Lin Qingtong's eyes widened, her heart pounding violently. She stepped forward, sword intent surging within her as she prepared to summon her master to rush in and help Zhang Wen. But before she could move, a shadow blocked her path. The aura of a Half-Emperor pressed down with overwhelming force, rendering her unable to move even an inch.
At the same time, Zhang Wen smiled. He slowly raised both arms, spreading his hands wide as if welcoming all of fate itself. His body was covered in Gu Yisheng's blood, yet his gaze remained calm. In his right hand, he still gripped Gu Yisheng's lifeless body tightly, blood dripping from his long fingers in thin streams, under the countless disbelieving gazes fixed upon him.
"Come," his voice rang out clearly.
"Is this not what you want. My blood and my life. Today, I will carve my name, Zhang Wen, into the hearts of every one of you."
Boom!
Dozens of Saint-level auras erupted simultaneously from the flying ships, like the heavens collapsing onto a single point. Vast waves of power surged toward Zhang Wen from all directions. The air twisted, the void around him cracked with fractures. Among those Saints, one figure stood out the most, her pressure so immense it nearly tore space apart. Zhang Lingyue was the first to reach Zhang Wen.
There were no words and no hesitation. Her palm struck down with power so condensed that the laws of the world trembled. Zhang Wen's left arm shattered and vanished instantly, and the impact sent his body flying through the air. Before he could even fall to the ground, the shadow of another Saint appeared behind him and kicked his back with brutal force. His spine shattered, blood spraying from his mouth in a long arc, and Gu Yisheng's body was seized back by the Gu Clan.
Zhang Wen tried to transform his body into water. Water-aspected power surged wildly. But the moment his body began to liquefy, Zhang Lingyue's palm pressed down again. Her power penetrated every part of his body's core, crushing his energy structure into pieces. The water-transformation technique that had once made him nearly immortal was completely useless before these Saints.
His right arm was broken, his left leg twisted out of shape, tendons severed, internal organs shattered one by one. Every strike was not meant to kill him immediately, but to torture him slowly. Zhang Lingyue struck with rage that had erupted beyond control, as if she intended to destroy him utterly, body and soul alike.
Several Saints began to halt their movements, their gazes turning toward Zhang Lingyue as she continued to unleash wave after wave of power upon Zhang Wen without pause. Explosions rang out incessantly. The heavens shook, the earth trembled, and the surrounding Ancient Beast Forest was reduced to flat ruin. Zhang Wen's body was smashed, hurled, slammed, and trampled over again and again. Blood sprayed throughout the air.
Zhang Wen showed pain, yet there was not the slightest hint of fear on his face. Instead, a cold, defiant smile remained, as if he were mocking Zhang Lingyue's fate itself.
The Saints stood silently in a circle around Zhang Lingyue's actions, as though bound by something invisible. Every gaze was fixed on Zhang Lingyue's figure as she mercilessly tortured the young man before her.
The scene they witnessed made even long-lived Saints feel a chill seep into their bones. None of them could understand it at all. Even though the two were truly mother and son, how could such cruelty be possible? Some believed Zhang Lingyue was doing this to curry favor with the Gu Clan. Others felt there had to be a reason far deeper than that.
Zhang Wen was now in a state that could scarcely be called human. Every part of his body was mangled beyond recognition. His limbs were twisted, bones protruded, blood soaked the ground. Yet on his face, that smile still lingered. From his shattered, parched throat, soft laughter escaped in intermittent bursts, like that of a madman.
"Heh… heh… heh…"
The sound was quiet, yet it pierced deeply into the hearts of those who heard it.
After tormenting Zhang Wen for some time, Zhang Lingyue finally stopped. The turbulent aura around her gradually settled. She stepped forward, grabbed Zhang Wen's body, and crushed his head in the same manner he had used on Gu Yisheng. Her slender fingers tightened, the muscles of her arm taut, her eyes filled with hatred and madness.
Zhang Wen's body hung in midair, blood dripping in thin streams from his feet. He barely had any strength left to resist, yet his eyes continued to stare at her without yielding.
"Does it hurt?" Zhang Lingyue's voice trembled slightly. "This is what you—"
Puh!
Zhang Wen deliberately spat a mouthful of dark blood into Zhang Lingyue's face. Bright red blood splattered across her cheek, causing her to freeze for a split second. And in that fleeting moment, soft laughter rang out once more.
"Heh… heh…"
That sound was like thousands of needles stabbing into Zhang Lingyue's mind. She began to exert force, intending to crush Zhang Wen's head.
Suddenly, Zhang Lingyue sensed something wrong. The internal power that had once flowed smoothly within her faltered. Bright red blood burst from her mouth beyond her control. She coughed violently, then dropped to her knees on the ground, her breathing ragged and broken.
All the Saints surrounding them widened their eyes. Confusion spread everywhere. No one understood what was happening until some of those who had attacked Zhang Wen earlier also collapsed, coughing up blood. The remaining ones who sensed that something was wrong immediately leapt away from those who had fallen.
