295: Chapter 295 Cloud Crane Forms Nascent Soul, Forging the Foundation for Immortality [Lord of the Clouds]!

At the peak of Zixiao Peak, the Lightning Pool boiled.

Spiritual Qi within a thousand-mile radius was forcibly drained as if by an invisible giant hand, turning into a visible tide of Spiritual Qi that converged frantically.

Above the firmament, the thick thunderclouds were forcibly pushed aside by a more ethereal and vast Aura.

White light tore through the cloud layer.

A White Crane over ten zhang in size soared into the sky, his Demonic Qi at the Golden Core Perfection stage erupting without reservation.

He spread his wings, blotting out the sky and sun. His pure white feathers flowed with a crystalline luster, yet they also carried a resolute death wish.

Shi Jian lay in the Lightning Pool, his dark golden eyes staring fixedly at the high sky.

"It has begun."

"Nascent Soul formation!"

In the Sea of Consciousness, the phantom of Zixiao sat cross-legged, putting away his usual cynicism: "Watch carefully. This feathered beast is scouting the path for you. The three barriers of the Nascent Soul are each a death tribulation."

"Such an Opportunity to observe at close range is rare."

High in the sky, White Crane let out a clear crane cry, then closed his eyes tight. His massive body hung suspended in the gale, motionless.

He began to draw upon the Great Dao of heaven and earth, which was also the first barrier: the Heart Demon barrier.

This Heart Demon was not the usual kind; it was the erosion of the Dao Origin.

Shi Jian released his Divine Sense, cautiously probing the area around White Crane.

In an instant, he felt a hair-raising, vast Aura. It was not a concrete attack, but an omnipresent "Principle."

The Dao of Clouds.

Formless, imageless, gathering and dispersing inconstantly.

White Crane's Divine Sense had completely left his body, probing into the mysterious Origin of heaven and earth.

In Shi Jian's vision, White Crane's Physical Body began to undergo bizarre changes. The edges of his pure white feathers began to turn transparent, transforming into wisps of cloud vapor that drifted in all directions.

Flesh, skin, and bones were all losing their substance bit by bit.

"Dao Assimilation!"

Shi Jian felt a chill in his heart; this was the outcome of being assimilated by the Great Dao.

If one's mind was not firm enough, one would be lost in the infinite illusions of the Great Dao, and ultimately, both Physical Body and Divine Soul would turn into Spiritual Qi and dao rhyme, feeding back into heaven and earth.

Half of White Crane's wing had completely turned into cloud smoke.

He had endured for hundreds of years, acting as a beast of burden in the Qingfeng Sect, pretending to be an honest and dutiful guardian spirit bird, living in fear every day.

He feared that one day, he would be captured by True Monarch Tongming and turned into a Dao Pill.

Those humiliations, unwillingness, slaughter, and schemes seemed so insignificant before the long river of the Great Dao at this moment.

Heaven and earth are unkind; the Great Dao is ruthless.

"White has cultivated the Dao for eight hundred years, not for eternal life, but only to avoid bowing to the Human Race!"

"To live freely and unfettered, roaming heaven and earth with the clouds and mist!"

A faint yet extremely ferocious roar came from the dissipating crane body, and suddenly, clouds and mist swirled, sweeping across ten thousand miles.

White Crane suddenly opened his eyes.

In his crane eyes, there was no longer any confusion, only pure madness.

With this crane cry, the half of his wing that had turned into cloud smoke was forcibly condensed and reversed...

His Divine Sense turned into a sharp blade and slashed fiercely at the vast Dao of Clouds!

Rip—

In the Void Realm, it was as if something had been torn apart.

White Crane shook violently, coughing up blood containing fragments of his internal organs, but in his beak, he firmly clamped a faint, ever-changing white airflow.

It was none other than the Dao Origin!

"It succeeded."

Shi Jian let out a breath of turbid air. The first barrier was the most dangerous and the most difficult.

