196: Ultimate Summoning

In the ruins of the Ice and Snow Temple, the dead silence was broken by a crisp cough.

"Cough... cough cough!"

The Female Shaman leaned on her bone staff, panting heavily. The nomadic warriors behind her were no better off; they were slumped on the ground, their faces as pale as snow. The resonance with the earth veins just now had almost drained all of their strength.

But everyone's eyes were fixed intently on the figure standing in the center of the ruins. Li Dong.

He just stood there quietly, yet specks of ice-crystal-like light swirled and danced around him, eventually returning to his body like tired birds returning to the forest. The blizzard in the entire rift valley had stopped at some unknown time, and a long-lost ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds, shining down and landing right on him.

"You..." The Female Shaman opened her mouth, wanting to ask something, but found her throat so dry it felt like it was smoking.

"Hm?" Li Dong turned his head and glanced at her, as if he had just woken up from a beautiful dream. "Oh, it's over. You are free, and the Northern Territory is free as well."

He said it nonchalantly, as if he had just swatted a fly.

"That 'God'..."

"Eaten." Li Dong answered even more bluntly. "The taste was okay, just a bit hard on the teeth. From now on, the earth veins in this place will slowly recover, and your lives will be much easier."

As he spoke, he looked down at his palms. The power that had just surged into his body was too immense; the Bottleneck of the Golden Core Late Stage Peak was like a dam repeatedly battered by a flood, already covered in cracks and ready to collapse completely at any moment.

The Female Shaman fell silent. She looked at Li Dong with complex eyes. She could feel that the man before her was different from just a few minutes ago. The sense of "emptiness" on him that devoured everything was deeper, but strangely, there was also a hint of... indescribable vitality.

"Are you leaving?" she asked.

"Yeah, the meal is finished, so it's time to leave the table." Li Dong smiled. "This 'dessert' was quite good; thanks for the hospitality."

He ignored the nomadic warriors behind him, walked to the side on his own, sat cross-legged, and began to tally his real spoils.

First was the "divinity core" at his waist, obtained from Jing City.

At this moment, this thing had completely changed. Originally just a crystal stone with a hint of eerie blackness, it now looked like a gem wrapping a brilliant galaxy inside. A wisp of earth-yellow heaviness, a wisp of sea-blue depth, and a wisp of ice-white purity—three-colored divine light slowly circulated within the core, interweaving into pieces of unprecedented, profound Law runes.

Li Dong's thoughts stirred, and his Divine Sense sank into it.

"Parsing efficiency... increased by more than ten times?"

He could feel that this core had transformed from a simple "analyzer" into a "super compiler." Any devoured divine power would be instantly dismantled, deciphered, and then converted into pure insights most suitable for him to absorb.

This thing could no longer be called a divinity core. It was more like a master key. A key that could open the locks of all "Gods."

Just as he was sensing the changes in the core, a warm, tingling sensation suddenly came from between his eyebrows.

"Hm?" Li Dong subconsciously touched the space between his eyebrows. That mark branded by the God Lord, after absorbing the massive divine essence of the Northern Territory agent, not only didn't become more evil, but instead seemed... overstuffed?

No, that's not right. Li Dong closed his eyes and sensed carefully.

He discovered that this mark was like a miniature signal base station, beginning to spontaneously draw wisps of power—so faint it was almost imperceptible—from some massive network in the void, then converting and purifying it, merging it into his own Sea of Consciousness.

Although this amount of power wasn't even enough to fill the gaps in his teeth given his current cultivation level, its nature made Li Dong almost laugh out loud.

"This brat... gave me a membership, and it's the auto-renewing kind?"

The curse that the God Lord used to mark and control him had now actually become a conduit for him to siphon blood in reverse. Although the flow was a bit small, it had the advantage of being continuous, 24-hour idling.

Is there a more considerate enemy in this world?

Just as Li Dong was feeling pleased with this unexpected discovery, deep within his Sea of Consciousness, the "ancient stone slab" that had always been silent and the "black crystal stone" floating above it suddenly erupted with unprecedented light.

A will so grand it could not be described in words seemed to transcend endless space-time, descending directly into his consciousness.

It was not a command, not a whisper. It was a calling.

A longing and summoning for the other half, originating from the deepest Origin of life!

"Boom—!"

A loud noise erupted in Li Dong's mind. That light-and-shadow scroll that had always served as his "hunting ground map" unfolded with a roar in his Sea of Consciousness, presenting its full picture with unprecedented clarity.

The light spots that originally represented Jing City, Qingzhou, the South Sea, and the Northern Territory had now become dim, like extinguished stars. And outside the map, in the more distant and profound background of the Universe, countless light spots, some bright and some dim, were still floating, each representing an anchor point of a "God Lord."

But these were not the point. At the end of all the light spots, beyond the limits of what the map could depict, in that endless Void Realm, a "thing" appeared.

It was not a light spot, nor was it any known form. It was an "emptiness." An absolute "nothingness" that devoured all light, billions of times larger than all the God Lords combined.

It was like a giant pupil that was slowly opening, overlooking the entire world.

All the previous desires to devour, whether from the [Perfect Dao Body] or the power of the [Void Realm], resonated at this moment with this calling from the end of the Void Realm.

Li Dong felt his Soul trembling.

The cultivation barrier of the Golden Core Late Stage Peak instantly turned to dust under the "gaze" of this grand will. A profound and mysterious realization welled up in his heart; the threshold of the Nascent Soul Stage no longer existed for him. As long as he wanted to, he could step over it at any time.

But he didn't. Because from that ultimate calling, he sensed something completely different.

"It's not 'devouring'..." Li Dong muttered to himself, his expression showing genuine shock for the first time.

Previously, when hunting those agents, his instinct was "devouring," turning the opponent into resources for his own growth. But the calling from the end of the Void Realm, while equally filled with desire, was not "devouring" at its core, but rather... "Fusion."

It was calling out to him, not to treat him as food, but wanting to... merge into one with him?

What was this? A Universe-level online dating meetup? An absurd thought flashed through Li Dong's mind.

He suddenly understood. Whether it was the "ancient stone slab," the "black crystal stone," or his [Perfect Dao Body], they were all just parts of that ultimate "Void Realm core" projected into this world.

He was not some chosen one, nor was he some accident. From the very beginning, he was the "beacon" that that "core" was searching for and recovering.

And those so-called God Lords were just weeds occupying various corners of the Universe, hindering the "core" from recovering its own power. All the way, he had been pulling out anchor points and clearing out agents; it seemed like he was saving the world, but in reality, he was just clearing the path for that ultimate existence...

"So I'm not a hunter, I'm just a cleaner?" Li Dong self-deprecatingly remarked.

But immediately after, a feeling of unprecedented heroic spirit surged from the bottom of his heart. So what if he was a cleaner? When the prey is large enough, large enough to be called the Universe itself, the line between hunter and hunted has long been blurred.

He stood up and brushed the dust off his body. The recovery of the Jing City Dragon Vein, the crisis of the Great Xia Dynasty—after seeing that ultimate "Void Realm core," these things seemed so insignificant.

Go back and report? There was no need. The hunter's footsteps always follow the most succulent prey.

"Hey." He shouted to the Female Shaman in the distance.

The Female Shaman shuddered, then quickly stood straight: "Yes!"

"The matter of the Northern Territory is settled." Li Dong looked up at the boundless sky illuminated by the sunlight. "I should go meet the... real chef behind this dish."