Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

He looked down towards his groin, and a thought emerged in his mind. That couldn’t be it, no? No way that could be it! How could that help?!

Yan Zaizen’s mind flashed through various indecent thoughts, looking towards Yri once more and suddenly, she was a lot more attractive than he originally thought. Her physique had long legs, a slim waist, a bountiful frontend, and a blessed backend. She was most definitely gorgeous and could parade herself as a peak beauty.

If Yan Zaizen had to describe it, then she was a beauty that could bring about the collapse of a nation. However, this beauty wasn’t a safe beauty. And...and...

Pinaka...right?

As he thought of that beautiful cyan figure that seemed to be perfection personified, he shook his head. No longer entertaining the idea, he decided to just leave. He may owe Yri for his achievements in cultivating this incredible art, but that didn’t mean he was willing to be an adulterer, wronging a woman who was trapped in literal Hell.

Yri noticed Yan Zaizen’s shifting of expressions and wandering mind. To her, she couldn’t be more than happy if Yan Zaizen was like this, but then he suddenly turned around and readied his heavenly might for propulsion. With haste, she reached out and called, "Wait!"

However, like earlier, Yan Zaizen directly ignored her and blasted off into a burst of white light.

"Damnit!" Yri roared, biting her lower lip before following along. This time, she didn’t attempt to follow at Yan Zaizen’s tail, appearing beside him. This caught Yan Zaizen by surprise, he was traveling utilizing the law of light. The law of light could be considered one of the fastest laws in the world, outside of the law of space.

To think that, by relying on the essence of time, she could keep up with his cultivation base. Yan Zaizen wasn’t even affected by the Dusk Zone’s unique disadvantages due to his comprehension of the Law of Heaven.

They traveled for several hours, but Yan Zaizen had no way to shake her. He was about to use spatial laws, going through the spatial void, but before he could, Yri shot in front of his path and held out both of her palms.

Immediately, Yan Zaizen’s eyes flashed with a cold light. His heavenly might abruptly switched from the laws of light into the myriad laws that constituted of a Death Star. Stopping, he held out his palm which contained a condensed, unexpanded Death Star.

Yri saw this and was shocked, she immediately held her hands up in a display of her lack of ill intent. That Death Star caused chills to emerge in her spine and heart.

"Wait! Let me explain!!" She urgently cried.

"Fine, explain."

Seeing Yan Zaizen’s willingness to talk, she couldn’t help but feel relieved. However, that Death Star still stayed solidly in his palm. She believed that if she made any move of any intent, Yan Zaizen had no trouble sending her into death.

"The Grand Soul, Dao Heart Art is miraculous, heaven-defying, and revolutionary! However, it is also incredibly restrictive on how to initiate it. You fit every pattern. When I received the details of your report billions of years ago, I was ecstatic at the prospect of cultivating it, but..."

"Stop." Yan Zaizen immediately interrupted, "how did you survive for billions of years?" This was a question that Yan Zaizen had an immense curiosity for. Earlier, she mentioned abandoning everything for the sake of cultivating.

Yri didn’t seem to find his question unsettling as she directly answered, "I abandoned my body, sent my soul into a state of temporal stasis, and hoped that I would remain until the time you entered my trial occurred. While my soul was in stasis, there was no degradation because of aging or experiences outside of complete darkness. It was like a few seconds to me, a dream if you will."

Yan Zaizen couldn’t help but be startled by her nonchalant. While it may seem simple, that had far, far too many variables. Firstly, the paradoxical implications one had to fight off. If you make a decision in the past because of a certainty into the future, your entire timeline could be different. Perhaps, her sealing herself up, would prevent various things in the future from happening and thus, the world would inevitably change. The rebound she’d experience, even though she was a celestial, would destroy her very soul.

It was this reason why very few people attempted to see into their own future. Otherwise, wouldn’t time cultivators be gods?!

Secondly, if she did seal her soul into stasis, she had no idea if she’d ever wake up. If someone stumbled upon her soul, they could easily take advantage of that! You’d need a hiding spot that would never be found. Not to even freaking mention, this hiding spot couldn’t be found in tens of billions of years!!!

Yan Zaizen’s first thought was how she’d absolutely destroy anyone paying the children’s game of hide-and-go-seek.

Anyhow, lastly, she needed a perpetual energy source to maintain that state of stasis for that many years. The level of energy was far too immense for Yan Zaizen to think about.

"After I awoke, I used my prepared cloned infant body and entered it. In the sixteen years you were in the trial, I was already cultivating until I reached my peak with my preparations." After saying this, she shrugged as if what she did wasn’t very much. This was likely why she had a body younger than her avatar in the temporal void, it was a cloned body.

"To abandon your time...for an art," Yan Zaizen couldn’t help but be inwardly startled by the level of determination to do so. His slumber had lasted three thousand years, and he’d missed so much. Tao’s wedding, Bai Lufeng’s growth, and likely his entire clan’s life...including his uncle and aunt’s.

If he had the ability to make that conscious decision, he would never do that. He could never do that. You’d be thrust into an entirely new world. For example, when Yan Zaizen asked her about the Thirty-Three heavens, she had absolutely no clue!

Now, she was in the Heavenly Origin Grounds which had an entrance to it! She was like a caveman out of time.

