CHAPTER 970: CHAPTER 531: ARTIFACT SPIRIT

He utilized a bit of psychological warfare, causing a team to break apart, leaving mutual distrust among them.

His goal was achieved; the next step was to resolve the trouble.

This time, the five claws of the Illusion Spirit Dragon contained terrifying energy, and it struck the back of a Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator.

This was a full-force strike from the Five-clawed Dragon, unlike the brute force used earlier. The dragon claw pierced through the back of the Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator, crushing his Nascent Soul.

Then the Illusion Spirit Dragon let out a dragon’s roar toward the sky, carrying a natural suppression of its bloodline.

The dragon’s roar was also a type of attack, both spiritual and sonic.

Though the Illusion Spirit Dragon’s level was still too low, making it incapable of fully manifesting the supreme suppression of a Five-clawed Dragon.

But this dragon’s roar caused the remaining five Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators to freeze, interrupting their Nascent Soul Dharma Form, which they had been planning to deploy.

A golden light shot out from the ground, and a golden human hand grabbed one of the Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators. The force of this strike was immense, directly dispersing the Nascent Soul within the cultivator.

The golden figure was the Golden Corpse. After three years of growth, the Golden Corpse had shrunk to a height of three meters, almost indistinguishable from a human in appearance.

This was related to Li Shiming pouring a large amount of Fourth Grade Corpse Refining Resources into the Golden Corpse. Otherwise, it couldn’t have grown so quickly.

After killing one Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator, the Golden Corpse didn’t stop. It wasn’t even slowed down by the strike.

The Golden Corpse appeared next to the second Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator, then the third and fourth. After it consecutively killed four Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators, the last one finally snapped out of the dragon roar’s stunned state.

He awoke to find that in such a short time, he was the only one left alive.

This terrified him, and without hesitation, he activated a life-preserving talisman.

Of course, this life-preserving talisman wasn’t created by a Great Cultivator, but by a Nascent Soul Stage Talisman Master skilled in escape skills. But for a Loose Cultivator, this was indeed a life-preserving item.

His body was enveloped in a faint red light, shooting toward the distance.

Unfortunately for him, he encountered the Golden Corpse. Since the corpse had broken through by absorbing the Golden Corpse Core from Zhai Ge’s Cave Heaven, it inherited the indescribable speed of the Cave Heaven Golden Corpse.

The Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator was quick, but the Golden Corpse was even quicker, catching up to him in the blink of an eye.

The Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator was utterly shocked, and without further hesitation, used his last resort, Nascent Soul Emergence.

He didn’t intend to fight using the Nascent Soul Dharma Form. He knew very well that if even five Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators couldn’t deploy their Nascent Soul Dharma Form before being instantly slain, no matter if he used it or not, he would be no match for the enemy.

His Nascent Soul Emergence was for fleeing since it was the fastest movement method among cultivators excluding divine skills.

During his Nascent Soul Emergence, the little Nascent Soul cast a frightened look at the Golden Corpse, as if trying to engrave it in his memory.

But when the Nascent Soul looked at the Golden Corpse, it found that the golden light was already in front of it. A golden hand swept past the Nascent Soul, obliterating its last consciousness.

Li Shiming was currently facing the second Heavenly Thunder while simultaneously monitoring the battlefield, realizing the significant gap between Loose Cultivators and sect cultivators.

Of course, the primary reason six Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators were dealt with so easily was the cooperation between the Illusion Spirit Dragon and the Golden Corpse.

As long as the Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators didn’t have particularly strong defensive magical tools, they couldn’t withstand the first strike of the Golden Corpse, almost guaranteeing a death sentence for them.

Though the Illusion Spirit Dragon only killed one, the killing of the other four Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators was closely related to it.

A single dragon’s roar controlled all the Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivators, demonstrating the terrifying effect of a powerful bloodline spiritual pet.

If the opponents were sect cultivators from a great sect, they might have had countermeasures, but Loose Cultivators had none.

