Dark Arm

"Breakthrough."

After giving the crippled child ten Fire Jades, Li Tianming and Little Yellow Chick refined and absorbed the remaining Fire Jades, opening another beast pulse. Man and chick reached the Fourth Beast Vein Realm at the same time.

Within the Symbiotic Cultivation System, cultivation in the Beast Pulse Realm required the beastmaster and the lifebound beast to complement each other. Only together did they form one cultivation core.

Their beast pulses and Beast Essence were one and the same, so naturally, their realms would always remain identical.

"I have to say, this Eternal Purgatory Beast Origin is truly scorching and vast. It flows through my beast pulses and body like boiling magma. If my bloodline hadn't remade me into the body of a Primordial Chaos Giant Beast, I probably couldn't withstand such terrifying Beast Essence at all."

"Besides, now that Little Yellow Chick has become a lifebound beast, there must be bloodline shackles on it. This definitely isn't its complete form. If it can break through those bloodline shackles, my flesh-and-blood body will grow stronger along with it."

Right now, it still looked like a little chick. Returning to the Eternal Flying Bird from his dream, the one that devoured suns, would probably not be easy.

When that time came, although Li Tianming would not become that Eternal Flying Bird, he would definitely possess an almost identical physique.

"By then, I won't eat rocks anymore. When I wake up in the morning, I'll eat a sun first?"

Just thinking about it felt insane.

"Of course, though our potential is immense, what matters more is keeping our hearts steady. After all, we're both basically 'young beasts' right now."

No matter how ferocious a tiger was, its newborn cub could not defeat a wild wolf.

"Develop stealthily, hold steady, and don't get carried away—that's the kingly path."

Late at night, after the breakthrough, Little Yellow Chick lay on his chest and snored soundly. Li Tianming was somewhat exhausted as well, and he lay on the freshly tidied bed before drifting into sleep.

"Fuck." A sharp pain suddenly shot through his left hand in the middle of his dream. It felt as though some savage beast had bitten it until it was a bloody mess. Li Tianming hurriedly sat up, sending Little Yellow Chick rolling onto the floor from his arms.

"What's going on!"

In the dim candlelight, Li Tianming did not see any savage beast biting his left arm. Yet what was terrifying was that, beginning from his fingers, the skin of his entire palm had actually turned black!

As he jolted awake, the blackness rapidly spread upward. In a short time, his entire left arm had turned black, black as ink!

Even more terrifyingly, the black skin began to sting. It felt as if hundreds of millions of ants were crawling all over his arm.

The pain forced him to grit his teeth and gasp, because he feared waking his sleeping mother.

"How could this happen!" He watched in shock as black scales grew from the writhing skin!

They were exceptionally exquisite and orderly scales, every single one a perfect hexagon.

Such hexagonal black scales directly covered his entire left arm, making it eerie and solemn. An unimaginable, terrifying aura emanated from that arm.

At that instant, Li Tianming felt as if the arm no longer belonged to him!

How could he describe that aura?

It was as though this was an existence that ruled all living things. Before such an aura, any life could only prostrate itself, kneel down, and tremble.

And this was not the end. After black scales covered his arm, even his nails changed, transforming into blood-red claw tips. His left palm now resembled a beast claw.

The claw tips formed from his nails were scarlet and sharp. They felt capable of easily tearing through skin, even ripping apart flesh.

"Am I dreaming again?" Li Tianming did not know whether to laugh or cry.

It no longer hurt. He felt that his left arm possessed strength far exceeding the rest of his body, a savage sensation that was difficult to put into words for the moment.

It was not merely that its strength had increased; that was only the most superficial change. What he sensed was that his left arm had undergone a fundamental transformation, as though he had become another species.

Moreover, the unique aura and bloodline of this left arm had, without surprise, already spread throughout his body. It simply had not manifested in any other part of him.

Then, Li Tianming saw something even more terrifying!

He spread open his palm, and a bloody line suddenly split open at its center. The bloody line stretched apart, revealing a Blood Eye!

When that Blood Eye stared at Li Tianming, what did he feel?

