Transcending Godhood: I Extract Keywords and Crush the Gods

dark.

Extreme repression.

Li Xuan's first feeling upon regaining consciousness was one of heaviness.

The surrounding soil was pressing against his chest.

He tried to circulate his inner energy, but a piercing pain shot through his dantian.

His natal flying sword, Azure Nether, lay dimly lit in the center of his Qi Sea, its surface covered with cracks.

He moved his right arm.

"Don't move! Your ribs are stuck in my drive shaft!"

A mechanical electronic voice rang in Li Xuan's mind.

It's K.

Li Xuan opened his eyes with difficulty.

Vision is blurry.

He released a faint divine sense and then realized his current predicament.

The shockwave from the Styx explosion sent them flying.

They shed their super-bone fish form and returned to their original appearance.

But by sheer coincidence, Li Xuan's broken sternum bones became lodged between the damaged mechanical gears in K's chest cavity.

The two were buried deep underground in an awkward position.

"You think I want to do anything?" Li Xuan's voice was strained, barely audible.

"Your piece of junk is poking into my lung meridian. Quickly loosen your gears."

"My backup power is down to only 3%! The main control chip is severely damaged, and the hydraulic system is paralyzed. I can't release it."

K's electronic eye flashed twice with a faint red light, illuminating the surrounding space.

The two stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"Mimicry," Li Xuan suggested. "If we mimic earth-burrowing dragons or void sandworms, we can get out."

K remained silent for two seconds.

"Give it a try."

Li Xuan closed his eyes, attempting to mobilize the essence of the Time Demon.

His natural talent, which he usually had with ease, was completely unresponsive this time.

It cannot mimic.

They were now just two ordinary creatures, severely wounded and dying, bound together.

"Finished testing?" K's tone was laced with sarcasm. "With our source locked, we're not even as good as a low-level Star Mouse now."

"Shut up, save your energy for digging." Li Xuan gritted his teeth.

He endured the excruciating pain and extended his left hand.

A faint layer of sword energy coated his palm as he plunged it into the soil above.

The purplish-red soil was as hard as iron, and the sword energy only managed to dig out a shallow layer.

K also raised his only remaining intact mechanical arm, his five fingers transforming into a drill bit, and began to slowly rotate it.

These two normally high-ranking Diamond-level powerhouses are now forced to rely on this primitive method to slowly climb the ranks.

The soil contains heavy metal toxins that constantly corrode their bodies.

Li Xuan's skin was festering, and K's metal armor hissed as it corroded.

I don't know how long they dug.

The soil above finally loosened, and a sliver of gray light shone through.

boom!

Li Xuan smashed the last layer of soil with one punch.

The two tumbled and crawled off the ground, crashing heavily onto the purplish-red wasteland.

He was panting heavily.

The air was still thick with toxic miasma, but compared to the suffocating feeling underground, it was already paradise.

Li Xuan rolled over, turned his head, and looked around.

His pupils contracted.

The ground around it was covered with a dense network of dark red roots.

These roots intertwine to form a network that stretches as far as the eye can see.

Some roots were even right up to the edge of the hole they had just drilled.

K's electronic eyes also swept over these roots, causing its mechanical body to tremble involuntarily.

They all knew what those tree roots were.

This is a demon that can drain them dry.

"We're not dead." K's voice carried a hint of disbelief.

"This damn tree has a pretty strong sense of professional ethics." Li Xuan looked at a dark red branch slowly wriggling beside him, cold sweat soaking his back.

"They basically only eat dead animals, or prey that are just one breath away from death."

"Although we were seriously injured, our vital signs are still relatively stable."

If they had been unconscious underground for another half hour...

If their energy weakens even a little more.

These roots will relentlessly penetrate their bodies, turning them into nourishment for this wasteland.

A sense of relief at escaping death welled up inside me.

The two lay on the ground, neither getting up immediately. Their bodies needed rest.

Li Xuan introspected himself.

Seventy percent of the meridians were severed, the five internal organs and six bowels were displaced, and the source of the demonic energy was exhausted.

