Chương 93: Chapter 53 – The Cracks That Formed

In the coming days, Zhao Ren grew intimately familiar with the concept of a spiritual attack. The killing intent released by the parent snake's corpse struck his heart and mind. He would hallucinate terrifying monsters about to slay him while he was paralyzed by fear. Dark thoughts would whisper in the recesses of his mind, telling him to face reality and accept defeat. Every time he resisted, he was never far from succumbing. Hovering over the line of holding his ground or retreating, Ren was severely tested.

When he was worn out and on the verge of passing out, he would fall back to recover. He meditated to calm himself and then cultivated while recovering before trying again. At first he could last a scant few minutes before his vision blurred and his legs trembled. Retreating was a disheartening defeat, but to come back for another attempt was to stubbornly refuse surrender. The war in his heart continued. At the end of the first day, Ren had repeated the cycle a dozen times.

At his lowest point, he was doubting his capabilities and wondered if he should just give up.

'It would only be temporary.' He told himself.

'Just until I can go to the inner sect and find a method to withstand killing intent. Surely I have the time to spare, even if it means cutting it close. He actually started to take a step back when a strange sensation came over him. It was indescribable, but Ren got the feeling that if he stepped back here, he would be dooming himself. Even without the killing intent, his body froze, unwilling to take a single further step back.

He took the warning deadly seriously, as it resembled the sensation back when he was being attacked by Mo Ying.

'I can't believe I almost gave up! If my own instinct is warning me, then I cannot compromise here. I refuse to believe a corpse can keep me from all that I desire!' With that, Ren continued to throw himself against the thus far impenetrable boundary. Every time Ren stepped into the range of the killing intent willingly, he could last just a little bit longer. Unbeknownst to him, he was actually tempering his heart.

Through this cycle of torment he inflicted on himself, Ren began to learn how to withstand the killing intent. His resolve was tempered through repeated stress. He learned to ignore the whispers suggesting he submit. After three days, his body didn't lock up the instant he stepped into range, though he continued to shiver with fear. Ren then began the monumental task of taking a second step. The tiny victory made him rejoice as though he had broken through.

It proved that it was possible to advance without a manual or a technique, and he just needed to persevere. Ren started making better use of his breaks. Instead of solely cultivating and forming qi constructs for future connections, he began practicing his new foundation realm techniques. He also scavenged local resources to continue working on the formation to connect to the larger formation on the mountain above.

It pushed the bounds of his knowledge, but Ren used the bones of the python and the cores of the vipers to come up with creative adjustments. The solution still needed to be implemented, as Ren was still working on refining the bones into temporary array flags, but it gave him hope. These other activities were more than just to relieve boredom or distract him from the impending threat of the storm of qi. They were crucial in relieving his mental fatigue that built up with each attempt to face the killing intent.

It was him betting on a future where he reached the eggs before the formation destabilized. There in the dark bowels of the mountain, Zhao Ren continued to struggle. It had taken Ren a week before he managed to take another step toward the eggs. The feat came with the unfortunate realization that the killing intent grew stronger the closer he approached.

Not only that, during idle experimentation he found the space disrupted the flow of qi and even destroyed anything with scant quantities of qi that approached the eggs, meaning he couldn't float the eggs out or knock them away with his flying sword. Demoralizing though it was, Ren balanced that discovery with another. That divine sense helped alleviate the pressure of the killing intent.

The Sky Piercing Divine Sense technique, which refined one's divine sense, was something Ren had practiced a lot during that time. Under those intense circumstances, his progress was heightened, and those exercises with which he once struggled, he began to complete smoothly. His divine sense, which could only extend a small distance beyond his body, began to stretch and grow. With a possible answer to his problems, Ren inevitably pushed his practice to the utmost.

With each foray into the field of killing intent, his divine sense lessened the pressure a little bit more, and with how that firmed his resolve, he made progress even faster. Thus, the 2nd week passed, and Ren had managed to take almost 10 steps, almost a third of the way to the eggs. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

'This is bad! Those snakes look agitated. They are also starting to swarm in constant battles.' Ren had finally managed to connect to the formation above and was viewing the changes as they had occurred over the last two or so weeks. It confirmed what he had observed with his own eyes, here in the heart of the mountain. After all this time, he was slowly getting more familiar with the properties of the eggs. The killing intent got in his way and clouded his senses, but the eggs were clearly close to hatching.

