Chapter 863: Inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, the Six Ding Divine Fire Refines the Golden Body
Chapter 863: Inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace, the Six Ding Divine Fire Refines the Golden Body
Inside the furnace, a sea of fire, a refining hell.Here, there was no up or down, no directions, only fire.
The Six Ding Divine Fire.
It was one of the most tyrannical flames between heaven and earth, renowned for being able to burn anything without exception.
The space inside the pill furnace was vast, even to the point of being a completely independent world outside of everything else. However, this world was entirely crimson and empty, containing nothing but the alchemical fire.
"Big Boss, what do we do?" Muscle Tyrant crowded close to Chen Huaian, his expression grave, a flicker of fear in his eyes. "This is Taishang Laojun's pill furnace, said to be able to refine anything. Even a Great Luo Golden Immortal or a Quasi-Saint thrown inside can be refined. We..."
"What's there to panic about?" Chen Huaian clicked his tongue.
Hearing this, Muscle Tyrant's face lit up with joy. "Do you have a way to break out of the furnace?"
"No," Chen Huaian shook his head.
"Then..."
"Does panicking solve the problem?" Chen Huaian retorted.
Muscle Tyrant lowered his head, sighed, and sat down leaning against Chen Huaian. "No."
He was silent for a long moment, a fierce look on his face. "Refine then, let them refine... We killed a Shi Huo Zhu, I severely injured a Kang Jin Long. This cycle has been worth it already. In a little while, I'll be refined together with you. The two of us will become one lump of immortal pill, you within me, me within you. Even though we failed, at least I die together with my master."
Chen Huaian: "..."
"Shut your mouth for This Venerable One!"
"Who wants to merge into a lump with you? This Venerable One has a Dao Companion!"
"Hehe..." Muscle Tyrant shook his massive head, revealing an embarrassed, simple-minded grin. Even so, his claw still quietly tightened its grip on the corner of Chen Huaian's robe.
He truly was already prepared to march to his death.
"Get in."
Chen Huaian tossed out a Purple Gold Gourd with a backhand motion.
"If This Venerable One can leave, I'll naturally take you with me."
He looked at the sea of fire pressing down from all directions, his voice very soft, yet very firm.
"But This Venerable One has a destiny to fulfill. If there is even a sliver of a chance, This Venerable One cannot retreat, must not retreat!"
"If we give the myriad Celestial Immortals and Gods a chance to catch their breath today, in the future they will break our spines. Without the Celestial God Clan needing to lift a finger, we will be worn down to death by these dog lackeys!"
"Alright, I'll listen to you."
Muscle Tyrant nodded, without any further nonsense, transforming into a stream of light and obediently slipping into the gourd.
Inside the gourd, there were still lingering traces of other Fierce Beast souls. Living inside felt warm, very comforting.
Chen Huaian put away the gourd.
Actually, regarding escaping this predicament, he had one method.
Directly and forcefully tear through space to return to the Cangyun Realm for refuge. No matter how powerful these myriad Gods and Buddhas were, could they chase him all the way to the Cangyun Realm? That was new territory, another Heavenly Dao.
But if he did that, this Gate of Heaven he just cleaved open would be wasted.
That breath of defiance would dissipate.
Therefore, he could not flee.
The sea of fire closed in.
Chen Huaian closed his eyes, sat cross-legged in meditation.
Pain.
Indescribable pain.
The flames weren't just burning his skin and flesh, they were burning his bone marrow, burning his Divine Soul.
His body of Immortal King flesh and blood, just recently condensed, was melting and withering away at a visible speed under this divine fire.
His skin charred black, peeling off.
Revealing the crimson-red muscle beneath, then the pale white bone.
Even the Chaos energy within his body was being refined bit by bit by these flames.
His vision began to blur.
In his dazed state, Chen Huaian felt this fire was somewhat familiar.
Not just the heat, but carrying a kind of... resentment.
Deep within the churning inferno, space-time seemed to warp and twist.
Chen Huaian saw a thin, small figure.
It wasn't a person, but a monkey.
A monkey with iron chains piercing its collarbones, molten copper poured down its throat, writhing in agony within the sea of fire.
It was screaming.
The sound was as mournful as a cuckoo crying blood, each cry feeling like a knife dragged across Chen Huaian's heart.
"Master... it hurts..."
"Master... why is this fire so hot..."
Fragments of memories sealed deep within his soul, like a bursting river dam, flooded into Chen Huaian's mind under the scorching heat of the Six Ding Divine Fire.
The Slanted Moon Three Stars Cave.
That stone monkey kneeling outside the door, enduring three days and three nights of snow.
