A ray of warm sunlight fell across Ren Ye's face. He woke from unconsciousness and slowly opened his unbearably heavy eyes.
Looking up, he saw a blue sky, the blazing sun slipping behind white clouds. The light shining through stung his eyes slightly, and a few birds flapped past, their cries ringing clear.
For a moment, he felt dazed, his mind muddled. Didn't I fall to the bottom of the pool with that fat bastard? Then how... how can there be blue skies, white clouds, and sunshine here? Did I fucking croak and ascend to immortality on the spot?!
Ren Ye had no idea where he was. Somewhat panicked, he instinctively tried to push himself up with both hands, but the slightest movement sent a shattering pain through every inch of his body.
It felt as though someone had thrown him into a blender and set it spinning madly. Every bone and scrap of flesh in his body seemed to be tearing apart, pulverized...
"Ugh...!"
Ren Ye groaned in pain. Lying motionless on the grass, he tried circulating his star source power. A faint thread of divine sense flowed into his abdomen, and he saw that his star core was dull and lightless, like a shriveled, rotten walnut, without a trace of mystical radiance.
The successive bloody battles, subduing Ding Hun, slaughtering Super Grades, and pushing his purple qi to its utmost sublimation-after that whole combination, the Little Bad King truly had been squeezed dry. Now, apart from his brain, not a single scrap of flesh would obey him.
He could only lie quietly on the ground, hoping to catch his breath and recover a little.
A full half an hour passed like this. Just as Ren Ye prepared to get up again, he heard a groaning murmur beside him.