Shi Yan’s expression was solemn, his divine sense condensed to an unprecedented degree, all focusing on his right arm. He observed the arm’s transformation with complete concentration. Tens of thousands of minute green threads writhed slowly beneath the skin and flesh of his arm, seemingly intent on destroying the very fibers within his muscles, threatening to tear his arm asunder.
Within the eerie green threads, a bizarre energy moved like tiny insects, aiming to devour the muscle fibers in Shi Yan’s flesh one by one, gnawing at his very being, intending to reduce that limb to nothing more than gleaming white bone, stripping away all his flesh and blood.
This power originated from Qing Ming, the leader of the Corpse God Sect.
Halfway up the slope of Holy Light Mountain, Shi Yan had utilized the power of three Heavenly Fires to establish a prior soul connection with Yi Tianmo and the other two. Seizing the moment when Qing Ming let down his guard due to the depletion of his vital essence within his body, Shi Yan had managed to trap him.
Qing Ming’s soul was restrained by the trio of Yi Tianmo, causing him to lose control over his body, which gave Shi Yan the opportunity he needed; he had nearly inflicted grievous harm upon Qing Ming.
However, thanks to the timely intervention of the Heavenly Empress and the Earth Emperor, Qing Ming narrowly escaped death. Yet, the ease with which Qing Ming could have crippled him—had Shi Yan not reacted swiftly—meant he could have been effortlessly erased by Qing Ming.
Amongst the Divine Realm powerhouses, Qing Ming was perhaps the weakest. Whether in the cultivation of body or soul, or in the richness of vital essence and martial arts techniques, he likely ranked at the very bottom tier among the Divine Realm martial artists of the Endless Sea.
This was because the majority of his life’s energy had been poured into his Corpse Slaves. His communion with the Corpse King and the cultivation of corpse manipulation techniques consumed too much of his youth and years, resulting in a disparity where, despite reaching the level of Divine Connection, his actual strength was the most inferior.
Without the Corpse King constantly by his side, Qing Ming’s personal might was, in fact, far inferior to other Divine Realm martial artists.
But even so—due to the immense gap in cultivation level—Shi Yan was fundamentally no match for him. If not for the soul suppression exerted by Yi Tianmo and the others, and the deterrent effect of the Heavenly Fires, he likely would have been annihilated by Qing Ming before they could even arrive.
Even the sliver of power Qing Ming had left inside his body was now acting up, causing him indescribable pain.
Watching those strands of peculiar threads gradually spread, completely permeating his entire arm, and feeling the power gnawing at his flesh subtly activate, Shi Yan’s heart clenched, and he prepared to seek external aid.
Just as he was about to call upon the Profound Ice Cold Flame, he suddenly noticed a violent change erupting in his right arm.
Brilliant, dazzling purplish-red light burst forth from the muscles of his arm. In an instant, the cellular fibers within his muscle seemed to suddenly spring to life, trembling violently within the tissue.
Along with it, Shi Yan’s body shook uncontrollably. Under this tremor, a terrifying suction force suddenly emerged from the muscle masses of his arm.
It was as if those lumps of muscle had suddenly become water-sucking sponges, violently drawing in all the stray green energy lingering on his arm and continually seeping into his flesh, pulling it all into the muscle masses in one go.
The purplish-red light intensified brilliantly!
Within the blinding glare of purplish-red light, strange ripples manifested across his arm. Those green energies vanished without a trace, assimilated by the strange energy within his muscles, quickly merging with the energy already residing there and becoming a part of his own body.
The anomaly slowly concluded...
Soon, the purplish-red light receded back into his arm, but his formerly normal skin tone had completely turned purplish-red.
A gentle, warm, purplish-red halo emanated faintly from the flesh, making his right arm look as though it had become a piece of purplish-red jade, constantly emitting a jade-like luminescence.
Suddenly clenching his fist, an immensely surging power erupted violently from the muscles of his arm, instantly converging in his palm.
Shi Yan’s expression hardened, and he grinned fiercely, suddenly launching a punch forward.
A fan-shaped burst of intense purplish-red light shot out from his fist!
As this strong light erupted, the air emitted strange snap-snap sounds. The light spread slowly as it flew, and within a short while, it covered the five-story stone tower directly ahead.
With a thunderous explosion, under the gaze of everyone present, the fifty-meter-tall bluestone building instantly collapsed, sending stones flying and shattering the foundation.
The fan-shaped purplish-red beam, its momentum undiminished, ruthlessly pulverized the stone building, continuing its rampage, breaking through two more stone structures before its light dimmed, finally transforming into countless purplish-red light spots that gradually faded into the void.
Everyone watched him with astonishment, dumbfounded.
Shi Yan smiled, somewhat laboriously raising his right hand, which had grown significantly heavier, and said lightly, "The power is not bad."
The crowd nodded silently, inwardly marveling.
Not bad? How could it be merely not bad?
A fist shooting out a rainbow beam, shattering three bluestone buildings dozens of meters high—what ordinary Status Martial Artist could possess such might?
The energy originated from his right arm. Without any vital essence, relying solely on the strange energy contained within his arm, the power he unleashed was no less than the explosive force of his full-power strikes from before!
In that case, even if he could never gather vital essence again, he might not necessarily be inferior to others.
Thinking this, a thought sparked in Shi Yan’s mind, and another idea emerged.
“Inject your energy into my body. Transmit as much as my body can bear; let’s see if it can be used in place of vital essence,” Shi Yan messaged the Profound Ice Cold Flame.
