infodatos Chapter 35: The Path to Profound Understanding in Desperate Circumstances
Chapter 35: The Path to Profound Understanding in Desperate Circumstances
"roar--!!!"
A wolf king's howl, far more furious and painful than any of the previous howls, exploded from the center of the smoke and dust in the direction of the town gate! The sound was filled with unbelievable horror, bone-deep pain, and a sense of weakness as if... power had been forcibly drained from him!
Immediately afterwards, a figure was thrown out of the billowing dust like a cannonball, arcing through the air before crashing heavily onto the open ground not far from the breach in the defense line. It rolled several times before coming to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust.
It's Lin Yan!
At this moment, he looked utterly wretched. His gray-black short-sleeved shirt was almost torn to shreds, and his exposed skin was covered with crisscrossing scratches and bite marks, some so deep that the flesh was torn and bleeding profusely. A bloody hole in his left shoulder was gushing blood, clearly from the wolf king's fangs. His face was as pale as paper, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and the web of his right hand, which was gripping the knife, was split open, with blood dripping down the hilt.
But he was still alive! And his eyes shone like burning stars!
He struggled, using his long sword for support, and shakily stood up. His gaze was fixed on the smoke and dust.
There, the smoke and dust slowly dissipated, revealing the figure of the Bloodfang Wolf King.
The wolf king was in equally dire condition. Several more deep, bone-revealing knife wounds had appeared on its massive silver body, the most fatal being at the joint of its right foreleg, almost severed, held together only by a sliver of flesh, making it stagger even to stand. The old wound on its neck had completely reopened, blood flowing like a stream, staining half its body dark red. It gasped for breath, each breath frothing with blood, and in its blood-red eyes, besides madness, lay a hint of… panicked, uncertain weakness.
In that brief moment of contact, it had clearly severely injured the human with its fangs and was about to tear it apart when it felt an incredibly terrifying suction force emanating from the human. A portion of its immense blood and demonic power was uncontrollably flowing outwards! Although it was only a very small amount, it felt a fear stemming from its very life-or-death instinct!
What kind of monster is this human?!
Lin Yan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and sensed the state of his body. Just now, he had recklessly approached the wolf king, enduring its claw and bite, and used the Soul Devouring Body technique at the cost of serious injury. Although he had only absorbed a trace of the wolf king's blood and demonic power, the immense energy that had tempered his body to perfection and even touched the edge of the Profound Realm was like cold water being poured into boiling oil. It instantly brought his already boiling Soul Devouring True Essence to the brink of explosion!
At his dantian, the gray-black vortex spun and compressed wildly at an unprecedented speed. Its volume was constantly shrinking, while its density was increasing infinitely. A terrifying suction force emanated from its center, as if it wanted to suck his entire body in! His meridians were experiencing excruciating pain from the violent flow of energy, but he could clearly feel that the barrier leading to the Profound Realm was fluctuating violently and thinning under this extreme pressure and energy impact!
Just a little bit more! Only one final, and most devastating blow remains!
He needs the Wolf King's full power! He needs that near-death eruption of the purest life essence and demonic core!
Lin Yan's gaze was completely fixed on the wolf king. His eyes saw nothing else but the bleeding wound on the silver giant wolf's neck and the alluring spirit core within its body—the core of a fully tempered demon king!
"Roar!" The wolf king seemed to sense the undisguised, almost greedy killing intent and desire in Lin Yan's eyes. It was utterly enraged and felt a deadly crisis. This human wanted to kill it and take everything from it!
Even a cornered beast will fight, let alone a wolf king! It let out a roar filled with rage and desperation, its remaining right foreleg slamming into the ground. Its massive body no longer lunged, but instead, with a crushing force and a mad frenzy of mutual destruction, it slammed into Lin Yan! At the same time, it opened its blood-red maw, its pair of ferocious fangs, stained with blood, gleaming with a chilling light, aimed straight at Lin Yan's head!
This is a final, desperate strike, imbued with its last strength and ferocity! Even if it doesn't kill him by crashing into him, it will still crush him!
Lin Yan watched the silver figure crashing towards him like a small mountain, and the giant maw that was getting closer and closer, exuding a stench and the aura of death. There was no fear in his eyes, only an almost burning madness!
"Come on—!!!"
He neither dodged nor evaded, nor even raised his sword to block! Instead, he poured all the remaining true energy in his body, as well as all the true energy he had just converted from absorbing a trace of the wolf king's power, along with his boiling fighting spirit, killing intent, and will to survive, into his legs!
The [Swiftness] talent allows for explosive power beyond limits!
His figure left a clear afterimage in place, but his real body was like a burning arrow. Instead of retreating or moving to the side, he charged straight and resolutely towards the direction from which the wolf king was charging!
Trading injury for injury? No! This is risking one's life for a chance to break through!
"Lin Yan!" Su Qingyao cried out in shock when she saw this scene from afar, her heart almost stopping.
Before everyone's horrified eyes, the two figures collided violently in the most tragic and brutal way!
"Bang--!!!"
A deafening roar, so muffled it made your heart clench, exploded! The dull thuds of flesh colliding and the cracking sounds of bones shattering mingled together. A shockwave rolled in, sending dust flying.
