Chapter 124: A breath of spiritual energy

Su Xing landed and turned around, but before he could make any move or attack, a massive palm slapped down from the air.

A tremendous wind pressure descended from above. In that instant, the entire world went still once more, and those infinite scenes replayed in his mind.

Dodge, speed insufficient...

Brace, get flattened instantly...

Downward, get crushed into the earth...

The immense power, the incomparable speed, and a force field invisible to the naked eye but tangibly present—which prevented the ground from being easily destroyed like a fluid when struck—meant that for Su Xing to block this palm was equivalent to pitting himself against an invisible force field.

A hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times...

Then time flowed, the world returned to normal, and Su Xing stood his ground, raising his great blade high. At the same time, he tensed his limbs against his body, stretching himself as thin and long as possible, and as the palm descended, he thrust his blade upward.

The palm was also made of bone, devoid of any flesh or blood. As Su Xing's great blade thrust upward, it happened to wedge into a joint. With a crisp crack, a piece of bone on the palm shattered, and bone shards and splinters fell to the ground, grazing Su Xing's front and back.

In an instant, Su Xing's entire body was lacerated, blood spraying as he was covered in dense cuts. But he had no time to care; his muscles rippled, contracting to seal the wounds. He then stomped his foot, charged onto the skeleton's arm bone, and raced toward its body.

But the next second, halfway there, Su Xing leaped off. Two more palms slapped down like lightning, striking repeatedly where he had just been standing, causing shockwaves to surge and spread, the massive boom echoing throughout the entire plaza.

Su Xing jumped away in the nick of time. As he leaped, his hands reached up, grabbing the lower end of the arm bone. The moment the other two arms finished their strike, he exerted all his strength, flipping his body upward, landing exactly between the two palms as they clapped together. He stood upon them, crouched, and exploded upward, but instead of jumping, he channeled all his power into his great blade.

A white rainbow cut through the air, striking exactly the bone Vajra pestle held in the skeleton's fourth arm.

The skeleton had initially revealed only two arms—one holding the bone Vajra pestle, the other a giant bone sword. It had already discarded the sword, and with one hand holding the pestle and the other three busy slapping at Su Xing, it was just about to raise the pestle when Su Xing's blade was thrown.

White light flashed; the blade pierced the very center of the Vajra pestle. From that point, the pestle began to crumble inch by inch. In the blink of an eye, the bone Vajra pestle turned into a pile of white bone fragments on the ground.

This scene seemed to shock the skeleton. It tilted, its head turning toward the spot where the Vajra pestle had shattered. Seizing the opportunity, Su Xing sprang from the two bone palms, charging toward the skeleton's head once more: thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters...

Seeing Su Xing about to charge along its arm toward its head, the skeleton's head remained looking down at the ground. This sight filled Su Xing's heart with wild joy.

But the next instant, another head flashed out from beside the skeleton's head. This Kong Que King descendant skeleton actually had two heads and four arms!?

This head stared at Su Xing. Just then, Su Xing leaped from the arm to pounce on the head, suspended in mid-air with nowhere to leverage. The next instant, the arm that had just been holding the Vajra pestle moved from stillness to motion, slapping down with a *slap* onto Su Xing.

One palm pressed Su Xing from mid-air straight into the ground!

With a thunderous explosion, the earth trembled. Countless rock fragments were blasted outward. A crater nearly thirty meters deep and nearly two hundred meters wide appeared on the ground, and Su Xing's mangled body was pinned in the center, embedded in the surface of a giant boulder.

With this single blow, almost every bone in his body was shattered, his internal organs were nearly destroyed, and his intestines and liver were squeezed out from the side of his body. Except for his head, which barely retained a human shape because his two arms had crossed to protect it, Su Xing looked no different from a meat patty.

Mental negative backlash rate: twenty-one percent, twenty-two percent, twenty-three percent...

Meanwhile, the skeleton knelt up, supporting itself on its broken thigh bone. Both heads looked down at the meat patty in the crater. Seeing the muscles still weakly twitching, all four arms raised simultaneously. Weak light gathered on all four palms, and the faint golden-green color on the skeleton seemed to be converging toward the four palms. The next second, all four palms fell from the sky, slamming fiercely toward Su Xing.

Just as the four palms were four or five meters away from Su Xing, just as Su Xing's eyes were transforming from crimson to pitch black, just as Su Xing's muscles and bones were gradually becoming life-like...

The Kong Que King descendant skeleton suddenly stopped all movement. The light in the pupils of its two heads gradually dissipated, and the skeleton, the giant bone sword, and the shattered bone Vajra pestle all turned into flying ash and vanished.

One minute... time was up!

