Liu Xing sensed death could claim him at any moment, and his assessment rang true. He moved through a world teeming with abominations. They surrounded him in every direction—no sky above, no ground below, only endless abominations with snake limbs yearning to tear him apart. He weaved through them like lightning, squeezing and maneuvering between their grotesque forms. His face was a mask of concentration, blood dripping from his nose, ears, hands, and feet. Around him, his gun swam like a fish guarding its home, shooting rapidly and deflecting myriad projectiles: fireballs, snake arrows, black streaks of darkness, small heads, large heads, and everything in between. His turtle now orbited him like a moon, faster than a speeding truck the size of a house, making a humming sound like a giant propeller.

This flying turtle was an additional trick he had learned, and it successfully repelled numerous abominations, if only momentarily. Yet even with all his defenses, he realized more and more attacks were breaking through, forcing him to deal with them using the lightning blades in both hands.

The abominations were relentless. Their laughter began to grind against his mind, and he wondered if their cackling was real or if his sanity was slipping.

As these doubts plagued him, an abomination with red skin and the face of a chubby man suddenly split its head in two, revealing a pink brain that shot a condensed qi the color of fresh blood. The attack bypassed his turtle, forcing Liu Xing to use his shield to dodge sideways, only to encounter an abomination wreathed in flames attempting to embrace him. He responded by hurling a giant turtle at it.

As he navigated through the army of abominations, deflecting their attacks and fighting for survival, his mind raced to find a solution. The answer was obvious—he needed to kill an abomination with his gun; but this simple solution proved maddeningly difficult to execute.

Even after more than ten minutes of fighting, he had not managed to kill a single abomination with his gun. His attacks had connected with many, and his strategy of having the abominations' attacks hit each other had worked to a certain extent—many bore wounds—but their overwhelming numbers prevented him from landing a killing blow. Perhaps three or four had died, but none by his gun. It's so frustrating.

Through the chaos of the rapidly moving abominations around him, he tried to remember his original goal: luring them out so Prince Yang Jinyan could obtain a supposedly powerful armor. Yet with each shot from his gun, each time he hurled his turtle, and each time he summoned his shield, his qi depleted further. This marked the first time since acquiring his gun that his qi reserves, even after achieving Core Splitting realm, proved insufficient.

He carried many pills in his spatial bag, gifts from the Prince and Elder Yang Zhaoyan, but he suspected he would exhaust all his qi restoration pills within half an hour—longer if he used his qi minimally, which wasn't an option.

He needed an opportunity to target a single wounded or weakened abomination, but that chance never came.

For five more minutes, he continued weaving through the army of abominations as they launched countless attacks. His eyes tracked each abomination, cataloging their techniques, abilities, wounds, and weaknesses, hoping to seize any miraculous opportunity that might present itself.

Wounds began piling up on his body. An acid attack had melted through his black sleeveless clothes and burned into his back. A black snake arrow had pierced his shoulder, leaving a hole that had closed but still gushed blood. His black hair was drenched with sweat, his torso covered in blood—mostly his own, but mixed with that of the abominations.

He had just begun considering using his invisibility when his eyes caught something peculiar. It lasted less than a second, and initially, he thought it was an illusion. Using his shield, he maneuvered around three abominations—one attempting to bite him, another throwing a punch with its golden snake, and a third hurling its tongue at him. He whipped his lightning blades at the tongue and let the golden snake punch the biting abomination, finally confirming what he'd glimpsed.

Among the surge of laughing, cackling abominations, one stood in silence. It differed entirely from the others seeking his death. Its skin was white, and instead of snakes, its arms were long blades made of stone. It wore a blue robe that seemed also made of stone, adorned with wave patterns. It gazed at him—upward—silently, as if the chaos around meant nothing.

The sight of this singular abomination made his heart race faster. It had normal human ears, long hair flowing down its back, and feet made of two blue snakes encased entirely in ice. For a split second, before his view was obscured by the surging horde, their eyes met, and Liu Xing realized it wasn't an it, but a she—his statue. The statue he'd used to escape the worm had transformed into something neither human nor quite an abomination.

That's when he snapped his head toward his giant turtle statue orbiting around him and realized something extraordinary—he had summoned both his shield and his turtle simultaneously. Usually, only a single statue could be summoned; summoning one would dismiss the other. For a moment, he wondered if this restriction had been lifted because he'd reached the Core Splitting realm, but seeing that woman statue, now not entirely stone, he suspected she might be the cause.

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His heart raced as his mind, previously numbed by survival instinct, suddenly sharpened with clarity. He needed to confirm if that woman was truly his statue.

Cycling his qi more intensely, Liu Xing began to shout. He extended his lightning blades farther and farther, willed his gun to shoot more rapidly, commanded his turtle to orbit faster and faster, and launched himself toward her.

Liu Xing slashed at the surrounding abominations. His gun intercepted incoming attacks while the turtle successfully repelled a giant assaults, qi-formed tigers, massive abominations, earth-made serpents, and more. He shouted with renewed spirit, like a dying man who had just swallowed a reviving elixir.