The mountain above was heaving with snakes responding to the maturing treasure, which was the reason why they were there to begin with. The increasing turmoil had also caused additional problems. Of the 6 other natural treasures Ren had discovered on the mountain, each guarded by a spirit snake, 2 had been consumable treasures.

Ren had initially planned to harvest those for himself when they matured, but the guardians, spooked by the movements on the mountain, decided not to wait and had already fled after consuming the treasures early. Ren almost coughed blood when he saw what had happened because their removal had further damaged his formation, which had been built around them. The storm of qi released by the dragon veins had also grown stronger, and his formation was being battered even more in response.

He still had time before it failed, but if the eggs managed to hatch before he set up a countering formation around them, then the backlash would lead to a catastrophic collapse! Ren was starting to worry he wouldn't make it in time. Ren had a few regrets, such as how he would have had a lot more time if he hadn't been greedy.

It was impossible for him to have known in advance, but if he had reduced the efficiency of his formation pushing back the qi storm, then he would have had a lot more time to handle the eggs before it was too late. Unfortunately, what was done couldn't be changed now, and it actively hurt his resolve if he lingered on his doubts and regrets for too long. By the end of the 3rd week, he had managed to reach halfway, and Ren had to face the fact that he might not make it in time if he continued with this pace.

The killing intent was growing stronger, and his growing divine sense was only barely balancing it out. It pressed down on him almost physically, squeezing the breath from his lungs. It left an enormous burden for him to carry as he shivered and shook like a newborn fawn struggling to take another step forward. No. Something drastic needed to be done if he wanted to reach the eggs before the 4th week. That day, instead of stopping at his usual point when he felt weak, Ren persisted.

He bit his tongue and used the pain to maintain clarity. He swallowed his panic that the formation would fail. The fear of death he had been facing for weeks now was pushed through with tempered will. He forced his body to take one more step as his divine sense struggled to push back a portion of the killing intent. That last step almost caused him to stumble and collapse to his knees. If he fell there, Ren didn't know if he would have the strength to crawl back out.

But he stiffened his rattling legs and kept his stance, buckets of sweat pouring off him. The last step had been a true achievement, pushing past his limits. He could feel a change start to take place in his divine sense. He dragged his weary self out of the field of killing intent and collapsed into the hot springs. As the water soothed his aching muscles, Ren barely managed to stay awake.

His exhaustion was forcefully kept at bay as he realized he had reached the limit of the first heaven of the Sky Piercing Divine Sense technique. His divine sense was undergoing a transformation and being refined. Ren marveled at how quickly he had reached this point. It was supposed to take months and even years if one was untalented! And in the space of a month, he had reached the 2nd heaven! He could also tell there was no secret behind his progress.

It had come down to his own talent and the incredibly stressful training he had forced himself through. Now he could sense with greater clarity, and the range had also extended to an entire handspan away from him. The best part was that this qualitative growth would also grow naturally over time as he cultivated. All cultivators had a divine sense that grew over time, but those who actively practiced these techniques would always hold the advantage.

When the gradual transformation came to end, Ren couldn't hold on any longer and passed out with a pleased smile. The advancement bought Ren some time. The very next attempt let him progress to almost two thirds of the way to the eggs. It was then he could finally perceive the eggs and the mother snake without much interference from the killing intent. When he first examined the platform, a shiver of fear traveled all the way down his spine.

The corpse of the snake that had given him such trouble and almost broken his spirit wasn't a corpse at all. It was the shed skin of the one who laid those 3 eggs! How powerful had the owner been that a mere shed skin emitted such a horrifying killing intent after such a long time?! Also on the platform was the remnant of some treasure for the eggs to absorb that had long since been depleted. And finally, the understanding that only one of the eggs was still viable. The other two had already stilled.

They were worth a fortune, yet only one egg was going to hatch and very soon at that. He could vaguely sense movements as the young beast stirred within the shell. It lit a fire under Ren when he realized just how close he was to failure. Every attempt was pushed to the limit, and his mental state was taking a beating. His focus was starting to drift, and his practice during rest slowed tremendously. With his new understanding of the eggs' properties, he had already begun adjusting the formation to balance it.

But the best option would be to move the egg away from its current position to one he had calculated would be less harmful. But despite the signs of his increasing weakness, Ren continued to force himself forward until he was just a few steps away. Then, four days into the fourth week, it happened. A crack formed on the egg, and the flows of qi began to rampage.