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Chapter 634: Phenex Core
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 13:00:16 +0000 UTCTianyi rolled the devilish orb from one hand to another several times, but there was still no reaction. He made a grabbing motion, and a Jianmu Immortal appeared in his grasp. He had thoroughly studied them, and they did not have much value left, but he felt it was a waste to destroy them. Because of this, Tianyi kept them in stasis until he remembered or needed them.
Like now.
He woke up the Jianmu Immortal and placed the devilish orb into his hands. For now, he dubbed the orb the Phenex Core.
The Jianmu Immortal glared at him hatefully, but Tianyi ignored it. He thought about giving the Phenex Core to an unconscious Jianmu Immortal, but he was afraid that an unconscious mind would allow easy entry, so he woke him up. Not that a hate-filled mind was any less inclined to devilish temptations.
Still, it should harbor more resistance than an unconscious immortal.
“How do you feel?” Tianyi asked, staring into the Jianmu Immortal’s eyes. He could see clarity in them, without an ounce of devilish influence.
“How do I feel? I’ll tell you once the Numinous Sword Sect destroys the Immortal Court and takes you prisoner!” the Jianmu Immortal shouted.
Tianyi was not surprised. Most of the people who underwent the process to transform into Jianmu Immortals were longtime members on the verge of death. They did not mind losing their future prospects and being tied to the Jianmu Tree. However, there were also those who voluntarily accepted the transformation because of their devotion to the Numinous Sword Sect.
Such volunteers were much more hot-blooded.
The Jianmu Immortal did not try to attack Tianyi because he knew that it was futile. They had tried before when there were many more of them present, and the results had not changed. “Hmpf, did something happen for you to awaken me?”
He glanced at the orb that Tianyi had shoved into his hand. He tried to throw it away, but the Phenex Core stayed glued to him because of external influence. “Is this another sick and twisted experiment of yours?”
As the Jianmu Immortal rambled on, Tianyi kept observing. His senses told him that something was happening, but he didn’t know what.
Tianyi kept reviewing the sequence of events. ‘Perhaps the Phenex Core not only serves as an energy source but also a transmitter? The moment I brought the body inside and closed the portal, it ceased all functions. Because my Nine Heavens Universe is not within the True Nothingness, the Phenex Core can’t connect with its controller, making it enter a hibernation state?’
Although some parts were wrong, Tianyi felt like he had figured out the truth. He took back the Phenex Core and made the Jianmu Immortal enter stasis. Although it seemed that nothing was happening, he always felt that something was off. He did not experiment with the Phenex Core because he could feel dense, devilish energy within. If it exploded, its influence would only be greater than Chunsang’s final retaliation.
For now, Tianyi decided to focus on the mechanical phoenix body, which he dubbed the Phenex Body.
First, he flushed the remaining devilish energy out of the mechanical construct. The process also contaminated his essence qi, but Tianyi did not care too much. It was practically negligible. The next process had Tianyi bringing the Phenex Body into the True Nothingness, where one of his regular conduits awaited. There was also the realm conduit, who had recently expelled the devilish energy.
Tianyi’s second realm conduit’s form shifted until it was a sphere about the size of the Phenex Core. The Phenex Core was still stored in the first inner realm, and the first realm conduit had appeared in a faraway location to expel the devilish energy.
Once inside, the second realm conduit, which Tianyi tentatively dubbed the Phenex Realm Core, filled the Phenex Body with essence qi of primordial chaos.
On a side note, the Phenex Core was renamed to the Phenex Devil Core.
As more essence qi filled the Phenex Body, the dormant runes shone with splendor once again. Unlike the black devilish runes, these runes flashed with a mixture of silver and gold, further highlighting the holy nature of its angelic origins. Even when its body was filled to the brim, it did not stop absorbing the Phenex Realm Core’s essence qi.
The essence qi that overflowed from its body was expelled from the outlets covering its surface. Upon exiting, they were no longer essence qi but sacred flames of silver with the occasional flash of gold. They covered the entirety of the Phenex Body, making it appear as a silver flaming phoenix with two golden stars for eyes. Anyone who saw it would not be able to connect it to the mechanical form it previously showed.
Even Tianyi, who controlled it, could not tell. It was as if the flames had extinguished all evidence of its true body.
“What a marvelous creation,” Tianyi said aloud. If someone told him that the Almighty created this, he would believe it.
It took him a long time to adjust to controlling the Phenex Body. Even if he could move the body, it would still take him a while to control and utilize all its abilities. Luckily, the previous battle against it provided many references.
Tianyi considered re-entering the Nine Hells Abyss and pretending to be Marquis Phenex before he thought better of it. If he used the Phenex Realm Core to control it, the difference would be too obvious. He could also condense a vast amount of devilish energy and use it as a source while one of his realm conduits controlled it, but he didn’t want to risk creating a devil with this method.
The amount of devilish energy needed to recreate a pseudo-abyss was immense, but the amount was much smaller for creating a new devil—especially so if the concentrated devilish energy resided in the Nine Hells Abyss. At least Tianyi had not gotten impatient to the point of risking this.
That was not to say he abandoned the idea. At the very least, Tianyi could use the Phenex Body to infiltrate the Nine Hells Abyss. If he could create his own ‘angel,’ then it would be possible to customize it to avoid this problem.
The Heavenly Immortal Court did not have any stock of angel bodies, but that didn’t mean the All Pantheon Alliance didn’t. Even when the Almighty was alive, many pantheons collected and studied these angels. They gave up in the end only because they couldn’t produce the angels at a low enough cost to make them worthwhile.
