Immortal Kingdoms

"Alright. Brace yourself."

Wendy stood up on the back of the black thunderbird and clasped her bone saber tightly, her expression serious as she took in a deep breath.

The concentration of the chaotic energies would more than double after crossing the ring of thunderstorms, and if she wasn't careful, it would eat away at her stamina and energy far too quickly, then it would start to erode her internal organs.

Worst case scenario, she could experience heart failure or brain damage, which was far from desirable at the moment.

The moment the black thunderbird screeched and blasted past the last barrier of thunderclouds, an oppressive, ubiquitous energy wave crashed down on Wendy, and she grit her teeth while awaiting the first and most crucial impact.

However, before she could get herself ready to divert the energy away from her heart and brain, a soft cold hand tapped her shoulder.

"Relax."

Leonardo shook his head, his desolate domain expanding just enough to envelop himself, Wendy, and the black thunderbird.

"What are you doing?!" Wendy's face twisted in horror as multicolored energy waves visible to the naked eye came crashing down toward them, a frightening sight to behold.

The volume of energy here was already challenging to endure, but Leonardo's cultivation base only aggravated their situation.

Wendy clenched her teeth and decided to stand in front of Leonardo to bear the brunt of the impact first and consider the consequences later. However, and to her shock, these multicolored waves of energy seemed to melt like snow upon impact with Leonardo's domain, going from ferocious waves to docile strands of silk that began to suffuse the domain.

"This is…" Wendy extended a hand to touch the energy strands, feeling as they passed into her body in a tranquil manner, circulated through, and quickly left her body.

She even felt a pang of disappointment that this energy couldn't be contained inside her body, as though it was something she dearly desired.

"Don't waste your time. Although you have some spiritual strength, without a corresponding cultivation technique, it's impossible for your spiritual energy to connect with the worldly energy. In turn, it's also an impossibility to create energy pockets within your body to slowly nourish it while accumulating this energy."

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"That wonderful feeling you just experience is your first step to start cultivation, the next step would be utilizing a cultivation technique in conjunction with your spiritual strength to steadily accumulate that energy, which will aid you, strengthen you, and even prolong your longevity the further you progress."

Wendy was still in a daze from this miraculous sensation, putting her weapon aside and moving freely in the sea of energy, allowing it to touch her body all over. She was like a child who found a new toy, her eyes flickering with excitement.

"How did you do this?" Wendy spun around, held onto Leonardo's sleeve out of fear to harm his physical body if she clutched his hand, and asked with bright eyes.

Leonardo rolled his eyes, "If I couldn't even do this much, how am I supposed to establish a city for you all?"

Wendy gasped, "Will the city have this effect too?"

She felt incredulous, this was too good to be true.

"Not completely, but something similar," Leonardo shook his head. "My domain operates on laws of a higher tier than this place so the effect is equally as miraculous. As for the city, although it won't feel the same way, it should have at least 40% of the effects."

Leonardo's words were like a bucket of cold water, having Wendy calm down. Only 40%? Now she regretted getting to experience the full 100%.

Seeing her disappointed, Leonardo laughed and said, "Don't worry, I said I'll have a gift for you later, just make sure not to lose your mind when that time comes."

Leonardo tried his best to keep his eyes from falling below Wendy's neck in such close proximity, eventually shaking his head and looking forward.

"The next uninhabited Divine Pool should be in a region of volcanic craters, that should be the closest one on the map, right?"

Wendy suddenly remembered Leonardo talking about some surprise. At first, she didn't give it much thought because there wasn't much to be desired coming from someone like him. At least, that was her first impression.

Now, however, she realized that a surprise from someone like Leonardo definitely wasn't something ordinary. Just as she was about to pester him about it, he changed the subject.

She picked up the bone saber and rested it on her shoulder before responding, "Yeah, I just hope there aren't any mutated beasts lurking around to waste our time."

Mutated beasts are the magical beasts who had higher chances of survivability in this region of turmoil. Generation after generation of gradual mutations, their descendants today enjoys powerful physical bodies and great resistance against the chaotic energies.

