Farewell, Mochi

The female cultivator let out a scream of extreme agony as boiling blood spurted like a fountain onto the grayish-white trunk of the swordwood tree. The meridians in her limbs were severed in an instant.

The demonic cultivator didn't care whether she lived or died. Like discarding a piece of torn rag, he viciously threw her into the extremely dense and gloomy swordwood thicket ahead.

The scent of blood spread instantly, carried by the astral wind.

"Hiss—"

Chilling friction sounds arose from all directions.

In the dark thicket, dozens of pairs of cold compound eyes lit up. "Sword Mantises," each the size of a hound with forelimbs like dark gold scythes, were completely enraged by the rich scent of fresh flesh and blood, madly pouncing on the desperately struggling bloody figure.

Nauseating chewing sounds mixed with faint screams.

A sinister smile of success curled the corners of the demonic cultivator's mouth.

Taking advantage of the moment the Sword Mantis swarm was lured away, his figure turned into a streak of blood light, diving straight toward the dead ten-thousand-year swordwood at the center of the crater.

At the core of the tree, a drop of emerald green liquid, exuding rich vitality and extreme sharpness, hung quietly suspended.

Yi Wood Sword Marrow!

The demonic cultivator's eyes were full of greed as he reached out his withered, claw-like hand, about to grab the top-grade wood-attribute spiritual item that could rebuild a Dao foundation.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the sword marrow.

"Buzz—!"

A terrifying pressure, ten times more overbearing than the surrounding astral wind, exploded without warning behind him.

There was no sound of wind, no killing intent.

Only a huge, translucent five-colored phantom of a light lotus, like an inverted glazed pagoda, extremely brutally smashed his protective blood astral energy.

The first layer of the Dao platform, the Chaos Lotus Platform.

The demonic cultivator's pupils shrank suddenly, all the hairs on his body stood up, and he turned his head abruptly.

A large hand with rough calluses, like the scythe of the grim reaper reaching out from the void, grabbed his throat.

At the fingertips, a wisp of dark gold flame bloomed silently.

"You..."

Before the demonic cultivator could utter a word, the extreme, heaven-burning temperature of the Great Sun True Fire burned straight through his trachea along his throat.

There was no scream.

Because his divine soul was completely shredded in that instant by the true soul damage attached to the true fire.

The assimilation attribute of the Great Sun Heaven Burning Sutra operated with a boom. The berserk blood evil spiritual energy in the demonic cultivator's body not only failed to resist, but instead became the most delicious fuel for the true fire.

Half a breath.

The demonic cultivator's body was like a piece of dead wood, instantly carbonized into ash, and blown completely clean by a gust of astral wind.

Gu Yang stood before the dead wood, withdrawing his hand expressionlessly.

In his deep black eyes, the drop of emerald green Yi Wood Sword Marrow was reflected.

He extremely cleanly took out a Spirit Sealing Jade Bottle and collected the sword marrow. With a casual flick, he also took the storage bag the demonic cultivator had dropped in the ashes.

In the distance, the female cultivator's screams had completely died down, leaving only the biting and tearing sounds of the Sword Mantises feeding.

Gu Yang didn't spare even a sliver of peripheral vision for that hellscape.

He turned, his gray robe fluttering.

And vanished back into the boundless darkness.

Inside a gloomy tree hollow, the berserk astral wind was kept out.

Gu Yang quietly examined the Spirit Sealing Jade Bottle in his hand.

In the bottle, a drop of emerald green liquid hovered in midair, exuding a palpitating, vigorous vitality, yet also revealing an extreme sharpness that could sever anything.

Yi Wood Sword Marrow.

A heaven-and-earth marvel bred by ten-thousand-year swordwood absorbing ancient sword qi and undergoing countless cycles of withering and flourishing.

For a sword cultivator, merely fusing a single drop could add a Dao charm of "endless life" to their natal flying sword. Even if the flying sword broke, it could instantly restructure, making it an invaluable treasure that made people red-eyed with envy.

