After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

It wasn't a leak, it was swallowed up.

The laws governing the Heavenly Corpse's lungs began to operate, drawing away the surrounding spiritual energy with each "inhale."

Ancient runes lit up in Li Zhiyao's sleeve, barely protecting her.

Her rate of energy expenditure is three times that of the mortal realm.

The natal Gu in Xiao Rou's sleeve wriggled restlessly.

Bai Xuan, like a whole mushroom, clung tightly to Zhou Ran's shoulder, its mycelium gripping the fabric.

Zhou Ran is the most obvious.

The speed of the Golden Elixir was forcibly increased, intensifying the burning pain in the gray veins.

With each additional step taken, the loss of true essence increases.

"Hurry up and go."

His voice was tense.

They walked another 150 zhang.

A faint light appeared ahead of the passage.

The grayish-white bone walls became smooth, reflecting human images.

The white mycelium suddenly trembled.

It curled up into a ball and wrote on Zhou Ran's shoulder.

The strokes are crooked, conveying fear:

"There's something watching us, about two hundred feet ahead..."

"Neither human nor ghost..."

"It's the rules themselves..."

Zhou Ran stopped.

Fully activate the Purple-Gold Demon Eye.

The gray pupil in his left eye overlapped, and his gaze penetrated the bone wall, projecting forward.

Two hundred feet away, in the middle of the passage.

A "spherical cavity" has appeared.

It is not excavation, but rather the spatial folds created by the distortion and compression of laws.

The cavity was about ten zhang in diameter, and gray mist churned inside.

In the center of the fog, a gray orb the size of a fist floated.

The sphere of light showed no signs of life, no fluctuations in spiritual energy, and no intention to attack.

But within Zhou Ran's dantian, the five gray lines resonated intensely at the same time.

That thing was "watching" them.

The sphere of light hovered motionless in the gray fog.

Zhou Ran stood two hundred feet away, his Purple-Gold Demonic Eyes fully activated.

There is no energy flow on the surface of the light sphere. But it is there.

Like a wedge driven into space.

"Rule entity".

Li Zhiyao whispered behind him.

"A mirror image created after the laws of the Heavenly Corpse Void Realm are highly condensed."

"What do you mean?"

Fatty Wang clenched his fists.

"This thing is part of the Heavenly Corpse's body, but it's not an organ."

Li Zhiyao's ancient runes flickered at her fingertips.

"More like nerve endings."

It has no consciousness; it only reflects information from those who approach it.

Bai Xuan's mycelium trembled as it wrote on Zhou Ran's shoulder.

"It is 'reading' us."

Zhou Ran didn't move, and neither did the ball of light.

They remained locked in a standoff for ten breaths.

Then, ripples appeared on the surface of the light sphere.

The gray mist contracted inward, the sphere of light became transparent, and lines began to emerge inside.

First the outline, then the facial features, and finally the details.

A face.

Zhou Ran's face.

Gray pupils, gray lips, even the strands of hair shimmer with a gray sheen.

The face was exactly the same as his, but there was no emotion in the eyes, only pure "reflection".

Gray lips opening and closing.

There was no sound, but Zhou Ran understood the lip reading.

"You've finally arrived."

"I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Fatty Wang gasped, Li Zhiyao's hand rested on the hilt of her sword, and Xiao Rou held her bone flute to her lips.

Zhou Ran waved his hand, signaling him not to move.

He took a step forward.

The burning pain from the gray lines intensified, feeling like a red-hot iron bar scraping against my spine.

He forced himself to continue and took another step.

The "Zhou Ran" on the sphere of light tilted its head.

This action was familiar; it was Zhou Ran's habit when he was thinking.

"Your golden core resonates with my heart."

The sphere of light "opened its mouth," and a voice resounded directly in the sea of ​​consciousness.

Hollow, without any undulations

"I've been writing to you ever since you first touched that crystal."

"You received it."

The gray cracks and internal structure diagram indicate that these are not attacks, but communications.

Zhou Ran stopped, 150 feet away from the light sphere.

"Are you the consciousness of the Heavenly Corpse?"

The face on the sphere of light smiled.

"I am the instinct of this body."

The light sphere said,

"The will that the Moon Emperor bestowed upon me has long since dissipated."

All that remained was the physical body.

"Awakening".

absorb.

reconstruction."

"It has been a full thirty thousand years."

Zhou Ran stared at that face.

"So you want to wake up."

The light sphere said,

"It wasn't that I wanted to wake up, it was instinct."

It paused for a second.

"I need a powerful soul to drive this body."

"I tried many times."

Ghost Emperor, Yama, Nascent Soul cultivator...

They are all too "heavy," too tightly bound by the rules of this world.

Once you enter, you will be assimilated, becoming a part of this body, not its owner.

The gray eyes on the sphere of light stared directly at Zhou Ran.

"But you are different."

Your soul does not belong to this world.

For the first time, the sound of the sphere of light fluctuated, filled with curiosity.

"There are no shackles of the Heavenly Dao, no rules."

Self-definition, self-growth.

It's absolutely perfect.

"So I gave you the crack."

Let me show you my structure.

Let us resonate with each other.

"Now, you've arrived."

Zhou Ran clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.

The blood seeped out, only to be evaporated by the primordial energy and blood.

"What if I agree?"

Zhou Ran asked.

The smile on the face in the sphere of light widened.

"You will become the new owner of this body."

The power of the Tribulation Transcending Stage, the authority of the Void Realm, and a memory bank spanning thirty thousand years.

A meteoric rise.

The period of tribulation.

The power of the Blue Star's apex.

Countless times that of the late-stage Golden Core realm.

Bai Xuan trembled violently on his shoulder.

The mycelium wrote words, the characters almost etched into his flesh:

"trap!

Once the soul enters, the physical body disappears!

You will become the second Heavenly Corpse!

Trapped inside a corpse for 30,000 years!

"What if I refuse?"

The smile on the face in the sphere vanished.

"It's okay if you refuse."

The light sphere said,

The crack has been planted.

With each additional detail, your perception of me deepens, and my assimilation into yours deepens.

Thirty days.

"You don't need to come in thirty days."

The sound of the light sphere became flat.

"The crack will automatically pull your soul in."

Thirty days.

The countdown has begun.

Zhou Ran stood there, staring at the face that looked exactly like his own.

He suppressed all his emotions, drawing them into his dantian and freezing them into a block of ice.

The Golden Core rotated to its limit, and the purple-gold light membrane expanded, locking the five gray lines tightly.

The sphere of light began to dissipate.

The gray mist surged again, blurring the outline of the face.

Before it dissipated, it released its last burst of energy.

The pulse shot straight into Zhou Ran's dantian, crashing deep into the golden core.

Zhou Ran grunted and knelt on one knee.

Li Zhiyao rushed over to support him.

The pulse provides only one coordinate, accurate to the millisecond.

The deepest part of the Heavenly Corpse Central Plane.

Next to the coordinate point, there was a hunched shadow.

Meng Po.

Zhou Ran closed his eyes and used his senses to lock onto that coordinate.

Very far, very deep.

there.

He opened his eyes.

The gray lines on the golden elixir changed from five to six.

Thirty days.

It's been twenty-nine days now.

"Walk."

He stood up, supporting himself with Li Zhiyao's hand, his voice hoarse.

"Go to the heart."

Deep within the spinal canal, gray air currents howled.

Ahead, in the deeper darkness, that enormous heart was beating.

thump.

thump.

thump.

It's like a countdown.

And before his eyes, images flashed by one after another.