From the flower hill, one would have seen the chaos erupting around the golden castle as endless, colorful fireworks. The abominations around Liu Xing formed a sphere that moved with him, ensuring he remained at its center.

Little by little, Liu Xing advanced through the enemy ranks until he succeeded. Now he stood beside the woman who had once been his statue. When he landed, she turned her head, and from this close, Liu Xing saw her eyes shone with a purple light. Her face was beautiful, bearing a cold demeanor that suggested nothing in this world could disturb her—a quality that reminded him of a serene lake.

The surrounding abominations hurled themselves and their attacks at them simultaneously. His giant turtle successfully repelled attacks from behind, but those from the front came unhindered. Liu Xing intended to summon his shield and dodge when the woman suddenly severed her right blade-arm with her other arm.

Liu Xing's eyes widened, but his body moved on instinct. He jumped as high as possible, watching numerous attacks land where the woman stood. A giant mushroom of fire bloomed around her, and Liu Xing's heart clenched.

What the hell was that?

This was truly the woman statue from his Statue Summoning Technique—the one supposedly destroyed when he used it to trick the worm into thinking it had killed him. Seeing a woman who resembled his statue, made of flesh instead of stone, and have stone blade as arms, threw his mind into disarray. Questions that were once mere curiosities resurfaced with newfound urgency.

What was the Statue Summoning Technique? Who created it? Why was it unencrypted in the Purple Moon Sect's Outer Library? And now: why had that statue suddenly materialized in the middle of this battlefield?

Surprisingly, the last question proved easiest to answer.

Liu Xing weaved through the cackling, giggling, attacking abominations. He moved like true lightning, using his shield, turtle, and even kicks his gun to maneuver. As he dodged an attack from a living blanket that seemed made of entrails, decorated with intestines and yellow liquid, Liu Xing theorized that perhaps the worm had consumed an extraordinary statue, one containing a bloodline. Since the worm had given a ball containing her bloodline to a snake-limbed abomination, perhaps this woman was the result.

This thought led him to consider that the woman statue he'd used as bait wasn't made of stone but had been a real human being. The idea horrified him, and as another mushroom of fire bloomed below where she stood, Liu Xing wondered what kind of person would create such statues.

When the raging fire dissipated, Liu Xing expected her to survive, even if partially charred. Though her form differed greatly from other snake-limbed abominations, she shared their origin. Instead, what he saw made his eyes widen. Her black hair waved like a flag, a purplish aura surrounded her, and the ground within a meter radius remained untouched by the fire, creating a perfect circle of preservation.

Among hundreds of attacking abominations, her eyes met his directly. Her glowing purple eyes seemed to pierce his soul, and with a face as serene as a lake, her mouth began moving rapidly. Somehow, Liu Xing knew she wasn't talking but chanting. The qi around her felt like raging tsunamis, and as she activated her technique, a purple gem materialized above her head like a floating crown. From that gem, a purple dome grew so rapidly that in less than a second, it encompassed all the surrounding abominations, and everything inside froze like moths trapped in amber. Only she remained mobile, her hair still waving, along with Liu Xing—as if they were the only living things in this purple universe.

Liu Xing's heart drummed against his ribs so forcefully he felt his chest might burst. This technique was unlike anything he had ever seen or experienced. He knew with certainty that the qi expenditure to create this purple dome—which froze all surrounding abominations with their faces locked in expressions of glee, smiles, and seriousness as if frozen in time—was minimal, probably less than his own qi reserves. Yet, looking at the abominations frozen in place—some floating, others on the ground, all caught mid-action—it seemed impossible that this technique belonged to a being in the Core Splitting realm.

The qi around him felt so thick, as if he were swimming in an ocean of honey.

He flailed his body as if the motion might help him understand what was happening, and a memory of Ji Dongyang in his white serpent form before Liu Xing had killed him surfaced in his mind.

Ji Dongyang had once said that the shadow he used could enhance techniques. The memory wasn't entirely clear, his mind still struggling to comprehend the current situation, but he remembered seeking confirmation about techniques above Heaven Grade—something even Ji Dongyang couldn't achieve despite using shadow to enhance his techniques.

If techniques beyond Heaven Grade existed, this was what they would look like. This was a technique above Heaven Grade!

As this realization struck, she pointed at him with her left blade-arm. Her right arm, which she had severed herself, floated beside her as if possessing its own consciousness.

She beckoned to him with an expressionless face and uttered two words. Her voice was soft and musical, its sound instantly calming Liu Xing's mind as if he'd drunk an elixir that banished all worry and anxiety. But the content of her words prevented him from enjoying their melody. After all, her request was the opposite of what he desired.

"Kill me," she said with a flat expression.

Liu Xing blinked several times, trying to convince himself he hadn't just heard a request to kill this newly reincarnated being. But when he felt the qi around him growing thinner, saw the glow of her body dissipating, and watched her body begin to crumble like a sand castle in strong wind, Liu Xing instantly understood her meaning and her wish.