Time went by slowly. Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan sat facing one another, but neither of them was in the mood to cultivate. They watched the sky turn from light to dark, until the frigid night was almost upon them once more. Neither of them spoke a word as they were lost in their own thoughts.

As the night slowly crept upon them, the duo caught a faint noise approaching them rather swiftly.

Exchanging a glance, they split up and approached the natural stone wall around the camp, where they hid their auras and looked out. The sound grew closer and closer as a figure rushed out of the forest and darted toward the camp like an arrow.

Li Kuanglan couldn’t hide her joy at Qianye’s return, but Ji Tianqing pulled her back. The latter then pointed forward and advanced in a concealed state.

Li Kuanglan’s eyesight wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t figure out the problem—Qianye was moving too slowly. Compared to ordinary experts, he was already running quite fast amidst the tenfold increase in gravity. But Qianye’s powerful physique gave him a powerful edge in this world, and he was even slightly faster than Li Kuanglan. How could he be so slow?

Li Kuanglan felt her heart beating faster as she picked up the origin gun and took aim behind Qianye.

Fortunately, no chasing soldiers appeared. As though he could sense Ji Tianqing’s approach, Qianye glanced over briefly but kept on running toward the camp. Ji Tianqing, on the other hand, circled around to cover Qianye’s back along the way.

Once inside the camp, Qianye staggered and would likely have collapsed if Li Kuanglan hadn’t caught him. “What’s wrong?”

Qianye gasped heavily like a fish tossed onto the shore and only recovered after a while. He waved weakly at her, saying, “I’m fine, just a bit exhausted.”

“Where did you run off to?”

Li Kuanglan was surprised because she had fought alongside Qianye quite often and knew just how terrifying his regeneration was. It almost felt as though he was never tired. Just how far had he run to be so exhausted?

“I don’t know, either, but I found some stuff.”

Qianye fished out a small box and opened it carefully to reveal six white fruits!

Ji Tianqing was shocked. “You found a different native base?”

Qianye nodded.

“That’s impossible. I traveled for half a day but couldn’t leave the range of this stone castle.”

“Then you just need to run farther.” Qianye laughed.

Six white fruits meant that they could get through three more frigid nights. This was supposed to be a cause of celebration, but the atmosphere in the camp wasn’t that joyful. Qianye had closed his eyes in apparent exhaustion, while the other two weren’t in high spirits, either.

Ji Tianqing observed the white fruits carefully and found that this batch was somewhat different—there was an additional faint red line on its surface. Just the scent of it was enough to accelerate her blood flow and fill her with a peculiar sensation. Doubtlessly, these white fruits were much stronger than the ones she had robbed.

As a holy object of the natives, it was obvious that the stronger the white fruit, the greater the number of guards. There would also be a greater number of powerful people in bigger native tribes.

Ji Tianqing glanced at Qianye before reaching out to open his shirt.

There, on his abdomen, was a fist-sized injury extending all the way through his body, revealing his innards. Both his body and organs were covered in a layer of grey substance that was stopping him from regenerating. In addition to the biggest wound, there were numerous unhealed injuries all over his body, one of which was bone-deep. However, Qianye’s skeleton was now fairly strong and the blow never managed to break his ribs.

Ji Tianqing bit her lip, and her expression turned cold. “Are you crazy?”

“Of course not.”

“You charged in to snatch the fruits despite the large number of natives, and then ran all the way back. You think you’re a hero? You think you’re so awesome? You think you’ve tried your very best, have you? Do the two of us disgust you so much that you would rather throw away your life than touch us?”

The series of criticism left Qianye with no room to retort, up until Ji Tianqing stopped to breathe. Li Kuanglan said nothing and merely looked on in silence, but that also gave him a fair amount of pressure.

Helpless, Qianye tried to explain, “Tianqing, that’s not my intention. The natives are numerous but still within my ability. It can’t be considered throwing my life away.”

Ji Tianqing’s expression turned frosty. “Are you trying to say you’re more powerful than me?”

Qianye wanted to deny, but after some thought, he ultimately nodded.

Ji Tianqing glared fiercely at him. “Remember those words. We will fight properly once we’re out of the Great Maelstrom. At that time, we’ll fight to the death, neither is allowed to flee.”

With that, Ji Tianqing tossed an exquisitely little dagger into Qianye’s hand.

Li Kaunglan’s expression turned peculiar. “Tianqing, are you really doing this?”

“Of course! I don’t like this fellow!”

Li Kuanglan shook her head. “Don’t regret it later on.”

