Void Cultivation-Chapter 172- Eleventh level

Beginning of Arc 1: Mysteries

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As Grey let out that hollow, self-mocking laugh, the Foundation Establishment expert froze. Those fragmented memories he had just glimpsed, no, endured, were too vivid, too ancient, too terrifying to dismiss as illusions. He couldn’t decipher their meaning, but he knew one thing with absolute certainty:

They were real.

That realization made him pause mid-possession. Grey’s broken laugh, the cracks in his voice, the weight behind those dying embers of recollection, none of this was simple. None of it was something a lowly remnant soul like him should meddle with.

A chill crawled down his fading spine.

That being whose face shone brighter than the sun, the one who casually erased pieces of Grey’s memories, had looked directly at him. If he took over Grey’s body... if that figure descended again...

Would he even have time to scream before he was erased?

The thought alone made his soul quiver.

"No," he muttered inwardly, his decision crystallizing like ice. "I won’t gamble my last existence on him. I won’t die inside that body."

Artifacts, rare physique, unimaginable potential, none of it mattered anymore.

He was already dead. One more mistake, and even his soul would scatter, never to reform. Faced with that, even a desert full of corpses to choose from was better than tying his fate to this boy.

And so he withdrew.

But the moment the spirit body released Grey’s soul, Grey’s consciousness slammed back into place, as if dragged from the depths of a dream. Relief didn’t come. Instead, a sharp, stabbing ache spread through him.

As the scenes stopped flashing before his inner eye, a suffocating melancholy washed into him through those fractured memories, old grief he didn’t recognize, hatred he couldn’t place, loss he couldn’t name.

His eyes turned blood-red. His breathing hardened. And his soul trembled.

He glared at the Foundation Establishment expert’s flickering spirit body.

The expert wasn’t doing well either. Canceling a possession at the brink of completion tore chunks out of his already-feeble soul. His transparent face twisted in agony, growing even thinner, even paler. If he didn’t seize another body soon, the wind would scatter him like ashes.

But the instant Grey’s gaze locked onto him...

’BOOM!’

’BOOM!’

’BOOM!’

Thunderous explosions erupted inside the expert’s skull. His spirit staggered back violently, pieces of it destabilizing. His form grew so faint he looked like an illusion fading under sunlight.

Grey wasn’t doing any better.

His soul, normally clear and luminous like a brilliant star, was dimming fast.

Cracks spider-webbed across its surface, ugly and jagged, like glass crudely mended by an unskilled hand. Wisps of soul essence leaked through those fractures, drifting away into nothing.

But the light in his eyes...

That cold, savage glint, sharp enough to slice the desert itself, never faded.

His killing intent only grew, heavy and frigid, as if he intended to freeze the world and bury everything beneath it.

Grey’s voice tore through the void.

"You wanted to take over my body? Then why not do it now!? Why NOT!?"

His roar wasn’t loud, it was violently alive. His soul quivered, hairline cracks spreading across his spiritual form. His face drained of color, but the fury burning inside him didn’t dim for even a breath.

He hadn’t hated the man when the chase began. Not even when he was cornered.

But this moment?

This betrayal?

This attempt to overwrite his existence?

This was the first time Grey truly felt hatred.

Meanwhile, the Foundation Establishment expert’s thoughts spiraled into panic.

’Crap! Why did I ever chase this brat!? If I had just walked away, none of this insanity would’ve happened!’

But before he could even finish regretting his life choices...

Grey vanished.

He reappeared a few steps away, his face twisted into something feral. His eyes were crimson, but beneath that bloody rage was a terrifying stillness...

A cold, abyssal calm that looked capable of freezing heaven itself.

Without hesitation, Grey swung his right fist.

A battle between souls erupted.

The Foundation Establishment expert cursed and met his attack head-on.

BANG!

The impact tore through the fog-filled space. Grey staggered back instantly, cracks exploded across his spiritual body, making him look less like a living soul and more like a porcelain doll about to shatter. His face was pale, expressionless...

Except for the murder burning in his eyes.

The Foundation Establishment expert wasn’t any better. Losing his body, fighting in a half-dissolved spirit state, cancelling the possession midway, he’d practically crippled himself.

His strength, which should’ve been at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment realm, had plummeted. Grey, merely at the tenth level of Qi Refinement, could now meet him blow for blow.

That humiliation carved itself into the expert’s face.

"Dammit! If I could use my Spirit Fires in this form, you’d already be dead!" he roared, charging without care for his fading existence.

He was no longer fighting to win.

He was fighting to drag Grey into hell with him.

Grey didn’t reply. His breathing was ragged, but the killing intent only thickened. He stepped in to meet the man’s charge.

Another deafening bang tore the swirling purple fog apart, but neither of them looked at anything except each other.

The expert’s spirit body was collapsing, faint, see-through, almost dissolving with every second.

Grey’s soul wasn’t any better; cracks covered him from head to toe, flickering like a candle about to be snuffed out.

They clashed again. And again. And again.

Each strike shattered the fog.

Each punch carried hatred, regret, desperation, grief.