In Su Xing's sea of consciousness, the already extremely faint Sleeping Spiritual Light suddenly burned brilliantly once more, suppressing the mental negativity that was surging and churning wildly, causing Su Xing's eyes to turn from pitch black back to blood red, then slowly return to calm.

In an instant, infinite pain and negativity surged in, almost causing Su Xing to pass out immediately. This was pain beyond a normal person's imagination—not just physical pain, but mental and spiritual agony.

(Can't pass out, can't pass out, Jiu Jiu hasn't escaped danger yet...)

Both of Su Xing's jaws were shattered, and all his teeth had fallen out. At this moment, he couldn't even grit his teeth to persevere; he could only use every ounce of his essence, energy, and spirit to fight and endure this pain.

But just then, a strange, cool air appeared from where the skeleton had just dissipated. It was invisible and intangible, yet the moment it touched Su Xing, it reacted. The pain in his body immediately dissipated significantly, and a cool sensation coursed through him, giving his rapidly dying body a surge of energy. His flesh actually showed signs of healing, and his bone marrow was producing blood at an unimaginable speed.

What surprised and shocked Su Xing most was that his internal energy reserves hadn't decreased in the slightest, yet his flesh was healing, and blood was being created!?

Mass and energy created out of thin air!?

It wasn't just Su Xing; Jiu Jiu and Daphne in the distance also recovered from their dehydrated, dying state. This invisible cool air allowed the two of them to regain their senses within seconds, even despite severe dehydration, and their bodies could move freely without hindrance. At this moment, the two women struggled to their feet and looked toward the ruined battlefield in the distance, and that massive crater.

They had just fallen into a state of extreme dehydration and near-death, but they roughly knew what had happened and knew Su Xing was at the bottom of that crater. Neither of them cared about anything else now, running rapidly toward the crater.

But they were at least ten thousand meters away from the crater. Before they could even run a thousand meters, everything around them began to blur. Thick fog appeared out of thin air, obscuring the massive plaza and the giant skeletons surrounding it...

Su Xing, unable to move at the bottom of the crater, knew this cool air was definitely a good thing; it was very likely the Heaven and Earth spiritual energy that the demon race sought.

He immediately began to use all his strength to heal his lungs, using every bit he healed to breathe with all his might. Secondly, he practiced according to the *Iron Refining Record*. However, he couldn't move his body now, couldn't assume a practice posture, and couldn't circulate his Qi and blood. The only thing he could do was visualize in his mind and adjust his breathing, breathing according to the *Iron Refining Record*'s method.

During this process, in just a few seconds, the images and inscriptions in his visualization actually emitted light in his sea of consciousness. At the same time, as the breathing technique progressed, Su Xing suddenly felt a trace of "sharpness" in the air he was breathing.

But that was all he could do, as everything around him gradually blurred and thick fog covered everything.

He didn't know how much time had passed. When Su Xing came to his senses, what appeared before him was the scene of the sewer. The entrance to the graveyard area was behind him, and Jiu Jiu and Daphne had also appeared beside him.

"We left the graveyard area!?" Daphne looked around in surprise and shouted.

Jiu Jiu didn't care about anything, rushing to Su Xing's side, but she didn't dare reach out to hold him, because Su Xing was now completely falling apart—his limbs were gone, his torso was a pulp of meat, and except for his head, which was slightly intact, he truly looked more like a corpse than a corpse!

!

Just then, Jiu Jiu's body tightened. Her body began to shrink, and after a second or two, she transformed back into a small emerald-green bird. Daphne, watching from the side, found it strange and squatted down, saying, "You can really transform into your original form?"

Jiu Jiu ignored her, just hopping beside Su Xing and chirping incessantly.

Su Xing opened his eyes at this moment, and the Main Brain's voice came into his mind.

"You have completed the garrison mission. The Nightmare will be unable to perceive the location of your shelter for thirty days."

"You have established a Level 2 Shelter."

"You can carry life (non-human, non-Nightmare) back and forth between this shelter and the real world."

"You have received a reward of one personal attribute increase (non-limit-breaking)."

"You have received a reward of awakening five sleeping maintenance personnel."

"You must return to the world where this shelter is located every thirty days and stay for seven days."

"Return now?"

Su Xing was silent for a moment, then said to Daphne in an extremely weak and hoarse voice, "Turn into a dog."

Daphne immediately said angrily, "What dog!? I am a White Wolf tribe princess!!"

Su Xing's eyes were calm and waveless, and he just said again, "Last time, turn into a Samoyed."

Daphne originally wanted to retort, but inexplicably, her beast instinct urged her to transform immediately.

The next second, a snow-white Samoyed appeared beside Su Xing.

"Return now? Carry Samoyed (Alien) back?"

Su Xing whispered, "Main Brain, return to Gaia."

The next instant, Su Xing, Jiu Jiu, and the Samoyed vanished from the spot simultaneously.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 125 =====