit.

’Absorb! Absorb it all!’

With the Micro Level Cultivation Technique running at full throttle, the pores on the Divine Body’s surface seemed to transform into countless miniature black holes.

It wasn’t just the Spiritual Power of the two thousand cultivators in the Underground Palace. Even the chaotic Spiritual Mechanism escaping from the crumbling world outside and the ancient Evil Qi lingering in the Earth Veins were voraciously devoured by the behemoth.

The Five Elements Circulation spun faster and faster, so fast that Chu Bai’s own meridians began to burn.

The ambient Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism was incredibly impure. If an ordinary cultivator were to absorb it, they would likely suffer from immediate cultivation deviation.

But Chu Bai possessed a foundation of Five Elements Perfection. Combined with the fact that the Divine Body itself acted as a massive filter, the Spiritual Mechanism was rapidly purified and converted.

The Divine Body’s Protective Golden Light grew increasingly brilliant, even beginning to take on a faint, crystalline texture.

However, amidst this extreme tug-of-war between flight and defense—

a strange tremor suddenly emanated from the depths of Chu Bai’s Dantian.

The tremor wasn’t from an external attack; it originated from his own cultivation.

As a massive, refined torrent of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism, filtered by the Divine Body, poured into him, Chu Bai’s cultivation bottleneck—long stable at Qi Cultivation Perfection—suddenly loosened under the immense pressure, completely without warning!

A terrifyingly immense torrent of heat instantly shattered his Spiritual Power circulation and shot straight toward his Skull Cap.

’This is bad...’

Chu Bai’s expression changed drastically, his pupils constricting violently.

Under normal circumstances, breaking through mid-battle would be a heaven-sent opportunity.

But now of all times?

He was piloting a Divine Body that wasn’t his own! He was being hunted by three Foundation Establishment Divine Spirits!

At this critical, life-or-death moment, his body had absorbed so much High-tier Energy that it was instinctively trying to... break through!

’Not now...’

Chu Bai roared internally.

Once the breakthrough to Foundation Establishment begins, a cultivator must enter seclusion to meditate, focusing completely on constructing their Dao Foundation without any distractions.

If he were to fall into the vulnerable state of a breakthrough now, losing his Micro Level control over the Guiyuan Technique, the thousand-foot-tall Divine Body sustained by his Divine Thought would instantly collapse!

When that happened, not only would he die from cultivation deviation, but the more than two thousand people in the Underground Palace would be instantly exposed to the three Divine Spirits, who were already in a murderous frenzy!

But the path of the Celestial Dao was to follow the momentum of nature.

Now that the opportunity to break through had arrived, it was like a bursting dam—how could he possibly suppress it?

Chu Bai felt the Spiritual Power in his body begin to boil. Under the intense pressure, his normally gaseous Magical Power started to condense into a liquid. A deep, instinctual longing for this fundamental evolution of his being made it nearly impossible for him to concentrate on controlling the Divine Body’s movements.

”Since things have come to this, I have no choice but to go with the flow!”