Staying in the sect, controlling beasts and cultivating immortals

"Get out of here—!!!"

Yu Changsheng's shattered will unleashed a roar that surpassed its limits!

His left hand, pressed against the lotus embryo, shone with an unprecedented brilliance from the Chaos Emperor's Blood Imprint. He recklessly poured the fragments of the "Source" mystery that he had just passively absorbed and had not yet comprehended, along with all the remaining power of his will, into the lotus embryo. These fragments transformed into layers of dark golden protective barriers imbued with the aura of primordial chaos, enveloping the fading blue light!

But this hasty defense proved so fragile under the suicidal onslaught of the brood mound. The barrier continued to tear, and the shattering of the blue light intensified!

At the same time, that pure annihilation gaze originating from the core monolith has already descended!
A cold, indifferent gaze, a gaze that seemed to end all existence, ignored spatial distance and fell upon Yu Changsheng and the violently trembling lotus embryo in his arms.

There was no sound, no light or shadow.

However, both Yu Changsheng and the will of the mother nest within the lotus embryo sensed an absolute and irreversible "erasure" command! It was the final formatting of the "abnormal" existence by the rules of the universe!

Externally, there is the ultimate annihilation; internally, the anchor point is about to be destroyed!
A true death sentence!
Just as his consciousness was about to be completely frozen by despair—Yu Changsheng's right hand, which was inserted into the base of the monument and felt the endless flow of the "source" of annihilation, along with the power of the Dao embryo that was flashing wildly on it and was being passively strengthened due to contact with the source, suddenly caught a very subtle, yet exceptionally clear, feeling of loosening coming from the base of the core monument!

It's outside!
It's that colossal beast from the Burial Star Sea!

Its violent strike, imbued with the deathly resentment of billions of stars in the Sea of ​​Burial, combined with its continuous impact that tore through the sealing barrier, finally had an undeniable effect on this ancient and heavy core seal!

A faint ripple of space spread up from the countless struggling limbs at the base of the giant monument and reached Yu Changsheng's fingertips!

This ripple shattered the absolute "nothingness," creating a sliver of light! A sliver of hope to escape ultimate annihilation!
"The rift... the gate of life... snow clears... the Dao embryo... return to oneness!!!"

A flash of inspiration, like the beginning of the universe, exploded in Yu Changsheng's mind! A thought that was extremely crazy, yet in line with the true meaning of the "source" of guidance, instantly took shape!
He did not choose to defend himself, nor did he choose to escape from that annihilating gaze!
He chose... casting! He used his own body as a furnace, drew upon the strength of all forces as a hammer, and forcibly cast the embryo!
He gave up protecting the lotus embryo with his left hand!

Instead, it transformed its last remaining divine soul power, along with the "source" Dao essence absorbed by the embryonic form, into an invisible yet incredibly resilient soul chain, which fiercely bound the shattering bluish-white light within the lotus embryo—Chen Xueqing's final life imprint!

"With my soul as the guide! Bind the spirit! Return to your place!"

The soul chains suddenly retracted, forcibly pulling that faint but pure bluish-white light from the edge torn apart by the mother nest's mouthparts, and dragging it into the depths of Yu Changsheng's own sea of ​​consciousness!
Pull towards the nascent form of the Chaos Dao Embryo that is merging with the Guixu Compass and being baptized by the Dao of "Source"!
Chen Xueqing's life imprint, like a pure spark, was thrown into the boiling and violent furnace of annihilation!
"Ugh!"

Yu Changsheng let out an inhuman scream, as if his sea of ​​consciousness had been pierced by millions of red-hot steel needles!
The imprint of protecting others merged into the berserk core of his own Dao embryo, and this conflict almost instantly tore his consciousness apart!

But at the very moment when this intense pain and conflict reached their peak—

The annihilating gaze that followed, determined to erase everything, was actually disturbed by the faint yet incredibly tenacious mark of "life" that abruptly merged into the embryonic form of the Dao!
It's like a speck of dust suddenly appearing on an absolutely smooth mirror, affecting the trajectory of light!
The absolute lock on the annihilation gaze showed an extremely brief, almost imperceptible... deviation! It didn't disappear, but rather its "priority" of destruction seemed to be slightly affected by that pure life imprint!
It's that tiny, one-in-a-billionth of a second deviation!
Yu Changsheng seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the only chance to survive, by offering himself and Xue Qing as bait!

His right hand, inserted into the base of the monument, condensed all the true meaning of annihilation of the "source" he had just absorbed, as well as the turbid annihilation power of the billions of remnants below that had been forcibly plundered by the embryonic form of the Dao. He no longer resisted the spatial ripple, but instead followed the loosening and fiercely... tore it apart!
"Jinyuan: Creation of Heaven!"

