Chapter 257 – On the Brink of Death
That roar transmitted an extremely terrifying pressure and penetrative power into every corner of the Heaven Basin Secret Realm. It completely overwhelmed the most powerful experts of the top ten sects with shock, and made each of them retreat from the source of the roar. They simultaneously thought that death would be inevitable, but none of them could have imagined that the people who encountered this terrifying profound beast were the two most talented people of the younger generation!
Jasmine, who was concentrating all her energy on detoxifying herself, was suddenly startled by the terrifying aura. Her severe and astonished voice echoed within Yun Che’s mind: “What’s going on? You guys actually provoked a Tyrant Profound Beast!”
“Tyrant Profound Beast?” Yun Che was terrifyingly alarmed. The oppressing feeling that this incredibly huge beast gave Yun Che was far superior to that Emperor Profound Flame Dragon, but he never could have thought that this was a Tyrant Profound Beast, since the level of Tyrant Profound Realm was never before seen in the Blue Wind Empire! It was a fantastical existence only told in legends!
The powerful pressure from the Tyrant Profound Beast caused Yun Che and Xia Qingyue’s bodies to stiffen. Their five visceras spasmed and their heartbeats practically halted. To defend against a Tyrant Profound Beast or to escape from underneath its claws was undoubtedly just a crazed dream. Yun Che clenched his teeth and said: “Jasmine! Is your strength truly completely sealed off, and you can’t utilize even a bit of it?”
“…” Jasmine remained silent for a long time and furrowed her delicate eyebrows. She never could have thought that not long after she sealed off her profound strength, Yun Che would provoke such a terrifying guy. But according to her, because she sealed herself, she could not unseal herself. The sole hope that Yun Che had to avoid this critical situation was already completely broken.
As matters stood, Jasmine was also beginning to have some regret.
“This time you are surely going to die.” Every one of Jasmine’s words were incredibly solemn.
“No!!” Yun Che suddenly shook his head: “I still don’t want to die… I can’t die!!”
“Qingyue… Let’s escape quickly!!”
Yun Che clenched his teeth and shouted loudly. He got up with incredible difficulty under that incredible mountain-like pressure. He grabbed Xia Qingyue’s hands and fled away with all his might.
“ROAR!!!”
Their movements invoked an angry roar from that huge beast. The giant beast lifted up its right arm and smashed downwards towards the direction they fled in…
The sound of wind that whistled from behind Yun Che made him subconsciously turn around. That huge fist wasn’t attacking them, rather it fell beneath that huge beast’s own feet, but it still caused Yun Che’s pupils to suddenly contract. He grabbed Xia Qingyue with one arm and used all his strength to leap high in the air. “Burning Heart” opened, and following the crazy surge of profound power, a translucent barrier suddenly appeared around him and Xia Qingyue’s bodies.
“Sealing Cloud Locking Sun!!”
Boom!!
Like a heavy hammer that came from heaven, it smashed the ground viciously, causing the entire Heaven Basin to vibrate. If it wasn’t a state of severe winter right now, but a summer day instead, perhaps a great amount of the Heaven Basin’s water would quake into the sky.
Feeling a great danger from beneath him, Yun Che carried Xia Qingyue and leapt high in the air as he fiercely inhaled. Using Star God’s Broken Shadow, he instantaneously pulled even higher into the air. Then, he flipped over facing downwards with his back to protect Xia Qingyue with the front of his body.
“Yun Che…!”
When Xia Qingyue cried from shock, it was immediately drowned out by the sound of that heaven shocking, earth shaking explosion.
After all, this was an indirect attack from a Tyrant Profound Beast. Even though Yun Che had leapt high into the sky a long time ago, the shockwave from the impact of the attack was still something he was incapable of resisting. His “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” was instantly broken through and a chunk of broken ice and fine snowflakes struck him on the back. Yun Che’s eyes bulged outwards and his face suddenly turned deathly pale. An arrow of blood sprayed out from high up in the sky and a small bit of landed on top of Xia Qingyue’s clothes, dying her snow white cloud dress into a patch of red.
