The middle-aged guardian was mistaken. He had never seen an Allheaven Dao Immortal, so he didn't know... that even if you said Meng Hao was the first Allheaven Immortal, and that later there might be a second or a third or even more, Meng Hao would still be the most powerful type, an Allheaven Dao Immortal!

Furthermore, he was one of the most powerful Allheaven Dao Immortals in history.

And that was because... of his fleshly body!

The strength of his fleshly body made his Allheaven Dao Immortal battle prowess even more powerful.

"There's no need to rush the absorption of the Divine Flame...." he said softly. "I can still become more powerful!" He could sense that, based on the boundless Immortal power within him, if he wanted to, he could grow to a size of well over 3,000 meters tall.

"My fleshly body... still has an unlit Soul Lamp. I wonder... how powerful I'll be after I light all of them!" A strange light appeared in Meng Hao's eyes as nine Soul Lamps materialized around him. Eight of them were now lit for all eternity, but the ninth was still unlit.

He looked thoughtfully at that ninth Soul Lamp for a moment, then waved his right hand. Instantly, the 3,000-meter azure light vanished. Likewise, the pressure weighing down on the sea of flames vanished, allowing it to rage with fury.

Instantly, the entire area was completely engulfed in fire that obscured all else. The guardian in Nascent Divinity form couldn't even catch a glimpse of Meng Hao.

He remained within the sea of flames, eyes closed, allowing the fire to enter his body. However, he prevented the flame spark from absorbing the flames, and instead allowed them to build up inside of him.

More Divine Flame poured into him, raging, sweeping about inside of him, pouring through his qi passageways, inundating his internal organs, filling his flesh and blood. It even seeped into his bones.

Meng Hao began trembling slightly, but his expression was the same as usual. Keeping the flame spark sealed, he allowed more and more Divine Flame to build up inside of him, until he was like a being of fire. His flesh, bones, qi passageways, and the other parts of him all contained Divine Flame.

And the amount only continued to increase. If you likened Meng Hao to a bottle, then at the moment, that bottle was now more than forty percent full of Divine Flame.

And he wasn't finished!

Bizarre light gleamed in his eyes as he sucked in the Divine Flame as if he were a black hole. None of it was allowed into the flame spark, but instead, built up inside of him. The sensation of burning increased as the flames did. Meng Hao was using this method... to temper his fleshly body!

BOOM!

Fifty percent. Sixty percent. Seventy percent!

This process of body tempering left him trembling. The difficulty was almost impossible to describe. Were it not for the fact that Meng Hao already had an incredibly powerful fleshly body, plus the power of an Allheaven Dao Immortal, then he would not have been able to take the intense heat of the flames.

However, in order to strengthen his fleshly body, and in order to take full advantage of this instance of good fortune, he sucked in more. Rumbling sounds echoed out as the boundless Divine Flames coursing through him pushed him from seventy percent to eighty!

The process continued rapidly, until he was at ninety percent!

In that moment, he shook violently and coughed up a huge mouthful of blood. Even though he was a creature of flesh and blood, he had absorbed the Divine Flame by ninety percent, causing Heaven-shaking, Earth-toppling transformations. He was almost like a flame spirit now, except with a body of flesh and blood.

"I can keep going. Bring it on!" Meng Hao eyes shone with bright light as he looked at his nine Soul Lamps. A tiny flame had already appeared on the last lamp, and it was growing larger; soon the lamp would be completely lit. Eyes gleaming with determination, he gritted his teeth and sucked in more flame.

Rumbling sounds echoed out, causing everything to shake violently. Pagodas toppled, and the sky appeared to be on the verge of being ripped apart to reveal the lands up above.

After all, this location was underground!

Meng Hao threw his head back and roared as the Divine Flame within him finally reached... one hundred percent!

Each and every part of him was now Divine Flame. At the same time, his ninth Soul Lamp flared to life!!

When that happened, rumbling sounds filled his entire body. His heart began to beat with more power than before, and even his qi and blood caused the outside world to dim. A terrifying power rose up from him, a power that had reached a Heaven-defying level!

You could say that from the beginning of the Mountain and Sea Realm until the modern day, it would be easier to find a phoenix feather or a qilin horn than to find someone with a fleshly body as powerful as this. If he took a single further step forward, he would have a Dao Realm fleshly body!

As for Dao Realm fleshly bodies... there was no need to even mention how rare such a thing was in the Mountain and Sea Realm. Even in the Paragon Immortal Realm, the only people who possessed bodies like that were Paragons!

Only Paragons could take their fleshly bodies into the Dao Realm!

That was because when the fleshly body achieved the Dao, then even if Heaven and Earth rotted away, that fleshly body would not. The only way it could be destroyed was in battle; neither the ravages of time nor the power of Heaven and Earth could destroy it.

