Chapter 157: The Greedy Wolf Demon Palace and the Immortal Crossing Platform

"Carry your junior brother on your back, and let's keep moving."

"Understood, Senior Li."

Cao Chengyu nodded without further words, a piece of flesh from the lava platypus suddenly appearing in his right hand.

As he walked, he scanned the surroundings with his spiritual sense.

The combat strength of this lava platypus was at most on par with the Dao Body realm, yet the molten fireballs it spat out reached the power of the Purple Palace realm—essentially the level of standard high-tier spells.

This made no sense.

Extending his spiritual sense deep into the flesh, he meticulously compared the subtle differences within. Perhaps due to his frequent consumption of ferocious beast flesh to temper his physique, he quickly identified the problem.

If the cultivation of a normal ferocious beast involved continuously activating the ancestral bloodline within its body and undergoing successive atavisms to enhance its strength, then the lava platypus was the very source of its bloodline.

It was its own ancestor.

However, the time since the birth of heaven and earth was incalculable. Across the primordial river of time, it was impossible for it to remain completely unchanged.

The most probable explanation was that it was a lifeform artificially created by human hands.

Furthermore, this could not have happened too long ago.

Otherwise, a certain degree of mutation would inevitably have occurred, driven either by environmental influences or the survival of the fittest within the population.

Precisely because of this artificial design, they possessed no other abilities aside from the pure projection of molten fireballs.

Specializing in a single aspect allowed its power to reach the Purple Palace realm. It was absurd, yet entirely in line with the ways of cultivation.

The piece of flesh in Cao Chengyu's hand soon cooled down. With a thought, a silver flame coiled around it, and after he roasted the small chunk of meat, an enticing aroma filled the air.

Even if this creature could survive in molten lava, its resistance to high temperatures could not possibly surpass that of anomalous flames born of heaven and earth.

Although the Yin-polar Yang fire belonged to the Yin-Yang attributes, its essence remained that of a flame; an extreme temperature was its very instinct.

Once roasted, Cao Chengyu slowly savored it under Lin Qiu's surprised gaze.

The roasted beast meat was very chewy with a remarkably rich layer of fat. After chewing a few bites in his mouth, a dense, pungent spiciness bloomed, and the sizzling juices combined with the texture of the roasted meat as he swallowed it whole.

Delicious!

Moreover, it seemed to offer additional benefits to fire-attribute cultivation.

The power of the molten fireball carried within its flesh was actually an artificially imparted bloodline. Within the fire of Cao Chengyu's Five Viscera Deities, clear traces of this could be sensed.

Whatever is man-made bears the marks of man.

Aside from a slight craving, Cao Chengyu ate this piece of flesh to gain a deeper analysis of the bloodline information. He could not parse the bloodlines of purely natural ferocious beasts,

but artificial ones could be deciphered.

With sufficient resources in the future, it might even be possible to artificially create bloodline ferocious beasts.

Of course, to him, the lava platypus was merely a dispensable livestock raised for meat—a tool to satisfy his palate.

It provided no actual help to his strength.

Yet the logic remained: if one could create ferocious beasts on the scale of an entire tribe, the creator's strength must be formidable, and the faction behind them extraordinarily vast.

Cao Chengyu still had not figured out what place this was, nor what scheme Chi Jiuxiao was plotting.

Having experienced the layered-cake incident in Dayue, Chi Jiuxiao had taken on a somewhat mythological status in his mind. The harder a person is struck, the more wary they become of the mastermind behind it all.

What is more, Chi Jiuxiao had originally been nothing more than a Purple Palace cultivator. Yet, watched over by so many Golden Core True Persons, he had still managed to turn the tables in a single stroke, breaking free from the shackles of the Yin realm and reversing his fate back into the Yang.

No amount of vigilance against him would be excessive.

Now, they had arrived at Mount Tianxu, where the peak combat strength stood at the Nascent Soul realm.

Who could guarantee that Chi Jiuxiao did not have a plan to let him bypass this layer of blockade?

The method he had found most likely lay right here.

Especially given what little was known of him: either he made no move, or success was guaranteed.

After much contemplation, the trio had already walked out of this flagstone-paved passageway and entered a brand-new space.