One fought to escape.

The other fought because he didn’t know what else to do with the agony in his chest.

The battle dragged on for the time it takes a candle to burn down. When the last ember of that imaginary flame died, their bodies finally faltered.

Neither could use techniques.

Neither could rely on arts or spiritual tricks.

This was pure will.

Pure raw strength.

Pure soul against soul.

And Grey was breaking.

By the end, his spirit body flickered like a dying light. The ache wracking him wasn’t from a single wound, it was from everywhere at once. Every fragment of his soul screamed.

For the first time, Grey genuinely doubted if this damage...could ever be healed.

But he didn’t care. He pushed his body to the limit and fought with all the strength left in him. Gradually, his vision started to become blurred.

Just some feet away, the spirit body of the Foundation Establishment expert was really breaking away. Wisps of soul essence slipped through the cracks and disappeared into nothingness. The Foundation Establishment expert gave a wry smile before his spirit body crumbled into speckles of light and spirit energy.

Seeing this, Grey let out a silent sigh before his mind slipped into blank, and his consciousness entered a world of darkness.

***

While all this was ongoing, Roxanne stood close to Grey with a slightly confused expression on her face. She saw as Grey sat down and closed his eyes. Soon after, his mind entered his spirit sea.

Every second or so, his body would tremble like something big was happening within his spirit sea. Roxanne did not know what to do, because at times, his body would emit strong spirit energy fluctuations that were enough to make her pause.

But seeing Grey’s expression twist several times, she knew that he was in a critical moment of breaking through. So she did not try to disturb him, instead, she sat down silently and closed her eyes. Suddenly, a Divine sense that greatly surpassed Grey’s perception exploded and expanded in all directions.

One thousand feet, three thousand feet, ten thousand feet. This continued until her divine sense scanned the entirety of fifteen thousand feet.

All while this was happening, she sat down in front of Grey to protect him. She did not want any external factors to interrupt this moment in which he was busy improving himself.

Several hours passed like this until a muffled boom erupted from Grey’s body. Grey’s body trembled intensely. Fine cracks began to appear all over his body, and from those fine cracks, black goo flowed out from his pores.

A strong spirit energy fluctuation that greatly surpassed the Tenth level of Qi Accumulation erupted from his body, and a great aura surrounded Grey. That aura kept increasing steadily and very soon, it would break through the threshold of Qi Accumulation and enter Foundation Establishment.

Roxanne’s eyes narrowed the moment Grey broke through to the Eleventh level. Even though she was in the peak of the Late Stages of Foundation Establishment, she still felt her breath quicken slightly when that aura erupted.

If not for the familiarity she had with him, she would have attacked him then and there. Also, she felt the Divine flames that were sealed in Grey’s spirit sea begin to act up.

Once those Divine flames were let out from his spirit sea and into the real world, the entire desert would experience a change, and the Bizarre existences and malicious spirit that hid from everyone would reveal their presence.

Quickly, she sucked in a deep breath and blew out. Suddenly, a sea of fire rose up. That sea of flames was over two thousand feet high, and the end could not be seen. The moment that sea of flames appeared, Roxanne’s robes began to burn into flames. But those flames did not burn her robes away, they did not even hurt her skin. Instead, those flames made her look like she was wearing clothes of fire. Her hair also caught on fire and began to move backwards even without wind. Her eyes also turned into miniature suns and began to burn brightly.

The sea of flames that had been conjured by Roxanne began to expand from her until it covered exactly fifteen thousand feet. The same distance that her divine sense also covered.

A loud bang awoke Grey from his deep state of unconsciousness. The first thing that he saw was the curvy back figure of Roxanne who was clothed in robes made of fire. Grey retracted his gaze and looked around him to see himself sitting down. Several thousand feet away, he saw tall walls of fire. That fire extended into the horizon.

The moment Grey saw this, his sharp gaze softened a little as he looked at the back figure of the young girl in front of him. Grey was grateful and promised within his heart to repay Roxanne one day.

But soon after, his gaze turned into narrow slits as he focused on the changes happening to his body. His spirit energy fluctuations had reached a terrifying level that could instill fear in cultivators in the initial stages of Foundation Establishment.

And what was even more bizarre was that the energy fluctuations kept on increasing like crazy. Signs that Grey would have to break through to the Foundation Establishment realm very soon.

"Its time... To finally breakthrough..."Grey said in a low voice and brought out something from his storage bag. That thing was a normal sized gourd. Normally, this gourd would not have caused any changes, but there was a tantalizing smell coming from the gourd that made even Roxanne to scrunch her nose slightly.

What was inside the gourd was naturally the Golden Syrup that Grey had collected from the Underground caverns in Green City. Grey had managed to fill half the gourd with golden Syrup, so the tantalizing smell that wafted out was enough to stir up the cultivation base of whoever smelt it.

At that moment, Grey felt the stirring in his meridians increase. The pain he was feeling from his soul even eased up a bit.

But even with all this happening, Grey felt that he could not stop his breakthrough... Neither did he want to.