The most troublesome thing is that the residual energy of the Styx River and the high-frequency shockwaves still remain in his body.

These two forces surged and clashed within the body, hindering the flow of spiritual energy.

K's situation isn't much better.

The left arm was severed at the base, and the chest armor was extensively dented.

If the nuclear fusion reactor shuts down, life support systems can only be maintained by the most basic chemical batteries.

"The situation is bad." K pulled up the battle damage report and projected it directly onto his retina. "We've lost contact with the camp and with the captain."

"Mission progress is zero, and the survival probability is less than 0.1%."

"Don't bother me with your crappy data," Li Xuan interrupted him irritably. "Can data predict which river will explode?"

The mention of the explosion ignited their anger simultaneously.

"It's all that brainless idiot Gangku's fault!" K slammed his fist on the ground, sending sparks flying from his chest.

"If he hadn't provoked that liquid gold crab, we wouldn't have been exposed! We wouldn't have been dragged into that massive battle!"

"Body cultivators' brains are filled with nothing but muscles," Li Xuan agreed, his eyes unfriendly.

"His explosive temper will kill everyone sooner or later. Have you forgotten what happened in the Sirius star system?"

"We were lying in wait, but he insisted on stealing the Void Beast's egg, saying he wanted to taste what fried eggs tasted like."

"As a result, it was chased by two adult behemoths across three star systems, and half of the starship's tail fin was bitten off!"

"And then there was the landing," K continued, "The leader ordered that we not touch those mangroves, but he insisted on punching the trunks. If the adjutant hadn't stopped him, he would have been drained dry!"

The two of them went on and on, cursing Gangku's ancestors for eighteen generations.

In this environment, such complaints have become their only way to vent their fears.

They argued for several minutes before stopping.

"Once you've had enough cursing, figure out how to survive." Li Xuan coughed twice, spitting out a mouthful of saliva mixed with black blood. "Take care of yourself first."

"In our current state, any native creature we encounter, even the most common insect, could devour us completely, leaving not even bones behind."

"Agreed." K's electronic eyes lit up again. "Priority task: repair the body and activate the mimicry talent."

"Only by restoring our mimicry can we survive here."

The two struggled to their feet.

Li Xuan grasped the broken bones stuck in K's chest cavity.

"Bear with it."

"Be gentle, don't break my main control circuit!"

Click!

Li Xuan used force to forcibly pull his broken bone out of K's gear.

A muffled groan was heard at the same time.

Li Xuan was in so much pain that his face turned deathly pale, and K's body exploded with a burst of electric sparks.

The two finally parted ways.

"Scan the terrain." Li Xuan leaned against a rock, cautiously looking around.

K turns his head.

The electronic eye emits weak sound waves for detection.

"There's a large amount of water vapor reaction two kilometers ahead," K pointed to the right. "The water column from the Styx explosion has created many craters around it."

There's a small puddle there.

"Walk."

The two supported each other and walked unsteadily toward their goal.

Along the way, they avoided the mangrove roots on the ground.

If they encounter any signs of Zerg crawling, they will detour.

Occasionally, the dark shadows of eagles would flit across the sky, and the two would lie down in the mud, pretending to be dead and holding their breath.

It took them more than an hour to walk a two-kilometer stretch.

Finally, a puddle about ten meters in diameter appeared before us.

The water in the puddle was jet black, the stagnant water of the River Styx.

Because it was separated from the main channel of the River Styx, and due to the dilution effect of the explosion, the concentration of dead gas in the water dropped significantly.

K picked up a stone and threw it into the puddle.

The stone sank to the bottom without being corroded or melted.

"Hmm, not bad." K nodded.

Without hesitation, the two jumped into the puddle.

As soon as I entered the water, a bone-chilling cold hit me.

But then, a strange sense of familiarity washed over me.

They had previously perfectly mimicked bone fish.

Although it has now exited the mimicry state, it has already recorded part of the gene sequence and energy circuit of the Styx River deep within its body.

