novelraw Chapter 199 : Scene Hair
Chapter 199 : Scene Hair
"Boom!"
"Rumble—"
The ground beneath their feet suddenly trembled violently. The dormant volcano erupted on a large scale, fire filling the sky. The heavens were dyed a terrifying fiery red that made one's heart tremble. The world seemed immersed in lava. A snake-like stream of molten rock shot out from the volcano's mouth, aiming directly at Chu Sang!
Her expression changed as she hurriedly dodged. The entire area was engulfed in flames, leaving nowhere to land. In the next second, she was swallowed by the sea of fire.
After successfully consuming its target, the flame retreated back into the volcano's mouth.
Chu Sang was still not completely unconscious, despite the excruciating pain of being burned alive. She instinctively tried to raise a spiritual energy defense to escape control, but within the flames there seemed to be a powerful vortex-like suction force. Her body rapidly sank downwards. With a heavy thud as she landed, her vision finally cleared.
What met her eyes was a dilapidated palace that looked as if it hadn't been inhabited for thousands of years. Indeed, it was impossible for anyone to exist here now.
Several large characters were carved crookedly on the ancient palace gate.
The benefits of extensive reading manifested at this moment. Chu Sang had seen this type of text in ancient books before. It seemed to be an ancient script of the demon race. After struggling to decipher it for a while, she finally recognized that these characters probably meant "Demon King's Palace." It appeared this place should be the palace of a certain Demon King.
She wondered if there were any treasures left behind in this palace.
Just as she was about to push open the door, a burst of intense fire power surged out from within, transforming into the enormous, ferocious phantom of a demon beast that roared as it charged towards her.
"Be careful."
The fire-red bow spirit materialized. Chu Sang gripped the long bow in response, stepping into the air. A streak of fire-red light shot towards the demon beast phantom, an arrow piercing its eye!
"Roar!"
The demon beast howled and spat out another sun-like ball of flame. Chu Sang quickly summoned a Golden Armor Talisman while simultaneously applying several Speed Talismans to her body, dodging the meteor-like barrage of fireballs.
This demon beast phantom should be a trace of soul left behind by the owner of this Demon King's Palace in life. Its strength was roughly at the early Divine Transformation stage. She currently only had early Nascent Soul cultivation. Although invincible within the Nascent Soul stage, once past Nascent Soul was another great hurdle.
There was an immense gap between the Nascent Soul and Divine Transformation stages.
The environment here was quite peculiar. She must have fallen into a space within the volcano. Scorching heat waves and rolling flames and lava were everywhere. She, with her top-grade fire spirit root, gritted her teeth. With some techniques, she could resist it. However, any other life form that fell into this place would likely be instantly dissolved. So she couldn't rely on external forces now and could only use her own power to confront this Divine Transformation stage Demon King phantom before her.
Chu Sang now formally experienced the power of the Divine Transformation stage with her own strength.
That claw attack came with overwhelming heat waves. Even though Chu Sang had applied several Speed Talismans and was utilizing her movement techniques, pushing her speed almost to the limit, she could only dodge the center of the attack. Merely the residual energy waves sent her flying back several meters, crashing into a ruined wall before sliding down. A taste of blood welled up in her throat.
She swallowed this mouthful of blood, quickly feeding herself a bottle of Spirit Replenishing Pills, rapidly absorbing the medicinal power. Then she charged forward with her sword again.
The next second, boom! She was violently thrown back once more.
She charged again, persistent and unyielding, like an annoying cockroach that wouldn't die. That Demon King soul phantom seemed surprised that this human cultivator could be so troublesome! Its aura became even more uncontrollably frenzied, its attacks growing more ferocious.
The reckless attacks without technique also exposed more of its weaknesses.
Chu Sang endured her body being gradually consumed by flames. After successfully wearing down the Demon King for several more rounds, she flashed behind it, her gaze suddenly sharpening.
She had found the weak point!
Gathering all the remaining spiritual power in her body into her palm, she shot an arrow at the demon beast phantom's vital point. That arrow flew like a falling meteor, fiercely piercing through it.
"Boom!"
The soul exploded.
The entire space trembled as if about to collapse. Half of the Demon King's Palace crumbled from the energy impact. Chu Sang was once again violently thrown dozens of meters away. Even though she had preemptively used a Golden Armor Talisman for defense, the shock nearly displaced her internal organs. That mouthful of blood stuck in her throat finally spurted out.
To guard against any unexpected attacks, she ignored the bone-breaking pain coursing through her body, quickly adjusted her state, and crawled up from the ground. Wiping the blood from her face, she vigilantly scanned her surroundings.
