pjbooks Chapter 139: Breakthrough Begins
Chapter 139: Breakthrough Begins
The guardian of the sixty-first level was a colossal beast covered in dark red scales and with wings on its back. It was several times smaller than the ancient dragon-elephant outside Liangzhou City, but the oppressive aura it exuded was more refined and sharper, like a blade compressed to its limit. Its eyes were two burning dark red flames, the pupils reflecting Wang Kai's rapidly approaching figure. Its mouth was wide open, revealing a row of gleaming white fangs with barbed edges.
"Abyssal Wyvern, SS-rank." Jiang Chen's voice rang out in the team, calm as if reciting a formula that had been proven countless times. "Speed type, wingspan exceeding twenty meters, claws and teeth imbued with abyssal corrosive power. Weakness is the seventh vertebra in its neck—the thinnest part of its scales, and also its center of gravity during flight. Destroy that spot, and it will lose its speed advantage."
Wang Kai heard it, but his body reacted before his brain. His sword didn't pierce the dragon's neck; instead, it slashed diagonally from below, aiming straight for the base of the dragon's left wing. It was an angle he had never practiced in the simulation battle, a new path he had found after countless mental rehearsals based on that half-inch deviation in the angle of his final strike when he killed the Abyss General.
The moment the blade pierced the base of the dragon's left wing, dark red blood gushed from the wound, dissipating into dark red specks of light in the void. The dragon let out a deafening roar, its right wing flapping violently, attempting to use the momentum to escape Wang Kai's pursuit. But Wang Kai's blade remained embedded in its wing base, and chaotic power surged from the blade, spreading along the wound into the dragon's body, eroding, disintegrating, and negating its flesh, bones, and meridians layer by layer from the inside.
The dragon's right wing froze at its highest point. Losing its balance, it tilted to the left from the void, its wings flapping wildly, but the left wing had completely lost power, and the right wing's strength could not support its massive body. It began to fall.
Wang Kai gave it no chance to fall. His body flipped in the air, his toes touching the falling torso of the flying dragon, using the momentum to leap upwards. He drew the Azure Cloud Sword from the base of the flying dragon's left wing, drawing a pure white arc in the air, the blade precisely piercing the gap of the flying dragon's seventh vertebra in its neck.
Dark red flames erupted from the wound, scorching Wang Kai's right arm until it glowed bright red. His sleeve turned to ash in the flames, revealing the charred skin beneath. But he did not let go. He squeezed the power of the pure white golden core in his dantian to its limit, and chaotic energy surged into the blade like a tidal wave, exploding within the flying dragon's body.
The dragon's body began to disintegrate from the inside. Dark red scales peeled off piece by piece, turning into specks of light in the void; its wings shattered from the tips, the fragments turning into nothingness as they fell; the head, burning with dark red flames, drooped at the last moment, and in the eye sockets after the flames died down, Wang Kai's face, reflected in the light and shadow of sweat, blood, and chaotic power, was revealed.
Abyss Dragon, dead. Time elapsed: eighteen breaths.
Wang Kai fell from the void, kneeling on one knee at the edge of the Primordial Sword's protective shield, panting heavily. His right arm, from shoulder to fingertips, was charred black by dark red flames, his skin covered in fine cracks from which bright red blood seeped. But his right hand, gripping the sword, did not loosen its grip. The crack on the Azure Cloud Sword's blade had expanded to halfway across the blade, pure white light surging from the crack, making the sword resemble a melting ice blade.
Shen Qingxue walked to his side, squatted down, and placed her right hand on his charred right arm. Icy blue spiritual energy surged from her palm, spreading along his arm, freezing, peeling away, and regenerating the scorched skin layer by layer. The new skin was pale, more tender and thinner than the surrounding skin, and tinged with a faint pink under the light of the Primordial Sword's protective shield.
"The eighteenth breath." Shen Qingxue withdrew her hand, the icy blue spiritual energy slowly dissipating from her fingertips. Her voice remained as cold as ever, but the corners of her mouth slightly turned up. "Six breaths faster than your opponent. But your right arm was almost ruined. Brother Chen said the weakness was in the seventh vertebra of your neck, but you insisted on cutting off the wings first. Were you afraid of winning too easily and had to add more difficulty?"
Wang Kai looked down at his newly grown right arm, his fingers slowly flexing and extending, feeling every tremor of the muscles, bones, and veins beneath the new skin. He smiled, a smile that carried the same uncontainable excitement and ecstasy he had shown three months ago after punching a concrete slab in an abandoned factory.
"Brother Chen said that the essence of the arc footwork is not to take the shortest path, but to take the path that suits you best. The dragon's weakness is the seventh vertebra in its neck, but its wing root is also a weakness—just not a fatal one. I first crippled its wings, then killed it, using two sword strikes, which is slower than one. But by the second strike, it had already lost its balance, and my success rate of stabbing into the spine was 30% higher than stabbing directly."
He stood up, sheathed the Qingyun Sword at his waist, and looked at the crack on the blade that had spread to most of the sword. The smile on his lips deepened.
"Brother Chen, how much longer can this sword last?"
Jiang Chen glanced at him, then at the Azure Cloud Sword at his waist that was being eroded, transformed, and assimilated by the power of chaos, and remained silent for a moment.
"Hold on until the ninetieth floor. At that time, it will shatter completely and then be reborn in your hands. The reborn sword will be the true natal flying sword of the Chaos Spiritual Root—more suitable for you than any standard longsword of the Qingyun Sect, and closer to your essence than the Primordial Sword."
Wang Kai looked down at the Qingyun Sword, riddled with cracks, at his waist. He watched the pure white light emanating from the cracks and felt the sword tremble slightly at his waist, as if responding to Jiang Chen's words or urging him to continue forward.
From the sixty-second floor to the seventy-ninth floor, Wang Kai slashed down with his sword.
Each level's guardian is stronger than the one above. The sixty-fifth level is guarded by a colossal abyssal tortoise, its size comparable to a mountain. Its carapace is covered with densely packed defensive runes, making it impenetrable to ordinary attacks. Wang Kai used twenty-three breaths to infuse the Azure Cloud Sword with chaotic power. The pure white light on the blade, upon contact with the tortoise's carapace, did not strike, but penetrate—the chaotic power seeped into the carapace along the rune patterns, dismantling, negating, and evaporating the defensive runes layer by layer from within. Under the erosion of the chaotic power, the tortoise's carapace cracked open from the center, and dark red blood gushed from the crack, transforming into dark red specks of light that drifted away in the void.
They continued to break through, rushing towards the final First Apostle, the legendary First Apostle!