Yuan Zhen had reached the end.
The last thing recorded was King Yan giving the news to Ye Huang about her situation and the fate of her parents.
Yuan Zhen then realized that the other records he had found where likely meant to mislead others. Only someone with a recognized item like his key, for some reason, was able to find the truth.
Now, he learned that the Sky Race elder was the Celestial Emperor himself, acting to finish what he had started. He fed the beasts, humans and bane-devils of the past a handful of lies and then led them into a battle that they would have no need to question.
He had covered himself up perfectly, even making use of their own discontent to wipe out the puny Infallible Race.
As for Yuan Zhen, he had already began to speculate that Miss Huang and Ye Huang were one in the same. He himself had no evidence, but his gut told him it was so.
Even as he was processing things, the purple specks reappeared and began to revitalize the stagnant air. Powerful winds swept across the room, leaving Yuan Zhen flabbergasted.
Once more, his blood boiled and beat against his veins, spurring on a reaction from his energy. Even his spirit manifestations began to glow brightly within him.
"What's this..." At some point, the book in his hands began to change. At the end, where there was a blank spot on the last page, more words appeared.
While he read them, his body was also beginning to change as well. The purple specks fused with his blood and his energy, bringing him to the peak of Spirit Manifestation.
"I doubt any of the Primordial Beasts have been able to live this long, but if you are reading this then it means I was wrong to think that. You, reader, either are or possess the bloodline of the Primordial Beasts. So, as fate decreed, you shall be the successor of the Infallible Race."
Yuan Zhen felt the emergence of his final Manifestation, and could already feel all eight of them resonating with one another. Yuan Zhen had been caught up in their appearances, but before they were objects they were the representations of who he was as a cultivator.
They were the condensed forms of his will and energy, emerging from his soul to then again return to the soul.
Before he could inspect his eighth manifestation, the finals words appeared.
"Receive the inheritance; take on the mantle of the Infallible Race, the Primordial Beasts and all of Hell."
Yuan Zhen's body stiffened, because at that time an immense influx of energy arose from the book.
An ancient, domineering and sky-tearing voice shook the mountains, disrupting the relative peace of the core region. Though it spoke clearly, no one that heard it could understand. Thousand of lightning bolts struck the earth, unearthing buried ruins as they cracked the land.
High in the sky, the clouds converged over the Grotto, further plunging it into abysmal darkness. The bane-devils marvelled at the sight, suspecting that a peak Immortal Spirit expert was performing some terrifying feat.
The entire Grotto was bathed in the heavenly glow of lightning, but this was but a precursor. As even more of the lightning crashed into and destroyed the earth, thick miasma began to seep out of the cracks and rise into the air.
Soon enough, miasma from all over the Grotto was being sucked into the sky. This continued until the dark clouds became a mixture of blood red and dark violet. This, along with the occasional flashes of light, made for a horrifying sight in the eyes of the bane-devils.
They all fled from where they were, reaching the outermost areas and crashing into the barrier. They all beat against it in unison, bringing out all their power in attempts to break free.
As the Grotto fell into panic and chaos, the last vestiges of miasma were drained.
When that happened, back below the mountain, Yuan Zhen could feel the literal weight of multiple worlds crash down onto him. He fell to his knees and cried out as the bones shattered beneath the pressure.
His legs followed, then the rest of his skeleton along with them, even his teeth. Every bone in his body was crushed, rendering him nothing but a pile of flesh on the floor.
If he could have turned his head, he would have seen Qi Zixie's be enveloped in an azure light before being whisked away to some unknown location.
Yuan Zhen's organs exploded, becoming a gooey slop that leaked out of his orifices. He rejoiced on the thickness of his energy channels, as they were now the only things keeping him alive.
Unfortunately, he could see that they were beginning to burst as well. He used the last of his soul power to act on place of his heart. He wanted to try to get his blood to flow in order to, once again, bolster the strength of his energy.
As he did this, alarm bells rang out in his mind and stirred his soul. Inside of his core, Miss Huang was in an awful state.
Ever since the cataclysmic change began, she felt like her soul was being torn asunder. She felt like some part of her was trying to escape, as if it didn't belong to her. This caused the body she inhabited to begin splitting, creating a horrendous image.
Still, she was able to sense the dreadful intent that had been the cause of Yuan Zhen's alarm.
That intent was entirely focused on the small room Yuan Zhen was in. His eyes looked over to the book that was resting on his boneless body, and he saw that it was beginning to fade from existence.
'This book... It's guiding it...'
To his dismay, the book was acting as a signal flare for the oncoming decimation and there was nothing he could do.
Fearing for his life, he tried to find Qi Zixie. He wanted to use his soul power to bring her away from there. He used all of his energy just to turn his head beneath that weight, but was instead flattened even further.
'Zixie...'
In his core, Miss Huang was standing side to side with a similar grey figure, snow white hair flowing from its head. Miss Huang herself had changed, and was now a spirit glowing with green light. Her appearance remained the same, but her body was pulsing with a familiar energy.
She was staring at the grey figure, seeing that its face was slowly being reconstructed. The white hairs on its face indicated the gender, but when she saw the rest of that face she gasped.
That was because, aside from the purple eyes and ink-black horns, that grey-skinned figure was the very image of Yuan Zhen. After it was reformed, that figure flew off into the void of Yuan Zhen's core.
