Void Cultivation

Grey woke up after a short while.

The moment his consciousness returned, a sharp pain exploded inside his skull. His head throbbed violently, and every part of his body screamed in agony as if his bones had been crushed and stitched back together poorly.

His eyelids trembled slightly before slowly opening.

The first thing he saw was a white figure standing not too far away, silently watching him.

It was the white haired man.

His expression was pale, almost deathly so, and his body was covered in streaks of dried blood. Some of it had clearly been his own. But the moment Grey opened his eyes, the young man's lips slowly curled into a wide grin.

Without saying anything, he casually produced an apple from somewhere and raised it toward his mouth.

The instant Grey saw the young man clearly, a cold chill shot down his spine.

His heart skipped a beat.

Almost instinctively, Grey forced his battered body to sit upright.

But the moment he moved,

A violent wave of pain surged through his body.

His chest felt like it had been crushed by a mountain, his bones creaked in protest, and his mind instantly became a chaotic blur of agony. His breathing became ragged as he barely managed to remain conscious.

When the young man saw this miserable state, the grin on his face widened even further.

Then he casually tossed something toward Grey.

Grey's pupils shrank.

His first instinct was to dodge or escape. But his body was far too weak, and the object flew through the air with terrifying speed. Even if he wanted to avoid it, his current state made it impossible.

The object landed squarely in his palms.

Grey lowered his gaze and saw a small white core resting in his hands.

The moment his divine sense brushed against it, his eyes widened slightly.

Inside the white core, an incredibly dense aura of life pulsed quietly. It was rich, vibrant, and overflowing with pure life force. The energy within it was so condensed that it almost felt like a beating heart.

Grey could instantly tell,

If he absorbed it, his cultivation would rise rapidly.

More importantly, the Life Demon Art within his body would recover at an astonishing speed.

Despite this, Grey did not immediately accept it. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Instead, confusion filled his mind.

He slowly retreated backward, his gaze fixed warily on the young man. His instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong.

However, the white haired man only looked at him silently and did not say a single word.

The moment Grey had awakened earlier, he had instinctively spread out his divine sense to scan the surroundings.

What he discovered made his heart sink.

He couldn't sense the captain's aura.

He couldn't sense Roxanne either.

The entire battlefield felt strangely empty.

This realization caused a deep fear to slowly spread inside Grey's chest.

But just as the tension reached its peak,

Crunch.

The young man took a large bite out of the apple.

Grey suddenly froze.

His brows slowly furrowed as he stared at the young man.

The way he was eating…

The relaxed posture.

The casual bite.

The wide grin that never seemed to leave his face.

It was incredibly familiar.

Almost identical to the way the captain always ate her apples.

Even the expression she usually wore when she did so was the same.

Grey's mind suddenly trembled.

Stunned, he slowly opened his mouth and spoke a single word cautiously.

"Violet?"

Violet was the captain's real name.

However, Grey almost never called her that. To him, she had always simply been the Captain, the one who led their department in Sky Mist City.

The moment the young man heard that name, his grin became even wider.

He laughed softly before taking another bite of the apple.

"Thought you wouldn't recognize me, little Grey."

He spoke casually while chewing.

"Just because I got another body, you would forget who I am? And how did you know my name was Violet?"

Hearing those words, the tension inside Grey's chest finally loosened. Grey ignored her last words as a long breath escaped his lips.

The pressure he had been holding inside his heart since waking up slowly faded.

'If this is the captain…'

'Then it means they must have defeated the other person that descended from that beam of light.'

Grey silently analyzed the situation as he slowly scanned the battlefield again.

The entire area was devastated.

The ground was shattered, large craters filled the surroundings, and the air still carried traces of violent spiritual fluctuations from the earlier battle.

Not far from where he sat, Grey noticed something else.

A small pile of ash covered the ground.

It looked like the remains of a body that had been completely burned away.

Grey's gaze lingered on it for a moment.

Then he looked down at the white core still resting in his palm.

Slowly, the pieces began to connect.

Realization flashed through his mind.

Without wasting any more time, Grey immediately sat down cross-legged and began circulating his cultivation technique.

