Chapter 162: Shedding the Mortal Coil and Reborn!

A sudden, strange mutation occurred within Su Yi’s chest. Through internal vision, Su Yi was astonished to discover that a mass of blood-red substance was slowly forming right where the black dot had previously appeared. It bore the exact appearance of the legendary Blood of Heaven and Earth, resembling yet another heart. Compared to the beating heart on his left, this Blood of Heaven and Earth looked precisely like a second heart growing directly in the center of his chest.

Immediately following this, countless fine blood threads suddenly sprouted from the Blood of Heaven and Earth, beginning to spread through his body along the original blood vessels like an entirely new circulatory system!

Faced with this bizarre phenomenon, Su Yi felt no fear for some inexplicable reason; instead, a sense of deep familiarity washed over him. A sudden thought flashed through his mind, recalling the battle skill "Cosmic Revolutions," which he had already memorized by heart. The various meridian circulation pathways vividly appeared in his mind's eye. Could he try, Su Yi wondered, to guide these blood threads into forming the circulation pathways of the Cosmic Revolutions?

With a leap of his heart, Su Yi immediately began attempting to command these blood threads. To his pleasant surprise, the threads proved remarkably obedient without the slightest hesitation. Su Yi divided his mental focus to guide the growing blood threads, slowly coaxing them along the meridian routes of the Cosmic Revolutions until they finally formed a complete circulatory loop, with the Blood of Heaven and Earth serving as both the starting and ending points!

This entire process was astonishingly rapid and flawlessly fluid. Had he not memorized the meridian pathways with absolute clarity and found these blood threads so effortlessly controllable, achieving this would surely have been far more difficult.

Just as Su Yi had unwittingly completed the transformation into the mutated Cosmic Revolutions, the remaining blood threads also finished their task of permeating his entire body. Seeing this, Su Yi could not help but let out a sigh of relief. He had never imagined the process of subduing and devouring the Blood of Heaven and Earth would unfold this way; it seemed nowhere near as arduous as he had feared...

No sooner had this thought crossed Su Yi's mind than a wave of intense, violent swelling pain erupted throughout his entire body without warning! With a drastic change in expression, Su Yi hastily endured the agony to check himself internally, only to discover that the growing blood threads had not ceased their expansion at all. The formidable energy contained within them had begun to overflow, and after filling his body to the brim, it started pushing outward through his skin!

"Puff!—"

Before Su Yi could take any action, the overwhelming energy abruptly ruptured his body, causing his muscles and skin to tear apart in continuous succession! Despite being charged with immense power, Su Yi felt no terrifying oppressive aura; it felt merely as though a bowl of water had been splashed onto him, followed instantly by the sensation of his skin splitting open. Perhaps extreme brilliance ultimately fades into simplicity; it was precisely because the energy was so overwhelmingly vast that it manifested with such apparent gentleness...

Right now, however, Su Yi had no spare moments to ponder such matters. The very instant his body tore apart, a heart-rending roar tore from his throat! He had experienced a similar ordeal back at Changling City when tempering his physique with medicinal pills, but this time was countless times more violent than before! During that previous instance, Su Yi had managed to grit his teeth and endure for a while, but this time, he only had enough breath to let out a single scream before plunging completely into a state of suspended animation!

His muscles rolled outward and split open, spurting streams of fresh blood that instantly dyed the unconscious Su Yi entirely red, transforming him into a bloody figure. Simultaneously, however, these ruptured wounds began to mend at a terrifying, visible speed!

Tearing open, healing, healing, tearing open... This cycle repeated endlessly, much like the previous time, except that neither the scale of destruction nor the degree of regeneration could be compared to that prior ordeal in the slightest! His muscles, blood, bones, cells, meridians, and internal organs were all undergoing continuous, intense strengthening and rebirth!

The entire scene could only be described as terrifying. One could only see a blood-soaked human form perpetually splitting and healing, writhing in a bizarre, continuous motion... At present, the rate of destruction and the rate of regeneration seemed to reach a perfect equilibrium, persisting tirelessly as if it would never end...

One day, one week, one month...

Over a month passed imperceptibly. The trees and underbrush surrounding the cave grew with astonishing vigor, thick enough to almost blot out the sun, whether due to the passage of time or the lingering influence of the Blood of Heaven and Earth...

Through the dense weeds, Su Yi could still be seen lying there, fast asleep and unconscious. Yet the Blood of Heaven and Earth seemed to have undergone some subtle changes. In fact, after more than a month of stalemate, starting yesterday, the previously balanced cycle of destruction and regeneration had finally broken its equilibrium. Bizarrely enough, the rate of destruction had actually begun to outpace the rate of regeneration!

Although this slight discrepancy was not immediately obvious, after accumulating over a full day and night, the situation had grown somewhat perilous. This was glaringly evident from the multiplying wounds covering Su Yi's body!

