Chapter 42: A Sudden Chill

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: A Sudden Chill

’Deceiving heaven... I won’t be needing that for now.’

’But deceiving people, now that could be useful.’

With a thought, Su Han suppressed his aura to the level of the initial stage of the Spirit Platform. He then incinerated the fleshy remains left behind after Liu Ming’s body exploded, destroying all traces of the corpse, and walked out of the small woods.

A few hours later, a heart-wrenching scream echoed from the small woods outside the city.

"Which goddamned bastard burned down my two biggest, thickest, and longest trees!"

And so, a legend began to circulate in Lingzhou City about a pervert who specialized in burning down people’s biggest, thickest, and longest trees. For a long time after, no one dared to make a living by planting trees anymore.

After leaving the small woods, Su Han scaled the city wall and returned to Lingzhou City.

The night was almost over, and a sliver of dawn had appeared in the east.

Once inside Lingzhou City, he leaped from roof to roof, making his way back to the Prince’s Residence.

After Su Han slipped past Su Xiao’Er and the two young maids back into his room and closed the door, in another courtyard, Prince Jing and the Princess Consort shared a smile before nestling together and drifting off to a light sleep.

Back in his room with the door shut tight, Su Han did not lie down on the bed to sleep.

His previous experience of assaulting the gray fog in the small woods made Su Han all the more eager to break through it and see what secrets lay hidden behind.

After unlocking two more Skill Trees, Su Han’s Divine Thought had grown considerably stronger than it was in the woods.

Moreover, now that he was home, he didn’t have to worry about passing out from exhausting his Divine Thought by forcing an assault. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Su Han immersed his Heart Spirit into his Sea of Consciousness and used his full power to strike at the gray fog, which had already thinned out a great deal.

Perhaps it was the effect of his persistent assaults over the past half-month—like grinding an iron pestle into a needle—or perhaps it was because his Divine Thought had grown stronger again. Or maybe it was both.

After another full-power assault, Su Han no longer felt that same unbreakable barrier.

Although there was still resistance, under Su Han’s patient assault, his Divine Thought pushed deeper bit by bit, giving him hope for success.

With each assault, that patch of gray fog grew thinner, and the light within it grew brighter.

Correspondingly, Su Han’s Divine Thought grew weaker with each expenditure. His head began to feel dizzy, and he feared he might pass out again on the next attempt.

Gritting his teeth for one last try, Su Han controlled all of his Telekinesis and slammed it into the patch of fog that was now so thin it was almost transparent.

BOOM—

The exhaustion of his Divine Thought and subsequent loss of consciousness he had expected never came. His mind roared, and Su Han found himself entering another mysterious world.

Light... was the only color here.

Light that calmed the Heart Spirit was everywhere. Su Han’s consciousness bathed in this holy radiance like a sponge, endlessly absorbing all the moisture around it.

As time passed, his severely depleted Divine Thought rapidly recovered and even began to grow stronger bit by bit.

At the same time his Divine Thought was strengthening, a torrential wave of Vitality Elemental Power overflowed from an unknown source, filling Su Han’s entire body.

Nourished by this elemental power, Su Han’s body began to undergo an unknown transformation.

It was a metamorphosis, an evolution that transcended species, an apotheosis from a lower to a higher level, from a lower to a higher dimension.

Cleansing his marrow, refining his essence, strengthening his muscles, forging his bones, replacing his blood, and tempering his flesh—every cell throughout his body felt as if it had been reinforced.

Black, filthy blood seeped from the pores all over Su Han’s body, instantly covering him and turning him into a man of blood.

Mixed within the foul blood were bone fragments and sloughed-off dead skin. It formed a cocoon around Su Han, made of blood, flesh, bone, and other substances expelled from his body.

The blood-colored cocoon enveloped Su Han completely, making him look like a caterpillar that had pupated.

He was only waiting to break out of his cocoon and be reborn as a different form of life.

This... was evolution on a species level.

Under the cover of the Heaven-Deceiving Concealment Technique, Su Han’s aura never fluctuated in the slightest. Naturally, nothing that was happening in the room was detected by the outside world.

His consciousness was immersed in that world of light. He had no idea how much time had passed.

It might have been an instant, a year, or as boundless and long as a lifetime.

When his consciousness awoke from the warmth, which felt like returning to his mother’s embrace, the world of light was gone.

With a mere thought, Su Han was surprised to find that his Divine Thought... had strengthened by several times.

Although the range of his Divine Thought still fell short of a vast ocean, it had already surpassed that of great rivers and lakes.

’My Divine Thought’s current strength should be on par with an ordinary genius at the Perfection stage of the Divine Sea Realm, right?’

With this thought in mind, his Divine Thought withdrew from the gray fog, and his consciousness returned to his Sea of Consciousness.

He opened his eyes to complete darkness.

"Hmm? It’s not dawn yet? Or have several days and nights passed outside, and it’s now the middle of the night again?"

He muttered in confusion and extended his Divine Thought. A strange expression couldn’t help but appear on Su Han’s face.

"I’m not a caterpillar, so why did I form such a big cocoon?"

Frowning, Su Han felt how cramped the space was and subconsciously stretched his arms and legs.

CRACK~

The moment his small hand moved, the large, blood-colored cocoon enveloping Su Han made a ’CRACK’ as it tore.

"Huh?"

His Divine Thought probe had revealed the cocoon to be extremely tough, far beyond what his physical strength of nearly one million jin could shatter.

He had been about to stretch, preparing to combine his Spiritual Power and Divine Thought to try and break out of the cocoon. He never would have imagined that with just a light touch from his small hand, the blood-colored cocoon would simply crack open.

’So... what happened to ’breaking out of the cocoon is supposed to be hard’?’

’What happened to ’hatching from an egg is a trial of life and death for oviparous creatures’?’

’It’s all a damn lie, isn’t it? Is your idea of a life-and-death trial this easy?’

Using both hands, he easily tore apart the blood-colored cocoon. Su Han gave a light leap...

KABOOM!

The house... collapsed.

"I..."

Free-falling from several hundred meters in the air, with the wind whistling in his ears, Su Han’s classic curse was drowned out by the early morning breeze, unheard by anyone.

Fortunately, he possessed a Divine Thought no weaker than that of a genius cultivator at the Perfection stage of the Divine Sea Realm. Although he was dumbfounded for a moment, just before he hit the ground, Su Han regained control of his body and landed steadily.

He even landed with such grace that his toes touched the ground without kicking up a single speck of dust.

However, no amount of grace could change the fact that he had just collapsed his own house with a single light jump.

So...

Still somewhat dazed, Su Han subconsciously used Introspection to check his condition.

One look, and the already dazed Su Han... became even more dazed.

’What is going on?’

’My bones, my meridians, every inch of my flesh and skin... their strength has increased by more than a hundredfold.’

’So...’

’It’s not that I don’t even know how to get out of bed anymore. The reason I accidentally collapsed the house is entirely because my body’s strength... for some reason, suddenly increased by dozens, even hundreds of times.’

’My strength surged a hundredfold without me even realizing it. It would have been weirder if I *hadn’t* smashed the house to bits when I jumped, right?’

Just as he was lost in a daze over the sudden surge in his power, Su Han suddenly felt a bit of a cool breeze between his legs.

He looked down...

He was completely naked, not a stitch of clothing on him.