Free Web NovelChapter 399: Chapter 391: Eye of the Divine
The Eye of the Divine...
If one were to gaze upon the Eye of the Divine from the S-Class or Holy Hall Tier, it would be like a frog in a well looking at the sky. They would think that while the "heavens" were vast and distant, they could still be observed and explored, requiring little reverence.
But to gaze upon the Eye of the Divine from the Nirvana Tier...
Only then would one understand what it means to be a mayfly gazing upon the cerulean heavens.
And at this moment, Quintetra, having just entered the Nirvana Tier, had barged into Shi Ming’s Sea of Spirit and was "lucky" enough to see the "single eye" suspended high above.
With just a single glance,
its stable Nirvana Origin fell into disarray for a full second.
...
Shi Ming didn’t know what had just happened inside his Sea of Spirit, but he noticed Quintetra’s body falter for an instant.
An unexpected boon!
Shi Ming had originally thought that the failed use of [Bore] would buy him some time and, at the same time, rapidly drain Quintetra’s already low Endurance. Once its Endurance of just over 200 was depleted, it wouldn’t be able to use any of its powerful skills, no matter how strong they were.
He never expected such an opportunity!
CRACK!
Magma erupted as his body shot forward like a sharp sword!
His Attack Power, stacked with the Commander-in-Chief’s Ruin and the Arm of Power, was so high he could barely control it. Even Shi Ming’s own body was difficult to manage. Fortunately, he wasn’t using a weapon. Relying on his fundamental control over his body, he unleashed his limit of seven attacks in a single second.
His momentum was like a torrent of magma!
His heat was like a bursting nova!
With the final blow, Shi Ming followed the gash and charged directly into Quintetra’s ruptured body.
The stifled Quintetra felt a wave of excruciating pain, so intense that even its Nirvana-Tier Spiritual Power couldn’t endure it. With a roar, it regained consciousness and rapidly fled from Shi Ming’s Sea of Spirit!
’There’s a huge problem in there!’
’No, it could also be a great opportunity! A great treasure!’
’This human before me is only at the Holy Hall Tier; it’s impossible for him to possess such a transcendent power. Besides, that eye has no consciousness. It’s an inanimate object. It must be a treasure.’
ROAR!
It completely erupted!
Its personally evolved skill, [Bore], had suffered a complete fiasco on its very first use. It was also far harder to control than it had anticipated; achieving even 70%, let alone 100%, synchronization in a short time would be difficult.
Moreover, the attacks of this human wreathed in flowing magma were so tyrannical!
His Attack Power must have been boosted to an unimaginable degree using some special method. Quintetra had roamed through different Star Domains and civilizations and had seen similar racial secret arts or techniques, but it had never seen one with such outstanding effects.
’At least two trump cards!’
’If I devour him...’
’The treasure and the secret art will all be mine.’
ROAR~!
All these thoughts flashed through its mind in an instant. Just as Quintetra’s consciousness returned, Shi Ming burst out of its sliced-open body. Before Quintetra could take further action, it discovered that its stomach sac had been torn open by that tyrannical, scorching attack.
The stomach sac was the foundation of its power.
After devouring a Holy Hall life-form, it couldn’t digest their skill origins in a short time. It could only store them in its stomach sac, using the power of time to slowly break them down and integrate them. When necessary, it could randomly spit one out to use their skill once. After mutation within the stomach sac, these skills could change for the better, or for the worse.
But now, it was broken.
Quintetra’s rage burned hotter than Shi Ming’s own body.
What enraged it even more was seeing that this human, who had just burst from its body, seemed to have planned everything. He precisely snatched two Holy Hall Skill origins and even used his Spiritual Power to wrap up the treasure it had created after devouring the Candle Mirage—the "Miniature Wormhole."
In the blink of an eye,
all three items were stowed away, vanishing without a trace.
???
BOOM!
In a fit of indescribable fury, Quintetra’s torn body exploded. Each piece transformed into a smaller bug. Like insects that could bore through the universe, they whizzed toward Shi Ming’s body.
This was Quintetra’s second time using [Bore]!
A physical-level [Bore]!
Shi Ming swiftly dodged, activating both the Black Tortoise Shield and Eternal Sanctuary.
