Feeling the blood in his body stir as though it had a mind of its own, seemingly still hungry, Aman looked utterly bewildered.
It might have sounded unbelievable, but the blood had rushed out on its own just now, before he could even react. Fortunately, it had not escaped his control, and he could still summon it back with his Bone Text Precious Technique. After that wild rampage, it had become much more obedient. He easily subdued it with those specific Bone Texts, and it stopped causing trouble, diligently circulating through his body.
"What happened?" Chen Yao put away the Blood Blade and asked curiously.
"Maybe fighting and drawing blood awakened some instinct inside it? While cultivating to transcend the Extreme Realm, I never fought anyone to the death. I just kept training. Maybe that's why I never managed to take that final half step." Aman pondered it. "Those Bone Texts you taught me are so strange. They actually make my blood feel alive."
Was it the Bone Text derived from the corporeal-soul hand portion of Twin Hands? Did his compression of blood essence, combined with the Bone Text, give the corporeal soul corresponding to his blood a measure of sentience? Without the spirit-soul hand governing it, was the blood's corporeal soul more independent? Chen Yao considered.
He did not dwell on it further and asked Aman, "What do you plan to do? Should we let your Fourth Grandfather know you're safe? His Spirit Body was destroyed, so he must have sensed it by now. He'll be here soon, and he might not let you leave."
"I'll leave something here to tell him I'm safe. Can you find a way to hide it so nobody except Fourth Grandfather notices?" Aman quickly took out a specially made jade slip and left a message.
Chen Yao took out a Devouring Pouch and sucked the jade slip into it, then extracted a trace of Fourth Grandfather's aura from the Jade Pendant. He fitted the Devouring Pouch with a cluster of tiny wings and an aura-identifying device, then casually tossed it away. The little thing immediately flew into the distance, seeking the matching aura.
"All right, it'll go find Fourth Grandfather on its own. It's very well concealed. Unless someone is on the level of a king or marquis, they won't detect it." Having said that, Chen Yao looked at Aman. "Let's go."
"All right." Aman took one last look into the distance, then followed Chen Yao onto the Flying Artifact he had brought out, and they shot into the sky.
"Cough! Pfft!" Fourth Grandfather suffered a backlash when his Spirit Body shattered, nearly coughing up a mouthful of blood. His gaze turned terrifying.
"Aman!" He sprang to his feet. Ignoring the damage from the backlash, he left the Martial King Manor and headed straight for the place where his Spirit Body had fallen.
Elsewhere, Fifth Grandfather saw his hurried departure and turbulent aura and understood what had happened. He smiled faintly, feeling that everything was firmly in his grasp. Entering a dark chamber, he casually glanced at the Death Warrior's Soul Lamp.
It had gone out.
His smile froze, and his eyes widened. After checking repeatedly, he left with a grim face and pursued Fourth Grandfather, who had already been gone for some time.
In the wilderness, Fourth Grandfather was flying at full speed when he suddenly sensed his Spirit Body's aura. Turning his head, he saw a tiny figure swoop toward him and finally settle quietly in his palm, where it stopped moving. He examined it, took out the jade slip containing Aman's message, and finally breathed a sigh of relief after reading it, though he was also deeply astonished.
Suddenly, he sensed Fifth Grandfather's aura approaching from behind. He quickly put away the Devouring Pouch, composed his expression, and turned a stern face toward Fifth Grandfather. "Fifth Brother, what are you doing here?!"
"I saw that you were injured and rushing here, Fourth Brother. I was worried something had happened, so I followed to check." Fifth Grandfather's expression did not change. "Fourth Brother, has there been some mishap? Why not tell me? We can think of a solution together."
"Aman is missing..." Fourth Grandfather could not be bothered to waste words. After offering that curt reply in a heavy voice, he made a show of searching the surroundings. Fifth Grandfather stared, beginning to wonder whether his Death Warrior had been so unlucky that some calamity had fallen from the sky and wiped him out along with the boy.
Each harboring his own thoughts, the two searched the area without success, finding only the Death Warrior's mangled, unrecognizable corpse. Fourth Grandfather even displayed superb acting skills by letting out a long howl and redoubling his search. Fifth Grandfather finally lowered his guard, merely grieving the loss of a mighty subordinate.
Half a month passed in a flash. On their journey to the Second Ancestral Land, the two stopped many times to rest, especially Chen Yao. The things he did made even Aman's scalp prickle.
Boom! Another Cave Heaven disintegrated, scattering vital essence everywhere. Chen Yao grunted from the backlash as cracks spread across his body.
But he quickly drew another deep breath. Before him lay a stalk of spirit medicine gathered along the way. After being touched by creation immortal qi, its fundamental nature had been elevated to the level of Sacred Medicine. Six Treasury Immortal Thief was now digesting it to the fullest, repairing Chen Yao's injuries.