Sure enough, almost the instant she stood up, another phantom charged at her.
It was even stronger than the previous phantom!
Chu Sang didn't even have a chance to catch her breath before hurriedly parrying with another sword strike. Although this demon beast phantom's strength was clearly stronger than the last one, she found it easier to battle than before?
She was stunned for a moment, amazed to discover that although her physical body had been severely injured time and again, the recovery speed after each injury was becoming faster and faster. Moreover, after defeating each demon beast phantom, a strand of light would form from the phantom and enter her body, seemingly tempering her physical strength. Her ability to endure beatings was increasing dramatically!
After killing several demon beast phantoms, the power of the subsequent phantoms had already increased to mid Divine Transformation stage.
For a cultivator at early Nascent Soul stage like her to take a full-power attack from a mid Divine Transformation stage entity and still be able to stand up and move about freely the next second, even taunting that Demon King phantom verbally - it wasn't just the phantom that was getting stronger, but her as well!
These Demon King phantoms seemed endless. After defeating one, another would appear, each stronger than the last. Finally, Chu Sang faced a soul at the peak of late Divine Transformation stage.
She optimistically thought that the outcome would either be death by its hand or... still death by its hand.
Since she would die either way, sooner or later, she might as well go all out in a desperate gamble. Gripping the Primordial Soul-Chaser, she actively approached the soul several times. Relying on the black sword's powerful offensive capabilities, she successfully found its vital point. After a narrow escape from death, she pierced through it with one sword strike. But this completely drained her of spiritual power. She collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath, truly at her limit.
If another one came, she really wouldn't be able to hold on.
Fortunately, after killing that peak late Divine Transformation stage demon beast soul, no new demon beast phantoms appeared.
Chu Sang waited a while longer. Confirming that no phantoms were manifesting, she guessed it must be truly over. It seemed that Demon King's cultivation in life had stopped at the peak of late Divine Transformation stage.
She breathed a sigh of relief, took some medicine to adjust her condition, then stood up and looked at the bow spirit. "What was this, giving me a show of force?"
"What else could it be for? Of course it was to devour you," Karma Burns the Three Realms said lazily, hands folded behind his head. "With great power comes great responsibility. Your top-grade fire spirit root is more tempting than you imagine."
"You're essentially a top-grade mobile fire source nurtured by heaven and earth. Devouring your top-grade fire spirit root would be equivalent to thousands of years of nourishment from earth fire. It might even allow that dead Demon King to reconstitute a physical body and come back to life."
Karma Burns the Three Realms had been tempted by this top-grade fire spirit root talent at the time, which is why he rushed to contract Chu Sang, preventing this top-grade fire spirit root from being snatched away by other unworthy spirit tools.
However, that trace of demon beast soul had no intelligence, retaining only the instinct to devour. It rushed over eagerly, wanting to swallow her to become its own nourishment.
She smiled mockingly, "That trace of demon beast soul wanted to devour you, but unfortunately lacked the ability. Instead, it was devoured by you, becoming nourishment to temper your physical body."
Chu Sang felt her body. Her physical strength had indeed increased greatly. Even her meridians had been expanded through repeated impacts of spirit fire, with the fire spiritual power flowing through her body becoming more concentrated and pure.
Earlier, she had rather immodestly said she was invincible within the Nascent Soul stage. Now, she could boast even more shamelessly that she could fight even at the Divine Transformation stage!
"What place is this exactly?" She turned her head to look at the completely collapsed Demon King's Palace, feeling somewhat regretful.
The soul had been completely destroyed, and it even collapsed the palace. It really didn't let her take any advantage.
"This is the core of the Fire Plateau."
The bow spirit sensed the dense, pure fire spiritual power of this place and was secretly shocked. "Ah, to be honest, this is a good place, much more useful than those broken things left in that Demon King's Palace... If you could wholeheartedly cultivate here for a few decades, you might be able to break through to the legendary supreme realm!"
A few decades?
Chu Sang's mouth twitched. A red object flew past her eyes. She quickly looked and saw it was the Exotic Fire flying out, hovering in the air, actively absorbing and refining the fire spiritual power of this place!
Chu Sang also used her divine sense to probe the surroundings but didn't find an exit. However, she wasn't worried. There was still Third Senior Brother outside. He was probably looking for her now and would surely have a way to get her out.
Since she couldn't leave for now anyway, Chu Sang simply calmed her mind, sat cross-legged to meditate on the spot, with her five vital points facing the sky, absorbing the seemingly inexhaustible and extremely pure fire spiritual power of this place.