The wolf king's immense impact force struck Lin Yan without reservation. He felt as if he had been struck head-on by a speeding mountain; a groan that made his teeth ache came from his sternum, and his internal organs seemed to have shifted. A mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed out, and his body flew backward like a rag doll.
But in that split second of contact, before being knocked away, Lin Yan's left hand, like the most precise venomous snake, ignored the wolf king's swung claws and biting fangs, and with an incredible angle and speed, fiercely and deeply plunged into the wolf king's neck, into the deepest and most fatal wound that had already broken open!
Five fingers like hooks, reaching straight down to the wrist!
"Soul-devouring body—devour it—!!!"
Lin Yan roared silently in his heart! His Soul-Devouring Body, which had already been pushed to its limit and was on the verge of collapse, now held nothing back and, like a black hole bursting its banks, unleashed a terrifying and unparalleled devouring power!
"Roar—!!!"
The wolf king let out an unprecedented, piercing howl filled with extreme pain and fear! It felt that the vast, river-like blood and qi within its body, the core of demonic power accumulated over decades of cultivation, and even the primordial soul power that supported its life and intelligence, were all surging wildly at an alarming speed toward the human hand on its neck and into that human body, which was like a bottomless abyss!
Extract! Plunder! Devour!
The wolf king struggled and writhed frantically, its claws tearing at Lin Yan's body, creating deep, bone-revealing gashes on his back and legs. Its fangs tried to sever Lin Yan's arm, which was embedded in its neck. But Lin Yan, like the most stubborn barnacle, clung tightly to its wounds, clinging to the wolf king's body, refusing to let go no matter how much the wolf king rolled and thrashed!
Devour! Devour without regard for anything else!
A massive, pure energy, far surpassing that of any previous demonic wolf, surged into Lin Yan's already overburdened meridians like a raging torrent. The meridian walls groaned under the strain, fine cracks appearing, and excruciating pain felt like thousands of steel needles piercing his body. The wildly spinning and compressed vortex in his dantian, under the influx of this immense energy, reached an unbelievable speed of rotation, its volume compressed to its limit, with even a strange, pitch-black point of light appearing at its center, seemingly capable of swallowing light itself!
Bloating! Pain! Strain!
Lin Yan felt as if his body were a balloon being inflated wildly, about to burst with a "bang" at any moment. Blood began to seep from his seven orifices, and fine, spiderweb-like blood vessels appeared on the surface of his skin—signs of capillaries rupturing under the internal pressure. His consciousness began to blur under the intense pain and the surge of energy, and darkness crept into the edges of his vision.
But he bit his tongue hard, using the excruciating pain to maintain his last shred of clarity.
We can't stop! Stopping means death! If we stop, everyone in Blackrock Town will die!
Swallow it! Swallow it all!
The wolf king's struggles grew weaker and weaker, its howls turning into intermittent, breathless whimpers. Its massive silver body visibly withered, its glossy fur turned dry and gray, its powerful muscles rapidly atrophied, and the ferocity and bloodlust in its eyes quickly faded, leaving only boundless fear and deathly silence.
Lin Yan's aura, however, surged and soared at an illogical speed during this absorption! His body was covered in more blood vessels and his injuries were more severe, but his rising aura was like a volcano about to erupt, filled with the violent power of destruction and rebirth!
finally--
"Click..."
A soft, crisp sound, seemingly emanating from the depths of his soul, rang out from Lin Yan's dantian.
The dark gray cyclone, compressed to its limit, suddenly shrank inward at the center of the strange, pitch-black light spot!
Immediately afterwards—
"BOOM—!!!"
It wasn't a real sound, but a deafening roar that resounded deep within Lin Yan's consciousness, a roar that seemed to create the world from the very beginning!
The cyclone, which had collapsed to its limit, suddenly exploded!
It was not a devastating explosion, but a mysterious transformation and rebirth!
The dark gray liquid true essence, like a newly formed nebula or a river bursting its banks, surged forth from the center of the exploding vortex! It was no longer gaseous true energy, but a more condensed, purer liquid true essence containing even greater power!
These liquid true essences surged and roared along the newly expanded meridians, which, though cracked, were incredibly resilient, instantly flowing throughout the limbs and bones!
An unprecedented sense of power, accompanied by excruciating pain as if being torn apart and reassembled, swept over Lin Yan's entire body!
Breakthrough to the Profound Realm!
Just when he was on the verge of death, at the last moment of fighting for his life and devouring the wolf king, Lin Yan finally broke through the shackles of the Body Tempering Realm and stepped into a brand new realm!
Almost at the same moment he broke through, the Bloodfang Wolf King, which he was clinging to, let out a final, extremely weak wail, and the last glimmer of light in its eyes went out completely. Its massive, now shriveled body crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The wolf king is dead!
Lin Yan also fell to the ground, lying next to the wolf king's shriveled corpse, covered in blood, barely breathing, as if he would die at any moment.
But if someone could sense his body at this moment, they would find that a new, powerful life force and strength were surging and growing wildly deep within his seemingly broken body, like a dormant volcano! And his life-giving fire, at the moment of breakthrough, was as if it had been doused with boiling oil, suddenly becoming several times more intense and vigorous!
He forged a path to enlightenment amidst despair, amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, on the brink of life and death!