The ground beneath Ye Chen's boots didn't just shake; it roared with the pain of an ancient, trapped malice. The skeletal hand that had erupted from the bone-pile was thirty feet long, made of a material that was half-fossilized ivory, half-unbreakable void-iron. The standard Grave-Qi in the abyss was toxic, but the Necrotic Qi radiating from this limb was so concentrated it physically bruised the air, turning the swirling fog a bruised, indigo hue.
Ye Chen didn't panic. The panic had been stolen from him when Zhao Feng took his original spirit, replaced by a cold, predatory pragmatism. He activated his nascent silver sword-intent, creating a thin, protective field that caused the indigo mist to hiss and vanish whenever it got too close.
[Detected: 'Ancient Bone-Dragon sentinel' (Core Formation Realm Stage 5)]
[Warning: Physical strength, speed, and Qi-levels are vastly superior to Host.]
[Host's Survival Instinct activated. Target's Status Screen is unfolding...]
"Survival Instinct? You mean my ability to see how to kill it," Ye Chen whispered, his gaze scanning the creature as it fully emerged. It was a terrifying monstrosity—a four-legged, serpentine dragon that was all bone, yet moved with a fluid, terrifying grace. In the center of its massive skull, where its eyes once were, two orbs of blue soul-fire pulsed like the heartbeat of a miniature star.
Fiiii—
The dragon didn't roar; it whistled. A high-pitched sound that made Ye Chen's teeth ache. And then, it lashed its tail. The motion was so fast it was a blur, a crack of thunder that shattered the sound barrier and vaporized every bone in its path.
Ye Chen didn't have time to dodge with standard movement. He used the 'Nine Heavens Sword-Script', but not for offense. He channeled his entire Qi pool into his feet, using the fragment's defensive step-method: [Heavenly Flash].
He teleported twenty feet backward. The tail struck the space he had just occupied, leaving a fifty-foot-wide crater and a dust cloud of pulverized skeletons that smelled of mercury and ancient death.
"A Tier 5 Core Formation..." Ye Chen muttered, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead. "I'm Tier 1 Qi Manifestation. One touch and I'm a pile of dust."
[Target's Weak Point Identified: Soul-Core Resonance.]
[The two blue soul-fires are linked. If one is extinguished, the creature's defense decreases by 90%. If both are gone, it dies.]
"Resonance?" Ye Chen's eyes narrowed. He looked at his hand, where the silver Qi blade flickered. It was sharp, but was it sharp enough to pierce a Tier 5 defense from a distance?
Tssss—
The dragon raised its left front leg. This time, it didn't use physical force. The entire abyss seemed to exhale a torrent of freezing, black Void-Hail. Each hailstone was a sphere of absolute zero, carrying enough Grave-Qi to turn a human into a frozen, corrupted statue in seconds.
The hail fell over a wide area. There was nowhere to run.
"Automatic Recovery can't heal me if I'm an ice cube," Ye Chen muttered. "It looks like the first target... is you."
He looked at the small, glowing orb of Death-Essence he had just extracted from a Tier 1 skeleton during the fall.
[Consumed: Death-Essence.]
[Gained: 5,000 EXP.]
[Gained: Temporarily Boost to 'Toxic Immunity' (Medium-Grade).]
[Level Up! You have reached Qi Manifestation Stage 2!]
With the sudden surge of energy, Ye Chen launched himself forward instead of backward. He ran toward the falling hail, his silver sword-intent flaring like a localized sun, vaporizing the spheres of zero before they could touch him. It was an incredible gamble—using up his limited Qi to get close to a monster that could delete him with a swipe.
"Fifty feet... thirty...!"
The dragon saw the small "ant" running toward it. It raised its head and prepared to unleash a Necrotic Breath that would erase Ye Chen and the kilometer of canyon behind him.
Ye Chen didn't wait. He threw his silver Qi blade.
"Nine Heavens Sword-Script... [Falling Star Strike]!"
It was a standard Tier 1 technique, but powered by the stolen Immortal Sword-Heart (which was SSS-Rank). The silver blade became a streak of concentrated light, traveling so fast it entered the realm of theoretical mathematics. It bypassed the dragon's main defenses and aimed directly for the left orb of blue soul-fire.
Tssss—
A silent explosion of blue and silver. The left soul-fire wasn't extinguished; it was shattered into a thousand tiny sparks. The Soul-Core Resonance broke instantly.