He had thought he would be afraid, as though another monster had taken up residence in his body. Yet to his utter disbelief, he saw himself within that eye.

That was right. What he saw was a young man sleeping as though the world had gone dark, staring at "himself" in terror. Yet that "himself" was actually the Blood Eye itself.

The feeling was bizarre!

On one hand, Li Tianming was looking at the beast claw and the eye.

On the other hand, Li Tianming was looking at his terrified self. For the first time in his life, without using a mirror, he saw his original two eyes.

"Fuck, this eye is mine!" He finally understood.

He now had two perspectives. The eyes on his head were his original perspective, looking at his own beast claw, while the eye within the beast claw was his second perspective, looking at himself.

These two perspectives combined in a strange way, yet did not affect Li Tianming's overall vision in the slightest. Other than making his mind somewhat muddled, they seemed to have no effect.

He was completely dumbfounded.

A third eye belonging to himself had grown from his palm. It was not that another monster lived inside his body.

He opened his palm and placed it behind himself. Sure enough, he could see his own back. Then he stuck it into his trousers and could even clearly see the hair on his legs!

"Ah!" Li Tianming took a deep breath. He felt that he was not dreaming, and there was still a faint numbness in his black left arm.

"Li Tianming, what are you doing?" A shriek suddenly came from before him. Li Tianming looked up to see Little Yellow Chick staring at him with a strange expression and a lewd grin.

"Nothing!" Li Tianming said.

"Stop trying to hide it. In the middle of the night, you stuck your hand into your pants and kept panting. Aren't you just doing that? Tsk, tsk, young man, you need some restraint. If you really can't manage it, why not go to Jadeite Tower too?" Little Yellow Chick snickered.

Li Tianming broke out in a cold sweat.

This little thing was only palm-sized. How could it be so lewd?

"Come here." Li Tianming grabbed it in one hand—his right hand, of course.

"Stop! I'm not your dick, don't touch me!" Little Yellow Chick said nervously.

"..."

This little brat was small, but its mind was filthy.

"Look. What is this?" In the darkness, Li Tianming directly revealed his left arm.

In the flickering candlelight, Li Tianming's left arm was covered in exquisite hexagonal black scales, while his left hand had turned into some kind of beast claw.

At the center of that beast claw's palm, a pair of blood-red eyes looked at Little Yellow Chick with a teasing gaze.

"Ah! What the hell!" Little Yellow Chick was so frightened that its feathers nearly exploded. It jumped three feet into the air and almost fainted.

It was genuinely terrified.

Because Li Tianming had discovered that his current arm was exactly the same as the Dark Giant Hand from the dream he had seen when Little Yellow Chick was born!

The experience had been too shocking back then, and he had not noticed whether that Dark Giant Hand had an eye in its palm. But he vaguely remembered that its skin had also borne these hexagonal black scales.

These regular hexagonal scales resembled the patterns of a honeycomb, so Li Tianming remembered them. From this point alone, he absolutely would not believe that his left arm turning out this way had nothing to do with that Dark Giant Hand.

"This is that hand!" Little Yellow Chick finally realized it too. The aura produced by this Dark Arm instinctively terrified it.

"I think so too." Li Tianming looked at his suddenly transformed arm, equally bewildered. The only thing he could be sure of was that the arm remained under his control.

Other than its fleshly strength seeming greater, he could not see any other changes for the time being.

"What exactly is going on?" Little Yellow Chick asked seriously.

"I don't know either. It suddenly changed. My guess is that maybe you never shook off your enemies, and they've caught up to you?" Li Tianming said.

"Damn!" Little Yellow Chick cursed, still staring blankly at the Dark Arm. Truthfully, one man and one chick did not seem to possess the conditions to learn the whole truth just yet.

What was the Dark Arm? Why had it pursued and tried to kill Little Yellow Chick? Why had it become lifebound with Li Tianming? Why had Li Tianming's arm transformed into a Dark Arm? These doubts could not be answered through guesswork alone.

Unless time provided the answer.

