CHAPTER 128: A LONG-BURIED MEMORY

Chapter 128: A Long-Buried Memory

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Above, the dark space was replaced by a scarlet sky, filled with black clouds,and below, the ground was reddish-brown, stained with the blood of countless beings.

Lin Xian, still sitting on her throne, lifted her gaze forward and as she did, her vision gradually began to cover the figures sprawled on the ground, motionless, of various beings,

from humans to beasts and other strange creatures that were neither human nor beast.

The higher she lifted her gaze, the farther she could see, and the more she did, the more the number of corpses on the ground of the various creatures began to increase:

first two, then five, then ten.

The number grew exponentially, until she slightly tilted her gaze upward, where in the distance a huge mountain of corpses was stacked.

The scene was horrifying and suffocating, but none of it seemed to provoke any emotion in her.

She simply kept her gaze while focusing her sight on the top, where a single solitary individual was standing.

Finally, after a long time, a strange glimmer of unknown emotions appeared in her eyes as she looked at that figure.

Its image was blurry, but the more she looked, the clearer it became.

He was a man, tall, with long black hair tied behind him, dressed in a black robe, with various golden embroideries, currently stained with blood.

He stood atop the mountain of corpses, his back to her, looking imposing, as if no one in the world could bring him down.

She stared at that familiar back with ever growing intensity, and as if sensing her gaze, the man slightly turned to look at her.

His deep, red eyes were devoid of any emotion as they gazed at her, and at that very moment, cracks began to form in the air, striking reality from the top to the ground and advancing forward—but neither she nor the man seemed to care.

He, with a gaze that seemed directed at her, said something, but his words were not heard, and at that very moment, the world around her shattered, sending her back into the same dark space as before.

The place had returned to being dark and silent as before, but Lin Xian’s mood was noticeably darker than before, seeming irritated by something,

’Tch, that b*stard... even in death, he still causes trouble.’

***

While Ye Ning was getting used to her new strenght, the tournament proceeded quickly.

After Zhu Rong’s second match, he stepped off the arena and went back, and this time he could leave.

There were still some hours left until the end of the fourth day of competition, and with him already having finished fighting, there was no need to stay there.

Just like him, gradually, the others would have completed their second match, and simultaneously, those who had been defeated would fight again, trying to hold on until the end and re enter the main competition.

But none of that concerned him.

He had already made a rough estimate of the strength of all his opponents and could already tell who would win and who wouldn’t;

He could already tell who would make it to the finals with him, so there was no real point in staying.

The battles would have been intense, and sure, they could have given him some information about the power of his opponents as well as their fighting styles and so on, but none of that mattered compared to his own strength.

He had successfully reached the fourth stage, and thanks to the fact that almost all of his cores had also reached the fourth stage, forming an elemental formation among them, the force he unleashed was already far superior to that of a normal fourth stage cultivator.

He had the confidence to fight even against fifth stage opponents in the mid phase, and once he finished elevating his Ice Core to the fourth stage, he could even have a chance against a cultivator at the peak of the fifth stage.

Of course, just because his strength was superior to his cultivation level didn’t necessarily mean that those of the fifth stage had no chance against him.

He knew well the power of beings at that level, as in the past he had successfully reached that level himself. He knew that although in strength he could match them, there were other aspects in which he couldn’t do much, because he was limited by his current cultivation stage.

For example, he wouldn’t be able to destroy the nascent souls of his opponents as easily as another cultivator at the peak of the fifth stage, much less stop them if they decided to escape using their nascent souls.

Of course, he had thought of various ways to deal with it, but in the end, they were only temporary measures that couldn’t completely make up for his gaps in those aspects.

That said, it didn’t matter much; he wasn’t going to have to face many cultivators of that level in the near future, right?

He was sure that if it ever happened, he would find a way to deal with them completely.

For now, he didn’t have to think about that; he had a more immediate matter to take care of, which was finishing the crystallization process of his Qi in the Ice Core.

He had made good progress in the few hours of waiting in the waiting area, but it wasn’t enough to complete the process.

Now that he had finished for today, he had the entire evening and night to finish forming the initial layer of the Golden Core in the Ice Core.

So he didn’t waste any time and, just like last time, booked a cultivation room at the pavilion and immediately got to work.

The attendant who received him this time was the same as in previous visits, so when he saw him, he didn’t waste time asking for all the details and simply asked how long he wanted to stay inside.

So Zhu Rong didn’t bother with all the formalities and immediately took a high level cutivation room and began cultivating.

The process was fast and smooth, without any interruptions, so much that he finished forming the rest of the first layer of the Golden Core in no time.

To him, it had taken no more than a few minutes, but outside, several hours had already passed.

He let out a sigh, finally able to remove another task from his to do list.

Now, with everything he had, he was more than ready to enter the secret realm,

as for the Lightning element, he would think about that later.