“My Samsara Dao is completely stuck!” Luo Feng couldn’t help but feel a pang of doubt. “Could it be that the path I’ve been exploring on my own is a dead end?”

As a God King, he had a complete Great Dao to reference. Thus, there were no dead ends; any lack of comprehension merely indicated insufficient insight or ability. The God Emperor stage, however, involved groping in the dark, making it easy to take a wrong turn, fall into a complete dead end, and be unable to progress ever again.

The difficulty of the Fusion Path lay in its complexity, which far surpassed that of a single, pure path. It was easy to get stuck and be unable to proceed. Even with the unparalleled comprehension of the Master of Gui Fang, the Fusion Path only reached the early God Emperor stage.

“I possess the Eye of Samsara and have observed countless Chaos Origin bloodlines; my path should be correct!” Luo Feng murmured to himself, “If the path is correct, then what is the next step to break through this bottleneck?”

“Samsara fusion, in the direction of life, meant I sought the ultimate physical body! The larger, the better! ‘Large’ represented immense energy and endless vitality.” Yet, once the physical body reached a sufficient size, how was one to control it?

“Based on my estimates for the Half-Chaos Origin Samsara Dao, it should theoretically achieve 1.2 billion times the perfect divine body’s energy reserve.” After the battle of Yulan City, Luo Feng had entered seclusion once more, making comprehensive progress. He was now not far from the Half-Chaos Origin Samsara Dao and could vaguely assess the theoretical power it should possess. As the most challenging of the three invincible paths, its success would grant absolute invincibility.

“In the mid-God Emperor stage of my Samsara Dao, my Undying Blood Sea Body, with a 5,000-fold perfect divine body energy reserve, represented my peak combat power. At its absolute limit, I could control tens of thousands of times that reserve, though my actual strength would not increase further.” Luo Feng continued, “Now, my Undying Blood Sea Body requires a 30,000-fold perfect divine body energy reserve for peak combat power. While I can control up to 100,000 times that reserve at the absolute limit, any further increase actually diminishes my strength, as the body becomes too vast to perfectly control.”

“But the Half-Chaos Origin Samsara Dao should theoretically allow for a 1.2 billion-fold perfect divine body energy reserve. How could I perfectly control such immense power?”

“If I were to control such a massive body, even walking would be a struggle.” This indicated a major flaw in his ability to ‘control the body’. Luo Feng had reached this bottleneck. His Samsara Dao was already highly refined in many aspects: the immense physical body, undying vitality, and the methods of unleashing power had all reached their predetermined goals! Only one aspect remained problematic: while his current total body reserve did not exceed 5,000 times the perfect divine body energy reserve, making it easy to control, the theoretical ‘1.2 billion times’ energy reserve was far too much to handle. To sacrifice the immense body would render this path incomplete, failing to achieve the ‘God Emperor Consummate’ Samsara Dao.

“Based on the experiences of many Chaos Origin bloodlines, controlling such a massive physical body would likely require fulfilling twelve conditions. In terms of physical body control, he would need a fundamental transformation. His twelve mental wills would also need to break free from their confines. Only when all twelve conditions were met simultaneously might one perfectly control such an immense body.”

From his conversations with the practitioners of the Yuan Xiang Hall team, Luo Feng knew that a mental will newly freed from its confines would only see its power increase by roughly tenfold. Historically, among the three invincible paths, the first—’will breaking free from confines’—was the most frequently achieved, and they had personally witnessed several individuals accomplish it. An invincible mental will could completely suppress the Yuan Xiang Hall Master and others with but a single thought. Yet, it was merely suppression; it could not achieve ‘will annihilation’. Luo Feng understood this: a mental will merely tenfold stronger, while helpful for controlling the physical body, was far from enabling ‘perfect control’.

Such a massive physical body would be cumbersome to even walk with. Forget a tenfold increase; even a hundredfold surge in will might only allow the immense body to fly agilely or perform some rudimentary techniques. But performing the most profound techniques would remain impossible, let alone multitasking. True perfect control of the physical body meant simultaneously employing its vastness to deploy formations, execute close-combat secret techniques, use the simulated Eye of Samsara for observation, and wield secret treasures against foes. A mere tenfold increase in mental will was still far, far from enough.

“Even if my mental will breaks free from its confines, it’s still far from what’s needed, by my estimation. This suggests my own path might indeed be mistaken.” He pondered, “Perhaps my Samsara Dao should not pursue the ultimate vastness of the physical body.”

Luo Feng was also reflecting on himself; exploring in the dark necessitated constant re-evaluation and correction. He resolved, “First, I’ll try to explore methods for ‘controlling the physical body’.” Luo Feng was not one to give up lightly. This path was the direction he had set from the very beginning. If the fundamental direction were to change, his entire Samsara Dao would have to be overturned, requiring him to re-deduce and explore from the God King Ultimate Realm. Even if he abandoned his past path, he would still be influenced by it, making it difficult for any new path to truly succeed. This was the nature of cultivation: one wrong step could lead to continuous errors.

“As long as I succeed, it’s not wrong!”

“How long have I been cultivating? The ancestors of both nations have experienced several cyclical eras of the Origin Continent. What is this minor bottleneck?” Luo Feng closed his eyes and began to ponder in quiet contemplation. He sought inspiration from the various Chaos Origin bloodlines, from the Undying Heart, the World in Hand, the Star Tower, and the Eye of Samsara.