"Don't worry. If I were your enemy, I'd definitely give you a quick death. Like climbing a mountain to pick some little mushrooms and making mushroom-stewed chicken?" Seeing its pathetic, terrified look, Li Tianming could not help laughing.

"Hehe, is that why you stuck your hand into your crotch in the middle of the night?" Little Yellow Chick said disdainfully.

"That's still better than you 'forcefully assaulting' a male Fire Plume Bird."

"Shut up!"

Little Yellow Chick flew up and jabbed its beak at Li Tianming in a flurry of pecks. Small as it was, its beak carried tremendous force.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Li Tianming blocked it directly with his left arm. When the beak struck the scales, sparks flew.

"No matter what, it seems I've gained something. At least this arm of mine seems impervious to blades and weapons now."

Under the candlelight, Li Tianming gazed at the hexagonal scales. By clenching his fist, he could indeed feel a terrifying power that transcended his own bloodline.

First, he wrapped his left arm in white cloth strips. Then he changed into another set of clothes, covering the entire arm, and put on a glove to hide his left hand completely.

Otherwise, if anyone saw it, they would surely take him for a monster.

Little Yellow Chick accepted the change too. It was lazy anyway. Since it could not figure things out, it might as well wait and see.

"Perhaps I'm connected to that Dark Giant Hand?" Deep in the night, recalling the Dark Giant Hand that had defeated the Eternal Purgatory Phoenix, Li Tianming fell into thought.

He stared at that arm for a long time, always feeling that he no longer recognized it. He was not even sure what kind of power it possessed, or whether it would escape his control.

"Though I don't know its origins, perhaps it can give me more confidence to participate in the Yanhuang Academy Selection in a few days!"

His realm had broken through, and the Dark Arm had appeared. For the remaining time, Li Tianming once more practiced the Battle Arts he had learned in the past and entered a combat state.

Having once cultivated to the Spirit Source Realm, he had learned quite a few Battle Arts.

So-called "Battle Arts," like "cultivation techniques," were creations of forebears, developed through exploration and experience across countless battles and practical trials. Cultivation techniques were mainly used for cultivation, advancement, and transforming Beast Essence, while Battle Arts were superior combat techniques—the crystallized wisdom of countless beastmasters across Yanhuang Continent!

A powerful Battle Art could defeat an enemy stronger than oneself.

Battle Arts were divided into two parts. One was "Martial Art," performed by beastmasters; the other was "Beast Art," performed by lifebound beasts.

Martial Arts and Beast Arts could coordinate and complement each other. Only when both fought together could a Battle Art display its greatest power.

As beastmasters and lifebound beasts advanced in realm, they gained many abilities to fight side by side. The Martial Arts and Beast Arts within Battle Arts were merely a portion of them.

For example, savage beasts could never learn Beast Arts.

It was said that Battle Arts were divided into five levels according to power and complexity, simply called Beast, Source, Return, Heaven, and Saint.

Among them, "Beast" was the most ordinary Beast-level Battle Art, suitable for Beast Pulse Realm beastmasters and lifebound beasts. Beast-level Battle Arts were further divided into three minor grades: low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade!

Of course, some were extraordinary and transcendent, known as transcendent grade.

Transcendent Beast-level Battle Arts could sweep through the entire Beast Pulse Realm without opposition.

Above that were "Source-level Battle Arts," suitable for Spirit Source Realm beastmasters. It was said that some Beast Pulse Realm beastmasters could also learn low-grade Source-level Battle Arts.

Li Tianming had once broken through to the Spirit Source Realm. Though his Beast Essence was gone, his mastery of Battle Arts remained proficient. Little Yellow Chick merely needed to relearn the Beast Arts within them.

But this fellow's talent defied the heavens. Battle Arts that Jin Yu had once spent great effort practicing alongside Li Tianming, it grasped the moment it was taught, without the slightest difficulty.

Such superior combat methods were of tremendous use in allowing it to unleash its Eternal Purgatory Beast Origin in battle.

Over these days, he and Little Yellow Chick had thoroughly mastered many of the Battle Arts they had practiced before.

Everything now awaited the day of Li Yanfeng's wedding!