Setting foot onto the grand stage.

Yao Jun and his family left the planet, and the Lost God galaxy, by riding on the back of Zhuyin, her bulky crimson frame tearing through the air and bringing with it an awe-inspiring presence. And as they moved, news were already starting to spread about what Yao Jun had done. Lucia diligently spread the news as she had been ordered, her lack of attempts at hiding it making it hard for her Merged Heaven clan to prevent the news from spreading.

By the time they managed to leave Lost God galaxy, most of the universe knew about the demon king that had torn off the arm of a grand deity, the man who once again defied all common sense. Unlike previous incidents of this magnitude, there was no meeting called together to discuss measures or titles for Yao Jun. It was pointless to come up with measures against him, he had the World Tree clan on his side and his own strength was enough to threaten Heavenly Deities. And that was just him, he also had an unknown amount of Demonic beasts on his side, each one as terrifying as the next.

As for any titles they could grant him, that was also pointless to think about, the public had already decided a title for him and were spreading it with hushed whispers. There had been countless cultivators that could kill people in higher realms, but Yao Jun was the first monster to eclipse them all. While he was someone that was still considered a mortal, he killed an Earthly Deity and single-handedly proved that they could still be killed by people who should be beneath them.

And then when he himself became an Earthly Deity, he caused a massacre by destroying the second-largest planet in the universe and then went on to beat an exalted Heavenly Deity, once again shattering what was previously a well-established fact. And adding on to all this, terrifying beasts followed in his wake and he could use the powers of multiple Supreme Law fragments. A monster beyond common sense, an unnatural entity that had to be avoided at all cost, that was what Yao Jun had become.

The sheer number of spiders from Du Xiao that he had spread around the universe allowed Yao Jun to receive all the rumors and whispers in real-time, but he didn't bother with any of them. People would always talk and speculate about things they didn't fully understand so there was no point in paying any mind to what these people said about him. As such, he remained sitting on the back of Zhuyin and played with his daughter, following along with a rhythm-based clapping game that she had come up with.

It had already been nearly half a month since they left Lost God galaxy, and thanks to the fact that they had used a few spatial arrays and he himself had teleported them several times, they were finally starting to approach their target. Guo Luo had entered the God Gate to rest up a bit so the only people on Zhuyin's back were Yao Jun, Yao Xuelian, and Yun Yantian. Yao Jun's shadow wriggled from time to time as he kept in contact with Ba-Shei, who was still out on his own mission to claim the bounty that they had placed a while ago.

Everything was going according to plan and as scheduled, so the corners of Yao Jun's lips were pulled up a bit more than usual. The speed of the game he was playing with Yao Xuelian was starting to pick up, a few beads of sweat starting to seep out from her forehead as she struggled to keep up with Yao Jun's hands. Yao Jun smiled at her efforts but didn't decrease his speed, continuing to slowly increase it as he turned his head to talk with Yun Yantian, who was in the process of sharpening and polishing one of his weapons.

"Yo, Yantian, about that new sword you were tal...!"

"You'd think that you would hone your instincts more since you have so many beasts by your side, but it seems like you trust your own eyes and law of space too much."

Yao Jun's sentence was cut short by someone else, all the hairs on Yao Jun's body standing on end due to the unexpectedness of the scene. Yao Xuelian immediately vanished into a small black gate that appeared before her, the gate returning to Yao Jun's chest as he turned around with narrowed eyes, his sword already in his grasp. Zhuyin had stopped dead in her tracks and was surveying the surroundings, the heat around them rapidly increasing as she entered a battle-ready stance. Yun Yantian had also gotten ready for battle, his maintenance equipment vanishing as he tightly grasped the rapier-like sword he was working on.

But there was no one around them, they were surrounded by the vast emptiness of space that separated the planets, only a few asteroids visible in the distance. Yao Jun's pupils flickered all around the area, a slight sense of unease flashing to life in his chest after his gaze swept over a certain empty spot of space. But his law of space didn't detect anything, nor could he see anything when he fully focused on the spot with his eyes, it was truly utterly empty.

But after his gaze remained on the empty spot for a short moment, it actually started to ripple and distort, suddenly changing as if someone was pulling a curtain aside. A familiar figure was revealed when the scene changed, the gray-eyed and brown-haired Ren Shuren standing there and holding something that looked like a sheet of folded space that reflected its surroundings thousands of times thanks to its folded nature.

His right arm was still missing, but the stump that was his shoulder had grown somewhat longer, fresh pink skin visible and showing that the arm that Yao Jun had torn off was actually in the process of regrowing. Regrowing lost limbs was exceedingly hard if you weren't a body cultivator with a tremendous body, and Ren Shuren didn't radiate the aura of a body cultivator so Yao Jun guessed that he was regrowing his arm in a different manner. Ren Shuren ignored Yao Jun's narrowed eyes, the sheet he was holding vanishing into his interspatial ring as he spoke.

