I am submissive in Journey to the West, I strike hard at the gods

He kept walking and gradually disappeared into the crowd.

Only a very faint, almost inaudible sigh remained, drifting on the wind into the myriad lights of Chang'an.

Deep within the hidden realm, a lotus platform, woven from fragments of a chaotic blue lotus and the roots of a twelfth-grade lotus of creation, floats silently. On the lotus platform, Jiang Wang sits cross-legged, with three hundred and sixty fine purple-gold runes, as thin as hair, slowly flowing around him, as if breathing with the void.

He closed his eyes and remained silent, motionless for a full century.

A century ago, he used his own Dao as a foundation to completely reshape the entire Hidden Realm.

The once hidden realm was merely a small world, but now it has expanded to be comparable to the peak of the middle world. Within it, the sun and moon revolve, yin and yang intertwine, the five elements are reversed, and the four seasons flow backward. Furthermore, nine chaotic energy veins descend from the depths of the void, like nine ancient ancestral dragons coiled up, suppressing destiny.

This world has already begun to take shape, like a vast universe.

Only in the void directly above the lotus platform, a silver-gray cocoon of light hangs suspended. Lightning patterns flash on the surface of the cocoon from time to time, as if countless laws of heaven are born and annihilated within it.

That was the system upgrading, and it was the only thing Jiang Wang had been waiting for in the past hundred years.

He opened his eyes, a faint hint of annoyance flashing deep within them.

"The Twelve Heavenly Gods and Demons Formation... The inheritance given by Houtu is indeed not easy to digest."

After a century of arduous cultivation, he barely managed to grasp the threshold of this supreme formation of the Witch Clan.

Of the 129,600 main meridians in the array diagram, he can only deduce less than 3,000 at present; the rest are like looking at flowers through a fog.

It's not that he lacks talent, but that he relies too much on the system.

For tens of thousands of years, cultivation methods, supernatural powers, alchemy, and weapon crafting were all directly imparted through the system. Now, suddenly required to comprehend the Dao on one's own, one discovers that even the most basic "self-deduction" is lacking.

Everything was done with some stumbles and setbacks.

Jiang Wang sighed softly, raised his hand, and forty-eight golden cracks appeared in the void. From each crack emerged a "Three Pure Ones Avatar," each a combination of the appearances of Yuqing, Shangqing, and Taiqing, with a purple mark between their brows, exactly like him.

"Go."

He only said two words.

The forty-eight avatars bowed in unison, then transformed into forty-eight streams of light, scattering into various parts of the hidden realm. Some disappeared into the projection of Mount Buzhou, some sank into the reflection of the sea of ​​blood, and some stood amidst the fierce winds of the Nine Heavens. They all sat cross-legged and began to comprehend the true explanation of the Twelve Capital Heavenly Gods and Demons Great Array, which was personally written by Houtu.

Every ten years, he would withdraw his clone, merge the forty-eight insights into one, and then release it again.

This cycle continued, with each decade marking a new step, and ten fusions occurring over a century. His understanding of the grand formation finally progressed beyond the superficial.

The two characters gradually climbed to "minor success".

The edge.

This day marks the tenth anniversary.

In the deepest part of the hidden realm, the twelve towering chaotic stone pillars suddenly trembled, and a phantom of an ancestral witch appeared on each pillar: Dijiang without face, Jumang with green wood, Zhurong with fire mane, Gonggong with water patterns... all the way to Xuanming Yinshuo on the twelfth pillar.

The twelve phantoms simultaneously let out an extremely deep roar, which shook the entire hidden realm slightly.

Jiang Wang suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils gleaming with intense purple light.

"It's done... At least, I've completely mastered 70% of the formation method."

With a thought, forty-eight avatars simultaneously transformed into light and returned, layer upon layer merging into his brow.

In an instant, countless obscure, profound, and blood-stained array nodes, veins, killing intent, and even the primordial aura of the Ancestral Witches surged into his sea of ​​consciousness.

A faint smile finally appeared on Jiang Wang's lips.

“Hongjun…the day the human realm is unsealed will be the day your destiny as Dao Ancestor comes to an end.”

