Ancient Ferocious Beast, Taotie

Following the same method, he gritted his teeth and endured the swelling pain in his meridians and the rapid depletion of his spiritual power, managing to collect three more strands of Supreme Yang Thunder Essence by force.

By the time the fourth thunder essence was finally sealed into the Thunder Containment Gourd, Wang Xiaopang was practically collapsing from exhaustion. He slumped to the ground, sitting heavily on his backside, gasping for breath. His face was as pale as paper, and his clothes were soaked through with sweat.

"No more, no more. This stuff drains too much spiritual power. One more strand, and I, Fatty, would be sucked dry for sure..."

He didn't dare stay long in the valley. Struggling to his feet, stumbling and swaying, he retreated from the Wind and Thunder Valley, found a secluded cave, set up a few concealment arrays, and immediately sat down cross-legged. He gulped down handfuls of medicinal pills and began restoring his strength with full focus.

Several hours later, once his condition had somewhat recovered, Wang Xiaopang eagerly took out his refining materials. He took a deep breath and carefully guided out a thread of the Supreme Yang Thunder Essence, preparing to draw the long-dreamed-of "Nine Heavens Imperial Thunder Talisman."

However, this Supreme Yang Thunder Essence was far wilder and harder to control than he had imagined!

At the moment he concentrated all his attention and tried to fuse the thunder essence into the talisman paper—"BOOM!!!"

A muffled explosion! The talisman paper simply could not withstand that power and instantly burst apart! The unruly thunder essence, now free of its restraints, rampaged through the cave like a runaway wild horse!

Wang Xiaopang took the brunt of the blast, caught right in the middle!

"Aiyayay! Ouch!" he screamed as he was flung backward, slamming hard into the cave wall before bouncing back to the ground. His once relatively tidy Daoist robe was now tattered and torn. His short hair stood on end, trailing black smoke. His originally fair and chubby face was now charred black, with only the whites of his eyes and his teeth maintaining their original color.

"Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!"

Lying on the ground, he coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of black smoke, feeling as if his internal organs were churning.

"Cough, cough... How is this thing harder to handle than I imagined..."

After resting for a good while, Wang Xiaopang finally got up, wincing and grimacing in pain. Looking at the messy cave and his blackened hands, he felt no discouragement; instead, a fiercer fighting spirit ignited in his small eyes!

"Fatty me refuses to believe this!" He carefully recalled every detail of his failure and analyzed his mistakes.

"Is the talisman paper material not good enough? Or was I too impatient when guiding the energy? Right, I need to go slow, like coaxing an honored ancestor..."

He calmed down once more, cleaned up the area, and prepared everything again.

This time, he was even more cautious. He slowed his movements several times over, concentrated his divine sense with extreme intensity—as if dancing on the edge of a blade—and bit by bit guided that unruly thunder essence, tracing mysterious paths on the specially made talisman paper.

Time passed slowly. Sweat again beaded on his forehead, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

Finally, as the last stroke was completed, the entire talisman suddenly burst into a brilliant yet non-dazzling purple-gold radiance! The thunder patterns on the talisman's surface seemed to come alive, flowing slowly, exuding a restrained yet heart-stopping aura of destruction.

A powerful spiritual pressure emanated from the talisman! It was a success!

Wang Xiaopang carefully pinched the still-warm talisman, feeling the terrifying power contained within, and a face-splitting, ecstatic smile spread across his chubby face.

"Hehehe, it worked! Finally worked! The power is even stronger than I expected! Hahaha! I, Fatty, am a genius!"

With the experience of his first success, Wang Xiaopang's confidence soared, but he did not become complacent. His earlier success had involved a bit of luck; any slight negligence could undo everything.

He sat down cross-legged again, but did not start immediately. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused, repeatedly replaying in his mind every detail of the successful attempt and the flow of every bit of spiritual power, over and over again.

Only when he felt his body and mind were in optimal condition did he slowly open his eyes, which were now clear and calm.

"Second one, commence!" he murmured softly, his expression focused and his movements more stable.

