Chapter 492 - Suffering
The interior of the gigantic mountain cave appeared exceedingly hot and dry as a large cloud of white mist enveloped within. Within, one could faintly discern a figure sitting quietly on the ground, and was also the source of the high temperatures within the mountain cave. The ground within appeared to be in a cracked state as fissures extended across the mountain cave from the figure.
Boom!
Low and deep sounds rang from within the white mist as Mu Chen’s fists heavily hammered the ground, instantly causing cracks to rapidly extend further. Both of his arms were completely encased in a layer of dark-red blood clots. This colour, which could only form after multiple layers of dried-up blood, would cause a ghastly sight to the hearts of anyone that could see it.
Although Mu Chen was in a sitting position, his body was crunched up, with labored and painful pants continuously ringing out from his throat.
The blood-fire within his body had already continued burning close to ten whole days.
Within these ten days, he was seemingly always enduring such frightening pain and agony, with the flesh and blood within his body continuously being burnt and roasted by the blood-fire as they underwent their tempering. Although Mu Chen was clearly able to sense the blood-fire burning within his body, with the energy contained within his flesh and blood starting to become increasingly tempered, the pain and agony felt by him had also continued to rise and increase.
Generally speaking, the duration of a Human Body Disaster would be about seven to eight days. However, Mu Chen had already been in such a state for ten whole days. Furthermore, there still wasn’t any sign of this coming to a stop.
However, all of this was well within the expectations of Mu Chen. With how tyrannical his fleshly body was, the Human Body Disaster that resulted from it would naturally be even more frightening. Now, what he needed to do was to clench his teeth and continue to endure. He believed that if he could endure, there would be a gigantic progression of his strength as a result of this.
Crackle!
Blood continued to seep from the surface of the dried-up blood before quickly evaporating away, transforming into patches of dark-red dried-up blood that merged with the layer already present there.
Opening his eyes with much difficulty, his vision clearly appeared somewhat blurry at this moment. Using his strength to swing his head from side-to-side, yet another shiver shook through his body as it seemed that the blood-fire burning within his body had grown stronger yet again. This burning sensation appeared to pierce through his flesh and blood, encasing his entire body, wanting to turn him into ashes.
“How can my journey stop here?!”
As the intense pain and agony continued to spread across his body, Mu Chen tightly clenched his fists as roars resounded within his heart.
Over the past few years, he had experienced god-knows how many life-or-death situations. Youths that were able to possess such a resilient and tenacious personality wouldn’t be there for no reason, but was something that was built and tempered from being in life-or-death situations time-after-time again. He had promised his father to personally bring his mother back. He had also promised the young girl that would always be in his heart, no matter where he went, that he would become an unrivaled expert, to block the wind and rain and protect her.
Therefore, how could something as small as a Human Body Disaster obstruct him from his path of progress!
With a forceful bite, Mu Chen finally devoured the Divine Immortal Fruit he had held in his mouth since the start. Instantly, a cool, refreshing and pure energy started to radiate from within his body. This refreshing feeling caused Mu Chen to have the implosion of moaning out in happiness.
At this moment, his blurry consciousness started to become clear once again.
Roar! Roar!
As the refreshing energies of the Divine Immortal Fruit started to spread within his body, the blood-fire grew increasingly vigorous, appearing to be attempting to completely burn away the incoming energies.
“Do you think such a puny Human Body Disaster could stop me?!”
Mu Chen roared within his heart. Clenching his teeth tightly, he continued to endure the intense pain and agony omnipresent across his body. He definitely needed to win this war!
The scorching-hot temperatures within the mountain cave rapidly increased as suppressed beastial-like roars continued to ring within the steam-like white mist around Mu Chen’s body…
As of now, he had no path of retreat! The only thing he could do was to persist all the way till the end!
Time continued to elapse under Mu Chen’s perseverance. In a blink of an eye, five more days had passed…
Three figures hovered in the skies outside of the mountain caves, which were Xu Huang, Zhao Qingshan and Mu Fengyang.
“Mu Chen and Luo Li seem to show no signs of coming out…”
Looking towards the two tightly shut mountain caves before them, Xu Huang said helplessly while shrugging his shoulders.
Their Human Body Disasters had taken merely five days before ending. Furthermore, due to the Divine Immortal Fruit, it could be said that they had passed through it without any life-threatening danger. Therefore, not only had they obtained a great increase in their strength, they were now considered to be genuine experts at the realm of Human Body Disaster.
“Mu Chen should be just like us and undergoing his Human Body Disaster, right? Why’s he taking so long…?” asked Zhao Qingshan in doubt.
“There’s only one possibility,” replied Xu Huang as he shook his head. “Before even passing his Human Body Disaster, the strength of Mu Chen’s fleshly body is even stronger than experts who have passed their Human Body Disaster. Therefore, his Human Body Disaster would be even more frightening than ours, while taking greater time to complete… Thus, don’t compare what he’s going through now to what we have done.”
As he gave his reply, one could hear somewhat of a sob in his voice. All of them had saw Mu Chen start at the beginning as an unassuming Freshman, taking one step at a time all the way to become the number one person of their Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy. Although all of them were also working hard to improve and progress, from the looks of it now, they were still tossed far behind and unable to reach up towards where he was.
In this universe, there’s always bound to be some people who would possess monstrous talents. Wanting to chase after them would be something that was futile.
