Chapter 442: Sudden Changes in the Mansion

In the deep night, the city lord’s mansion fell silent after the chaos, with the celebrations coming to an end. Returning to his room, Rod felt a sense of melancholy as he looked at the empty space. He sat cross-legged by the bed and soon began practicing cultivation. Now, he could restore his expended strength and energy through cultivation.

His mental energy sank into his body, guiding his combat energy to flow slowly. The transformed purplish-golden combat energy was incredibly dazzling and magnificent. Its essence had undergone a profound change.

Once, his combat energy contained elements such as killing intent, fire energy, lightning energy, dark energy, and malevolent aura. Back then, they coexisted peacefully without conflicts. But now it was completely different. After that trial, Rod realized that his greatest achievement, aside from attaining a divine status, was the transformation in the essence of his combat energy—these elements had fully merged, no longer imposing any restrictions on him.

There would be no more of the previous problems. He clearly remembered reaching a bottleneck in cultivation during the Battlefield of Death and in the Forbidden Land of Divine Tears. The uneven distribution of combat energy components, along with excessive killing intent and malevolent aura, prevented him from progressing. Eventually, he had to rely on the flames of the Netherworld Hell to break through those constraints.

Now, that was no longer the case. With the energy unified, any increase in one type of energy could be evenly distributed, eliminating such barriers. This opened up a path to greater heights for Rod’s future cultivation. This was what excited him the most—even more than the advancement of his physical body.

The purplish-golden combat energy still contained those familiar elements. Rod could clearly sense that the techniques he used now automatically incorporated the attributes of all these energies—such as the dominance of fire energy, the devouring power of dark energy, the paralyzing effect of lightning energy, and the unique properties of killing intent and malevolent aura—raising his strength by far beyond what it had been before.

At the advanced stage of Yang Xuan, Rod faintly felt that he was on the verge of entering the realm of Heavenly Dao and reaching the Xuan Huang realm.

As the name suggested, the Xuan Huang realm represented the unity of heaven and earth—using the mystery of heaven and the yellow of earth to help him merge with the path of heaven and earth and reach the realm of divinity. With his combat energy now unified, Rod had already taken half a step forward, a progress that no one else could surpass.

His combat energy flowed quietly within his meridians, circulating through his entire body centered around his dantian, unobstructed at all.

Following the flow of combat energy, Rod extended his mental power into his dantian. Due to the continuous travel and rushing around lately, he hadn’t even had time to properly cultivate or observe changes in his dantian. Now was the perfect opportunity to take a closer look.

The dantian was also filled with gold. The purple-gold combat energy flowed in and out like the surging Yellow River. Above the dantian, a faint purple-gold mist swirled, dotted with specks of gold, resembling a small universe brimming with stars.

At the center, the core of combat energy hung quietly in midair. At this moment, it too was purple-gold in color, its surface covered with tiny lights corresponding to the attributes and colors of the combined combat energies—crimson for fire, pitch black for darkness, blue for lightning, gray for killing intent, and a lifeless dull color as well. The vibrant array of colors was quite pleasing, with a harmonious arrangement that gave a sense of balance.

Now, as Rod’s strength had increased, the core of combat energy had expanded once again, reaching the size of a quail egg. It resembled a diamond, giving off a sense of hardness. Numerous patterns covered its surface, representing his growing strength—each improvement left an additional pattern. Around the core, two totems could be faintly seen: a sword and a dragon!

The sword was naturally the Spirit of the Xuanyuan Sword, while the dragon was Fen Tian. Both of them had now become sentient, remaining quietly inside the core, looking majestic and striking.

Watching the dormant Fen Tian, Rod smiled knowingly. It had only appeared once recently—not because he didn’t need its help, but because it was constantly cultivating and refining energy. It had now reached the Yin Yellow realm. Rod believed that if it could fully refine this energy, it would be able to leap straight to the early stages of the Yang Xuan realm, which would undoubtedly be a huge boost for him.

As for the Sacred Sword of Xuanyuan, it seemed to be improving as well through continuous refinement, with its spirit also advancing. If it could overcome one more hurdle, it would be on par with the Divine King Armor—both being super artifacts at the Xuan Huang level.

Rod looked forward to that day and planned to find time to thoroughly refine these energies.

Next to the core of combat energy was an object resembling a golden token—that was his divine essence. This was the second time Rod had observed it in detail.

