Life span plundered, I became a detective and achieved immortality

Chapter 1041 Great Advancement in Combat Power

Time flies, and thirty million years have passed like sand slipping through our fingers.

Xuanlong Domain, along with Zhenji Domain, is one of the top 100 powerful domains in Xuanzhen Immortal Domain. Its forces are deeply intertwined, with various immortal clans and sects intertwined. Its profound foundation is in no way weaker than that of Zhenji Domain, and it is even more powerful in terms of killing intent.

Xuanming City, in the western part of Xuanlong Domain.

This ancient city floats above a vast sea of ​​blood. Its walls, forged from chaotic necromantic stone, exude a chilling aura. The Xuanming runes inscribed on the bricks occasionally flash with eerie blue lightning, casting a strange and sinister light upon the surrounding blood-red mist. As the lair of the Xuanming Immortal Clan, one of the ten great powers of the Xuanlong Cosmic Sea, the city is a tapestry of immortal and deathly energy. It possesses both the majesty of a True Immortal's patrol and the chilling coldness of the Netherworld's rules. Ordinary True Immortals dare not even approach, fearing they might be tainted by the deathly aura and suffer damage to their Dao heart.

On this day, in the ancient temple in the center of Xuanming City that enshrines the statue of the Xuanming Holy Ancestor, a barely perceptible spatial force suddenly flashed by, disappearing in an instant like ripples on the surface of water.

Deep within the temple, the two eighth-rank True Immortal ancestors of the Xuanming Immortal Clan experienced a slight ripple in the ethereal chill surrounding them, which then vanished like melting snow. Their figures disappeared from the ancient temple without a trace, as if they had never existed. Only a wisp of spatial fold remaining on the jade throne and the lingering ethereal chill in the air proved that the earlier disturbance was not an illusion.

......

Within the hidden cave of Fortress 507 in the Iron Arm Mountain Range of the Azure Spirit Domain.

The twenty-fourth-grade Primordial Void Purple Lotus had reached its peak bloom, its petals edged with jewels formed from primordial pure energy. Each petal was as translucent as glass, reflecting the myriad scenes within the cave. The three nine-tiered spacetime towers continued to slowly rotate around Su Mo, the golden light emanating from the Heaven, Earth, and Man Three Talents Array intertwining with the river of time, stabilizing and unleashing the six-hundred-million-fold speed of time within the cave.

Su Mo sat cross-legged on the lotus heart, slowly opened his eyes, a brilliance that seemed to shine with the light of time and space flashed in his eyes, and glanced in the direction of the Xuanlong Domain. The corners of his mouth slowly curved into a smile, exuding a confident air of command.

"The twelve baits are all ready. Now, we just need to wait for the harvest."

Then, Su Mo's mind stirred slightly, and an invisible divine sense spread out like a tide, silently enveloping the entire Fortress 507.

We flew over barracks, drill grounds, and watchtowers, taking in every corner.

Over a billion years have passed, and Fortress 507 has seen many new faces. Of the original inhabitants, fewer than six remain.

Even the ten celestial generals had two new faces.

Su Mo's divine sense did not stop, but continued to expand outward, like an invisible net, which in the blink of an eye silently enveloped the entire Iron Arm Mountain Range.

Compared to Fortress 507, the other thousands of fortresses, large and small, in the mountains presented a far more devastating scene. Some fortresses had their walls mostly collapsed, temporarily reinforced with immortal wood, and the bloodstains on the walls had not yet completely dried; some fortresses were reduced to ruins, with only a few array nodes still faintly flickering, proving that cultivators had once been stationed there. Among these fortresses, the turnover of personnel was even more frequent, with at least five new faces appearing in some fortresses, and the most severely damaged ones seeing more than seven layers of personnel replacement—meaning that in just a few hundred billion years, more than seven thousand Void Immortals had been forever left behind in the Iron Arm Mountains.

The air above the Iron Arm Mountains still reeked of gunpowder, and occasionally fragments of broken immortal artifacts would fall from the clouds, crashing into the silent valleys with dull thuds.

Every day here is a scene of life and death. Immortals and Celestials have very little sense of security here. They live with their heads on the line. They might be killed in a sudden attack and their souls would be destroyed, without even a chance to be reincarnated.

Su Mo's divine sense swept over a fortress that had just experienced a fierce battle, and he saw the surviving cultivators numbly cleaning up the bodies of their comrades. A trace of indifferent emotion flashed in his eyes.

This is the norm in the Nine Realms Immortal War—cruel and real.

