Chapter 284 - Hope

A metallic serpent rapidly flew through the emptiness of space as it headed for the flat planet that served as the headquarters of the Demon's Gate. The serpent wasn't actually a living being, it was the Shadow Chaser ship that Yao Jun got from the World Tree clan the last time he was on his home planet and chased away the other sects and clans that were investigating it.

Yao Jun didn't have enough energy to teleport everyone directly to the Demon's Gate so he could only rely on this ship to bring them there. He didn't mind it too much, most of his focus spent on Guo Luo and his daughter. Other than that, he also experimented a little with Sirius, Xuhuan, and Little Gray.

Sirius ended up swallowing the two fragments of the Supreme Law of Defense after they started heading back to the sect. Just like with Little Gray and Xuhuan, he immediately shrank to a small puppy and had his power reduced to the very lowest stage. With three of his Demonic beasts swallowing either God Gates or Supreme Law fragments, as their ruler, Yao Jun too learned how they worked and how to utilize them.

Xuhuan was the easiest to strengthen, she would just need to devour various elements to power up her Element God's gate, the only problem was that increasing the strength of her elements further would require purer and stronger elements. He tried to feed her the elements of his other Demonic beasts, but it didn't show any effect, possibly because they were all connected to him in the end.

Little Gray's Human God's Gate was also rather easy, if macabre, to strengthen. He just needed to use his God Gate to take control over someone and then leech away their strength, eventually reducing them to nothing but a normal mortal, a grim fate for any cultivator.

In the end, it was Sirius' Supreme Law of Defense fragments that ended up being the hardest to strengthen. There were actually two ways to strengthen these fragments, one was to absorb the shield intent of someone else while the other was to eat and digest some incredibly sturdy materials.

Shield intent was the same as sword intent, a variation of Qi that some people that specialized in defense would give birth to. But most people preferred to be attackers rather than defenders, just how many cultivators specialized so heavily in defense that they could acquire shield intent? As for digesting sturdy materials, the problem came with the fact that you had to eat them. Just where would you find sturdy materials in quantities so small that you could swallow them without chewing? And even then, digesting them would take a very long time. All in all, Yao Jun felt nothing but a headache at the prospect of increasing the power of Sirius' Supreme Law fragments.

The Shadow Chaser ship wasn't just well suited for stealth, it could also reach speeds that surpassed most other ships designed to move through the emptiness between planets. Its defenses were rather weak as a result, it also had no way of attacking, but Yao Jun didn't need his ship to have anything like that. And thanks to this speed, the group only needed five days to reach the planet housing the Demon's Gate headquarters, the Blackpeak planet.

Yao Jun stod atop the head of the metallic serpent and overlooked the quickly approaching planet, Guo Luo carrying Yao Xuelian while standing at his side. Yao Jun looked at the flat planet covered in various environments, his gaze landing on the black castle surrounded by ten towers that stood securely at the center of the planet. This wasn't Yao Jun's first time seeing the headquarters of his Demon's Gate, he saw it once before when he was taught about the power of faith by the original Demon God's Gate.

Yao Jun closed his eyes and focused his thoughts, hundreds of lines of light that only he could see stretching out from his body. The lines had two different colors, about 50 of them were a light golden while the remaining 872 were black. Yao Jun knew that the golden lines were tied to the people who had good faith in him and truly believed him to be some sort of great deity. The black lines, however, were connected to those who feared him to an extent that it became a type of faith, like the belief that death would eventually come for all.

Looking at the lines, it seemed like quite a few of the survivors from God Piercer planet either greatly feared or worshipped him. Yao Jun was just about to open his eyes again when his body suddenly froze. 10 of the golden lines stretched out from his body and then went right back into it, sinking into his God Gate. Yao Jun knew that neither Yun Yantian nor his parents had the type of faith in him that would form these kinds of lines, they definitely came from his Demonic beasts. But with the death of Little Thunder, there should only be nine Demonic beasts within his God Gate currently.

Yao Jun completely focused on the ten lines and followed them into his God Gate, immediately disregarding those that went to Little Gray and the others. His gaze quickly landed on the last line of light, one that entered into a gleaming azure crystal flickering with lightning, the Demon Crystal of the deceased Little Thunder.

Yao Jun's eyes shot open and the azure crystal appeared in his grasp, his hand holding it close to his eyes. Guo Luo was curious what was going on, but she didn't disturb him when she saw how hard he was concentrating on the crystal.

Yao Jun's eyes weren't wrong, there truly was a line of faith extending from his body and entering the crystal, connecting the two. He poured all his focus into the crystal, abandoning the ability to see or notice the outside world in favor of inspecting the crystal. And as his focus sank deeper and deeper into the crystal, he saw the faintest flicker of life and consciousness, hidden away so deep within the crystal that it was practically impossible to see. Yao Jun didn't waste even a second of time, pulling out the jade orb engraved with Arthurius' name.

"Arthurius, have you ever heard anything about reviving a Demonic beast from its Demon Crystal?"

Yao Jun himself had never heard anything about reviving a dead Demonic beast using its Demon Crystal, but then again, he had never really heard about a Demon Crystal retaining a sliver of life after the beast died. Contrary to what he expected, Arhurius actually responded rather quickly.

"Aye, I've heard about it before. Last time someone did it was about three and a half million years ago, a famous figure at the time revived his Dark Demon Mouse after it was killed by another expert in battle. It's possible, but incredibly difficult to do, especially in this universe. It requires a Demon Crystal that still has a sliver of life in it, a Divine Beast bloodline that shares both element and general race with the beast that left the crystal, and the last requirement is an utterly unimaginable quantity of elemental energy that suits the crystal. In this universe, there are only three places that contain enough energy to revive a Demonic beast like that, the headquarters of the Endless Abyss contains a pit with enough darkness energy to revive a Demonic beast of the darkness element, the headquarters of the Primordial Sea clan has an ocean that can revive a water type Demonic beast, and the Resplendent God Galaxy has a sun that contains enough energy to revive a light-type Demonic beasts. If you aim to revive that lightning type, I'm afraid it can't be done here."

Yao Jun wasn't distraught by Arthurius' declaration. So what if it couldn't be done here, hadn't he already found a way to move to a different universe, a major one at that? The moment he got his hands on the last two blood tokens left behind by Tang Guanyu, he could open a path to the major universe where he lived. Yao Jun thanked Arthurius for the information and put away the jade orb again, the corners of his lips lifting up slightly as his entire mood rose. As long as there was hope, Yao Jun could accomplish anything. And if there was no hope, then he would just have to create that hope.