At night, sub-midnight.
In the quiet room, Chen Yuntian sits and feels the emergence of the drug force of Huashen Soup.
He had an intuitive feeling in the morning that this time the emergence of drug force would elevate his strength level to the later stage of Tianxian Realm.
Of course, it's only about the power; the realm itself hasn't been elevated.
The drug forces emerge and wander one after another according to the practice of the fourth turn of "The Inner Dao Essence Scriptures" by Mr. Chen, transforming into strand after strand of Danyqi, continuously boosting his strength.
"According to reason, having reached the middle stage of the Earthly Immortal Realm, I should already be able to start trying to refine the Yang Spirit."
While sensing the drug force, Chen Yun secretly thought: "However, I have never been able to achieve complete enlightenment in my fourth turn of 'The Inner Dao Essence Scriptures' of Mr. Chen. It seems like there is still a little something missing."
He estimated that his strength level would be elevated to the later stage of Tianxian Realm tonight, but he didn't know if this stage could let him achieve complete enlightenment in the fourth turn of "The Inner Dao Essence Scriptures" by Mr. Chen.
Chen Yun pondered for a moment, shook off his distractions, and began to guide the "Qi" within his body to actively refine and transform.
Soon, he felt the divine water reaching his heart and the exciting divine fire. His five internal organs felt warm, his entire body was sweating, and his four limbs were in harmony, which was the nurturing of the essence through divine water and fire.
After being nurtured, the inner Dao will produce thunderous sounds from its sides.
Chen Yun had been in the middle stage of the Earthly Immortal Realm for some time, so he had long adapted to such a situation.
At this moment, despite the thunderous sound coming from his side, he still remains focused on his cultivation without being affected.
The amount of Danyqi in his body is continuously increasing.
Suddenly, Chen Yun felt a surge of heat enter his dantian, and a fiery glow burst forth from his nostrils.
During his previous cultivation of the fourth turn of "The Inner Dao Essence Scriptures" by Mr. Chen, such a reaction would also occur, but it was just a surge of heat into the dantian, and the fiery glow from the nose wouldn't last long.
However, this time it was somewhat different. Chen Yun clearly felt that the heat flowing into his dantian was not real heat, but rather the inner gold pill he had previously fixed to his right rib was now returning to its original position.
And after the inner pill returned to the dantian, the fiery glow in his nose did not cease, as if there were a raging fire inside the room.
A strong force surged, causing him to be submerged in an overwhelming transformation.
The next second, Chen Yun found that his perception had become wondrous, as if all the transformations in the universe could be explored by him.
Not only that, under the perception, the myriad beings seemed to form a strange connection with him, allowing him to perceive the good and evil of all beings as if he had divine intuition.
Of course, Chen Yun knew that it wasn't divine intuition, but rather allowing himself to possess the ability to see through good and evil.
For example, at this moment, he saw the qiliao monk in the other side chamber studying Daoist sutras with pure aura exuding from him. It was evident that he was very "good."
Correspondingly, there were the nine-headed demon king and the golden-eyed hundred-eyed ghost in the adjacent room next to the qiliao monk.
The two supreme demon kings had a dense and incredibly dark cloud above their heads.
The most critical black cloud above the fire was swirling with fierce flames.
It seemed as though the dark cloud was pressing down on the city, about to crush it, threatening to destroy the world at any moment.
The sacred deities like Erlang Shen and the Seven Holy Ones showed a different scene.
Chen Yun saw them exuding auspicious light, and their divine essence was mist-like.
If it were just this, it wouldn't have been enough to surprise him as a whole.
Chen Yun amazingly discovered that he could use this extraordinary perception to see the "true bodies" of everyone.
Taking the nine-headed demon king as an example, in Chen Yun's extraordinary perception perspective, it presents a form of a beast with eight hundred zhang in height, a thousand zhang in length, and nine fierce-looking cow heads.
The golden-eyed hundred-eyed ghost is between thirty-five to one-hundred-and-thirty zhang in height, resembling a ghostly figure made of black qi but continuously emitting golden light.
The jiāo dao monk appeared as a dragon, and the thing that was different from when Chen Yun first saw him was that his true form had grown from ten to more than twenty li in length, and two round bumps appeared on his head, seemingly about to grow into real dragon horns, indicating that he was about to evolve into a true god dragon.
As for Erlang Shen and the Seven Holy Ones, what they presented was a form of their law.
The law forms of Erlang Shen and the Seven Holy Ones were almost indistinguishable from the real individuals, as if there wasn't much to look at.