“Why should I? You think I’ll lose?”

Qianye’s lips moved slightly. He wanted to say she might just lose, but he knew that he couldn’t say that out loud, otherwise, this young miss might attack on the spot.

At this moment, Qianye was injured and his origin power was completely exhausted. Losing to her wasn’t a big issue, since he didn’t quite care about face among friends. He was just worried that the effects of the wine would cause her to lose control if she were to overdraft her origin power.

Li Kuanglan pulled Ji Tianqing back. “Let him recover. The efficiency of our arts will diminish if we drag things out.”

Ji Tianqing glared at Qianye. “You got off easy.”

A syringe appeared in her hands, which she stabbed into Qianye’s neck while he wasn’t paying attention and pushed the contents in. The amount of medicine inside wasn’t small, and the force of her injection was merciless. In the blink of an eye, there was a swelling on Qianye’s neck that left him grimacing from the pain. However, his powerful body was able to fully absorb the medicine in a short time.

Qianye knew she was getting back at him, so he didn’t really mind.

She crushed the syringe in her hand after the injection was completed. Then, a flash of fire erupted from her palm, reducing the remains to ashes. Her movements were quick, but Li Kuanglan still noticed the insignia on the syringe, and her expression became complicated.

With the medicine in his system, Qianye felt as though his entire body was on fire. The drug immediately activated the metabolism of his body tissues, raising his regenerative powers by several dozen times. In the blink of an eye, every small muscle in his body was sending out hunger signals. They yearned for more energy and nutrients.

The dull beating of a war-drum erupted from the camp, and the reverberation caused the two ladies’ hearts to beat along with it. They stared at Qianye, knowing that this so-called war-drum was the sound of Qianye’s blood core.

At this moment, Qianye’s blood core was beating tens of times faster than normal. It pulsed hundreds of times each minute, pumping out a steady stream of auric flame blood to every part of his body. The auric flame blood would be drained of all energy after entering his muscles, yet their hunger was only slightly sated. His body kept on demanding nutrients from the blood core.

Half of Qianye’s dark golden blood energy was used up in the blink of an eye. Stored essence blood was now being mobilized and converted into new auric flame blood. Despite that, the output wasn’t enough to fulfill the body’s needs. Hence, the blood core operated faster and faster, continuously accelerating the process. Even though the produced auric flame blood wasn’t as pure as before, it was at least able to satisfy the body’s needs.

Before long, half his essence blood stores had been used up, but his body was far from satiated. As though it had sensed danger, the Book of Darkness appeared once more and opened up, pouring the stored essence blood into his blood core. The blood stored in the book had undergone some purification and served to expedite the transformation process of the blood core.

Moments later, the Book of Darkness was also exhausted and faded away into the depths of the blood core. When it closed up, Qianye sensed that the book seemed to have two extra pages, but he wasn’t able to catch a clear glimpse at the time.

At this point, he was drained of all blood energy and essence blood, yet the hunger from his body remained strong. At this rate, the blood core would no longer be able to meet the demand, and the amount of auric flame blood was gradually decreasing. A sudden idea came unto Qianye as he instinctively remembered his daybreak origin power.

With a single thought, his body turned its attention to the origin vortices throughout his body.

Qianye’s origin vortices were revolving silently at first, but they started accelerating rapidly at the body’s demand. Threads of scarlet gold poured out of the vortices, illuminating every part of his body.

Venus Dawn was a different feeling. It was like light and fire, killing large patches of muscle tissues before growing them back with greater density and energy. Careful observation would show that these tissues contained countless crystalline granules, similar to how Venus Dawn existed in the origin vortices.

Under the illumination of Venus Dawn, large swathes of new tissue began replacing the old. If his old body was an extremely powerful raw ore, the new physique was comparable to a polished gem.

The all-round remodeling of his body brought about a stronger capacity to absorb origin power. His five origin vortices poured out a steady stream of radiance, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the sudden increase in consumption.

A sudden crack echoed in the air as the wall of the sixth vortex shattered, unable to withstand the strain.

With the wall shattered, the sixth vortex soon took shape and began resonating with the other five. The Profound Combatant Formula began channeling on its own to draw upon the origin power from the void.

At some point, a patch of leaden clouds appeared above Qianye’s head and turned into a hundred-meter cloud whirlpool. The swirling clouds flickered with sanguine flashes of lightning, along with roaming streaks of dark torn space.

A storm kicked up in the camp, sucking the tent, canopy and wooden boxes into the sky.

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