Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

"What is..." Her voice quivered slightly, her breathing hastening. The snow-white puppy in her arms was held tighter. She felt more secure after, unaware of the huge smile of bliss on the puppy’s face as it nuzzled between her precious mountains.

Beneath the red sand, Old Man Bo, who had been forgotten by Lin Feilin as she ascended, was still on his knees while gawking at the event. Sand. So much sand and red was flying through his visual perception. It was overwhelming.

However, he was completely safe. The sand seemed to have eyes. When they came into contact with his body, they became gentle as they slowly made their way around and continued their course. It was incredible.

For a moment, he felt as if he was the master of this sand. This belief was false. A misconception by proxy. The true master of this sand was beneath it, but the sovereign of souls, the most perfect soul, was standing atop it.

At the moment, Yan Zaizen was floating a few feet off the original surface level of the sand. The entire world around him was rapidly twisting red sand. His amber-gold eyes were closed, his arms sprayed apart, and his bearing was like a holy man embracing the world.

"The Infernal Path, otherwise known as the Path to Hell, required a strong soul medium to begin. It started with the soul and ended with the soul." His words were like hellish hymns, a unique mnemonic of unknown origin echoed from his lips. As he spoke, the rapid sand shifted in accordance. It was as if he was a conductor of a symphony.

Each sand particle that existed was his musicians, and the refined soul energy within them was the instruments. It was beautiful as the sound echoed.

Lin Feilin witnessed the swirling mass of sand that stretched for hundreds of thousands of miles rise and fall, creating a spectacular visual. It was like controlled waves and held a unique, unfathomable truth beneath.

"Incredible!" She said without much thought. That was her most earnest evaluation.

Yan Zaizen kept speaking. The Infernal Path, unlike the Heavenly Path, required soul materials to construct. These were materials birthed from infernal essence. Essence was more than energy, its what drove laws and the foundation of a universe.

Yan Zaizen’s Herculean Path converted essence from the Heavens to condensed its own road, and the Heavenly Path used its own essence to structure and power the Heavenly Shrines of heavenly cultivators.

When Yan Zaizen had ventured into the Non-Verse, he had absorbed and refined the Purity Law and the unique essence of the Non-Verse. With his Non-Entity status, he was capable of harnessing it and the law of mimicry to give birth to a law found only there.

The Infernal Essence was the essence that originated, was birthed, from the source of whatever Hell was. Therefore, to structure a Hell Altar, one needed materials from Hell itself, materials birthed from Infernal Essence.

Yan Zaizen couldn’t travel to Hell. The compass was with his original body, so he had to make due. The true reason he hadn’t left the Xiantu Realm immediately was the Dead Soul Sea. Others might not notice, but his Paragon Soul Realm cultivation was capable of clearly noticing that this red sand, the cells of an Infernal Deity, was made from Infernal Essence.

However, because of the outlawed status that the Infernal Path has amongst the heavens, the red sand was useless unless they drew their power from their origin, the Infernal Deity. Thus, when taken away, it became useless in every sense of the world. After all, the Infernal Essence belonged to Hell, not here.

How could its wonders occur without its driving force? A miniature Hell. Just like how Heavenly Cultivators create a Heaven, empowering it, using its power for their own goals, Infernal Forgers did the same. Their Hell Altars were Hells!

Yan Zaizen felt the essence within.

It was...spiritual.

It felt light and airy yet boundless and infinite. This was the characteristics of a soul, of its potential. It felt intoxicating to observe, especially for Yan Zaizen whose soul had reached an incredibly high level.

"Your entirety will become mine’s." Yan Zaizen slowly said as he lifted his arms up high. The red sand that was rapidly flitting past, going thousands of miles an hour, all abruptly came to a stop. He truly seemed like a grand maestro at this moment.

"I’ve imprinted every last cell. Apologies, but you should just pass on peacefully." Yan Zaizen’s voice echoed endlessly.

ROAR!

A guttural and unwilling roar echoed from beneath. It was heart-wrenching, sad, yet somewhat relieved. Yan Zaizen had already rendered the Infernal Deity’s Dead Soul that had long since entered an endless passive state powerless. While its cultivation into the Infernal Path was amazing, it was merely an Infernal Deity, which was equivalent to a Heavenly Commander.

