"Nether Abyss Protocol... charging..."
The cold electronic countdown echoed like a funeral bell over the deathly silent ruins.
High in the sky, at the center of that deep-blue geometric structure, the light-devouring black point expanded another circle. The destructive aura it emitted froze even the air.
At the center of the crater, Fang Gang knelt on one knee upon the mirror-smooth ground. Every breath tugged at the tearing pain throughout his body.
His right arm was like shattered glazed glass, dark-gold contamination patterns writhing deep within its gruesome wounds.
Yet there was not the slightest hint of retreat in his eyes, only near-mad resolve.
"A whetstone?"
A savage curve spread across Fang Gang's bloodstained lips. He stared fixedly at the violently pulsing dark-gold pattern over his heart. "Watch me grind you into dust!"
Boom—!
Instead of continuing to resist passively, he took the initiative and drove the nearly depleted Nine Yang Qi and Blood within him forward. Like a torrent of molten lava, it crashed viciously into the cold source of contamination in his chest!
Sizzle—!!!
It was as though a red-hot branding iron had been plunged into ice water! Unimaginable agony instantly swept through his entire body!
Fang Gang convulsed violently, a beastlike growl rumbling from his throat as veins bulged across his forehead like coiling dragons!
Gold-red qi and blood clashed and annihilated with the dark-gold contaminated energy at his chest. Every collision felt as if it would tear his heart apart!
Warning! Active refinement has intensified the corrosion! Contamination level increasing! Current: 14%! High-level energy annihilation residue detected... trace absorption in progress... Constitution slightly increased! Injury recovery speed slightly increased!
The system's cold notifications flashed amid the agonizing pain.
It worked!
Though the process was like being carved by a thousand blades, the tiny strands of pure energy forcibly tempered and absorbed into his body were like sweet springs in a desert—weak, yet truly nourishing his body on the brink of collapse!
A faint itching numbness came from his shattered right arm, and even his severe internal injuries seemed to have eased slightly!
"Again!"
Fang Gang's eyes turned bloodshot. Ignoring the system's warnings, he drove his qi and blood even more frantically, almost self-destructively, to "cook and refine" that cold source of contamination!
The area around his heart was like a miniature battlefield. Gold-red and dark-gold light flashed fiercely, every flicker accompanied by Fang Gang's violent trembling and a suppressed grunt.
Pain surged against his will like tidal waves. Under the assault of his qi and blood, the dark-gold patterns on his chest twisted and pulsed like living things, attempting to counterattack and corrode more of his body.
That cold, chaotic will once again whispered into his consciousness. It was clearer and more seductive than before:
"Pain... is power..."
"Embrace... chaos... break... the shackles..."
"Release... me... and gain... eternal life..."
"Shut up!"
Fang Gang roared inwardly. His Heart Like Glazed Glass state had become even more stable after his mental attributes improved, forcefully sealing out that seductive voice. "Your power? I'm taking it! Your will? You can be my fuel!"
Gritting his teeth, he turned all his will and all his pain into an even more violent force, driving the torrent of qi and blood to scour the contamination core in his chest again and again!
Every cleansing brought fiercer pain, but it also refined another thread of purer, more powerful energy!
In this nearly self-destructive refinement, the qi and blood throughout his body were repeatedly pulled between depletion and rebirth. With every rebirth, they seemed to become more condensed and more scorching!
Deep within his body, some solid barrier seemed to be developing tiny cracks under the extreme pressure and nourishment of that strange energy!
Warning! Contamination level: 14.5%! Approaching the threshold! Host life essence detected undergoing violent fluctuations... Constitution continuously increasing slightly... strength increasing slightly... Nine Yang Divine Skill operation overloaded... Dragon-Elephant Prajna Skill resonance...
The system notifications flashed like a flood of scrolling messages, indicating that he was walking an extremely dangerous tightrope!
High in the sky, the black point at the center of the deep-blue geometric structure had expanded to the size of a fist, radiating an annihilating aura of despair.
"Nether Abyss Protocol... charging... 80%..." The cold countdown drew closer and closer like Death's footsteps!
90%...
95%...
99%...
Hum—!!!
At the instant when the black point was about to fully form and the destructive "Spear of the Nether Abyss" was about to fire!
Within Fang Gang's body, the barrier that had been repeatedly battered amid agony and frenzied refinement suddenly shattered!
Boom—!!!
A gold-red torrent of qi and blood, far more vast and pure than before and carrying an aura capable of cleansing all things, erupted from every corner of his body like a volcano that had lain dormant for billions of years!
This qi and blood was no longer viscous like mercury. It possessed the heaviness and blazing heat of near-liquid metal!
Wherever it passed, the severe injuries within his body healed at a visible rate!
Dense cracking sounds erupted from the bones of his shattered right arm. The dark-gold contamination patterns were forcibly driven back and suppressed!
The pulsing dark-gold core in his chest, washed by this newborn torrent, was like ice thrown into a furnace. It let out a sharp, soundless scream full of unwillingness, instantly dimming as its spreading patterns were forcibly restrained!
Marrow Cleansing Realm! Breakthrough!
Fang Gang abruptly raised his head, gold-red light shooting from his eyes like tangible flames!
The muscles and bones throughout his body exploded with thunderous cracks. An overwhelmingly powerful aura of rebirth surged into the sky, briefly dispersing the suffocating destructive pressure above him!
"I did it!" Feeling the vast power surging through him, more than ten times greater than that of the Tendon Transformation Realm, Fang Gang could not help letting out a long howl!
His howl was like a dragon's roar, piercing metal and shattering stone, making the surrounding space hum.
However, the wild joy of his breakthrough lasted only an instant!
