Cultivation Begins from Infancy - Chapter 245

Volume 3 - Chapter 12: The Ancestral Divine Weapon, Touching the Limits – Part 2

The wealthy master’s eyes gleamed with fervor. “So fragrant. Quickly, give it to me.”

As he spoke, he raised his hand with a sudden force, pulling the bundle, along with the infant inside, toward himself.

The infant within the swaddling clothes was a newborn, yet its cheeks and arms were covered with fine scales, and a tail, twisted like that of a snake, protruded from its body, still slick with viscous fluids.

This bizarre child, however, seemed to utterly captivate the wealthy master. His eyes sparkled as he lovingly stroked the infant and murmured in fascination, “Adorable, simply adorable.”

As he spoke, he even rubbed his forehead against the infant’s head in a gesture of intimacy.

Yet the infant appeared to sense something amiss. Its freshly opened eyes were entirely black, devoid of sclera. It flailed its hands, trying to claw its way out of the bundle and escape.

At that moment, the wealthy master, still smiling, suddenly opened his mouth wide.

What appeared was a grotesque maw brimming with sharp teeth.

With a swift motion, he sucked the infant into his mouth and began chewing voraciously.

“So fragrant.”

“Are there demons who specifically rear humans to feed on infants?”

“Yes, and this particular demon tribe is vast. The members of their kind must learn to escape their nests as soon as they’re born, or they’ll be devoured by their own mothers.”

Two voices drifted into the scene, followed by the flash of a blade and the glint of a sword, both streaking toward the wealthy master.

Momentarily stunned, the wealthy master was struck by the blade but managed to avoid the sword.

With a sickening crack, the blade sliced across his chest, tearing apart a section of armor-like scales.

His body grew grotesque, his head bulging as his bloodthirsty eyes raged. “Who dares?!”

Li Hao and Li Xiaoran had no intention of exchanging words with the demon. They attacked relentlessly, the sheer force of their blows killing the nearby servant and midwife outright.

Even the steward, who suddenly transformed into a demon, radiated the aura of the Three Immortals Realm.

Seeing this, Li Hao wasted no time, slashing with his sword.

His arts and techniques points were still plentiful, allowing his swordsmanship to reach six levels. With his blade flashing like starlight and lightning, his attack was almost unavoidable.

Li Xiaoran’s Heavenly Horizon Carefree Blade had evolved from the Boundless Sea Sword Technique, and so had this strike of Li Hao’s. It obliterated distance, making the attack nearly certain to land.

Both demons were flung backward. While the wealthy master still clung to life, the steward perished, his body cleaved apart by Li Hao’s blade with no chance of resistance.

Li Hao had already realized that Li Xiaoran had also mastered the Boundless Sea Sword Technique and extracted its core sword intent to integrate into his blade arts. This revelation indicated that Fourth Uncle was not only a master of blade techniques but also extraordinarily gifted in the way of the sword.

“Even a Demon King has infiltrated here. How alarming.”

Li Hao spoke as he joined the battle alongside Li Xiaoran.

“You bastards of the Li family! I never conspired with the demons beyond the city. I just wanted to settle here in peace! Why must you ruin my plans?!”

The wealthy master bellowed, revealing his true form.

But as a demon of the Dao Heart Realm, he stood no chance against the combined assaults of Li Hao and Li Xiaoran. Their ferocious attacks shredded his scaled flesh, leaving him collapsed in a pool of blood.

“Damn the Li family…”

The Demon King’s breath faded.

Li Hao crouched beside the corpse, thrusting his hand into its flesh. As he churned the innards, he activated the Ten Thousand Blood True Demon Art, absorbing the essence of the Demon King’s blood and flesh.

True to its reputation, the essence within the Demon King’s body was extraordinarily potent, comparable to a rare elixir.

Li Hao immediately converted this energy, refining it to fortify his Indestructible Body, enhancing his physical resilience further.

