Devouring the Heavens (ATG)

A/N: So if you guys aren't aware, Webnovel has been 'shadowbanning' comments recently. This means that any comment that contains profanities in any form, will be automatically deleted.

So words like: Fuck, Shit, Bitch, Bastard, Cock, Bollocks are all nonos. Even words such as: Sex, Hell, and Damn are out too. Basically, if you want to comment using forms of those words, you will need to get creative.

Well, Enjoy the chapter...

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Shane was busy gearing up for the day while mentally drooling over the possible rewards for the new quest. 'ATG medical knowledge is obviously amazing, it will give me another trump card for dealing with Frozen Cloud, not to mention all the pill recipes and treatment methods. The real prize though is the completed Sky Poison Pearl.'

Something he would need at least half of if he wanted to save Jasmine, and he did really want to save Jasmine. The poor girl had such a tragic story and she deserved to have people in her life that cared about her. Shane was going to be that person, he would definitely take her in as his family, future consequences be damned.

He didn't care that she was feared by most of the Eastern Divine region for her legacy, that she was a princess of a Royal Star Realm, or even that she was a murderer of millions. In the end, She was a lonely little girl, forced by her situation and he just wanted to help her avoid her tragic fate. 'I certainly won't be allowing her to take the wheel either.'

That was a thought for much, much later anyway. Snapping out of it, he finished wrapping a strip of leather around his head to keep his hair out of his eyes and left the cave. Once outside, he strapped the poison bombs into a pouch at his waist and started to form a stronger than usual wind armor. Once the layer of wind was formed, his scent and profound energy signature all but disappeared and he slinked off into the forest.

A few minutes of prowling through the undergrowth later, and he reached near the edge of the clearing. It was early dawn and just as he had hoped, the Wyrm was still resting underground.

The flower was definitely more mature than before and as it danced in the breeze, a sweet, almost irresistible scent invaded his nostrils from over 15m away. Even its colorful petals looked more vibrant than the last time he was here.

At first, Shane was caught off guard by the enticing aroma and almost ended up rushing into the clearing to pick the flower immediately. Luckily, the strength of his Will had improved drastically since using it to form and control the dreamscape, and so he was able to forcefully calm his mind. After that, he covered his nose in a film of profound energy that blocked smell for good measure.

'No wonder I couldn't stop thinking about the flower all this time, it must be something extremely beneficial to me to draw me in like that.'

The next hour was spent slowly circling the edge of the clearing to find a suitable tree from which to stage his assault. By the time he had selected the best position, the sun was almost fully over the horizon and the Wyrm could possibly wake up at any time.

Shane swiftly placed 4 of the 5 poison bombs around the edge of the clearing in a crescent-shaped line, with two on either side of the tree he would place himself on. They were each coated with an extremely stable ball of his Wind Profound Energy and all were within the range of both his senses and his minimap.

He then returned to his chosen tree and withdrew his presence as far as he could before he got himself comfortable and closed his eyes, spreading his senses to the maximum.

Thin tendrils of profound energy, coated with the wind began to spread out from his position and towards the poison bombs. He first went for the furthest of the two outside 'bombs' which was around 10m away from him and once he managed to connect his tendril to the Wind Profound energy he had coated it with, the connection became stable.

Letting out a breath of relief, he concentrated on the other hidden 'bombs' and started working on connecting them as well. He had practiced doing this same activity before but never with this many connections and if he hadn't found those extra packs of Wind Wolves, this would never have been possible.

Once all of the 'bombs' were stable and connected to him, Shane opened his eyes and realized that it was now mid-morning. Setting those connections took more time than he bargained for and he was lucky the Wyrm did not usually appear until the sun rose above the clearing.

After wiping the sweat off his brow, he took a drink from his snakeskin flask and started to feed Wind Profound energy along each of the connections. This not only strengthened and stabilized them but also allowed him to build a very primitive propulsion mechanism from wind profound energy, behind each of the 'bombs'.

