Grey could not dodge.
He could not even raise his arms to block.
His body had already been pushed far beyond its limits.
Thus, the kick landed directly on his head.
A dull, sickening crack echoed through the air.
It felt as if a massive iron hamr had smashed violently into his skull. His head snapped downward under the force as fractures spread across his skull like spiderwebs.
Grey's vision turned completely black.
The overwhelming impact caused him to instantly lose consciousness.
Yet even then, the young man was still not finished.
He followed through rcilessly.
Stepping forward, he lifted his leg once more and stomped down heavily onto Grey's already collapsed chest with brutal force.
The impact caused Grey's unconscious body to convulse violently.
Blood sprayed out from his mouth even though he had already fainted.
Only after delivering that final strike did the young man finally stop.
His body swayed slightly before he collapsed onto the ground.
The poison had already spread completely throughout his body.
His skin was cracked and had turned a sickly blackish-green color. Many parts of his flesh had swollen grotesquely, while so areas had even split open entirely.
Rotten flesh was exposed beneath the torn skin, and a thick yellow liquid slowly seeped out from the wounds.
A nauseating stench of decay filled the surrounding air.
The aura of death had already settled upon him.
Grey's poison had gradually slowed his movents during the battle while also weakening his body's tabolism. Now that the fight was over, the toxin was rapidly devouring his internal organs.
Death was inevitable.
He would not survive much longer.
Before the final monts of his life arrived, the young man turned his gaze toward the unconscious Grey lying on the ground nearby.
He stared at him silently for a mont.
Then he smiled.
However, the smile on his face was no longer one of madness or insanity.
Instead, it was a smile filled with gratitude.
Deep relief could be seen within his fading eyes as he slowly opened his decaying mouth and released a long breath.
For the first ti in a very long ti…
He was finally free.
As his flesh and blood gradually began to collapse and rot away, the appearance he had maintained throughout the battle slowly began to change.
His true appearance was revealed.
He was not a young man at all.
He was a middle-aged cultivator.
A long ago, his cultivation had reached the peak of the Nascent Soul Transformation Realm.
He had once been a powerful expert with boundless potential.
However, his fate had taken a cruel turn.
At so point in the past, he had been captured and refined by a terrifying expert of the Soul Ascendancy Realm, turning him into nothing more than a secondary clone.
From that mont onward, everything changed.
His appearance was forcibly altered.
His cultivation techniques and spells were sealed away, leaving him incapable of using any mystical arts.
His mories were erased. His will was suppressed.
His very body was taken over by the lingering will of that Soul Ascendancy Realm expert.
He had lost everything.
His identity. His mories... even control over his own life and death.
All that remained was a hollow shell forced to obey another's will.
As ti passed, despair slowly grew within the deepest parts of his suppressed consciousness.
He longed only for death.
Since he could no longer use spells or cultivation techniques, he could only rely on his physical strength when facing opponents.
When the Soul Ascendancy expert who had created him eventually died, the power sustaining him gradually began to fade.
His cultivation dropped drastically.
Eventually, his strength beca comparable only to soone at the initial stages of the Spirit Core Formation Realm.
Even while fighting Grey earlier, his consciousness had not been truly in control.
His mind had remained silent while his body was manipulated like a puppet by the residual will left behind by the Soul Ascendancy expert.
That was why his expression and the emotions within his eyes had felt so contradictory.
But now…
Now that the poison had weakened him to the brink of death, the foreign will controlling him was finally losing its grip.
Control over his body slowly returned to him.
However, instead of feeling fear, resentnt, or unwillingness toward death…
He felt only happiness.
Pure happiness.
"Finally… I am free…" the middle-aged man whispered softly with a faint smile.
His gaze slowly drifted upward.
At the very top of the massive crystal palace, a cold and indifferent head gazed down upon them like a silent god observing insignificant insects.
But the middle-aged man no longer cared.
His vision was already beginning to blur.
Darkness crept slowly into the corners of his sight as his life faded away.
Soon, he would finally die.
Yet just at that mont,
A shadow suddenly appeared before him.
Before he could react, blazing white flas erupted into existence and engulfed his body and soul.
The flas burned with terrifying intensity.
They did not simply burn flesh.
They burned the soul itself.
The middle-aged man's eyes snapped open in shock as he stared at the person who had attacked him.
Standing before him was another young man who had descended into this place at around the sa ti he had.
The young man's face was stained with fresh blood, and his entire body was riddled with injuries.
Despite that, his expression remained cold and detached.
There was no hesitation in his actions.
With ruthless precision, he extracted the middle-aged man's remaining soul and life force as the white flas devoured everything.
Within only a few breaths, the middle-aged man's body was completely burned into ashes.
The blazing white flas returned calmly to the young man's outstretched hand.
He then raised his sleeve and wiped the blood from his face.
Afterward, he slowly turned his gaze toward the unconscious Grey lying on the ground nearby.
His voice was quiet as he spoke.
"His soul and life force will be very beneficial for little Grey."
"I cannot allow such a thing to go to waste."
With that, he clenched his hand.
The white flas along with the captured soul aura and life force contained within them, instantly shrank and disappeared into his body.
The surroundings fell silent once more.
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