Chapter 2295: Pink Skeleton
"Boom."
For hundreds of miles around, a violent spatial collapse occurred. Whether it was the millions of white bones chasing behind or the soil and rock, all were absorbed into the gourd.
Yan Hong Great Saint was naturally also pulled over by the gourd's devouring force, rapidly flying close to the gourd's mouth.
Seeing Yan Hong Great Saint's cold, calm face, Zhang Ruochen had a bad premonition.
"Yan Hong Great Saint couldn't possibly be unaware of the Purple Gold Gourd's devouring power, so why would she still dare to pursue me so closely?" Zhang Ruochen thought to himself.
"Zhang Ruochen, this gourd of yours is a fine treasure. Let it compensate for this body of mine."
Yan Hong Great Saint had been exceptionally beautiful, with an alluring figure and skin as white as jade. But now, her skin and flesh split open, her delicate, beautiful face was torn apart by bones, her eyes vanished, her delicate nose melted, and her red lips burned to ashes.
In an instant, the former jade-like beauty, with her icy skin and jade-like flesh, disappeared, transforming into a terrifying pink skeleton.
The skeleton radiated deathly qi, corroding the soil of this region into a desolate land of the dead. Its body swelled violently, from over a meter tall to dozens of meters, then hundreds of meters...
Finally, its bone body burst through the thick soil, reaching a height of one thousand eight hundred miles.
Zhang Ruochen's body was not even one percent the size of one of its toe bones.
The space formation, spanning hundreds of miles in diameter, could only cover a small part of its bone body.
Even more terrifying, the pink skeleton emitted strands of divine aura. On every bone, an undying secret pattern emerged, allowing it to stabilize its form within the collapsing space.
Zhang Ruochen was greatly shaken, staring at the colossal entity before him, muttering to himself, "So it's a divine skeleton, having cultivated to the Great Perfection of the Hundred Shackles Realm. No wonder Yan Hong Great Saint could become one of the three candidates for Divine Maiden. Her innate advantage is simply too great."
Zhang Ruochen had read the information on Yan Hong Great Saint, but it only recorded that she had awakened from the deep underground of the Santu River basin, existing for an extremely ancient era.
Who would have thought it was a divine skeleton reawakening?
The pink skeleton's form was very human-like, with a crystalline body. Besides the bones, it had gorgeous pink hair, each strand hundreds of miles long, like a divine rainbow waterfall.
"Time to die!"
The pink skeleton's massive bone palm, like a patch of divine qi-colored clouds, struck straight down at Zhang Ruochen.
"The space formation at the gourd's mouth is clearly not strong enough."
The space inscriptions at the gourd's mouth were engraved by Zhang Ruochen shortly after he broke through to become a Spiritual Power Great Saint.
But now, Zhang Ruochen's Spiritual Power had reached the sixty-second rank, and his space mastery was even greater than before, allowing him to engrave a more powerful space formation.
Of course, saying this now was too late.
Feeling the powerful divine force contained in the bone palm, Zhang Ruochen had no choice but to fully activate the Purple Gold Gourd's supreme inscriptions. Instantly, the gourd ignited, and from its mouth surged a pillar of red-gold flame.
The flame pillar was condensed from supreme power, filled with penetrating and destructive force.
"Boom, rumble."
The flame pillar clashed with the pink skeleton's palm print. The surrounding soil rapidly melted, and a blinding light spread across the entire Ghost Clan home planet.
Around the one-thousand-eight-hundred-mile-tall pink skeleton, the continent turned into a lake of magma, and its body continuously retreated backward.
The divine bone palm showed signs of melting, unable to withstand the supreme power.
"So it's a supreme sacred artifact! The Undying Blood Clan's supreme sacred artifact is actually in your hands... Haha, good, very good!"
The pink skeleton emitted a vast, melodious female voice. On the ring finger of its divine bone hand, it wore an ancient ruby ring.
Strands of pink mist surged into the ring.
"Sizzle."
The ring's surface revealed dense supreme inscriptions. Thousands of ancient pictographic characters flew out of the ring, circling it, releasing increasingly stronger supreme power and death qi.
"How is this possible? I understand now. So that's how it is."
Zhang Ruochen first showed a surprised expression, then immediately had a sudden realization, understanding many things.
First, the Great Saint of the Bone Clan wielding the supreme sacred artifact had always been Yan Hong Great Saint.
Second, during the battle for the Sacred Intent Pill, Yan Hong Great Saint wielded the five-element monarch sacred artifact, the Purple Cauldron, only to lull her opponents into a false sense of security, allowing her to strike them off guard at a critical moment.