On the flying ship, Gu Lanyue frowned deeply."What is going on…"
Zhang Lingyue clutched her chest. Blood began to flow simultaneously from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Pain crashed into her like relentless waves.
"Poison… from his blood…?"
She vomited blood once more. But in that same instant, a sharp pain shot through her palm. When she lifted her head, the sight before her nearly stopped her heart.
It was Zhang Wen, biting down hard on her hand. His bloodstained teeth were buried deep in her flesh. That smile still hung on his face, battered and torn, and his eyes gleamed with a strange light, as if he still held hope in this very situation.
At the same time, Zhang Lingyue sensed it clearly. Her power was being devoured.
Not seized violently, but swallowed slowly, then faster, faster still. The Saint-level cultivation she had accumulated over thousands of years poured out of her body through the bitten palm like a ruptured conduit.
She tried to fling Zhang Wen away, but her body did not respond. Her internal energy was in complete chaos. Her muscles weakened until they felt as though they barely existed. Even moving a finger was unbearably difficult now.
Zhang Lingyue's vitality and cultivation drained uncontrollably from her hand. Streams of dark red power mixed with purplish-black surged out from the bitten palm.
Zhang Wen's secret technique began to operate in full. Dark red and dull bluish-black energy veins slowly spread across his body. They did not flow in smooth streams, but twisted like living roots. Those black energy roots pulsed in rhythm with Zhang Wen's heartbeat. Each pulse tore away layers of Zhang Lingyue's Saint power.
She tried to make a sound, but not a single voice escaped. The meridian lines within her body began to rupture. Cracks appeared across her skin. Saint Realm Stage Five was torn away first, followed by Stage Four, then Stage Three.
At the same time, Zhang Wen himself was no better off. Even though his body was continuously healing itself, the sensation he was enduring now made death seem preferable.
The internal energy channels within him were swollen and ruptured by the compressed Saint power. The sound of bones cracking rang out repeatedly, like firewood snapping apart. Muscles tore and healed again and again, only to be ripped apart once more in the very next instant. Blood did not drip in drops, but sprayed out from the pores all over his body. His body convulsed uncontrollably.
This torment caused his cultivation to surge upward temporarily in a frenzied manner.
The Spirit Formation realm was crushed as if it never existed. The Body Integration realm was crossed as though in a single step. The Nirvana realm erupted around him. Multiple overlapping afterimages of Zhang Wen appeared, scenes of death and rebirth replaying over and over, as if he were dying and reviving hundreds of times simultaneously.
Thunder roared. Black clouds twisted together into spirals. Bolts of lightning struck down around him without cease. The ground below collapsed into a vast depression. Trees in the Ancient Beast Forest were crushed into powder by the overwhelming pressure, as if the world itself were rejecting Zhang Wen's actions.
Zhang Lingyue collapsed onto the ground. Blood poured simultaneously from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. She could clearly sense that her Saint foundation was shattering under the poison she had taken in. Her cultivation plunged down to Saint Realm Stage One, then continued sliding uncontrollably toward the Half-Saint realm. Between Zhang Wen forcibly draining her power and the poison now ravaging her body, the pride, arrogance, and authority she had accumulated over her entire life were torn away before her very eyes.
The Saint King of the Gu Clan charged in at that moment. His sacred power erupted to its peak as his sword slashed down, layered with dozens of killing formations. The resulting wave of power was enough to crush a mountain with a single strike. Yet when it reached Zhang Wen, it passed straight through him as if cutting into water.
At times, Zhang Wen's body scattered into flowing streams of water. At other moments, it warped like a shattered reflection in a broken mirror. The world around him seemed to reject every attack entirely.
When the Gu Clan's Saint King realized that attacking Zhang Wen directly was useless, he changed tactics and tried to drag Zhang Lingyue away from him. But it was already too late. Zhang Wen's power surged to Heavenly Cavern Stage Nine.
And in the final moment, Zhang Wen made his decision.
He burned his lifespan.
Not a part of it.
All of it.
Life force erupted like a dying sun. The shockwave froze heaven and earth in place. The heavens screamed in fury as lightning struck directly down the center of his body. His hair changed color in a single instant.
Boom!!!
An aura unlike anything that had ever existed burst forth.
Zhang Wen stepped into the Saint realm temporarily.
Not a pure Saint. Not a true Saint. But a temporary Saint state born from trading everything away, formed by forcibly seizing Zhang Lingyue's power in an instant. It granted him fleeting Saint-level strength.
Yet in truth, his aura was twisted and horrifying, so distorted that it could barely be called Saintly at all. It was closer to a false Saint. And if Zhang Wen in his current state were compared to true Heavenly Cavern experts, he would still feel inferior. Even so, the image of Zhang Wen at this moment was one that anyone who witnessed it would remember for the rest of their life.
The Saints who had not been affected by the poison retreated instinctively. Their bodies chose to flee before their consciousness could even process what was happening.
Because in that instant, everyone understood one thing.
The man before them was no longer merely a genius in the process of growing.
He was a nightmare that was willing to burn everything away just to survive for a single breath, and drag everyone else down with him.
The nightmare had begun.