Yan Zaizen’s soul base could rival the foundation of a Heavenly Monarch. If translated to the soul, Yan Zaizen was like Goliath to a goldfish out of water. It wasn’t even fair.

"Gather!" Yan Zaizen slapped his palms together, causing surging waves to waft outwards, reflecting on the red sand. In a split second, all the red sand in every direction from edge to edge started to surge towards Yan Zaizen. It was like trillion trillions of red ants traveling towards a single direction.

A literal sea of red.

"Condense!" Of course, Yan Zaizen couldn’t allow that to truly happen or its gathered mass could affect the continental stability. Therefore, he slowly pulled his palms apart and from within, a vortex of red was formed.

The red sand ceaselessly entered the vortex yet it remained the size of a penny. Regardless of how much sand entered, it only grew redder and redder, but never grew larger.

For the next few minutes, the red sand of the Dead Soul Sea disappeared into the vortex. When all was done, the last speck of sand entered the vortex, the truth beneath the sand was revealed.

Before, Yan Zaizen was merely a few feet away from ground level, and while he didn’t move, the ground had appeared...about three miles down. Yan Zaizen saw the chasm formed and his amber-gold eyes sparkled with a tinge of interest.

Old Man Bo was floating on his own power, gawking at the chasm below and his eyes were bulging. He...he saw...

"So this is why you couldn’t revive," Yan Zaizen said, a hint of pity in his eyes as he gazed downwards. He witnessed the sight of a very large head. A human head, and merely that. It was slightly ethereal, seemingly capable of being a ghost of one’s imagination. At its glabella was a White-Bone Orb - its Hell Altar.

It had grey teeth with a single teeth type, bicuspid. Its white hair was thin despite being as long as rivers. They were haphazardly spread upon the head, covering its facial features a little. Its eyes were open. No, it had no eyelids to speak of.

Those eyes were like a sea of souls. A still picture that seemed to be like a painting. These were the condemned souls refined by the Infernal Deity. There were all sorts of creatures within, even dogs and cats. They all seemed to be horrifically screaming, trying to claw their way out of its eyes.

At the sides of these eyes were silver lines of tears, still wet. Yan Zaizen’s eyes brightened when he saw those tears. He raised his hands slightly and two large drops, capable of drowning a town, existed from the lines of silver tears and was brought to Yan Zaizen.

He licked his lips slightly. His soul felt a desire he hadn’t felt before - hunger. Without hesitation, he opened his mouth and the silver liquid entered his mouth, disappearing in a blink. Two gigantic tears vanished in a brief moment.

Buuuurp!

Yan Zaizen patted his stomach and a delightful smile surfaced. "Infernal Spirit Liquid. So pure, quite delicious." If Heavenly Law Liquid was the condensed form of heavenly aura and energy, then Infernal Spirit Liquid was the Hell equivalent.

It was boundlessly useful to the soul, and with it, Yan Zaizen had recovered a millionth of his Soul Cultivation’s energy reserves. With this, he was truly unrivaled in the Xiantu Realm.

He shifted his attention to the swirling vortex of red. "Perfect," Yan Zaizen remarked. This was the foundation of his Hell Altar. He decided to no longer delay and a strand of his Paragon Soul Essence left and entered the vortex.

Right now, the Hell Altar was in the process of forming to its elementary stages. After that, he’ll be able to forge it into a Hell of his own making and design, absorbing the essence of the world and transforming it into infernal soul energy. With it, he’ll have one more assurance in his venture to save his original body.

Unlike the Heavenly Shrine which was stored in the body, the Hell Altar wasn’t stored within. Instead, it was always present beside. It was the act of storing it into your soul that can cause your Soul Flame and soulforce to be corrupted, so only those who’ve mastered their Hell Altar to a certain point would try.

Even an Infernal Deity would only be forced to become a Dead Soul if they tried. However, if you succeeded without corruption, just like the Dead Souls who had immortality, you would similarly become immortal. A perpetual degree of soulforce, inexhaustible as long as you had energy.

Those at that level were similar to Heavenly Monarchs and were referred to as Infernal Immortals.