Ning Zu's chest rose and fell, each breath ragged and labored as he stood amid a field of shattered blades, the remnants of his broken swords scattered like fallen leaves.
Ming You, across from him, was scarcely in better shape. His once proud steel armor lay in ruin, fractured in multiple places, and his left arm hung at an unnatural angle, clearly broken.
Not far from them, Meng Hua's gaze lingered on the two battered men, her own body marred with countless cuts. She appeared somewhat more intact, but was more hurt than them, her soul was so damaged it fell to a hundred man soul.
Her soul trembled, echoing the impact of Ming You's relentless strikes. His attacks had carved through her defenses with ease, each blow landing more heavily on her spirit than her body.
She felt a force surging within her belly, a faint stirrings of life swelling with a dual pulse, one light, one dark. The breath excess energy from the incomplete Yin-Yang Immortal Fetus Gu within her, erupted outward.
With blinding speed, Meng Hua lunged toward Ming You, her hand shrouded in dark energy as she aimed a deadly strike.
But in a swift, brutal movement, Ming You yanked Ning Zu by the shoulder, pulling him forward to shield himself.
Meng Hua's hand plunged through Ning Zu's liver, piercing him completely.
It happened so fast that she barely registered her own horror as the spear shot through Ning Zu then through her, a last-ditch attack from Ming You before he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
The wound left her stunned, her soul in shambles as she stared at the gaping hole in her chest, wide enough to glimpse the world beyond.
Her vision blurred, a faint dizziness settling over her. But then, her eyes caught movement, a flicker in the distance.
Another figure stepped into the blessed land, another Ning Zu to be exact, yet something in his presence was profoundly unsettling.
Above him loomed the phantom of the monstrous Desolate Ancient Moon.
Beside him was a door, yawning wide as it sucked in the remains of her fallen kin, remnants left of Ming You's attack.
Confusion washed over Meng Hua as she turned to look at the what she thought was the original Ning Zu, his form slowly disintegrating, like a brittle puppet finally released from its strings.
As he shattered into pieces, realization dawned: he was never truly there, this time was merely a decoy whose sole purpose was to stall for time.
Meanwhile, the real Ning Zu reached down, plucking up the spear stained with fragments of her own flesh.
He muttered something under his breath, his movements methodical as he began refining a Gu with it.
Meng Hua struggled to piece together what he was doing, her mind clouded by pain and disbelief. Why was he refining Gu? Why now? What kind of madness was driving him?
She wanted to be angry, but the refinement was done before those feelings could show.
A dark smile twisted his face as he held the newly forged rank five Gu. His eyes met hers, a gleam of something almost deranged in them as he taunted, "Did you know, Meng Hua? I was the one responsible for abortions in my clan."
Before she could respond, a terrible heat bloomed in her belly, spreading like wildfire. She doubled over, gasping as the searing pain intensified, until it felt as though her insides were on fire. And then —
*Boom.*
The explosion sent Meng Hua to her knees, her hands pressed against the ground as she fought to keep her consciousness from slipping away.
Through bleary eyes, she looked up to see the charred remains of something small and broken on the ground in front of her. Her heart sank as she recognized it, it was the Gu she was refining in her stomach.
As the silence of the blessed land cracked open with her scream, Meng Hua yelled, her voice trembling with hatred and disbelief, "You… You accursed… You accursed Mortal!"
Ning Zu's face twisted in defiance as he pulled out a collection of Gu from his aperture, ranging from rank 5 to rank 1.
Meng Hua's eyes widened in shock as she recognized the rare Gu writhing in his hands. Her mind raced: 'Hate Gu? Cleanse Gu? Where… Where did he get all of these?'
Suddenly, Ning Zu's fierce laugh pierced the air: "AHAHAHA! I AM REMOVING THIS LITTLE WORDS OF YOURS WITH YOU OUT OF EXISTENCE!"
Rage blazed across Meng Hua's face. This mortal—this insect—not only did he fuck up her refinement, but he now threatened to end not only her life but her existence too? This was simply madness!
Her fingers clenched around a storage Gu that had an Immortal Primeval Stone. She hesitated no longer, consuming it and feeling immortal essence surge through her, breaking through her restraint. The shackles of caution were gone, with no Gu in her stomach, she had no reason to hold back anymore, her refinement be damned.
Ning Zu worked swiftly, arranging his Gu inside the Life and Death Storage Gu with a frantic precision, each piece forming a careful sequence. With a series of fluid gestures, he used a rank 5 small Gu to contract the storage door until it was as small as an infant's hand.
Meng Hua's fury erupted. With a flash, she activated multiple movement killer moves, her figure blurring as she launched herself into the sky with an impossible speed.
But Ning Zu was prepared; the shadowy phantom that was materialized beside him, grabbed his body and hurled him at her, his form catapulting through the air, their paths colliding in mid-flight.
Clutching the miniature door in his hand, Ning Zu raised it toward her. His voice roared with power.
