Chi Yan didn't seem to be missing limbs, but perhaps she was a bit slow on the uptake.
Ahem...
Fang You's gaze sharpened. He had a rough idea of what was happening and his anticipation and curiosity grew.
Chi Yan, transforming into a digging machine, soon tore through the earth.
After she had excavated a pit several kilometers deep, Chi Yan dug up something.
A small, rusty metal sphere, just small enough to fit in a palm, with what appeared to be dried bloodstains, exuding an aura of ancient times.
"What is this..."
A weapon.
Without waiting for Chi Yan's answer, Fang You confidently answered himself.
He detected faint, familiar traces from this weapon.
This was his first time seeing this small sphere, yet he possessed the Hand of the World Master and the Spear of Karma and Fate, both of which were weapons of extraordinary caliber.
That's right, this small sphere was a god-slaying weapon!
One of the eighteen god-slaying weapons of Kandra!
Except...
The metal sphere was severely damaged, almost beyond repair. Perhaps it could be reforged.
Chi Yan gripped the sphere tightly, and the dried bloodstains on it began to revive, as faint, ineffable wisps of something drifted out from within the sphere, merging into Chi Yan's body.
It was divine spiritual light.
It might also have contained fragments of a soul.
This was the reason why Chi Yan had been unable to fully recover; her soul was incomplete and needed to be mended.
And at this moment, she had mended it.
The metal sphere became liquid-like, slowly merging into Chi Yan's palm.
He seemed to hear the roar of waves, with surging spray.
These were the waves of law, appearing in the heavens and earth, encircling Chi Yan. The entire world became turbulent.
"This commotion..."
Fang You's gums ached. He quickly threw out ritual foundation stones, embedding them deep into the earth, and then used his skill, the Four Symbols Barrier, to arrange a grand ritual array that could conceal and isolate their aura.
If ritual masters were graded, he would at least be a seventh-tier ritual master.
Well, when all this was over, he should create a detailed tier grading for professions like blacksmiths, alchemists, and ritual masters.
Fortunately, this region was special, possibly one of the ancient battlefields.
Not only were otherworldly evils scarce here, but countless broken and chaotic laws also drifted through the heavens and earth.
Under the cover of these disordered laws, the commotion caused by Chi Yan was not very noticeable.
Time ticked by beneath the gray mist.
It felt a bit long.
If they were discovered by the servants of the Black River faction, their situation would be extremely dangerous. Even if Fang You was confident he could survive and escape from a tenth-realm adept, it would affect Chi Yan's recovery. If her recovery process were interrupted, it could result in irreparable damage.
Moreover, the evil gods he had directly faced were only "fake" tenth-realm beings like 'Lord of the Underworld' and 'Lord of Specters', and they were unlikely to be the right-hand men of the evil gods.
What kind of power did true tenth-realm experts, the top tier of the tenth realm, possess?
How great was the gap between himself and them?
As a tenth-realm adept, his understanding of the tenth realm was still scarce.
This might be the downside of progressing too quickly.
Lady Luck ultimately smiled upon Chi Yan.
The recovery process, which lasted two and a half hours, was remarkably smooth. Only a few foolhardy otherworldly evils dared to disturb them, but they were quickly annihilated by the orange lightning crackling at the fingertips of Master Fang.
"Teacher... I... I've recovered."
Chi Yan sounded somewhat dazed, her voice slow and groggy, as if she had just woken up.
She seemed to have recovered some memories.
Would she have memories of the god-slaying war?
Fang You did not ask.
The god-slaying war was definitely not a pleasant memory for Chi Yan. However, if she could recall it, she would explain it, and if she couldn't, there was no need for him to press.
What concerned him more was Chi Yan's current physical condition.
"Mmm... the familiar power is back."
"And it's a bit stronger than before."
She said, then pondered for a moment. A magnificent, deep red gem slowly emerged from her brow.
The gem was like a world.
Dazzling, magnificent, mysterious, and vast.
Within it, it seemed to contain mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Even a mere divine being, upon glimpsing it, might have their soul shattered and their mind go numb on the spot.
This was a dominion.
The 'Dominion of Slaughter'!
Liu Feng's brow also showed a dominion.
The 'Dominion of Sharpness', compared to his senior sister's Dominion of Slaughter, his dominion was as insignificant as gravel.
Liu Feng fell silent.
Ahem...
Master Fang also fell silent.
Chi Yan's dominion was immense, not in a way that could be described with words. Liu Feng's 'fragmentary' dominion paled in comparison to this gem of slaughter.