Around an hour of waiting later, Shane was starting to feel mentally fatigued and sweat was now rhythmically dripping from his head and along the length of his nose. It would have been much more unpleasant if the wind armor surrounding him had not dried it away almost immediately.

Without warning, the ground in the clearing started to shake, a pile of earth began to rise and the soil rolled backwards in waves as the 15m long Wyrm erupted out from within the resulting dust cloud. Shane's eyes sharpened. 'It's finally here!'

The Wyrm steadily rose up to its fully imposing height of 4m. Its body swayed a bit with low temperature-affected grogginess. Something that Shane had witnessed many times before and this was what he was counting on!

Slowly and carefully standing up, Shane got into a position where he could see the whole clearing and gripped the last poison bomb in his sweaty palm. With one last bit of mental encouragement, he took a deep breath, released an ear-piercing whistle, and quickly ducked back behind the tree!

The Wyrm's reaction was instantaneous, it whipped its head in his direction but due to its poor eyesight and Shane's wind armor, it couldn't see or sense him just yet, although it was only a matter of time.

The Wyrm slowly and warily started to move across the clearing, making sure to put its large muscular body between Shane's position and the flower. The last few meters of its tail, however, always surrounded that strangely shaped pile of earth.

Dangerous-looking spines popped up along the beast's length as it came to a halt, and it bristled in agitation. Its smooth reptilian head anxiously moved side to side, while its forked tongue flicked around in the air, trying to find the interloper. 'It's in position, Now!'

With that thought, Shane sent a little pulse down each of his connected tendrils, and the small improvised propulsion devices behind each of the hidden 'bombs' ejected them into the air and towards the Wyrm. He immediately broke the connections and focused intently on the clearing.

One of the 'bombs' missed the Wyrm completely, sailing over the top of its body and across the clearing, bursting into a purple cloud somewhere in the treeline. Another missed the main body of the beast and landed on its tail. The remaining two, however, hit true.

One exploded onto the beast's neck, just below its jaw and the other collided with the side of its face, bursting into a purple cloud that covered its beak-like mouth and filled one of its eyes with poisonous spores. The Wyrm opened its maw and let out a loud *ROOOAR* but Shane was ready.

The last of the poison bombs sailed through the air at a speed far faster than the eyes could follow and was accompanied by the booming sound of an air cannon as it proceeded to lodge itself into the back of the beast's throat.

The roar cut off immediately and its eyes bulged as it involuntarily gulped down. There was a palpable silence for a second before Shane heard the telltale *Pufffff* of the 'bomb' exploding.

The Wyrm started thrashing around, spewing purple mist from its mouth and Shane was worried for a moment that the flower would be destroyed in its rampage, before it promptly slumped down to the ground, twitching violently.

Shane waved his hand and a gust of wind filled with profound energy swept the clearing free of poisonous spores before he jumped down from the tree and landed on the soft soil next to the beast's head. He looked straight into its one good eye and it stared back at him with hatred.

The pressure it was emitting felt reasonably strong to a [2nd of Nascent Profound] like him but for some reason, Qingyue's had felt stronger, meaning that her realm, at 15 years of age, was already higher than this beast. 'She really is a genius.'

This wasn't the time for praising his waifu however and so he concentrated on his right hand, where a strange-looking weapon was beginning to form from the SteelOak essence he absorbed. The silvery liquid essence poured out of the back of his hand before it started to form a solid gauntlet up to his elbow with a handle on the side.

The liquid wasn't done there and as more and more of the essence poured out of his body and along the straight front edge of the gauntlet where the knuckles were. A thick, stubby rod took shape and from that, a 1m long cone began to form.

The whole process took around 15 seconds and by the time it was done there was a was nasty looking spiral-shaped cone with many ridges along its length. It also ended in a very thin and very sharp-looking, twisted point.

That's right, using the cheat that was his organic constructs, Shane had formed a moveable drill that was actually attached to his own body! Even he was surprised when he first managed it.

