Void Cultivation-Chapter 249- Green Gas (4)

"Given the nature of this place, the blood I spat out earlier should have been absorbed by this tunnel of flesh."

Grey’s brows furrowed as he stared at the dark stains on the ground.

"Even its own blood and flesh are constantly being devoured and reabsorbed... so why would it reject my blood?" he muttered, his expression growing increasingly pensive.

A moment later, a sharp glint flashed through his eyes.

Without hesitation, Grey raised his fist and struck his own chest.

’Thud!’

The impact echoed dully through his body. He coughed violently, and a mouthful of fresh blood spilled from his lips, splattering onto the fleshy floor below.

This time, the reaction was immediate.

The blood wriggled slightly before being swallowed whole by the tunnel of flesh, vanishing completely within seconds—as though it had never existed.

As this happened, the purple phantom slowly turned its head. Strands of long hair slipped aside, revealing its blank, unfathomable gaze as it stared straight at Grey.

Grey pinched his nose and let out a light laugh.

The look the phantom gave him made it painfully clear, it wanted to punch him far more than he had wanted to punch himself.

Honestly, Grey had no doubt that if the purple phantom struck him, he wouldn’t just cough out blood. A few internal organs might come along with it.

Turning away from the phantom, Grey crouched and focused on the ground once more, specifically, the spot where his blood had vanished.

"Weird..." he muttered. "The blood I just spat out was absorbed... but this black blood is still here."

The pitch-black blood lay beside the fresh stain, unmoving and untouched, as if the tunnel of flesh was deliberately avoiding it.

"Something is definitely wrong."

The instant those words left his mouth, a sharp spike of fear erupted in his heart.

Deep within his body, the Mosasaur that was previously dormant and silent, suddenly lifted its head, its instincts flaring violently.

In that same moment, every strand of hair on Grey’s neck stood on end.

An overwhelming sense of imminent life and death crashed down on him like a tidal wave.

Dodge! Do everything you can to dodge!

Grey reacted instantly.

He sprang backward into a clean backflip, barely touching the ground before twisting into a rapid cartwheel to the side. Yet even as he moved, the sense of danger didn’t lessen.

It intensified.

If anything, it became suffocating.

Without a single moment of hesitation, Grey summoned everything at his disposal. The Soul Devouring Bird, the purple phantom, and the shadow all surged forward at once, forming a barrier before him.

Still, the danger refused to fade.

Gritting his teeth, Grey pulled the purple scythe from his storage ring. At the same time, he unleashed the full power of his cultivation base, his aura erupting violently as he circulated the dormant cold yin energy within his body.

The air around him grew heavy and frigid.

Then what felt like forever in a single moment... or what even felt like a moment later...

Grey’s perception dimmed.

The world before his eyes seemed to darken, as though night had fallen all at once.

But in truth, the surroundings had not grown darker.

Something enormous had appeared.

Before him loomed a massive face, towering several meters tall. Its pitch-black eyes gleamed with a cold, malicious light, while its features twisted into a ferocious, grotesque grin.

There was no distinction between its pupils and the whites of its eyes, everything was black, bottomless, and unnervingly hollow.

The sheer gloom and eeriness it radiated made Grey’s heart tremble.

The instant the face appeared, it surged forward, rushing straight toward him.

The Soul Devouring Bird was the first to respond.

It screeched sharply, its cry echoing through the tunnel as it shot forward, its wings slicing through the air before colliding head-on with the massive face.

Boom!

In an instant, the Soul Devouring Bird’s body shattered, scattering into countless fragments.

Yet the massive face did not slow down in the slightest. Its twisted grin only widened as it continued advancing.

Of course, what was destroyed was merely the bird’s physical manifestation. Its true essence remained, the tattoo etched into Grey’s body.

Still, the backlash was brutal.

The moment the Soul Devouring Bird collapsed, Grey spat out another mouthful of blood, his complexion turning deathly pale.

The impact on his soul was severe.

Although the Soul Devouring Bird had not truly died, the damage felt as though an invisible hand had reached deep into Grey’s chest and violently squeezed his heart.

Pain surged through him like a blade.

And yet, the massive face did not stop.

