Chapter 257: Super Pressure, Brand New Self!
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
"BOOM!"
A ball of lightning in seven colors swelled out of the cave and expanded crazily like a newborn sun. Its blast pushed forward, turning trees and flowers on its way into pure ash. An orange and red mushroom cloud rose up from the place of explosion.
The cloudy sky was ripped a giant hole by the burst of the demonic energy, exposing the stars that were hiding behind the clouds.
An explosion of the demon core was equal to the self-destruction of a demon king or a Core Formation Stage Cultivator. It was dreadful!
When the ball of lightning was on a rampage, three figures rushed out like three drowning rats, only to be blown away almost a hundred meters.
They were exactly Young Master Wang Ji and the two demon kings.
Other than them, the rest of the demons had all been killed on the spot!
The two demon kings had suffered a lot of injuries in the previous battles. With the earthshaking blast of the demon core explosion, new wounds had been added to their body. Their reactions and senses had fallen to rock bottom, and they were shouting in anger and anxiety.
As for the young master Wang Ji, the gold armor on him absorbed most of the blast and was broken into pieces, but his body, on the other hand, was not the least affected.
In Wang Ji's face, there was…
Bewilderment! Fury! Insanity!
He never expected that a Refinement Stage Cultivator, which was nothing but a worm in his eyes, would have so many tricks!
Not only did the worm get away from two demon generals' hunting, he also managed to set off the demon core before burying it inside the stomach of the mutant lion dragon insidiously!
Wang Ji felt that his heart was bleeding.
He could do without the mutant lion dragon. But the twenty demons were all his loyal subjects that he had gone through a terrible amount of trouble to recruit. He was counting on them to fight for the position of prince.
Now, all of them were gone. What did he have to compete with his atrocious brothers?
In the Heaven's Origin Sector, the most common practice to deal with losers in a game of thrones was to let them invade heavily-guarded human towns leading a bunch of black-blood and bronze-blood demons.
The only outcome was, no doubt, death!
"I'm going to cut you into pieces! I'm going to find out who you are and cut you into pieces, one piece after another!"
In rage, Wang Ji didn't forget who was guilty of all this.
But neither did he know that Li Yao was so bold to hide in the deep underground, near the catastrophic bomb he set up himself, instead of running away.
"We can't stay here any longer. Let's go now!"
The two demon kings were both in bad temper. The snake demon said, "Our levels have all hit rock bottom now. Even several Cultivators at the peak of the Refinement Stage will be enough the kill the three of us. Let's head back to the Blood Demon Sector now!"
"Wang Ji!"
The other demon king, who looked like a giant meat ball with green fur, was furious too. He snapped at Wang Ji, "We're very disappointed at your performance in your quest this time. You didn't show the slightest hint of leadership. You allowed more than twenty demons to be fooled by a Refinement Stage worm! When we return to the Blood Demon Sector, we shall report exactly what has happened to the master. A great war of the two Sectors is coming soon. Your performance proved that you're unqualified for the position of prince. When the war comes, you'll lead the charge in the van!"
Wang Ji was silent. There was no telling what his mood was. After a moment, he said in regret, "Well said, my teachers. But right now, let's figure out how to get out of the Heaven's Origin Sector first. Our teleportation rune array is hundreds of kilometers away. We need to plan our route carefully to avoid the human hunters."
The green-fur demon snorted. He turned around and discussed with the snake demon.
A moment later, both of them smelled a weird fragrance. Their head, although a bit dizzy, sensed an alert that something even more dangerous than the previous explosion was coming,
"Not good. We've been poisoned!"
Before the two demon kings were able to react, a bloody battle spear pierced through the green-fur demon's chest!
"Shua!"
The snake demon retreated fast. His tail flipped up and shielded his chest, only to be chopped off within a moment by a shadow attack.
"Wang Ji, how dare you!"
The two demon kings were so shocked that their voices had changed.
Wang Ji laughed madly, his gold hair dancing in the air.
"With everything that's happened, what's there to be scared of?
"If I walk back with you and let you tell the truth, I'll lose the opportunity to be the prince forever. When the war of the two sectors breaks out, I'll be the cannon fodder leading the invasion!
"But now, your strength has been greatly undermined. I'm far stronger than either of you now.
"After I kill you and absorb your demon cores, I'll find a place in the Blood Demon Sector to digest them, then I'll tell my father that we come across a hunting team of five Core Formation Stage Cultivators and that you were killed by them despite your valor. Isn't it much better than going home right now?
"What, you want to self-destruct? You can't! You had already fallen to the level of demon general before you were poisoned. There's no way that you can detonate your demon core now!
"Now, behave and let me absorb you, old fellas!"
The two heavily-wounded demons were almost choked. They looked at each other and ran to two opposite directions of the forest.
"Want to run away? Not so fast!"
