336 Seed of catastrophe.

Yao Jun's gaze remained focused on the oh-so distant sky for a few more minutes before he finally sat up, the pool of blood around him so sticky that it clung to him like slime when his torso rose. His chest ached when he sat up so he looked down, and for the first time saw the remnant damage caused by that one single arrow.

His chest had healed already, but the scar that remained went from the bottom of his throat all the way to his solar plexus, from armpit to armpit. And the picture painted by that scar was one of an exploded chest, it looked like a rabid beast had ravaged his chest with all its might more than it looked like a single arrow had pierced him.

But that very same arrow had shattered a core part belonging to a minor universes' Origin Heart so it was only obvious that it would hold tremendous destructive power. Yao Jun felt a certain measure of confidence that he wouldn't be able to survive a wound like this on his own, even if he was at full power, so he turned his gaze back onto Little Gray and the two others.

"It seems you've already saved me once, huh? Thank you. That arrow, is it still around?"

He hadn't seen how they healed him, but he guessed that Sirius probably used his Shield God Gate fragments to prevent the spread of damage while Little Gray used the abilities of some minion he had controlled using his Human God Gate. There was probably also some remnant energy that had lingered in his body, energy that they had probably relied on Ba-Shei to remove. His guess was actually quite close to the truth, which spoke about how well he knew his companions. His three companions still kept their heads lowered out of shame, Little Gray shaking his head.

"Please don't thank us, we failed to protect you so helping you heal was the least we could do. As for the arrow, it disintegrated into destructive energy that tried to tear your body apart, so we were unable to recover it. But we have managed to form a guess on what it was, based on the damage it caused and the energy we felt from it. It was likely a weapon created using parts from a powerful Origin Beast, most likely one from a major universe."

All three of the kneeling people were actually powerful Divine Beasts, they were close to the top of the pyramid when it came to the Demonic beast hierarchy. But the energy from that arrow caused even them to feel fear, and it was fear at a cellular level, so deeply ingrained that it didn't care about logic at all. And as far as they knew, there was only one type of beast that was of a higher rank than a Divine Beast, and that was an Origin Beast, born alongside a universe.

Their guess was closely aligned to the thoughts that started to surface in Yao Jun's mind after he calmed down somewhat. True, he had lost everything except for three companions and his distant wife, but he had also been granted a single strand of hope. And so as to not fall into despair, he forced himself to cling onto that single strand with all his might, using it to keep his mind above the mire.

Yao Jun traced the scar that covered his entire chest, the skin gnarled and hardened, a shade darker than the rest of his body. This was the second time he had come into contact with a weapon made using parts from an Origin Beast, and it went far worse than his first encounter. But that wasn't a fact that Yao Jun really felt like spending any time on, swiftly noticing another issue with his body.

"Yeah, figures it would disappear too, I hope I have some on hand."

The black robes that Yao Jun usually wore were in fact armour created by his God Gate, it was just a shame that it was regularly getting a beating since he mostly only fought people who had higher realms than him. And as it originated from his now broken gate, it was obviously impossible for the robe to maintain itself, it had already faded and left him nude.

Yao Jun's still aching mind drifted over to his hand, a soft sigh of relief escaping his lips when he saw that the ring that Guo Luo gifted him was still present. He then moved his mind over to his interspatial ring and sank his consciousness into it, a bitter smile slowly forming on his face.

"I really have been relying on it for more things than I expected."

His God Gate contained an incredibly vast space, it was more than enough to store just about everything he had ever acquired. With such a handy thing right by him, how was he supposed to not take advantage of it? As a result, the interspatial ring he wore contained preciously few things, mainly items he didn't feel safe leaving inside his God Gate.

As for what sort of items would fall into such a category, there were actually only three of them. The first was a golden dagger, a small weapon that had been forged using some Origin Beast parts, it had been in his possession for a while, but he rarely used it. The second item was the jug of wine that Chang Yun had given him in the past, the wine that would supposedly make both him and his God Gate explode if he tried to drink it before he reached the Heavenly Deity realm.

And the final item was one that was both exceedingly old and nostalgic to Yao Jun. It was a set of garments, a shirt and a pair of pants, both a deep, emerald green. The pants were undecorated, but the shirt was decorated with a multitude of black threads that blended together to form the image of a black gate on the back.

These were the garments that Guo Luo had specifically gotten tailored for Yao Jun, the two hadn't even been a couple for long by the time they were made. The years had passed, both had changed somewhat, and both had grown stronger to a degree that was hard to imagine. But the garments remained, the feelings poured into them remained.

