The techniques were reorganising. Lin Moyu didn't know what they would become in the end, but he was sure it wouldn't be bad—only better. In this moment, every technique he possessed vanished. They were shedding their skin, waiting for the final bloom.
Lin Moyu was a little curious: what exactly had you breathed out? He knew that the breath the Primal Chaos Gem had exhaled must be extraordinary. The Primal Chaos Gem said this was Primal Chaos Qi—its origin-qi. In sheer tier, it stood above Primordial Qi. "I'll make it your origin, one of your foundations. It won't boost your techniques' power immediately, but it will raise their tier, opening a broader future."
So it was the Primal Chaos Gem's origin-qi—in essence, the Heaven-Scourge Scepter's fundamental power. A force on a higher tier than Primordial Qi truly could alter a technique at its root. The techniques were sublimating; with the addition of Primal Chaos Qi, they seemed to have slipped entirely free of Heaven-and-Earth's constraints. Heaven-and-Earth cannot bind a power that surpasses its tier; Primal Chaos Qi is precisely such a power.
Fragments of the Technique Star whirled as they recombined. Using Primal Chaos Qi as the base, they absorbed Primordial Qi and domain power, fusing together, gradually forming a new body. A colossal sphere slowly took shape, shedding a soft radiance—at times like a blazing fireball, like a great sun; sometimes it even became a world, then a domain. It kept changing, as though it had no fixed form.
A sudden inspiration came to Lin Moyu. He pointed out a finger. The Undying Dao surged out in a vast sweep; at the same time, his soul power rushed forth like a tsunami. The Undying Dao would become the techniques' support, supplying the final link in their sublimation. With the Undying Dao, there was a foundation to rely on. Soul power would feed the techniques—and also let Lin Moyu obtain part of their information.
"Technique Domain?" Lin Moyu was startled. His techniques had once started from the most basic technique stars, rising step by step, going through several fusions by Chaos-Seed along the way. Yet no matter how they changed, the essence of the technique star had never changed—stars were still stars, only varying in number and strength. But now the techniques had completely changed: the technique star had disappeared, becoming the Technique Domain—a domain belonging to techniques alone.
Within the Technique Domain, starlight dotted the expanse; uncountable stars appeared. The techniques had merged into the Technique Domain and become formless and intangible, while those stars represented the techniques' strength—the more stars, the stronger the techniques. Any single technique could draw on the power of these stars. These stars fused the Undying Dao, Primordial Qi, domain power, Lin Moyu's own soul power, and Primal Chaos Qi. The blend of many powers greatly increased the Technique Domain's inclusiveness: Primal Chaos Qi raised its very nature; the Undying Dao became its support; Primordial Qi gave it the capacity to evolve; domain power provided the foundational energy. Everything was perfectly coordinated.
The Technique Domain continued to evolve; it was not yet fully formed. Stars within it kept lighting up. Lin Moyu fed soul power into it without pause, lighting star after star. Judging by how much soul power he was consuming, the Technique Domain was very strong—its essence had completely surpassed the former Technique Star and reached a wholly new tier. At present, the Technique Domain was no longer beneath Heaven-and-Earth; in the future it could surpass Heaven-and-Earth altogether. Its possibilities were limitless.
A smile touched Lin Moyu's face as he awaited the moment the Technique Domain would be fully formed.
His soul heard an angry roar; killing intent swept toward him. His techniques were gone, and the undead thralls had vanished; those who had not yet died were lunging at him. They were fewer than one percent of before—only tens of thousands—but among them were Perfect-level powerhouses. The Supreme whom Chaos-Seed had sent out and the Quasi-Supreme couldn't block that many at once. They saw Lin Moyu as a stepping stone to proving the Dao: kill Lin Moyu, and they could tread on him to climb to a higher tier.
"Out of my way." Lin Moyu's voice sank; he casually punched out. He threw only a single punch—yet in the void, tens of millions of gigantic fists appeared and swept across. Whoever was brushed by Lin Moyu's punch was shattered to pieces, soul annihilated.
Lin Moyu showed no mercy with that punch. For those who sought death, fated to fall in the Great Calamity, he—being the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy—naturally had no need to hold back. Under that one punch, nearly a hundred thousand were almost all wiped out; only a few of the truly strong survived, and even they were gravely wounded, losing all combat power. Even so, their eyes were still blood-red, their killing intent toward Lin Moyu unbroken.
