The bloodline of the Eight-Headed Serpent, Qi, would be no weaker than Ke, who was a primordial beast. His future might even surpass Ke's.
Qi's worries vanished, his unease and loss melted away, and he returned to his former lively self.
Qi remained at the border, guarding it. The malevolent energy of the battlefield was his spiritual power, combat his cultivation, and death his subordinate. He was the forbidden god, the Eight-Headed Serpent.
He was the most brutal yet the most innocent on the battlefield, his innocent smile toppling a hundred enemies.
Qi declared his intention to become the guardian deity of Xishan, needing to gain strength through endless battles. He craved the clash of blades and swords, the crucible of blood and fire.
This was his path, his choice, and Qing Ling could only support him, never oppose.
After spending some time at the border, Qing Ling returned to Xishan to prepare for his long journey in pursuit of the Primordial Land.
To reclaim the remaining traces of the Spring God and return to the place of genesis, Qing Ling would not falter. The resonance of the Spring God's mark grew stronger, and the birthplace of life called out to him across myriad waters and mountains.
However, the journey ahead was fraught with peril, and complete preparation was essential.
Upon returning to Xishan, Qing Ling shamelessly begged Granny Hua Geng for a portion of innate spiritual treasures. As a Saint Son and a Golden Immortal Venerable, he was indeed entitled to choose treasures from the ancestral land once more.
Yet, Qing Ling did not opt for treasure selection. Spiritual treasures had sentience, each with a degree of compatibility. Those treasures were naturally most compatible with their creators. Even the Tai Xu Divine Bell, though formidable, could only exert eighty percent of its power with the Mi Tian Cord.
Therefore, he decided to forge a spiritual treasure himself! A treasure to vanquish enemies and uphold the Way.
Qing Ling ascended the southern side peak, Chi Li Peak, where an inferno of earth fire raged. He entered seclusion within a cavern of earth fire.
The scorching magma beneath the earth churned around him, its intense heat capable of melting mountains and refining fine iron. Qing Ling took out a segment of Fusang wood and used the earth fire and magma to nurture it.
As one of the Ten Great Innate Spiritual Roots, the Fusang wood could withstand even the True Solar Fire of the Ten Sun Golden Crows, so this earth fire posed no problem.
The inexhaustible earth's core fire flowed into the Fusang wood. This withered branch gradually grew, shedding its dark hue and transforming into a crimson, lengthy wood.
Qing Ling opened his mouth and exhaled a stream of azure flame, joining the earth's core fire. The already searing heat intensified further. While his Wood Within Fire was not an overbearing True Fire, it could harmonize with all fires, amplifying them, and was difficult to extinguish.
The Wood Within Fire took ten thousand years to refine this withered branch into crimson wood, imbuing it with terrifying True Fire, shaping it into a slender point.
Qing Ling then removed ninety-nine scales from his body. Each scale was a fragment of a divine being, containing flesh and blood. The searing pain was immense but could not shake his resolute Dao heart.
Even with the piercing pain that afflicted his body from the eighty-one scales tearing at his heart, he did not cease his refining.
It took a hundred years to procure one scale, a thousand years for ten scales. Ninety-nine hundred and eighty-one years passed before he gathered all ninety-nine.
The Azure Scale Jade was smelted into the Fusang wood branch. Its flesh and blood merged with the branch. Then, using the ancestral spiritual treasure obtained from Granny Hua Geng, the Chaos Crystal—a substance condensed from the eons before heaven and earth, from the chaotic genesis of wind, earth, water, and fire—was used. It was once common in the primordial chaos but now extinct.
The Four Symbols' power coalesced into destruction, which then dissolved into the translucent crystal. Qing Ling refined it with his spiritual consciousness for ten thousand years. His fingers were worn to bloody pulp; the agony of ten millennia condensed within this Chaos Crystal, finally forging it into a sharp arrowhead.
The Four Symbols' power formed the sharp tip, the Fusang wood became the shaft, and the divine scales formed the body. A two-foot-long arrow, like jade, rested in Qing Ling's palm.
