In the nest of the wrathful black ape, the first rays of morning illuminated the gloomy forest as a beast and a human shaped fire faced each other.

The ape breathed heavily as it glared in rage at Tian He before it jumped.

The strenght of its legs was vast to the point it flew up and reached more than a hundred meters high with a single leap before it looked down.

Its large shadow covered the area like an impending doom as it sent a palm strike downwards with all the strenght it could muster.

Instantly, an incredible wind pressure of multiple tons fell on Tian He and the latter who was levitating in the sky was immediately hammered on the ground.

The force was such that he couldn't even lift one finger and the earth all around him sank to several dozen centimeters down creating a round area with a mass of fire immobile at its center.

The flames were completely pinned to the ground and spread around to the point where they couldn't be released in any way. If they were natural flames they would have been extinguished in an instant.

The monstrous ape fell next to Tian He while the pressure was still lasting for a few seconds after his strike but he seemed unconcerned by it as he easily picked him up from the crater.

Tian He was grabbed and lifted from the ground and as he layed in the ape's hand, the latter opened its mouth wide.

The beast had seen how he could survive even after being crushed by his palm but munched by his teeths and swallowed in his stomach there was nowhere to escape.

It was a very simplistic reasoning from the beast but highly effective as well.

The fire around Tian He's head flickered weakly before revealing parts of his face.

Behind them remained only an hollow shell of the robust middle-aged man Tian He was. His forehead and the outlines of his eyes were full of wrinkles, his skin shriveled and filled with dark aging spots.

His skull was bald and his eyebrows pale white, he looked frail and emaciated. In this state, even if he returned to Azure Water City, no one would recognize him.

As he was nearing the ape's maw, he tilted his head backwards and looked at the sky however he couldn't see anything, his cloudy white eyes a sign of his blindness.

"I have fought blood beasts for so long in my youth, who knew i would end up dying to one of them." Tian He thought to himself in sorrow.

"Now that i think about it, being a clan's elder was trivial. I seeked peace under their shelter but i still had to fight for them while my cultivation barely increased all this time."

"Trying to become a hero renowned in the continent was also futile. Why would i need to impress others, do i owe them anything?"

Tian He lamented. He was at the end of his lifespan, even if he survived he didn't have much time left.

Now that he reminisced his life before death's door, he was full of regrets.

What if i didn't give up to join a clan but kept pushing myself instead, would i have broken through my limits?!

If i persevered in the wild maybe my chance would finally have turned making me able to see the scenery in the eyes of an Inner Core Realm expert and more!

During his last breathes, Tian He's view changed and he felt if he could restart from zero, he would do things much differently.

However once you pass away this is the end, there's no second chance.

This was the reality of a violent world, life was fleeting and anyone could die at any moment, leaving their last wishes behind.

"In any case, if im dying im taking you with me!" Suddenly a burst of hatred emerged in his heart against his killer.

Tian He's skin cracked open, revealing bright blue streaks like veins in various parts of his face.

His eyes became completely dark blue in color, both sending an intense blue light forward like torches.

BOOM!

The next instant, Tian He fully ignited his remaining lifeforce and chose to self-explode!

The eruption of flames engulfed the wrathful black ape which cried loudly in agony but everything was covered by the sound of the explosion.

The impact wasn't as wide as the one from the confrontation between the ape and the firebird but much more concentrated creating a pillar of flames rising in the sky.

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From his position, Ye Mo's hair and pants fluttered wildly from the shockwave as he could feel an extreme wave of heat assaulting him speaking for itself of the force of the explosion at the core area.

Inside the pillar of flames, an enormous mass of fire flew out and crossed the whole nest before crashing in the jungle several hundreds of meters away.

Seeing this scene Ye Mo waited for the heatwave to slightly reduce before he went down the hill and immediately set out.

He treaded carefully in the jungle as he neared the location where the ape crashed down and weighed in his heart, "This moment will decide the success or failure of my plan. If its dead i will be the biggest winner here but if its alive, not only i won't gain anything, i will be in danger myself."

The closer he got to the destination the slower he moved.

After a few minutes Ye Mo was close enough to see the ape in between trees laying face against the ground .

The beast was covered in mud and soil due to the violence of its fall which helped extinguish most of the flames on its body.

Currently only a few of them were still burning on his limbs or his back.

Ye Mo stood in place stealthily observing the wrathful black ape but he only watched a few seconds before its enormous palm twitched and it rose up.

"Its alive, damn monster is immortal!" Ye Mo immediately turned around and ran away as he thought in shock.

Yet he didn't move far when he heard a 'thud' behind like something heavy falling.

When he looked back and made sure nothing chased him, he returned near the ape's position even more cautiously than last time.

There he saw the ape only made three steps before it collapsed on the ground.

This time it was laying on the back so Ye Mo could see the severity of its injuries.

There was no flesh on its flank revealing a charcoal black ribcage, the organs inside weren't in much better state, either turned into carbonized meat or just missing, probably completely burnt down by the flames.

The right arm which was holding Tian He ended at the elbow in a mess of destroyed flesh and uneven broken bone, the rest was exterminated by the explosion. It was half as large as the left arm, thinned by the fire as well.

The worst was its head, a major part of it was only a dark cracked skull with broken teeths and an hollow orbit.

Ye Mo still patiented for several minutes and when no movements were made from the beast, he walked forward.

Being reckless was risky but there were no detriments in being careful.

When he was close enough, he examined the body. No breathing and the heart wasn't beating, it was definitely dead!

Ye Mo sighed deeply, relieved.

He felt these last days he had been treading on thin ice, manipulating the Liu clan from one side and monitoring the wrathful black ape from the other, one wrong step and he could die.

Now he could finally see the results of his labor.

But he didn't ease up yet and placed his hand on the beast's corpse, activating the Nine Revolutions Fiend Body art.

The corpse's mass could be seen gradually shrinking and what remained of its skin, turning into a shriveled grey color.

While the ape visibly thinned down, something extremely hard fell down from its insides and rolled down.

Ye Mo's gaze shone brightly as he picked it up. It was a dark red sphere the size of a grown man's head.

The ape's body was in a gruesome state but the sphere was completely intact showing it couldn't be damaged through ordinary means.

"The ape's blood core, the stronger the beast is the more chances there is for a blood core to have been formed in their body. A rank 3 beast would almost always have one."

Ye Mo was slightly excited as he stored the sphere in his pouch then resumed his absorption of the corpse's blood.

Usually it would take him a breathe of time to reduce a human's body to nothing but due to the sheer size of the ape, he needed half a minute for the bones to crumble into dust.

Slowly, a profound stream of energy filled his body with a bloating sensation.

Ye Mo smiled joyously as he felt he met the conditions to breakthrough the second revolution!