Relying on his obsession of several hundred years, White Crane had forcibly torn a wisp of Origin from heaven and earth. It looked unremarkable...

In the eyes of others, no more than a few incense sticks of time had passed.

But in the eyes of the one Undergoing Tribulation, it felt as if years, centuries, or even millennia had passed, turning into nothingness in an instant...

Immediately after, the second barrier.

Shattering the Golden Core to form the Nascent Soul; White Crane dared not have the slightest pause...

He opened his beak, and a Storage Pouch directly exploded. Tens of thousands of High-Grade Spirit Stones and over a dozen thousand-year Spirit Medicines instantly turned into a torrent, which he swallowed into his belly in one gulp.

Massive Spiritual power exploded within his body.

White Crane's belly bulged high, his skin stretched until it was almost transparent, and the Golden Core spinning rapidly in the Dantian was vaguely visible.

"Shatter!"

With a low shout, the Golden Core shattered with a boom.

The violent True Essence lost its restraint, like a wild horse breaking free, rampaging through White Crane's Meridians and tearing his flesh.

His blood vessels burst inch by inch, and blood stained the remaining white feathers red.

But this was the necessary path of breaking and then establishing.

In the center of the shattered Golden Core, a force of the Primordial Spirit of extreme purity began to gather. Those violent Spiritual powers, as if having found an outlet, poured frantically into that point of spiritual light.

Time passed bit by bit.

One hour, two hours.

The Spiritual Qi on Zixiao Peak was almost drained, and even the water level of the Lightning Pool dropped by a third, as if it wanted to squeeze dry all the spiritual vitality in this world.

Finally, the violence within White Crane's body subsided.

At the position of his Dantian, a fist-sized, crystal-clear miniature White Crane appeared, looking like a fetus.

This was his Primordial Spirit Nascent Soul!

"The foundation is deep enough. This second barrier was passed without danger."

Zixiao commented in the Sea of Consciousness: "Most of the Qingfeng Sect's wealth accumulated over so many years has been poured into this. If not for these resources, he would have been blown into blood mist by the backlash of Spiritual power long ago."

Shi Jian was silent. Cultivating immortality requires wealth, companions, methods, and land; none can be missing.

Misfortune and fortune are both Opportunities.

High in the sky, White Crane's Physical Body was already tattered, but his Aura was climbing frantically, possessing a hint of Nascent Soul charm!

The third barrier, forging the Immortal Foundation!

The miniature White Crane opened his eyes, inhaled, and swallowed the wisp of Dao Origin torn from heaven and earth into his belly.

Boom!

Heaven and earth changed color.

The originally clear sky was instantly obscured by an endless sea of clouds.

These cloud vapors were not ordinary water vapor, but the manifestation of the pure Dao of Clouds. At this moment, the sea of clouds rolled and poured down, completely wrapping White Crane's tattered Physical Body...

It seemed cloudy and illusory, unpredictable, and unfettered!

"Immortal Foundation, condense!"

From the center of the sea of clouds came White Crane's voice, which carried a hint of majesty.

Following that, the cloud vapor began to shrink and reshape violently, followed by the reorganization of bones and the regeneration of flesh and blood.

A moment later, the clouds and mist dissipated.

A man wearing a white feather cloak with a feminine and handsome face stepped out of the air. He had a cloud pattern mark between his eyebrows, and as he opened and closed his eyes, it was as if a sea of clouds was being born and perishing.

Nascent Soul Stage, Transformed Demon King!

The man stood in the Void Realm. There was no fluctuation of Spiritual power around him, yet he seemed to be one with the entire heaven and earth, drifting and uncertain.

The space under his feet vaguely presented a sense of illusory distortion.

Forging the Immortal Foundation: [Lord of the Clouds]!

"So this is the Nascent Soul..."

Shi Jian narrowed his eyes, and his Nascent Soul-level Divine Sense swept across the man.

The man tilted his head slightly, his gaze colliding with Shi Jian's.

