145: I'm traversing the Five Elements City! This is my "hard-earned money"!

The central altar of Five Elements City, originally a sacred and peaceful sacrificial ceremony, had now turned into a ruin resembling an Asura field.

Dark golden cracks spanned the sky, and Gu Yang's figure, as deep as a black hole, floated quietly in the semi-void. His bare upper body, every inch of muscle like black gold compressed by extreme gravity, exuded a suffocating texture. When the surrounding light approached within three feet of his body, it actually underwent obvious distortion and adsorption, making his entire person appear blurry and grand.

"Tie Niu... you actually... really took the Imperial Seal..."

Below the altar, Surpassing the Barbarians Saint sat paralyzed in a pile of rubble, pointing at Gu Yang, his voice trembling so much he couldn't form sentences. As the Young Lord of Five Elements Mansion, he never imagined that on this land protected by the Holy Land's Laws for tens of thousands of years, someone would actually use such a brutal and sacrilegious method to destroy a great sacrifice concerning the fate of the nation... "Well... I said just now, good things should be eaten while they're hot."

Gu Yang slowly lowered his head, his deep purple pupils showing no emotional fluctuation. His voice when he spoke was not loud, but as each word fell, the surrounding space would ripple with dense cracks like a startled lake surface.

This was a side effect after the Third Turn Breakthrough—the mass of his Physical Body had reached a level that the Laws of this realm could hardly carry. Even a casual vibration was a destructive physical disaster for the surrounding Spell Cultivators.

"Presumptuous!!!"

In the sky, several auras of extreme terror finally descended with a crash.

Three Grand Elders of Five Elements Mansion, all old monsters at the Void Refining Perfection stage, were diving down from the top of the myriad phenomena pagoda, riding five-colored light. The leading Elder's beard and hair were flared, and he tightly gripped a Five Elements Divine Mace that radiated the aura of a Heavenly Spirit Treasure, the anger in his eyes almost turning substantial.

"Destroying my Imperial Seal, wounding my Young Lord, intercepting my Luck... you barbarian, even if the Heavenly Phoenix Sect protects you today, I will extract your Divine Soul and suppress you in the Earth Fire Abyss for ten thousand years!"

..."Suppress me?"

Gu Yang scratched his short hair, which had become harder than steel needles due to increased density, and gave an extremely dangerous, simple-looking smile.

"Old man, my dad said that those who speak loudly usually have no skill. I've been busy for a long while and worked up a sweat, yet you haven't paid me my 'wages' and even want to dock my pay?"

"Form the Formation!! Five Elements God-Trapping Formation, activate!"

The three Void Refining Perfection old monsters didn't waste any words with Gu Yang. Knowing the terrifying close-quarters explosive power of a Body Cultivator, they instantly formed a triangle to surround Gu Yang at the center. Eighteen sky-reaching dharma pillars swirled frantically at this moment, and the Five Elements energy originally used to nourish the bones was forcibly reversed, turning into a five-colored crystal cage a hundred zhang thick.

This God-Trapping Formation was claimed to be able to obliterate even a real Late Stage Void Refining Yao Beast. Now, under the enhancement of gravity Laws, every inch of space was solidified like pig iron... "Fellow Daoist Gu, run! This Formation is connected to the ley lines of Five Elements City!"

In the distance, Saintess Feng Ni's face was pale. Ignoring the obstruction of the Elders beside her, she screamed out loud. She never expected things to escalate to such an uncontrollable state.

However, facing this Formation capable of suppressing and killing everything, Gu Yang didn't even take out the star shattering hammer.

He simply took a slow step forward.

It was truly a very ordinary step.

But at the moment his foot landed, the entire Five Elements City shook violently. This was due to the displacement of extremely high-mass matter in space, triggering a chain of gravitational waves... "Break... for me!"

Gu Yang gave a light wave of his right hand, and a pure black vacuum sphere only the size of a soybean appeared in his palm.

