Sun Yu staggered violently the moment he stepped out from beneath the enormous demon beast skull.
A rumble like muffled thunder rang out within his Five Viscera Furnace.
It wasn't the sound of Internal Breath circulating, but the roar of an utterly ravenous hunger.
Bone marrow cleansing was an extremely violent process of reshaping the body.
The system's stat boosts had spared him decades of arduous cultivation, but the Sword Qi that appeared from nowhere had ground his old marrow to pieces, then forcibly condensed new Sword Marrow. This had directly drained nearly eighty percent of the blood and Qi reserves in his body.
The insides of his bones now felt like an abyss that had run completely dry.
His newly formed Sword Marrow was like a ravenous beast crying to be fed, frantically sending signals to his brain to eat.
Blood vessels stood out across Sun Yu's eyes.
He had swallowed the last of the Iron Armor Ox meat in his bundle in two bites, but it had landed in his stomach without making so much as a ripple.
He needed an immense replenishment of blood and Qi.
He needed the flesh of high-level demon beasts.
Sun Yu strode into the crimson miasma.
The dark golden membrane of his skin gave off faint sizzling sounds as the poisonous haze ate at it, but it couldn't harm him in the slightest.
He didn't bother looking for a particular direction. He simply followed the scent of blood drifting through the air.
He had gone less than five miles when the black muck ahead suddenly began to churn violently.
A massive shadow burst up from the mire at the bottom of the swamp.
Mud flew everywhere.
Sun Yu stopped.
Blocking his way was an enormous lizard, nearly the size of a full-grown wild ox.
Its entire body was covered in thick, dark red scales. Spikes bristled along their edges, and their surfaces gleamed with an indestructible metallic sheen.
A Blood Scale Lizard.
A demon beast unique to the Blood Sea Devil Abyss.
The beast had spent years devouring the baleful blood and poisonous miasma of the abyss. The scales covering its body were as hard as a Blood Washing Realm warrior's Protective Gang Qi.
The Blood Scale Lizard's cold, slit-pupiled eyes locked onto Sun Yu.
It opened its jaws, bristling with fangs.
A nauseating stench of decay swept over him.
Several drops of black venom dribbled from its mouth into the muck, instantly corroding the earth and eating several smoking pits into it.
Looking at the enormous beast teeming with blood and Qi, Sun Yu's Adam's apple bobbed violently.
He didn't draw the broken saber hilt at his waist.
He didn't use his Swimming Dragon Steps at Perfection Realm to dance around it, either.
Hunger was devouring his reason. There was only one thought in his mind.
Meat.
"Hiss!"
The Blood Scale Lizard let out an ear-piercing hiss, its thick claws slamming against the ground.
Its massive body surged forward like a heavy tank at full charge, bearing down on Sun Yu beneath an overwhelming gale.
Sun Yu stood his ground, his feet planted firmly in the mire.
Instead of retreating, he charged forward.
As the Blood Scale Lizard bore down on him, the great tendon in Sun Yu's right leg snapped taut. He shot forward like a cannonball and slammed into it.
Man and beast collided halfway.
BOOM!
A deep, thunderous impact.
Sun Yu braced both arms against the Blood Scale Lizard's massive head.
The tremendous force blasted apart the muck beneath his feet, driving both legs into the mire up to his knees.
But his upper body was like a mountain cast from solid iron. He stopped the charging beast dead in its tracks.
The Blood Scale Lizard had no sense of pain.
When its charge failed, its jaws gaped to an impossible width and snapped viciously at Sun Yu's face.
At the same time, a torrent of black, corrosive venom gushed from its mouth, splashing across his chest and shoulders.
Sssss!
Thick clouds of white vapor rose from Sun Yu's body.
The venom was so corrosive that even fine steel would melt into liquid iron in an instant.
But on Sun Yu's skin, it could only boil furiously against the dark golden membrane. It couldn't break through the absolute defense of his Extreme Devil Body.
It didn't even leave the faintest white mark.
Sun Yu ignored the venom and the fumes.
His left hand shot upward, all five fingers like steel talons as he clamped down on the Blood Scale Lizard's upper jaw.
The Blood Scale Lizard thrashed wildly, its thick tail whipping into Sun Yu's back with a howling gale.
CLANG!
The blow was strong enough to snap a tree trunk too thick for two people to wrap their arms around. Yet when it struck Sun Yu's back, it rang out like a hammer on iron.
Sun Yu didn't even furrow his brow.
The muscles in his right arm swelled in an instant, dark golden patterns surging beneath his skin.
Extreme Yang Blood Qi mingled with the terrifying strength of the Blood Washing Realm, gathering into his right fist.
Sun Yu swung at the Blood Scale Lizard's jaw, smashing his fist into it with savage force.
BOOM!
A heavy impact rang out, mixed with the teeth-grating crack of breaking bone.
The Blood Scale Lizard's iron-hard lower jaw was shattered by Sun Yu's punch.
Fragments of bone mixed with venom and blood, spraying from its mouth.
But the Blood Scale Lizard couldn't feel pain. It kept twisting furiously, its sharp foreclaws clawing at Sun Yu's waist and belly.
Sun Yu's gaze turned ice-cold.
