Several cultivators dressed in Qingzhou attire saw Chu Bai’s incredibly fast Body Technique and his determined expression. As if they’d found their last hope, they shouted and swarmed toward him.
The one in the lead said urgently, "The space here has fallen into chaos! We’re willing to give you everything we’ve found if you’ll lead us, Fellow Daoist! Let’s form an alliance and find a way out of this together!"
Chu Bai didn’t even spare them a single glance.
He instantly changed direction, combining Hidden Shadow with Fire Step Ascension.
"Don’t follow me. Find your own path to survival."
Chu Bai’s cold voice scattered on the wind, his figure already hundreds of yards away.
At a time like this, an alliance would only slow him down. As for their resources, he no longer had any urgent need for them.
What he was fighting for was the very first sliver of life in this crumbling world.
「An hour later.」
The familiar, crimson ruins of the Pill Kiln finally appeared at the edge of his vision. The pillar of light above the Underground Palace’s entrance had gone out, but even as the heavens fell and the earth split apart, the ground for miles around Lingma Mountain remained as solid as iron, unlike the violent upheavals of the outside world.
’I’m here.’
Chu Bai leaped into the collapsed cavern.
After passing through the dark corridor, he once again stood before the grand White Jade Altar. As expected, the once-majestic Divine Body of the Mountain God had vanished completely, transformed into a silent, cold, yet incredibly sturdy Stone Palace.
There were no gales from the outside world, no screams of terror—only a deathly silence that felt eons old.
Chu Bai set down his wicker basket and let out a long sigh of relief.
But he couldn’t relax completely. He could feel the crushing pressure of the collapse squeezing in on this final bastion from all sides.
’Old man, those other True Gods you mentioned... if they wake up now too, this whole situation will become truly unsalvageable.’
Chu Bai looked above the altar.
Above the site of the long-dry pond, space seemed to refract light in an unnatural way—a sign that the Secret Realm was on the verge of returning to the mortal world, but was being fiercely obstructed.
Chu Bai had done all he could. Now, it was up to the masters of the Great Zhou Court to see if they could anchor this place before the world shattered completely.
「At the center of the altar.」
Outside, the world was ending. Turbulent void-currents raged across the fractured sky, and the periodic roars of Divine Spirits shook the very Earth Veins.
Yet deep within the Stone Palace, held firm by the Mountain God’s lingering will, a strange calm persisted—like the eye of a hurricane.
Chu Bai sat cross-legged, surrounded by dozens of rare Spirit Grasses he had gathered over the last half-month. The most eye-catching among them were a dozen stalks of Blood Spirit Grass, so crimson they seemed to drip with blood.
[Realm: Qi Cultivation Ninth Layer (91/100)]
’Time is running out. This world won’t last much longer.’
Chu Bai closed his eyes, his expression grave.
He had broken through to the Qi Cultivation Ninth Layer three months before the Celestial Examination began.
In the three months that followed, he had advanced his Realm by a fair amount. His progress since arriving in the Cyan Nether Realm was a culmination of that steady accumulation; in just over half a month, his foundation was nearly complete.
’Once my Spiritual Power and physical body both reach their peak, my combat strength should increase significantly.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, his right hand moved like a phantom, stuffing one Spirit Grass after another—each one radiating a dense life force—directly into his mouth and chewing them coarsely.
Any other cultivator would have been struck speechless with horror at the sight.
The violent medicinal power within unrefined Spiritual Medicine was enough to rip apart the meridians of even a cultivator at Qi Cultivation Perfection.
But Chu Bai was different.
His Nourishing and Exquisite Fate Chart began to churn wildly within him, acting like a furnace at full blast.
The medicinal energy, as fierce as a raging fire, was instantly dissolved and refined the moment it entered his stomach. It transformed into wisps of utterly pure Magical Power, dense as lead and mercury, which then poured into his Dantian Qi Sea.
Beneath Chu Bai’s skin, a Dark Gold light flickered in and out of existence. Nourished by a massive quantity of Blood Spirit Grass, his Iron Bone Casting Body Technique was making its final push toward the Realm of Great Perfection.
Every pore on his body seemed to breathe, taking in the residual Divine aura left within the ruins.
Under the immense pressure of this life-or-death struggle, Chu Bai’s Microscopic-level Guiyuan Technique utilized every last shred of energy to its absolute limit, wasting nothing.
Chu Bai’s body suddenly shuddered, and a fine layer of gray-black impurities seeped out from the surface of his skin.
It was a sign that after countless rounds of purification, his physical body was being pushed to the very limits of its mortal shell.
’Just a little bit more...’
Chu Bai’s eyes snapped open, a flash of utter resolve within them.

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