The difference was as vast as gravel and a desert.
Master Fang's dominion was only slightly larger than Liu Feng's. If he were to manifest his dominion as a gem, it would appear as small as a chick next to Chi Yan.
"Your Dominion of Slaughter is... a complete dominion!"
100% Dominion of Slaughter!
But how did Chi Yan manage to condense the Dominion of Slaughter to 100%?
Not that he underestimated Chi Yan; no matter how monstrous her talent, she was only a high-ranking ninth-realm adept. To complete a dominion to 100% was by no means as simple as ten 10% increments; there were countless obstacles in between.
Furthermore, dominions were unique.
"Teacher, you know, there's a shortcut to completing a dominion."
"You mean...?"
"Mhm, back then, in the realm of aberrations, there was an ancient deity with a moderately famous title, known as the God of Slaughter..."
Chi Yan thought for a moment, then reluctantly skipped some preceding details and began to narrate from important junctures.
Regarding the God of Slaughter, Liu Feng also had some recollection.
"This deity's name was quite significant. He was extremely bloodthirsty, leaving behind countless corpses wherever he went, committing endless crimes. To my knowledge alone, this God of Slaughter had killed billions of living beings, causing the extinction of many races. He also committed great atrocities in several cities of Kandra."
"In the early days, before the catastrophe of the evil gods truly spread, the empire's attention to this God of Slaughter surpassed that given to the evil god faction. Our Cinder Academy also received missions to find any clues related to the God of Slaughter... At that time, Senior Sister had already gone to the imperial capital for secluded cultivation."
"Later, the God of Slaughter vanished without a trace. I thought the deity had gone into hiding, but I never expected him to be killed by you, Senior Sister. You truly live up to your reputation."
Liu Feng sighed.
Of course, judging by the timeline, when Chi Yan killed the God of Slaughter, he had likely already perished, his grave overgrown with weeds.
Annihilating races, a true tenth-realm god, billions of lives...
Qian Qiu wiped his sweat. Was this the world of the powerful?
The God of Slaughter was undoubtedly an evil god. However, under normal circumstances, even evil gods wouldn't be so frenzied. This was clearly related to the God of Slaughter's divine office and dominion.
Master Fang also possessed a dominion and immediately guessed: the God of Slaughter sought to enhance his Dominion of Slaughter through continuous slaughter. But regardless of the reason, these were unforgivable sins!
Chi Yan said, "After I advanced to the ninth realm, I also frequently went to the front lines, killing many high-level aberrations and their servants. Later... I forgot on which day, I vaguely condensed the Dominion of Slaughter."
"Then, as days passed, this dominion continued to perfect and complete itself..."
She said it as if she were simply eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But the fact that Chi Yan could continuously condense the Dominion of Slaughter indicated that she must have experienced countless battles and faced numerous life-or-death crises. Well... perhaps for Chi Yan, continuous slaughter and bathing in blood daily was as commonplace as eating and drinking.
She was different from the God of Slaughter, but she was also a harbinger of death.
"Later on, one day, my Dominion of Slaughter got stuck. It was stuck at, approximately..." She spread her fingers, calculating, "Around 40%, the dominion could no longer be further completed."
"At that point, I knew that the Dominion of Slaughter was in the hands of another being."
Master Fang had a lump in his throat, unable to spit it out.
The Dominion of Slaughter couldn't progress further, why couldn't it be a bottleneck? What kind of logic was this?
But Chi Yan's judgment at the time was undoubtedly correct, because...
The story continued, as she narrated in a straightforward manner.
"At that time, taking advantage of a period of relative calm, I left the Kandra Empire to search for other powerhouses who held the Dominion of Slaughter... There's a faint sensing between holders of the same dominion, isn't there?"
"However, as soon as I left the empire's territory, I was intercepted by the God of Slaughter."
"Then, I killed the God of Slaughter and absorbed his dominion."
"And then, my Dominion of Slaughter became complete."
It was as simple as that.
Fang You: "..."
After a long pause, he said, "The God of Slaughter seems a bit weak?"
Chi Yan agreed and nodded, "Mhm, he was indeed a bit weak."
Fang You: "..."
The God of Slaughter was a tenth-realm true god—in those days, tenth-realm beings were called true gods, while ninth-realm beings were called quasi-gods or subordinate gods. Based on the dominion the God of Slaughter held and his past feats, Fang You judged that this deity was not entirely a "fake" and not the weakest among the tenth realm.
This meant that Chi Yan's combat power surpassed that of an ordinary tenth-realm being?