The Na Zha was quite different. His body was as large as Mount Xuemo, wearing tiger skin, with a thousand arms, fierce-looking and holding law weapons or weapons such as sun and moon, great axes, jingang sticks, swords, hammers, embroidered balls, fire wheels and so on. A belt made by the naga dragon species was also around his waist, looking very powerful and brave.
Chen Yun was preparing to observe more for a while.
Suddenly, Erlang Shen's divine mind passed through, "Chen brother, it is not good to use the supreme law to probe into our true forms. Quickly withdraw your attention to avoid causing discomfort to others."
Chen Yun knew that the "others" Erlang Shen was referring to were not him and the Seven Holy Ones of Meishan, nor was he referring to Nezha and Li Jing, but rather the two formidable demons, the Nine-Headed Demon King and the Golden-Eyed Hundred-Eyed Ghost.
Indeed, he had seen the two demons show unfriendly expressions from his extraordinary perception, knowing that probing into their true forms had offended their taboos.
Thus, Chen Yun withdrew his extraordinary perception and transmitted his divine mind: "King Niu, King Jin, I was practicing my spiritual power. I did not intentionally probe into your true forms. Please forgive me."
The Nine-Headed Demon King and the Golden-Eyed Hundred-Eyed Ghost then looked a bit better, and they responded one after another with "no problem."
Chen Yun did not use his extraordinary perception to observe others again.
He was enjoying the power boost and pondered in his heart: "It seems that my essence soul has been elevated again."
This left him somewhat incredulous, because under normal circumstances, once one reaches the middle stage of the Earthly Immortal Realm, one's realm cannot be elevated any further. The essence soul can only become stronger if it undergoes a qualitative change and successfully achieves the Immortal Realm, after which it might become more powerful.
Chen Yun could sense that he should have reached the later stage of the Tianxian Realm, and his essence soul should not have grown stronger. However, in reality, his essence soul had indeed grown stronger.
This made him somewhat uncertain, so he attempted to extricate his essence soul from his body to see if it had truly grown stronger.
A beam of divine light emanated from his eyes, ascended to the top of his head, and took the form of a deity that was about two or three feet tall, identical to him in every respect.
With a thought, Chen Yun's essence soul instantly pierced through the layers of space restrictions and actually descended into a small world!
The power of the essence soul was incredibly strong. Upon descending into this unknown small world, it immediately caused the world to tremble slightly, as if it would be shattered.
Chen Yun saw that the situation was not right, so he immediately moved his consciousness and retrieved his essence soul again.
Along with the return of his essence soul, he revealed a thoughtful expression, "My essence soul has indeed grown stronger. From the posture I just saw, although not as strong as true Immortals, it already possesses the qualifications to serve as a deity in the heaven or the underworld. In other words, now I have met the conditions to become a god, but the strength of my essence soul is still lacking compared to that of Immortals."
So, based on the current situation, as long as he continues to strengthen his essence soul, he will eventually attain the Immortal Realm.
However, the cultivation of the inner Dao to strengthen the essence soul is quite different from ordinary spiritual cultivation. It is not about directly strengthening the essence soul and attaining Immortality, but rather cultivating a solar deity.
Chen Yun now had two paths to choose from.
The first is to directly strengthen the essence soul and attain the Immortal Realm.
The second is to cultivate a solar deity and attain the Immortal Realm.
He almost didn't think about it and immediately reached a conclusion, "Since I have cultivated the Inner Dao Grand Law, I must definitely cultivate a solar deity."
Chen Yun finally understood why he had always felt that the fourth turn of "Mr. Chen's Inner Alchemy Canon" was not complete; it was because he had not truly reached the "realm" yet.
Now it's different. Along with the ascension of the power of the elixir to transform into a god, his overall "realm" has made a slight breakthrough, allowing him to cultivate "Mr. Chen's Inner Alchemy Canon" to its truly perfect state.
In this way, he could then dedicate his time in the following days to pondering how to create the fifth-level technique.
Thinking so, Chen Yun sensed that the ascending power of the medicine within his body was nearly at an end.
He slowly concluded the exercise and rested.
Once his body settled down, Chen Yun slowly opened his eyes, feeling a bit delighted in his heart and thinking, "Having refined the power for eight to nine months in a row, I have finally arrived at the later stage of the Tianxian Realm. My essence soul has also broken the shackles and there is hope for me to attain Immortality. Although I cannot choose to directly strengthen my essence soul, this has greatly increased my strength. If I were to confront Guoteng Dao Ren, destroying him would be as easy as turning over one's palm!"
Huff.
