Martial Ascent to Divinity-Chapter 522 - 505: Nine Thousand

Outside the Remnant Celestial Bone, Divine Power Land. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Zhou Leng slowly opened his eyes and lifted his head.

Three black suns hung in the sky, still exuding a peculiar sense of oppression, as if watched by a Divine Spirit.

But, after many days of cultivation, it was different now.

Scanning his surroundings, his eyes emitted a faint glow, capable of seeing through the pure black pillar of light.

The starlight currents beneath his skin flowed rapidly, and the sparks created by the collision of the black light pillar with his body had dissipated.

The black light fell upon his skin, with part of the power being absorbed, while the rest rebounded away silently.

"Huh?"

Activating the Taiqing Sea Robe, Zhou Leng immediately felt the protective power of the new Taiqing Sea Robe rise to a new level.

Even though he hadn’t entered the realm of transforming illusion into reality, the power intensity was very close.

A closer look revealed tiny starlight dots within the sea vortex on his chest.

"Could it be that the sea within the Taiqing Sea Robe is actually a star sea? Combined with the Undying Star Body, Star Power, and celestial true power cultivation, is this the Ancient River Sect’s true cultivation method?"

Zhou Leng recalled the powers of Guan Canglong, Qu Xinghan, and Shen Yunxian, faintly understanding the greatest difference between himself and them.

He retracted the Taiqing Sea Robe and stepped into the deeper black mist.

Once again, he reached nine thousand steps.

Boom boom boom...

Standing there, the world suddenly transformed.

The black mist was no more, replaced by a land under a blue sky.

In the blue sky, countless meteors fell swiftly, trailing fiery tails, drawing black smoke, tearing across the sky with earth-shattering sounds.

Beyond the night sky of meteors, a colossal human silhouette loomed, seemingly larger than the whole planet.

Zhou Leng felt like an ant on a plate, looking up at a human holding chopsticks.

The silhouette was blurry, exceedingly thin.

Behind it, a grand ring formed by countless shattered asteroids was exceptionally clear, enormous and majestic, as if it could envelop the planet.

Divine Ring.

The Divine Ring seemed to turn at a very slow pace, grinding the starry sky, emitting a tremendous roar.

Beneath the Divine Ring and Divine Spirit, meteors flew chaotically, filling the azure sky.

The meteors varied in size, the smallest being the size of a round table.

A nearby meteor, the size of a round table, suddenly changed direction and roared towards him.

Zhou Leng tried to sidestep and evade, only to find that his body was no longer his to control.

His feet shuffled forward slowly, but he was unable to perform any other actions.

Boom!

The meteor crashed into him.

The powerful impact tore through his body, invading his internal organs, and shook his entire being.

Simultaneously, the meteor transitioned from reality to illusion, crashing into his Martial Arts Will within the Will World.

Thud...

The Mountain of Will shook heavily, almost getting knocked away.

Fortunately, the Mountain of Will had undergone long training, absorbing the power of many treasures, barely withstanding the impact.

Zhou Leng’s body jerked backwards, blood spurted from his throat.

Yet in the next instant, he forced his mouth shut, reversing the blood flow back into his body.

Glancing down, his clothes remained unscathed, but the flesh beneath was tattered, even his internal organs were torn.

Threads of flesh emerged like surgical lines, swiftly stitching the flesh together, and within three seconds, all wounds were forcibly sealed by a powerful force.

After seven steps, serious injuries turned to minor ones, and minor ones completely healed.

After ten steps, the injuries were mostly under control, with only a few areas needing slow healing.

The moment the eleventh step was taken, a second round-table-sized meteor crashed down.

Boom!

Zhou Leng’s chest and abdomen were torn open, blood covered his face, his vision went black, his body fell backward heavily, ringing in his ears, and his mind swirled.

Golden stars danced before his eyes.

He couldn’t even control his True Qi now, making it impossible to fully activate the Taiqing Sea Robe to protect his entire body.

This force had reached the level of an ordinary Great Innate’s desperate strike.

His body involuntarily moved forward, barely recovering before taking another ten steps when a new meteor came crashing head-on.

Carrying the dual attack of body and spirit, the third meteor’s force crushed him once more.

Zhou Leng struggled to hold on, but his response was exactly the same as at the start—dizzy and in severe pain all over.

True Qi could only initiate True Qi Perpetual Motion, remaining in its weakest stage.

He couldn’t use the Undying Star Body or Star Phoenix Rejuvenation Technique, only receiving passive healing.

His body was controlled by an invisible force, compelled to move forward continuously.

At first, Zhou Leng gritted his teeth and persevered.

After walking a hundred and one steps, a meteor twice the size of a round table came crashing down.

Zhou Leng cursed inwardly once before being knocked unconscious by an even larger meteor, his body bending backwards excessively.

Waking dizzily, before he could sense his body, a second meteor twice the size of a round table came crashing down.

Boom!

Before falling unconscious, Zhou Leng had one last thought.

Never coming again...

His body still moved forward uncontrollably, awakening just in time for a meteor to crush him, rendering him unconscious again, and upon opening his eyes, the cycle repeated...

He kept moving until two hundred and one steps, his body and flesh in tatters, unable to heal rapidly.

However, a formidable force persisted, forcibly stitching the shredded flesh together.

Opening his eyes one last time, Zhou Leng caught sight of a flaming shadow the size of a room crashing down, before losing consciousness completely.

Boom!

The gigantic meteor smashed Zhou Leng into a deep pit, flames roared, and black smoke drifted aloft.