“What about Luo Li? She’s also still closed up…”
Said Mu Fengyang as he looked towards the other tightly shut mountain cave, the place where Luo Li had been isolated in. Till now, not a single movement of wanting to come out could be sensed from within.
Hearing that, Xu Huang and Zhao Qingshan exchanged glances with each other, noticing the doubt present in each other’s eyes. Luo Li had long already passed her Human Body Disaster. As of now, with her being isolated for so long, could it be that she was also making a breakthrough? That meant to say… that as of now, she was attempting her Spiritual Energy Disaster?
Thinking about this point, shock and astonishment filled the hearts of Xu Huang and the other two, while causing some excitement to gush from within. If Luo Li’s able to successfully pass her Spiritual Energy Disaster, that would be a great increase in the combat strength of their group. At that time, they would truly possess the strength to rival those elite groups present in this Great Spiritual Academy Tournament.
“Since we can’t interfere with their breakthroughs, it’s best that we quietly wait for them here. Both Mu Chen and Luo Li are extraordinary. I think that they will succeed in the end,” said Xu Huang.
Hearing that, both Zhao Qingshan and Mu Fengyang nodded their heads. Both of them knew that regardless of Mu Chen’s Human Body Disaster or Luo Li’s Spiritual Energy Disaster, they would absolutely be much harder than what ordinary people have to experience. However, all of them had absolute confidence in the two. There’s no need to talk about Mu Chen, as the dazzling accomplishments he had achieved over the last two years in the Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy was more than sufficient for them to sigh in admiration.
As for Luo Li, she didn’t participate in the contest for the so-called “glory within the Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy”, which resulted in her only being ranked 10th on the Heavenly Rankings at the start of the Great Spiritual Academy Tournament. However, the strength that she possessed was something that no one among them would dare to underestimate, including Mu Chen.
That’s because ever since her entry into the Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy till now, there was yet to be someone that had seen Luo Li take action without the slightest bit of restraint.
No one was clear exactly how tyrannical this absolutely beautiful young girl was. Even Mu Chen wasn’t able to confirm this point. Merely, while they were in the academy, that young girl had habitually kept quiet and stood by Mu Chen’s side, faintly smiling as she observed him obtain dazzling accomplishments one after the other.
Therefore, everyone would unknowingly forget that this young girl, whose beauty was unrivaled in the Northern Heavens Spiritual Academy, would in fact possess the strength that rivaled her astonishing appearance.
…
While Xu Huang and the other two quietly waited for Mu Chen and Luo Li to leave their closed training, they did not know that in a place far away from them, beams of light were quietly shooting across the skies. The direction those beams of light were shooting towards was precisely the location where Mu Chen and his group were…
There were quite a few of those beams of light. Furthermore, shooting across the horizon, tyrannical Spiritual Energy fluctuations radiated from them. Clearly, not a single one of these people were weaklings.
Rays of brilliance sparkled on the top of a mountain peak, before five elegant and beautiful figures surfaced from within, they slight swayed as they appeared, painting an exceedingly alluring sight.
At the helm of these five figures was a familiar face. Beautiful, noble, prideful, akin to a phoenix soaring across the nine heavens, enjoying the countless gazes of admiration shooting from the earth below.
She was Wen Qingxuan.
“Captain, it seems that there’s quite a few people that have the same goal as us,” said two exceedingly cute and lovable young girls standing behind Wen Qingxuan as they looked towards the beams of light shooting across the horizon, their sweet voices rang like two black naped orioles.
Hearing their words, Wen Qingxuan gently nodded her head, her slender finger starting to lazily twirl a lock of her long black hair. Slightly tilting her head, she shot a gaze towards the targeted direction with her beautiful eyes, before saying with a sweet smile, “Although the number of points Mu Chen’s group have didn’t increase for the last half a month, for the time being, they are still within the Top 16. Therefore, their location would naturally be exposed to everyone. What’s more… there are even some people that are circulating news about Mu Chen’s group having obtained the Divine Palace’s invitation of the Divine Wood Palace. It seems that there’s a complete ancient inheritance in the Divine Wood Palace. Therefore, there’s quite a few groups rushing towards them.”
“Captain. The location of Mu Chen’s group has not changed since they appeared. Could it be that they don’t know that they’ve long been locked-on and encircled by those groups eyeing towards them?” A frown appeared on a golden-haired young girl with a rather fiery figure standing by Wen Qingxuan’s side as she spoke out.
“Not changing their location for an entire half a month…”
A faint smile appeared on Wen Qingxuan’s face as she replied, “They should be cultivating. This is truly interesting. In a situation where their location has been revealed, they actually dared to brazenly close up and cultivate… this Mu Chen truly has quite some courage.”
“Captain, do we need to take action to chase those groups away?” asked the identical-looking twins with sweet smiles present on their faces.
“No need.”
Waving her hand, an arc curled up from the corner of Wen Qingxuan’s mouth as she replied, “We can take advantage of this to see exactly what ability this Blood Calamity of the Spiritual Road has. If he doesn’t have any ability, then don’t blame me for snatching away the person of his heart…”
Speaking till here, Wen Qingxuan extended her slender fingers towards the far distance, before slowing clenching them into a fist. At this moment, the smile present at the corner of her little mouth was brimming with soul-stirring appeal.
“Luo Li, I’ve finally found you.”