Yan Zaizen had questions about the past, but then he realized...only peak existences would even survive that. There had to be so many changes that happened to civilization, so many people who’ve lived and died, and so many aspects that were different. It was irrelevant and likely would confuse him. After all, there would be billions of years as a gap between her knowledge.

"Yes, yes, yes, and all I want is for you to take me!" Her eyes revealed an intense level of determination.

"You want what?!" Yan Zaizen already had an inkling, but to hear it so clearly was somewhat shocking.

"Take me! Take me! Sexually, I want you to use my body thoroughly, ravage me entirely!" Yri’s words were now sounding somewhat insane. Even though Yan Zaizen held the Death Star, her body shuffled slowly towards him.

"..."

"If you’re worried about purity, this body is fresh and has never touched a man! I’m a virgin in soul as well, so you don’t need to worry about being my first!" Her eyes started to flash more with obsession. It was as if she had to convince Yan Zaizen to take her into his bed at all cost!

"..."

Yri continued by explaining, "Your soul contains the Dao Essence I need...if I had that, I could duplicate the art. I said it before, the Grand Soul, Dao Heart had many different foundations, and one of them was a dual cultivating art! As long as you engage in sex with the opposite gender, regardless of race or species, that Dao Essence will transfer and allow the other member to cultivate the art as well!"

Yan Zaizen was stupefied by her words. He immediately looked towards his soul with deep suspicions and alas, his soul did indeed contain Dao Essence that could be transferred from his soul to another’s. They were like fireflies that pointlessly flowed about, but they were thoroughly attached to primal yang. To obtain this, one would have to dual cultivate using both physical and soul of their body in unison to bring synchronicity to the apex.

Recalling Pinaka and his first engaging in...soul...merging...

It seemed something similar to that needed to happen.

Unlike a woman, a man’s yang was nigh endless and could be spread thoroughly. A woman’s primal yin could only be taken once. As long as he had his Dao Soul, any woman lucky enough to experience his wildly skills in bed would receive an immense boost in their soul and dao potential, capable of merging both.

"If you think I’ll be the only one to benefit, you’re wrong! I’m a Celestial, so if you took my vital yin, you’d receive a Celestial Space of your own. If you had that, you could cultivate the Celestial Path!" Yri exclaimed.

Yan Zaizen’s brows furrowed. The Celestial Path was an incredibly tempting path. It relied on cultivating yourself, becoming the heavens, and who knew its limits?! Perhaps one day, a person could truly become the heavens and foster a set of laws of their own like a god. The Heavenly Path, on the other hand, required others to cultivate the heavens and draw power from it.

Even the Heavenly Creation Realm is merely creating an imitation of a portion of heaven, one that matched their respective Heavenly Shrine.

He didn’t know much outside of that, but the Celestials were held in high regard by all in the Heavenly Origin Grounds. The one aspect in the soul jade he obtained from Eshe was an information bit about celestials. Only those born as celestials could embark on the Celestial Path.

Celestials were not only a path but a race of humanoids.

However, he didn’t know the exact reason. Now, he had some clue. This Celestial Space is probably the foundation all celestials possessed. Who knew what level he could reach if he combined his Non-Entity characteristics with a Celestial?!

In the end, he shook his head.

"If I became a Celestial, I could become trapped in the Heavenly Origin Grounds forever...like the Celestials are." As he recalled the inability Celestials have from exiting the Heavenly Origin Grounds, he could only refuse because of this possibility. Shockingly, he felt that if Pinaka were here, she’d tell him to lunge forth and lay the wood.

Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but chuckle slightly.

"I owe you, and I could only cultivate this art because of you. It would be against my Dao if I refused to help you cultivate this art. After all, what is sex? What is pleasure without intimacy?" He wasn’t naive to believe that one needed to be in love to enjoy the pleasures of the bedroom with another. Bai Lufeng was the most prime example of this.

One could be in love and enjoy life as well. Of course, his wife and child died because of their inability to break through, but it was still an example.

"Unfortunately, I can’t do so now. You’ll have to wait until I save Pinaka. If by some chance my actions led me to being unable to exit, I’d regret it for life." He responded softly.

Yri was shocked. He wasn’t refusing, but he didn’t accept. "What do you mean unable to exit?" She had been asleep for billions of years, spending a majority of her time regaining her original peak.

"The Heavenly Origin Grounds has various restrictions it seems. Celestials can’t exit the Heavenly Origin Grounds or enter the Thirty-Three Heavens, no path outside of the Heavenly, Celestial, Fiendgod, Soul Source, Origin, and Dao Path can exist within, and anyone can only enter once." After he stated these specific restrictions, he pouted slightly. His Herculean Path was his most developed path originally, exceeding all others. However, it had been suppressed by some unknown force that he still couldn’t remove despite comprehending the Law of Heaven.

This meant that whatever was restricting his Herculean Path or other Paths was not the Heavens themselves, but some other profound and powerful force.

Yri started, "really?!" She had slept for far too long, and there had never been such restrictions before. Not to mention, she still didn’t know what the Thirty-Three Heaven was. The reason she never asked Yan Zaizen to specify and why she left swiftly was to be untainted by news that may affect the future.

And now...she was just told she was trapped?!