Mortal Killer Move—Cleanse The Source
Meng Hua's body froze mid air as a dreadful stillness settled upon her. Her killer moves halted, the momentum halting as her left hand began to turn a sickly shade of purple.
She watched, horrified, as the color spread and her hand slowly disintegrated into nothingness. Panic gripped her heart, she was an immortal, yet her very existence was unraveling, her physical form vanishing, even her soul beginning to fade.
Ning Zu's laughter echoed, sinister and triumphant, filling every corner of the blessed land.
Meng Hua struggled, her body half-gone, frantically willing herself to move. But the force binding her was relentless, indifferent to her power.
In a final, desperate act, she shrieked, "I will not be destroyed!" Her voice echoed with a dark, feral determination as she detonated, her body fragmenting into countless pieces, scattering across the land.
What remained of her soul clung to one shard, the remnants fleeing, clawing to escape the grasp of oblivion.
Then the blessed land trembled as if the earth itself groaned in agony, quaking with a fury that shook its sky.
Amidst the chaos, Ming You woke up, his body still sprawled on the ground, awakened by the violent quake.
Seeing what happened, he didn't hesitate to use what little essence he had left.
He let out a shriek—a sound so raw, so filled with anguish that it rang across the land, tearing his lungs.
The scream was the final strike, the nail in the coffin, tearing the last strands of Meng Hua's soul into nothingness.
Meng Hua was dead. Her essence, her soul, was obliterated.
Ning Zu plummeted back to the ground, his body withering, his youth siphoning away, each moment transforming him into an old man. His cultivation fell, draining from him until he was left at the rank 1 initial stage.
He hit the ground with a bone-cracking thud, his ribs splintering from the impact. Broken and battered, he lay amidst the rubble as the blessed land fractured, chunks of its essence crumbling.
Ming You, sapped of both essence and strength, could only watch helplessly as his vision faded. His was essence spent, his consciousness slipped away once more into the darkness.
When both of them were unconscious, a pink will got out of the fetus and went to the zombie part where her sister's soul was, then, it started moving and ran away from the blessed land trough a crack.
The blessed land would break, Ming You would then wake up and run away with the unconscious Ning Zu fair away.
But that's what should have happened.
Suddenly
A blue lotus mark flickered to life on Ning Zu's battered body as he forced himself to stand, his steps unsteady, each one strained with pain.
Through sheer will, he picked up the damaged fetus and refined it.
From his aperture, he withdrew a single eye and a long, slender pipe.
As he held them, the dream realm trembled, cracks spidering out across its surface, the very fabric of the realm beginning to fracture.
Ning Zu murmured with a hint of satisfaction, his voice echoing, declaring that this was proof of his dream path theory:
"Anyone could dive into their own dreams to get dream path materials. But with every significant memory, with every important person involved in it, the dreams grew more dangerous, and the rewards, more precious."
With that, he started the refinement, the tremors shaking the dream realm violently.
He summoned the powerful aura of the Soul Lotus Gu, pressing it outward to shatter the realm itself.
This was extremely dangerous to his soul, a brutal risk that could tear him apart, but he pushed forward.
Ning Zu staggered toward the heart of the blessed land, where its core was. With a steady hand, he hurled the eye into it.
The dream realm convulsed, cracks ripping wider, darkness seeping in from every fracture. The core began to glow, its light fierce and hungry, and the dream world itself began to dissolve, being destroyed bit by bit.
Next, Ning Zu tossed the pipe into the core. The pace quickened, the realm now barely holding itself together.
Finally, he threw the fetus into the core, and with that final touch, the core exploded outward.
A blinding white hole tore open, its pull immense, consuming everything in its path, from Ming You's lifeless body to the shattered remains of the dead zombie, every last fragment of this world was getting absorbed.
The suction tore at Ning Zu's soul, tugging him toward the hole. Only the strength of the lotus Gu held him in place, though his grip weakened with every second.
The last shreds of the dream realm were consumed, leaving nothing but darkness, the hole sealed shut.
Ning Zu floated alone in the pitch-black void, his soul foundation depleting at a terrifying pace, his very essence burning up, yet he remained composed.
In the place where the hole had been, something took shape.
A Gu, pulsing with the power of a rank 6 aura, gleamed in the dark.
It looked like a pink diamond, the size of a ring, radiating an energy.
Ning Zu's lips curved into a faint smile, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. He would have never dared to attempt something this dangerous before, but with his molten bloodlusty soul influenced burning through him, he was someone else, someone willing to risk everything.
He closed his eyes, braced for whatever would come next, as silence engulfed him in the void.
———
In the outside world.
The paper left by Ning Zu that were next to Old Man Yan Shi started glowing, and a new paper was made, with the details of how to refine a Dream Path Gu.
And Next to Ning Zu's body, all of the elders had grim faces, ready to exploit the molten bloodlusty soul's power.