That was the Dao Realm fleshly body!

And right now, Meng Hao was only a step away from exactly that!!

His eyes snapped open, and he threw his head back and roared, causing the land overhead to crumble; dirt and rocks fell down, and although the canopy above didn't collapse, the middle-aged guardian outside of the sea of flames was even more shocked than before.

In response to Meng Hao's roar, the sea of flames around him churned, and hundreds of thousands of pagodas throughout the world toppled over into pieces.

Up in the second level, the ancient beast trembled as the whole level quaked. The first level up above was the same, and even the Dao lakes beyond that were vibrating. Numerous Dao lakes erupted, shooting magical items and Dao projections up into the air, to the shock and delight of the gathered cultivators.

Within the world of Divine Flame, Meng Hao's roars echoed out as his Allheaven Dao Immortal cultivation base exploded with power. There was no azure light though, and he now did nothing to prevent the Divine Flame from pouring into the flame spark.

At long last, the flame spark could absorb the flames it had been blocked off from before. All of the fire outside of Meng Hao surged toward him in waves.

He stretched his arms wide, allowing it to fully flow into the flame spark, which desired to consume all the fire in the world.

"Flame spark... you're mine!" he said, waving his sleeve and rising up into the air. The sea of flames rose up with him, and from a distance, the flames formed an image that looked like a mountain. The sight would be shocking to anyone who could lay eyes on it.

If you looked even closer, it would appear as if Meng Hao had become an invincible bird, with the sea of flames being his wings as he soared through the Heavens, laying waste to everything.

All of the Divine Flame in the world began to converge, shrinking down and pouring into Meng Hao. The flame spark inside of him was shining brightly, and soon, an Essence aura began to emanate off of him.

That essence was no longer just a sliver. It was majestic and boundless, true Essence. Flame Essence. Henceforth, this would be Meng Hao's first Essence.

Meng Hao was the only cultivator ever to be able to control Essence while in the Immortal Realm!

He threw his head back and roared, and the flame sea around him slowly shrank. It was now seventy percent of its original size, then fifty, and then forty!

It was a thoroughly shocking sight. The guardian stared at Meng Hao absorbing the flames, and his previous conviction was now completely shaken.

"The curse of the exalted Dao Fang..." he murmured. "Nobody can acquire the flame spark... how could this be happening...?" By now, the sea of flames was thirty percent of its original size!

The more Meng Hao absorbed, the more resplendent his internal flame spark became. By now, the sea of flames could barely harm him at all, and after he completely absorbed it, fire would never be able to hurt Meng Hao again.

Rumbling filled the entire world. The air shook as the sea of flames once again shrank down!

Twenty percent!!

Only twenty percent of the sea of flames remained. The eternal Divine Flame within the world region was being completely absorbed by Meng Hao. Although this was only a single one of the flame sparks, even someone in the Dao Realm would lust insatiably lust after it.

Ten percent!!

Brilliant light shone off of Meng Hao, and the flame sea continued to shrink. The Essence aura on him grew more intense, and everything around him shook violently!

In the space of a few breaths, the sea of flames shrank down into a mere strand of Divine Flame, which then merged into Meng Hao. At that point, this part of the world of Divine Flame didn't contain even a single flame!

As of this day, the sea of flames which had existed for so long, and burned eternally... was now gone. There was no Divine Flame, and the lands below were now completely revealed, and at the same time, all of the pagodas collapsed into rubble.

100,000. 200,000. 300,000... in the blink of an eye, massive rumbling could be heard echoing out until the entire place... didn't have a single pagoda standing in it!

Feeling completely shaken, Meng Hao closed his eyes. The flame spark inside of him had absorbed all of the Divine Flame in the entire world. As of this moment, the will of Huoyan Zi approved of Meng Hao, and did not resist him at all. Instead, it merged into him.

When that happened, the Essence aura within Meng Hao was eternally stabilized!

He slowly opened his eyes. This was his most powerful state. Allheaven Dao Immortal. The great circle of the Ancient Realm fleshly body. A complete Essence of Divine Flame!

"Impossible!!" the guardian shrieked. In the instant that he spoke, the azure lightning which surrounded him transformed into numerous azure snakes that stabbed into his Nascent Divinity. To the man's shock, his Nascent Divinity faded away into the air. Meng Hao had lived up to his word, and allowed the guardian to witness him accepting the legacy of the flame spark!

Meng Hao hovered in midair, looking around until his gaze came to fall on the lands down below. Off in the distance, there were other lands of Divine Flame, and other flame sparks!

However, in the very moment in which he looked off into the distance, there was something that filled Meng Hao with a sensation of crisis. He spun and looked down at the pitch-black city down below, his eyes shining like blades.