Lin Moyu had thrown only one punch and then ignored them. Those destined to die in the Great Calamity were not worth his attention.
In the distance, the Nine-Sun Quasi-Supreme who was trading blows with Xiaopeng was startled by that punch. As a Quasi-Supreme, he could still keep a clear mind under the Great Calamity's influence. Because of the Calamity Supreme, he too wanted to kill Lin Moyu—but he knew his own limits. With Xiaopeng harassing him, he already knew killing Lin Moyu today was unlikely.
He had personally watched Lin Moyu break through to Chaos Realm Perfect. He didn't care about Chaos Realm Perfect; to him, killing someone at Chaos Realm Perfect was easy. But that punch just now overturned his understanding. Since when could a Chaos Realm Perfect kill tens of thousands of Chaos-Realm beings in a single punch—many of them at the same tier?
"What the hell?" the Nine-Sun Quasi-Supreme cursed inwardly. To his eyes Lin Moyu was veiled in mystery; he couldn't see through him. The more he couldn't, the stronger his killing intent grew—yet the less he dared to act rashly. As he glanced at Lin Moyu, he suddenly found Lin Moyu's gaze sweeping over him. That single glance ignited a fierce anger in his heart. Lin Moyu's eyes were full of disdain. A Quasi-Supreme like me isn't even worth his notice? He dares despise me, the true one?
Rage birthed more killing intent; his desire to kill Lin Moyu reached its peak.
Suddenly, Xiaopeng withdrew, leaving no obstruction ahead. The brow-eye flashed, and a gigantic eye condensed before him. In an instant he crossed billions of li; within two breaths he was within less than ten thousand li of Lin Moyu.
Lin Moyu suddenly turned and casually punched out.
Hum— A massive shock tore through the soul. The Nine-Sun Quasi-Supreme felt his soul violently jarred; for a moment he lost control of his body.
A soul attack— not good! Cold surged through him. He'd never imagined Lin Moyu's punch would contain a soul-power strike—and such a terrifying one at that. Even his soul was affected. That single instant of disruption was enough to be fatal. When he came back to himself, Lin Moyu's fist was already before him; he had no way to dodge.
"Block!" The brow-eye flared, layering up into a solid wall—only to be smashed to pieces by Lin Moyu's punch. The Nine-Sun Quasi-Supreme was blasted away, spewing blood as he flew billions of li—faster going than coming. He didn't look back; he fled and vanished.
Xiaopeng didn't give chase. He turned to deal with the insect that possessed Quasi-Supreme-level battle power. Earlier, Little Tree had handled it; later the Primal Chaos Gem had blocked it; now Xiaopeng was its opponent. Xiaopeng held a slight edge; under his sustained assault, wounds kept appearing on the insect as it retreated segment by segment.
Lin Moyu paid it no mind. At this moment he had already become the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy. Heaven-and-Earth had brought out its last measures against him, sealing his path upward. So—for now—no other trouble would come knocking.
The Technique Domain was slowly taking shape. Lin Moyu watched its changes, hoping to gain some insight. Unfortunately, he gained nothing—only that lighting the stars within would strengthen the techniques, though he did not understand the underlying reason.
A grey-white Great Way appeared within the Technique Domain; the Undying Dao condensed along it, spanning everything like a silver river end to end. Lin Moyu knew clearly that all his techniques had already merged into the Undying Dao. From now on there would be no more technique stars—only the Technique Domain.
Soul power continued to pour in. Starlight sprinkled across the Technique Domain, a hazy glow that looked like a beautiful starry sky.
Then, a message arrived: damage suffered by one's own Heaven-and-Earth and domains would be jointly borne by the Technique Domain as a whole, together with all owned domains and worlds.
The first technique formed. When Lin Moyu saw it, he couldn't help blurting two words in his heart: …damn.
Previously, his techniques had countless undead thralls to share damage for him, letting him virtually ignore attacks from the same tier; unless someone one major realm above him struck, it was hard to hurt him. But now all attacks would be shared by the Technique Domain and the domains he owned—and there was even an upper limit. Yet now even Heaven-and-Earth had joined the ranks of damage-sharing. What did that mean? Even if he stood before the Dao and let it hit him, killing him wouldn't be easy.
With a mix of strangeness and shock, Lin Moyu looked to the Primal Chaos Gem. "Tell me, can those fellows destroy a single Heaven-and-Earth?" He meant the Dao, the Calamity Supreme, and the others.