Without the protection of “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun”, that single instant was already enough to kill Yun Che. He violently bit the tip of his tongue to prevent himself from fainting. He channeled his profound strength vigorously and activated “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” once again. However, this time, an extremely terrifying scene appeared within Xia Qingyue and his line of sight…
They saw an incomparably large head that was still more than thirty meters away from them, but it already covered their entire vision range. On its head were two eyes as scarlet as blood, and the two bloody eyes were focused entirely on them. Following that, it opened its large, deep as the abyss mouth towards them and spread forth an incredibly powerful suction force. The solid ice, the flying snow… and the embracing Yun Che and Xia Qingyue were absolutely incapable of resisting the suction force, so they flew toward the middle of that wide open mouth.
Yun Che and Xia Qingyue suddenly shouted out instinctively, and Yun Che suddenly realized during this exact moment why the attack of the huge beast smashed the ground instead towards them. It was because that huge beast knew that Emperor Awakening Heart Lotus had been seized by them and was bound to be on their body right now. If it destroyed them, then the Emperor Awakening Heart Lotus would be destroyed as well. However, if it shook them high in the air and sucked them inside its stomach, it was equivalent to swallowing that Emperor Awakening Heart Lotus that they had on their body!
When he noticed this, a strand of hope flashed across Yun Che’s eyes. Under the tremendous suction force, Xia Qingyue and himself gradually neared that deep abyss like huge mouth; even if Xia Qingyue and himself used all their power, they still did not have even the slightest chance of breaking free. Yun Che unwaveringly stared forward while maintaining “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” with all his power. Both his hands embraced Xia Qingyue tightly, and he loudly yelled over and over again: “Hold onto me tightly… Hold onto me tightly.. Don’t let go… Hold onto me tightly!!”
Before Yun Che and Xia Qingyue’s eyes, everything suddenly became pitch black as the large mouth of that enormous beast finally closed.
The sound of the wind still whistled beside their ears. The moment they entered inside the mouth of that huge beast, Yun Che felt himself enter a dark and icy purgatory which possessed a freezing sensation that dug into his heart and pierced his bones. The temperature of this huge beast’s body was unexpectedly much lower than being within the Realm of Heavenly Snow Invocation. Under those huge impulsive movements, his body unceasingly collided with the surrounding as they rapidly advancing forward. In the darkness, he experienced countless canyons and incredibly long tunnels. He closed his eyes and maintained “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” with all his strength during this process, because this was the only thing they could rely on to not be smashed to bits during these courses of events.
An unknown amount of time passed by and the impacts had finally ended. They landed in an incredibly solid surface and finally stopped moving.
“Sealing Cloud Locking Sun”, which he had maintained for all this time, silently disappeared.
After it had been calm for awhile, Xia Qingyue finally opened her eyes. She realized where she was, but she was incapable of believing that she was still alive… Furthermore, apart from her slightly aching body, she was not injured in the slightest.
She raised her eyes and saw a empty space around her. Then she extended her right hand and a lump of illusionary blue light condensed in her palm, slightly illuminating an empty area of ten meters around her.
This should be the stomach of that enormous beast, but the incredibly strange thing was that this place did not seem like the interior of a profound beast’s body at all. It was actually more like an icy cave. The floor was incredibly hard and icicles both long and short suspended in the surrounding. The air here was extremely foul, making it hard to breathe. The temperature was lower than what she could have imagined. Even with the seventh stage of the Frozen Cloud Arts, and an intimate connection with the water element, Xia Qingyue was still feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Yun Che, you’re okay right?”
Xia Qingyue called out gently, but she did not hear a response from Yun Che for a long time. Xia Qingyue moved her hands down to let that weak blue light shine on Yun Che’s body, but she discovered that his eyes were half shut and his complexion was deathly white like paper. A smudge of blood slowly extended from the corner of his mouth… When she touched his body, the only thing she felt was an ice-cold sensation.
Xia Qingyue quickly knelt beside his body. Her palms pressed against his stomach and her voice became more panicky: “Yun Che, are you still okay?”
When she checked the flow of his internal energy, Xia Qingyue’s hands distinctively shuddered. Because at this moment, his internal energy was as weak… as an infant’s.
