The Third Councilor said nothing more. The five floating dark-red orbs suddenly exploded—not toward Lu Chen, but outward in five different directions.
The orbs flew to the courtyard walls and stuck to the surfaces of the blue bricks, like five nails driven into the wall.
Then dark-red lines of light stretched between the orbs, linking the five clusters into a pentagram.
The formation activated.
Dark-red light began seeping from the blue-brick floor of the courtyard.
The light surged up through the cracks between the bricks, like blood oozing from a wound. The ground turned viscous, and stepping on it felt like stepping into mud.
[Blood Sacrifice Formation. Function: Continuously extracts the lifespan of targets within the formation. Extraction rate: one year per breath.]
One year per breath. One incense stick's time was seven hundred and fifty breaths. Lu Chen pulled a jade bottle from his robes, removed the stopper, and poured the golden medicinal liquid into his mouth. The liquid slid down his throat, and it felt as though someone had stuffed a ball of fire into his stomach. The fire exploded from his gut, burning in all directions—through his chest, through his dantian, through his limbs.
[Dragon Thunder Fusion temporarily increased: 95% → 98%. Duration: six hours.]
The Dragon Thunder True Essence suddenly flowed through his meridians twice as fast. Gold
Red light seeped from every pore of his body, forcing the surrounding deathly aura back three feet.
The viscous Blood Sacrifice Formation beneath his feet no longer pulled at him as strongly—not because the formation had weakened, but because his Dragon Thunder True Essence was too scorching. The dark-red rays extracting his lifespan burned apart the instant they touched the soles of his feet.
The Third Councilor walked over from the well. His right