Boxer advancement, a new trait unlocked! (Double-length chapter, monthly votes requested)

"Mom----Mom----save me----"

The piercing cries echoed madly through the gaps in the mountain of flesh like a rusted steel file, then rose into a shriek that threatened to tear eardrums apart.

Tangible purple-red ripples spread through the air with the cries. These were not sound waves, but Spiritual Contamination—the despair of countless vengeful spirits, frozen at the moment of death.

Like countless invisible needles, they ignored the barrier of flesh and skin and stabbed straight into the depths of the brain.

Li Xiang felt his body grow heavy, as though someone had forcibly poured a bucket of cold, viscous black sludge into him.

Countless faces, twisted with despair, flashed before his eyes.

There were babies made into Fortune-Transferring Beads and sealed inside clay statues, crying soundlessly in the dark.

There were village women driven into a dead end by life, the last ashen hopelessness in their eyes as they hanged themselves.

There were profession holders who had passed through this place and been devoured, their pupils filled with utter terror before death.

Every bitter resentment the Curse Fetus had devoured now became a thousand thousand poisoned needles, trying to pierce his mind and drag him into an eternal mire of despair.

"Hmph."

A cold snort escaped Li Xiang's throat, sounding like a tiger or leopard. The great dragon of his slightly arched spine abruptly shuddered, then released a clear dragon cry only he could hear.

Dragon spine—this was the pillar of his bones and sinews, and the backbone that let him stand between heaven and earth.

In an instant, the dragon spine's unyielding effect activated in full.

Scorching vitality rose from his tailbone and washed through every joint in his body. The spiritual pressure trying to destroy his reason crashed against him like waves against a reef. For all its