At the same moment, three thousand feet of void outside Zixiao Palace.

Hongjun sat cross-legged in the Chaos, his hair and beard all white, but his face was strangely ruddy.

He formed a hand seal, and a purple-gold Heavenly Dao mark between his eyebrows spun wildly. With each rotation, a massive amount of Heavenly Dao essence was forcibly extracted, transforming into streams of pure blue light that all flowed into the nine-story pagoda in his sleeve.

Each level of the pagoda was filled with elixirs, and the fragrance of the elixirs was so strong that it could be smelled from hundreds of millions of miles away.

"Only three more batches left..."

His voice was hoarse, yet filled with barely concealed excitement.

The Heavenly Court, inside the South Heavenly Gate.

The Nine Star Lords stood side by side, their eyes fixed intently on the endless training grounds below.

On the training ground, a full 100 million heavenly soldiers and generals knelt in a dense, dark mass. Each of them was clad in star armor and held a star spear. Their auras were connected, and they vaguely resembled the prototype of the Zhou Tian Star Array.

What's even more terrifying is that these celestial soldiers are born from the Mother-Child River almost every three days. Within a hundred days of landing, they can cultivate to the peak of the Celestial Immortal realm. With another hundred years of arduous cultivation, becoming a Taiyi Golden Immortal is not out of the question.

Even more exceptionally talented individuals are already challenging for the top spot.

"Even the Great Luo is no better than a dog, and the Taiyi is everywhere..."

Venus stood at the highest point of the Southern Heavenly Gate, stroking his long beard, his voice trembling, "If Your Majesty were given another three thousand years, I fear there would be no rival in the Three Realms."

The Jade Emperor stood atop the Nine Heavens Palace, his dragon robe fluttering in the wind, and deep within his eyes lay an undisguised ambition.

"Three thousand years? That's too long."

He said softly, "I only need five hundred years."

Human race, Fire Cloud Cave.

The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors gathered together, and red clouds rolled outside the cave, but the cave was deathly silent.

Fuxi held the Hetu and Luoshu in his hands until his knuckles turned white.

"It's too late...it's really too late."

Shennong's medicine basket, which he used to taste hundreds of herbs, fell to the ground, shattering all the herbs, but he was completely unaware.

The Yellow Emperor drew the Xuanyuan Sword and slowly inserted it back into its sheath. The friction between the sheath and the sword produced a piercing sound.

"The heavenly army has exceeded one hundred million, and each of them is proficient in the celestial constellations... Our human race's million elite soldiers are not even enough to fill a tooth gap."

Zhuanxu's voice was deep: "If there is no way to break the formation, the human race... is in grave danger."

Fuxi suddenly looked up, his gaze piercing through the Fire Cloud Cave and looking straight towards the far north.

"There might be a way to break the formation."

"Kunpeng."

The Buzhou Mountain ruins have been exposed to wind and snow for 300 million years.

Houtu, dressed in a crimson palace gown, arrived through the snow, her bare feet treading on the frozen, cracked earth. With each step, a pale blue red spider lily silently bloomed, only to instantly freeze into ice crystals.

She stood before the former Pangu Palace, raised her hand, and a drop of her essence blood flew out, landing on the bronze giant door that had been silent for three hundred million years.

boom!
The giant gate slowly opened, revealing endless darkness within and... a still-beating heart of Pangu.

Beneath the heart, twelve blood pools form a circle, one of which has long since dried up; that was the place where Houtu was reincarnated in the past.

In the remaining eleven blood pools, eleven enormous blood cocoons were slowly writhing, with ancestral witch patterns faintly visible on their surfaces.

Houtu's eyes reddened slightly, and countless rare and precious materials flew out from her sleeves, all of which were thrown into the blood pool.

"Brothers... your little sister has come to pick you up."

The blood pool at the very center exploded first, and a colossal giant emerged from the waves, the surrounding space shattering and then instantly healing.

His first words upon opening his eyes were:

"Little sister, you're 300 million years too late."

Houtu finally shed tears.

Meanwhile, deep within the Northern Continent, lies the Jade Purity Heaven, shrouded in eternal night.