In a hideous smile, Wang Ji looked back at the half-collapsed cave grimly. Gritting his teeth, Wang Ji swore, "Worm, you can't get away, either. I'll find you and cut you into pieces one day!"
…
Deep underground.
Li Yao was not aware that infighting was taking place a hundred meter above his head, because he was in peril himself.
The explosion of the demon core was so powerful that when it reached Li Yao's shelter after countless turns, it was still rushing at him like a raging tide or a furious demon!
The pond that Li Yao had been hiding in was boiling.
He condensed whatever left of the spiritual energy in the Bloody Blade Battlesuit into a shield above his head, and he covered his face with the forbidden scales of the mutant lion dragon.
Still, it didn't help!
In a moment, his skin dehisced and blood was streaming all over his body.
"If it goes on like this, I'll be dead for sure in half a minute!"
The current situation was within Li Yao's expectation. Only by hiding in this dead-for-sure place could he get away from the search of the infiltration squad.
"Pa!"
Li Yao opened the bottle that contained the blood in the heart of the lion dragon and drank all of it.
The blood in the heart of the demon beasts, despite the intensive spiritual energy, was not readily drinkable, because it contained a lot of impurities as well as demonic energy. One could only drink it carefully after multiple refining procedures.
If low-level Cultivators were to drink it without refining, they would either be blown into pieces because of the overwhelming power, or turn into a bloodthirsty killer because of the mental corruption.
Li Yao had no time to bother about any of that now. The blood of the mutant lion dragon was all he had to defend himself against the bulldozing of the demon core explosion now.
The blood slipped into his mouth. He felt he had drunk six hot coals, which was burning their way from his throat to his stomach where they exploded.
A string of demonic energy full of desire for killing and destruction flowed along his spine towards his brain.
"Art of the Swallowing Whale, activate!"
Li Yao almost grinded his teeth into pieces. With the Art of the Swallowing brought to maximum, his stomach turned into a steel millstone that squashed, disintegrated, and absorbed the blood of the lion dragon.
Inside his brain, the tree of memories left by Ou Yezi was glowing in brilliance and purged all the intrusive demonic energy.
On the surface of his body, his bones, strengthened by the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique, was trying to withhold the magnificent blast.
Stomach!
Brain!
Body!
Li Yao was engaged in three battlefields simultaneously, which were equally dangerous. If he was defeated in any of them, this dark cave would be the place where his life ended.
In dizziness, Li Yao seemed to have returned to the dust storm where he was slashing his way forward among thunder and lightning.
His soul calmed down. With the sharp edge that once slayed a tornado, it roared more astoundingly than any thunders ever did.
After he didn't know how long, everything became peaceful again.
Li Yao came back to himself from a lengthy nightmare and found that the pond had already evaporated. The only thing left was a clump of stinky mud on the bottom of the pond.
His body's state… couldn't have been better!
"The blood from the heart of the mutant lion dragon has been fully absorbed by me.
"To defend myself against the explosion, I have been performing the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique all the time, which had brought my body sturdiness to a whole new level!
"And my Cultivation level…"
Li Yao felt that there was inexhaustible spiritual energy inside his body flowing through his veins and arteries.
He triggered a thought. Spiritual energy popped out from his pores and consolidated into two dark gold wings around his body.
Soaring Into Heaven in One Leap 1 , his Soul Igniting Law, was enlightened by the imposing vibe when the king of eagles flew freely in the vast sky. Therefore, the presence of his spiritual energy was also in the form of wings.
Compared with before, the spiritual wings had added the majesty of the lion dragon. There was even a vague rainbow in the periphery of the wings, too.
Li Yao focused all his attention and started burning his soul. The spiritual wings were brighter and brighter, illuminating the dark cave as if it were in broad daylight.
"Such dominance! Such brightness!
"I advanced four levels to the 11th level of the Refinement Stage while my life was in peril. How could it be?
"I understand now! This is the end of the cave. When the blast of the explosion swallowed me, it pushed the blood of the lion dragon, which had nowhere to run, into my own flesh and blood like a pressure cooker.
"Common Cultivators can't absorb the entire Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure even if they find one. The best they can do will be sixty or seventy percent, which is decided by their body's limit.
"However, I managed to absorb a hundred percent of the blood of the lion dragon. Not only did it help me reach the 11th level of the Refinement Stage, my future training will benefit a lot from it, too!" Li Yao yelled in great satisfaction and happiness.
The 11th level meant that he belonged to the high level of the Refinement Stage now, which was completely different from the levels equal to or below the 10th level.
Many Cultivators had spent their entire lives circling around in the middle level of the Refinement Stage and couldn't break through the barrier to a higher altitude, however thin the barrier seemed to be.
With the capability of the high-level of the Refinement Stage and the enhancement of a well-chosen crystal suit, he could fight several generals face to face without resorting to traps now.