*Sizzle!*
A muffled sound, powerful enough to shatter the soul, rang out as space tore apart!

At the base of the core monument, at the barrier formed by the limbs of countless victims, a spatial rift, barely wide enough for one person to pass through and shimmering with an unstable dark purple and grayish light, was forcibly torn open!

On the other side of the rift, there was not the scene of the Sea of ​​Buried Stars, but a violent and chaotic current of laws powerful enough to tear apart souls!

It was at the center of the energy storm caused by the giant beast's continuous attacks on the sealing barrier!
Behemoths lurk outside, while turbulent currents of law threaten to crush them from within! It's a dead end for both sides!

But Yu Changsheng had no other choice!

"Walk--!"

With his last bit of strength, he forcefully pushed the Emerald Lotus Embryo, which had instantly dimmed and become riddled with cracks due to the forced removal of Chen Xueqing's life imprint, but whose interior had temporarily escaped the most fatal attack from the Mother Nest, into that unstable spatial rift!
Immediately afterwards, his body, which was covered with Dao patterns and whose arms had been eroded like shattered porcelain by the power of his own violent Dao embryo and the aftershocks of his annihilation vision, also transformed into a stream of light wrapped in the storm of annihilation, and followed the lotus embryo as it plunged into the crack!

Just as his figure disappeared into the crevice—

hum!
The annihilation gaze, which had been slightly interfered with by the Mark of Life and had deviated from its target, finally finished "calibrating" and coldly swept over the spot where he had disappeared.

The last wisp of Yu Changsheng's image left behind, along with the few drops of energy liquid containing the origin of the Chaos Dao Embryo that he sprayed out, silently turned into the most basic particle dust and completely dissipated into "nothingness".

Boom! ...
The core monument emitted a muffled rumble, and the light of the runes on its body seemed to dim slightly. The crack that had been forcibly torn open twisted violently a few times under the sweep of the Annihilation Vision and the monument's own restorative power, before quickly closing up and disappearing.

The space returned to a viscous, deathly stillness.

Only deep within the core monument, the cold will seemed to fluctuate slightly, as if confirming the erasure of the "anomaly," before disappearing once more into the endless source of annihilation.

Below, on the filthy earth that was writhing, countless struggling limbs seemed to have lost their brief source of stimulation, and once again fell into slow and painful writhing, slowly transmitting endless resentment and the power of annihilation toward the giant monument that suppressed them.

Outside the seal, the colossal Star Burial Sea Beast, its power greatly depleted from the continuous frenzied attacks, instinctively stopped tearing after sensing the terrifying core annihilation will fluctuations. Its eerie green eye, burning with resentment and greed, stared intently at the now-stabilized seal barrier, letting out a low, unwilling, and furious roar before slowly disappearing into the churning fog and the Dead Sea…

……

Rage! Tear! Grind!

Yu Changsheng felt as if he had been thrown into a blender made of billions of broken blades. The laws of space were crushed into dust by the chaotic energy storm, time lost its meaning, and only the omnipresent energy cutting and the excruciating pain at the level of his soul remained.

He held the cracked and dimmed jade lotus embryo tightly, as if it were a piece of driftwood in a raging storm.

Inside the lotus embryo, the pale blue-white mark that Chen Xueqing had forcibly separated and temporarily stored in the core of the embryonic form of his consciousness sea as a soul chain pulsed weakly, like a candle flickering in the wind, ready to be extinguished at any moment by the surrounding violent and chaotic energy storm. The nascent chaotic embryonic form in his dantian, after experiencing the impact of the "source" Dao rhythm of the Origin Monument's core, forcibly devouring the turbid origin, separating the mark of life and integrating it into the core, and finally the backlash from tearing apart space, had become unusually "quiet" at this moment.

The dark vortex did not stop spinning, but its rotation became extremely slow and stagnant, like a gear that was overloaded and about to jam.

At the center of the vortex, a white-gold core light spot became more solid than ever before, yet it exuded a cold and heavy aura. Around it were intertwined dark gold imperial blood patterns, dark purple annihilation runes, gray and withered resentment impurities, and... a wisp of extremely weak, yet stubbornly maintaining the last bit of life in bluish-white light!

This prototype contained not only the foundation of Yu Changsheng's own Star Extinction Dao Law, the origin of the Chaos Emperor's Blood, and the vitality of the Star Core Crystal Fragments, but also forcibly devoured and merged the annihilation resentment of countless sacrifices in the filthy land of the Origin Monument. Furthermore, it was imprinted with the ultimate profound fragments of the Star Dome Forger's "Return to the Void Dao Embryo" for guiding annihilation. Finally... it also incorporated Chen Xueqing's pure life imprint and the core origin of the Purifying Green Lotus!