There was no earth-shattering clash of Auras, but Shi Jian could feel that if the two of them fought now, White Crane could pull him into that endless Dao of Clouds with just a thought and grind him to death.

The chasm of Realms was like a natural moat.

White Crane flashed, instantly appearing in front of the Lightning Pool.

The speed was so fast that even Shi Jian's Divine Sense only captured a blur. It was not that his Divine Sense could not lock onto him, but that his Physical Body cultivation could not keep up with the intensity of his Nascent Soul Divine Sense...

Shi Pan and the other great demons had long since been pressed to the ground by that Nascent Soul pressure, trembling all over, not daring to even raise their heads.

Shi Jian, however, still lay in the Lightning Pool, half his body submerged in the Purple Gold Lightning liquid, looking at the feminine man in front of him with a calm expression.

"Congratulations, Brother Bai, for proving the Dao and forging the Immortal Foundation."

Shi Jian spoke, his voice steady.

White Crane looked at the massive Thunder Bear in front of him, a flash of complexity in his eyes.

He was now a Nascent Soul, and logically speaking, crushing a Level 7 Demon General would be easy.

But he dared not, nor did he want to.

Not to mention that the two had made a Dao Heart blood oath, Shi Jian's bottomless foundation alone, as well as his composure when facing his Nascent Soul pressure just now, made White Crane feel a trace of dread.

What's more, he was able to successfully form the Nascent Soul entirely thanks to the protection of Zixiao Peak.

And Shi Jian, who had planned the whole situation for him.

White Crane restrained his Aura, cupped his hands, and bowed deeply to Shi Jian.

"If not for Brother Shi protecting the Dao, White would be flying ash today."

White Crane's voice was clear: "From now on, our two races will be united. If Brother Shi has any commands, White will never refuse."

Hearing this, Shi Jian laughed.

The bear's mouth split open, revealing a row of sharp white fangs, and he gladly accepted.

"Brother Bai is too polite."

"You and I are both of other races. On this continent of the Human Race, we should support each other."

Shi Jian stood up, bringing up a splash of lightning liquid, and walked to White Crane. One bear and one man, the difference in size was stark, but their Auras were evenly matched.

"Brother Bai, you have just entered the Nascent Soul Stage. How does it feel?"

White Crane clenched his fists, feeling the vast power like the sea within his body, as well as the resonance with the Great Dao of heaven and earth:

"Very strong. As for me now, if I were to face that old dog Tongming again, I would take his head within a hundred moves."

Speaking of this, White Crane changed the subject and looked to the east.

"Brother Shi, when I was forming the Nascent Soul just now, I sensed that in the far distance, multiple Great Dao Laws were colliding. The Human Race's Nascent Soul old monsters seem to be fighting very fiercely..."

Shi Jian nodded: "The Liang Kingdom is in chaos. The Shangqing Sect, the Taiqing Sect, the three factions of the Liang Kingdom, and the demons of the Boundless Sea are all slaughtering in the East Sea and the hinterland of the Liang Kingdom."

"Fourteen Nascent Souls are fighting, shaking the heavens and the earth."

Upon hearing this, White Crane had calculations in his eyes and licked his lips.

"A chaotic battle of fourteen Nascent Souls... This is a once-in-a-thousand-year chaotic situation."

White Crane sneered: "Brother Shi, my Immortal Foundation has just been forged, and I am lacking the flesh and blood of my peers to stabilize my Realm. Since the Human Race is fighting so lively, shouldn't we go and collect some interest?"

Shi Jian lay back in the Lightning Pool and closed his eyes.

"No hurry."

"Let them die a few more, and then we will enter the game to harvest all sides..."

Shi Jian was confident, having already planned it: "When they fight until both sides are injured and their foundations are exhausted, we will enter the game in our peak state. That is what you call taking it all."

White Crane was stunned, then burst into laughter.

"Good! A good 'take it all'! White will wait here with Brother Shi for a while!"

"If there is a chance, White will definitely swallow that old thief Tongming!"