His body, tempered by the Supreme Body and True Dragon Body, had already reached the strength of a Five-Forged Divine Weapon, approaching the level of Six Forgings.

After absorbing the Demon King’s blood essence, his flesh and blood solidified further, nearing the strength of a Seven-Forged Divine Weapon.

“Two or three more Demon Kings should do the trick,” Li Hao mused.

However, when he glanced at his River of Death progress, the completion rate had only risen by 0.1%!

Earlier, after killing the steward demon of the Three Immortals Realm, his completion rate had increased by a mere 0.01%!

Li Hao was stunned. Was this some kind of cruel joke?

In other words, to clear the River of Death, he would have to kill 1,000 Demon Kings!

Where could he possibly find 1,000 Demon Kings?

The concept was absurd. The Fourth Pillar Realm demons were rare even within the Divine General Mansion, and the entirety of the Great Yu Divine Dynasty didn’t have anywhere close to that number!

Not to mention killing them all!

“Fourth Uncle, what was the longest time you ever held Dragon City?” Li Hao asked, turning to Li Xiaoran.

“You’ve seen the progress meter, haven’t you?”

Li Xiaoran, seeing Li Hao’s stunned expression, sighed. “This is the difficulty of a Netherworld-Level River of Death. Even a Dao Heart Realm cultivator only barely has the ability to survive here, and even that isn’t guaranteed. If your luck runs out, you could die at any moment.”

“The longest I ever lasted was four days,” he added.

Li Xiaoran sighed again. “The demons outside Dragon City now aren’t the same ones that once surrounded Yanbei’s Dragon City. These demons are beings that were pulled into the River of Death and imprisoned here. Many are unlike anything seen before in the Great Yu Divine Dynasty!”

“There are countless Demon Kings. In just four days, I encountered over a hundred of them.”

Hearing this, his expression grew heavy. “But the silver lining is that these Demon Kings are only at the Dao Heart Realm. They’re not too difficult to deal with. The real challenge comes later when stronger ones appear—those at the Absolute Technique Realm. That’s when things get truly terrifying.”

The disparity between the four levels of the Fourth Pillar Realm—Dao Heart Realm, Absolute Technique Realm, Supreme Peace Dao Realm, and higher—was vast.

A Dao Heart Realm cultivator was the weakest of the four, while those in the Absolute Technique Realm could effortlessly kill Dao Heart Realm cultivators with a single full-strength move.

An Absolute Technique Realm cultivator possessed profound martial techniques that embodied the pinnacle of martial arts, their deadliest attacks capable of bringing opponents to the brink of death. This was why no one dared provoke them lightly.

To be precise, even the Dao Heart Realm was incredibly formidable. Their attacks were guaranteed to hit, enough to strike fear into those in the Three Immortals Realm.

And Absolute Technique Realm cultivators? They could take on entire factions and fight toe-to-toe with them, capable of bloody battles that shook the heavens.

As for those at the Supreme Peace Dao Realm, their Dao Domains unfolded with unmatched dominance, granting them invincibility.

“Only four days, and over a hundred Demon Kings…”

Li Hao’s eyes grew solemn. The River of Death imprisoned an innumerable number of demon souls. Considering the immense timespan of this Netherworld-Level River of Death, who could say how many Demon King remnants were trapped inside?

If his strength remained limited to what it was outside the River of Death, it would never be enough. He needed to become far stronger.

Taking a deep breath, Li Hao stopped asking questions and joined Li Xiaoran in handling the Demon King’s corpse. Together, they eliminated the lesser demons lurking within the manor before departing.

...

In the days that followed, Li Hao alternated between cultivating to accumulate arts and techniques points and assisting Li Xiaoran in sweeping the city to slay demons.

When word spread that Li Hao, at only thirteen, had slain a Demon King, even Li Tianzong was left speechless.

The other nine prodigies of the Li family were exceptionally talented, but here, they all seemed overshadowed by Li Hao’s brilliance.