Cheng Tang, dressed in white with the Shang Emperor's seal hanging at his waist, followed by Lu Ya and three secret envoys from Huoyun Cave, stepped into this forbidden land that no human had ever set foot in before.

The palace doors opened by themselves without any wind.

Kunpeng sat cross-legged on the ten-thousand-year-old jade throne, his Taoist robe had long since faded to gray, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

"Human brat, what business do you have with your ancestor?" Cheng Tang bowed deeply, his voice not loud, but clearly carried to every corner of Yuqing Heaven.

"Borrowing the Hetu and Luoshu, we can break through the celestial constellations, save the fate of the demon race, and also save the human race from extinction."

After the war, the human race is willing to offer up the entire territory of Beiju Luzhou, and will never go back on their word.

The hall was deathly silent for three breaths.

Kunpeng suddenly looked up and laughed loudly, his laughter shattering the ancient ice and frost.

"Good! Good! Good!"

He stood up, his robes billowing, and behind him, a colossal Kun that blotted out the sky and covered the sun faintly appeared.

"Northern Continent? What use is that wretched place to the Ancestor! The Ancestor only wants... blood for blood from the Heavenly Court!"

He raised his hand, and the Hetu and Luoshu transformed into two streams of light that fell into Cheng Tang's hands.

"Go ahead.

If humanity is defeated, the demon race will have nowhere to hide.

Cheng Tang accepted it with both hands and bowed deeply.

"Humanity...will never forget the kindness shown to us by the demon race today."

Three days later.

Outside the Fire Cloud Cave, the Red Cloud Cave opens.

Cheng Tang, along with Kunpeng, Kong Xuan, Jiuying, Bai Ze and other remaining powerful demons, led 30 million demon soldiers and carried the Hetu Luoshu to the ancestral land of the human race.

The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors emerged from the Fire Cloud Cave and bowed from afar.

Fuxi's voice trembled, yet it shone with an unprecedented brilliance:
"The Zhou Tian Star Formation... is no longer an unsolvable problem."

Above the human race, hundreds of millions of people shouted in unison, their voices shaking the heavens.

Within the hidden realm, Jiang Wang slowly stood up.

He looked towards the human realm, the purple light in his eyes completely transforming into a deep, dark abyss.

"The excitement is about to begin."

He raised his hand and the twelve chaotic stone pillars shattered with a crash, transforming into twelve illusory figures of ancestral witches that surrounded him.

"Hongjun."

Jiang Wang spoke softly, yet his voice pierced through the endless void and reached the Purple Cloud Palace.

"Your era has come to an end."

Jiang Wang sat cross-legged under the Enlightenment Tea Tree, the shadows of the tree swaying, dappled light falling on his shoulders like countless fragments of time gently caressing him.

The flow rate in the hidden realm is vastly different from that in the human realm. While only half a year has passed in the outside world, nine millennia have quietly slipped by here.

Over the course of nine thousand years, he created forty-eight images of the Three Pure Ones, each sharing the same mind and consciousness as him, with identical features and connected auras. All forty-eight pairs of eyes were simultaneously fixed on the afterimage of the Twelve Capital Heavenly Gods and Demons Formation slowly rotating in the void.

The afterimage was so magnificent it was almost cruel. The twelve dark Dutian Banners fluttered wildly. On the banners, Dijiang's chaotic space was tearing apart, while Jumang's green wood energy was growing wildly in the cracks. Life and death, opening and closing, destruction and rebirth intertwined in the same instant to form a heart-palpitating harmony.

Jiang Wang knew that as long as these twelve exclusive laws of the Ancestral Witches were truly perfected, he could summon the phantom of Pangu's true form, split the heavens with a single axe, and even saints would have to retreat.

During the great war between the Lich King and the Demon King, the goddess Nuwa held her sword but did not draw it, ultimately because she was wary of the power of that attack.

He once thought that with his forty-eight saintly avatars, he would be able to forcibly set up four simple Heavenly Divine Fiend Formations to block the wrath of the Heavenly Realm that was about to pour in.

But when he truly immersed his divine sense into the deepest part of the formation, he realized that he was terribly wrong.

"The Twelve Ancestral Witches... twelve kinds of Great Dao Laws, none of which can be missing."