The stagnant water in the small puddle did not strongly repel them.

On the contrary, because of the low water pressure, a natural protective film is formed, completely covering up the presence of living people on them.

"Let's begin."

Li Xuan sat cross-legged at the bottom of the water.

He took out a jade bottle from the corner of his storage ring and poured out a pill.

Nine-Turn Rejuvenation Pill.

This was a trump card he obtained after slaughtering a top-tier sect in a certain immortal cultivation realm.

After swallowing the pill, its powerful medicinal effects exploded within his body.

Li Xuan guided the medicinal power to flush out the blocked meridians.

The broken bones made a cracking sound and began to slowly heal.

On the other side, K opened the armor plate on his chest.

He pulled an energy tube from a hidden compartment on the outside of his thigh.

Insert the energy tube into the slot in the chest cavity.

hum!

The mechanical body trembled.

The extinguished power plant was reignited, its eerie blue light piercing through the stagnant, inky black water.

The damaged hydraulic system began to reset, and the broken lines were reconnected under the repair of nanorobots.

Both of them were racing against time.

Several hours passed.

Li Xuan opened his eyes, a sword-like glint flashing in them.

His sharp edge quickly faded, but his breathing had become much more stable.

K also stood up straight. His broken left arm had not grown back, but the wound was now covered with a thin metal film, so it no longer leaked electricity.

"The injury has healed by 15%," K provided precise data.

"That's enough." Li Xuan felt the Time Demon essence surging again within him. "I can use the Mimicry talent now."

"Mimic what? Continue to transform into a bony fish?" K asked.

"The bone fish needs a huge amount of death energy to sustain it, and there isn't enough death energy in this puddle." Li Xuan shook his head. "Turn into a crab."

"They have extremely strong resilience and can absorb surrounding metallic elements to repair their shells."

"Reasonable."

The two simultaneously activated the Time Demon Source.

Skeletal remodeling, flesh and blood alteration.

A few seconds later, two smaller, vibrating liquid crabs appeared in the puddle.

One shell bore sword marks, while the other was missing a pincer.

After the mimicry was completed, the metallic minerals at the bottom of the puddle began to converge towards them.

The genetic characteristics of liquid gold crabs come into play, allowing them to absorb these substances.

Li Xuan felt his severed meridians being forcibly fixed by liquid metal.

It felt strange, but the effect was surprisingly good.

K then used liquid metal to re-condense a somewhat crude giant pincer.

time flies.

The metallic substances in the puddle were completely absorbed, and two crabs crawled out of the water.

With a flash of light, Li Xuan and K returned to human form.

Li Xuan moved his wrists, and the flow of his inner energy became much smoother.

Apart from the irreparable cracks deep within the dantian that damaged the very source, the external injuries have mostly healed.

K's mechanical body has also recovered 80% of its combat power.

"The damage to the source requires high-level spiritual items. I can't find any here." Li Xuan clenched his fist.

"We're lucky to be alive," K analyzed. "We need to move. This place is too close to the explosion's epicenter; high-level creatures could come patrolling at any moment."

"Mimic insects. We've learned our lesson the hard way in the air and in the water, so insects on the ground are the safest bet," Li Xuan suggested.

"Nether Uranium Heavy Beetle." K offered the option, "High defense, decent movement speed, and it's a low-level patrol unit, so it's unlikely to attract the attention of higher-level beings."

The two then used their mimicry abilities.

Two eight-meter-long uranium beetles appeared on the wasteland.

His entire body was covered in heavy, jet-black armor, and six thick, segmented limbs stood on the purplish-red soil.

They blended into the background of the wasteland and began to crawl rapidly away from the River Styx.

The wilderness is desolate.

Two heavy beetles crawl side by side.

They encountered several small Zerg patrols along the way, but they managed to slip past them without leaving a trace thanks to their perfect mimicry.

"Direction confirmed, we are moving southwest." K's electronic voice rang out in the Zerg's telepathic communication channel.

"Based on previous data analysis, the density of the dark red shrubs in the southwest is decreasing, indicating a lower concentration of spiritual energy there. The safety factor is higher."