Finally, he broke through to the later stage of the Tianxian Realm just before the great battle began, which was very satisfactory to Chen Yun's heart.
"I only need to wait for the grand battle to come and then I can build a career, accumulate enough merits for my master so that I can save him from the heavenly prison."
Chen Yun closed his eyes and entered a state of spiritual travel, waiting for the great battle to arrive.
...
In the seventh year of Tianfu, when Shi Zhonggui ascended the throne of the Later Jin Dynasty, he refused to continue bowing to the Ruyan people, leading to a deterioration in their relationship.
The Khitan Emperor Yelü Deguang, using the reason that the Jin court had betrayed their favor, publicized his grievances throughout the land and led an army southward.
In the eighth year, under the persuasion of the captured generals Yang Yuan and Zhao Yanshou, when the central plains was suffering from famine and the Jin court was strapped for cash, Yelü Deguang gathered troops from various states such as Gua, Tan, Yun, and Ying in Shanhuo, as well as Luolong troops. In December, he split his forces into two groups to advance southward.
The eastern route was led by Zhao Yanshou, who led a vanguard of 50,000 troops. Behind them, Emperor Yelü Deguang personally led more than a million troops. They set out from Youzhou and headed towards Weizhou.
The western route was led by the Prince Wei, who commanded the armies of Yun and Ying to enter Yanmen Pass and head towards Taiyuan as a countermeasure for the main forces on the eastern route.
By then, the route of the Khitan troops matched exactly with Chen Yun's initial guess. It was precise to almost every city.
Although the Khitan army moved swiftly, the previous large-scale military mobilization had allowed the Later Jin to quickly detect their movements.
As a result, the Later Jin dispatched people to build Nanyue City and Deqing Army City, and to mobilize nearby forces to defend against the Khitan's southward advance.
Exactly because the war had already reached a tipping point, Chen Yun, Erlang Shen, Nezha and other deities hurriedly joined the Khitan troops to assist in their mission of wiping out the Later Jin Dynasty.
They were also divided into two groups, with one led by Chen Yun and the other by Erlang Shen.
On Chen Yun's side, in addition to his disciples and disciples-in-training, there were also three other powerful beings: Nezha, Li Jing, and the Nine-Headed Demon King.
As for Erlang Shen's side, it included all the deities of the Guanjiang Erlang Temple, as well as the Golden-Eyed Hundred-Eyed Ghost and
The reason for separating the Nine-Headed Demon King and the Golden-Eyed Hundred-Eyed Ghost was that Erlang Shen was afraid that the two formidable demons would not heed orders if they were together, and that it would be difficult for him or Nezha to subdue both demons when they joined forces.
During these few months, Chen Yun found that although there was still some lingering power in the elixir to transform into a god, it had little effect on himself.
It seems that creating the fifth-level technique of "Mr. Chen's Inner Alchemy Canon" is already a matter of urgency.
Unfortunately, Chen Yun does not have time to study how to create the fifth-level technique of "Mr. Chen's Inner Alchemy Canon" because the great battle is about to break out.
In the first month of the ninth year, Zhao Yanshou led the vanguard troops of the eastern route to the Beizhou, a town with significant grain reserves in Jin.
Due to the long journey, Zhu Yanshou did not immediately order an attack on the city. Instead, he had his soldiers set up camps and establish bases, preparing for a night's rest and taking the opportunity to observe the city's situation first.
In the middle camp.
Chen Yun, Li Jing, and Nezha were seated at the strategists' table on one side. On the other side were a group of Khitan generals sitting straight and serious.
Zhao Yanshou, as the commander of the vanguard army, was describing the situation of Beizhou city, "Beizhou is a strategic point for both land and water routes. It also stores all the grain reserves for the defense against southern invasions by the Jin court. Once we conquer it, the northern defense line of the Jin court will basically be in shambles. Therefore, this battle is of great importance; we must win and cannot afford to lose."
Chen Yun, Li Jing, and Nezha listened attentively.
So did all the other generals and strategists.
Zhao Yanshou introduced the information of the garrison commander, "Previously, the garrison commander of Beizhou was named Hao Ke. He was known for his brutality and had been repeatedly denounced. As a result, he had already been relieved of his duties by Wang Lingwen, the Administrator of Yongqing. Although he is still within the city, he no longer handles any affairs. The current garrison commander of Beizhou is Wu Luan, who used to be a clerk and gradually worked his way up to the position of Defense Commandant of Fuzhou. He is indeed a talented individual with genuine abilities. Gentlemen, do any of you have a clever plan to capture the city?"