Jiang Wang sighed softly, his voice echoing faintly in the empty, hidden realm.

What he has mastered most deeply now are only time and space.

The remaining ten—Jumang's wood, Zhurong's fire, Gonggong's water, Houtu's earth, Zhujiuyin's yin, Shebishi's metal—had less than one percent comprehension of each law, not even scratching the surface.

Even more critically, the eighth stage of the profound technique is almost within reach, and the ninth stage is also faintly visible. The massive amount of experience points to be invested in the physical body must be prioritized, otherwise the physical body will not be able to keep up with the divine sense, and there is a risk of the body exploding and dying.

The gaps in the laws required for setting up the formation can never be filled.

The forty-eight clones opened their eyes simultaneously, each reflecting the same bitter smile.

"It seems that the only way to prove the Dao is through force."

Jiang Wang raised his hand and gently brushed away a tender leaf that was about to fall from the Enlightenment Tea Tree.

The leaf lingered on his fingertip, frozen in mid-air, never to fall again—it was an extremely subtle application of the laws of time, yet it had already consumed thirty percent of his mental energy.

After sitting in meditation for nine thousand years, he was exhausted to the extreme, but the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter, like a sword about to be drawn from its sheath, its sharpness concealed, but its killing intent soaring to the sky.

Just then, from the depths of his consciousness, a clear and melodious system notification sounded, like the tolling of a bell that had been buried since the beginning of chaos.

"Ding—Host level has reached the current world's upper limit. System is proceeding with final form upgrade...Upgrade complete!"

Jiang Wang was slightly taken aback, then closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into the system interface.

The familiar pale golden light curtain unfolded, but this time it had five more deep, star-like tributaries than before.

The first tributary is called "Magic Treasure Exchange".

Acquired spiritual treasures start at 100,000 experience points, top-grade acquired spiritual treasures can reach millions, innate spiritual treasures start at tens of millions, supreme treasures are worth hundreds of millions, and primordial spiritual treasures are worth as much as 50 billion... Jiang Wang's heart skipped a beat. He had the Chaos Pearl, a supreme treasure of chaos, and if he was willing to exchange it, he could become as rich as a saint in a single day.

But he simply shook his head slightly; the Chaos Pearl was the foundation of his livelihood, and he would never touch it.

However, it later became a continuous source of experience for refining acquired spiritual treasures.

The second branch is called "experience loan".

One-time loan of 1 billion experience points, interest-free for three years, after which interest will be calculated at 0.05% per day.

Jiang Wang narrowed his eyes. Ten billion... that's enough for him to push the eighth and ninth transformations to perfection in one go.

The third path is the "Merit Practice Room".

Consuming the merits of the Great Dao allows one to enter a state of absolute enlightenment, where one day is equivalent to a thousand years.

Jiang Wang has accumulated profound merits, and this function is almost tailor-made for him.

The fourth challenge is "escaping from a desperate situation".

It costs 200 million experience points and has a cooldown of 1,000 years. It can forcefully escape into the chaotic void in any situation where death is certain, preserving a wisp of true spirit.

The fifth path is "rebirth".

Five hundred million experience points, a ten-thousand-year cooldown, can return to childhood with all memories.

Jiang Wang gazed at the five tributaries for a long time before finally letting out a soft breath.

"So, you've been waiting for me to take this step all along."

The system did not respond; instead, the light screen flickered slightly, and a new interface popped up—the Ultimate Lottery.

"Use one Ultimate Lottery chance?"

Jiang Wang didn't hesitate: "Draw."

The light screen spun wildly, with billions of streams of light being born and then disappearing within it, finally settling on a line of pale gold text.

"Congratulations, host, you have gained 2.563 million experience points!"

Jiang Wang lowered his eyes and silently calculated.

The original 5.637 million plus the newly acquired 2.563 million makes a total of 8.2 million.

The hidden benefit of the system upgrade—a permanent 30% increase in comprehension—significantly reduces the experience consumption of the Nine Revolutions Mystic Technique.

The eighth transformation originally required 100 million, but now only 70 million; the ninth transformation originally required 1 billion, but now only 700 million. (End of Chapter)