“Understood,” the Profound Ice Cold Flame immediately replied.
The next moment, a surging cold current violently streamed out from the Blood Pattern Ring worn on his left hand, which had been reformed from bone.
The cold current from the Profound Ice Cold Flame, like a breached river, furiously flooded into his body. His body, having been modified by the Cold Flame, could fully adapt to this bone-chilling cold. The current surged and gathered inside, quickly filling his entire left arm.
His left arm became coated in frost, rapidly covered by thick ice crystals, and an intensely frigid chill quietly began to spread from his left arm.
Under everyone’s gaze, Shi Yan grinned again, suddenly squatting down and gently placing his left hand on the ground.
The earth instantly froze. Aetherial white energy light waves swept out from his left hand. With his left hand as the origin point, a misty, ethereal white light permeated the ground, extending forward underground at a strange speed.
“Crack, crack, crack!”
Where the ethereal white mist passed, the earth froze into thick ice rock. As the mist extended, a thick ice road five meters wide rapidly formed, stretching out and spreading quickly towards another direction.
Vibrant flowers and grasses, wherever the ethereal white mist swept past, were instantly turned into ice sculptures, each one covered in thick ice crystals, like exquisite artifacts displayed in a museum.
Even the two trees as thick as three people were instantly transformed into the icy, snowy Christmas trees Santa would create, covered in thick ice rock, their leaves glistening—like beautiful crystal artifacts.
The mist continued to advance, and another bluestone building dozens of meters high was immediately affected.
In just an instant, the entire building turned ethereal white, completely encased in ice.
Everyone stared blankly.
Shi Yan squatted on the ground, countless ethereal white cold streams flashing like lightning from his left hand.
His left hand, pressed against the ground, having endured the immense frigid power of the Profound Ice Cold Flame, finally began to exceed its limit; the bones in his palm gave off brittle cracking sounds as they froze stiff.
At that moment, he withdrew his left hand, and his right arm violently smashed into the ground.
Centered on the earth beneath his feet, the frozen world suddenly shattered!
Masses of earth broke apart; hundreds of flowers and grasses dissolved into showers of ice debris amidst the crystalline ice light; the two large trees instantly exploded; and the ethereal icy stone building pulverized into countless shards of ice.
Suddenly bursting forth, everything in front of Shi Yan that had been frozen crumbled like collapsing ice sculptures.
A bone-chilling cold violently spread from this area.
Many guards and maids in the manor could not bear it, shivering even hundreds of meters away; as this cold air permeated, those guards and servants might soon freeze to death.
Yi Tianmo and the others stared blankly, failing to intervene immediately to rescue them.
Shi Yan withdrew his right hand, then suddenly reacted, hurriedly re-establishing contact with the Profound Ice Cold Flame.
His control over the cold power was far from effortless; releasing it was easy, but retracting and controlling it was extremely difficult. At this moment, he couldn't afford to experiment further and could only rely on the Profound Ice Cold Flame.
Unexpectedly, at this critical juncture, Ye Changfeng suddenly shouted, “Block!”
Innumerable clusters of golden fiery clouds continuously flew out from Ye Changfeng’s body. Moving at speeds invisible to the naked eye, they spun rapidly in the area, forming a strange circle of fiery light that enveloped a radius of three hundred meters, preventing the chill of the Profound Ice Cold Flame from spreading outward.
“Hiss, hiss!”
The cold power that the Profound Ice Cold Flame had radiated struck the circles of golden fiery light, producing strange wisps of smoke. In a short while, the spreading cold power was completely neutralized by the golden fiery light circles released by Ye Changfeng.
Shi Yan let out a quiet breath, inwardly sighing how close he’d come, then hastily rushed out, moving towards a servant-dressed young girl several hundred meters away. The girl had assumed she was doomed, her pretty face filled with horror, her eyes showing desolate sorrow. But suddenly, a circle of golden fire appeared out of thin air, blocking all the terrifying cold current.
Before she could react, she saw Shi Yan rushing towards her with a look of anxiety. A strange sweetness suddenly bloomed in her heart.
He… he was worried about me. I deliberately came over, wanting only to watch him from afar, yet he still cares about me…
The girl thought to herself, a satisfied smile blooming on her delicate face, as if she would have been content even if Shi Yan had unintentionally killed her moments before.
“Linda, why are you here?” Shi Yan stopped right in front of her with a whoosh, his voice full of concern, “Are you alright?”
The girl with the long braid smiled sweetly, her eyes full of joy. “I am an outer disciple of the Divine Sect. Because there were too many guests from Sun Island this time, I was assigned here to briefly serve the esteemed guests. I was originally at the trading post, but since I knew you were here… so… I requested to come here.”
As she finished, Linda’s face flushed with shyness.
Shi Yan was moved and was about to say something when a terrifying roar echoed from the sky.
He instinctively looked up, and his expression immediately changed drastically.
From the pitch-black, dense clouds, a massive bone ship, thousands of meters long, suddenly appeared. The ship was pure white, bone-chillingly so, its hull covered in grotesque bone spurs. The bone ship floated in the thick black clouds, slowly bearing down upon the Holy Light Mountain peak beneath the Great Sun Holy Light Sky Curtain.
On the thousand-meter-long bone ship, shadows flickered—all sorts of terrifying demons with ferocious appearances, their eyes cold and merciless, their faces etched with bloodthirsty cruelty, looked slightly excited toward the peak of Holy Light Mountain beneath the Great Sun Holy Light Sky Curtain.