High in the sky, the poised "Spear of the Nether Abyss" completed its final charge the instant it sensed the sudden surge in the target's aura below!
"Nether Abyss Protocol... charging 100%... target locked... fire!"
The cold electronic voice fell silent!
The black point condensed to its limit suddenly contracted. Then, a pitch-black beam composed entirely of the deepest "nothingness" shot forth without a sound!
This beam was even more condensed and pure than the earlier "God-Burier"!
No energy spilled from it. There was no radiance, no sound—only a straight trajectory of "void" that devoured everything!
Its speed surpassed the limits of thought!
Its target—Fang Gang, who had just broken through and whose momentum was soaring!
The shadow of death was even heavier than before his breakthrough!
This strike contained the Faceless Cult Master's absolute killing intent, backed by its authority over the "Nether Abyss"!
The peak of the S-rank peak! A true catastrophe of annihilation!
Fang Gang's pupils constricted! The immense sensation of power brought by his breakthrough still seemed tiny before this "Spear of the Nether Abyss"! Block it head-on? That would be certain death!
"Haah—!"
At the line between life and death!
The qi and blood of Fang Gang's Marrow Cleansing Realm erupted without reservation!
Gold-red qi and blood smoke soared into the heavens, vaguely condensing into the phantom of a furnace behind him!
He did not choose to defend. Instead, he poured all his power, his newly born qi and blood, and his utmost unwillingness to die into both fists!
Nine Yang True Fire, the immense strength of the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Skill, the vibrations of Eight Extremes, and even the remnants of the dark-gold contaminated energy he had just suppressed were all forcibly roused and fused together!
The gold-red light over his fists compressed to the limit, with even a hint of strange dark-gold patterns appearing at its edges! The space around his fists warped and tore beneath that ultimate force!
"Great Sun! Demon Burn! Eight Extremes! Prison Quake! Open for me—!!!"
With a furious roar, his fists became two blazing suns edged with dark gold, violently striking toward the "void" spear that devoured everything!
When his fists struck, heaven and earth lost their color!
The fist force interwoven with gold-red and dark-gold collided fiercely with that beam of pure "void"!
There was no sound!
There was no light!
There was only an absolute "emptiness" that spread outward in an instant!
Centered on the collision point, a massive sphere of "void" over two hundred meters in diameter appeared out of thin air!
Within that sphere, all matter, energy, and even space itself were completely annihilated! It was as though they had been utterly erased from reality!
Terrifying annihilation energy spread madly from the edge of the void sphere like an invisible world-destroying storm!
The earth silently disintegrated into the finest particles. A bottomless, enormous chasm formed in an instant! Wherever the shockwave swept, everything vanished!
At the edge of the chasm, the violent annihilation storm raged for more than ten seconds before slowly subsiding.
At the center of the bottomless pit.
Fang Gang's figure reappeared.
He was half-kneeling on the ground, both arms crossed protectively before him.
The originally brilliant diamond-like sheen on his arms had dimmed to the extreme. Dense, horrifying cracks deep enough to expose bone covered them, like porcelain about to shatter.
Dark-gold contamination patterns writhed madly within those cracks, like poisonous vines drawing nourishment.
He was drenched in blood, his aura weakened to the extreme. Black blood mixed with fragments of organs continuously spilled from the corners of his mouth.
He had blocked it!
With the body of the Marrow Cleansing Realm he had just attained, with fists that fused all his power and even the remnants of contamination, he had forcibly withstood the lethal "Spear of the Nether Abyss"!
The price was that both arms were nearly completely ruined, and his body was on the verge of collapse!
"Pfft!" Fang Gang spat out another mouthful of blood. Darkness swam before his eyes, and only an unyielding will kept him from falling.
At that moment, the pitch-black Broken Horn he had been gripping tightly suddenly began to pulse with incomparable violence!
A cold, chaotic will brimming with endless ecstasy and greed surged through the imprint on his left arm like a ferocious beast finally freed from its shackles. Ignoring his grievously wounded body and crumbling defenses, it crashed fiercely into his consciousness!
"Shackles... broken... vessel... mature..."
"The time... has come... return... to your place..."
This time, the whisper was no longer temptation. It carried a lofty, unquestionable command!
At the same time, the suppressed dark-gold patterns in his chest flared brilliantly, spreading madly throughout his body like a living network of blood vessels!
A terrifying corrosive force far stronger than before erupted, instantly breaking through the blockade of Nine Yang Qi and Blood and rushing straight toward his brain!
Warning! Contamination level has exceeded 15%! Critical threshold breached! Warning! High-level will forcibly awakening! Mental corrosion intensity increasing exponentially! Heart Like Glazed Glass state fluctuating violently... imminent collapse... Vessel's original will detected... about to awaken...
The system's glaring blood-red warnings flooded across his vision!
Fang Gang felt as if his consciousness had been cast into a frozen abyss. That cold, chaotic will tore frantically at his sanity, intending to completely devour and assimilate him!
The existence within the Broken Horn had been waiting for this very moment—when he was gravely wounded, near death, and at his weakest! It intended to seize the opening and complete its final possession!
"You... can forget it!" Fang Gang's eyes nearly split apart as his remaining will let out an unwilling roar. The mirror of his Heart Like Glazed Glass was covered in cracks beneath the violent assault, trembling on the verge of collapse!
High in the sky, the deep-blue geometric structure seemed to have fallen into brief "silence" because that strike had failed to completely annihilate its target. Cold streams of data surged wildly, as though recalculating something.
At the bottom of the crater, Fang Gang's struggle grew weaker and weaker. The dark-gold patterns crawled over his neck at a visible speed, spreading toward his head...
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