"Since you've brought me so many surprises, here's your reward," Han Wuji said, walking up to Zhao Qingcang and pressing a hand against his crown. "I'll make you the glorious 'key' that opens the supreme treasure."
Black mist surged into Zhao Qingcang's body like floodwaters bursting through a breached dam.
"Argh—!"
A scream unlike any human cry rang through the cavern.
Zhao Qingcang's body withered before their eyes. His vaunted Core Formation cultivation, his more than two centuries of arduous training, all his memories, emotions, and understanding of the Dao—all were being devoured, broken down, and reassembled by that overwhelming power.
In the final moment of his consciousness, he thought he saw the depths of Han Wuji's eyes.
There, a black core covered in fine cracks spun wildly.
As the power he had cultivated all his life poured into it, those cracks were rapidly mending before his eyes.
But that wasn't all. After the Demonic Core had healed, it continued to expand, growing denser and more profound as the aura it radiated became ever more terrifying.
Rumble!
The instant Zhao Qingcang was completely drained and reduced to a withered husk, the entire Earth Vein Spirit Milk pool suddenly began to boil violently.
At the center of the pool, the Dao Foundation Treasure Lotus blazed with light!
A column of pure spiritual energy shot into the sky, smashing through the cavern ceiling and opening a slowly spinning, unfathomably deep vortex.
Faint immortal music drifted from the other side of the vortex, and the shadows of auspicious beasts appeared.
The Nascent Soul cave abode had opened!
Han Wuji slowly withdrew his hand, feeling power fill him like never before.
The full cultivation of a peak Core Formation expert was indeed a tremendous tonic.
His Demonic Core had not only been perfectly repaired,