At a certain moment, the destructive force began to run rampant. A succession of chilling, cracking sounds echoed continuously, and the terrifying splits across Su Yi's body grew more numerous. Through some of them, even his stark white bones were visible! Yet, having undergone over a month of tempering, his bones, along with his internal organs, had undergone a heaven-shaking transformation. They appeared exceptionally resilient, showing no signs of fracture or shattering.

Perhaps because the initial tempering had focused heavily on his internal bones and organs, the muscles had received comparatively less refinement. Now that the internal tempering was complete, the energy had shifted its focus to the surface muscles. Even so, the Blood of Heaven and Earth still possessed ample reserve power, causing Su Yi's physical healing rate to lag behind the rate of destruction...

More and more wounds abruptly materialized amidst the tearing sound of muscle fibers. At this moment, Su Yi looked as though he had been subjected to a thousand cuts. His condition was severe; even though he remained in a state of suspended animation, a look of profound pain and gravity seemed etched upon his features. Just as his physical body was on the verge of collapse, the Profound Dragon Tendon, which had remained coiled around his arm all this time, finally stirred.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Blood of Heaven and Earth actually began to refine the Profound Dragon Tendon itself. Yet precisely because of this, a vast amount of the Blood of Heaven and Earth was absorbed, alleviating a great deal of the pressure bearing down on Su Yi and allowing his gaping wounds to slowly begin closing...

True to its reputation as a precious treasure harvested from the Tier 6 demonic beast, the Earth-Armored Profound Demonic Dragon, the Profound Dragon Tendon proved resilient. Whether due to its inherent nature or otherwise, the overwhelming energy of the Blood of Heaven and Earth—which was fully capable of tearing Su Yi's body apart—seemed momentarily unable to do much to the tendon. After absorbing a massive quantity of the Blood of Heaven and Earth, the Profound Dragon Tendon merely turned a shade of faint red.

Yet this development provided Su Yi with immense relief. Relieved of the crushing pressure, the wounds on his body had completely healed. The newly regenerated skin was as fair and tender as that of a newborn infant, yet it concealed an extraordinarily potent and formidable strength...

"Hmph, I originally intended to test whether I could use this Blood of Heaven and Earth to completely destroy this brat's physical body... But I never expected this Profound Dragon Tendon... Oh well, with the Blood of Heaven and Earth right here, this seat can recover slowly..."

A sinister voice sounded softly before fading away entirely. Within the cave, only the newly refined Su Yi remained, alongside the Profound Dragon Tendon still soaked in the residual Blood of Heaven and Earth...

After another span of time whose length was impossible to determine, Su Yi gradually awakened as if experiencing a complete rebirth. In his memory, he had endured all sorts of terrifying tempering that still caused a lingering chill whenever he recalled it. Unexpectedly, however, his body felt entirely free of soreness, replaced instead by a profound sense of lightness.

Su Yi stood up, pressing one hand against the stone wall of the cave.

"Boom!"

With a deafening crash, the stone wall instantly shattered into pieces! Under Su Yi's stunned gaze, spiderweb cracks radiated outward from the point of contact between his hand and the wall! Chunks of fractured stone cascaded downward in a flurry, landing on the ground with a series of heavy thuds!

"This kind of destructive power..." Su Yi stared in disbelief at his retracted right hand. This was an entirely unprecedented sensation of power, a strength he had never experienced before! Because he had never encountered it, Su Yi could not immediately gauge its exact magnitude or tier, but he could clearly sense that if he were to cross paths with an ordinary cultivator of martial cultivation once more, he could utterly crush them with ease!

Still struggling to believe it, he stooped and picked up a hard boulder, gently squeezing it without exerting any real effort. The rock instantly crumbled into fine powder!

"Though I'm not entirely certain, it must at least surpass the fourteenth rank of martial cultivation, right? ... No, the fifteenth? Or even the sixteenth?!" Su Yi's eyes flashed, brimming with boundless exhilaration! When he had first set out in search of the Blood of Heaven and Earth, a trace of hesitation had indeed lingered in his heart. But the current reality had completely swept away every shred of that hesitation!

The Blood of Heaven and Earth truly existed! The Blood of Heaven and Earth truly worked! Although the process had been fraught with immense peril, hadn't he ultimately pulled through? If this was a gamble, he had won the wager! The greater the risk, the greater the reward upon success! What he had fought tooth and nail to attain this time was a level of strength he had never previously dared to imagine!

Although Su Yi had once leaped overnight from an ordinary mortal to possess a physical body rivaling a peak Tier 1 demonic beast, just as advancing from a martial warrior to a martial cultivator was no simple feat, transitioning from the first tier to the second was equally arduous—otherwise, Su Yi would not have dreaded running into martial cultivators so much in the past.

"Just how far have I reached? Should I find someone to test it on?" Su Yi scratched his head, his gaze shifting to find the Profound Dragon Tendon resting quietly on the ground.

The Profound Dragon Tendon had now turned entirely blood-red!