It slowly rotated around the core, its sacred color causing a slight sense of dizziness.

This was the divine essence of the God King—capable of assisting Rod in his cultivation as well as serving as a powerful magical artifact! With a thought, the divine essence floated out of his dantian and appeared before his eyes. Opening his eyes, he saw it was about the size of a palm, emitting a sacred aura and shining with golden light. It could be controlled flexibly with his thoughts, though Rod still found it somewhat difficult—perhaps his strength hadn’t yet reached that level, making it hard to control such a powerful entity.

Even so, Rod could sense its immense power, an aura capable of destroying heaven and earth. Suddenly, the divine essence burst with golden light, showing signs of losing control, which shocked Rod greatly. He barely managed to stabilize it by drawing on all his mental energy. At that moment, everyone in Water Curtain City seemed to feel an irresistible pressure. As they wondered what was going on, the aura vanished instantly, as if it had never existed, leaving them puzzled. The people in the city lord’s mansion felt it most acutely.

Inside the mansion, the Wolf King looked in the direction of Rod’s room and sighed bitterly. “That kid!” He too had been disturbed by that aura. Not only him—somewhere in Water Curtain City, another person’s face paled instantly upon sensing that energy, his eyes flashing with cold killing intent.

Of course, Rod had no idea any of this. After storing the divine essence back in his dantian, he let out a long sigh and devoted himself fully to cultivation to recover the combat energy he had lost over the past few days.

……

Boom! In the dead of night, a loud explosion erupted in the city, followed by chaos. “Rod… hurry up and come out!” The Wolf King’s anxious voice came from outside, waking Rod. He quickly stopped cultivating, exhaled deeply, and opened the door. “What happened?” he asked urgently, seeing the Wolf King’s worried expression.

“Something’s wrong! That guy has appeared!” The Wolf King was anxious and nervous, his voice even trembling slightly.

“That guy has appeared!” Hearing this, Rod was shocked and asked quickly. Just as he was thinking about how to find that guy, the sudden appearance of that person was undoubtedly good news for everyone. “Yes, over by the government office!” the Wolf King nodded firmly.

“The government office!” Rod’s heart skipped a beat as he sensed something wrong. The government office—weren’t Lucy and Ada, those two girls, over there? How could that guy be there?

Immediately, Rod seemed to realize what was happening, and his expression changed drastically. “Is that guy mixed in with the captives?”

“That’s right!” The Wolf King also looked grave. What a cautious guy—he wouldn’t have been suspected to be among the captives if not for this incident. Even if they searched the entire Water Curtain City tomorrow, they wouldn’t check there; it would just be a waste of time.

Being there was definitely the safest place for him. Thinking of this, Rod and the Wolf King exchanged glances, both drenched in cold sweat. What a cunning guy. But then again, why did he reveal his whereabouts? It puzzled Rod.

“Lucy and Ada, those two girls, went there to investigate without telling us. Who would have thought they’d actually find him? Let’s go quickly!” The Wolf King said anxiously, not waiting for Rod to speak further.

The situation was serious, and there was no time to delay.

“How are they?” Hearing that they were at the government office, Rod’s gaze turned icy as he asked in a low voice.

“They should be fine. We’ll know once we go!” The Wolf King said worriedly, looking at Rod. After spending so much time together, it was obvious how important those two girls were to Rod. If anything happened to them, who knew what crazy things Rod might do?

When they arrived outside the city lord’s mansion, chaos had already ensued inside. Merk, Bianuo, Dolong, as well as Sognar and Lilith, had all rushed outside. Without much conversation, they gathered and headed toward the government office.

In the blink of an eye, they were inside. The government office was in ruins, completely destroyed. The main door had been blown open, leaving behind debris. Seeing this, they felt even more uneasy.

“Surround the government office!” Rod ordered firmly. Instantly, they scattered in all directions, encircling the building to prevent anyone from escaping.

“Lucy, Ada…” Lilith rushed in first, searching for the two girls. The three of them had a close relationship.

“Cough, cough… Big brother, Sister Lilith, we’re over here!” Moments later, two figures appeared in a disheveled state, allowing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. It was a huge comfort to know the two girls were unharmed.

“What exactly happened?” Rod asked in a low voice, looking at them.

“Demon soul, a demon soul has appeared! It’s the prince of the war faction—the demon soul has possessed that guy!” Aida said urgently, her words turning everyone’s expression pale.