Decaying World Chapter 223

Chapter 223

Amidst the ruins of Tianzhan Cliff.

Lin Hui and Su Yaping stood re ters apart. Howling winds churned the white Mist, sweeping past them like flowing silk.

"Blood Ancestors? Elders? The Taisu Primal Disk?" Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, his grip on Ruyi tightening.

"Indeed. This is no small trouble," Su Yaping said. He had clearly co well-prepared. "I know your strength is peerless, but you must understand that Blood Ancestors are entirely different from anything else you've faced. After acquiring a Blood Heart, they generally undergo two stages of developnt."

"The first is the accumulation stage. During this phase, they devour massive numbers of geniuses and experts to amass power and potential. They can even convert a victim's latent potential into their own strength to so degree. That is what makes them so terrifying."

"And the second?" Lin Hui asked, his voice low, eyes still narrowed.

"The second stage occurs once they reach the limit of that accumulation. When their bodies can no longer contain any more power, Blood Ancestors begin channeling vast amounts of energy to solidify a Divine thod within themselves."

"What do you an?" Lin Hui knew of Divine thods; the top-tier Nine Flowers Divine thod of the Rain Palace, practiced by his eldest brother, was one of them. As the absolute highest tier of cultivation, such thods could distort an enemy's cognition in specific, devastating ways.

"Solidifying a Divine thod..." Su Yaping paused. "I learned of this from a Trueblood Elder. It is what it ans to have mastered a Divine thod beyond all limits. Take the Ti Sense Divine thod—a Blood Ancestor who solidified it would typically choose to permanently and to an extre degree magnify their own perception of ti. No matter the assault, every enemy would seem to move in near-infinite slow motion."

"That's only a basic example," he continued. "The specifics vary with each Blood Ancestor's thod and approach."

"Beyond that, what other abilities do Blood Ancestors have? How exactly do they outstrip a Palace Master or a Luminous Extre?" Lin Hui asked.

"Everything a Blood Ancestor commands originates from the Blood Heart. Its most feared quality is devouring—but there is a detail even more perilous than that..." Su Yaping's expression darkened. "When a Blood Ancestor devours soone, they absorb their target's cultivation and strength outright. If that target also cultivated a Divine thod—one different from the Blood Ancestor's own—then..."

"Don't tell they can acquire another Divine thod?" Lin Hui's voice dropped, horror bleeding through it.

"Exactly." Su Yaping gave a single nod.

…

Within the Ti Domain.

Multicolored flas wreathed the surroundings.

Han Xiaoyue stood in a white dress, a white veil masking her face. Her black hair fell to her waist, laced with faint silver ribbons.

How long she had been there was impossible to say, but her eyes were calm as they watched Han Sanmian, who stood with a freshly severed arm.

"Interesting... Truly interesting." Han Sanmian found the whole thing increasingly amusing.

He had co on a routine hunt—looking for a worthwhile target to devour, nothing more than a casual snack to maintain a steady rate of growth. After all, as a Blood Ancestor, it was genuinely uncomfortable to stagnate while everyone else advanced year by year.

He simply hadn't expected that idly hunting a minor Outer City genius would draw out so many interesting characters.

"Han Xiaoyue... To think that you people, with no future ahead of you, would actually ddle in this." Han Sanmian's montary distraction let Yun Xiazi slip free of his line of sight and vanish in a flash.

He paid it no mind. The severed arm regrew in monts; the gash across his neck sealed without a trace. His attention settled on Han Xiaoyue.

"I'm nothing but a passerby—my stay here is brief. Shouldn't the locals be a little more accommodating?" Han Xiaoyue's gaze was tranquil, though sothing like sorrow flickered briefly in her eyes.

"You're saying that to the wrong person. I'm no Tuyue local either." Han Sanmian laughed.

"Are we fighting?" Han Xiaoyue asked.

"Do you dare?" Han Sanmian retorted.

"I'm different. I won't lose control." Han Xiaoyue reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"The Federation didn't make you just to indulge your competitive instincts," Han Sanmian said.

"Your phrasing is wrong." Han Xiaoyue's eyes narrowed. "Let correct you: the power I carry was forged through my own suffering. It has nothing to do with anyone—least of all the Federation."

"Ridiculous!" Han Sanmian's ever-present smile vanished in an instant. His voice rose and cracked like thunder.

"If the Federation hadn't pooled its full resources to develop this form, how would you lowly mortals have ever obtained such power?! Ingratitude is one thing—but to stand here and claim the nation's achievent as the fruit of your own labor? Utterly absurd!"

"Heh..." Han Xiaoyue chuckled. "I said it. So what?"

"You court death." Han Sanmian's eyes flared wide with fury. "Today I'll clean house."

The next mont, every hand of his three-headed, six-ard form simultaneously condensed a black orb of light.

"Sixfold Divine Suppression thod! Binding Stream!"

Hiss!

A grayish-black domain erupted from him in an instant, layering over the Ti Domain. Yun Xiazi's Ti Domain had long since shattered; only Han Sanmian's remained.

The Ti Domain—which already warped their perception of ti—now rged with the Sixfold Divine Suppression thod's domain, making the situation instantly, brutally difficult for both Yun Xiazi and Han Xiaoyue.

Their movents grew sluggish; their bodies, heavy as lead. The forr was the Ti Domain's work, the latter the Sixfold Divine Suppression thod's.

"I'll go first, you follow!" Han Xiaoyue's expression remained calm as she leaped toward Han Sanmian.

An instant later, her dress shredded as her body swelled and expanded with terrifying speed. She transford into a pale, ten-ter colossus—human from the waist up, a massive python below.

