Life Source Liquid

Deep in the night, the ancient battlefield was dotted with flickering lights—fire creatures on the prowl, each night playing out the brutal tragedy of survival. The cruel reality of existence was laid bare.

Xiao Chen's skeletal form gleamed like carved blue diamonds, radiant and translucent. He walked unhurriedly through the night, covering seven or eight meters with each step, his pace swift despite his leisurely demeanor.

Fire creatures retreated in terror before him for a hundred li. The power of a blue diamond skeleton commanded respect; none dared challenge the majesty of a fearsome king.

At such speed, a hundred li seemed no more than a step. Soon he saw a bone castle shaped like a giant eagle—its white bone wings spread dozens of meters wide, the body twenty meters tall. Beneath its breast and belly was a great bone cave, seven or eight meters above the ground, from which faint crystalline light streamed.

In this deathly stillness, where yin mist coiled and baleful aura thickened, a glow of radiant light appeared—mysterious and deeply unsettling.

Xiao Chen had stilled his own formidable soul-flame from ten li away, letting it sink like an eternal star.

He looked up at the giant white-bone eagle, then leaped lightly, rising seven or eight meters to land silently in the bone cave. Though he had no flesh, his steps were soundless and nimble, his blue diamond bones glinting in the dim light.

Without hesitation, he strode forward. His strength had grown greatly; he could now contend with the most powerful fire creatures on this hundred-li battlefield.

From deep within the bone castle came faint spiritual fluctuations, and the sound of grinding teeth. The fire creature inside seemed to be enduring immense pain.

The sight that met his eyes surprised him. A human-faced eagle-bodied fire creature stood three meters tall, its bones white as jade, but its appearance was fierce and terrifying.

It lay in agony half-propped in the castle, one bone wing gripped like a hand around a small gourd carved from white bone, as if bearing tremendous suffering.

The little white-bone gourd was no more than three inches high. Inside, liquid sloshed audibly, emitting a crystalline green light that bathed the whole castle in emerald radiance, like being in a dense forest. But it only made the human-faced eagle creature look even more eerie and fearsome.

This powerful fire creature was actually dripping the green liquid from the bone gourd into the soul-flame inside its skull. The crystalline green fluid flowed like jade marrow or falling stars, brilliantly strange.

As the green liquid entered through the eye socket and merged with the soul-flame, it hissed like searing drops on ice. The soul-flame seemed badly damaged, flickering and unstable.

So this was why it had not come to face him tonight.

But what was it doing? This was self-torture.

Xiao Chen was puzzled. The green liquid glowed like precious jade, shimmering like clouds, yet its harm to the soul-flame was severe. The human-faced eagle creature's soul-flame had originally filled its entire skull, but now more than half had been dissolved.

The green light cast its skull in emerald jade tones, but the soul-flame was like snow on fire, threatening to vanish at any moment.

Xiao Chen held back his impulse and watched quietly, marveling at the spectacle.

The master of the bone castle bore the agony and finally dripped the last drop of green liquid into its skull. With a hiss, its soul-flame shrank again, a little smaller.

It emitted an immensely painful spiritual fluctuation, looking utterly spent, as if it might dissolve into nothing at any moment.

But Xiao Chen keenly sensed that the withered soul-flame had become purer and more sacred, as if refined by fire.

The human-faced eagle fire creature lay still on the bone floor, seeming to concentrate on elevating the purity of its soul-flame. Wisps of black yin aura dissipated from its skull, while the flame grew holier.

It was as if it wanted to erase all deathly imprint and be reborn. What kind of green liquid was this, with such miraculous effect? Xiao Chen was deeply intrigued, but he did not want to waste time. He strode into the bone castle.

The blue diamond bones glittered, startling the human-faced eagle creature. An intruder—it sensed the gravity of the situation.

It shot to its feet, but its body swayed and nearly fell. Clearly, its state was poor; in the critical moment of refining its soul-flame, an uninvited guest had arrived. Its position was extremely dangerous.

"Blue diamond?!" The master of the castle was visibly shocked, its spiritual fluctuations forming words.

"What are you saying?" Xiao Chen asked calmly and unhurriedly.

