Void Cultivation

Chapter 292 - 291

After striking with his finger, the small person took another step forward. At this point, his body had already begun to fade from existence, turning hazy and indistinct, as though he no longer fully belonged to this world.

Yet his gaze remained cold and apathetic, devoid of emotion.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared before the captain.

Even if she could unleash power comparable to the Spirit Core Formation Realm, before a Nascent Soul Transformation expert, she was nothing.

This was because a Nascent Soul Transformation cultivator no longer relied solely on absorbing spirit energy. Instead, they drew upon the power of the world itself to form their Nascent Soul.

A Nascent Soul was fundamentally different from a physical body. It was a being formed from the very essence of heaven and earth, fused with an indomitable will.

The power it wielded was no longer personal, it was the power of the world.

Before the descent of God, before chaos consumed everything, Nascent Soul experts were regarded as supreme existences wherever they went. Their presence alone could dominate regions, and only others within the same realm could contend with them.

They were beings that stood on the threshold of immortality.

But all of that changed... when God descended.

After His arrival, the power of the world became corrupted, tainted by a strange and corrosive substance.

This substance eroded purity.

It weakened the Nascent Soul’s control over the world while simultaneously altering the very foundation of those who cultivated it.

What was once a path toward immortality began to twist.

The bodies of cultivators, their foundations, even their future trajectories, everything was gradually reshaped.

Step by step, they were led away from immortality... and toward divinity.

By the time they reached the peak of the Nascent Soul realm, cultivators were left with only two choices:

Break through and become a divine cultivator...

or break through and become a divine practitioner.

There was no longer a path to true immortality.

The reason the Nascent Soul before her was so terrifying was precisely because it had not been tainted.

It still wielded the pure power of the world.

It was a being walking the original path, one that led to immortality.

And this world...

This world they stood in was the consciousness of a great expert. The power of this plane remained uncorrupted, pure and free from the tainted hand of God.

When the small person appeared before the captain, his lips moved slightly as he muttered a string of indiscernible incantations.

Then, he clenched his fist.

At that moment, it was as if the entire world responded.

An invisible force descended, vast and crushing, wrapping tightly around the captain from all directions.

Her expression changed drastically.

The air around her thickened. Space itself seemed to solidify, binding her in place. Every inch of her body was subjected to an overwhelming pressure, as though the world itself sought to erase her existence.

With a roar, she struggled violently and hurled the black spear toward the small person.

The spear tore through the air, carrying with it the hatred and resentment of countless malicious spirits.

But just as it arrived before him,

He took a single step to the side.

That one step caused the spear to miss him by an absurd margin, as though space itself had shifted to accommodate his movement. It was not evasion.

It was displacement.

Without even glancing at the attack, the small person raised his other hand and pressed it downward.

Boom.

The captain’s body trembled violently.

In that instant, she felt as though the entire world had turned against her, pressing down on her, crushing her from every direction, seeking to grind her into nothingness.

Cracks began to form across her body.

Her bones groaned. Her flesh distorted.

A pained cry escaped her lips as her figure slowly began to collapse under the immense pressure. Blood seeped from her pores, and her vision blurred.

At this rate, within a few breaths, she would be reduced to nothing more than a splatter of flesh and blood.

However,

Those few breaths of time were enough.

The small person’s body, already unstable, began to scatter into fragments.

What once appeared solid now flickered uncontrollably, turning increasingly transparent.

The overwhelming power he wielded came at a cost.

Without sufficient support from the world plane, and after forcibly exerting such authority, his existence could no longer be maintained.

His body began to break apart into dust.

Recognizing this, he withdrew his power without hesitation.

The crushing force surrounding the captain dissipated instantly.

Rather than finishing her off, he chose to retreat.

His figure flickered as he prepared to return to the body he had emerged from.

But before he disappeared completely, he turned his gaze toward the captain.

That same apathetic expression remained unchanged.

His lips moved slightly.

Though no sound seemed to travel, the meaning of his words echoed clearly:

"The power of the world... is greater than the beyond..."

