Chapter 187: Digging Away Inside a Giant Shell

"Crack~"

Xu Chen clearly heard the Shell beneath him sink suddenly by several zhang, and there even seemed to be the sound of something shattering.

Meanwhile, the Blue Light Treasure Bottle within his Sea of Consciousness flared with intense blue light, spraying brilliant Blue Starlight from its entire body to resist this powerful pressure.

"Pfft~~"

Xu Chen opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood, feeling as if his entire body's tendons, bones, flesh, and blood were being crushed and collapsing in an instant; the Blue Starlight in the Apertures all over his body was squeezed out by several feet, shining like stars in the pitch-black Void.

"Hum~"

Just as Xu Chen was shocked beyond measure, he saw in the pitch-black distance a dark golden phosphorescent phantom, like a towering mountain floating and sinking in the vast sea, rising up a pitch-black giant wave that came whistling over to cover the sky and earth; the entire Void began to tremble violently, as if it were about to shatter at any moment.

This aura was no weaker than that of the Ancient Fierce Beast once imprisoned within the Nether Rift.

Xu Chen's face turned pale, and he hurriedly used his Divine Sense to communicate with the Blue Light Treasure Bottle with all his might, but the Blue Light Treasure Bottle gave no response at all.

Damn it, it always drops the ball at the critical moment.

Just as Xu Chen was at his wit's end and felt he was dead for sure, the Shell beneath him suddenly opened, and the two halves of the shell began to flap frantically like wings.

"Whoosh~"

The Shell turned into a phantom and fled rapidly through the Black Wind; Xu Chen was nearly thrown off the Shell and could only hurriedly release his Qi to lock himself firmly onto it, but it was like sitting on the wings of a giant bird, shaking wildly up and down with the flapping of the Shell, and in just a few moments, he was jolted so hard he vomited up the Bigu Pill he had previously eaten.

"No, if we keep flying like this, I'm going to be shaken to pieces."

Xu Chen wrapped his Divine Sense around the entire Shell, and finally, looking at the exposed shell meat below and a large mass of white light—a pearl—that appeared and disappeared due to the flapping of the shell, he had an idea; he immediately executed the Cloud Flow Step, turned into a wisp of green smoke, dove into the belly of the Shell, and curled up in the gap between the shell meat and the Shell.

The moment he hid inside, Xu Chen felt that terrifying pressure suddenly weaken by more than half, the Blue Starlight spraying from his body quickly retracted into his body, and the Blue Light Treasure Bottle in his Sea of Consciousness also stabilized rapidly.

At this time, the Shell only cared about fleeing in a panic.

Although it felt Xu Chen burrow into its body, it had no time to care about this tiny, insect-like thing.

Because the terrifying and powerful aura behind it was like a natural predator and doomsday to it; it had no thoughts other than escaping with its life.

"That was close!"

Curled up inside the belly of the Shell, Xu Chen wiped the mucus and cold sweat from his face, his complexion pale.

If he had been half a moment later, he feared his life would have been completely lost out there.

At the same time, he could only hope that this Shell, which was like an iron coffin, flew fast enough to carry him through this disaster.

Because this aura of pressure was so terrifying that it made one unable to even conceive of resisting; it was simply not a creature of the same level, at the very least it was of the True Immortal level or higher.

In the boundless pitch-black Void, a pitch-black ripple connecting heaven and earth rippled outward, with a body ten thousand zhang long appearing and disappearing within it.

And within the range affected by the ripples, if one's Divine Sense was strong enough, one could see countless strange-looking Soul Beasts with powerful auras fleeing frantically in all directions.

The safety Xu Chen thought he had was merely because the range he traveled was too small, only a palm-sized piece of land in this boundless Void.

This giant beast, which did not know where it came from, dominated this part of the Void like a dragon swimming in the sea, then swam past; after swallowing who knows how many creatures along the way, it soon sank into the boundless pitch-black and disappeared.

And this huge ripple wave that affected a radius of hundreds of thousands of miles also gradually rippled and subsided with the disappearance of the giant beast.

The Void returned to silence.

The black Shell flew very fast, like lightning, and in an instant, it did not know how far it had flown.

When that aura of pressure completely disappeared and the aftershocks gradually dissipated, the speed of the Shell slowly decreased, finally closing with a "crack," and then it became still again.

Xu Chen had no idea how far he had flown just now, or where he had flown to.

But as the Shell closed, he instantly felt a terrifying, icy aura wrap around him, and the surrounding mucus and the pitch-black shell meat flashing with black light squeezed fiercely toward his body.

"Clang~"

Xu Chen naturally was not willing to be crushed to death alive; he flipped his hand to take out the Thunder Fire Pestle and smashed it against the squeezing pitch-black shell meat. A muffled sound like striking steel rang out inside the Shell, Xu Chen was shaken until his whole body went numb, and the Shell also trembled violently.

Puffs of cyan electric light tumbled and exploded between the mucus and the shell meat, stimulating the giant clam to tremble incessantly.

"Such hard meat."

Although this strike was hasty, Xu Chen had used at least seventy or eighty percent of his strength.

What he didn't expect was that the outer shell was incomparably hard, and even the meat inside was terrifyingly hard; it only spasmed and contracted, burst out a mass of black light, and then continued to squirm and squeeze in frantically.

"Clang, clang, clang, clang..."

Xu Chen swung the Thunder Fire Pestle in a frantic, chaotic beating; clusters of lightning exploded inside the Shell, and the two tightly closed halves of the shell were also shocked so they couldn't close completely. Amidst the trembling, it suddenly opened again, and a huge thrust pushed him outward.

However, Xu Chen was not having it now.

He instantly circulated the Demon Refining Art, and a white light lit up inside the belly of the Shell.

"Roar~~~"

The moment the white light appeared, it was exactly as Xu Chen had guessed; although the shell meat was still incomparably hard, it could not resist the erosion of the white energy. Suddenly, the entire belly of the Shell began to explode with "bangs" like fireworks.

The Shell let out a shrill sound like a scream, and its entire body began to twitch and roll frantically.

Five-colored rays of light sprayed out from the Shell's body, and it tumbled and rolled as it fell rapidly in one direction.

Xu Chen circulated the Demon Refining Art with all his might, and the refined white light poured out like a stream.

The dense white light was not only rapidly consuming the Shell but also constantly strengthening his Soul, Meridians, dantian, and tendons, bones, flesh, and blood.

Because there was no way to send all the white energy into the body of the Shell, from beginning to end, at least thirty percent remained in his own body.

However, he was already able to sustain this kind of strengthening for nearly half an hour, so he was not panicked at all, but rather incomparably calm and pleasantly surprised.

He believed that after half an hour, even if this Shell wasn't burned to death, it would lose more than half its life; by then, he would kill the clam, take the pearl, get rich, and escape—a one-stop process.

The Shell rolled and fell incessantly, while constantly spasming, twitching, and letting out helpless screams.

Regarding this little insect that had broken into its body, it was now completely helpless.

If it were an ordinary Nether creature, it would have long since been wrapped up and digested as food.

But this aura was like a death warrant to it, carrying incomparable despair; no matter how it struggled, it was of no use.

Xu Chen had no time to care about the situation outside.

Until a certain moment, suddenly with a "boom," Xu Chen felt the Shell smash heavily onto something hard, and even after bouncing a few times, it returned to calm; at this time, the Shell was also completely motionless, and all the shell meat had been exploded away, leaving only some meridian-like tissues flashing with glowing light.

It seemed that the white light had no destructive effect on these tissues, but instead merged into them, constantly repairing and growing them.

Xu Chen stopped the circulation of the Grand Void Demon Refining Art.

At this moment, he could no longer feel any aura from the shell, as if it were dead beyond all doubt.

A pearl over a foot in diameter was wrapped and suspended upon crisscrossing meridian-like tissues, swaying gently and emitting a white light like a massive night-luminescent pearl, illuminating the entire shell and the surrounding hundred zhang as if it were broad daylight.

Covered in mucus, Xu Chen crawled out from the spiderweb-like fascia.

Looking at this enormous pearl, his eyes shone with incomparable brilliance.

This was no ordinary pearl; it radiated an incredibly powerful fluctuation of vitality, yet upon closer inspection, it was not silver-white but carried a faint golden halo, which was extraordinarily miraculous.

Was this a pearl, a Soul Bead, or something akin to a Demon Beast core?

Xu Chen was both excited and completely bewildered.

According to his understanding of Soul Beasts, generally speaking, a powerful Soul Beast must contain a Soul Bead within its body.

Even the giant octopus Soul Beast he had previously killed with white Qi had a Soul Bead the size of a rice bowl.

Yet, inside this shell Soul Beast, there was no other Soul Bead besides this pearl.

Logically speaking, such a situation should not exist.

Furthermore, this bead was wrapped in a large amount of fascia-like material, not simply encased in clam meat like a pearl inside an oyster.

Could it be that this was a mutated shell Soul Beast?

Looking at the pearl and the vast amount of spiderweb-like fascia tissue, Xu Chen felt some doubt and surprise in his heart.

Could it be that even in this pitch-black Black Wind, Soul Beasts could eventually grow flesh-like bodies?

Judging from the situation before him, this answer seemed somewhat more likely.

Because Xu Chen had never discovered this kind of flesh-like fascia tissue inside the Soul Beasts outside; this was clearly no longer a Soul Beast, but a type of existence similar to a Demon Beast.

However, now was not the time to study this problem; Xu Chen took out his Second-tier Flying Sword, hacked and slashed at the fascia with a series of 'clack-clack' sounds, removed the giant pearl first, and then climbed out of the shell.

Outside was still the pitch-black Void, but to his surprise, he could see solid ground just a few dozen zhang away within the reach of his Divine Sense.

At this moment, the shell was like a black-awning boat, suspended in mid-air, half-open and half-closed.

Xu Chen was overjoyed, leaped, and quickly landed on the ground.

The ground was also pitch-black rock, incomparably hard, with no plants visible for hundreds of zhang, bare as if licked clean by a dog.

However, he did not dare to be careless and release his Divine Sense to observe the surroundings at full strength; instead, he cautiously scanned the area within a radius of about one mile and discovered that this was a rugged canyon, and the shell was suspended above it.

(End of this chapter)