This Earth Is A Bit Fearsome

The constitution of those monsters was far greater than that of common human cultivators.

The palm attack that Lu Xuan had unleashed was called the “Crumbling Mountain,” a move capable of devastating force within an instant. When honed to the extreme, the force would be on par with its namesake—able to bring down a mountain with only a single strike.

Even though the power of that attack at the moment couldn’t compare to how strong it had been when Lu Xuan was in his pinnacle state, he was nonetheless easily able to clap down a Deity-level fighter with it, hard enough that the victim would have a hard time getting up.

Yet the rat king only rolled around for a moment before getting up again.

That rat king apparently had a good measure of intellectual capacity. Wariness could be seen in its huge eyes now. It had not been able to sense any threat from Lu Xuan before, which was why it had dared to attack. It intended to kill what it saw as a beast standing on two legs right where he stood.

The rat king had actually already killed dozens of people without anyone knowing, somehow managing to avoid causing a commotion in the human world. In its eyes, Lu Xuan was no different than the other humans it had killed.

However, the slap it had taken moments earlier had caused some damage, and wariness began to show in its eyes right away.

The rat king let out a low growl. Extremely dangerous and evil intentions were visible in its blood-colored eyes.

In the very next moment, the ground beneath Lu Xuan’s feet suddenly turned to thorns and struck out at Lu Xuan.

The rat king knows magic as well, then?

Lu Xuan knew that he had run into a rat king that would be extremely difficult to deal with. Not only was the rat king a mutated being, but it had also actually managed to learn spells.

There was no doubt that the changes to the world from the restoration of spirit qi had benefitted more than just humans, and humans were not the only ones who’d learned how to use spells.

There were beings among the monsters that had managed to do so as well, and this rat king was apparently one of those beings.

Even Deity-level cultivators like Song Lingfeng would have taken quite a huge blow in dealing with this rat king, possibly even dying in the fight.

It was more difficult for beasts to develop any capacity for intellect when compared to most people. Beasts able to develop intellectual capacity to a certain extent and even to begin cultivation were even rarer. However, if one were to emerge, said beast would be like this rat king—a being that was far more terrifying than common human cultivators.

However, it was quite a pity that it had ran into Lu Xuan instead. That bit of magic was utterly useless against Lu Xuan, as shown by what happened once the thorns reached him.

The Shield of Vigor all around Lu Xuan flattened out those thorns the very instant they connected.

The rat king’s tricks were unable to damage Lu Xuan at all.

Swoop!

Lu Xuan disappeared from where he stood, crossing the distance between him and the rat king in an instant to reappear right before the beast.

He pulled Bloodthirst from his ring and brandished it, bringing the blade down with a flash under the blood-colored night sky.

That rat king seemed to have instinctively sensed something incredibly lethal coming its way almost immediately. Its hairs stood up, and it backed away as quickly as it could.

While it was indeed quick, Lu Xuan proved quicker still. He was able to catch up to the rat king right away and brought the sword down onto it.

Pfftt!

The slash landed right on the rat king. Its coat, which had been extremely difficult to damage when cold weapons were used, was torn away right there and then by Bloodthirst. Its mystical coat was unable to do anything to mitigate the damage. It had simply run into someone who was more mystical and powerful than it was.

One of the rat king’s front paws was cut off immediately.

The rat king was in so much pain that it kept screeching and growling in rage. These were no longer the sounds of a rat but the growls of some unknown ferocious beast, one that had mutated to be utterly unrecognizable.

Lu Xuan saw the rat king glaring at him with extremely vengeful eyes. It knew that things were not going to end well for it.

Beasts like that were very capable of holding grudges. Since Lu Xuan was already marked, if he didn’t kill it, the rat king would trace him using his senses and make trouble for him at a later date.

But none of that mattered to him, for he had no intention of sparing that rat king in the first place.

Despite having other things on his mind, Lu Xuan’s movements remained quick and sharp. He dished out yet another slash at the rat king.

Bloodthirst moved marvelously in the hands of Lu Xuan. All manner of sword techniques on display, and he was not bogged down at all by the usual attack patterns.

While the rat king was enraged and desperate enough to keep attacking Lu Xuan, it nonetheless kept being cornered. Within mere moments, its body was covered all over with gashes.

There was no way it could have run at such a moment. It would not have been able to do so even with all its limbs intact, and now it was even less able given that it had lost one paw.

It did not take long for Lu Xuan to cut its head off altogether.

Lu Xuan sighed in relief after taking out the rat king. He knew he had taken out a living disaster that could have potentially caused innumerable deaths in the future by getting that rat king out of the way early.

Next, he went on to deal with the bodies of the monsters littering the place. All of them were mutated to some extent, so they qualified as monsters. There were many of them that were on par with Martial Arts Legends, and there were even some that had managed to get to National Guardian level. Yet all of them were killed within seconds of encountering that rat king.

Lu Xuan took advantage of the situation to become the one who had it easy.

He then began laying down a formation; specifically, a maze.

It was a simplified version of the great formation that protected the villa on the mountain, but it served its purpose adequately. It would be able to hold anyone who happened to trespass, for the time being, thus giving Lu Xuan enough time to get out of cultivation.

Lu Xuan then sat cross-legged on the ground and began activating the Taixu Origin Power, absorbing the limitless amounts of spirit qi gushing out from the fissure.

Lu Xuan was even able to hear all the terrifying growls from within the fissure as if they were right beside his ears.

Common people would have been thoroughly shaken hearing all of that, but he hardly noticed or minded any of it.

He simply kept making use of the Taixu Origin Power to absorb all the ambient spirit qi around him.

The spirit qi in the area was so thick that Lu Xuan was able to absorb to his heart’s content without having to worry about draining all of it.

He sent all the absorbed spirit qi throughout his entire body, strengthening every single cell.

A golden light began to glitter faintly on the surface of his body, making him look like he was made of gold.

That was the key to breaking through from Level Eight Deity level to Level Nine.

Level Nine of the nine-leveled cultivation system was called the “Invincible Vajra.”

At that level, things would differ from Level Eight Deity, not to mention all the levels that came before, in a fundamental manner.

In all the earlier cultivation stages, the cultivator still remained a mortal of flesh and blood at his core. The cultivator was unable to withstand bullet shots with his own body, requiring the use of Shields of Vigor to do so instead.

That was because they were still beings of flesh and blood. Regardless of how powerful they became, their bodies remained that of a mortal.

However, when a cultivator reached the Invincible Vajra level, things became entirely different. That level dealt mainly with strengthening the body in every single cell, enabling the body to transform on very fundamental levels.

That was the very first step of emerging past one’s mortality, and it established a solid foundation for continuing cultivation at further stages.

It was also the most important foundation. To cultivate was to wade through suffering, and the body was the vessel that allowed one to do so. The stronger one’s body became, the more capable one would be of making it through the storm.

A weak body was like a weak ship, one that a huge wave could easily strike down, and further cultivation would be a waste of time.

While there were people who were capable of embarking on other routes to continued training, even after their bodies had broken down altogether, all their methods were seen as heretical, making it near impossible to achieve greatness.