Yao Jun stood up from the sticky pool of blood on somewhat wobbly feet, quickly stabilizing himself. He drew in a breath, but he couldn't even remember the last time the air had felt this heavy and thick. It was probably back before he started cultivating, when he was unable to absorb, or even sense for that matter, the Qi that naturally floated all around him. And now he was feeling it once more, a nostalgic and somewhat painful feeling.

Ba-Shei waved his hand and made Yao Jun's shadow rise up, the darkness covering his body for a second before it vanished, taking the sticky blood with it. Yao Jun donned the shirt and the pants, his body had changed so little over the years that they were still a perfect fit, which only made him more nostalgic.

He stretched his body for a bit, the cool sensation of the silk-like cloth resting on his skin and causing a faint warmth to seep into his mind. But Yao Jun was a strange many, any thread of warmth he received would bring with it unimaginable coldness, each thread adding on to the weight he carried on his shoulders and in his heart. And so, after glancing at the distant sky once more, he turned his gaze onto Little Gray.

"Can you bring me up there?"

Yao Jun could technically somewhat walk through the air by relying on the Monarch Essence his body cultivation gave him. But Monarch Essence was mainly comprised of lifeforce and sublimed physical power, it was much more suited to regenerating and serving as raw power than it was precise manoeuvring and utilizing the laws.

Little Gray and the others light up slightly when they saw the glimmer in Yao Jun's eyes. They knew their god far to well, they knew how he thought and acted. And when they coupled his current expression with the words he muttered oh so softly while he was still lying in that pool of blood, they sensed a shift in him.

Little Gray shed his human form, turning into a large eagle with silver feathers that only held a soft tint of grey. He made himself large enough for both Yao Jun and the two other human-formed beasts to step onto his back, and then he flapped his wings. His body immediately blurred and vanished as he shot to the sky, the air rippling as the speed of sound was breached effortlessly.

Little Gray climbed higher without pause, piercing through the clouds and shooting past the things that looked like floating islands and miniature planets. He continued to ascend until there was nothing more above them, only a vast and seemingly endless expanse of black space. And beneath them stretched out an equally vast and endless expanse of land, reaching out past the horizon and into the foggy unknown.

Yao Jun stood on Little Gray's back and looked down at the land below them. His senses were severely reduced since his Monarch Essence had horribly efficiency when used with his laws, there was no way he could stretch out his law of space as far as he usually could. And he had been robbed of his terrifyingly sharp vision once the God Gate shattered, it was something given to him by his connection with Little Gray after all.

So the range of his senses and what he could actually see was so much smaller than ever before, he almost felt like he was trapped in a tiny box. And yet, the land beneath him stretched out for so much further than anything he had ever seen, and his eyes stretched out with it, to the distant horizon where everything blurred and vanished. He could see less, but he still felt like he saw more, a truly strange sensation.

He stretched out his arm as he gazed upon the land, his fingers reaching for the horizon as if he wanted to grasp it. He pulled back his hand after a while and flipped it, curling his fingers slightly while positioning his hand a bit in front of his chest, as if he was trying to encompass the entire stretch of land beneath him. And as he tried to grasp the world, he couldn't help but mutter.

"Tell me, if I had been able to control all of this, and even further beyond, would something as small as an Origin Beast arrow manage to hurt me? If I could encompass an entire universe with a single hand, would something as small as a Lang clan young master still dare to attack me? Would they dare to threaten my family? Or would they simply...vanish, like ash on the wind?"

Little Gray and the others shivered gently as Yao Jun muttered, their hearts hammering in their chests. Their god had always been a simple man, he just wanted to ensure the peace of his family. For that, he would walk as far as he had to, even if it meant to the peak of the universe. But conversely, it also meant that he was fine with stopping if he felt that he reached a point where they were safe, no matter how low his realm was at the time.

But now, they felt ambition lurking within his words. Just moving on until they were safe wasn't good enough, because when would they ever really be safe? So what if he could control a planet, someone controlling a galaxy could still ruin them. If he controlled a galaxy, someone controlling a dominion would come. Control a dominion and a universe lord would arrive, there would always be a higher seat that could come and ruin everything.

So what was the answer? Simple, if you stand at the very peak, there will be no one higher than you who can come and ruin anything. So fear-driven, so impossibly hard, yet so simple at the same time. And so, Yao Jun stretched out his hand to grasp the world itself, and the seed of catastrophe was sowed.