Chi Yan had killed the God of Slaughter in a one-on-one battle.
However, at that time, Chi Yan possessed an incomplete god-slaying weapon—the fifteenth-ranked god-slaying weapon, 'Endless Slaughter', a weapon that had discarded all other functions and retained only its ultimate killing ability.
And now, this Endless Slaughter was merely a wreck, its power diminished to almost nothing.
But on the other hand, at that time, Chi Yan only had 40% of the Dominion of Slaughter, whereas now her dominion was complete and her power was infinite.
Dominions plundered from others required time to absorb and digest, and were not as natural to wield as those condensed by oneself.
Chi Yan's Dominion of Slaughter had not yet been fully digested.
Not long after she took control of the Dominion of Slaughter, the god-slaying war had to break out.
And then, she perished.
Leaving behind only very vague memories.
Because memories also carried contamination and could be discovered by evil gods.
Wandering through the ancient battlefield, Chi Yan transformed into a top-tier hunter. She attacked indiscriminately, even dealing with low-level aberrations herself.
"Pfft—"
A high-level aberration, comparable in size to a small planet, had red bloodlines spreading across its body. In the next moment, fresh blood, gray, purple, and green, gushed out.
The entire high-level aberration was dismembered, and countless blood clots rained down from the sky.
As the fur, blood, flesh, organs, and special materials fell to the ground, they automatically sorted themselves into categories.
Chi Yan licked the bloodstains on her face, a hint of pleasure appearing, "The taste... is acceptable."
Taste was secondary; the primary reason was that hunting a high-level aberration effectively promoted the digestion of the Dominion of Slaughter.
And more importantly...
"Slaughter, strengthen."
Master Fang mused inwardly.
He had briefly borrowed the Dominion of Slaughter for a simple trial and was astonished.
He hadn't truly unleashed his power, so he didn't fully understand the extent of the amplification that wielding the Dominion of Slaughter could bring, but... the Dominion of Slaughter possessed a certain inherent power—that of killing enhancement.
The wielder of this dominion was equivalent to carrying a killing sword with no upper limit.
Killing a high-level aberration would grant them a permanent, significant increase in offensive power.
Within the ancient battlefield, Fang You also transformed into an old hunter, setting his sights on the aberrations in this region.
He wouldn't snatch them from Chi Yan, merely acting occasionally to experience the power of the Dominion of Slaughter.
This was an ancient battlefield.
The remnants of evil gods and the powers of certain supreme beings lingered here.
Relatively safe in the killing-filled middle realm of aberrations. Because servants of evil gods were rarely active here.
It was a treasure trove for hunting high-level aberrations.
Over six days, Chi Yan hunted 24 high-level aberrations, killing them almost instantly—meaning within one second. High-level aberrations were exceptionally resilient, and even Chi Yan had to attack multiple times to kill them.
Thus, it took her one second.
The entire process was remarkably quiet.
"24 Divine Sources, not bad."
"That's enough to renew the subscription for the Realm of Time."
Another small team, including An Jianyou, was also attempting to hunt high-level aberrations and servants of evil gods. However, they had been marked and dared not venture deep into the middle realm of aberrations. They had heavily wounded high-level aberrations multiple times, but had only managed to kill two.
Fang You had not forgotten his mission to gather intelligence on the middle realm of aberrations.
They continued to walk deeper into the ancient battlefield.
The surrounding heavens and earth were filled with terrifying phenomena, and at times, law storms swept across the land. This environment was far more dangerous than the high-level void.
By this point, high-level aberrations had become increasingly scarce.
They only discovered two in an entire day.
Chi Yan drooped her head.
Seeing her teacher walk away, she trotted to catch up.
Did secrets lie hidden in the depths of the ancient battlefield? Fang You was unsure, but it was worth investigating.
...If it proved too dangerous, he would choose to strategically retreat.
Amidst the chaotic law storms, a divine light caught his attention.
It was a bloodstained fragment, very ancient.
Fang You thought for a moment and reached out to touch it.
Shattered images rushed towards him.
Disorganized, chaotic.
But there was still a trace of residual power essence, though it required sifting through a mountain of dirt to find gold.
Fang You frowned, then after a long while, used the ability of his Apostle Heart to absorb and comprehend, filtering out a large amount of junk information to extract the valuable power essence.
Then, he organized and categorized it using his extensive experience.
After a long while,
"Ding!"
"Notification: Legendary skill 'Devouring Origin Body Forging Technique (Incomplete)' has been learned."