Shue Yong's final scream and plea died out in the darkness, his body and soul quickly following as they vanished into the innumerable small maws. Within a few seconds, the last living human stuck in this dark pit had been completely erased, all that remained at the bottom of the hole were four beasts surrounded by eviscerated corpses.

The crimson eyes and lamprey-like maws closed up and vanished after the last vestiges of Shue Yong's existence were eaten, the mud-like darkness receding back into Huang Ying's body. The depths of his body surged with a violent rush of energy the moment the darkness returned to him, the floating island inside his dantian expanding rapidly.

He seemed to need a great deal more Qi than others to increase his cultivation, it was probably a side-effect from having the law of devouring and having his body re-created by said law. But just how much stronger than him was Shue Yong? He had already reached the 6th Stair of Ascension, it was to the point where he was almost an entire realm above Huang Ying.

The influx of his devoured Qi caused Huang Ying's own cultivation to finally raise once more, almost instantly breaking through the small barrier that separated the 8th Mortal Step from the 9th Mortal Step. His cultivation continued to rise thanks to the energy, but it seemed to hit a barrier just as he was about to reach the 1st Immortal Stair.

He still had plenty of energy coursing in his body, but it simply bounced back every time he tried to take the next step. In the end, the excess energy settled inside the floating ashen island and made it grow a bit denser instead of the usual larger. The wind blowing over the island and the small mountain on it had also grown appropriately stronger and larger, they represented his law of wind and earth after all.

If there was a fact that could be considered slightly worrisome then it would be the fact that the nearly empty 200-metre wide lake had acquired a few more drops of milky liquid. Back when he received the memories of Wutong Cang, the second Baku, he had been warned about the lake, which he had termed the Lake of Souls. Wutong Cang didn't know what would happen when the lake was filled, but he said that it filled him with a dreadful chill.

"Oh well, I really can't be bothered to worry about something I don't know anything about, I can worry when I know more."

Huang Ying didn't even know what caused the lake to fill up so forget about worrying what would happen when it was finally filled, he didn't even know if he could do anything to slow it. And since he was a carefree person anyway it was easy for him to toss the matter to the back of his mind for the time being, turning his attention towards Hong Yi and Hei Ya.

"Well, you two were among the main reasons for this so it's just fine that I'm stuck for a wee-bit of a moment."

Other than the corpses he had used to heal his wounds, and the few corpses that Ying Feixu had devoured during her own battles, the remaining corpses were all left untouched. It wasn't a coincidence that it was like this, they had been saved intentionally, like a lunch pack you bring along for the end of a strenuous hiking trip.

Two muddy tentacles extended from Huang Ying's body, the appendages pulling themselves forward by shooting out smaller tentacles that latched onto their surroundings. They quickly latched onto Hei Ya and Hong Yi, a myriad of crimson eyes and maws spreading through the darkness, Huang Ying serving as the centre of them all. His law of devouring immediately got to work on devouring the corpses, Wutong Cang's technique transferring the devoured energy and bodily strength to Huang Ying and his two beast companions.

Hei Ya and Hong Yi were both originally just common beasts that could be found everywhere, one was a sparrow that couldn't fly because of its broken wing and the other was a mangy wolf that served as the lowest even in his own pack. Originally it would take both of them a miracle to get anywhere in life, just surviving for the following days would be something they had to be thankful for.

But against all odds, they had encountered that miracle. A man just as broken as them, one that appreciated their drive and determination. He brought them away and ensured their lives, and in the end he shared his blessings with them. In the past, they were doomed to be among the lowest rung of Demonic beasts, dead-end beings so to speak.

But now their futures were immeasurable. Even if Huang Ying left them, just the fact that his law of devouring had interacted with them and transferred energy into them made into fundamentally different beings, now the only thing that would decide their future realms would be their own determination.

The ruined corpses vanished one by one, the auras radiating from the two beasts steadily increasing while Huang Ying's own body quietly grew stronger. In the end, the two beasts were different existences from Huang Ying so the small sea of corpses was enough to push both of them all the way up to the 8th Mortal Step. The flapping of Hong Yi's wings became somewhat unstable when Huang Ying retracted his law of devouring so he walked over and allowed her to land on his shoulder, his law of wind picking up the various interspatial rings in the area while he walked.

"You just experienced a small jump in strength so you probably aren't used to the newfound power, just focus on getting accustomed to it. The same goes for you, Hei Ya, don't start stumbling and falling over your own feet."

