Reverend insanity: Heaven devouring demon venerable

The sky was filled with countless Ghostly Hands, descending as if delivering a deity's judgment.

Some of them already grabbed the beast corpses lying on the ground, taking them back to the Thieves Den.

This place was located in the Northern plains, left by the biggest thief in history: Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable.

In the Medieval Antiquity Era, there was a demonic tribe that ruled over the entire Northern plains.

Their specialty was Enslavement Path, known for their use of Feather men instead of beasts, who made 80 percent of the clan's force.

They appeared right after Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable's death, ruling over the era after him until a young Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable showed up.

In a fit of rage, the future Demon venerable killed every single member of the tribe, turning the place that was once known for its riches into a pile of rubble, showing mercy only to the Feather men who he later transported to the Western Desert, hiding them there from the rest of the world.

The years passed, leaving that place in ruins for centuries.

When the Demon Venerable was roaming the world after he ascended to rank 9, he returned to that place, disguised as a mortal Gu master.

Legend says that he stayed there for three days and three nights, before setting the place on fire, leaving behind an artificial Secluded Domain of Heaven and earth there after everything turned to ashes.

Now, that land was filled with Ghostly hands that would snatch anything valuable close to them, never to be seen again.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, Spectral Demon Venerable, and even the peaceful Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable tried to either take the treasures hiding there or destroy them for the sake of the Gu world.

Yet, none of them succeeded.

All of them lost something precious when they came.

Ning Zu could still remember the time when Ming You lost a rank 9 food path Immortal Gu to the Domain, almost destroying the entire continent in fury.

And now, the Grotto Heaven was connected to that very place!

The Spirit was shaking in horror, this was the worst thing it ever experienced since the day it was formed.

Seeing a Ghost Hand try and grab the Legendary Immemorial Beast's head, where the Rank 9 Dao Guardian Gu was slumbering, it didn't hold back.

Using its Heavenly Spirit abilities, it teleported to the Ghostly hand, destroying it with a punch.

The Ghostly hands, despite being a force to be reckoned with, were not that durable.

Even better, if one of them attempts to steal something and fails, the others immediately abandon any attempts to steal it as well.

'It's alright, it's going to be alright!' Hope started growing inside the spirit, calming it down a bit.

'I am not a real spirit, I don't even belong to this Grotto Heaven, I just have to grab the head with every limb and escape somewhere safe.'

The Heavenly Spirit couldn't care less about this Grotto Heaven right now, if it could keep the Gu and the materials left by its master, that would be enough.

However, all that hope dissipated in a moment.

Chains started rolling around it, stopping all of its movement.

The poor spirit couldn't even move its eyes to see that the chains that were binding it were coming from Ning Zu.

To be exact, they came from Ning Zu's forehead, directly connected to the blue lotus mark on his forehead that was shining.

This was Ning Zu's newest creation:

Immortal Killer Move-Hungry Soul Punishment 

This Immortal Killer move uses the Blue Lotus Gu as the core, with multiple rank 5 Soul Eater Gu and other lower rank mortal Gu.

It also uses another Immortal Gu that Ning Zu just acquired: the Judgment Chain Gu.

This Gu could bind anyone in a radius of fifty meters in place, forcing on them a state where they are unable to use any sort of essence.

If not for the Soul Lotus Gu's higher rank and ability to activate with just mental energy, Ning Zu wouldn't be able to use it to make the Gu submit for him.

"Ahahaha, to think that my gamble succeeded, you fake excuse of a heaven path creature!"

The spirit was angry but also confused, what does he mean by a heaven path creature?

What the spirit doesn't know is that every Land or Heavenly Spirit are heaven path creatures.

These creatures are special, they are born from the obsession of the original owner of the aperture, and they can formulate thoughts, wills, and even emotions.

However, they do not possess a soul, that's why they are so simple they can't lie, making them an easy target for manipulation.

On the other hand, this Heavenly Spirit could lie, it was even very similar to the way Reckless Savage Demon Venerable behaved in his younger days.

"Your no spirit, your just a cheap copy made by that dumb fucker, you're a split soul, in fact, the first ever split soul in this world!"

After hearing that, the spirit was more confused than ever, before that feeling was overthrown with horror.

A Ghost Hand grabbed one of the scattered limbs, disappearing instantly.

'NOOOOOO' the spirit screamed in its mind, seeing the material it Guarded for so long stolen in front of it, while it was unable to do anything.