At first, the Cave Heavens he shattered had been extremely difficult to restore. He had relied entirely on Grand Luo Insight to observe their structure, along with lavish quantities of medicinal power, to reshape them through repeated failures. But practice made perfect. After succeeding again and again, he finally became thoroughly proficient. This time, he failed only once before successfully forming his ninth Cave Heaven.
Aman stared ahead without blinking. Within his eyes was the Insight-Viewing Bone Text Chen Yao had broken down and taught him, enhancing his vision. Adept at observing the changes in all things, it allowed him to scrutinize every tiny change as the Cave Heaven took shape.
After successfully transcending the Blood Moving Extreme Realm, he had immediately attempted to break into the Cave Heaven Realm. Having completely devoured a Spirit Transformation cultivator's vitality, he opened three Cave Heavens in succession upon breaking through. His accumulated reserves were so immense that he had opened another not long ago. By a conservative estimate, those reserves were enough to sustain his rapid advancement and allow him to reach five or six Cave Heavens within half a year.
Now, with the experience of both failed and successful Cave Heaven openings he had observed from Chen Yao, the obstacles to breaking past the Cave Heaven Extreme Realm in the future had greatly diminished. He already knew that the most common and suitable method was to reshape the Cave Heavens, making all nine as large as the tenth.
The final Cave Heaven, a gray-black vortex of light, took shape, and the phantom of an enormous Cave Heaven appeared above Chen Yao's head. Once he had passed the halfway point in reopening his Cave Heavens, this tenth Cave Heaven had begun flickering into view. Now that all nine had been reconstructed and reborn, the tenth was finally no longer illusory. It was about to step into reality and take complete form!
The reason Ten Cave Heavens represented the Extreme Realm bottleneck was that the first nine could be opened naturally through cultivation, following the rhythms of heaven and earth. The tenth, however, had to be opened entirely through one's own power, without heaven and earth responding or offering guidance. If the first nine came into being by following heaven, the tenth meant defying it-a Cave Heaven that truly seized the creative power of heaven and earth.
Chen Yao's act of reshaping his Cave Heavens to resolve his unstable Dao Foundation had fulfilled precisely that condition, and the tenth Cave Heaven had naturally appeared as a result. With his work brought to perfect completion, the very moment all nine Cave Heavens reopened, it was ready to take shape!
Boom! The nine Cave Heavens spewed vast torrents of vital essence into the phantom of the tenth. The various changes and profound mysteries involved in a Cave Heaven's formation unfolded within the phantom, growing increasingly intricate and resonating with the tenth Cave Heaven's evolution. Finally, they merged completely into one, and the tenth Cave Heaven opened!
A dazzling, multicolored vortex of radiance enveloped a Cave Heaven abyss as black as ink. This tenth Cave Heaven was larger than the other nine combined. It crowded them aside and monopolized the throne overhead.
Just then, an unexpected change occurred. The Dao trajectories of the nine Cave Heavens intertwined with those of the tenth, and they actually began evolving on their own. Drawn by the tenth Cave Heaven, they expanded and grew increasingly intricate. They had originally opened naturally, but reconstruction had changed their fundamental nature. No longer formed through reliance on the order of heaven and earth, they had been shaped entirely by Chen Yao. Without that order binding them, their growth had long since ceased to be limited.
This was also why breaking past the Extreme Realm required shattering and reconstructing the Cave Heavens: to cast off the shackles of order and truly make them one's own creations. Chen Yao had completed that step before opening his tenth Cave Heaven, naturally bringing about the extraordinarily rare phenomenon of the tenth Cave Heaven nourishing the others in return!
The tenth Cave Heaven was growing together with nine entirely new Cave Heavens whose order intertwined with its own, all free of the shackles restricting their growth!
"Boom, boom, boom..."
One Cave Heaven after another transformed. Guided by the order runes fed back from the tenth Cave Heaven, they expanded in succession until they were just as large as it was. The tenth Cave Heaven no longer towered above them, slowly descending instead. Ten enormous Cave Heavens became immense black holes revolving around their host at the center, each wider in diameter than he was tall.
Aman watched the scene intently, recalling what Chen Yao had said: "If you want to travel with me as my fighter, you first have to be a genius."
A genius who can walk alongside you is sometimes worth even more than a teacher. Can I keep up with him? Aman wondered.
That evening, they reached the Second Ancestral Land, only to be greeted by flames soaring into the sky. The place had been burned to ashes.
Looking far into the distance, they saw a tiny figure with the golden Furball standing on his shoulder, racing into the Great Wilderness toward some unknown destination.
"We made it, just barely! That's Shi Hao! Quick, follow him!"
(If we gave Aman a formal name, does anyone have any ideas? How about Shi Xiaoman?)
Before you continue