Third, precisely because the Purple Cauldron was not Yan Hong Great Saint's true battle weapon, its power was very limited, which was why Zhang Ruochen, at the Immortal Realm, could injure her body with a single palm strike.
"You understand too late. Die!"
The aura emitted by the ruby ring was identical to that of the pink skeleton's bones, incredibly ancient, as if it had been worn on her finger since ancient times.
The power of two supreme sacred artifacts clashed, unleashing terrifying might. Soon, the continent they were on melted into an ocean of magma.
The souls on the continent were taken away by Ghost Clan Great Saints in time and were not killed.
Zhang Ruochen's back wound reopened, sacred blood flowing freely.
Because he had to focus on controlling the Purple Gold Gourd, he had no spare energy to suppress the A-Mo Curse invading his body. The A-Mo Curse rampaged wildly within him, invading his bloodline, bones, internal organs, and even rushing toward his head.
"Master, I can't absorb the A-Mo Curse. Instead, it's destroying the sacred dao rules I've condensed. What should we do now?" Shi Shenghua's anxious voice sounded within Zhang Ruochen.
"Bang!"
In the area between Zhang Ruochen and the pink skeleton, the planet's core, made of extreme metal element, shattered, forming a massive crack.
"What's happening?"
Both Zhang Ruochen and the pink skeleton were startled.
Extreme metal element was incredibly hard, a material used to forge supreme sacred artifacts and divine artifacts. How could it shatter from the pressure of two supreme sacred artifacts?
Although the power of supreme sacred artifacts was strong, Zhang Ruochen and the pink skeleton were only Great Saints, not gods.
That crack led straight to the planet's core, with streams of golden mist surging out.
"Swoosh—"
Even stranger things happened. Where the golden mist spread, the magma instantly solidified into solid gold.
Real gold.
Because they were protected by the power of supreme sacred artifacts, the golden mist could not approach Zhang Ruochen or the pink skeleton. It was unknown whether it could kill a Great Saint, turning them into a golden statue.
"There must be a great opportunity deep underground."
Both Zhang Ruochen and Yan Hong Great Saint had this thought.
The pink skeleton saw that the A-Mo Curse was eroding Zhang Ruochen's body, and he could not hold on much longer. She wanted to kill him faster. So, with one hand, she activated the ruby ring, and with the other, she formed a pink flower.
Thousand Questions-level sacred art, Death's Kiss.
Zhang Ruochen gritted his teeth, watching the magnificent flower falling from the sky. He immediately supported the Purple Gold Gourd with one hand and formed the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Palm with the other, mobilizing the Yin-Yang Five Elements Sacred Intent.
"It's not just you who have cultivated sacred intent. You should also see mine."
A dragon's roar sounded.
A million times the yang force and palm dao rules shot out from his palm at the same time.
At the same time, the Yin-Yang Five Elements Sacred Intent merged with the palm force, causing the palm technique's power to rise step by step, shattering the pink skeleton's Death's Kiss with overwhelming force.
The continuous palm force struck the pink skeleton's chest, pushing its one-thousand-eight-hundred-mile-tall divine bone body back seventeen steps.
Those seventeen steps covered several thousand miles.
"Pfft."
Although he repelled the pink skeleton, Zhang Ruochen spat out a mouthful of black blood.
The power of the A-Mo Curse invaded every part of his body, only the areas around the Divine Wood Heart and Qi Sea remained unaffected, temporarily able to block it.
Without thinking, Zhang Ruochen used the Purple Gold Gourd to protect himself and leaped into the crack in the extreme metal element, fleeing toward the unknown planet's core.
"How is this possible? Zhang Ruochen's Hundred Shackles-level high-rank sacred art palm technique could easily break my Death's Kiss, and the residual palm force could even push me back. Could the sacred intent he cultivated have reached the second rank? Impossible, absolutely impossible. Even if he had the talent to fuse a second-rank sacred intent, he couldn't have succeeded this quickly."
The pink skeleton clearly sensed how terrifying Zhang Ruochen's palm strike was. If not for Death's Kiss blocking it, even with her divine bone body, she would have been injured.
If it were someone like Yi Ghost King or Simu Ghost Emperor, Zhang Ruochen could have struck them into divine form annihilation with one palm.
The pink skeleton felt a sense of crisis, and her desire to kill Zhang Ruochen grew stronger. She shrank her divine bone body to normal human size and charged into the crack in the extreme metal element.
As soon as she entered the crack, she understood why the extreme metal element had shattered.
Because the true extreme metal element was only a very thin layer on the surface, like an eggshell.
Inside the shell was still golden material, but its hardness was far inferior to the extreme metal element.