This place was still underground, yet it bore the distinct traces of massive architecture.

Collapsed palaces, towering broken walls, rubble scattered everywhere, and dozens or even hundreds of meters of grayish-white skeletons belonging to massive ferocious beasts stretched the entire space beyond the horizon.

This was an underground battlefield.

Judging from the architectural style, Cao Chengyu could tell this was a Ferocious Beast Shrine.

Due to differences in cultivation paths, low-realm ferocious beasts possessed less intelligence than ancient beasts, but at higher realms, they were roughly on par.

It was just that the true forms of ferocious beasts were vastly larger. In order to transform into human shapes, ancient beasts adopted forms more akin to Dharma Images, which they converted into bloodline divine abilities.

Naturally, this still differed greatly from the Dharma Images of body-refinement cultivators; to tell them apart, one simply had to look at the demonic Qi.

Approaching the edge of the battlefield, Cao Chengyu deduced from the ruins that this should be the facade of the destroyed faction. A sweep of his spiritual sense soon revealed a deeply buried plaque.

After a brief perception, Cao Chengyu was startled for a moment.

Greedy Wolf Demonic Shrine.

The Greedy Wolf Demonic Shrine was a relatively famous demon faction in this world, with its place of origin rooted in the ancestral home of demons in the Western Regions.

Beyond the Eastern Region, there were currently only five spliced barbarous lands: the Giant Domain, the Purple Moon Domain, the Spirit Domain, the Ridge Domain, and the Hundred Kingdoms Domain.

The appearance of the Greedy Wolf Demonic Shrine here meant its headquarters in the Western Regions could not have simply relocated; it was far more likely that the demon race coveted more territory, only to be suppressed relentlessly by Buddhism.

Finding no flaws in the Western Regions, they had turned to the barbarous lands outside the Eastern Region to develop their power.

West and East were separated by a vast distance, yet this move was unexpectedly bold.

After all, logically speaking, the most suitable places for the demon race to expand their influence were the barbarous lands of the Southern and Northern Regions.

Though the distances were similarly vast, at least it would have made more logical sense.

Nowadays, the human race was the protagonist of this world, and virtually all resource-rich territories were governed by humans.

The barbarous lands were no exception, though their power was considerably weaker.

If the demon race were to make a move, laying out their plans from regions outside the four domains would be the most appropriate approach.

It was just unclear why this Greedy Wolf Demonic Shrine had been utterly destroyed.

Cao Chengyu always felt it was connected to the demonic calamity in the Hundred Kingdoms Domain. This was a judgment of his spiritual intuition; lacking hard evidence, he nonetheless knew that major events always shared underlying ties.

Judging from the degree of corrosion on the debris and the remaining skeletons, the destruction here had occurred roughly three thousand years ago.

The margin of error would not exceed a century—Cao Chengyu possessed at least that much discernment.

Reflecting upon this point,

he could not deduce anything further. He could only say that the book *One Hundred Solutions to Immortal Cultivation* had immensely broadened his horizons.

Looking at many matters from a higher perspective always revealed subtle connections. While it had little to do with him for now, he could still keep it in mind.

When his realm rose higher in the future, it might just come in handy.

The Blood Wolf Ten Demon Mountains outside were most likely caused by the leakage of power from this very Demonic Shrine.

The Blood Wolf clan probably inherited some legacy of the Greedy Wolf Demonic Shrine and maintained a connection to the shrine itself, though due to their limited intelligence, their degree of exploitation was likely low.

Perhaps this was also the reason Chi Jiuxiao had set his sights on this place.

Something here could help them cross the Tianxu Mountain Range.

"The Immortal Crossing Platform?"

Cao Chengyu's eyes lit up as he quickly pinpointed the crucial clue.

To say that a Demonic Shrine of such magnitude lacked the crafting method for an Immortal Crossing Platform was something he would never believe. Furthermore, originating from the Western Regions, it was entirely reasonable for them to possess a top-tier Immortal Crossing Platform.

Since the Tianxu Sect had sealed off the barbarous lands and prevented anyone from entering the Eastern Region, standard teleportation arrays were unusable, but an ultra-long-distance Immortal Crossing Platform should be able to pull it off.

The sole difficulty lay in coordinate positioning.