Endless Winter: My Camp Infinite Upgrades

Chapter 602 An Unexpected Failure, Encountering Li Baobao Again

The moment the Five Elements Calamity Qi was detonated inside the golden body, the different pains caused by the Five Elements Calamity Qi—tearing, burning, poisoning, drowning, and crushing—rushed into his mind at the same time. Xia Hong felt as if all the nerves in his body were being torn apart, and he was about to faint or even die at any moment.

Unlike before, the pain of breaking through realms—logging, digging, keeping warm, and most recently, the pain of the Yang realm breakthrough—was only at the physical level. But the Battle Body Golden Body, to put it bluntly, is Xia Hong's soul body and Dharma body. This kind of extreme pain that strikes the depths of the soul is a hundred times more intense than the former.

"what…………"

Deep within the Misty Swamp Forest, the shrill screams continued for an unknown amount of time. Xia Hong was covered in blood-soaked mud, struggling and rolling on the ground. His consciousness had long since vanished. The golden battle body that had been floating above his body had shrunk from thirteen zhang to just over one zhang, and its aura was no longer as powerful as before. Like his physical body, it had been ravaged by the Five Elements Calamity Qi, drooping its head and extremely weak.

The membrane on the surface of his golden body was riddled with holes, and the five elements of calamity energy inside had even overflowed. If this were on a normal person, they would probably have given up on breaking through long ago and opened the membrane to release the calamity energy inside their body.

But Xia Hong didn't!
Even though his consciousness had been extinguished, he still relied on his instincts to hold on, locking the remaining intact parts of his skin to prevent the calamity energy from escaping. Correspondingly, his golden body was still being ravaged by the five elements of calamity energy, which then had a backlash on his physical body, meaning that the piercing pain never stopped.

Sizzle sizzle...

After an unknown amount of time, Xia Hong's continuous screams were suddenly mixed with a slight strange sound, which came from inside the golden body, like the sound of a small flame crackling.

“Heh…heh…ah…”

After that strange noise, Xia Hong, who was struggling on the ground, felt the pain intensify even more. He lay on his back with his abdomen facing the sky, his body arching backward at an extremely exaggerated angle, and he spewed out a thick, black smoke with flames from his mouth.

Click!

The membrane on the left chest of the golden statue, where the heart is located, had cracked.

As Xia Hong's screams intensified, the cracked area of ​​his skin began to become transparent, and a wisp of firelight appeared and disappeared behind the membrane.

Thump...thump...thump...

The flickering flames suddenly began to flash at an extremely rapid frequency, going out and then igniting again. Accompanying this recurring flickering was a heartbeat-like sound, like the beat of a drum.

As the beating of his heart grew louder, Xia Hong's previously weak golden body slowly roused and began to grow larger, quickly reaching two zhang, then three zhang... The speed increased faster and faster, and in a short while it reached more than ten zhang, and it was still recovering.

Interestingly, Xia Hong's screams were extremely loud. Fortunately, it was the Dark Realm, where the range of light and sound was greatly limited. If it were in the Ice Abyss, such a volume would probably be heard for tens of kilometers around. However, such a loud scream still could not drown out the beating of his heart inside his golden body.

Bang... Bang... Bang...

The fire continued to blare for an unknown period of time. After extinguishing and reigniting once, the flame at the heart of the golden body finally stopped flickering. The flame, which was originally only the size of a fingertip, lingered for a few breaths before suddenly leaping up to three inches, illuminating the entire golden body in a bright red glow.

At the same time, the three-inch flame began to grow dense blood-red threads, which spread rapidly in all directions, just like the meridians in the human body, in a spider web-like form, and soon spread to the size of a fist.

"The heart contains the spirit and belongs to the fire element in the Five Elements theory. Therefore, the first organ that will be generated in my golden body is the heart. Next, I need to circulate all the calamity energy in my body to the heart to make it take shape quickly!"

Don't misunderstand, Xia Hong hasn't recovered. He's still screaming in agony, but just now, when the blood-red threads from the three-inch flame spread to the size of a fist, a glimmer of clarity flashed in his pupils, and his consciousness briefly returned.

Xia Hong didn't dare to be negligent. The pain that went deep into his bones was still there. Unable to bear it any longer, he bit his tongue. With that bite, he could feel that his tongue was pierced halfway by his teeth.

If it were a normal person, this would probably be fatal!
But he was different. Not only was he fine, but he was even more lucid.

"The heart houses the spirit and also governs the tongue. Master Yanlong's Fire Melting Pill only worked when people held it under their tongues. Therefore, any sensation produced by the tongue can stimulate the heart. Keep biting, it will be effective!"