The dragon let out its whistling scream, its body suddenly shuddering. Its physical defense, which had been unbreachable, suddenly began to crack and slough off like dead skin. The entire abyss went quiet for a moment.
"Now," Ye Chen said, his voice a predator's growl.
He jumped twenty feet into the air, landing directly on the dragon's spine. His original silver Qi blade was gone, but he didn't need it. He still had the extraction skill. He used his bare hands and slammed them into the base of the dragon's skull, channeling his entire Stage 2 Qi directly into the extraction protocol.
"UNIVERSAL EXTRACTION—MAXIMIZED!"
[Extraction FAILED.]
[Target's level is too high for a complete core-extraction.]
The blue screen flashed red. The dragon twisted, the remaining soul-fire in its right eye flaring with a manic rage. It prepared to slam its own back against the canyon wall to crush the ant.
"I said... I'm not running," Ye Chen whispered, his blood boiling with the Immortal Sword-Heart. "I don't care if I can't take the core. I'm taking YOU."
He ignored the red failure screen and forced the system to execute a partial, unsafe extraction. He locked onto the dragon's skeletal composition and its residual memories. He began to draw the very concept of "The Bone-Dragon Sentinel" into his own soul.
It was an agony that surpassed even the stolen Purple Sun. It felt like his own bones were being ripped out and replaced with obsidian. His stage 2 foundation groaned as it tried to process the concentrated, Tier 5 essence of a dead god.
[Extraction WARNING: Severe Soul-Damage imminent!]
[Processing... processing...]
[Partial Extraction Successful!]
SILENCE.
The remaining blue soul-fire in the dragon's right eye turned a dull, empty grey. The entire fifty-foot structure of bone simply crumbled into dust, cascading around Ye Chen like a waterfall of old bone. He landed on the new pile of dust, his body covered in fine, silver cracks, his eyes glowing with a dual light—the starlight of his sword-intent and the cold, blue fire of the dragon.
[System Notification: Massive EXP Input!]
[Gained: 100,000 EXP.]
[Gained: SSS-Rank Physical Body Technique — 'Dragon-God Bone-Tempering'!]
[Gained: Tier 5 Physical Strength Passive — 'Colossal Might' (Fragmented)!]
[Gained: Passive Skill — 'Necrotic Qi Manipulation' (Low-Grade).]
[Level Up! Breakthough! You have reached the Qi Manifestation Realm Peak (Stage 9)!]
Ye Chen stood in the silence, his body covered in the dust of his first major kill. He looked at his hands, which were now pulsing with a strength that made his Stage 2 version look like a kitten. His internal skeleton had been replaced by a structure that was five times as dense as normal human bone, and a layer of black, metallic scales now coated his ribs beneath his skin.
He picked up a small, empty, grey bone-orb that had fallen where the dragon's soul-fire was—it was all that remained of the Bone-Dragon Sentinel.
As he was examining the orb, the small, grey object began to vibrate. It didn't grow, but it emitted a sound that wasn't a roar or a whistle—it was a Coordinate-Frequency.
High above, at the edge of the abyss, the Crown Prince's Imperial Censor-Device, a mystical tool designed to detect Tier 5 energy flares, suddenly activated.
In the Imperial Palace, Zhao Feng paused mid-sip of his spiritual wine. He looked at Lin Xue, his smile turning predatory.
"It seems our trash has an appetite for things he shouldn't be eating," Zhao Feng said, standing up. "My censor has detected a Tier 5 kill in the Black Wind Abyss. I think I'll go and see what kind of power-up my discarded dog has found."
"But Crown Prince, the abyss is toxic!" Lin Xue protested.
"It is... unless you're holding the [Sun-Shattering Compass]," Zhao Feng sneered, pulling out an artifact that was the natural enemy of the abyss. "If there's something down there strong enough to kill a Tier 5, then it's something I want... and something Ye Chen doesn't deserve to hold."
Ye Chen looked up at the coordinate-frequency coming from the small grey bone-orb. He smiled, a cold, predatory expression that didn't match the new blue-grey fire in his eyes.
"You aren't sending guards this time, are you, Prince?" Ye Chen whispered, placing the coordinate-orb in his pocket. "Because I don't care how deep you go... I'm going to extract your very name from the Book of Life."