The Golden Corpse began to clean up the battlefield, collecting the bodies and placing the spatial items separately.

After cleaning the battlefield, the Illusion Spirit Dragon went to clear away the Golden Core Stage small fries, while the Golden Corpse returned to guard Li Shiming.

The long-brewing second Heavenly Thunder descended with a crack of thunder.

The Heavenly Thunder struck the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer first, followed by the rolling peal of thunder.

Li Shiming felt a shake in his palm as the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer was knocked out of his hand.

With the accurate calculation of his ’Divine Eye’ and his life-bound magical tool IBMz15, he saw that three hundred and sixty thousand formations, containing twelve Thunder Runes each, detached from the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer and diffused outward.

The second Heavenly Thunder in the sky, its power twice as strong as the first, struck the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer.

This time, the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer couldn’t entirely withstand all of the Heavenly Thunder, causing the thunder to radiate outward. However, no matter how the thunder scattered, it couldn’t escape the shadows of three hundred and sixty by twelve Thunder Runes.

Surrounded by millions of runes from the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, the Heavenly Thunder was bound within and pulled back into the hammer as the runes contracted, with no thunder leaking out.

As the master of the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, Li Shiming stood under the thundercloud, entirely unaffected by the two successive Heavenly Thunders.

The thundercloud didn’t undergo any changes this time but quickly nurtured the third Heavenly Thunder.

The Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer flew toward the thundercloud independently of Li Shiming’s command, seemingly intent on shattering the cloud.

Before the third Heavenly Thunder fully fell, the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer had already charged into the thundercloud.

The Heavenly Thunder inside the cloud shot toward the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, and a bizarre thing happened. The countless Thunder Runes on the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer detached again, transforming into energy runes.

Li Shiming stared dumbfounded at the golden thundercloud in the sky, no longer black but a blinding gold.

The golden runes of the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer had enveloped the entire thundercloud, with the cloud struggling inside, releasing its remaining energy.

But for some reason, the power of the thundercloud, surrounded by millions of golden runes from the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, couldn’t harm the hammer itself.

Gradually, the thundercloud in the sky dissipated, and the golden runes disappeared along with it.

The Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer fell from the sky, stopping in front of Li Shiming.

He could sense a peculiar energy circulating within the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, transforming it.

This transformation was different from Li Shiming’s refining, a reward from the Heaven and Earth Rules for the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer passing through the Artifact Tribulation.

After thirty minutes, the transformation was complete, and Li Shiming could sense a nascent spiritual intelligence within the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer.

"Has it developed an Artifact Spirit?" Li Shiming exclaimed with unexpected joy.

He knew how many methods Nascent Soul cultivators used to make their treasures develop Artifact Spirits.

The most common method was forcefully infusing the soul of a powerful spirit beast into a treasure, granting it part of the spirit beast’s abilities.

The only downside was that the powerful spirit beast’s soul couldn’t be replenished, only gradually weakening over time. Thus, long-lived spirit beasts were typically chosen to serve as the soul of the Artifact Spirit.

This ensured that the Artifact Spirit could at least outlive the cultivator without affecting their combat power.

Of course, using a spirit beast’s soul was only a last resort. A genuinely growth-capable Artifact Spirit was one born from the treasure itself.

This kind of Artifact Spirit could develop higher intelligence with longer refining time and had almost no growth limits.

The Artifact Spirit of a powerful treasure could even grow into a strong combat capability, existing independently from the cultivator.

The Artifact Spirit within the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer was newly formed and still in its infancy, yet this was enough to make Li Shiming extremely excited.

His mind sensed the Artifact Spirit while also scanning the entire Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer.

He discovered that some new Heavenly Thunder Runes had appeared within the hammer, likely the reward from heaven, and its quality had also improved enough to accommodate these additional runes.

When Li Shiming refined the Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer, he had almost filled its maximum capacity with Fourth Grade Thunder Radiance Profound Iron.