"Blue diamond is the basic qualification to become an emperor." The castle master's voice carried envy, but more hostility and wariness. Fire creatures meeting each other usually fought to the death.

"What is the green liquid in the bone gourd?" This was Xiao Chen's first exchange with a fire creature in this world.

The human-faced eagle fire creature did not answer. Instead, it spread its bone wings and launched itself at Xiao Chen like a white lightning bolt. Its body was in poor condition, so it sought to use offense as defense.

Its bone wings were equal to divine blades, cutting through the air with sharp cracks and shearing a thick bone pillar in the castle cleanly in two.

Xiao Chen was not afraid. He stepped forward instead of back, extending his right hand like sapphire crystal, fingers together like a blade, and thrust forward.

Clang!

The palm-blade met the bone wing with a ringing clash, even sending up sparks.

The human-faced eagle fire creature was knocked back three steps, while Xiao Chen advanced one, fixing the castle master with his gaze. "Answer me."

The fire creature did not reply. Instead, it shot backward, charging toward the rear of the castle to escape.

Xiao Chen took a single step, covering seven or eight meters in an instant, and caught up. He could not afford to give it a chance. A fire creature with bone wings could fly; in the castle it was trapped, but if it broke free, it would have all the sky to roam.

His blue palm-blade descended, trailing a dreamlike crystalline radiance, and struck the human-faced eagle's right wing with brutal force, sending it tumbling. But the creature was cunning; it used the momentum to crash into the bone wall.

Yet Xiao Chen was faster. Like a blue beam, he shot forward and clamped its left wing. As its sharp bone claws raked at him, he flung it back to the center of the castle.

This was a powerful foe. The human-faced eagle fire creature was now afraid. Its soul-flame was extremely unstable, ill-suited for a life-or-death battle.

"Tell me, what is that green liquid?"

"Dead or alive, I will die anyway—why should I tell you?"

"If you speak, I will let you go."

The human-faced eagle fire creature laughed coldly. Though only spiritual fluctuations, its contempt was unmistakable.

"If you do not speak, you have no chance at all." Xiao Chen's killing intent seeped out, chilling the entire bone castle to a frigid depth.

"It is Life Source Liquid, containing the essence of life."

At the word 'life', Xiao Chen's heart trembled. "What does it do?"

"For us, it is extremely valuable. It can refine the soul-flame, smelting away all deathly aura, leaving only sacred primal power. It can also temper the body. In short, it has many wondrous uses; I do not know them all."

"How did you obtain it?" This was the key. Xiao Chen needed to know.

"Over the past few years, I killed several same-level experts, preserved their soul-flames, and traded them for it."

"How is Life Source Liquid produced?"

"Naturally, it is extracted from living beings."

"What?!" Xiao Chen was shocked. "There are still living beings in this world?"

"Of course, but most are not to be trifled with."

"Where do they live?"

"Deep in the continent."

These tidings were vital to Xiao Chen. He had thought this a world of the dead, but now he heard such news.

"It is said that we too can grow into true living beings."

The human-faced eagle fire creature dropped this heavy news, sending a surge of excitement through Xiao Chen. In such a circumstance, he learned that hope of rebirth still existed.

But how exactly to accomplish rebirth was clearly beyond the knowledge of a fire creature at this level.

Xiao Chen wanted to learn more useful information from it, but the castle master was no 'master of all knowledge.' Though its intelligence had long awakened, its understanding was limited to its own rank. As for the deep continent, it held only profound awe and utter ignorance.

"You said you would let me go. You won't break your word, will you?"

"I keep my word." Xiao Chen used his crystalline blue palm-blade to cut through the white bone wall without effort, then agilely leaped out, moving like lightning. He left a trail of blue light across the bone field, vanishing over the distant horizon.

The human-faced eagle fire creature's dark eyes glowed with strange light. It stood still, quieting its mind, and continued refining its soul-flame.

A quarter of an hour later, it had completed the process. Its soul-flame was compressed, but its essence had not diminished at all—it was more concentrated. With a burst of divine light, the entire bone castle blazed bright.

It let out a long screech and shot from the cave, flying in the direction Xiao Chen had gone.