"Stop." Li Xuan suddenly stopped in his tracks.

K stopped and turned to look at him: "Enemy activity detected?"

"We're going the wrong way." Li Xuan looked at him and said coldly, "We need to go to a place with a high concentration of spiritual energy."

K's electronic eye flashed red: "Logical error. High concentrations of spiritual energy mean a high density of high-risk creatures."

"Given our current state, going there would be tantamount to suicide."

"Have you forgotten why we came out here?" Li Xuanliu stared at K with only his compound eyes. "We came here to find the antidote!"

"The captain said that wherever a venomous snake appears, there's always an antidote within seven steps."

"The antidote must be in the core area where the spiritual energy is most concentrated!"

"That was the captain's judgment, and the captain's fate is currently unknown." K's voice was absolutely rational. "The leader's instructions to us are to find the antidote and bring it back to the camp."

"There are still hundreds of tribesmen in the camp waiting for rescue."

How long were we unconscious? A day? Two days? I have no sense of time!

"If we continue deeper into this high-risk area, and we die, the mission will be a complete failure. Our entire tribe will be wiped out."

K raised its forelimbs, pointing in the direction it came from.

"Optimal solution: Look for clues about the captain and other team members."

If they are alive, they must have left a mark. Let's gather our strength and plan what to do next.

"If we can't find it, we must return to camp, report the true situation to the outside world, and let the leader revise the plan."

"Bullshit!" Li Xuan cursed angrily. "Back to camp? With what? Back empty-handed? Don't you know the leader's temper?"

"Without an antidote, we'll just be treated like trash if we go back!"

Li Xuan took a step forward, and the beetle's segments plowed through the ground.

"Besides, without a captain to lead the way, how are the two of us, half-crippled, supposed to get through the blockade of those insect swarms and demonic vultures? We must find the captain!"

"You're contradicting yourself," K said firmly. "You just said you were going to find the antidote in a place with high spiritual energy, but now you're saying you're looking for the captain."

Your emotions are interfering with your judgment.

"My judgment is clear!" Li Xuan's compound eyes turned bloodshot. "If the captain is still alive, he will definitely go to the place with the densest spiritual energy to find the antidote!"

"Because he's a stubborn person! If he promises the chief, he'll definitely do it!"

"We can go there to find the antidote and also to find the captain!"

"The probability is too low," K replied coldly. "The captain is rational too."

"If he survived a disaster of the magnitude of the Styx explosion, his first reaction would be to retreat and regroup. He couldn't possibly continue to go deeper while he was seriously injured."

"You don't understand the captain at all!" Li Xuan roared.

"I only understand data!" K raised his voice in return. "The data shows that your plan has a mortality rate of 99.9%! I refuse to execute it!"

The atmosphere plummeted to freezing point.

The wind on the wasteland seemed to have stopped.

Two heavy beetles are facing each other.

The sword energy within Li Xuan's body began to overflow, and a faint blue sword light appeared on the carapace of the heavy beetle's back.

At the end of K's segment, a pale blue plasma light began to condense.

"You're going to stop me?" Li Xuan's voice was chilling.

"I'm stopping you from dragging me to my death." K's electronic eyes locked onto Li Xuan's vitals.

The pride of a cultivator and the rationality of a mechanic erupt under the pressure of dire circumstances.

Neither of them could convince the other.

Fear, stress, and pain transformed into irreconcilable anger at this moment.

"Then let's go our separate ways!" Li Xuan roared, and the sword light on his back surged.

K's plasma cannon has also completed charging and is ready to fire at any time.

Just as the two were about to make their move.

A sudden change has occurred!

An immense spiritual power, too vast to be described in words, suddenly descended.

This force has no physical form.

It ignored Li Xuan's spiritual barrier and K's mechanical firewall.

Li Xuan's flying sword clattered to the ground, and K's plasma cannon automatically shut down.

The two covered their heads and knelt down in agony.

A vast and boundless spiritual network connects them to it.