Even Li Junye, who had once been the most dazzling of the family, now seemed like a mere firefly beside Li Hao, barely worth noticing.

Still, Li Junye trained with tireless determination and progressed rapidly. Though he couldn’t match Li Hao, he reached the Heaven and Man Realm at the age of fifteen, shattering the previous record of seventeen years.

Li Hao speculated this might be due to various inconsistencies within the River of Death, as well as the butterfly effect caused by his and Li Xiaoran’s presence.

As time passed, Li Hao’s reputation grew among the demons. Each day, when he stepped outside the Divine General Mansion, a demon would inevitably meet its end in the city, accompanied by a bloody rain.

With every demon he slew and the resources provided by Li Tianzong, such as various treasured herbs, Li Hao’s cultivation progressed at astonishing speed.

For most, consuming too many precious herbs would lead to unstable foundations and inflated realms. But Li Hao, equipped with multiple supreme techniques, all at transcendent levels, fully digested the medicinal properties through cultivation.

His body seemed like an endless void, devouring all the energy it absorbed and refining every inch of his flesh.

Li Hao’s physical strength surged, reaching the level of an Eight-Forged Divine Weapon.

Li Tianzong then granted him access to the Li family’s core treasury, which contained their most precious divine medicines, treasures, and techniques.

Li Hao took full advantage of this without hesitation. After all, within the River of Death, there was no future. Everything here was an illusion. Only Li Tianzong’s obsession was real.

Thus, he consumed all the divine medicines and retrieved the Ancestral Divine Weapons stored within. Among the most revered were the weapons of the First Generation Ten Ancestors, including a treasured sword ranked third, known as Azure Frost.

The First Ancestor, Li Tianyuan, wielded a spear, while the Third Ancestor, his grandson, was a swordsman.

The Azure Frost Sword, forged nine times, was on the verge of becoming a Sacred Heart Treasure.

Li Xiaoran explained that the weapon of the First Ancestor had been damaged beyond repair. It was a Sacred Heart Treasure, a weapon that no one in the Great Yu Divine Dynasty had been able to restore since the passing of the Heavenly Treasure Daoist thousands of years ago.

The term "Sacred Heart Treasure" itself came from the title of the Heavenly Treasure Daoist, the grandmaster of weapon refinement.

Though his descendants inherited some of his craft, their talent paled in comparison, and the legacy was eventually lost, a matter of great regret for the Great Yu Divine Dynasty.

The current head of the Myriad Treasures Pavilion, many generations removed from the Heavenly Treasure Daoist, could only barely forge Sacred Heart Treasures, with very low success rates.

Li Hao picked up the Azure Frost Sword and remarked, “A fine name.”

He then affixed the sword to his side, taking the long-sealed ancestral weapon out of the treasury.

Li Tianzong offered no objections. To him, Li Hao was the true dragon of the Li family, entitled to wield the Ancestral Divine Weapons.

For other direct descendants, such a privilege would require careful consideration, as the ancestral weapons were not just powerful but also symbols of status.

If every descendant were allowed to claim one, they would have long been lost.

Equipped with his weapon, Li Hao resumed his cultivation and continued his relentless demon-slaying.

As the city was gradually purged of demons, Li Hao’s body grew increasingly powerful through the absorption of demon blood essence and the divine medicines from the treasury.

He attempted to comprehend the Dao Heart, but in doing so, found himself lost in thought as time accelerated imperceptibly.

Li Xiaoran later explained that this was a normal occurrence. When he first comprehended the Dao Heart, time had inexplicably accelerated by seven or eight years.

For Li Hao, only a brief immersion in comprehension had already brought him to the age of seventeen.

The imminent Dragon City Battle drew near in the blink of an eye.

“My physical body seems to have touched the limits of the Three Immortals Realm...”

Li Hao felt his body, his flesh honed to perfection, his internal power as dense as a vast ocean, boundless and inexhaustible.

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