"Took you almost two seconds there, plenty of time for the other party to launch a multitude of attacks. Not everything can be discovered using conventional senses so you should hone your instincts more, otherwise, you'll be in for some hell when you finally enter a major universe."

Yao Jun didn't respond to Ren Shuren's statement, but he did, in fact, engrave it in his heart. Had it not been for Ren Shuren announcing his present, Yao Jun would have been unable to detect him and would be wide open for a sneak attack. Yun Yantian had no idea who Ren Shuren was, but seeing that he didn't seem to intend on attack them, he elbowed Yao Jun's side and gestured towards Ren Shuren with his chin, receiving a quick response to his question.

"You know him? You actually have friends other than us?"

"He's Ren Shuren, the Sebettu I told you about, the guy whose arm I tore off."

Ren Shuren's eyebrow twitched slightly due to the manner in which he was spoken about, but there was no denying that his arm had indeed been violently torn off by Yao Jun during their last encounter. But he hadn't come here because of that so he could only ignore it and move on to the topic at hand.

"I'm not gonna bother wasting time here, I've already been assigned a new mission so I have to leave this minor universe soon. You should change your path, the Sebettu and the Primordial Sea clan have actually sacrificed two middle-stage Earthly Deities to perform a ritual to divine the path you are most likely to follow within these coming days. They've prepared an ambush about 10 000 kilometers ahead, everyone there is equipped with the same cloaks like the one I just used. Unless you've got a fondness for getting attacked, I would avoid that entire area and just take a detour."

Ren Shuren acted very casually as he spoke, his facial expression fully relaxed as if he didn't have a care in the world. But the information he provided caused Yao Jun's eyes to narrow further as he waited for Ren Shuren to state some demands for handing over the information. But Ren Shuren didn't even stick around after handing over the information, he simply turned around to leave, resulting in Yao Jun being unable to keep his mouth closed any longer.

"Since when did you and I have such a good relationship that you'd go out of your way to deliver this information? You're even going as far as betraying your race for me?"

Yao Jun didn't feel that Ren Shuren was lying to him, he felt that there was a good chance that the information he just handed over was actually true. But what he couldn't understand was why Ren Shuren would bother telling him all this, the two didn't exactly have a good relationship with each other. Ren Shuren stopped in his tracks after Yao Jun spoke up, turning his head to glance at Yao Jun while answering his suspicions.

"For you? I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing it for my race and my family. If the people within the ambush force had the ability to kill you then I wouldn't have said a single word, I might even have participated to help them. But the simple fact is that the guys they've sent over won't be able to kill you, I've tasted your power so I know that there is no chance in hell that they can take your head. But they can hurt you, and they can kill those close to you should they be out in the open. And should that happen, then we Sebettu will have to deal with a raging monster coming after us and tearing at our throats whenever possible. And while we might be able to handle that right now, I dread what might happen to us should you get a bit more time to grow. Our race is spread out over too many frontiers right now, they're trying to fight too many wars at once, there is no way we can stop you from growing any further. So there will come a day where your fangs can tear down our entire race, and that happening is exactly what I'm trying to avoid."

Ren Shuren was the only Sebettu to have survived a battle with Yao Jun, in fact, he was one of the very few people to have actually survived a battle with Yao Jun. As such, he was one of the very few people to have felt the full scope of Yao Jun's terror for himself. But his superiors refused to listen, forcing him to make this choice to ensure the continued prosperity, or at least survival, of his race.

Ren Shuren turned his head again and sped off into the distance. He couldn't afford to linger or hold up Yao Jun for too long, otherwise, his superiors might get suspicious. Yao Jun was left scratching his head after Ren Shuren left, such a quick and unexpected encounter was enough to leave even him a bit dumbfounded. The first one to react was actually Yun Yantian, sitting down again and continuing to work on maintaining his new weapon while he spoke.

"Well, can't say I was expecting something like that to happen while we were journeying. But hey, if that's how you befriend people then I suggest you tear off a few more arms in the future. Zhuyin, take us for a detour will ya?"

Zhuyin retracted the heat that she was radiating, blowing some flames out of her nose as if she was snorting in response to Yun Yantian trying to tell her what to do. But Yao Jun also sat down again while muttering and glancing at Yun Yantian with a faint smirk, patting Zhuyin on the head so that she would listen to what Yun Yantian was saying.

"Yeah, seems like I really ought to try tearing off a few more arms in the future. Mind if I start with yours?"