After refinement, its soul-flame was now purer and several tenths stronger than its peak before—this was why it had traded for the Life Source Liquid. Now it was almost invincible among its peers, allowing it to harvest same-level soul-flames more efficiently for further evolution.

Its bone wings spread, soaring high in the sky, stirring up endless black mist, swift as lightning. It chased for a hundred li, until in the distance, on a stretch of white bone field, it saw a blue diamond skeleton with its back turned to it.

Without hesitation, the human-faced eagle fire creature stilled its blazing soul-flame nearly to silence, then dove silently, aiming to strike Xiao Chen down.

Everything was perfect. In an instant, it closed above Xiao Chen's head. Its sharp claws tore down at the crystalline blue skull.

But the blow did not even shake it. It suddenly realized what kind of skeletal body this was—but there was still time, for the other claw had already, with a crack, seized the cervical vertebrae, trying to wrench the skull off and leave it combat-incapacitated.

Everything was perfect. The human-faced eagle fire creature was already thinking about devouring the other's soul-flame and claiming the body. A blue diamond skeleton was far superior to its own eagle form.

But in that moment, it sensed tremendous danger. It tried to dodge but could not.

A pile of bones beside it exploded. A tall skeleton emerged, gripping a blue bone spear, and shot forward like a beam of divine light from the legendary Hou Yi's arrow.

Then came the sound of a skull shattering. The human-faced eagle fire creature fell onto the bone field without even understanding what had happened. Its skull was pierced through by the unyielding ancient spear and shattered.

"Man has the heart to harm the tiger, and the tiger has the mind to wound man. Fortunately, I was prepared against you."

The crystal bone body was indeed Xiao Chen's, but his soul-flame had already flown out earlier, hidden inside an ordinary skeleton, setting up this trap.

In his first conversation with a fire creature, Xiao Chen had made a promise and originally wished to shed no more blood. But his opponent had pursued him, leaving him no choice but to strike.

The enemy had no time to damage his bone body. Xiao Chen's soul-flame returned to his blue diamond skull, absorbed the substitute soul-flame, and reclaimed his own body.

Then he reattached the blue rib that had been removed and used as a bone spear.

He did not let the powerful soul-flame go to waste. He absorbed it without hesitation.

It was an extremely pure, sacred soul-force—crystalline as moonlight, soft as water. As it slowly merged into Xiao Chen's soul-flame, he clearly felt his strength increase by two tenths, a full tier above his peers.

This was a strange change, for normally cultivators of the same rank had similar power. Absorbing thirty same-level soul-flames was needed to advance a level, but during the process, power never changed much—only at the moment of breakthrough did it leap.

All of this must be due to the Life Source Liquid.

His blue diamond bone body was nourished and grew even harder.

Xiao Chen decided to leave this ancient battlefield and push forward, seeking the path to rebirth.

Though in a world of deathly stillness, he felt fulfilled every day because he was growing stronger. His power was hard to gauge now; without flesh and blood, he could barely use his former techniques, and soul-flame power was difficult to measure.

But without doubt, his bones were far stronger than before. Once his flesh was reborn, his combat ability would surely far exceed the past.

To become stronger—that was his goal.

The land ahead was barren, its soil a reddish-brown as if soaked in blood. Though not covered in bones, every twenty or thirty meters, one or two skeletons could be found.

Entering this region, the fire creatures were clearly stronger. In just a few days, he had spotted more than a dozen same-level powerful fire creatures, and even saw several traveling together.

Xiao Chen was cautious, not striking rashly. He dimly sensed a nameless danger in this territory.

He observed, trying to learn everything about this area.

Half a month passed as Xiao Chen evaded all kinds of dangers. He had finally scouted the five-hundred-li region. It contained two grim, terrifying ancient castles, within which dwelt unfathomable horrors—their powerful auras were suffocating.

Fortunately, he had not acted hastily, because the fire creatures within five hundred li were organized under the two castles. Acting rashly would leave clues and invite terrible pursuit.

The challenge grew. With castle organizations already appearing, did even stronger city-states lie further ahead?

What would he discover in the end?

On the seventeenth day, after traversing all five hundred li, he found a third castle.

This last castle shook him profoundly, because he saw a man of flesh and blood walk out of it.