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--- Chapter 536 ---
Another week passed without any hurdle.
Surprisingly, Han Tianyi decided to stay in Eastsea City for another week or two. He was staying because he had never doubted Han Yuan's ability, but because he wanted to personally monitor the absorption process and ensure no hidden side effects affected his grandson or the girls.
Thankfully, his worries proved entirely unfounded. In fact, upon absorbing their respective Alter Spirit Bones, everyone's cultivation and overall combat capabilities surged at a breathtaking rate.
Mu Xi was the first to benefit, successfully integrating the 100,000-year-old Spirit Bone dropped by the 150,000-year-old Deep Abyss Thunder-Patterned Jellyfish.
Han Yuan had refined it into a powerful external 'tentacle' Spirit Bone—manifesting as six twisting, braided threads of deep red lightning that wrapped around her back like secondary limbs.
She immediately named them the Thousand Manifestation Arms, having already begun developing an unorthodox combat style that used multiple arms to wield different weapons simultaneously, allowing her to adapt to any battlefield situation instantly.
The Thousand Manifestation Arms granted her two devastating, high-tier Spirit Skills.
The first was the Great Thunder-Patterned Body, which transformed Mu Xi's body into a pure solar-flare elemental state, increasing all base attributes by 300%. In this state, her speed improved to the extreme that the world appeared to stop around her.
The second skill was Great Thunder Berserk, but Mu Xi personally called it Twice Critical. It multiplied her damage output based on the number of lightning tentacles she could condense. With six tentacles active, her strike power surged by a staggering six times!
Unfortunately, both skills consumed a colossal amount of Spirit Power. Mu Xi could only pout and complain to Han Yuan that having such terrifying power was useless if her spirit power reserve drained in seconds.
Nevertheless, after absorbing the 100,000-year-old Alter Spirit Bone, Mu Xi's cultivation advanced, reaching Level 40. Yet, rather than absorbing a second Spirit Soul, she chose to let her Scarlet Thunder Lion King condense her fourth Spirit Ring over time.
By then, Mu Xi would become a genuine Spirit Ancestor at under twelve years old—a feat that placed her firmly among the peak prodigies of the continent.
Next was Ouyang Zixin. Her growth was equally astonishing, her current aura now effortlessly rivalling the elite youths of the major factions.
The Alter Spirit Bone refined from the Ink Jade Bamboo Spirit Bone was the Ink Jade Heart.
Utilizing the unyielding, resilient nature of the Ink Jade Bamboo, rapidly nourished with the undying vitality of Life Gold, Han Yuan had refined a second functional 'heart' within Ouyang Zixin's chest.
Normally, forcibly introducing a foreign, powerful organ into a human body would cause biological rejection, very much like a certain 100,000-year-old Spirit Beast that had once tried to swallow a massive chunk of Life Gold, only to nearly implode from energy overload.
However, Ouyang Zixin's body was uniquely suited to it, possessing both the essence and blessings of the Goddess of Life.
The Ink Jade Heart perfectly completed the circulation between her inner vitality and divine blessings, permanently stabilizing the Goddess of Life's blessing while triggering a profound evolution in her Martial Soul.
The Ink Jade Heart granted a passive Spirit Skill: Resilient Ink Jade Heart, Unafraid of Hardship.
This skill allowed Ouyang Zixin to continuously reinforce herself and her allies through her spirit power, granting near-absolute immunity to minor debuffs and immense resistance against high-level pressure fields or spiritual suppression.
Her Martial Soul successfully evolved into the Ink Jade Bamboo, merely a single step away from reaching the legendary Black Jade Divine Bamboo tier.
This evolved form granted Ouyang Zixin an extraordinarily tenacious life force, drastically enhancing both her physical durability and spiritual reserves.
Furthermore, they discovered an incredible secondary trait: Ouyang Zixin's Martial Soul possessed a dual-form ability!
While not a Twin Martial Soul wielder in the traditional sense, her Ink Jade Bamboo could morph into a Food-Type support form.
In this state, her healing and buffing capabilities were in no way inferior to the renowned Nine-Heart Begonia or even the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda.
Unsurprisingly, her cultivation leaped from an ordinary Level 17 straight to Level 27, cementing her position as a true genius.
Then came Xu Xiaoyan. The little girl had already absorbed the starlight-infused 'pinky' Alter Spirit Bone prepared by Han Yuan.
The spirit bone granted her an offensive skill, allowing her to fire a high-speed, spinning blade of condensed starlight.