That was the instinct he awakened after the Third Turn Breakthrough—[Extreme Dao Characteristic: Shattered Void].

Clang—!

There was no expected explosion. The moment the black vacuum sphere touched the five-colored crystal cage, the entire Formation, claimed to be indestructible, was like foam meeting strong acid. Amidst an extremely ear-piercing sound of shattering, it collapsed and disintegrated over a large area.

Those patterns woven from Laws were as fragile as a child's kite string in the face of Gu Yang's unreasonable physical mass.

"What?! The power of the ley lines... was actually slapped apart by him?!"

The leading Elder was terrified. He could feel that the mana he injected into the Formation hadn't been consumed, but rather forcibly erased by a higher-level physical logic he couldn't understand... "Wages, I'll take them myself."

Gu Yang's figure flickered, bringing a series of afterimages that distorted space, and instantly appeared at a corner of the altar.

There were over a dozen boxes of supplies originally intended to be distributed to the Saints of various clans after the great sacrifice—all of them were the top-tier "top-grade origin stoness" and "Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Marrow" of the Central Province.

Gu Yang waved his hand, and a brutal gravitational pull directly sucked those heavy iron boxes to his side. He casually grabbed a fist-sized source stone containing Law fragments and swallowed it with two crunches like chewing rock candy, replenishing the energy void after his Breakthrough.

"Vile beast! Stop!"

Two Deacon Elders of the Grand Void Holy Land couldn't help but act when they saw this. Although they were only at the Late Stage of Void Refining, they relied on their numbers and brought out two Grand Void Mirrors, shooting out two beams of Grand Void Divine Light capable of melting the Primordial Spirit... "So noisy."

Gu Yang frowned. He backhanded them with a massive slap.

Rumble!!

This time, he applied a little more strength.

The airflow fanned out by that slap was forcibly compressed into a translucent arc-shaped vacuum blade in the environment of five-thousand-fold gravity.

Pfft—!

Those two Late Stage Void Refining Deacon Elders, along with the two Advanced Spirit Treasure Grand Void Mirrors, were neatly cut in half the moment the vacuum blade passed through, without even letting out a scream.

Because the cut was too fast and the space at the wound was forcibly sealed by the vacuum Domain, even the blood didn't spray out immediately. It wasn't until their broken bodies fell to the ground that the sky-filling rain of blood, like a late report, dyed a large area of the altar red... The entire scene fell into dead silence again.

Those Saints of various clans who were originally restless now shrunk into corners, not daring to breathe.

Too ruthless. This was no longer a fight; this was cleaning up trash.

Late Stage Void Refining cultivators were prominent figures in the Central Province, yet they were "folded" by this barbarian with a casual wave?

"Sister Feng Ni, Er Gou, let's go!"

Gu Yang lifted the heavy iron box filled with source stones with one hand and threw it back. The iron box sliced through the void and landed steadily on the Heavenly Phoenix Sect's flying boat not far away.

Er Gou was also excited to the extreme. Its silver-white scales were covered with fragments of Magic Treasures it had stolen during the chaos. It leaped up, bit Gu Yang's trouser leg, and used the force to jump onto the flying boat... "Stop him! myriad phenomena pagoda, suppress!"

Surpassing the Barbarians Saint's father, the Mansion Master of Five Elements Mansion—a peerless expert at the Peak of Void Refining Perfection who had even touched the threshold of the Body Integration Stage—was finally shaken out of seclusion.

He pointed into the void, and the black divine tower in the center of the city erupted with dazzling black light. That was the foundation of Five Elements City, a true Heavenly Spirit Treasure!

The myriad phenomena pagoda, carrying the pressure to suppress a realm, smashed down fiercely toward the Heavenly Phoenix Sect's flying boat. In that instant, the gravity of the entire Five Elements City actually climbed to a hundred thousand times!

..."Going this big? Then I'll return the favor."

The madness in Gu Yang's eyes was completely ignited.

He didn't board the flying boat but instead charged toward the black divine tower in the opposite direction.