Yun Yantian scoffed and pointed his rapier at Yao Jun, waving the sharp tip in front of his face in a challenging manner. The two chuckled at the act, continuing to mess around with each other as Zhuyin flew them around the area that Ren Shuren had pointed out. Of course, both of them made sure to maintain their highest vigilance even while messing around, Yao Jun doing his best to focus his instincts on their surroundings.

But there were no more distractions on their journey, and as Yao Jun had no interest in going back to see if there really was an ambush waiting for them, they could only trust their own gut feeling that Ren Shuren had been telling them the truth. The detour made the trip take a bit longer, but nearly a month after leaving Lost God galaxy the group finally reached their target, the Hollow Waste where Tang Long was born.

They could feel it the moment they entered it, there was a strange empty feeling that pervaded the entire area, as if something important was missing from it. Hollow Wastes were places where the universe didn't work as it should, and this empty feeling was the anomaly within this Hollow Waste, it was the lack of decay.

Yao Jun didn't need to spend any time searching for what he was looking for, he simply picked the closest planet and had Zhuyin fly over to it. Countless voices reached Yao Jun's ears before they even reached the planet, hundreds upon thousands of them echoing the same sentiment.

"Hungry."

"Starving."

"Hungry."

"Starving."

"Feed."

"Eat."

"Hungry."

"Must feed."

"Feed me"

"Must eat"

Yao Jun knew that these voices came from his targets, his ears twitching slightly due to the sheer number of voices. Yun Yantian couldn't hear the voices so he remained unaffected by them as they got closer to the surface of the planet, which was covered in a single massive forest that consisted of massive yellow-leaved trees. Zhuyin descended to the surface of the planet, her large wings blowing down the trees beneath her and creating a clearing where she could land.

She lowered her body slightly so that Yao Jun could dismount from her back, his feet quickly touching solid ground again. A somewhat strange scene took place after his feet touched the surface of the planet, the thousands of voices that echoed around it were all silenced at once. And following the silencing of all the voices was the sound of something slimy rushing through the forest coming from all around them.

Slimes entered their field of vision before long, thousands of them gathering in front of Yao Jun and filling their vision with color. But once the 1000th slime arrived in front of him, they actually started to merge into each other rather than remaining separate. Before long, thousands of slimes had gathered together in front of Yao Jun and merged into a single blob of slime nearly 400-meters tall and 200-meters wide, it swallowed up all the trees around it just by existing. Two black eyes floated around within the body of the slime, a slit appearing in its body as a heavy voice rang out from it.

"Great Lord, what brings you to this planet?"

The slime, although very strange, was still a Demonic beast and was thus able to sense Yao Jun's God Gate. But compared to normal God Gates, Yao Jun's radiated an even more dreadful pressure and presence thanks to the fact that he had given two other God Gates and a few Supreme Law fragments to his Demonic beasts. Yao Jun didn't beat around the bush, he looked up at the large slim and spoke straightforwardly.

"You brought me here. I want you to join me and follow me in the future. You give me your power and I will give you more food than you could ever hope to eat, let me show you the delicacies of the greater universes. What do you say?"

Yao Jun was rather interested in the dissolving capabilities and their ability to grow stronger and larger seemingly without end. They were just like his hydra, Yong Bo, they might start out weak but they had limitless potential. The massive slime's body quivered slightly after Yao Jun made his offer, its body suddenly widening drastically as its height diminished. The slime grew shorter and wider, it almost looked as if it was doing its best to mimic a bow, lowering its body and eyes until they only reached Yao Jun's chest.

"We are many, so we are Jun Tuan. If the Great Lord has a use for us, then all of us would be more than willing to follow you wherever you may go."

Yao Jun was no longer the same youth he had once been, his power had grown dramatically and he was already starting to show the demeanor and aura of someone worthy of carrying the Demon God's Gate. When faced with him now, perhaps only the strongest Demonic beasts or most Divine Beasts would be unwilling to follow him before he convinced them with his strength. Yao Jun's lips curled up a bit further as he looked at the slime, his right hand stretching out and placing itself on the head of Jun Tuan.

"Very well. Jun Tuan, I am Yao Jun, and I look forward to traveling with you in the future."

A light flashed out from Yao Jun's chest and surrounded Jun Tuan, sucking him into Yao Jun's God Gate. Yao Jun clenched his right hand a few times after absorbing Jun Tuan, a comfortable feeling spreading through his body as the energy and power of Jun Tuan was starting to flow through him. He gave Zhuyin a pat on the head and stroked her scales, telling her that she could return.

"Alright, that only leaves the one last thing. Ba-Shei will be done soon so you can return and start preparing the sect for the move, Sirius and the others are gonna start complaining if I keep letting you skip out on it."