But Quintetra was an expert at finding loopholes. No matter how solid a defense, there was always a flaw. And even if there wasn’t one, Quintetra could create one. Its most common method was to twist a symbolic opening—like the seven orifices or the pores—into a defensive vulnerability and bore its way inside.
It was like exploiting a bug in a game!
WHOOSH~
One of the bugs drilled into Shi Ming’s body through a pore.
All the other bugs vanished. Shi Ming only felt that the instant Quintetra drilled into him, it took a vicious bite out of his body!
It hurt. A lot.
’A Nirvana-Tier skill, indeed.’
He nearly lost his footing, but this too was part of the plan.
Whether it was the spiritual-level [Bore] or the physical-level [Bore], he had a countermeasure.
’Go on, take a bite!’
’Consider it the payment for [Bore]! A service fee!’
He gritted his teeth against the excruciating pain.
According to the analysis from his Eye of Destiny, with his current Physical Strength, he should be able to withstand four to five bites. The sixth would be extremely dangerous, and the seventh would mean instant death.
Quintetra roamed within Shi Ming’s body.
As the current master of [Bore], it had also determined how many bites it would take to corrode this human completely. That’s right—seven. Since it had no other targets to compare with, it was shocked but didn’t quite grasp the significance of needing seven bites. Still, from its own judgment, being able to eliminate a Holy Hall Tier opponent in just seven bites was already quite terrifying.
Back when it fought the Candle Mirage, it had taken three whole days and nights!
And what excited it the most was that this arrogant human was now completely helpless, able to do nothing but watch as he was devoured from the inside out!
This situation brought Quintetra immense satisfaction!
Bite!
The second bite!
Exponentially worse!
Shi Ming felt double the pain, and the corner of his mouth twitched. The damage from [Bore]’s bites doubled exponentially. If the first bite’s damage was 1, then the second was 2 times, the third was 4 times, the fourth was 8 times, the fifth was 16 times, and the sixth would be 32 times!
The third and fourth bites followed in quick succession.
Shi Ming dropped to one knee.
Magma pooled on the ground around him.
’That’s enough!’
He forcibly suppressed the intense pain as the Right Arm Red Pattern lit up, its color a hundred times hotter than the magma!
The instant Quintetra excitedly went for the fifth bite, Shi Ming activated the Arm of Conquest.
Arm of Conquest!
Conquer!
The fifth bite, which should have dealt 16 times the damage, brought him no pain at all. This instance of [Bore] was absorbed by the Arm of Conquest, stored within the Right Arm Red Pattern, and became a power he could now wield. When Shi Ming was S-Class, the Arm of Conquest could absorb Holy Hall Skills, which were a tier above. Now that he was at the Holy Hall Tier, it could naturally absorb a Nirvana-Tier skill.
The moment he conquered [Bore], Shi Ming unleashed it.
The timing was crucial.
It had to be executed with extreme precision.
If he were off by even a little, the outcome would have been tragic.
If he had acted earlier, say, absorbing the fourth bite, Shi Ming wasn’t certain if a [Bore] amplified to 80 times its power (8 x 10) would be enough to kill a Nirvana-Tier creature instantly. After all, he himself could withstand seven bites, which equated to 64 times the base damage. An 80-times-power attack wasn’t a guaranteed kill against Quintetra.
If he had acted later, for example, by enduring the fifth bite and reflecting the sixth, Shi Ming wasn’t sure if the pain from [Bore] would have sent his body into a state of temporary paralysis. Even a hesitation of just 0.1 seconds would have likely meant failure.
His timing was perfect.
The relentlessly advancing Quintetra had only just realized its attack had failed when it was instantly pinpointed by Shi Ming’s powerful Spiritual Power. The 160-times-power [Bore] (16 x 10), returned by the Arm of Conquest, unleashed an annihilation storm inside Shi Ming’s body. The location of Quintetra, along with a large part of Shi Ming’s own flesh, was reduced to a ruined husk where not a single cell survived.
...
A few illusory butterflies flew in from the seawater. One of them flapped its wings and transformed into a three-inch-long Kun.
The Kun then transformed into Shi Ming.