Ning Zu seeing that felt extreme happiness, he was no sadist, but seeing the person who made him suffer all of those years in that state was just impeccable.

'But this is just the beginning!' Ning Zu thought as his soul left his body, passing through the chain into the spirit, invading the spirit's body.

To an outsider, it may seem like the Spirit and Ning Zu stayed still.

But inside the spirit, Ning Zu's soul was devouring the spirit's soul, using it as fuel to heal his soul from all the damage it suffered.

The Ghostly hands paid them no mind, grabbing every material it deemed worthy.

By worthy, it meant every single material around this land, including the threes, the soil, and even the limbs.

The spirit saw this, it saw everything, it would have hurt to see the world it was tasked to be taken care of be stripped of everything like that, but now, it felt even worse with Ning Zu tearing and breaking its soul, making it experience a pain it never knew.

Desperate, the spirit self detonated its lower body.

The explosion immediately broke the chains, freeing the spirit with only its head and left arm intact on its chest.

"Ahh… Noo…" but even if it was free now, it sustained too much damage, dropping to the hard ground.

The Chain quickly dissipated as Ning Zu returned to his body, better than ever.

"Hah, if that chain broke before I returned to my body, I wouldn't even have the privilege to enter the door of life and death since my soul would be no more."

Yet, despite being moments away from dying just now, he felt more refreshed than ever.

His soul was back to a hundred million man soul!

"I feel so great you know, but what about you?" Walking to the spirit, Ning Zu taunted, lifting the spirit off the ground, forcefully opening the eye it had left to witness the scavenging that was happening.

"Ahhh…Ahhh" the spirit screamed, tears flowing down both of its eye sockets, it failed its master, hurting it so much as if it failed itself.

In a sense, that is true.

'After absorbing the soul, now I am sure that my instincts were right.' 

As Spectral Soul Demon Venerable's Dao guardian, with his Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster attainment in soul path, Ning Zu felt something off about the spirit from the moment he arrived.

Now, after soul searching the spirit while he was absorbing its soul, that suspicion finally made sense.

'Reckless Savage, with his limited knowledge in Heaven path, only managed to create the body of a spirit, like a toy that can't work.'

This was still very impressive because creating a Heaven Path creature was something that not even Ning Zu could do with his master Heaven Path Attainment.

Still, the spirit didn't work, so, like the reckless man he is, he decided to split his soul, putting it inside the spirit, making the first ever split soul.

'Heaven path…. Just wait, my food path will someday devour you whole!'

Ning Zu was neither the creator of food path nor the first Human who cultivated it, but he was the person who made it into the strongest path in the future.

Now though, he was fully enjoying the despair felt by the spirit, feeling even better than that time when he was on his Molten BloodLusty Soul cycle.

Soon enough, everything was taken from the land, leaving it completely barren.

Heaven's Will then decided to deliver the final blow, making all the black clouds merge into one big black hole that was starting to open.

'I have to escape now, there is nothing left for me here.' Ning Zu was finally satisfied, he gained multiple Eating Type mortal Gu, two Immortal Gu, two Guardians that would aid him greatly, and most importantly to him, a food path extreme physique.

"Hey spirit, I want to leave now." Said Ning Zu.

The spirit however didn't respond, it was completely broken now.

Sighing heavily, Ning Zu was left with only one choice.

Holding the spirit by its hair, Ning Zu used the Wind Eater Gu, forming green wings that seemed to be crafted using green melted glass, flying slowly before moving faster than the wind itself.

It didn't take long for him to reach an underground tunnel that was initially hidden from everyone except for the spirit, but the formation that was covering was also stolen by the Ghostly hands.

Ning Zu quickly entered the tunnel, flying over the dark place, filled with other tunnels until he saw a crystal blue light at the end of the tunnel.

Arriving there, Ning Zu could feel that below him was a space hole leading to the Northern Plains.

This space hole was the result of a rare rank 5 one time use Gu: Connecting Space Gu.

The Gu looked like two little fairies, one blue and the other red, rotating around each other.

Ning Zu quickly used his last bead of Immortal essence, since this tunnel only opened using essence, and it needed a lot of it.

Even with the Immortal bead used, the hole was opening very slowly, not helping Ning Zu who could feel the temperature rising from whatever calamity the land was experiencing right now.

"You.." the silence was cut off by the spirit finally speaking.

"You…You.." still broken from what it experienced before, the spirit kept mumbling the same word over and over.