At that point, the voice spoke again, only this time Yuan Zhen could understand what it was saying. "Be ye fearful? Dost thou not perceive thy blessing? Worry not, for it comes swiftly."
In his flattened state, Yuan Zhen couldn't help but think about how much he resembled a pancake from the other world. He had only seen them on billboards and hadn't eaten them, but was beginning to wish he had tasted them when he had the chance.
Despite the 'reassurance' of the voice, Yuan Zhen still felt like he was going to die. The intent had finally firmly locked onto him, and he could feel himself rising into the air.
With a flash of light, he was brought away from there only to reappear in the skies above the Grotto. He was then able to take a good look at the state of the world around him.
He saw the apocalyptic clouds that heralded untold disaster, then looked down at the Grotto below. Every few seconds, powerful waves of energy shook the land and upset the wind, sending fluctuations in every direction.
In the sky, Yuan Zhen was like a strip of paper. If not for the power that had locked onto him, he would have likely been blown away by the intense winds.
He was brought up to the very center of the gathering of clouds where he could sense that intent even easier. He looked and saw the miasma-stricken clouds begin to rotate, like a hurricane, as electric currents built up along with them. Blood red and dark violet energy, lightning energy, and that crushingly powerful intent.
Yuan Zhen had not been prepared for it. A single, magnificent spear of discolored light materialized. It was like an ancient weapon, having been used for hundreds of years and gathering all manner of blemish.
The combining energy merged with that spear, causing it to grow and grow until it reached a size larger than all the sky.
"No. We must not allow this. To restore balance to Yin and Yan, even I must personally act. Help him properly, you have my permission." A softer, distinctly different, feminine voice, spoke.
In response, that powerful voice from earlier answered, "As thou hast decreed, so it shall be."
After that, the mighty spear in the sky was also brought under enormous pressure. The combined energies within it were compressed, pushing them beyond their peak. As the phenomenon shrunk, its might and splendor only increased.
Yuan Zhen saw and heard it all, becoming increasingly frightened. Despite that, his mind remained focused and his energy continued to persevere and preserve him.
His blood had actually evaporated into a blood mist that he had to force into his channels. If he had let it escape from him, he would have lost the very essence of his blood and surely perish.
Keeping himself in an unchanging state, Yuan Zhen looked on with the same ferocity in his eyes. They shone with unnerving light, even in the face of an insurmountable threat to his existence.
No matter what, even in the face of certain death, he has resolved to never be defeated by it. As ancient philosophers had said, "Defeat does not come from losing, but from the thoughts that follow."
By now, the spear had shrunk down to the size of a needle, or perhaps a strand of three-colored hair...
What mattered wasn't the shape or size, but the aura it released on all the world. It could no longer be compressed, then it finally started moving.
'Wait... Is that.... Is it going inside of me!?'
It might sound lewd, but this was what Yuan Zhen was thinking. He watched that tiny object arrive just inches from his face, then proceed toward the area between his eyes.
'Crap! Crap! Crap! Don't come in!'
He couldn't even move. The tiny spear pierced his skin and pushed its way into his forehead, where it immediately began to terrorize his mind and body.
Imagine a tiny bottle of water being filled with a torrential amount of water being pumped at a dangerous pressure. No matter how you looked at it, such a thing would not end well.
Yuan Zhen couldn't even cry out or make a fist; he suffered through it with no crutch.
That pain wracked his soul, leaving his core a fractured mess. As that happened, Yuan Zhen prepared himself to die.
Then, before his core could be destroyed, he heard a voice that was not Miss Huang's.
"Have you forgotten the words? Then let me speak them for you." At that time, Yuan Zhen's right eye began to change colors into a bright golden-red.
"End-Sprit Form."
He called out to Miss Huang in his mind, but she informed him that she was not the one speaking.
Yuan Zhen's right eye began to glow, but he was still uncertain as to how it would help him.
The voice didn't seem to want to speak anymore, so he had to improvise. He focused on the spear that had just fully entered his head. When he did so, he felt a clear link being formed with the spear and his right eye.
To his shock, he could bring the energy from the spear and to his eye where he could perfectly control it afterward.
Managing a toothless, yet still gleeful smile, Yuan Zhen quickly got to work. He drew energy from the spear to his eye, then sent it into his channels.
Once it entered there, the instantaneous transformation shocked even him. His channels widened to the point where, if his organs were still present, they would have crushed them. He was glad that his body had been almost completely destroyed.
Soon enough, his channels stopped growing.
Yuan Zhen, realizing the potential of the spear's energy, began to use it to reform his organs. For each organ, no matter how complex, he required only a few seconds before they were remade. So deep was his understanding of anatomy and such, he was able to perfectly repair his body in less than a minute.
He noticed that he had become significantly larger, reaching almost three meters in height. His black hairs were also longer, but traces of white were present at the roots. It appeared that, as his hair grew, it would no longer be black but white.
As for the blood mist, when it met the spear's energy it quickly condensed and changed states into a viscous liquid.
He reinserted the blood into his veins, but a trace of it still remained in his channels. Likewise, a trace of his changed energy was present in his blood vessels.
The final project was his core. Thinking all would be the same, he moved on to fix his core with a somewhat bored expression.
However, as soon as the spear moved down into his stomach region, he felt a wave of pain in his right eye. As that happened, it reverted to its original form.
"Shit!"