With that, his body collapsed into countless motes of light and surged back into the white-haired man.

The moment those words faded,

A small symbol suddenly appeared in the air.

It was golden, radiant, and filled with an indescribably pure intent.

Even as the last traces of the small person vanished, that symbol remained.

At the same time, the golden symbol shot toward the captain.

The instant it moved, an overwhelming sense of calamity descended upon her.

It was not just danger, it was inevitability.

Her instincts screamed.

Without hesitation, the captain forced herself to stand and retreat rapidly. The ground beneath her feet cracked as she pushed her body to its limits, creating distance in a desperate attempt to escape.

Shock and a trace of fear lingered in her eyes.

But beneath those emotions... there was madness.

Pure, unrestrained madness.

In the blink of an eye, the symbol crossed the vast distance between them and appeared directly before her, as if space itself had been erased.

The moment it arrived, her body trembled violently.

An invisible force locked onto her existence.

It felt as though her very life was being siphoned away.

Her skin rapidly lost its color, turning pale and lifeless. Wrinkles began to form as her flesh withered at a visible rate. Her vitality drained away, her aura collapsing inward as if something was devouring her from the inside out.

Right before her eyes, her hands shriveled, her veins darkened, and her once-powerful body began to dry and decay.

All of this happened within just a few breaths.

From the moment the small person appeared to now, barely any time had passed.

Yet the captain had already been pushed to the brink of death.

Her body was battered and soaked in blood. Several of her internal organs had already caved in from the previous attack. Now, with the descent of the symbol, the boundary between life and death loomed over her like an executioner’s blade.

And with every passing moment, that feeling grew stronger.

’If I don’t do something... I’ll turn into a bag of bones in no time!’

A flicker of ferocity flashed through her fading eyes.

Without hesitation, she activated her Soul Demon Art.

Boom!

Ghostly white flames erupted from her body, surging outward in violent waves before coiling back and engulfing her entire figure.

In an instant, she was bathed in eerie white fire.

The flames did not burn her, instead, they fed on something deeper.

Her soul.

With a cold harrumph, she forced her body backward, retreating with everything she had left. But the symbol pursued relentlessly, locking onto her like an inescapable curse.

No matter how fast she moved, it followed. Closing the distance again in an instant.

Gritting her teeth, the captain raised her trembling hand and formed a series of intricate hand seals. Her fingers moved rapidly, leaving faint afterimages in the air.

The moment the final seal was completed, the white flames around her surged violently.

Their intensity multiplied severalfold.

Her body, which had been on the verge of complete withering, began to slow its decay. The draining of her life force weakened slightly...

But it did not stop.

Her expression darkened.

Without wasting another moment, she reached into her storage and pulled out a small, rotten piece of wood.

The wood looked ordinary and completely worthless.

But the moment it appeared, the surrounding air distorted slightly.

Without hesitation, she spat onto it.

Then, she crushed it within her palm.

"Dead Oracle: Seventh Decree... Shattering Earth Cracks!"

The moment the wood shattered, her body jerked violently.

Her already pale face turned even whiter, as if all blood had been drained from it. Thin cracks suddenly appeared across her skin, spreading rapidly like fractures on a broken statue.

From those cracks, black liquid began to seep out.

It oozed slowly at first, then more rapidly, carrying a foul aura of death.

At the same time the golden symbol above her flickered.

A strange light pulsed across its surface.

Then cracks started appearing. Fine lines spread across the symbol, mirroring the exact same pattern as the fractures on the captain’s body.

It was as if her damage... was being transferred.

Or reflected.

However, the symbol did not shatter, it merely trembled. This was a direct attack of a Nascent Soul Transformation realm cultivator by using the power of the world.

It could not be broken easily.

Seeing this, the captain’s expression twisted.

It wasn’t enough.

At that moment, the two white-haired clones, who had been blasted away earlier, regained their senses.

The instant the small person returned to the white-haired man’s dantian, their movements resumed without hesitation.

They lunged toward the captain simultaneously.

Their killing intent surged but the captain ignored them completely. Instead, she brought out another item.

A crystal block of ice.