They both responded with low voices, one chirping while the other growled determinedly. He pat the two of them on the head so that they wouldn't stress too much, looking over his shoulder to glance at Ying Feixu.

"I'll be leaving now, you can keep loitering around if you've got anything you want to do."

Ying Feixu simply gave a cold snort and turned her gaze towards the sky, the earth beneath her rising up into a pillar that brought her towards the ceiling of the pit. Huang Ying didn't bother with her coldness and annoyance, a pillar of earth bringing him and his two companions up to the ceiling, which split apart before them so that they could leave the hole he had made.

The bright light of the sun graced their group again, a fresh breeze blowing through the empty plot of land that was a result of Huang Ying sealing up the hole he had made. There were no beasts in the area, but there were two people waiting for them there, one looking helpless and bitter while the other one looked to be moving between angry and sorrowful.

Song Yi clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white as she looked at the carefree expression on Huang Ying's face. No matter who you were, it wouldn't be pleasant to be literally tossed aside and told that you would be a burden in the upcoming fight. And that was especially the case for Song Yi and Chen Hong, but neither of them knew what to say. They had chosen to follow Huang Ying here in hopes of helping him, but they hadn't really been able to achieve a single thing.

The best they had been able to do was hold off a few people that tried to attack them as they ran in circles while Huang Ying prepared the pit, but even that didn't really amount to anything. Huang Ying obviously saw that neither of them was quite satisfied with what they had provided, and they certainly weren't happy about being excluded from the fight, but Huang Ying simply shrugged his shoulders and gave a succinct explanation.

"There was no helping it, one of you becomes completely paralyzed in the dark so bringing you along would have simply put your lives at risk for nothing. And leaving behind just one of you would make that person barge into the battle with no regard for anything else, so one other person had to stay behind to keep an eye on the other."

Song Yi couldn't even stay in the natural dark of the night without surrounding herself with lamps, plunging her into that all-encompassing darkness below would definitely be extremely traumatizing for her. And if she brought out the lamps she always carried with her, she would suffer the same fate as Shue Yong when Huang Ying turned him into a light source, a complete swarming of beasts.

Song Yi and Chen Hong weren't idiots, they knew that Huang Ying was right. He had made the correct decision and chose to do what would leave them with the highest chance of winning the battle, he was undoubtedly justified in his actions. But it still felt bitter to them, to have been tossed aside like that without regard for their feelings and desires.

Huang Ying understood their feelings, but it was just that, understanding and nothing more. He was fine with playing around with his own life, but that didn't mean that he would play around with the lives of the beings he had accepted. So it was fine if they were angry or bitter, at least they were alive to feel such things, and that would be enough. Thinking as such, he swiped his interspatial ring and brought out his chariot, Ying Feixu stepping onto it without even bothering to look at Huang Ying.

"Alright, you can nag at me all you want on the way back, I'll treat you to some good alcohol that you can spit up when we get back. But we probably won't have a lot of time in the academy after we return, a fun little event is about to begin and I doubt that we'll be left out of it."

Both Chen Hong and Song Yi couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in surprise, they knew the event that Huang Ying was talking about, but they hadn't expected him to know about it. He didn't have any backing and had come to the city as just a wanderer so it was a bit out of the ordinary that he would learn about the proceedings that took place before they entered the Forge of Heroes.

Chen Hong brought out his own chariot, he and Song Yi quickly following after Huang Ying. Song Yi opened her mouth to speak, but Huang Ying swiped his interspatial ring and pulled out a gourd of wine that he plucked from one of the new interspatial rings he had just acquired. He tossed the gourd to Song Yi, who grumbled darkly as she uncorked the gourd and greedily drank the wine.

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The group didn't halt as they made their way back to the academy, Huang Ying allowing Song Yi to grumble and complain all she wanted. Chen Hong took it much more calmly than her, but his slightly bitter and downcast expression meant that he probably just didn't show it as strongly as she did.

The two had also noticed the increase in strength that both Huang Ying and his two beasts enjoyed, but they had already been told about Huang Ying's technique. It was a rather amazing one that was a bit hard to think was real, but they had both personally seen him use his strange absorption law so they didn't think that it was entirely removed from reality.

The route they followed back to the academy went in a straight line, it didn't curve so that Huang Ying could take a last look at the village where he was born and raised. As a result, their return trip didn't take quite as long as when they left, only three days rather than four.