“Even including the Star Tower, life and destruction were merely combined, not truly fused.” He realized, “The Fusion Path had no reference points. Ordinary paths could consult the mysteries within the remains of Chaos Origin beings. But for the Fusion Dao, there was no such reference!”

It had been manageable in the early stages, but it grew increasingly difficult the further he progressed! Luo Feng truly encountered a major bottleneck in the transition from ‘late God Emperor’ to ‘God Emperor Consummate’. In reality, this was far from the most challenging aspect of the Fusion Dao. Transitioning from the God Emperor Consummate Dao to the ‘Chaos Origin level Dao’ was the ultimate challenge, akin to an impassable chasm, countless times more difficult than the bottleneck Luo Feng currently faced! Many individuals of exceptional talent switched to cultivating bloodlines simply to break free from their confines. This was because the path of the ‘Dao’ grew increasingly arduous with further advancement, driving cultivators to despair.

“Controlling the physical body.” “How does one control such a massive physical body?” Luo Feng mused.

As he researched various Chaos Origin bloodlines, different inspirations clashed within his mind. “No.” “This method isn’t sufficient.” Prototypes of various physical body control methods emerged in his mind, only to be rejected by Luo Feng as quickly as they appeared. Luo Feng walked across the lands of the Dark Saint Realm, yet his thoughts remained constantly on his cultivation, occasionally pausing to comprehend and practice. If he encountered lower-tier Chaos Origin beings along the way, Luo Feng would naturally dispatch them. Sometimes, eliminating weaker ones would attract stronger foes, or even a formidable team seeking to encircle and eliminate him. Luo Feng’s simulated Eye of Samsara would detect them from afar, and he would immediately move between the seams of heaven and earth, rapidly retreating. “Hmm, Chengfeng City. I’ve arrived.” Walking and contemplating all the while, half an epoch passed before Luo Feng finally arrived at Chengfeng City!

Luo Feng completely concealed his aura. With a single step, he traversed the spatial distance directly into the city, then proceeded to walk through Chengfeng City. Most of the practitioners within the city were utterly unaware of his presence.

The Dark Saint Realm brought together the strongest beings from countless surrounding Source Worlds and myriad other realms. The minimum threshold for entry was the strength of a late God Emperor who had comprehended the Dao. Many ‘Half-Chaos Origin bloodline practitioners,’ those who cultivated the bloodline path, were among the lowest-ranked in the Dark Saint Realm.

“God Emperor Bai Yin and his two companions were within Chengfeng City.” Luo Feng sensed his three friends from the cultivator team through karmic connection. However, he was not in a hurry to visit them, opting instead to fly directly to the Chaos Origin Hall within the city.

Of the five cities in the Dark Saint Realm, only the central Chaos Origin City housed a large Chaos Origin Hall. Luo Feng was aware of this information. When the Dark Saint Realm was first established, there was only Chaos Origin City, a settlement left by Senior Yuan and his peers. Over long ages, cultivators used their battle merits to exchange for and construct four additional cities. This facilitated the hunting of lower-tier Chaos Origin beings in the surrounding areas. Cities in the Dark Saint Realm were significantly more expensive to acquire through exchange than those in the Nine River Saint Realm.

Whoosh! Luo Feng flew directly to the second floor of the Chaos Origin Hall, where two tall figures stood motionless. Upon Luo Feng’s arrival, both figures simultaneously opened their eyes, an invisible aura enveloping the entire second floor of the Chaos Origin Hall.

“Speak, Cultivator Luo Feng. Do you wish to confirm your battle merits or exchange for treasures?” one tall figure spoke. Both were puppet beings left by Senior Yuan and his peers, known for their absolute impartiality.

“Confirm battle merits.” Luo Feng nodded. “These are the corpses of the lower-tier Chaos Origin beings I’ve hunted. My thanks to you both.” As he spoke, Luo Feng produced his storage bracelet and released its seal. Buzz! The two puppet beings simultaneously began to examine the contents of the storage bracelet. Although the bracelet contained an astonishing number of lower-tier Chaos Origin being corpses, the puppet beings remained utterly expressionless.

“Lower-tier Chaos Origin being corpses: 9 of Transcendent-level, 2,902 of God Emperor Consummate-level, 3,952 of Late God Emperor-level, 689,900 of Mid God Emperor-level, and 835,640 of Early God Emperor-level.”

“Cultivator Luo Feng, your current battle merits total 7,717,660.”

One of the puppet beings stated the final battle merits. Upon hearing the figure, Luo Feng noted that while the absolute strength of the Dark Saint Realm’s peak-level experts might be slightly less than his, their prolonged existence allowed them to accumulate millions of battle merits over eons. They also frequently purchased battle merits using Chaos Origin Crystals. After all, the utility of battle merits far surpassed that of Chaos Origin Crystals. Thus, it was quite common for peak-level existences to possess millions of battle merits. Through Chaos Origin Crystal acquisition, 100,000 Chaos Origin Crystals could purchase one unit of battle merit. Hundreds of billions of Chaos Origin Crystals could acquire millions of battle merits. Many cities continually acquired battle merits, and Yulan City was no exception.

Although Luo Feng only possessed just over seven million battle merits, he was considered exceptionally wealthy. This was because his battle merits were earned entirely through his own hunting! The Chaos Origin being corpses he accumulated were worth trillions of Chaos Origin Crystals.

“Over seven million battle merits should suffice,” Luo Feng thought, turning to head directly to the first floor of the Chaos Origin Hall. He intended to sell all the corpses he had collected.