"Phew, that was close!" Wang Xiaopang wiped the sweat from his brow as he looked at the second spirit talisman in his hand, which flickered with purple lightning, and let out a long sigh of relief.

Striking while the iron was hot, he immediately started refining the third strand of thunder essence without pause.

This time, his movements were noticeably more skilled, his techniques bolder and more refined.

When the talisman was complete, the light within it retracted, and mysterious thunder patterns seemed to form naturally on its surface, as if the talisman's quality was even superior to the previous two!

Wang Xiaopang looked at the three talismans in his hand, each swirling with purple electricity and radiating impressive spiritual pressure, and his heart was bursting with joy. He carefully tucked them close to his body, his fat face filled with smug satisfaction and delight.

His gaze involuntarily wandered back toward the depths of the Wind and Thunder Valley.

There, thunder still roared violently, and lightning serpents wildly danced. The destructive aura flooded heaven and earth.

But now, in Wang Xiaopang's eyes, it was no longer a place of fear, but a treasure mountain filled with infinite riches!

The joy of his successful refining burned like fire in his heart, thoroughly igniting the greedy sprout deep within him.

"Are three talismans enough?"

Wang Xiaopang licked his slightly dry lips, his small eyes gleaming with a shrewd and dangerous light.

"Such life-saving and enemy-killing treasures—the more, the merrier! What if I run into a tough opponent and three aren't enough to finish them off? Then wouldn't I, Fatty, be up a creek without a paddle?"

He hesitated no longer. Wrapping himself once again into a "glowing rice dumpling," he gazed with burning eyes at the thunder-filled center of the valley, where the wild lightning in his vision had already transformed into images of future, infinitely powerful spirit talismans.

"Treasurers, here comes your Fat Uncle again!"

With that, he took a deep breath and, once again, stealthily crept back toward that deadly thunder domain.

While Wang Xiaopang happily "stocked up" outside the Wind and Thunder Valley, tens of thousands of miles away, Ling Xi had followed a faint, mysterious resonance to a desolate mountain range.

This place looked utterly ordinary—jagged rocks, sparse vegetation, no different from any other wilderness.

But the ethereal aura of the Great Yin around Ling Xi rippled faintly here, resonating subtly with something deep underground.

She stood still in the void, her cool, clear gaze scanning the land below. Then she closed her eyes, and her vast, emperor-level divine sense spread silently like an invisible tide, penetrating deep into the earth.

Rock, soil, underground rivers... all matter was transparent before her divine sense.

The divine sense descended continuously, passing through a thousand zhang of depth, until it finally touched a resilient, invisible barrier.

"A formation?"

Ling Xi felt a stirring in her heart.

This formation was extremely ancient and profound, but it was covered in countless fine cracks. Clearly, its power had weathered away to less than a tenth of its original strength over the long passage of time.

It was through these cracks that a trace of an extraordinary, yet extremely refined, essence seeped out.

This essence carried an intent—one of devouring all things and returning everything to nothingness!

Ling Xi's delicate brows furrowed slightly, surprise flickering in her clear eyes.

"Why is there such a pure aura of Devouring Origin in this place?"

This was no power attainable by ordinary cultivators. Her vast divine sense condensed into a needle-point and, aiming at a larger crack in the ancient formation, flexed suddenly!

"Humm!"

The ancient formation let out an agonized groan, unable to bear the strain, and the crack was forcibly widened.

Lingxi’s spiritual awareness, as delicate as the finest tendrils, instantly pierced through the barriers of the formation and delved into the core space it guarded.

In the next moment, even with Lingxi’s composed state of mind, the scene her spiritual awareness “saw” stirred ripples across her once-calm inner lake.

Within the formation lay an expansive, isolated space, vast beyond measure.

At the center of that space crouched a colossal body beyond words to describe!

Its form resembled that of a primeval beast, yet it bore an ancient, sacred majesty, its entire surface covered in scales as dark and deep as the abyss of the cosmos.

Though all signs of life had long since faded, the sheer pressure emanating from that massive carcass filled the space as tangible might, making the soul tremble!

And the source of that pure devouring force was none other than this beast—the Taotie!

A primordial creature of legend, the Taotie, known only in ancient tomes!