While biting his tongue tightly, Xia Hong mobilized all the tribulation energy scattered in the other four organ areas of his golden body to his left chest and pressed it down on the newly generated, still-unformed heart.

boom…………

The calamity of the four elements—metal, wood, water, and earth—suddenly struck, and the young, newly formed organs almost collapsed because they couldn't withstand it.

Fortunately, it held on in the end!

The nascent heart, though the size of a fist, currently only contained heart fire and internal meridians. As a massive influx of calamity energy entered, the meridians began to slowly sprout buds. These buds grew rapidly, giving rise to flesh and blood, and a perfect heart was quickly taking shape.

call…………

The intense shock of the calamity energy caused Xia Hong's consciousness to begin to dissipate again. Before losing consciousness, he realized that the calamity energy in his body was too little. He gritted his teeth, took out the second set of Five Elements Calamity Energy Beads from the yellow mustard bag, quickly absorbed them with his golden body, and placed them directly into the corresponding five internal organs area.

"It's going to happen again. This breakthrough is really killing me. I can't take it anymore. I definitely can't withstand it this time. I have to use the Sacred Cauldron to protect me..."

As Xia Hong unleashed the second set of Calamity Qi Beads, he quickly retrieved the Sacred Cauldron from his body, placed it in front of him, and then jumped directly into the cauldron.

The Sacred Cauldron was already activated, burning fiercely. Since it was inside the body before, it only affected the physical body. Now, when Xia Hong jumped into the cauldron, his golden body was also covered by the flames.

Sizzle sizzle...

Its golden body, which had already recovered to thirteen zhang in length, was burned by the great fire of the Sacred Cauldron. Instead of diminishing, it grew even larger, starting to grow at an extremely exaggerated speed.

Fourteen zhang... fifteen zhang... sixteen zhang...

In less than a hundred breaths, Xia Hong's golden body grew to thirty feet, and it continued to grow without stopping.

Unfortunately, he can no longer see it now.

Indeed, as the massive amount of calamity energy exploded, the flesh around his heart grew at an extremely rapid pace, but the pain was also more intense than before. Xia Hong's consciousness was once again overwhelmed, and he began a new round of screams.

Bang... Bang... Bang...

But this time, with the blessing of the Sacred Cauldron's flames, Xia Hong's reaction was significantly better than before. As the pain intensified, he began to unconsciously pound on the cauldron's walls, trying to dilute the pain caused by the calamity energy.

However, he struck faster and faster, and at a higher frequency. He started by throwing a punch every three breaths, then three, four, five, and even eight or ten punches per breath. In the end, the punches were so dense that the echoes from the cauldron wall all converged together, making it impossible to discern exactly how many punches were thrown at once.

The force of his punches grew stronger and stronger. The shockwave initially spread only to a radius of a dozen meters, but quickly became tens of meters, then hundreds of meters, until it became impossible to discern the number of punches. At its furthest point, it had spread to more than three kilometers away.

Boom... After a long while, Xia Hong's fist stopped abruptly, the three-inch flame in his heart returned to normal, and the outer nascent heart had already taken shape for more than half, with only some blood orifices not yet fully healed, but with the subsequent entry of tribulation energy, it was only a matter of time.

"The Sacred Cauldron didn't intervene at all, unlike before when it could use resources to offset this pain. This means the Sacred Cauldron isn't omnipotent and has its own limits. If I break through to a higher realm in the future, I'll have to be careful..."

The moment he stopped punching, Xia Hong's consciousness fully returned. He sat cross-legged in the cauldron, closed his eyes and looked inward at the golden body. As he watched the nascent heart, which was only 30-40% complete, his pupils finally couldn't help but show a hint of fervor.

Once the heart is formed, the body-stealing is complete!
From now on, he will be at the same level as the top experts of the four prefectures of Mo'aochuan. The key point is that the four regional governors, Chu Longteng, Cai Qianshan, Fu Wanhe and Li Gangfeng, are already three or four hundred years old. The oldest, Fu Wanhe, is even over four hundred years old.

And how old is he this year?

Adding up the past six years in the Dark Realm, he is only thirty-nine years old this year, less than one-tenth the age of Fu Wanhe.

He has plenty of time to strive for the Venerable Realm, or even higher realms, including the Great Saint Realm that Six Arms mentioned earlier. One day, he may very well be able to reach it!
Xia Hong took a deep breath, suppressing the burning desire in his heart, and continued to focus on the heart's growth process.

"this…………"

However, after watching for a while, he quickly realized that something was wrong.

The flame that was originally only three inches tall on his chest had now grown to nine inches. Correspondingly, the heart that had grown from the flame had also increased three times in size, from the size of a fist to the size of a human head.

Not only was it as big as a human head, but its heart was also still expanding!

Xia Hong quickly stopped his internal vision and shifted his attention to the outside world. His expression instantly turned blank.

"How did my golden statue become so big?"