Although she hadn't fully mastered its control, the skill provided her with much-needed offensive coverage. She spent the rest of the week teasing Han Yuan, giggling that he had given her a literal "pinky promise" with the Spirit Bone.
While a thousand-year Spirit Bone offered little-to-no energy gains, it still pushed Xu Xiaoyan's cultivation to Level 16, an incredible improvement considering she was only six years old, nearly catching up to Ouyang Zixin's previous level!
Thanks to Xu Xiaoyan, Han Yuan also gifted the Water Buffalo Toe Alter Bone to her older brother, Xu Xiaoyu.
Although the toe bone possessed a water attribute, water served as the foundational origin of ice. The bone stabilized Xu Xiaoyu's cultivation and drastically improved his potential.
After all, Xu Xiaoyu was going to join their future team in DND Online. Han Yuan couldn't allow him to lag far behind. Even so, the poor boy remained utterly terrified of Mu Xi, hiding behind his little sister every time the fiery girl walked into the room.
Finally, there was Han Yuan himself.
Though he still intentionally suppressed at the Level 30 Half-Step Spirit Elder bottleneck, the Alter Spirit Bone he absorbed yielded immense improvements to his arsenal.
The Evil Spirit Orca Leg Bone had been reshaped into a pair of conjoined, obsidian spiral horns mounted at his forehead, enhanced by the essence of the Great Evil Orca's bloodline and the spatial-devouring aura of the World-Devouring Kunpeng.
He named it the Evil Spirit Horn, which granted him two exceptionally powerful and functional skills.
The first was Evil Breaker. This two-phase ability allowed him to imprint Evil Breaking Marks onto his prey, drastically weakening their physical defense and mental stability as overwhelming fear gnawed at their very minds.
Any follow-up attack landed on a marked target dealt double damage, and the scaling grew with the number of marks applied.
Furthermore, successfully slaying a target marked by Evil Breaker Marks permanently absorbed a tiny fraction of their spiritual energy, granting Han Yuan deep, intuitive insights into three new concepts.
The Concept of Fear, the Concept of the Hunt, and the Concept of Predation.
The second skill was equally good, called Mirror of Destruction.
It allowed Han Yuan to manifest smooth, jet-black mirrors condensed from Underworld Water, leveraging their shared origin essence.
However, this was no ordinary mirror.
The sheer, raw destruction energy within the mirror was so overbearing that any elemental or energy-based attack striking its surface, including pure spiritual attacks, would be instantly reflected at the attacker as a pure destruction explosion.
Over the past week, Han Yuan had also tested the Mirror of Destruction's limits. At full compression, a single mirror could absorb and reflect a full-power strike from a Spirit Emperor before cracking and automatically repairing itself.
He could even shatter the mirror into hundreds of shards, increasing his defensive coverage across a wide radius in exchange for slightly lower reflection ability.
With his arsenal further expanded, Han Yuan's physical body was also improved by the Alter Spirit Bone and the complete refinement of the 100,000-year-old Whale Glue.
He could now comfortably match the raw physical strength of a standard Spirit Saint!
.
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Meanwhile, in nearby Glorybound City, a gloomy atmosphere hung over the beach.
"Why... why did it turn out like this?!" A little, golden-haired girl slammed her fist against a boulder, shattering the massive rock into fine powder.
Behind her stood a tall woman draped in black robes, her expression grim and unsightly.
After spending weeks investigating the surrounding sea for traces of the Silver Dragon King's presence, they had unraveled an incredibly ugly truth.
They had indeed located the Silver Dragon King's Divine Core... but the core existed within a human child. The true soul of the Silver Dragon King was also entirely gone.
"The Silver Dragon King..." The golden-haired girl wept, tears of pure rage and grief streaming down her tender face.
"My sister..."
"IS DEAD!" She roared at the sky, her voice echoing across the ocean like thunder.
She hated this world!
She hated the Divine Realm!
She hated the Gods!
Slowly, the girl turned her head toward the skyline of Glorybound City in the distance, her eyes transforming into slit-vertical, crimson-gold dragon pupils bursting with uncontrolled slaughter intent.
"Tianyu..." She whispered, her voice laced with absolute authority of the Spirit Beast Leader.
"Kill them..."
"No... destroy them all."
"Erase this city from existence! Bury every living soul here alongside my sister!"
"And that human child... I will kill her myself! I will take everything my sister owned from her!" She added with burning rage.
The black-robed woman bowed her head, her golden dragon eyes flashing with solemn, terrifying resolve.
"As you command, My Lord!"