"Huh? What are you murmuring you little shit." Ning Zu looked at the spirit straight in the eyes, enjoying its broken state like a maniac.

After meeting his eyes, the spirit couldn't see a single sane thought inside Ning Zu's head.

"Why…" This time, the spirit asked a question instead of the mumbling.

It wanted to know why Ning Zu would do what he had done, the spirit offered nothing but hospitality, letting him use any material he wanted while protecting him from the dangers that a mortal might face in a land like this.

So why? Why would he do this? 

Ning Zu himself pondered for a moment, this wasn't like him, he was usually more careful, more focused.

Yet for some reason, after obtaining the food path extreme physique he acted nothing like himself, he was… without logic.

That thought though was immediately suppressed with immense killing intent.

"Oh Heavenly spirit, despite being the split soul of a Demon Venerable, it seems that all this time spent alone in the Grotto Heaven made you as naive as a real Heavenly Spirit, demonic cultivators are the worst, they are willing to do almost anything for benefit, ready to anger the Heavens themselves if it means they get what they desire."

Even with his explanation, the spirit still asked the same question again, this time with more emotion in its tone.

"Why…"

The tunnel was then filled with fire everywhere, burning anything and everything in its path, even forcefully opening the space hole.

Ning Zu now annoyed more than anything, pierced the spirit, pulling out the original heavenly spirit out of it, devouring it in one gulp, storing it in his stomach.

"Don't you get it land spirit?" Ning Zu taunted, his face caught fire at that moment, but the smile on his face never faded, delivering the final blow to spirit.

"I am a demon after all!"

Ning Zu screamed for the world to hear, falling from the sky as the hole finally opened, letting go of the land spirit, and leaving it there.

The space hole didn't let anything else through it, as the space path Dao marks forming it burned with the fire.

Now, he was falling as half of his body lit up on fire.

Anyone else would be thinking about the fall, where they are, how much the fire hurts.

But Ning Zu thought of only one thing.

'Half my body is hot while the other half is cold, haha haha, I feel like those Yin Yang path cultivators I killed long ago.'

As the cold air of the Northern plains hit his body, Ning Zu activated the Wind Eater Gu, flying down without any damage or sound.

Looking around the ice field of snow around him, Ning Zu immediately realized where he was.

"Absolute Ice Battlefield huh, not bad, it's a good resting place, and I need to use the Gu I left behind here."

The Absolute Ice Battlefield was made by Reckless Savage Demon Venerable after he destroyed the previous land here.

It was filled with his true meaning, ready to manifest the moment a transformation or strength path Gu masters ascended here.

This information was not known by many, but Ning Zu knew even more.

'This place is where all of Reckless Savage's attainment is left, not just his Strength and Transformation path attainment, but every single attainment the venerable had before his death.'

Ning Zu was planning on taking those attainments soon in the future, but now, he needed to do something else.

He walked and walked, letting the fire keep burning his body until it died down because of the cold, making him look like old black coal with human features.

Ning Zu kept walking until he entered a cave, which would be impossible to find for anyone else unless they were also an extreme physique possessor.

There, Ning Zu found a Gu that he had once taken from here, using it for so long, returning here as his inheritance for anyone with an extreme physique.

It was the Attitude Gu, a legendary Gu that was once used by the human ancestor himself: Ren Zu.

Ning Zu didn't come here for this Gu though, he came for a different reason.

After a long time inside the little world, he made, hiding and waiting for the right moment to snatch a body for himself, Ning Zu's Molten BloodLusty soul made him go through multiple cycles, which he couldn't do anything to.

That harmed his mental state a lot, making him completely lose it in the Xiong clan.

Inside the Grotto Heaven too, Ning Zu felt that something, or someone was making him less careful than usual, what made him act the way he did.

'It's good that I escaped to this place, here, I can return to my previous self.'

Ning Zu touched the icy ground, making the earth shake.

"Hahahahaha… it seems that my water path split soul did what I asked it to, perfect."

Ning Zu left behind three split souls, each made to do certain tasks to help him after his revival.

Ice grew on Ning Zu's body, enveloping him just like the Attitude Gu.

A formation activated then, healing Ning Zu's mind and body slowly.

'It seems it will take me six months or so to heal, well, I do need some rest.'

Ning Zu closed his eyes, allowing himself to rest for a while so he could get back to his prime mental state as soon as possible.

The Dao Guardian could never imagine that while he was resting, a monster who once caused him great grief and pain would soon wake up inside the heavenly court graveyard ready to change fate once again.