Although their intelligence is lacking, they are extremely territorial.

"You had to go ahead and plant a red flag, didn't you?" Leonardo sighed, kneading his forehead.

"What's a red flag?" Wendy asked, puzzled.

"ROAR!"

RUMBLE!

As the ground began to quake, Leonardo murmured, "That's a red flag…"

Wendy squinted in the distance and shook her head, "No, that's a mutated lizard that lives in dry lands of high temperatures."

Leonardo stared in amazement at Wendy, he might have just found a soulmate for Miko.

"Once we land, make sure to stay behind as I battle it. Although its scales are very tough, the mutated lizards are very weak in prolonged fights as they burn energy too quickly to keep up."

Leonardo shook his head, "We don't have time for a prolonged battle, I'll handle this guy."

With that, he stepped forward and disappeared silently, appearing a few miles ahead, which happened to be in the middle ground between the black thunderbird and a massive lizard a few dozen feet in length that crawled out from the ground.

It had metallic red scales, golden eyes, and a disgusting mouth leaking some green liquid that by all means looked too poisonous.

Wendy was shocked that Leonardo would simply go off on his own, but she was also curious about how strong would someone with such a frail body be, so she kept watching from a distance.

Leonardo waved his hand and brought out another sword from his spatial ring. Then, he unsheathed the sword and tossed the scabbard away.

The scabbard barely survived a few seconds before crumbling to bits from the assault of all these energies in the atmosphere, causing Leonardo to click his tongue in amazement.

"Look carefully!" Leonardo shouted, his domain inflating by miles upon miles to encompass the entire region of volcanic craters. Of course, Leonardo wanted to be prudent enough to scout for any hidden mutated creatures, but there weren't any.

As Leonardo's voice echoed, the image of an illusory dim full moon manifested behind his back in the void, "While your strength resides in your muscles and fitness, a true cultivator's strength resides in their capacity to resonate with the worldly energy, making that energy submit…"

As the white moon behind Leonardo began to spin slowly, multicolored energy from all around began to pour into the image like crazy, only to be purified and accumulated under the pressure of the desolate martial intent.

The more energy that gathered, the more it was grounded down gradually, converting into pure worldly energy infused with Leonardo's essence. Leonardo was practically cultivating, but instead of storing this energy away, he was directly using it to activate his sword technique.

As Leonardo raised his sword, the world within his domain seemed to lose all sound and color, a dusty world of desolation it was.

There was nothing of particular significance except for that one moon high in the sky and the sprinkles of silver energy that fell onto that solitary sword.

Wendy's breath was caught short as she no longer felt that Leonardo was a frail young man. Instead, at this moment…

He was the world.

He was the universe.

He was a law that could not be defied.

Leonardo's white robes fluttered as his sword began to hum softly, seemingly on the verge of shattering from the amount of pressure.

When Leonardo's desolate martial intent was suppressed to the use of only one aspect of the entire law, the sword could at least handle a single full blow from Leonardo. Now, however, it could barely maintain its durability.

"Whatever, this should be enough…" Leonardo muttered softly.

Then, the moon behind him flared up. More accurately, only half of it lit resplendently, and a cold voice echoed far and near.

"The Sixth Stance, First Form!"

Slice!

Leonardo silently brought his sword down, and the half-moon compressed into a crescent arc as it followed Leonardo's motion.

Silently, the moon seemed to cut through space before striking the lizard that was long since petrified in horror from its sheer instinct, phasing silently from between its eyebrows, along its spine, and cleanly bisecting the creature in half by the tip of its tail.

The two sides fell apart.

However, before they touched the ground, both sides began to wither and decay, crumbling to ashes that flew with the hot winds.

Then…

BOOM!

Six sonic blasts echoed as though they were one, and a few feet deep craters with the image of a half moon was left on the hard grounds that survived an untold amount of years till this day of misfortune.

However, a deep and narrow hole could be seen in the center of the crater, and from that hole, a peculiar aura drifted outside.

Leonardo's eyes glowed as he recognized that aura, it was the aura of an underground Divine Pool.