He remembered clearly that at the peak of his Xianyang realm, his battle body was only thirteen feet long. After being ravaged by the calamity energy, it withered to just over one foot long. After enduring the most difficult period, his golden body recovered to thirteen feet long.

But what did he see at that moment?
His own battle body, the Golden Body, had expanded to over forty-three zhang!
"The Golden Body Opening is for breaking through to the Tribulation Body Realm. After that, the entire Tribulation Body Realm cultivation process revolves around the internal organs. Specifically, it is based on the principle of mutual generation of the five elements to replenish the other four organs. During this process, the size of the Golden Body will only expand with the new organs. In other words, including this breakthrough, there are only five opportunities in total."

Recalling the description of the Tribulation Realm he had seen before, Xia Hong looked at his own 43-zhang-tall golden body again, his face showing both shock and a hint of joy.

He had fought many of the four warriors at the Tribulation Body Realm, but he had only seen the golden bodies of two people: Chu Tianxu and Cai Qiuhu. Both of them were at the second stage of the Tribulation Body Realm. The former's golden body was about 35 zhang tall, while the latter's was only 30 zhang tall.

When he was at the peak of the Manifestation Realm, his golden body was only thirteen feet long. Now that he has broken through to the Tribulation Realm, the first surge in his golden body has increased by as much as three times.

No, it's more than three times!
"Gudong..."

Xia Hong swallowed hard, watching the golden body continue to expand, his expression growing increasingly excited. However, his excitement vanished quickly as he focused his attention on the nascent heart.

The massive increase in the size of the golden body meant that the organs were also expanding in tandem. The heart, which was originally the size of a fist, became the size of a human head. Similarly, the amount of calamity energy required naturally increased several times over.

"So, the two sets of Calamity Qi Beads I prepared are still not enough..."

As the calamity energy within the golden body began to thin, a shadow appeared in Xia Hong's eyes, and a surge of anger inexplicably welled up within him.

"But it's in the Dark Realm, where there aren't even any Frost Beasts, let alone Five Elements Realm Beast Kings. This world is full of nothing but souls. Where am I supposed to find the Tribulation Qi Pearl? So this Tribulation Body Realm..."

This can be considered a success, but it's not a complete success!
After enduring six days, equivalent to six years in the Ice Abyss, Xia Hong's frustration at failing at this final step due to insufficient Tribulation Qi Pearls was palpable.

"My strength..."

Xia Hong tried to calm himself down, but the thought of the pain he had endured earlier made his anger surge. He clenched his fists tightly, intending to test his strength first.

The energy of the Calamity Qi is almost depleted. Since there is no way to break through completely, we can only go to White Bone Mountain ahead of schedule.

He clenched his fist slightly, clearly feeling a surge of power within him, but for some reason, he couldn't shake off his anger and was still fuming as he prepared to throw a punch.

"found it!"

Before he could even throw a punch, a crisp sound came from the east. Xia Hong, who had been interrupted, frowned again and looked up to see two beams of light rushing toward him.

Not only that, behind those two beams of light, there was also a huge array of light spots.

"Lord Xia, run!"

The Soul-Illuminating Lamp above Xia Hong's head had been on all along. He couldn't see clearly from a distance, but as the other party approached to within a hundred meters, he could see clearly that the two beams of light were two women in white.

Although the girl in front of him seemed strangely familiar, Xia Hong was certain that he had never seen her before.
As for the one behind him, he recognized him at a glance. It was Li Baobao, who had stolen gold in the Dragon Palace, causing him to be inexplicably brought to the Dark Realm and trapped there for six years.

As for the vast expanse of spiritual light behind the two, it turned out to be a massive army of tens of thousands of heavily armed souls. According to what the Six Arms had said earlier, those who could solidify their spiritual bodies, wield underworld weapons, and wear underworld armor were demon soldiers. These were demon soldiers of the Netherworld, two levels higher than scattered spirits.

"You dare come looking for me!"

Xia Hong was already seething with anger, and seeing thousands of demon soldiers being lured over by Li Baobao and her companion only fueled his rage. He dismissed the white-clad woman's warning to run as a mere pretense of diverting trouble.

"roll!"

Without wasting words, Xia Hong put away the Sacred Cauldron, drew the Shattered Star Sword, and slashed a Star River Sword Strike directly at the two women. Then, without saying another word, he turned and ran.

Even if he had broken through to the Tribulation Realm, he wouldn't dare to directly confront the thousands of demon soldiers, let alone before he had broken through. He didn't even know if he could transform into a battle body and directly fight the enemy like Chu Tianxu and Cai Qiuhu.

Therefore, running is inevitable!
As for the sword strike, it was obviously to slow down Li Baobao and the other person. Xia Hong understood the principle of sacrificing a friend rather than himself.

Moreover, the two women, who were trying to shift the blame, were not good people to begin with.

(End of this chapter)