If it were a matter of resources, Tianyi was not afraid. No matter how high the cost, he could produce it. Not to mention that he didn’t want to produce an army. He only wanted something he could use inside the Nine Hells Abyss.
Tianyi didn’t think it would cost too much to acquire some angels. He was wrong. Not only was it a lot, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. Most of the pantheons did not treat the angels as treasures but as salvageable resources. So, they priced them a bit lower than the total material cost because the buyer would have to disassemble and refine the materials.
To Tianyi’s surprise, he also found many of the research results on angel production up for sale. Because of the high cost, it was deemed useless—but not for Tianyi. He bought as many as possible for reference.
As for the angels themselves, thanks to his contribution to the portal, he always had a steady flow of points increasing under his name. Even then, he felt pain at the cost.
Angels were split into nine orders and further divided into three groups: the Lowest Orders, the Middle Orders, and the Highest Orders. They were the Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim.
The price of each angel order differed and correlated with how low or high their order was. The price did not rise exponentially, but even with Tianyi’s wealth, he could not purchase an entire set. Not to mention that the All Pantheon Alliance was still in its infancy.
For now, Tianyi settled on three Angels, two Archangels, and one Principality.
His actions attracted some attention, but not much. Most of the pantheons thought he wanted to use the resources that made up the angels. In complete contrast, the high echelon of the Heavenly Immortal Court panicked.
They suspected that Tianyi was preparing to go against the Heavenly Immortal Court. The first step was naturally having an army. If he really did rebel, the hegemony the Heavenly Immortal Court fought for would be overturned and all their efforts wasted.
In order to avoid frightening Tianyi, the Concealed Emperor appeared. He did not immediately ask about the angels and instead informed Tianyi about their progress. He also brought up another technique left behind by the Lord of Primordial Origins. Originally, they hadn’t planned on disclosing it to Tianyi so soon, but they felt they needed to stabilize him as fast as possible.
Only then did he ask, as if just inquiring about the situation, “I heard you bought some angels.”
“Yeah. You know that I’m seeking information in the Nine Hells Abyss, but even I don’t dare to go too deeply without preparations,” Tianyi said nonchalantly while reading the jade slip given to him. “While I was there, I captured someone who claimed to be Marquis Phenex, but after capturing him, I discovered that it was a mechanical body. After comparing him to the angels I purchased before, I’m sure that Marquis Phenex—his body, at least—is an angel.”
The Concealed Emperor remained calm. “Is that so? Did you get anything out of him? I recall he was an infuriating foe because of his undying nature.”
Tianyi shook his head. “I suspect that it’s only his body. The original Marquis Phenex should have perished in the Godsfall War, and someone remote-controlled his body for some purpose.”
“What a pity. If it were the real Marquis Phenex, we could have obtained some critical information,” the Concealed Emperor said.
“Well, I found him on the sixth level, so that should have clued me in earlier, but I was just too hopeful,” Tianyi said. “Right, does the Immortal Court have any research into the production of angels?”
Unnoticed by Tianyi, the Concealed Emperor felt his heart jump. “No. The other pantheons researched the Almighty’s angels to make up for their demigod-level forces. The Pangu System had immortals, so we did not care too much. Even if they did, it was lost when the Primordial World shattered.”
“I see,” Tianyi said. He did not show frustration or any other emotion.
“If you come up with any breakthroughs, the Immortal Court will be interested. There are many treasures that will be useful to you.” But not for Mengfei went unsaid.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
With that, the Concealed Emperor left. His report greatly eased the nerves of the upper echelon of the Heavenly Immortal Court. That didn’t mean they could rest on their laurels. Just because Tianyi did not plan to rebel did not mean he wouldn’t consider it in the future.
The Concealed Emperor, Perfected Huanglong, and Jiang Ziya all had a headache. They could not deal with the consequences of falling out with Tianyi. So they directed their attention to his companions—his fellow reincarnators. It would be foolish to capture them to threaten Tianyi. No, they wanted to bind their targets with loyalty and extend that bind to Tianyi himself.
Their first target was Xi Ri. As a merit immortal, he was the easiest to influence. As long as they set aside some realms and helped him develop them—raising his merit until he accumulated enough to become a merit sovereign—he should be closely tied with the Heavenly Immortal Court.
The others needed more consideration. The upper echelon had already discovered that many of the reincarnators had disappeared from the Primordial Realm and Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. They hadn’t cared much at first, but the current situation made them uneasy.
The ones who stayed, like Yan Nie, needed careful planning. Gan Xuehua was relatively easy. Just allocate more resources and help raise the Gan Dynasty to a higher-rated force. They needed to do so in a way that seemed natural to prevent Tianyi from noticing and incurring her loyalty.
Tianyi was naturally unaware of the three divinities’ schemes. He was hard at work studying and creating his own angels. Hundreds of years had passed, and he had long destroyed the Lowest Order angels he purchased, so he bought more. Most of his new purchases were Lowest Order angels, but he also bought a few Middle Order angels and one Highest Order angel.
Right now, he was standing in the True Nothingness. In his hand was a small mechanical doll less than half a meter tall. The doll’s chest moved. A crack appeared, splitting open and revealing an empty cavity. Above his other hand floated the Phenex Core.
With a flick, the Phenex Core entered the empty cavity, and the hinges closed. Dark, devilish energy sputtered and filled the doll. The doll, which appeared cherubic, now had a devilish taint to it.