The Primal Chaos Gem shook its head at once. "Impossible. Even for a Transcendent, destroying someone else's Heaven-and-Earth is extremely troublesome. They don't have that ability."
With that clear answer, Lin Moyu knew he now stood on an undefeated ground. Whatever the Great Calamity, whether he was a calamity-bearer or the Heaven-and-Earth Public Enemy—it no longer mattered. He simply couldn't die now, unless he sealed his techniques; otherwise, no one should think of killing him. From this technique alone it was clear: the Technique Domain had truly sublimated—utterly, unimaginably.
Lin Moyu began to look forward to what the next technique would be. This was just the appetizer; the main course hadn't even been served—and it would surely be even more outrageous.
Moments later the second technique finished evolving, and information synchronised into him:
Utmost Undying—it gathers the power of the Technique Domain, of domains, and of worlds; temporarily elevates the flesh and soul. For a short time: undying and indestructible. The enhancement limit is the limit of Heaven-and-Earth.
Lin Moyu was speechless again. He found he was walking farther and farther down the road of the ridiculous.
This technique came from the Sublimation he once obtained. Sublimation originated from a special lifeform in the Ancient Wilds called the Source Bird. The Source Bird was at Chaos Realm Perfect; its essence blood could be refined into several peculiar techniques. Many Perfect-level powerhouses would hunt Source Birds and refine techniques from their blood to pass down to juniors or their factions. The technique Lin Moyu had gotten was acquired by Supreme Boyang from hunting a Source Bird. At the time, Supreme Boyang divided the technique into nine types with different functions; Lin Moyu had obtained two. Those two techniques, after Chaos-Seed's fusions and continuous growth, ultimately reached the Chaos Realm and became Sublimation. Now Sublimation had evolved again, undergone a qualitative change, and become a member of the Technique Domain named Utmost Undying.
It was very strong and differed from before: it no longer raised the strength of summoned creatures, only his own flesh and soul, and did not raise the realm. Lin Moyu could understand—once flesh and soul are raised, "realm" is merely a label and hardly matters. If he possessed the flesh and soul of a Transcendent, would the realm of "Transcendent" still be important? Moreover, during the elevation he would temporarily be undying and indestructible—patching his final shortcoming. The sole limit was Heaven-and-Earth itself: Utmost Undying had to draw on many powers, with Heaven-and-Earth's power being the most important—and that also became the greatest cap.
He felt an itch to try it, to see how far he could raise himself—but he held back. No rush. When the Technique Domain finished its evolution, it wouldn't be too late to test it.
The Technique Domain kept evolving. He could see waves surging along the Undying Dao within, and vast starlight falling upon it, making it shine even brighter. The powers of life and death seemed extraordinarily clear in that moment. They each kept to themselves yet also fused into each other. Inside life and death there seemed to be a cycle; the two powers kept circulating. Without reaching any "extreme," they could still transform into each other: life could become death, death could become life.
Lin Moyu suddenly awakened, then fell into a strange state. He had always believed that when the power of life or death reached the extreme, surpassing that extreme would flip it into the opposite—pushing life past its utmost would become death, and a powerful death; pushing death past its utmost would become a powerful life. That had always been his understanding of the Undying Dao. But now he found that might not be necessary: life and death could convert into each other freely, with no extra conditions or special factors—perhaps with just a single thought. A single thought could switch life and death.
It sounded unbelievable; if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he couldn't have imagined it. And in the conversion between life and death, a tremendous might would erupt. As long as the conversion did not stop, the eruption would not stop—perhaps even exceeding the limit of the Dao itself. It was like water colliding with fire; the explosive force produced could surpass water and fire themselves. Within the Undying Dao, as life and death collided without end, techniques evolved out.
Lin Moyu entered a state of enlightenment, a peculiar aura spreading from him.
The Primal Chaos Gem wore an odd look. "Master, you're… entering enlightenment? At this realm, and you can still enlighten? Isn't this a bit much?" It couldn't figure it out. Enlightenment usually happened when one's cultivation was low—when one didn't understand the Dao, and a lucky gain could spark enlightenment. But Lin Moyu had already reached this level and could still enlighten—hard to justify. The Primal Chaos Gem didn't know what Lin Moyu had seen or thought of. Then again, for someone as outrageous as Lin Moyu, enlightenment didn't seem impossible. "Enlighten then—let's hope you grasp something. The more outrageous you are, the more fun it is."