Yun Che’s eyes slowly opened up a bit. His face exposed an incredibly faint smile: “So… great… we’re both… alive…”
It took him a great amount of effort to say these few short words.
Under the enormous beast’s earth-quaking fist, Yun Che suffered an extremely severe injury, but he didn’t have time to stabilize his energy and had to forcefully maintain “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun.” “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” wasn’t a normal profound technique, but an explosive technique of the Evil God. Although it was an explosive defensive technique, it wasn’t an ordinary defensive barrier, but a defensive skill that could only be utilized for a short moment to save his life. With each breath that “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” was active, the consumption of profound strength was equivalent to an activation of “Falling Moon Sinking Star”.
From being shaken into the sky until they were completely sucked into the stomach of the huge beast, a total of thirty breaths had passed by. During this period of time, “Sealing Cloud Locking Sun” had to be continuously maintained; otherwise, he and Xia Qingyue would have met their deaths a long time ago. The thirty breaths of activation had a huge consumption that an ordinary person would have difficulty imagining; furthermore, this consumption was still in a state where Yun Che suffered a severe injury.
Now, he finally calmed his energy, and his internal injuries had also intensified by many times. His profound strength was completely exhausted without even a trace remaining.
His internal injuries were incredibly severe, and he did not have even the slightest bit of profound strength to combat the cold. Every second in this frighteningly low temperature deprived Yun Che of a great deal of life force. He felt like his body was pierced by a myriad of needles, and very quickly, the ice cold sensation he felt disappeared bit by bit until he gradually lost all feeling of his body.
He smelled the taste of death and it was the first time he was this close within reach of it.
Xia Qingyue took her hands away from Yun Che’s body. Her eyes became confused: “Yun Che, you…”
“Qingyue… don’t say anything… listen to me…”
Yun Che’s breathing became incredibly weak. The temperature here caused both his hands, legs, and body to become frozen stiff in this short amount of time. Both his eyes had also lost all color. He was able to speak because he relied on his strong and unwavering consciousness, but he knew that this last bit of consciousness could disappear at any moment…
Death came too fast and sudden.
“Qingyue… good thing… nothing happened to you… I should… die any moment now… After I die… don’t… take care of me… You don’t fear cold… perhaps it’s possible… escape from here… even if this… huge beast… is even more frightening… you have to… use all your strength… to escape…”
“Yun Che! Don’t talk anymore! You can’t die that easily… If you want me to leave, we have to leave together! You won’t die!”
This calamity was too sudden, and it caught her completely unprepared. Yun Che’s internal injuries were incredibly severe. His five visceras and six internal organs were practically all smashed apart. His life force was incredibly weak and it was possible that it could disappear in the next second. She knew how he suffered such a severe injury. She also knew why he was so weak right now… When they were shaken into the sky, his back faced downwards to bear all the force of the impact and left her without the slightest bit of injuries. From the moment they were sucked into that enormous beast’s mouth until they landed here, that incredibly terrifying force was something that even her most powerful ice crystal defense could not withstand, but that barrier that constantly protected them blocked all the impact… That was without a doubt, an extremely tough and resilient barrier. With such an incredibly powerful barrier, one could imagine just how much power it consumed.
Except, Yun Che was already unable to hear her voice. His eyes were still half open, but not a trace of light remained. His four limbs, body, cheek, hair… Was already completely covered by a layer of ice. Underneath that layer of ice was an ice-cold body that was on the verge of completely burning out its entire life force.
“Qingyue…” He softly muttered: “If we meet again in the next life… become my wife again… okay… because… this life… I still have not completely conquered you… I… am not satisfied…”
Xia Qingyue’s body shook and her vision became fuzzy all of a sudden.
Both of Yun Che’s eyes lost their final traces of focus and spirit during this moment. His entire body became still. Only his throat moved ever so slightly to say the words that came from his soul…
“Grandfather… Little aunt…”
“Senior sister Xueruo… Jasmine… I’m…sorry…”
“…”
“Ling’er… I’m coming for you… Ling’er… Ling’er…”
His final mutters were as weak as a breeze, until it completely faded away… Then, a shining drop of blue starlight descended from Xia Qingyue’s face and lightly struck his completely stiff lips.