Chapter 604 - 543: Endless

Chapter 604: Chapter 543: Endless

The ninth day.

The number nine often symbolizes a cycle.

As the day ended, the scorching sun that had hung high above the Desert Sea for nine days at last began its slow descent.

As if an eternal night were falling, the world was plunged into a pitch-blackness where one could not see their hand in front of their face. Between heaven and earth, the only visible light came from the brilliant flashes of Magic Techniques amid the bloody slaughter.

Within the boundless darkness, the bloody path across the Desert Sea, carved out over several days of brutal combat, now stretched another thousand miles from south to north, deeper into the unknown wastes.

But Chu Mu’s situation remained largely unchanged.

He was still facing an endless Sand-tailed Scorpion Tide, still locked in a ceaseless slaughter.

Perhaps the only saving grace was that, so far, aside from the endless Sand-tailed Scorpion Tide, nothing had appeared that Chu Mu was utterly powerless to resist.

The legendary Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother had yet to make an appearance.

As for Tier Three Sand-tailed Scorpions, only the peculiar spatial variant had shown up.

The rest were essentially all Tier One and Tier Two, forming the endless Sand-tailed Scorpion Tide.

After the ceaseless slaughter, Wangcai had long since been overwhelmed and was forcibly recalled into the Qiankun Bag by Chu Mu to recuperate.

In the vast Desert Sea, under the eternal night, only one man and one sword continued to carve a bloody path through the endless Beast Tide.

The three-foot blade displayed no profound phenomena. It was like a mundane sword, employing mundane Sword Forms. Empowered by immense physical Power, his style was simple and brutal—and in this endless slaughter, brutally effective.

One slash after another, one step after another.

Everywhere he went, he left a trail of blood-soaked sand.

Chu Mu’s expression had grown calm, almost to the point of apathy.

There were far too many questions he couldn’t answer.

He couldn’t understand the numerous mysteries surrounding the plaza at the entrance of this Ruins Cave Mansion.

He couldn’t understand why this boundless Desert Sea existed within the ruins of a Cave Mansion, or why it was home to the Sand-tailed Scorpions, a species that had unleashed devastating catastrophes in ancient times.

He couldn’t understand why these endless Sand-tailed Scorpions were so relentlessly trying to kill him.

What he understood even less was, if their intent was so madly relentless, why had the legendary Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother only used these endless Low Tier Sand-tailed Scorpions to besiege him?

’Is it toying with me, like a cat with a mouse?’

’Or is there some other, unknown reason?’

Chu Mu couldn’t figure any of it out.

At present, he clearly lacked any spare capacity to unravel these mysteries.

All he could do was act like a puppet on a string. Upon entering this place, he had been forced onto a bloody path with no end in sight, trapped in a ceaseless slaughter.

As his Sword Technique returned to its simplest form and the ceaseless slaughter tempered his blade, the experience became a crucible for his Sword Intent. It was just like that time in the Demon Realm, when he had faced a similarly endless horde of Illusory Demons while performing the Refinement of the Heart of the Demon Realm.

It was a perfect example of the old saying: "Between life and death lies great terror, but also great opportunity."

This saying was widespread in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

One could use the threat of death, walking the line between life and death, to stimulate one’s potential and grasp the mysteries of Cultivation.

It was a well-known, albeit special, Cultivation Technique in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

This was especially common for a Mental Realm Cultivation whose focus was Unrivaled Attack.

If one’s attacks were unrivaled, then that quality, without a doubt, had to be demonstrated in the heat of battle.

However, while Chu Mu believed this, the existence of his Spiritual Radiance made him a firmer believer in the adage that a wise man avoids standing beneath a crumbling wall.

But this situation was clearly out of his hands.

Under the constant threat of death, his nerves were stretched taut. Within his Sea of Consciousness, the Divine Soul Blade was tempered with every swing he made, growing ever brighter, more brilliant, and purer!

Yet Chu Mu seemed completely unaware of this. Or rather, at this moment, he could not afford to be distracted by the state of his Cultivation.

After all, with his life hanging in the balance, any cause for celebration would have to wait until he survived this crisis. Otherwise, it would all be for nothing.

Top-grade Elixirs, which had once been precious, were now consumed one after another, restoring his heavily depleted Essence, Qi, and Spirit and sustaining his bloody advance.

’The Elixirs... there aren’t many left.’

Several hours passed. After covering dozens more miles, Chu Mu spared a wisp of his Divine Sense to check his Storage Ring. As he did, his apathetic expression finally wavered.

His decades of secluded Cultivation at the bottom of the sea had consumed nearly all his accumulated Elixirs. To prepare for this venture into the ruins, he had used what few Spiritual Materials he had left, Refining a batch of top-grade Elixirs for restoring Magical Power and healing wounds, just in case of an emergency.

But ever since he had stepped out of the so-called "trial," he had been trapped in this endless, bloody slaughter for nine days without a moment’s rest.

The only things that had kept him going were the very Elixirs he had prepared for such an emergency.

Otherwise, he would have long ago been worn down and killed by the endless Sand-tailed Scorpion Tide.

Now, the Storage Space that was once piled high with mountains of Spiritual Materials was all but empty.

Only a handful of the stacked Jade Bottles remained.

’I have twelve ordinary Elixirs... and thirty-two Pill Pattern Elixirs left...’

Chu Mu’s gaze flickered. As he looked out again at the endless horde in the darkness, a sliver of despair pierced through his clear state of mind.

It seemed he had truly... fallen into an inescapable deathtrap!

In the instant that Chu Mu’s blade faltered, several cold glints of light flashed before him.

It was as if they had been lying in wait, poised to strike at this exact moment of distraction.

Several glints of cold light appeared amidst a ripple in space, instantly shooting straight for the point between Chu Mu’s eyebrows.

An attack meant to shatter his Sea of Consciousness and extinguish his Divine Soul.

To eliminate the threat of this outsider, Chu Mu, at its very source.

Chu Mu instinctively retreated at high speed, but in the opening his retreat created, more cold glints of light appeared at his sides.

Under the Sand-tailed Scorpion Mother’s control, every single Sand-tailed Scorpion was a potential assassin lurking in the shadows.

The slightest opening could become a fatal vulnerability.

Now, Chu Mu’s momentary lapse in concentration had instantly snowballed into a chain of deadly attacks!

In such a perilous situation, Chu Mu could no longer afford to conserve his Magical Power.

A torrent of his Essence, Qi, and Spirit erupted forth. The sharp edge of his Sword Intent, which he had kept tightly restrained, now swept out in all directions like a tidal wave.

In that instant, time and space seemed to freeze. For hundreds of yards around him, the surging Sand-tailed Scorpions—even the Tier Three spatial scorpions that had just launched their surprise attack—were all instantly frozen in place.

The next moment, a brilliant light emerged, like a bright moon crossing the sky, bringing a flash of pure, flawless radiance to the endless gloom.

It was followed by a second flash, a third, a fourth...

In just a brief moment, countless flashes of brilliant light transformed into a web of sword strikes that made one’s very Divine Soul tremble, crisscrossing throughout the Domain...

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