Heart

Merely catching that extraordinary fragrance opened his pores and filled his body with comfort. Every particle of his flesh trembled gently, conveying its longing to Shi Yi and urging him to seek out the fragrance's source.

Shi Yi's spirits lifted. Without slowing his steps, he activated his Double Pupils and searched through the purple mist.

At last, he reached the end of the passage.

The purple river of blood had also returned to its source: the Blood Pool, shimmering with a hazy purple glow. All the mist spilled out from the pool, where vital essence gathered so thickly that it condensed into clouds and fog. Clouds billowed and radiant mists glowed, creating a sacred scene.

As Shi Yi approached the Blood Pool, the fragrance grew stronger. Breathing it in through his nose and mouth gave him the sensation of floating toward immortality, of sprouting wings and ascending to the heavens.

He had not even truly arrived or obtained what lay in the Blood Pool, yet he already felt this way. It was hard to imagine how heaven-defying the thing within could be.

Shi Yi pushed his Double Pupils to their limit. His blazing gaze pierced layer upon layer of purple mist and reached into the Blood Pool.

When he saw the scene within, a rare look of shock appeared on his face.

He actually saw a lifelike Purple Qilin lying motionless in the Blood Pool. The retreating river of blood flowed entirely into his body and vanished.

Was that really a Purple Qilin? Those fearsome scales, that mythical form, that majestic, awe-inspiring presence-everything looked so real.

Before this enormous Purple Qilin, Shi Yi was far too small, like an insignificant ant.

Overawed by the Purple Qilin's presence, he stood rooted to the spot, his entire body taut. Even the air around him seemed to have frozen.

Shi Yi tried to use his Double Pupils to see through the illusion and uncover the Purple Qilin's true form. Yet no matter how hard he tried, the Purple Qilin remained unchanged, as lifelike as ever, as though he were real.

"How could this be? There's a qilin in the Lower Realm?" Shi Yi murmured in bewilderment.

Then he thought of how the Lower Realm had Kun Peng of the Ten Fiends, the True Dragon who stood at the head of the Ten Fiends, the Ancestral Sacrificial Spirit, the Lord of the Forbidden Zone...

Having a qilin here no longer seemed so strange.

Still, this qilin probably was not the one ranked among the Ten Fiends.

Shi Yi remembered that the offspring of the qilin among the Ten Fiends was a White Qilin, whereas the one in the Blood Pool before him was purple.

Color, however, did not determine the purity of a bloodline.

The Purple Qilin's Treasure Technique was likewise the complete Qilin Precious Technique. The scattered techniques Shi Yi had obtained earlier were far too incomplete. Here, from this Purple Qilin, could he obtain the flawless Qilin Precious Technique?

Shi Yi was eager, but facing a qilin with such a terrifying presence left him at a loss, even if it was only a corpse.

Just as he pondered how to obtain the opportunity within the Blood Pool.

Purple mist rose, and the scene in the Blood Pool changed.

The lifelike Purple Qilin shifted and transformed, then vanished before Shi Yi's eyes. In his place, only a vivid drop of blood resembling purple agate hung motionless in the air.

Faintly, the roar of a qilin sounded from within it.

Understanding dawned on Shi Yi. This was the true face of the Purple Qilin in the Blood Pool. He simply had not been able to see through it; the power of his Double Pupils was limited and not yet strong enough.

At the same time, that suffocating pressure receded like the tide, returning to the drop of Purple Qilin Blood.

Shi Yi could move again. Without hesitation, he opened his Double Pupils and immediately strode toward the Blood Pool.

Hadn't he risked entering this passage precisely for this moment of harvest?

Still, Shi Yi retained his composure and did not let the Purple Qilin Blood go to his head.

Vital essence condensed into clouds and mist, and a sweet fragrance filled the air, impossible to ignore.

Compared with the purple river of blood that had flowed out after the passage opened, this drop of Purple Qilin Blood was countless times more precious. Over the long years, the Blood Pool Baptism held once every decade had consumed only a hundred-millionth of its energy, a truly negligible amount.

Shi Yi slowly approached, trying to draw the drop of blood toward him from a distance.

After several attempts ended in failure, however, Shi Yi understood that this drop of blood could not be taken away.

So he stepped down into the Blood Pool and approached the drop of Purple Qilin Blood.

Encountering no resistance, Shi Yi smoothly reached the qilin blood drop.

At that moment, all the divine radiance in the blood within his body transformed into purple qilin, emanating qilin power as they tried to establish a connection with the blood drop before him.

He had tried this from outside the pool earlier and failed. Now, the moment Shi Yi tried, the qilin blood drop responded.

Crystal-clear throughout, it erupted with brilliant purple light, like a purple sun. Then the qilin blood moved toward Shi Yi, heading straight for his heart.

Shi Yi did not dodge. He sensed no malice within the blood drop.

He watched the qilin blood drop sink into his flesh and enter his heart.

At that moment, Shi Yi was thinking about how he had already surpassed the limit, broken through the blood moving realm extreme, and reached the very pinnacle of the blood moving realm.

Under these circumstances, what would happen if he fused with a drop of unimaginably powerful qilin blood?

He did not know, but he would soon find out.

The drop of Purple Qilin Blood entered Shi Yi's heart, instantly staining its originally red flesh purple.

"Thump!"

A tremendous shock rang out like roaring thunder, making even the void tremble as though it were about to shatter.

This was no explosion. It was Shi Yi's heartbeat, like an enormous drum being struck.

Shi Yi froze on the spot, feeling as though this heart no longer belonged to him.

As the engine that drove blood throughout the body, the heart's importance went without saying. The strength of this organ directly determined one's strength in the blood moving realm.

Now, as the qilin blood drop merged into Shi Yi's heart, it brought about an unimaginable transformation and evolution.

Every inch of flesh and every chamber of his heart shone with brilliant purple radiance, emanating incomparable pressure.

"Thump!"

"Thump!"

His heartbeat grew increasingly rapid and terrifying, each beat carrying the crushing might of thunder.

Had another blood moving realm creature been present, these heartbeats would surely have oppressed its chest beyond endurance, leaving it struggling to breathe.

Even Shi Yi himself could barely withstand it. Every blood vessel throughout his body bulged, turning an eerie purple, like long purple snakes crawling through his flesh.

At that moment, the power within him surged, climbing at an astonishingly exaggerated pace.

His cultivation realm remained unchanged-he was still in the blood moving realm-but every aspect of his physique soared. Without question, Shi Yi had once again broken through the limits of the human body, taking an astonishing step forward within the blood moving realm.

Yet the process was agonizing, as though ten thousand ants were gnawing at his heart.

Shi Yi gritted his teeth and endured, allowing the Purple Qilin's heart to guide his own heart through its many transformations.

The true meaning of the blood moving realm lay not only in the treasured light that rose automatically from the surface of the flesh, but also in the word "moving."

And for the blood moving realm, the most important organ was the heart.