No one stopped them when they reached the academy so Huang Ying headed directly for the five-storied pagoda where he had accepted the mission. He entered it and walked up to the booth run by the young woman he had spoken to earlier, plopping the severed head of the bandit leader on the counter.

"I'd like the reward for the bandit subjugation on the borders of Scarlet Heart Forest, the Twin-Link Ore."

The expression of the woman twitched slightly as she looked at the severed head that still wore a terrified expression, but she managed to maintain a professional atmosphere. She made sure that the head matched the description and then carefully put it away, ascending the pagoda by using the spiral staircase at the centre.

She returned shortly after and handed Huang Ying the reward for the quest, a lump of dull grey ore that was the size of a grown man's head. The corners of Huang Ying's lips turned up slightly as he put away the ore and left the pagoda, Chen Hong looking at him curiously.

"You seem quite pleased to get your hands on it, do you actually have plans for it?"

He thought that Huang Ying had just chosen this particular mission because the environment it was in was well-suited to dealing with Shue Yong. But seeing that he was actually quite happy to get his hands on the reward, could it be that the initial guess had been wrong. Huang Ying didn't have a reason to hide it, casually nodding his head.

"Yeah, it'll serve as part of the core for my new spear, I only need to get my hands on some materials for the speartip and the body of the spear and then I can start the forging."

The reason he chose this ore to serve as the core of the spear was quite simple, it had a rather neat effect. If you split up the ore, the parts you split it into would always try to return to each other. So in essence, all he had to do was engrave an array into the ore when he turned it into the core of his new spear and he would then be able to control this ability. He could toss out one part of his spear and not have to worry about picking it up, he would just have to activate the array and the two pieces of the ore would try to reunite.

"You're gonna forge it yourself?"

This time it was Song Yi's turn to exclaim with some surprise. She was the only one present who knew how old Huang Ying actually was so she was quite confident that he simply shouldn't have had the time to study forging while also cultivating. But Huang Ying simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Would be a waste not to. Ling Uyong gave me the blueprints after all, so learning to do it on my own will save me a great deal of trouble in the future."

He did indeed not have any experience with forging, he only had the memories of some blacksmiths, not the actual experience. But he had enough ore to try two times so he at least had a little leeway to learn, and it was better to start early so that he could quickly stack up experience.

The group chatted lightly, Ying Feixu had already left so it was just Huang Ying, Song Yi, Chen Hong, and the two beasts. But by the time they returned to their cottages, there was already someone waiting for them in front of Huang Ying's cottage. The middle-aged woman cupped her hands politely and bent her waist slightly, addressing Huang Ying.

"Junior Disciple Ying, Headteacher Yongye requests your presence, so please follow me."

Huang Ying was a bit surprised that Gang Yongye would search him out this quickly, but he already had a very good guess as to what this was about so he nodded his head. He bade the others farewell and followed the woman, reaching a building that looked like a square pagoda after almost an hour of walking.

The woman pushed open the door, which seemed to have been made using a thin type of paper or cardboard rather than metal or wood, stepping away as Huang Ying entered the building. The bottom floor of the building seemed to be a single decadent room filled with a single oval table surrounded by chairs, what seemed to be rare flowers and plants lining the walls, some artworks or statues interspersed between them.

There were already some people present in the room when Huang Ying entered it, three students and four teachers that he recognized thanks to the memories he had devoured. The brown-haired and black-bearded Gang Yongye was one of the four teachers, nodding at Huang Ying with a slight smile as he waved him over.

"Good, you've arrived, that means everyone has gathered."

Huang Ying walked over and sat down with the three other students, who he knew were the strongest students from the second, third, and fourth-year classes. As for the teachers, they were the same as Gang Yongye, the headteachers of their respective years. With Huang Ying taking his seat, Gang Yongye wasted no time and started to explain why they had been called here.

"You're all probably wondering why you're here, but you're also probably already guessed a small part of it. Correct, you are the four people we are 100% certain that we'll send to the Forge of Heroes, you are the strongest people in your year, so it's a no-brainer really."

Huang Ying had single-handedly killed and humiliated the others that could possibly contend for the number one spot, he had even humiliated someone who could be considered a second-year student. There was also the fact that he had a grudge with Xing Shue Yong from the third year, a blood-grudge even.

