Chapter 10: Merits

To leave the Immortal Spirit Realm, they had to go to that Dao Lord's cave.

Whoosh.

Ji Ning and the other four immediately turned into streaks of light, tearing through the air and vanishing directly, leaving ripples in space.

It was only then that the countless cultivators who had just been freed from their imprisonment and torture awoke from the shock of the death of the 'Demon Lord' in their eyes.

"Thank you, five immortals, for saving our lives."

"Thank you, great immortals, for rescuing us from this sea of suffering."

"Thank you, seniors."

In an instant, countless cultivators knelt down in gratitude, weeping and shouting with hot tears. Besides the few billion cultivators who had just been imprisoned, there were many more who had been locked up here for ages, enduring endless suffering, always holding onto hope that they could transcend the tribulation and fly away. But in reality, the millions of puppets in the great prison would immediately kill anyone who broke through to the late Void Refiner stage! Perhaps only a very few could successfully transcend the tribulation every hundred years; the rest would collapse and die in agony.

Now, they were all liberated.

They could all live on. The hatred of endless years now turned into gratitude toward Ji Ning and the other four.

…

Ji Ning and the other four shuttled through the void and arrived at the location of the spacetime teleportation array.

"These puppets." Feng Yi Xinjun acted, easily refining all hundred-plus Ancestral God-level puppets, then divided them into five shares, one for each of them.

"What?"

"What's happening?"

"Could it be..."

The tens of millions of cultivators bound to the pillars looked up at Ji Ning and the other four in the sky. How could those hundred terrifying demons be so easily taken away?

"From this moment on," Feng Yi Xinjun said, his gaze sweeping over them as his world projection descended, shattering the chains on every cultivator, "you are no longer prisoners. You, and the countless cultivators imprisoned in the jail, are all free. I hope you cultivate well and manage this Immortal Spirit Realm into a truly worthy realm."

"Free?" The tens of millions of cultivators were stunned at first, then trembled with excitement.

"Let's go." Ji Ning and the other four quickly left. To them, rescuing these mortal cultivators was a mere举手之劳, and they were happy to do it.

Watching Ji Ning and the other four vanish into thin air in the sky,

the tens of millions of cultivators finally snapped to their senses and knelt down one after another, kowtowing: "Thank you, immortals."

"Thank you, immortals, for saving us."

"The immortals have finally descended to the mortal world."

The cultivators spoke with tears, moved and grateful.

…

The majestic Dao Lord's cave was shrouded in faint green mist, appearing indistinct.

Ji Ning and the other four watched from afar, extremely cautious.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, a strange power penetrated the void and descended directly upon them, layers of golden light continuously falling on their bodies.

"This is?" Ji Ning and the other four exchanged glances.

"Merit," Feng Yi said softly. "Such a huge amount of merit. All the merit I've accumulated from cultivation until now doesn't match this one gain."

"Indeed, a lot of merit," Qing Huan Prince also said. "I once fought an evil sect and saved over three hundred chaos worlds, but the merit I accumulated then wasn't as much as this single time."

Ji Ning was also astonished.

At their level of power, merit was merely icing on the cake—it slightly improved their luck when venturing and exploring, nothing more. Yet the amount of merit was still too exaggerated. If saving people truly yielded so much merit, probably many more Dao Lords would be eager to save people on a large scale.

Accumulating more merit would bring better luck, which, though not helpful for 'Dao Integration,' was beneficial for adventures.

But in reality, even saving an entire chaos world usually yielded less than a thousandth of this merit.

"The resentment we saw over the prison earlier was astonishing," Feng Yi said. "The resentment here was incredibly intense. By rescuing them, we gained an absurd amount of merit. Perhaps over endless generations, the number of cultivators tortured to death was too vast. Though they died, the merit was still bestowed in the unseen."

"Mm." Ji Ning and the others nodded.

The cultivators they rescued were mainly from the past few millennia; earlier cultivators had almost all been tortured to death.

Compared to those rescued, the dead were far more numerous.

"This Dao Lord's cave," Qing Huan Prince said, looking at the majestic cave faintly visible in the depths of the green mist, "doesn't seem easy to breach. Let's first try to see if we can destroy it directly."

"Mm, let's try."