In the next instant, the purple phantom appeared before it.

Silent as ever, the phantom said nothing. It simply raised its hand and moved to clash head-on with the advancing face.

The next moment, the two collided.

There was no suspense and no struggle.

The purple phantom did not stand a chance.

Just like the Soul Devouring Bird before it, the phantom was instantly crushed, its form shattering under the overwhelming force of the massive face.

Grey’s expression changed drastically.

His face turned pale as his mind trembled violently. The purple phantom was a manifestation of a cultivation art, an embodiment of his will and comprehension. It had no true physical form; it existed solely as Grey’s projection of the Life Demon Art.

Yet even so, its destruction sent violent shockwaves crashing through his consciousness.

Grey staggered, coughing up another mouthful of blood.

His head rang, and his thoughts became momentarily chaotic. It felt as though the Life Demon Art he cultivated had been shaken at its very core, as if its foundation and essence had been directly threatened by the massive face.

Fortunately, Grey’s understanding of the art was deep and stable.

The Life Demon remained firmly anchored within his sea of consciousness, refusing to collapse or scatter. However, Grey knew that it would take a long time before the art could once again manifest a physical projection.

For now, the purple phantom was gone.

With its destruction, the only thing left standing between Grey and the massive face was the shadow.

At this moment, the shadow trembled violently.

It could clearly sense it.

The being before it was capable of killing it in an instant.

Although the shadow itself was a bizarre existence, one that could terrify and suppress other strange entities, it was utterly insignificant before the massive face. The gap between them was simply too great.

For a brief moment, the shadow wavered.

It wanted to retreat.

It wanted to give up.

But then, it sensed the presence behind it .. the presence of the evil young man it had attached itself to.

If that young man died, then it would die as well.

Unlike its original plan to possess Grey and wear his body as its own, this bond left it with no room for escape. Death would mean total annihilation.

And worse still, the purple crystal would seal it, suppressing it for the rest of its existence.

That was unacceptable.

With a sharp surge of will, the shadow gritted its teeth and transformed.

Its form stretched and expanded, morphing into a pitch-black tree. Countless leafless branches erupted from its trunk, spreading wildly as they stabbed toward the massive face.

For the first time since its appearance, the massive face slowed down.

Not because of the shadow’s strength... but because of recognition.

A strange feeling of kinship surfaced, as though the two shared a similar origin.

For a fleeting instant, the massive face hesitated.

Then it grinned.

The malicious smile twisted even deeper as it surged forward and crushed the shadows without mercy.

A mournful, despair-filled cry echoed as the shadow’s form shattered into pieces.

Yet it did not give up.

The fragments rapidly gathered together, forcibly reconstructing its form as it once again rushed forward to block the massive face.

After all, if Grey died, it would die as well.

With no hesitation, the shadow unleashed all the power it had left.

Branches shot out relentlessly, stabbing toward the massive face again and again. However, they failed to pierce its skin, snapping apart the moment they made contact.

Still, the shadow persisted.

Its branches twisted and merged, transforming into thick, rope-like tendrils that coiled toward the massive face, attempting to restrain it.

But the ropes shattered one after another.

The shadow could not stop its advance.

In the end, left with no other choice, the shadow made a final decision.

It expanded its entire body, throwing itself forward like a black blanket in an attempt to smother and obstruct the massive face.

It was a futile effort.

Compared to the enormous face, the shadow was far too small and fragile. How could it hope to cover something so vast, especially one moving at such terrifying speed?

The massive face pierced straight through it.

The shadow’s body shattered completely, breaking into countless fragments.

These fragments scattered briefly before gathering once more beneath Grey’s feet, merging back into his shadow.

This time, however, it was different.

The shadow trembled weakly, its form unstable and flickering. It radiated emotions of despair, exhaustion, and helplessness.

It had been pushed to its absolute limit.

Although everything seemed to have unfolded over a long stretch of time, in reality, it had all occurred in the blink of an eye.

From the moment the massive face appeared, only two breaths of time had passed.

Yet within that infinitesimal delay, the fraction of a second bought by the shadow...

Grey finally managed to move.

Using everything he had left, he cartwheeled out of the massive face’s path, narrowly escaping death.