That clever little imp whom he merely tapped three times on the head, and who sneaked over at midnight seeking the Dao.
That disciple who, when driven down the mountain, looked back with every step, crying as if his heart and liver were torn apart.
— Wukong.
So it was.
That lifetime, I truly was your master...
Chen Huaian looked at the monkey in the sea of fire, its skin and flesh scorched, its eyes blinded by smoke, its spine being burned bit by bit by the divine fire. His heart hurt ten thousand times more than the flesh on his body.
"Master... I want to go back to the mountain..."
"I don't want to be any Great Sage Equal to Heaven anymore... I just want to sweep the floor for Master..."
In the midst of this illusion, the monkey stretched out a hand burned down to the bone, weakly grasping at the empty air, as if trying to seize the sole support in its memory.
Two clear streams of tears flowed from Chen Huaian's long-since blinded eye sockets.
The tears evaporated the moment they welled up, consumed by the divine fire.
"So that's how it was..."
Chen Huaian trembled as he reached out, wanting to touch that illusion.
"So that's how much it hurt back then?"
That lifetime, I drove you down the mountain to help you avoid calamity.
Never did I imagine, I pushed you into this inescapable pit of fire.
Suddenly, the monkey in the illusion seemed to sense something.
It froze.
Staring blankly at Chen Huaian.
As if gazing across countless spans of time and space into Chen Huaian's empty eyes.
The originally wildly violent Six Ding Divine Fire that was burning Chen Huaian's body suddenly quieted down at this moment.
They gathered together, transforming into a palm composed of flames. That hand gently, carefully, wiped away the tears from the corner of Chen Huaian's eyes.
"Master, don't cry."
A faint thread of consciousness, traversing ten thousand years of time, transmitted into Chen Huaian's Divine Soul.
"This old Sun... doesn't hurt anymore."
The monkey's figure dissipated.
Transforming into a sky full of golden-red light points, gently enveloping Chen Huaian's broken body.
The pain vanished.
Replaced by a warm current.
It was the last bit of obsession, the last bit of spiritual nature that the monkey had left in this furnace.
This bit of spiritual nature was the unyielding pride and true self that had been refined away by the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
It was protecting Chen Huaian.
"You damn monkey..."
Chen Huaian lowered his head, the corners of his mouth pulling into a smile that seemed both like crying and anger.
"You've already been refined to ashes, and you still want to protect me?"
He suddenly raised his head.
Within those two empty eye sockets, though there were no eyeballs, two clusters of golden karmic fire blazed, hotter and more frenzied than this Six Ding Divine Fire.
"Since they burned your bones, refined you into a mere shell of a body."
"Then today..."
"Your Master will, on your behalf, devour this fire, and burn this heaven!!"
Chen Huaian released all his defenses.
He actively opened every pore, opened his already charred-black mouth, and towards the sky full of divine fire, let out a roar from the depths of his soul.
— Heavenly Demon Art · Devour the Heavens and Earth.
"Come on!!"
"Whether it's pain or resentment! All of it, come into This Venerable One!!"
Boom!
The Six Ding Divine Fire seemed to be provoked, becoming even more violent, transforming into countless fiery dragons that roared and madly burrowed into Chen Huaian's body.
But Chen Huaian feared nothing, accepting it all.
Devour, devour everything.
He could not betray the sliver of opportunity that foolish monkey fought for on his behalf.
The thought it left within this Eight Trigrams Furnace before it was refined.
Containing how to resist the Six Ding Divine Fire.
How to devour and refine them.
The monkey didn't succeed.
Now he would succeed for the monkey.
He would use the most tyrannical flame between heaven and earth to temper his Chaos body.
Sizzle sizzle sizzle—
The flames entered his body.
His internal organs were instantly incinerated to ashes.
But the next second, they were reborn under the tyrannical vitality of the Heavenly Demon Art.
Destruction, rebirth.
Destroy again, reborn again.
With each cycle, his physical body became more formidable.
His originally gray-white Chaos bones, after absorbing this divine fire carrying Sun Wukong's resentment, began to shimmer with a strange golden-red hue.
It was the color of fire.
The color of tribulation.
Even more, the color of defying heaven.
The Ancestral Dragon bloodline within him was completely activated, perfectly fusing with this divine fire.
No longer half-demon, half-immortal.
No longer a simple Chaos body.
But an indestructible golden body that transcended rules, bathed in destruction and born from it.
"Not enough..."
Chen Huaian's aura was soaring madly, his voice like thunder exploding within the furnace.
"More!!"
He frantically devoured everything within the furnace.
Flames, Spiritual Energy, even the Great Dao runes inscribed on the inner walls of the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
All of it, eat it!
...
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