His right hand changed from a fist to a claw. He thrust it straight into the mangled flesh of the Blood Scale Lizard's jaw, his fingers locking around the base of its lower jaw.
His left hand gripped the upper jaw.
His right hand gripped the lower jaw.
The muscles in Sun Yu's arms stretched to their limit.
He took a deep breath. His blood, heavy as lead and mercury, roared through his body.
"Open up."
A low growl rumbled from Sun Yu's throat.
His arms wrenched outward.
It was sheer, savage, unadulterated strength.
CRACK!
The muscles in the Blood Scale Lizard's neck stretched taut, then snapped one after another.
Sun Yu wrenched its jaws apart, forcing them into a horrific angle that defied the very structure of its body.
Sun Yu didn't stop.
His left hand pinned the Blood Scale Lizard's head down, while he raised his right foot and stamped hard on its chest.
With his right hand free, he drove all five fingers through the lizard's torn throat, plunging them deep into its cervical spine.
Sun Yu's ten fingers clamped around the thick spinal column.
Then he drew on the strength in his waist and abdomen. His spine straightened in an instant, like a bow pulled taut and released.
He yanked upward with both arms.
RIIIIP!!!
The shrill sound of flesh tearing rang across the swamp.
Thick tendons snapped one after another.
Amid a storm of dark red, fetid blood, Sun Yu ripped a spine several feet long from the Blood Scale Lizard's body, trailing chunks of innards and gory blood!
The massive body of the Blood Scale Lizard instantly lost all support.
It collapsed limply into the mire like a heap of mud, its limbs twitching faintly with nothing but reflex.
It was utterly dead.
Sun Yu casually tossed the dripping spine aside.
He pulled his legs from the mud.
His hunger was so intense he couldn't bear to take another step.
Sun Yu bent down and seized the torn, heavy scales along the edge of the Blood Scale Lizard's corpse.
He yanked with both arms.
With a ripping sound, a huge sheet of scales came away, skin and flesh attached, revealing dark red demon beast meat brimming with blood and Qi.
Sun Yu made use of whatever was at hand.
He went to a dead tree nearby, eaten away by the poisonous miasma until only half of it remained, and kicked it to pieces.
He picked up several fairly dry logs and tossed them beside the Blood Scale Lizard's corpse.
He snapped his fingers.
Extreme Yang Blood Qi shot from his fingertips, setting the logs alight in an instant.
A bonfire blazed within the crimson miasma.
Sun Yu didn't care how harsh the surroundings were.
He tore huge chunks of flesh from the Blood Scale Lizard's corpse with his hands.
Each piece weighed more than ten pounds.
He tossed the meat straight into the fire.
The flames licked at the demon beast flesh with a sizzling sound. Fat dripped down, sending up a thick smell of char and roasted meat.
Sun Yu didn't even wait for the meat to cook through.
As soon as the surface changed color, he reached into the fire and snatched out the scalding chunks.
The outside was charred black, but the inside was still warm and bloody.
Sun Yu opened his mouth and tore into the half-cooked demon beast meat, bite after bite.
He had no need to chew slowly.
His powerful jaws crushed the meat, along with some soft cartilage, and swallowed it straight down.
The Blood Scale Lizard's flesh was rough and tough, but it was packed with an astonishing amount of blood and Qi.
The moment the meat hit his stomach, his Five Viscera Furnace roared into action.
Its ferocious digestive power instantly broke down and refined the flesh.
Wave after wave of rich, scalding essence of blood and Qi burst through his stomach like a floodgate giving way, then quickly flowed into his blood, heavy as lead and mercury.
As more blood and Qi poured into him, the hysterical hunger inside Sun Yu finally began to ease.
His blood carried the immense energy through his body, washing over every bone.
Deep within his bones, his newly condensed Sword Marrow was like a dry sponge finally soaked by rain after a long drought, greedily devouring the nourishment.
"Clink, clink, clink."
The faint sound of swords rang out inside Sun Yu once more.
With these high-level demon beast remains supporting him, the bone marrow cleansing could continue to progress steadily.
Sun Yu sat by the bonfire, his hands never stopping.
The entire Blood Scale Lizard, as big as an ox.
Aside from the hard scales and the innards, Sun Yu devoured the remaining several hundred pounds of flesh in less than half an hour.
He casually tossed the last bone into the mire.
Sun Yu belched.
He rose to his feet, feeling the blood and Qi in his body once again brimming, and a sharper edge building deep within his bones.
He clenched both fists slightly. As his knuckles shifted, they no longer gave off dull thuds but the crisp ring of iron striking iron.
The blood and Qi from one Blood Scale Lizard had barely made up for what he'd lost from that stat boost.
But he knew full well that the Heavenly Sword Marrow Cleansing Scripture had only just reached the entry level.
To keep increasing its level—to reach proficiency, mastery, and even Major Accomplishment—he would need a truly astronomical amount of blood and Qi.
The Blood Sea Devil Abyss had no shortage of these ferocious, blood-and-Qi-rich creatures.
Sun Yu raised his head and looked deeper into the swamp.
The crimson miasma roiled before him.
He licked the blood from his lips and strode onward.
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