This was his trump card and he only needed to do one more thing to make it complete.

Gripping tight onto the support handle with his free hand Shane took a deep breath in and opened his mouth. "Wind" He called, and the wind answered.

When manipulating the wind, he usually had no need to say anything aloud but he had found that it was easier to visualize more powerful and complicated applications if he voiced it out loud. That or he had been alone in the forest for too long...

The Drill was suddenly enveloped in dense Wind energy, into which Shane immediately mixed as much of his own profound energy as he could while leaving enough to brace his body and hold the weapon straight.

"Spin for me!" The Wind Profound Energy answered as one and began to rotate around the drill, catching in the ridges and causing it to start spinning at an incredible speed while letting off a low whining sound.

The Wyrm, sensing danger, managed to shift its body slightly but nothing more. Shane's eyes glowed brightly with determination and his face took on his signature feral grin as he lunged forward "Die For me!" he shouted as the tip of the drill made contact with the beast's palm-sized eye.

The glass-like coating held on for a mere millisecond before the drill plunged into its eye socket, mincing everything in its path and coating Shane in flecks of red, pink, and milky white gore. The drill plunged in up to the wrist, broke through the thick skull, and abruptly stopped spinning.

The beast wasn't dead yet and it seemed the pain was allowing it to get over the paralysis quicker as its body began to wriggle a bit and it let out a throaty hiss. Exhausted and wrist-deep in a swiftly recovering predator's eye socket, Shane didn't panic.

The next part was all or nothing and he wasn't planning on losing.

With a concentrated mental effort, he gathered and compressed the remaining Wind Energy that was surrounding the drill head and forced it down through the hole in the Wyrm's skull. There he released his control and it broke free, mincing the beast's brains in the process.

The Wyrm let out a final shuddering breath and stopped moving altogether. The drill began to break down into its liquid form and rapidly drained into the back of Shane's hand. Now freed from the position, he slumped forward onto its head and took some very deep, gasping breaths of the forest air. The tension left his body and he allowed himself a moment of reprieve.

When he had recovered a little, everything finally sank in as excitement and joy began to bubble up from within. Weeks of preparations had paid off, the Wyrm was dead and the Flower was his for the taking. He had done it!

He decided that he wanted a small trophy from his first major successful hunt and so he used a small bit of profound energy in his free hand to shear off a few plated spines from the beast's back.

Feeling the proof in the palm of his hand, Shane clenched his fists… and a wet squelch made him immediately wish he hadn't. With a groan, he pushed himself off of the carcass and onto his feet, before he devoured it whole. Thankfully avoiding the first law of Minecraft in the process.

The amount of energy he refined from the Wyrm was truly massive and he was almost a little scared to absorb it in one go. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, the Wyrm had only a very small affinity for Earth Profound Energy. However, with Shane's growing proficiency over profound energy control, it would still be immensely helpful.

Sending a pulse through his wind armor, Shane's body was instantly cleared of all the dirt, grime, and gore. He stumbled over to the flower, while brushing aside a couple of notifications from the system and reabsorbed the wind armor, revitalizing himself a little in the process.

Up close, Shane could smell the alluring scent and the desire to consume it grew to almost palpable levels. Before he could lose control and ingest it, he crouched down and used devour on it too. The Tri-Colored energy was then refined and stored inside his veins next to the Wyrms.

He stood up and as he was about to leave the clearing, his minimap picked up something else close by. The symbol looked like a little snake and was flashing red. Looking around frantically for any danger, Shane saw nothing but that strange dome of compacted earth. "Could it be…"

Vigilantly approaching the dome, he extended his senses and found a weak and slow heartbeat, just beneath the soil. Shane pushed profound energy into his hands and started to dig down into the compacted earth. What he saw next caused him to let out an audible gasp.

A brown egg covered with a green-scaled pattern, around 30cm tall, sat right there in the hole Shane had made. His excitement had risen to a completely new level and a quick appraisal almost sent him to heaven. [Forest Sand Wyrm Egg: Nascent Profound 1].