Within his dark right eye, a slender silver needle spun in his pupil. With each rotation, the spiritual needle, formed from the Chaos Crystal, pierced his pupil.
The exceptionally sharp crystal needle spun ten thousand times within his dark right eye. Qing Ling refined the treasure with his eye, melting an immeasurable amount of Spring God's tears into this needle, channeling the millennia of divine suffering and torment into it.
After ten thousand years, the silver needle pierced his heart, sinking into it and rotating ten thousand times. Each rotation was like the needle piercing flesh and blood, an agonizing suffocation that compounded manifold. This silver needle had become a fearsome weapon that even gods would dread!
Another ten thousand years passed as the needle ascended to the divine gate, piercing it for ten thousand years. The needle stabilized his primordial spirit. The pain in his spirit washed over him in waves. Qing Ling repeatedly fainted and collapsed, only to awaken again, lest the thirty millennia of suffering be in vain!
Within this earth fire cavern, no one knew the extent of pain Qing Ling endured. Those who knew only spoke of the Saint Son emerging from Chi Li Peak after forty thousand years.
The forty millennia of relentless suffering were a period Qing Ling could not bear to recall, yet it further strengthened his willpower and Dao heart.
Forty thousand years of agony, all for a single arrow.
Within the crystal arrowhead of the long arrow lay a silver needle. The crystal arrowhead would release this lethal needle at the most critical moment, to smite gods and souls!
The arrow's Four Symbols' divine might would destroy the body, while the needle's cold light would mercilessly annihilate the god.
This arrow was Qing Ling's only arrow. He poured his entire being into it. It was his ultimate skill, and no other such arrow would ever be found in the world.
Ancient Dao inscriptions were etched onto the arrow's shaft. "Slay" was formed from forty millennia of endless pain and resentment, and "God" was formed from the ninety-nine pieces of flesh and blood scales.
This arrow was named "God Slay"!
It could slay not only all living beings but also immortals and gods.
He knew of the "Immortal Slaying Sword" in the world, the foremost Immortal Slaying weapon in the Hong Meng universe. If Qing Ling were to also name his arrow "Immortal Slaying," it could never surpass the Four Immortal Slaying Swords, for they were already supreme.
Furthermore, his arrow was forged from his own divine resentment, fear, despair, and pain. The hatred of forty millennia condensed into a single point, erupting in an instant, capable of shattering even a god's soul.
Therefore, "God Slay" was more fitting. Moreover, his arrow would become the first spiritual treasure to bear the name "God Slay" in heaven and earth. Before this, who among all beings would dare to bestow such a title upon a spiritual treasure?
Although his strength was humble, the symbolic meaning of this arrow surpassed its power to slay gods. As long as Qing Ling lived, this arrow would exist, continuing to slay, and one day it would reach its zenith.
This was his protective treasure. With "God Slay" unleashed, heaven and earth would be annihilated!
His arrow required no mighty bow or crossbow; a mere thought of his spirit would unleash its boundless sharpness.
Qing Ling returned to Bai Chun Valley and fell into a deep slumber. Forty millennia of mental and physical torment necessitated the recuperation of his primordial spirit.
Time passed slowly, unnoticed. Qing Ling nurtured "God Slay" and recuperated his primordial spirit in Bai Chun Valley, and several more tens of thousands of years elapsed.
Since stepping into the Golden Immortal realm, Qing Ling had grown increasingly detached and numb to the passage of time. Millennia, which he once perceived as vast epochs, sufficient for the rise and fall of civilizations, now felt like a mere nap, a short meditation, a brief closing of the eyes.
It was only when Qing Ling heard the profound bells ringing from all four directions of Xishan that he realized he had spent five Yuan Hui, over six hundred and forty-five thousand years, in the Primordial World.
His sixth Yuan Hui had begun!
This also marked Qing Ling's impending departure from Xishan to witness the truly chaotic Primordial World.