She didn't know how much time had passed. Countless extremely pure fire spiritual energies gathered in her body. Spiritual energy continuously circulated and gathered in her meridians. The spiritual energy in her dantian had reached its saturation point, yet spiritual energy was still frantically converging into her body, almost to the point of bursting.
Her face gradually turned red with pain, as if being roasted by lava flames. As more and more spiritual energy gathered, her overburdened meridians and dantian were also about to burst!
Chu Sang quickly compressed the spiritual energy in her body, breaking through the constraints of her dantian again and again.
Under her repeated impacts of spiritual power, her dantian capacity began to show signs of expansion, becoming larger and larger... accommodating more spiritual power within.
The Nascent Soul, which had originally taken the form of a small infant in her dantian, began to slowly grow under the intense influx of spiritual power. It had hardly moved since Chu Sang advanced to the Nascent Soul stage, but now it grew from the appearance of a newborn infant to that of a seven or eight-year-old girl, like a miniature version of her younger self.
At the same time, her physical body broke through to an even more powerful realm. Her dantian's capacity became as vast as the sea, her meridians widened by another fold, and her body became even lighter, like the wind.
Chu Sang opened her eyes and exhaled a breath of turbid air. Mid Nascent Soul stage!
She clenched her fists and looked inward at her dantian.
Karma Burns the Three Realms was right. The fire spiritual energy here was indeed advancing her cultivation by leaps and bounds, more suitable for her cultivation than the spiritual energy outside. It had helped her break through the early Nascent Soul stage bottleneck that had constrained her for so long.
Unfortunately, she couldn't stay in this place for long. Chu Sang was about to take a step to leave when her foot seemed to step on something. She quickly moved her foot away and looked down, her eyes showing confusion.
This is......
Before she could react to what this thing was, the lava beneath her feet suddenly trembled violently, accompanied by a series of continuous explosive sounds. Chu Sang immediately realized that it must be Third Senior Brother opening the entrance. She picked up that object and casually tossed it into her storage bag before hurrying over.
Soon after, a crack appeared in the lava before her eyes, a very small crack that could barely accommodate one person and wouldn't last long.
Chu Sang didn't hesitate. She quickly squeezed through the closing fissure. When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the Fire Plateau.
She turned her head to look at where the flames had disappeared. Sure enough, it was that volcano mouth. She had just been sucked into the earth's core.
Mu Changqing walked over and pulled her up with one hand. "Are you alright?"
He had just finished asking when he sensed the change in her spiritual power. She had actually broken through to mid Nascent Soul stage?
She was at early Nascent Soul stage before going in, and after just half a day, she had reached mid Nascent Soul stage?
Other things would have been incinerated long ago if they went in, but not only was she unharmed, she even managed to advance a stage?
Mu Changqing tugged at his lips, feeling that she was too outrageous.
Chu Sang also noticed that the demonic power he was no longer concealing had become even more dense, almost reaching half-step Unity stage. She realized that Third Senior Brother's success in tearing open the space just now must have been due to sweeping through the Demon King's Palace, taking all the good things, which allowed his strength to increase by another level.
After leaving the Fire Plateau, they headed to the next location, the Soul-Devouring Demon Forest.
Chu Sang quickly opened her communication jade slip to find Big Senior Brother and the others to regroup, but discovered she had lost contact.
Fortunately, she had prepared in advance. In a perilous place like the demon domain, smart people always have backup plans.
So she took out a small paper crane with a tracking talisman inscribed on it. Before leaving, she had given each of her senior brothers and sisters a tracking talisman.
The small paper crane flew into the air, heading southeast.
Chu Sang and Mu Changqing exchanged a glance. She was about to draw her sword to follow when a huge black shadow flashed before her eyes. The black dragon directly swung its tail, throwing her onto its back, then carried her rushing forward.
Fast, too fast.
Chu Sang silently smoothed her messed-up scene hair.
Much faster than flying on a sword.
The environment and vegetation changed rapidly before her eyes, transitioning from the barren red soil desert to a contrasting lush green sea. The vegetation was unusually abundant, like an extremely primitive tropical rainforest. Huge trees tens of meters tall shot up into the sky, intertwined with complex green vines. It was impossible to distinguish whether they were vines or hidden venomous snake demon beasts.
Under this tropical rainforest terrain, it was even more dangerous than the Fire Plateau.
There were simply too many places here that could conceal demon beasts. The two couldn't even find a safe enough place to land.
Chu Sang also extended her divine sense along the way, scanning most of the area, but didn't find any trace of Big Senior Brother and the others.
Strange, where had they gone?