Agony

The instant his True Qi ceased to envelop him, Li Xiao's skin and flesh began to split and curl like a wax figure licked by flames.

Scalding Earth Qi burrowed through every crack into the depths of his flesh, roasting his red muscle black.

Agony tore through every nerve as if a thousand knives were carving him apart. Li Xiao clenched his teeth until blood seeped between them, yet he never let out a groan.

Chunks of flesh peeled from his body, exposing the stark white bones beneath. In the scorching air, they quickly blackened like roasted charcoal.

His body grew gaunt before the eye.

His skin shriveled and his flesh withered. He looked like a skeleton being refined in a raging fire. Only his frame and a pair of eyes that still moved proved he was alive.

The head floating nearby stared in shock. Beneath its dark-gold helmet, its gaze held surprise and a complicated emotion it could not conceal.

He muttered under his breath:

"What kind of Cultivation Method is this... to torment yourself this badly?

And this kid has such formidable willpower. He can't be some nobody..."

He had lived for centuries and seen countless cultivators, but this was the first time he had seen anyone as ruthless toward himself as Li Xiao.

Several hours passed. Li Xiao sat motionless, as though he had died. His blackened bones stood out starkly in the dark-gold light.

Only the eyes sunk deep in their sockets moved faintly, showing that he was still alive.

Slowly, he raised a hand that was nothing but bone and grasped the Ten-Thousand-Year Mystic Yellow Stone Marrow beside him. He began circulating the Mystic Glazed Body Scripture.

Those pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Mystic Yellow Stone Marrow, so hard that even a Sixth Turn expert would struggle