Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

The towering flower at the Middle Stage of the dao Seed Realm wasn’t strong enough to pose any real threat, but it had become strong enough to resist his control to some extent. Making manipulation of it using the Dao of Corruption difficult. Killing it wasn’t really an option either, as it had already merged with the corrupted terrain that covered a large section of the mountain range by now.

Not that it was impossible, just that it would give the guardian demon beast an opportunity to recover its strength, and he wasn’t too worried about a single tentacle flower at the Middel Stage of the Dao Seed Realm. Even if it broke through to the Late or Peak Stage of the Dao Seed Realm, it would at most free itself from the control it was under and turn into a spectator.

In the off chance that it somehow managed to reach the Celestial Immortal Realm, it still wouldn’t pose any real threat considering his strength at the Sea Formation Realm and the fact that his comprehension of the Dao of Corruption would make most of its attacks less effective.

Because of all this, Xuan Hao continued to relentlessly attack the guardian demon beast without the slightest bit of worry. Focusing his full attention on killing the guardian demon beast as fast as possible to clear the celestial trial.

Sssss~~!

RUMBLE-!

However, different from Xuan Hao, who didn’t care about the growing corruption below, the guardian demon beast was clearly starting to put in effort in trying to destroy the corruption growing below. Using its profound control over the Dao of Earth to shake the vast mountain range and in turn force countless towering mountains to topple over and crash down on the recently emerged corrupted terrain. Destroying almost every corrupted piece of land except a small area around the towering tentacle flower that had barely been able to defend itself by forcibly losing more than half of its tentacles to protect itself from being crushed by a mountain that had crashed down on top of it.

The reason for such destructive power was not just because it was difficult to survive having a mountain collapse on top of oneself, but more so because the guardian demon beast had also infused a vast amount of earth qi into the collapsing mountains to ensure that they carried enough power to deal with the corrupted terrain.

The clear goal behind this being to deal with the annoying corrupted plants constantly attacking from below before focusing its full attention on dealing with Xuan Hao before the corrupted land and plants could recover.

But… Doing this also came with significant risks, as Xuan Hao didn’t plan on wasting the opportunity to strike while the guardian demon beast was distracted dealing with the corrupted terrain and foliage below-

Swish!

Ptsh-!

Using the opportunity to land a significant blow on the guardian demon beast by cutting straight into its large head before allowing the Dao of Corruption stored inside the attack to erupt with a terrifying corrosive power that forced the guardian demon beast to cut off its own head to prevent the corruption from spreading to the rest of its body.

Bang!

”Finally, it should be about to run out of strength…” Muttering this to himself as he watched the head of the guardian crashing into the ground below before turning into a brand-new patch of corrupted terrain, Xuan Hao’s attention focused on the new head of the guardian demon beast.

Although he had felt the guardian’s recovery speed slowing down, indicating that the vitality was starting to run low, it was only now that he had forced the head to be cut for the twentieth time, that he clearly sensed how weak the soul of the guardian demon beast had become.

Then again, he had forced it to cut its own head twenty times and recover it to avoid any weakness he could take advantage of in the battle, it was understandable that the soul would suffer some kind of damage after this kind of consistent damage and recovery of the physical body.

The guardian demon beast might have reached some kind of special transitional realm between the Sea Formation Realm and the Land Creation Realm, but it wasn’t immune to damage and the consistent damage it had suffered seemed to finally reach the breaking point-

SSssssssss~!

And along with an almost desperate cry, Xuan Hao watched as the guardian demon beast gave up on continuing to cut off the parts of its body being corrupted by the Dao of Corruption. Instead, focusing its full strength on a final all-out attack.

RUUUUUUUMBLE-!

Along with that, the entire mountain range that covered every corner of the trial space began shaking violently before the entire mountain range uprooted itself before and floated over behind the guardian demon beast. Forming a towering floating mountain range that gave off a soul shaking pressure that forced Xuan Hao to freeze on the spot.

Feeling this pressure, Xuan Hao understood, whatever kind of attack this was, it had undoubtedly surpassed the Sea Formation Realm and fully stepped into the Land Creation Realm, a level of attack which seemed to carry with it an indescribable might that made him feel helpless.

To be honest, he had expected this to some extent when he had realized just how strong the guardian demon beast was upon first seeing it.

The problem was, he didn’t have any real way to deal with this kind of attack with his current cultivation realm. All he could do was hope that he would be able to find some kind of way to survive the attack without having to flee with the teleportation talisman when it appeared.

”…”

However, as he looked around at the flat terrain that had returned to the same uninspiring state as when he had first arrived, he couldn’t really find any way to escape his current predicament…

If I had the Dao of Space, I would at least have been able to put up some kind of resistance or dodge out of the way before the attack even reached me…

Thinking this to himself as he felt that the attack didn’t impose any kind of serious spatial restrictions, Xuan Hao could not help lamenting over how he had unknowingly increased the difficulty of the celestial trial and rendered his greatest asset useless in the process.

Losing would be fine, but… Losing in this kind of way made him feel rather reluctant. Especially so because he could clearly see a way out but had ended up personally sealing this escape path.

RUUUUMBLE~!

Watching as the towering mountain range rolled wildly behind the guardian demon beast who already had half of its body covered in corruption, Xuan Hao was just about to pull out the random teleportation talisman to escape before the attack could land on him when he noticed something odd amidst the towering mountains.

Amidst the towering mountains covered in a pure bright yellow earth qi, a barely visible flower was writhing wildly as it absorbed the vast quantity of earth qi, rapidly turning the mountains around itself into a dark purplish color before countless small plants and foliage of similar shapes began sprouting.

The vast quantity of earth qi and the mountain range that had been concentrated into a far smaller area to increase its strength for the upcoming attack seemed to serve as the perfect soil for the tentacle flower to grow.

Middle Stage Dao Seed Realm… Late Stage… Peak Stage… Early Stage Celestial Immortal Realm…

The strength of the tentacle flower rapidly increased as it devoured the vast quantity of earth qi intended for the Land Creation Realm attack. Reaching the Middle Stage of the Celestial Immortal Realm by the time that the guardian demon beast realized what was happening.

Ssssss!?

Unfortunately, it was too late at that point in time, as the tentacle flower had already devoured a large portion of the guardian demon beast’s cultivation base by the time it realized what had happened.

As for why it didn’t realize what was happening earlier… It most likely had to do with the corruption that had already overtaken most of its body impacting its thinking ability.

If not, it should have already destroyed the tentacle flower the moment it had gathered the mountain range for an attack.

BANG-!

But it was far too late now, as the tentacle flower wasted no time in latching onto the already dying guardian demon beast before sucking it dry. Forcibly elevating its cultivation all the way to the Peak of the Celestial Immortal Realm by the time the guardian of the trial was fully devoured and landed on the ground like shriveled up corpse.

Instead of corruption, this plant seems more like it wants to follow the Dao of Devouring…

Smiling somewhat wryly to himself as he put away the random teleportation talisman, he couldn’t really decide if he should be grateful for the help or get ready for another battle-

Whoosh~!

Luckily, he didn’t have to do anything, as a familiar spatial power soon descended from above before transporting him out of the trial space before the tentacle flower had the chance to attack him…