Zhuyin let out a somewhat unsatisfied pout but was forced to obey after Yao Jun nagged her for a bit, returning into his God Gate and then heading to the Demon's Gate sect. With Zhuyin leaving, Yao Jun walked over to the closest tree that remained standing and sat down while leaning against it, passing the time by chatting with Yun Yantian. It was only five days later that Yao Jun's shadow wriggled, the human- form of Ba-Shei stepping out of it and kneeling in front of Yao Jun.

"My Lord, I have finished the task. The Heaven's Secrets Company did their job wonderfully and kept a close track on her movements, it was no trouble at all finding her."

Ba-Shei placed two tokens on the ground as he spoke, both tokens were circular in shape and completely red, a wavy pattern engraved into them. These were the last two of Tang Guanyu's tokens, the ones held by the woman who bought one during the grand auction within the Ascending Dragon Competition. Yao Jun had put a tracking bounty on her the moment he finished his business on God Piercer planet, the Heaven's Secrets Company had thus been tracking her movements ever since so that Yao Jun could finish her off whenever he wanted to. Yao Jun looked at the two tokens, a soft smile appearing on his face as he stretched out his arm and ruffled Ba-Shei's hair.

"Thank you, and sorry for always giving you these types of missions, but you're the one who's best suited for them."

Whenever Yao Jun needed someone tracked or assassinated, he would call upon Du Xiao or Ba-Shei, their specific skills made them highly suited to these kinds of tasks. Ba-Shei lowered his head further upon being praised, not daring to accept it.

"Please do not mind it, it is my joy and honor to be of use to you."

Yao Jun ruffled Ba-Shei's hair a bit more before allowing him to return to the God Gate and head over to the sect, it was time to gather everyone and move on. Yao Jun and Yun Yantian shared a quick glance after Ba-Shei left, both letting out a somewhat deep breath when they realized the tremendous step they were about to take. They both entered Yao Jun's God Gate and then headed over to the Demon's Gate sect, a trip that was easily made since Yao Jun could just open a gate where his other Demonic beasts were.

They arrived in front of the gates of the sect, not a single sound audible within it. Every disciple of the sect had been informed about what would happen and what choice they had, all those that chose to remain were now anxiously and tensely awaiting what was going to happen. Yao Jun stretched out his right arm, his black gate appearing above his palm and then shooting into the sky.

The gate hovered above the sect and then started to rapidly expand, growing larger and larger until it almost seemed to cover the entire sky. The massive stone gates slowly opened and revealed the vast land within it, the gate then started to descend to the ground, swallowing up the entire Demon's Gate sect before closing and returning to Yao Jun's chest.

Now that Yao Jun had gathered all the tokens that Tang Guanyu had created, he could open a gate to the major universe where he lived. There were no tremendous sources of lightning energy in this universe so Yao Jun had no choice but to head to a different one if he wanted to revive Little Thunder, as such it was time for him to move on. He originally didn't plan on bringing along this Demon's Gate sect, he wasn't even certain if he wanted to bring his parents along as the trip might be tremendously dangerous.

But his parents were adamant and refused to stay behind, as were Yun Yantian and Yang Yuhuan, there was no way they would let Yao Jun leave them behind. As for the sect, it was built by Little Gray and the others to support Yao Jun, they had put their blood and sweat into it to help it grow, it was the result of all their efforts. So in the end, Yao Jun decided that he might as well just take it all along with him, it might prove useful in the future. He might even be able to learn a multitude of things from the disciples within the sect so the pros outweighed the cons.

Yao Jun and Yun Yantian shared another glance, Yun Yantian flashing a grin while shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. Yun Yantian was then brought into the God Gate, leaving Yao Jun alone on the surface of the planet. He took out the two remaining tokens and allowed them to be absorbed by the token that had merged into his chest, finally completing the entire token and revealing the next parts of Tang Guanyu's body cultivation technique.

With the addition of these two parts, the technique was almost fully complete, only missing the last few parts that Tang Guanyu himself carried. But even so, it contained enough information to allow Yao Jun to cultivate all the way to the Godking realm, it could be considered a truly supreme body cultivation technique. But that wasn't the main focus of Yao Jun's attention, his main focus was still the other function of the completed token.

He touched the token with a bit of his mind and Qi, giving it the required order to activate. The token whirred to life, a splendid crimson light shooting out from Yao Jun's chest and gathering in front of him to form a man-sized bloody vortex. Yao Jun could feel a tremendous power from the law of space gathered within this vortex, a heavy sense of pressure coming from deep within it.

Yao Jun turned his head and looked at the scenery around him, this was the universe where he was born, but now it was time to leave it. He took a deep breath of air and then stepped into the bloody vortex, space around him twisting and tossing as his body was thrown through space. And just like that, with almost anybody knowing it, the Nine Heavens Demon God had moved on to new haunts and set his foot onto the truly grand stage of the multiverse.