Lying at the bottom of the large pit, unconscious.

An invisible force lifted Zhou Leng and tossed him back into the purple mist of eight thousand steps.

Splat.

Zhou Leng landed on the ground like a dead pig.

With no suppression, the power of the Star Phoenix Rejuvenation Technique roared into action.

Thousands of feathers, silver and fiery, swayed within the spine, surging power flowed from the spine into the entire body, rapidly healing it.

In ten seconds, the flesh and blood reattached.

In twenty seconds, all pure physical wounds healed.

In thirty seconds, it looked healed, but internally, the minor injuries were still slowly mending, and the tremors of the Mountain of Will needed to settle.

After an unknown period, Zhou Leng slowly opened his eyes.

In front, purple-black mist pervaded.

Around, the familiar eight thousand steps’ concentration of purple mist.

The three black suns in the sky were no more.

Glancing at his body, everything was intact with his clothes, but his body was evidently fatigued and sore, as if he had been through a protracted battle.

More exhausting than participating in a whole day’s offensive and defensive battle at Huqiu Fortress.

Closing his eyes to sense, as expected, his body had suffered extremely severe trauma, with many areas still not fully recovered.

The Martial Arts Will was the same, still somewhat uncomfortable, but overall, there was no major problem.

"However..."

Zhou Leng discovered that his Mountain of Will and body seemed to have slightly increased their limits.

Although very subtle, it was indeed an enhancement.

Especially the starlit True Qi within his body, which clearly had a bit more, and the sense of the starlit True Qi was also slightly enhanced.

Zhou Leng originally wanted to turn and leave, but upon thinking of enhancing higher-level power, hesitated for a moment.

Try again.

Drank Mammoth Lake water, ate medicinal fruit, ate meat, took pills, ate ancient tree fossils, drank insect juice...

Feasted gluttonously for a while, then ventured in again.

At two hundred and one steps, a large meteor descended, Zhou Leng’s vision went black, and he fainted again.

In the pit created by the meteor crash, Zhou Leng’s right pinky finger twitched gently, then remained motionless.

Waking up once more outside the nine thousand steps of purple mist, Zhou Leng quietly recalled the entire process.

Shortly after, he proceeded inward.

With a final roar, Zhou Leng was once again thrown out and landed on the ground.

Time spent inside grew longer with each repeated entrance and exit.

Beneath the Residual Celestial Bone.

A massive wall encircled a giant bone towering like a heavenly pillar.

The wall was constructed of bluish-grey metal, a hundred meters high, twenty meters wide, resembling a bracelet of giant bones.

Outside the wall, a town was situated.

At the center of the town stood hundreds of teleportation gates of various sizes, all square, with ghostly blue light flickering within the frames.

Within the town, squads of warriors either fully armed walked into the teleportation gates or emerged from them covered in blood.

Numerous bluish-grey metallic colored gigantic houses were scattered everywhere.

The warriors here mostly resembled life forms from the Ten Realms, differing in that parts of their bodies were encased in white bone armor, as if those sections of their bodies had also ossified.

Unlike ordinary life forms from the Ten Realms, each warrior here had intense blood-red light flickering in their eyes.

The aura around them exuded madness.

Many warriors remained silent, but the crazed gaze in their eyes spread like wildfires.

A human walked through the town center, heading towards the central gate of the wall.

His head entirely ossified, as if wearing a white bone helmet.

This gate, similar to the teleportation gates, contained a giant doorway inside which ghostly blue light slowly swirled, its destination unknown.

The human walked into the teleportation gate of the wall.

As the world twisted and the light and shadow swirled, much later, he appeared at the entrance of a massive hall.

On both sides of the hall, laid rows of broken corpses.

There were humans, beasts, demons, a variety of bizarre creatures, as though in an open exhibition of a mortuary.

At the farthest depth of the hall, on a crimson throne, sat a human clad in bone armor, approximately three meters tall.

His entire body was sheathed in thick grayish-white bone armor, protecting him completely.

The helmet formed a "T" shaped slit in the center.

He raised his head, looking toward the newcomer.

"Reporting to commander, this time the great battlefield opened, a human Martial Artist intruded into the Land of Final Refinement."

"Oh?"

The person on the throne lifted his spiked right hand gently, summoning a massive light screen ahead.

The perspective of the light screen seemed positioned atop the Residual Celestial Bone at the great battlefield, surveying all directions.

Thick purple mist encircled the Celestial Bone Warriors’ dwelling outside.

The dense purple mist originally obscured vision, but on the light screen, everyone in the mist was vividly visible.

Instead of first inspecting Zhou Leng at the Land of Final Refinement, the two in the palace looked elsewhere first.

Humans, demons, giant dragons, and other races either trudged within the mist or outside it.

Only a portion of creatures resided at a camp farther away beyond the black iron forest.

The person on the throne gradually retracted his gaze, shifting his sight to Zhou Leng within the Land of Final Refinement.

He watched Zhou Leng fall unconscious at two hundred and one steps, ejected from the Land of Final Refinement.

Then, the light screen flashed, displaying Zhou Leng landing on the great battlefield, the moments playing out at a hundredfold speed, centered on Zhou Leng.

Within no time, the light screen depicted Zhou Leng arriving outside the purple mist, walking inside, accurately replaying everything Zhou Leng encountered.

Ultimately, the light screen’s timeline arrived at the present.

Zhou Leng lay on the ground, sleeping soundly.