Within the secluded cultivation grounds of Ten Thousand Demons Valley, Yan Kuan's entire body shimmered with flowing light. Emerald life force spread like a vast ocean, while dark deathly qi resembled ghostly mist from the underworld. Two utterly different divine radiances circled his body, and strange phenomena arose within his Wheel Sea, accompanied by all manner of sounds.
After this transformation continued for nine days, the radiance around Yan Kuan gradually receded. The entire cave chamber dimmed somewhat. The emerald glow that had once brimmed with life slowly weakened, while the deathly qi within him surged.
Yan Kuan's skin no longer gleamed. He was withered and frail like dead wood, his flesh shriveling and losing its former crystalline luster. His organs had nearly ceased functioning, and each breath came difficult and heavy, like a bellows. Compared to his previous vitality, he now seemed steeped in death.
His bones had once been as clear and lustrous as white jade, but now they were dim, gray, and decayed. No longer snow-white and immaculate, they had turned an ashen gray, as though they would rot away and crumble at any moment.
This was a Life-Death Transformation similar to the nine transformations of the Other Shore, but far more dangerous. The transformations of the Other Shore merely involved a cultivator's flesh, organs, and bones undergoing an unconventional rebirth after withering away. Through nine consecutive cycles of blood replacement and bone refinement, one completed the ultimate transformation.
The even more dangerous Life-Death Transformation condensed the effects of those nine transformations into one, while also reaching a deeper level of ultimate change. Each transformation was equivalent to remaking one's body, passing from life into death and from death back into life. Every cycle was incomparably perilous.
Yet Yan Kuan intended to activate three stages of this