He needed to recover.

The battle with the young man earlier had pushed him far beyond his limits.

Right now, his chest was visibly caved inward, and blood continued to seep from several wounds across his body. His breathing was shallow, and even the smallest movement caused waves of pain to surge through him.

The moment he began cultivating, another mouthful of blood spilled from the corner of his lips.

His face instantly turned pale.

A powerful wave of agony surged through his body again, but Grey quickly stabilized his mind and forcefully suppressed the pain.

He had endured worse before.

During the time he had been unconscious, the purple crystal within his body had already begun repairing some of the damage.

Now, under the circulation of his cultivation technique, the healing accelerated.

His flesh slowly regenerated.

The torn muscles began to reconnect.

Even the organs that had previously been ruptured and nearly turned to pulp were slowly beginning to reform.

It was an extremely painful process.

But Grey endured it silently.

Not far away, the captain, now occupying the young man's body, stood quietly and watched.

A faint expression of concern appeared on her face from time to time.

However, mixed with that concern was something else.

Curiosity.

Occasionally, she would move her fingers, flex her arms, or shift her posture slightly, clearly still adjusting to the new body she had taken over.

From time to time, a look of surprise even flashed through her eyes, as if she was still amazed by the power contained within this new vessel.

Grey noticed this, of course.

But even though he was curious, he resisted the urge to ask questions.

Right now, recovering his strength was far more important.

Several hours passed.

By the time Grey finally opened his eyes again, his condition had improved significantly.

The major wounds had mostly closed, his bones had reset themselves, and the chaotic spiritual energy within his body had gradually stabilized.

Only then did he raise his hand and look again at the small white crystal the captain had thrown to him earlier.

This time, he carefully examined it with his divine sense.

Within the crystal, he could clearly feel an incredibly dense concentration of spirit energy.

Along with it was the faint but unmistakable soul energy of a powerful being.

After confirming that his bones and flesh had healed enough to withstand further strain, and that the spirit perforations within his body had regained their brightness.

Grey finally made his decision.

Taking a slow breath, he closed his eyes.

Then he began to absorb the white crystal.

The moment Grey began absorbing the crystal, a purple flame suddenly burst out from his body.

The flames erupted violently, spreading outward like a hungry beast that had just been released from its cage. In an instant, they completely engulfed the white crystal floating above his palms.

The purple flames immediately began devouring the spirit energy and the vibrant soul aura contained within.

This purple flame was naturally the manifestation of the Life Demon Art.

The moment the flames came into contact with the crystal, the pure white surface of the crystal began to slowly shrink. Thin streams of energy were extracted from it and pulled directly into Grey's body.

A dense torrent of spirit energy flooded into him.

It poured into his meridians like a raging river, surging through every corner of his body. The energy was incredibly pure and far denser than the spiritual energy he usually absorbed from the surrounding world.

Within moments, Grey felt his entire body filling to the brim.

In less than thirty minutes, his body had already reached the maximum amount of spirit energy it could temporarily contain.

He could no longer absorb any more.

However, when Grey glanced at the crystal again, he realized that it had only shrunk slightly.

This caused a flicker of shock to pass through his mind.

The amount of energy contained inside the crystal was far greater than he had originally imagined.

Without wasting time, Grey immediately shifted his focus.

Since his body could no longer absorb more energy directly, he began refining the spirit energy that had already entered his body and used it to repair his wounds.

Soon, faint booming sounds began to echo from within his body.

The sounds were dull and rhythmic, like distant thunder rumbling beneath the earth.

Under the nourishment of the dense spirit energy, Grey's collapsed chest slowly began to reform. The shattered bones gradually reset themselves while torn flesh knitted back together at a visible speed.

Blood that had previously seeped from his wounds quickly dried up.

Grey's pale expression gradually regained color.

The oppressive aura of death that had been lingering around him since the battle was slowly being dispelled.

But the healing did not only occur in his physical body.

Inside his Sea of Consciousness, two other existences had also begun absorbing the spirit energy.

The Life Demon Phantom.

And the Soul Devouring Everlasting Bird.