The blood and qi of the Early Stage Divine Demon Golden Body Third Turn were rotated in reverse by him in an instant.

"Extreme Dao—Mass Collapse!"

Gu Yang didn't raise his hammer. He clasped his fists together and curled his whole body into a ball, like a fired warhead. In the millisecond the myriad phenomena pagoda fell, he precisely struck the weakest Law node on the tower's body.

Crack—Rumble!!!

In that nightmare scene that countless people would never forget in their lives, the myriad phenomena pagoda, which had stood for ten thousand years and had never been damaged, actually had a terrifying hole ten meters in diameter appear at its base from this collision.

Gu Yang forcibly crashed through the interior of the Heavenly Spirit Treasure!

..."Pfft—!"

The Five Elements Mansion Master suffered a mental blow and suddenly spat out a large mouthful of natal essence blood, his aura instantly withering.

Gu Yang flipped in the air and landed on the deck of the Heavenly Phoenix Sect's flying boat using the counter-force.

"The food in the Central Province is good, but the boss is too stingy."

Gu Yang looked at Saintess Feng Ni, his simple-looking face revealing a dominance that made the Saintess's heart tremble.

"Sister, start the boat! Next stop... I'm going to that abyss to see if there are larger bones to gnaw on."

Feng Ni's mind was blank at this moment, but instinct made her frantically drive the flying boat's power furnace. The Heavenly Phoenix flying boat turned into a brilliant red stream of light, and under the escort of Gu Yang's residual vacuum Domain, it instantly broke through the defensive barrier of Five Elements City and rushed toward the vast and boundless sky.

Inside the city, only a mess of an altar remained, along with a group of prodigies of Spell Cultivators with broken Dao Hearts... Half a day later, the flying boat traveled through the high clouds of the Three Thousand Dao Provinces.

Because it was far from the gravity field of Five Elements City, the flying boat's speed reached its limit.

Gu Yang was sitting on the deck, with the source stones snatched from Five Elements Mansion piled in front of him. He ate them like broad beans, one at a time, the crunchy sound making Saintess Feng Ni's temples throb.

"Fellow Daoist Gu... do you know that your disturbance just now cost Five Elements Mansion at least five thousand years of savings?"

Feng Ni reminded him in a low voice, her eyes full of complexity.

"Five thousand years?" Gu Yang smacked his lips and swallowed a piece of top-grade origin stones.

"Then I still took too little. I put in so much effort, and if calculated by the prices in the Central Province, those source stones would at most be enough to buy a few pots of leopard meat. I am the most honest person; I never take advantage of others."

...Feng Ni gave a bitter smile. She glanced at the pure black aura gradually receding from Gu Yang's body.

"Fellow Daoist Gu, the 'Endless Sea Abyss' we are about to pass through is no joke. It is the edge of the Return to Ruins, where Laws are chaotic. Even if your Physical Body has reached the Third Turn... if you accidentally fall into the Return to Ruins black hole, you might be exiled forever."

"Return to Ruins?"

Gu Yang narrowed his eyes and looked toward the end of the horizon.

There, the originally milky-white seawater had turned into a bottomless iron gray. A decayed and violent aura drifted in the air, a spatial distortion caused by the gravitational pull at the bottom of the abyss.

[System detecting...] [Target locked: Endless Sea Abyss—Entrance: Guixu Sea Eye.] [Current state: Divine Demon Golden Body Third Turn (Early Stage) stabilizing. Energy reserves: 40%.]

"It doesn't matter."

Gu Yang stood up, feeling the faint fluctuation of the True Dragon Origin coming from afar.

"As long as the meat is fat enough, I, Tie Niu... dare to go anywhere."

He patted Er Gou's head. Er Gou had fallen into a deep sleep because it had swallowed too many Magic Treasure fragments, and the layer of silver scales on its body was turning into dark gold.

The second stage of the Spirit Realm sweep officially stepped into this forbidden land.