A young officer said, "General Zhao, I have observed that Beizhou City is located at a strategic point for land and water routes, easy to defend but difficult to attack. It will not be an easy task to capture the city."
Zhao Yanshou glanced at him and said, "If it was easy, what would we need you for?"
The young officer remained silent.
Subsequently, several other generals and strategists spoke up.
It was mostly just the same old tricks in siege tactics.
Things like ramming the gate, climbing the walls, charging formations, and catapults.
Chen Yun, Li Jing, and Nezha listened on the side, though they found the tactics simplistic, they did not voice any opinions.
Because their real goal was not to fight ordinary armies, but the divine beings defending the city.
Chen Yun was well aware that if his side could not deal with the divine beings in Beizhou City, then despite Zhao Yanshou's vanguard troops possibly winning the war, they would not be able to continue their advance.
Not only would they not be able to continue their advance, but they might not even be able to enter the city.
Therefore, defeating the divine beings defending the city is particularly important.
...
After the meeting ended, the three of them went to Chen Yun's private tent where he lived alone.
Inside, a large group of people, including Niu Dali, Jiao Daoren, and the Nine-Headed Demon King, had already been waiting. As they saw the three return, they all came forward to ask for an update on the situation.
Chen Yun did not immediately speak about the situation, but instead invited Li Jing and Nezha to sit down.
After that, he slowly said, "The battles of ordinary soldiers have little to do with us. Do you know which cultivators or divine beings are guarding the city?"
Niu Dali immediately spoke up, "Master Chen, I had someone investigate earlier. There are three cultivators or divine beings guarding the Beizhou City: Gouteng Dao Ren, Zhao Da Zu General of the Sixty-Year Diagram of the Heavenly Palace, and Kuixiang Xuan of the Twenty-Eight Stars."
Hearing this, the Nine-Headed Demon King's face turned pale, "Is Kuixiang Xuan also in Beizhou City?"
Chen Yun was curious about why the Nine-Headed Demon King would react with such a dramatic change in expression.
Because Kuixiang Xuan, one of the Twenty-Eight Stars, has strong combat power. It is also known as the first star among the Western White Tiger Stars and belongs to the Four Trees of Birds stars.
Of course, this was not the main reason for the Nine-Headed Demon King's alarm.
The main reason is that Kuixiang Xuan is an enemy of the kind of magical beings that have taken on human form and become grass-eating animals, like the Nine-Headed Demon King.
Perhaps in terms of combat power, the Nine-Headed Demon King may only be a little weaker than Erlang Shen and Nezha, but he still has the ability to fight in a significant battle.
On paper, the Nine-Headed Demon King is not afraid of Kuixiang Xuan, but in a real fight, he might not dare to move at all and could be instantly defeated by Kuixiang Xuan.
Niu Dali nodded, "Yes, Kuixiang Xuan is in Beizhou City."
Li Jing analyzed the situation seriously, "There are three cultivators or divine beings in Beizhou City. Apart from that Gouteng Dao Ren whose name I haven't heard of, Zhao Da Zu General and Kuixiang Xuan are all strong warriors. We may face a fierce battle."
Chen Yun glanced at Nezha, the proud Third Prince who had remained silent for a rare moment.
It seems that Nezha seems to be wary of Zhao Da Zu General and Kuixiang Xuan as well.
To be honest, Chen Yun has no clear understanding of the true power of Zhao Da Zu General and Kuixiang Xuan, as he has never met them.
However, upon hearing that the first city he would be fighting in has an enemy, Gouteng Dao Ren, Chen Yun's heart stirred. He pondered whether to find an opportunity to fight and kill the old Gouteng to vent his anger.
Chen Yun pondered in secret, "With my current strength at the late stage of Earth Immortality, and Gouteng Dao Ren at the middle stage of Earth Immortality, if we ignore the effects of treasured weapons, I could easily kill him in an instant."
Well, as long as Gouteng Dao Ren dares to fight in the coming battle, he will definitely be defeated by me and be dispersed into dust!
As the saying goes, when enemies meet, they become particularly bloodthirsty.
Chen Yun, upon learning that Gouteng Dao Ren is in Beizhou City, naturally wants to take this opportunity to take revenge and avenge his grievances.
There was no grudge or enmity between them, yet several times he narrowly escaped death, all thanks to Gouteng Dao Ren and the Xingxu Hai.
Chen Yun did not show any signs of anger, which was completely understandable.
He looked towards Beizhou City, already impatiently waiting for the battle to start so that he could personally resolve the decades of grudges and grievances!