"If we can destroy it and also the central hub of the formation covering the entire Immortal Spirit Realm continent, that would be great." Ji Ning and the others hoped for such a fortunate outcome.

A cave, when under its master's control, had very strong defensive power.

Now that the Dao Lord was dead, Ji Ning and the others indeed had a chance to break it open.

"I'll go first." Ji Ning smiled and walked through the void toward the distant Dao Lord's cave. At the same time, the Seven Divine Thunders and Seven Divine Waters manifested grandly, forming a vast yin-yang sword-intent domain. The oppressive domain swept through, completely obliterating the faint green mist and furiously assaulting the cave.

"Shatter!"

Feng Yi Xinjun directly descended his heart-world projection, a world pressing down.

"Break!" Qing Huan Prince also flew over, brutally swinging his golden palm. His palm was the most ferocious among the five. Although Ji Ning's 'Blooddrop Sword Intent' was also a supreme Dao, it excelled in penetration and destruction, while Qing Huan Prince's strength lay in overbearing power.

Boom! Boom!

The enormous golden palms covered the sky like two massive golden clouds, striking the Dao Lord's cave again and again. The shockwaves even left huge handprints sunk into the surrounding earth.

"Roar~~~" Tianhuo Mangya transformed into his true form, a massive flame-wreathed beast. His hooves stomped and his tail lashed out, his power also formidable.

Huojin Shuijun also charged forward, attacking from all sides.

…

The door of the Dao Lord's cave was open, so Ji Ning's Dao Divine Thunders and Divine Waters also surged inside, sweeping and destroying everything.

They attacked with full force for a while, then finally stopped.

"Eh? The cave door is clearly open," the flame beast said, transforming back into the red-haired youth. "Brother Beiming's divine thunder and water, my innate flame, and Brother Feng Yi's world projection all penetrated and destroyed inside. So why is the formation covering this continent completely unharmed?"

"Mm." Ji Ning also looked up at the sky.

The faint golden divine patterns in the sky showed that the massive formation was completely unaffected.

"We probably didn't damage the formation's central hub," Ji Ning said. "It might be in some hidden place within the cave."

"What now?" Feng Yi's gaze swept over them.

"What else? We go in," Qing Huan Prince said coldly.

"Mm." Huojin's eyes also held killing intent.

Ji Ning and the others were wary of the Dao Lord's cave. A cave was the enemy's lair! If there really was another Dao Lord, fighting inside the cave would put them at a disadvantage.

But now...

Whether there was another Dao Lord was impossible to determine. Even if one was hiding and refused to come out, they still had to enter and destroy the formation to leave the Immortal Spirit Realm continent.

"Brother Beiming, let's join forces to defend the perimeter," Feng Yi said.

"Mm." Ji Ning nodded.

Feng Yi's heart-world projection was excellent for alertness, while Ji Ning's yin-yang sword-intent domain was the strongest defensive domain.

Thus, a chaotic sword-intent domain surrounded Ji Ning and the other four, along with countless world projections.

"Whoosh."

They directly arrived at the entrance of the Dao Lord's cave. Though it had been bombarded for a long time, it remained unscathed.

They entered through the main door.

The cave was enormous and complex inside, with many shattered puppets—remnants of the destruction caused by the divine thunder, water, and flames they had sent in earlier.

"This cave is really huge." The cave was like a maze. Ji Ning and the others walked for half an hour, breaking through various seals together and carefully investigating.

…

Deep in the lowest level of the Dao Lord's cave, there was a void passage flanked by large patches of fiery red rock.

"Whoosh whoosh~~~" Hot wind howled through the void passage.

In one of the caves among the rocks,

a black-robed Dao Lord sat cross-legged. His aura was ancient and vast, far more powerful than the one Ji Ning and the others had killed earlier. His eyes reflected the figures of Ji Ning and the other four inside the cave: "These five World-level cultivators have indeed entered my cave. World-level cultivators comparable to Second Step Dao Lords, and five of them at once... Their backgrounds are probably not ordinary sects. Perhaps their masters hold high positions in the Divine Destruction Palace. Though they killed one of my followers, if not necessary, I truly don't wish to be their enemy."

"But my master ordered me to guard this place, with strict instructions: any outsiders who come here are to be killed without exception." The black-robed Dao Lord shook his head gently.

…