Both of them had recently left the academy, but only one of them had returned, the end-result of that grudge was one that could be guessed quite easily. As such, there was not a single objection to making him one of the guaranteed people to send into the Forge of Heroes. But they definitely hadn't called them here just to tell them that, Gang Yongye swiftly moving onto the main topic.

"As for why we've gathered you here, it's to give you two pieces of information. The first, in five days we'll send a good portion of our students to a location known as Cliff's Convergence, you four will obviously be included. The other academies that are planning on entering the Forge of Heroes will also send their disciples over, it is there that they will decide the final participants that can enter. You can view it as a big arena where your only purpose is to show your strength to increase your odds of being chosen. You four don't need to participate in any fights, you can just scout your future enemies. But be careful, we are among the weaker academies to enter that place, the larger academies will definitely bring along quite some monsters."

This was the event that Huang Ying was looking forward to, Xun Zhi and the others he had met when they escaped from the Dragonfire Eagle would also be there so it was a good chance to catch up with them. Of course, the sheer amount of students from other academies he could spar with were definitely another great attraction to him.

The first piece of information was only given to them as a light warning, but when Gang Yongye started to speak about the second piece of information, his face turned so gloomy that it was impossible to take his words lightly.

"And finally, the main piece of information. This trip into the Forge of Heroes will be different than any other, more dangerous than any other. I won't hide it from you, strange bloodlines and physiques have started to pop up, most of them concentrated around the grand academies located within the heart of the entire continent. It's quite strange actually, they didn't appear in newborn people or non-cultivators like they usually would, they simply awakened in people seemingly at random."

A bloodline, unless transplanted later, would be obvious since birth unless it was dormant. The same was even more true for unique physiques, they would never be dormant and could be detected while you were still in the womb. But that fact had been broken just recently, when people who clearly didn't have bloodlines or physiques suddenly acquired them out of nowhere, as if the gods themselves had granted them these boons. Of course, what no one knew was that the reason for this strange event was sitting among them, it was just that he was as clueless as them.

"You might think that this has nothing to do with you, after all, our little isolated empire should never have anything to do with those grand academies. But that's where you're wrong, because all these new bloodlines and physiques have a common point, they've all reported feeling a sort of attraction coming from the Forge of Heroes. Something in there is calling to them, pulling them over and seeking their presence. All of them will enter the Forge of Heroes when it opens, and I don't want to discourage you, but even the six Heavenly Kings will enter the forge. It will be more dangerous than ever before, so your number one priority must be to maintain your own life, understood?"

The expressions of the youths present immediately tightened when Gang Yongye finished dropping this bomb on them. The six Heavenly Kings were the strongest cultivators among the younger generation, they were so strong that even a good portion of the older generation found it oppresive. They would definitely be the rulers of this planet in the future. With the six of them entering the Forge of Heroes, it would be practically impossible for others to acquire anything there.

Huang Ying's reaction was a bit different from the others, his eyes narrowing sharply. He didn't know much about the other Heavenly Kings, but he had in fact heard about one of them before. Yao Long Chi, he had appeared in the forest where the Dragonfire Eagle lived and had engaged in a fight with the Behemoth-subtype that reigned supreme there.

He had a winged-lion as his beast companion, and that winged-lion just so happened to have a bloodline on the same level as the Behemoth-subtype, one belonging to one of the nine Demonic Deity races. The nine Demonic Deity races stood on the same level as the nine Ancestral Gods, one of which just so happened to be the Baku that gave Huang Ying his law of devouring. Yet a beast with such a bloodline had willingly submitted to Yao Long Chi, he was definitely strong to the point of being fearsome.

Huang Ying didn't know about the other bloodlines or physiques, but if Yao Long Chi was entering the Forge of Heroes, could it have something to do with the core of that hidden realm? Li Jun had already told Huang Ying about the true core of that hidden realm, the blood of an Ancestral God. His thoughts started to move quietly, but he maintained a neutral expression, Gang Yongye nodding his head heavily.

"Good, you are dismissed, don't spread what I just told you about the Forge of Heroes, only those who will eventually enter it need to be told."

The four students were dismissed and were allowed to leave, Huang Ying's thoughts continuing to move quietly and slowly. But eventually the corners of his mouth started to curve upwards in excitement. He was about to take a step forward onto an even greater stage, one that would pit him against the greatest talents that could be found on this planet. And despite that, there was one thought in his head that blotted out almost everything else.

"Six Heavenly Kings, huh? Tell me, Li Jun, the six of them should certainly be able to give me a good and thrilling battle, no?"