Time had lost its meaning on this deathly silent battlefield.
Song Chi no longer remembered how many waves of black shadows he had defeated.
Five hundred? A thousand?
Perhaps more.
He only knew that his white hair kept growing longer, already reaching his waist.
The black aura around him had also grown denser, and even his breaths carried wisps of black mist.
But Song Chi did not care.
He even thought it was rather nice.
White hair lent him a weathered air, and the black aura added an imposing presence.
At a glance, he looked exactly as a great cultivator who had weathered life and death should.
His cultivation, meanwhile, had been soaring.
He had absorbed every last black crystal the shadows dropped.
At first, it hurt so much he wanted to curse someone's mother. Later, he gradually grew used to it, and now he could even absorb them while fighting the shadows.
Integrated body peak stage.
Only a hair's breadth from Mahayana.
In the Lower Realm, this speed would have frightened people to death in droves.
Here, there was no Heavenly Tribulation, no bottleneck. So long as he absorbed enough black crystals, the barriers between cultivation realms would loosen on their own.
Song Chi understood this as an "Immortal Realm perk."
Yet he could not feel happy.
Today's battle ended sooner than usual.
Song Chi stood atop a heap of ruins, with a dozen or so dissipating shadows beneath his feet.
Out of habit, he put away his sword and stood with his hands behind his back, ready for his daily "battle review."
"In this battle..."
"The encirclement was adequate, but the attacks were somewhat rushed..."
"Something to watch next time..."
After saying that, he paused.
As though waiting for something.
But there was only deathly silence around him.