The deeper she went toward the planet's core, the denser the golden mist became, and the power it contained grew stronger. Even with the supreme sacred artifact's power, the pink skeleton could barely resist.
Her divine bone body, touched by the golden mist, immediately showed golden light.
"What formidable golden mist! How was it formed, that it can even slowly assimilate divine bones? Zhang Ruochen's demigod body has only broken one shackle. Can he withstand it?"
The pink skeleton activated the undying secret patterns on her divine bones and continued deeper into the planet's core.
By revealing his second-rank sacred intent, Zhang Ruochen knew the pink skeleton would pursue him at all costs. So, he desperately charged toward the planet's core. His injuries worsened, and his sacred qi was heavily depleted, making it hard to continue activating the Purple Gold Gourd's supreme power.
Gradually, the golden mist invaded Zhang Ruochen's body. His hair and skin turned gold first, losing sensation.
His muscles also slowly lost feeling...
"What kind of cursed place is this? Even a Great Saint can't withstand this golden mist."
Zhang Ruochen fully mobilized the Purifying Divine Flame and a million times the yang force, melting the golden skin and hair, restoring them.
He charged another thousand miles toward the core, where the golden mist had condensed into liquid, forming a golden river.
"I can't go any further. Even the Purifying Divine Flame and yang force can't withstand it."
Zhang Ruochen pulled out the Thousand Ring Ring, finding that this four-element monarch sacred artifact had turned gold. Its internal inscriptions could not be activated, becoming an ordinary golden iron ring.
Fortunately, the Purple Gold Gourd withstood the golden mist's erosion. Zhang Ruochen turned into a speck of light and hid inside the gourd.
"Bang!"
The Purple Gold Gourd fell into the golden river, flowing with the current toward the planet's core.
Zhang Ruochen only wanted to hide inside the gourd and refine the A-Mo Curse first, not caring where the current would take him.
The pink skeleton pursued to the bank of the golden river. Her divine bone body could no longer resist, and she dared not go further.
On the bank, she picked up the Thousand Ring Ring, now a golden iron ring. Holding it, she stared at the wide golden river and muttered to herself, "It seems Zhang Ruochen doesn't want to die by my hand, so he jumped into the golden river. Even my divine bone body can't withstand it. How could he?"
The pink skeleton searched this golden world again but found no opportunities or traces of Zhang Ruochen. She then returned to the surface.
...
In the Destiny Temple.
"Second-rank sacred intent! Xue Jue, you've been hiding it well. No wonder the Undying Blood Clan's gods agreed to let Zhang Ruochen wield the supreme sacred artifact. So that's the key." The ghostly projection of Ghost Lord appeared, snorting coldly.
Hell Realm had not seen a new second-rank sacred intent in too many years. For this reason, the gods in the Destiny Temple were all shaken.
Without a doubt, with his second-rank sacred intent, Zhang Ruochen had laid a solid foundation to become the leading figure of this eon.
Another ghost clan god's projection appeared, saying, "Unfortunately, Zhang Ruochen was struck by the A-Mo Divine Sword. The A-Mo Curse has invaded his entire body. Pursued by Yan Hong Great Saint, he will likely fall on the Ghost Clan home planet."
The speaker was the City Lord of Wuchang Ghost City, who had given the A-Mo Divine Sword to Ye Changzai.
Knowing the power of the A-Mo Divine Sword well, the City Lord of Wuchang Ghost City felt Zhang Ruochen's chances were slim this time.
Sighs from many gods echoed. It was not easy for Hell Realm to produce a Great Saint who had cultivated a second-rank sacred intent. If he died like this, it would be a great loss.
Xue Jue War God remained calm and steady, saying, "Life and death have their own fate. I believe Zhang Ruochen's potential has not yet fully erupted. Hu, Ye Changzai, and Yan Hong Great Saint are still too mediocre to be qualified to kill him."
The gods behind Hu, Ye Changzai, and Yan Hong Great Saint all snorted coldly.
It must be noted that Hu, Ye Changzai, and Yan Hong Great Saint all had a great chance of becoming gods, each being extraordinary. Only someone like Xue Jue War God, a former eon-level genius, would dare call them mediocre. After all, their perspectives differed.
Other gods dared not say such things.
Because when they were Great Saints, their performance was about the same as Hu, Ye Changzai, and Yan Hong Great Saint, or even worse. Calling these three mediocre would be calling themselves mediocre too.
Xue Jue War God added, "Don't forget what lies inside the Ghost Clan home planet."
...
I have something to do tonight and may not have time to write. Just this one chapter of four thousand words today.
:.: