Chapter 495 - 467: Escaping with the Collapsing Core

Chapter 495: Chapter 467: Escaping with the Collapsing Core

The moment Li Yuan took the collapsing core, he knew he was in far more trouble than he’d anticipated.

The fist-sized red crystal was like a miniature, raging sun, spatial power continuously spilling from the cracks on its surface.

He simultaneously poured Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi into his palms, coating his left hand in Spiritual Power and his right in Demonic Qi, which barely managed to stabilize its tremors.

Even without direct contact, a searing pain emanated from his palms.

Every crack on the core’s surface spat out hair-thin spatial shards that sliced away the skin on Li Yuan’s forearms, inch by inch. Even the dark-golden luster of his physical body could only slow the spread of the wounds under the assault of this spatial power; it couldn’t resist them completely.

Blood seeped from between his fingers, dripping into the void. Before the drops could even fall, they were shredded into a bloody mist by the spatial turbulence.

The drain on his Demonic Qi was even more severe.

The core was a bottomless pit, ferociously devouring the Demonic Qi in Li Yuan’s body to keep itself from disintegrating further. His Mid-grade Demon Pill spun at full speed, but visible streams of deep purple Demonic Qi were still being siphoned from around him and into the core.

Just holding it was this perilous.

And to equip an item, he had to make contact with it—a difficult feat under the circumstances.

Li Yuan tried to coat the core’s surface with his Spiritual Power, but the spatial shockwaves radiating from it constantly broke the connection. Each attempt to adhere his power lasted less than half a breath before it was blasted away.

It was like trying to press his hand against a continuously exploding sheet of iron.

’No time to try again.’

Li Yuan raised his head and scanned his surroundings.

High above the canyon, the Escape Light of the Primordial Yang Sect’s Early-stage Golden Core elder was rapidly retreating in the distance.

His flight was erratic. His left arm hung limply at his side, the entire limb having taken on an unnatural, greyish-black color—a sign that Demonic Qi had invaded his meridians.

His escape speed was still considerable. ’It seems Blood Slaughter Zhenren and the Abyss Sect’s Golden Core didn’t try to kill him,’ Li Yuan thought. ’They just wounded him and cast him aside.’

Further in the distance, a dozen or so Escape Lights belonging to Foundation Establishment Cultivators were also scattering and fleeing. No one looked back.

The gazes of both Blood Slaughter Zhenren and the Abyss Sect’s Golden Core cultivator were locked on Li Yuan.

Or more precisely, on the red core in his hand.

"Put that thing down," Blood Slaughter Zhenren said, his voice ice-cold.

Though he had dodged the earlier void-cleaving slash, its aftershock had severed the Spiritual Power tether connecting the core to his Spatial Spiritual Artifact, which had been blasted dozens of feet away.

He hadn’t had a chance to retrieve it yet, and the anger on his face was practically palpable.

The Late-stage Golden Core from the Abyss Sect silently took a step to the side, inconspicuously blocking Li Yuan’s path of retreat to the right.

They exchanged a look and attacked simultaneously.

Blood Slaughter Zhenren pushed his palms forward, and dense, bloody Evil Qi coalesced into a curtain of blood that blotted out the sky as it bore down from the front.

The Late-stage Golden Core from the Abyss Sect pointed a finger, and a jet-black Demon Serpent of Demonic Qi shot forth, bypassing the blood curtain to strike from the flank.

Their combined assault, one from the front and one from the side, left Li Yuan almost no room to maneuver.

Li Yuan’s right hand formed a hand seal.

A wisp of his essence blood was instantly drawn from within him. Demonic Qi, carrying the Qi Blood, rushed from his body and coalesced a few feet in front of him, forming a crimson figure with an aura identical to his own.

Demon Blood Substitute Skill.

The moment the substitute formed, it charged headlong into the combined assault of the blood curtain and the Demon Serpent.

BOOM.

The blood curtain swallowed the substitute, and the Abyss Sect Golden Core’s Demonic Qi serpent coiled around it to crush it. A violent explosion of power ripped through the canyon, sending out shockwaves and a spray of shattered rock.

The substitute lasted only a single breath under the combined assault before violently shattering into a bloody mist. But that one breath was enough.

In the same instant the substitute blocked the attack, Li Yuan’s real body was already moving.

He didn’t retreat. Instead, he charged toward Blood Slaughter Zhenren.

Teleportation Skill.

His real body vanished, reappearing an instant later thirty feet to Blood Slaughter Zhenren’s side. The Spatial Spiritual Artifact, blasted away by the aftershock of the slash, was suspended in midair, slowly rotating. It was about ten feet from Blood Slaughter Zhenren, and about ten feet from Li Yuan.

Blood Slaughter Zhenren reacted in a flash, his right hand shooting out to retrieve the artifact.

But Li Yuan’s left hand was faster. He snatched the Spatial Spiritual Artifact, now free of its master’s control.

Blood Slaughter Zhenren’s fingers closed on empty air. His expression changed drastically.

"You’re courting death!"

Enraged, Blood Slaughter Zhenren attacked, a bloody light tearing through the air. The Abyss Sect Golden Core caught up as well, and their attacks landed almost simultaneously where Li Yuan had been.

But Li Yuan was no longer there.

Teleportation Skill combined with Demon Shadow Step.

His real body left an afterimage as he silently shifted dozens of feet away. His figure flickered like a phantom between the canyon walls and scattered boulders, each reappearance precisely calculated to be in a blind spot of the two Late-stage Golden Core cultivators’ Divine Sense.

His Perfection Realm Teleportation Skill left no spatial ripples, and his Great Success Realm Demon Shadow Step leaked no trace of Demonic Qi. By combining the two Body Techniques, alternating between instant-teleportation and high-speed movement, he ensured his pursuers’ Divine Sense was always half a beat behind.

After a few breaths, Li Yuan’s figure shot out of the canyon, breaking their encirclement.

Blood Slaughter Zhenren’s enraged roar echoed from behind, but neither of them gave chase with their full strength.

Li Yuan understood why.

’Their main objective had been the Spirit Ruins Secret Realm. The realm was now destroyed and its core was gone, but there might still be things they needed among the ruins.’

’Cleaning up the aftermath was clearly more important to them than chasing down a fellow Demon Cultivator with ridiculously unpredictable movement techniques.’

A sea of Demonic Qi from within his body gathered in his palm, constantly being consumed by the collapsing core.

After fleeing for a hundred miles, Li Yuan found refuge in a hidden underground cave.

He looked down at the two items in his hands.

In his left hand was the Spatial Spiritual Artifact he had just stolen: a grayish-white, shuttle-shaped object covered in Space Runes. It was of a high grade.

In his right hand was the collapsing core.

By now, the core’s vibrations were even more violent. Both of Li Yuan’s forearms were covered in a dense network of fine cuts, and his Demonic Qi consumption was approaching a dangerous threshold.

Li Yuan focused his intent on the Spatial Spiritual Artifact in his left hand.

He poured in his Spiritual Power, and the Space Runes on the artifact’s surface lit up in sequence. The artifact’s main function was to isolate spatial fluctuations; Blood Slaughter Zhenren had originally used it to contain the core.

Li Yuan slowly pushed the core into the field of Space Runes generated by the artifact.

The grayish-white light of the runes enveloped the core’s surface, suppressing the majority of the spatial vibrations.

The cutting sensation on Li Yuan’s arms weakened abruptly, and the drain on his Demonic Qi slowed to a manageable rate.

But the brightness of the runes on the artifact’s surface was visibly fading.

’This artifact’s grade is too low. The spatial power radiating from the red-tier collapsing core far exceeds its capacity. The containment is only temporary; it won’t hold for long.’

’Blood Slaughter Zhenren might have had another method, but I have a better one.’

Li Yuan didn’t hesitate.

Seizing the window of opportunity while the spatial vibrations were at their minimum, Li Yuan channeled both Demonic Qi and Spiritual Power into his palms. He reached his right hand into the field of runes and clamped his fingers tightly onto the core’s surface.

Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi seeped into the core through the pores of his palm.

This time, without the interference of the raging spatial shards, his Spiritual Power finally managed to adhere to the core’s outer shell. A searing sense of connection spread from his palm through all his meridians, as if he had pressed his hand to a red-hot iron plate, but Li Yuan gritted his teeth and refused to let go.

The connection forged ahead, inch by painful inch. His Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi intertwined to form a delicate net that completely enveloped the core.

’Equip.’

[Equipped: Small Realm Collapse Core (Complete)]

[Small Realm Collapse Core (Red) is now in effect.]

The core in his palm jolted, then transformed into a flash of scarlet light and vanished into his equipment slot.

His hand was empty.

Having lost its target, the light from the grayish-white Spatial Spiritual Artifact’s runes dimmed, and it lay quietly in Li Yuan’s palm.

Li Yuan looked down at his hands.

From his fingertips to his forearms, a dense network of wounds, some deep enough to reveal bone, were still oozing blood. But under the dual effects of his River of Qi Blood and the healing properties of his Spiritual Power, the edges of the wounds had already begun to slowly knit together.

In his equipment slot, the red-tier item shone with a steady, fierce light, completely different from the others. An unprecedented sense of control over space spread from deep within him, seeping into every meridian and every inch of his bones.

The space around him became clearer in his perception than it had ever been before.

The cracks in the cave walls, the flow of the air, even the subtle distribution of spatial stress within the hundreds of feet of earth above his head—all of it was revealed to him in exquisite detail.

Li Yuan leaned against the cave wall, closed his eyes, and began circulating his energy to recover his Demonic Qi.

The passive recovery from his Spirit Vein’s nurturing ability and the Spiritual Qi supply from his nine portable Spirit Veins activated simultaneously. His ’Demon and Spirit of the Same Origin’ ability began converting the influx of Spiritual Power into Demonic Qi, replenishing his nearly exhausted reserves.