Of course, Su Mo was just expressing his feelings.

Help? That's impossible. They're not related, and he's not some saint who can't bear to see people die. That's just how the rules of the ancient immortal realm are: the strong prey on the weak, and only the fittest survive. He has no need or obligation to change anything.

At most, it was his divine consciousness avatar that secretly took care of Fortress 507.

Nodding slightly, Su Mo closed his eyes, withdrawing his outward divine sense. Within the cave, the three nine-tiered spacetime towers rotated at a slightly faster speed, and the ripples in the river of time and space became increasingly turbulent. He once again focused his mind into his body. In his natal sea of ​​time, the corpses of true immortals were disintegrating and merging at a visible speed, transforming into pure primordial power that flowed through his meridians to his limbs and bones.

At the heart of the lotus, primordial energy cascaded down like a waterfall, cleansing his body and soul. Each breath was accompanied by the sedimentation of six hundred million times the amount of time. The wars and life-and-death struggles of the outside world were merely a backdrop for him to reap his war merits.

......

Time flies, and soon another billions of years have passed.

In the Iron Arm Mountains, there are thousands of fortresses. Many of them have lost all their elders, replaced by new faces. Even Fortress 507, which is secretly protected by Su Mo's divine consciousness avatar, has no more than three layers of elders.

Of course, risks and opportunities go hand in hand. The elderly who have survived to this day have all broken through at least one grade in their cultivation as Void Immortals. Some lucky ones have even broken through to the third or fourth grade. This is much more useful than if they had to cultivate in the outside world for several cosmic eras. There have even been more than a dozen Celestial Immortals.

Fortress 507, within that hidden cave that even a seventh-grade True Immortal could hardly detect.

The Three Powers Formation of Heaven, Earth, and Man has disappeared without a trace, replaced by the Nine Extremes Returning to One Formation.

The number of time towers increased from three to nine, and the flow of time increased by a factor of 20 billion.

One year in the outside world is equivalent to 2 billion years within the cave. It's not that Su Mo lacks enough battle merits to exchange for more Nine-Layer Time-Space Towers. Over the past 10 billion years, under the relentless hunting of the thirteen illusory spirit bodies, he has captured a total of 124 eighth-grade True Immortals, accumulating battle merits that are approaching 10 trillion. He could easily exchange for dozens more Nine-Layer Time-Space Towers.

However, even a ninth-grade true immortal artifact has its limits. A time flow rate of 20 billion times is basically close to the limit of the stacking of the nine layers of the Time Tower. Exchanging for more nine layers of the Time Tower will not increase the time flow rate much, at most by a few thousand or eight million times, which is purely useless.

To significantly increase the flow of time again, he would need to replace the nine Nine-Layer Time Towers with nine Quasi-Golden Immortal artifacts.

However, this is something he can't afford with his current battle merits. Compared to a ninth-grade true immortal artifact, the exchange price of a quasi-golden immortal artifact is more than a hundred times higher. The most ordinary one requires ten trillion battle merits, while the price of a quasi-golden immortal artifact from the Time and Space Path is as high as fifty trillion, which is not much different from the price of a quasi-golden immortal artifact in the outside world.

Clearly, those nine Immortal Golden Immortals were not willing to reveal too many of their Quasi-Golden Immortal artifacts.

"boom......"

Suddenly, Su Mo, at the center of the Nine Extremes Returning to One Formation, trembled, and a terrifying aura that even made a peak eighth-grade True Immortal tremble rose from his body.

After billions of years of arduous cultivation and the accumulation of a vast amount of true immortal essence, his Primordial Boundless True Immortal Body finally broke through another level and entered the seventh level of perfection.

"Now, even without the power of the Spirit Illusion Body, I am enough to compete with some perfect eighth-grade True Immortals. The combat power of the Spirit Illusion Body is not much inferior to that of a peak eighth-grade True Immortal. Any one of the thirteen Spirit Illusion Bodies should be able to contend with the power of an early-stage half-step Golden Immortal." Feeling the surge of power within his body, Su Mo nodded in satisfaction. Once he gathered all the Spirit Illusion Bodies and fought with all his might, he should be able to fight against those peak half-step Golden Immortals.

Having suppressed so many Rank 8 True Immortals, including two quasi-Rank 9 True Immortals, their understanding of Half-Step Golden Immortals was no longer based solely on conjecture, as it had been before entering the Nine Domains Continent.

"Next, let me see the ultimate limit of the Nine-Layer Time-Space Tower."

......