"Hehehehe! Hahahahaha!" A raucous bout of maniacal laughter resounded within the clearing as Shane danced from one foot to the other, all his previous fatigue gone with the wind.

He cared not one single bit how crazy he looked right now, not that there was anyone about to see him anyways. 'I can't believe I'm gonna have my own cool snake to sick on all the young masters! Maybe I can even turn it into a real dragon one day!'

Hugging the egg to his chest, Shane started to carefully make his way back to the cave. He bypassed the pool for today and went straight inside. Wasting absolutely no time at all, he put down the egg, bit his finger, and dripped a drop of blood onto the shell.

The drop of blood was instantly absorbed by the egg, It pulsed once, and he felt an immediate connection with it. "Henceforth, you shall be known as... Dusty!" The egg pulsed again and Shane scratched his nose while thinking to himself. 'What a fine name'

Now that the egg had been claimed and he wouldn't need to wake up to a Nascent Profound beast trying to chew on him, Shane sat down on the hides in a cross-legged position, with Dusty in the gap in between and slipped into a meditative state.

Shane's intent probed inwards towards the mass of energies stored within his Profound Veins and as he inspected them, he noticed that they were behaving very differently. The energy from the flower was gentle and welcoming, as if asking for him to absorb it whereas the energy from the Wyrm was vast and violent.

He wasn't sure if his body could handle the energy from the Wyrm right now and he didn't want to waste any of his hard-earned kill, so he decided to go with the flower energy. He 'willed' the energy from the flower to absorb but this time, something different happened.

The energy cycled through his profound veins, collecting up his own profound energy before disappearing completely. This absolutely terrified him for a moment until he felt a small amount of reassurance coming from the egg.

After sensing the communication from the egg, Shane only felt anger! He sent a quick mental communication to Dusty. 'Spit that energy out you brat! I need that energy! I will give you good things later on!'

Dusty sent back the feeling of being wronged and after a few moments, the mixture of Shane's Profound Energy and the refined Energy from the flower came back just as strong but with something else, something more primal added in.

This must have been Dusty's Energy! The combined energies did another circuit of his profound veins and also filtered out into every corner of his body. He looked closer and noticed that both his body and veins were being nourished as the energy passed through them.

The combined energies continued to cycle between Shane and Dusty for a few more times until all of it had been absorbed and when he opened his eyes, He was shocked by what he saw.

Looking down at his lap, he saw a 1.5m long coiled up and chibi looking version of the Wyrm from earlier. This one looked much more elegant and was a beautiful vibrant jade green color, it also had stubby little teeth, something its parent didn't have. It was Dusty!

She had just finished eating the last bit of the eggshell when she noticed him looking at her and chirped happily at him before coiling her way up his arm and softly hung around his neck so that she could lick his face. Strangely it felt extremely comfortable to have her there rather than the obvious opposite. 'Appraisal' [Dusty: Forest Wind Wyrm: Nascent Profound 7 - Contracted (Shan Long)]

"Who's a cute little girl Dusty? Yes, you are!" She chirped happily a couple more times before shocking Shane once again by shrinking down and turning into a beautiful tattoo of a snake-like Wyrm, holding its own tail in its beak-like mouth.

This tattoo was obviously wrapped around the base of Shane's neck and when he inspected it using his profound senses, he nodded his head thinking it really went well with the handsome wild boy persona he was working on.

Now that there was nothing pressing or distracting happening, Shane realized that both of his cultivations had risen significantly but more importantly, he was covered from head to toe in foul-smelling black gunk. "The legendary Impurities! Ewww, God! So gross!"

Running outside as fast as he could, which happened to be a lot faster than he could a few hours ago, he dived into the cold water of the spring pool without care and frantically started scrubbing himself clean.

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A/N: Shameless plug for the fanfics of friends that have supported me:

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