It has become heavier, more complex, and more powerful than ever before, but it is also more chaotic, dangerous, and on the verge of spiraling out of control!
At this moment, this incredibly heavy nascent Dao embryo is greedily and instinctively absorbing the annihilation energy contained in the chaotic currents of laws around it, like a bottomless abyss, trying to repair its own wounds and fill its emptiness.

Each absorption brought excruciating pain, as if the foundation of one's Dao was being torn apart, and a dazed feeling as one's consciousness was being eroded by cold, desolate emptiness.

It's unknown how long it tumbled and crashed in the raging torrents.

Boo!
A soft sound, like a bubble bursting.

The tearing sensation of spatial turbulence suddenly disappeared.

A heavy feeling of falling came over me.

Pfft!
The icy, bone-chilling seawater instantly engulfed Yu Changsheng.

Burial Star Sea!
He struggled to break free of the thick, dark green sea, coughing violently, each breath carrying the heavy smell of blood and the stench of rotting seawater.

He looked around and saw only the endless, lead-gray fog and the still, lifeless, dark green sea.

But he could sense the difference.

The deathly stillness here is slightly less intense than on the coast where we encountered the giant beast. Something else seems to be mixed in with the thick fog... a faint... fragmented, chaotic... fluctuation of spiritual energy? It's as if the spiritual dust that has escaped from countless shattered worlds is being slowly assimilated in the deathly stillness of the Burial Star Sea.

More importantly, although the emerald lotus embryo in her arms was covered with cracks and its light was dim, it did not completely shatter in the spatial turbulence.

Its surface was covered with a faint emerald-gold halo, barely resisting the erosion of the desolate waters of the Burial Star Sea.

In the sea of ​​consciousness, that faint bluish-white mark still existed, like the only coordinate in the darkness.

The exhaustion of surviving the ordeal was like icy seawater, instantly engulfing him.

Every inch of his body was being torn apart by excruciating pain. The nascent Dao embryo in his dantian felt as heavy as a star about to explode, and every weak pulsation was pulling at his already collapsing foundation.

He struggled to control his body, trying to keep himself from sinking into the lifeless, dead sea. His gaze swept across the surface, searching for a floating piece of wreckage to cling to.

Just then, from the depths of the thick fog ahead, a faint but constant light pierced through the leaden-gray curtain and entered Yu Changsheng's bloodshot eyes, burning with a weary and extinguished flame.

That light... was neither starlight nor lamplight.

Rather... the outline of an island?

A lonely island in the endless sea of ​​burial stars, radiating a faint yet tenacious spiritual light...?
Yu Changsheng's heart skipped a beat.

The Sea of ​​Buried Stars... has an island?
The faint yet persistent spiritual light on the island was like a flickering candle in the abyss of despair; weak, yet at this moment, it ignited the last ember of "hope" in Yu Changsheng's heart.

He held the cold lotus embryo in his arms, feeling the faint bluish-white pulse deep in his sea of ​​consciousness. Dragging his broken body, which felt as if he were carrying a desolate star, he struggled to swim towards the faint light of the lonely island in the mist.

The waves sobbed, and the thick fog surged, slowly swallowing the figure struggling to move forward in the desolate sea.

The leaden-gray dead waters of the Burial Star Sea, carrying the coldness and heaviness of countless ages, lick the dark green reefs wave after wave.

The air was thick with the dust of decaying stars and the stench of rusting metal, so heavy it was suffocating.

Yu Changsheng's battered body struggled in the murky seawater, each stroke tearing at his skin covered with dark gold, dark purple, and chaotic gray Dao patterns, causing excruciating pain.

The Chaotic Dao Embryo throbbed heavily within the dantian, like a annihilation bomb that could explode at any moment. It greedily absorbed the annihilating power of the surrounding turbid stars, yet it was on the verge of losing control due to the internal chaos and conflict.

However, he tightly embraced the cracked, emerald-gold lotus embryo in his arms. The surface of the lotus embryo was dim, like jade covered in dust, yet it still stubbornly conveyed a faint but pure warmth of life—the last mark of Chen Xueqing's life, the only light in his abyss of despair.

Ahead, a jagged black reef broke through the sea, and behind it, a soft light, quite different from the deathly aura of the Burial Star Sea, faintly shone through!

The light was extremely dim, like a candle flickering in the wind, yet in this leaden gray kingdom of only destruction and annihilation, it tore open a gap full of rebellion and temptation.

vitality!

This thought surged through Yu Changsheng's collapsing consciousness like an electric current, igniting the last bit of brute force deep within his bones.

Driven almost by a beastly survival instinct, he dragged the dark whirlpools behind him, constantly churning the seawater, created by his Dao Embryo's primal instincts, as he struggled to swim towards the shimmering shore beyond the reef. (End of Chapter)