With a wet, tearing sound, dozens of tightly packed arms erupted from beneath the skin of her back. Pure white bone, each one insect-like, they raked at Han Sanmian from every angle.

Her speed, however, was far too low. The Ti Domain had cut her effectiveness by more than half.

Han Sanmian dodged effortlessly; not a single strike landed.

"Pathetic." He freed two hands, condensed True Force into a spear, blinked behind Han Xiaoyue, and swept the weapon in a careless arc.

Squelch!

Two deep, dark red gashes—over a ter deep—opened across the back of Han Xiaoyue's massive body. Yet an instant later, they sealed at blinding speed, a thick layer of grayish-white bone surging over the injured flesh. From the mont the gashes appeared to the mont they healed, barely half a second had passed.

Roar!

Throwing her head back, Han Xiaoyue unleashed a frenzied roar as the bone arms reached back to seize her attacker—only for Han Sanmian to evade with ease.

Her speed was hobbled, and the crushing suppression dragged her down further still. She couldn't even co close to catching Han Sanmian.

With each passing second, the wounds on her body kept accumulating. Yet every wound closed the instant it opened, over-repairing the damaged tissue and leaving behind an even denser carapace.

"So this is the fad Super-Adapter." Han Sanmian's brow furrowed slightly. "I'll have to end this in one strike. If I let you keep adapting, even I would find that troubleso..."

His silhouette flickered, slipping away from a sudden sword thrust from Yun Xiazi. Under the pressure of two Divine thod domains, the speed gap between Han Sanmian and his two opponents was brutally apparent. Only Yun Xiazi's mastery of the Wild Wind Sword Technique—a style built on extre speed—allowed her to keep pace at all, trailing him by only a fraction.

Han Xiaoyue, on the other hand, was completely outmatched; she couldn't even track his movents.

Then again, perhaps she didn't care whether she could catch him or not.

Han Xiaoyue's body began to shift again. Black tentacles erupted from her lower half in a dense mass; the bone arms on her back stretched longer and multiplied.

"Trying to lock down the space with sheer numbers?" Han Sanmian frowned.

For the first ti in nearly a century, he felt a headache coming on.

The defining characteristic of a Super-Adapter was this: if you failed to kill them outright, you were condemned to watch as they absorbed your attacks one by one, adapting and evolving without end. It was, without question, the most aggravating kind of opponent to face.

They would absorb every blow whole, taking wound after wound. They couldn't outfight you, couldn't dodge you, couldn't match your speed, couldn't reach you.

And yet, once you had spent every lethal technique you possessed, they would still be standing—intact, unbroken.

"This is repulsive..."

The multicolored crystal on Han Sanmian's forehead blazed with light.

"In that case, I might as well get serious."

His six arms moved like lightning, trailing afterimages as they clapped together in front of his chest.

"Third Divine thod—Nine Flowers! Open!"

Swish!

An instant later, Yun Xiazi materialized behind him and drove her sword straight for the heart on his back. Yet the thrust seed to warp as it traveled—moving fast, yet never quite closing the final distance. The tip of the Mingde Sword hovered centiters from his skin—centiters that shrank infinitely yet could never truly close.

The distance control of the Nine Flowers Divine thod— Yun Xiazi's mind reeled. This was already his third deployed Divine thod.

It wasn't that she'd never witnessed a Blood Ancestor in combat. Before today, she had thought them nothing spectacular—not dramatically stronger than her own peak output. Now she understood: they simply hadn't been trying.

Three Divine thods. Three realms of absolute perfection. How was she supposed to fight this?!

Then, before she could recover her wits, a palm strike caught her dead in the chest.

Crunch!

Her chest buckled inward—a gaping crater of crushed bone.

"Oh? An Evil Weapon—it reinforced your body?" The impact felt wrong; Han Sanmian placed her situation imdiately.

That strike should have erased any Palace Master in an instant. It carried enough force to flatten a small town. In this state, he had once excavated a lake over a hundred ters across and dozens of ters deep with a single blow. On Yun Xiazi, it had done no more than dent her.

"Activating the power of an Evil Weapon won't save you."

He was growing impatient.

"Let show you the true killing art—the one that rises above even Divine thods..."

The multicolored crystal on his forehead flared.

"Ninefold Divine thod Fusion!"

"Divine Intent: Heart Detachnt!"

Crack!

In an instant, a multicolored arc of electricity erupted from his body, expanding in a sphere that swallowed hundreds of ters of space. The discharge moved at the speed of light. By the ti Yun Xiazi and Han Xiaoyue registered the flash, it had already struck.

Both went rigid—utterly motionless, like statues.

The Ti Domain collapsed, and the world snapped back to the Mist Zone. The battle had reduced the area to a sandy wasteland. Grayish-black sand and dust churned upward in the wind, blending with the mist until everything around them settled into a murky, desolate gray.

Pulling soone into the Ti Domain did not an removing them physically from reality—it rely drew a lifeform's cognitive awareness into a separate plane. No spatial displacent occurred. During such ultra-high-speed exchanges, outside observers simply couldn't track the movents and assud the combatants had entered another dinsion entirely. In reality, everything still took place in the physical world.

Thud! Thud!

The bodies of Yun Xiazi and Han Xiaoyue struck the sandy ground with twin impacts, sinking into the loose grit.

Han Sanmian appeared in the air between them, standing upon nothing.

"It's over." He raised his right hand, pressing two fingers together. At their tips, True Force and Void Force rged in vast quantities, coalescing into a shimring platinum halo.

Killing a Super-Adapter outright required an obscene expenditure of power.