But Gu Yang was not a sword cultivator.

His deep black eyes reflected that touch of emerald green. His fingertips moved slightly, and the jade bottle shattered.

The first layer of the Dao platform, the Chaos Lotus Platform, emerged with a boom.

A translucent five-colored light lotus enveloped him. Cyan, red, yellow, white, black, the five elements flowing.

Gu Yang flicked his finger, and the drop of Yi Wood Sword Marrow precisely entered the cyan petal representing the origin of "Wood."

"Buzz—"

The light lotus trembled violently, and the originally gentle defensive light instantly erupted with a piercing sharpness.

Gu Yang formed seals with his hands, and the "Great Sun Heaven Burning Sutra" in his body brutally altered the operating trajectory of the lotus platform.

The five petals no longer closed to protect their master, but instead acted like five peerless sharp blades, blooming outward layer by layer, and then spinning madly in reverse at an extremely bizarre frequency!

The mutual generation and restriction of the five elements, an endless defense, was forcibly twisted by him into a five-element strangulation.

The cyan petal, augmented by the sword marrow, reached the extreme of sharpness.

The surrounding inner wall of the swordwood, as hard as iron, turned into fine wood powder silently like tofu under this spinning cutting force, rustling down.

Gu Yang restrained his aura, and the lotus platform faded away.

This glazed pagoda of absolute defense had been ground by him into a five-element millstone that crushed flesh and blood.

...

The berserk astral wind was like a rusty, blunt knife, scraping against the grayish-brown towering trunks of the wild swordwood forest, letting out bursts of tooth-aching, shrill screeches.

Gu Yang, like a weightless phantom, stopped very abruptly in the shadow of a hidden cliff.

The gray hempen garment didn't cause the slightest ripple in the astral wind.

A strong, pungent stench of swamp rot, mixed with an extremely sweet, maddening exotic fragrance, followed the wind's trajectory into his nasal cavity.

At the bottom of the cliff was a huge depression filled with dark brown mud.

In the very center of the depression, a purplish-red spiritual herb, shaped like an angry dragon taking flight, was oozing drops of crystal-clear sap like amber.

Five-hundred-year-old Purple Blood Dragon Transformation Saliva.

And around this holy item for core formation, which was enough to make Foundation Establishment cultivators go completely mad.

Three early Foundation Establishment disciples wearing the snow-white dharma robes of the Dao One Sect were urging three white jade array flags with sinister smiles on their faces.

"Buzz—"

The array flags locked down the void, transforming into a "Four Symbols Demon Locking Array" flowing with chilling killing intent.

In the center of the array eye, a stunningly beautiful, half-human, half-snake demon, bathed in blood, was tightly trapped.

It was precisely the Black Water Profound Snake, Mo Ji, to whom Gu Yang had casually granted a stroke of good fortune in the withered bone cave.

Since shedding her skin and taking human form that day, she had followed the bloodthirsty instinct of demonic beasts and sneaked into the hinterland of the secret realm.

Ten days ago, she accidentally caught the scent of this Dragon Transformation Saliva. For this supreme fortune of core formation, she went on a killing spree all the way. Relying on her overbearing pink poisonous miasma and tyrannical black evil scales, she forcefully tore apart four waves of rogue cultivators who coveted her demon core.

However, the successive tragic bloody battles had exhausted her last bit of natal poisonous miasma.

Ultimately, due to a momentary stagnation of demonic power, she was tightly trapped in this desperate situation by these righteous hypocrites lurking in the dark.

At this moment, Mo Ji's demonic power was nearly dried up, and her slender, powerful snake tail was covered with sword cuts deep enough to show bone.

"Vile beast, hand over the spiritual herb and cripple your own cultivation, and we can leave you an intact corpse!"

The Dao One Sect disciples, like playing with a trapped beast in a cage, controlled their flying swords, occasionally carving a poignant bloody mark on Mo Ji's snow-white skin.