C2190 Show Your True Self!

Yuen Bu remained still, his gaze fixed on the Beast Temple, his back to the deep purple sea where Zhiya resided. He intently watched Yu Yuan and said, "You should be more eager than I am."

Yu Yuan's brow furrowed as he replied, "I'm desperate to know her whereabouts."

"She's still alive," Yuen Bu declared, his eyes gleaming with a cryptic smile. "Her survival is crucial to me as well. Only if she thrives can I secure my position."

No sooner had he spoken than a surge of Yuen Bu's blood energy infused the Eye of Life above the Creation Pool, an artifact Yu Yuan had crafted from a drop of his own blood. This dark red eye now served as a shared conduit for both Yu Yuan and Yuen Bu.

Yu Yuan, having refined the Eye of Life with the lifeblood of the Desolate Realm, was intimately familiar with its functions—as was Yuen Bu, the King of the Desolate Realm. Indeed, Yuen Bu had wielded the Eye of Life for many years.

With a whoosh, Yuen Bu's blood energy coalesced into a majestic and solemn hall within the depths of the dark red eye—the Beast Temple. The Eye of Life, now a vessel for Yuen Bu's blood energy, began to siphon off Yu Yuan's vital essence. Yuen Bu had assumed control of the eye, using it to peer into the Creation Pool with caution, not daring to venture too close, revealing his profound reverence for the Nine-layered Barrier surrounding the pool.

Yu Yuan, whose consciousness had not yet been banished, sensed a deep melancholy and a sense of helplessness emanating from the dark red eye.

The Eye of Life observed in silence as Sekou, once robust as a mountain, had withered to skin and bones. His sharp, hook-like claws tore at his chest, muddling flesh and blood as he ceaselessly crafted tiny stones from his lifeblood. With each stone that emerged and soared toward the resplendent Nine-layered Barrier, Sekou's frame grew more gaunt.

His chest was a torn landscape of flesh and exposed bone, his once-pulsing heart now disproportionately small against his emaciated frame. It was a heart in severe atrophy.

The sorrow that Yu Yuan felt was a reflection of Sekou's tragic plight. Sekou, having ascended to the Eleventh Level through Mother Earth's favor, now suffered as his spirit was ruthlessly usurped by her.

Mother Earth, in her quest to unlock the secrets of an earth spirit sealed within the barrier, had been trading Sekou's earth power and blood essence without concern for his survival.

Yuen Bu, the King of the Desolate Realm, surprisingly harbored affection for Sekou. Sekou's plight not only filled him with sorrow but also prompted Yuen Bu to reflect on his own destiny. He pondered whether he would share Sekou's fate if not for the lingering aura of death from the Secular Bird Queen within him, an aura he had yet to fully purge.

Standing behind Yu Yuan, Yuen Bu's face was a mask of indifference, his eyes betraying a sense of utter hopelessness.

Suddenly, Yu Yuan noticed numerous concealed blood patterns emerging prolifically throughout the expansive Beast Temple. The vast hall's blood-red stone floor silently transformed into a crimson lake.

Flashes of bloody light burst forth from the lake, revealing a multitude of alien beasts and creatures from the Desolate Realm. The lake's roars, thunderous and earth-shaking, echoed chaotically within the hall.

Yuen Bu's blood clone, exuding an aura of death, permeated the hall. However, the resonating roars of the beasts swiftly scattered the deathly presence.

The blood clone, wreathed in death and venom, accumulated these forces at the clone's forehead. In the blink of an eye, a drop of green blood materialized there.

This viridian droplet, rich with the essence of death and potent poison, originated from the Secular Bird Queen. Her fate, gravely wounded by Yuen Bu, remained uncertain.

Yuen Bu had seized a drop of her divine green blood and subjected his blood clone to its corrosive death and poison. The clone and Yuen Bu's true self were interconnected, allowing him to let the clone be further tainted by the green blood's lethal forces, thereby generating even more power.

Emerging from the Beast Temple, Yuen Bu's true form, now also tinged with death and poison, appeared before Yu Yuan. He seemed to be struggling tirelessly to cleanse himself of the persistent forces of death and poison, but it was merely an arduous façade.

"So, you've harbored disloyalty all along."

Having seen the truth, Yu Yuan finally turned to face Yuen Li, whose beastly form was immaculate, devoid of any death symbols or even the slightest whiff of death's scent.

Yuen Li, who appeared to struggle immensely, had been unable to rid himself of the power of death. This was because he had been transferring the death power from his blood clone in the temple to his main body through their connection.

He had put on an act of tirelessly working to buy time and cleanse the death power within him.

"As long as a trace of death power remains within you, its spirit and consciousness will not truly descend upon you."

Yu Yuan applauded, admiring the King of Desolate Realm's cunning. "You've gone to great lengths to preserve your selfhood and to prevent it from taking over," he said with a smile.

The Demon Phoenix, which had been luring Yuen Li down the path of betrayal, now fell silent.

In the cold gaze of its Demonic Eye, there was a glint of 'I knew it,' as if it had anticipated Yuen Li's wavering resolve.

"Despicable coward!"

The girl within the Light Star racked her brain to grasp what had transpired.

She despised Yuen Li's character and, with a voice as melodious as a mountain stream, she chastised him, "You profess loyalty and swear fealty, yet you'd prefer Yu Yuan to gain the blood lightning rather than purge the death power from your body, allowing it to possess you in an instant!"

"It was supposed to effortlessly resolve all troubles. Yu Yuan should never have had such an easy time obtaining the blood lightning!"

"It turns out you've been the one holding it back!"

The Light Origin Spirit gnashed its teeth and stamped its foot within the star, cursing Yuen Li's treachery.

"I owe you my thanks."

Yuen Li lifted his head, his face breaking into a radiant smile, "Without your revelation, I would never have known that its spirit couldn't escape the ninefold seal of the Creation Pool. I would never have been able to show my true self. As long as its consciousness persists, Creation Peak is its domain, and I'm confined to minor deeds within the Beast Temple."

"Enough."

"I will claim Creation Peak, the boundless life energy within the mountain's core, and the other half of the life laws it has withheld from me."

"Yu Yuan, witness the extent of my strength as the King of the Desolate Realm. Behold the power I can wield with my own might in the Desolate Realm and at Creation Peak."

"This is the Desolate Realm, my dominion, and I am its sole ruler!"

Yuen Bu bellowed, thrusting his arms into the air.

From a star, distant from Creation Peak, the Beast Gods roared, their forms influenced by his power, revealing their primal beastly shapes.

The Beast Gods perched upon the star heeded the summons. One after another, defying the vastness of space, they materialized instantaneously within the Beast Temple.

This included the Black Goat and the Old Ape!

Nearly a hundred Beast Gods abruptly resumed their rightful places. The Beast Temple, under Yuen Bu's firm control, appeared to have reached its completion.

Seizing the moment of the Origin Blood Spirit's consciousness succumbing, the Beast Temple harnessed the boundless blood energy amassed within the mountain's belly, unleashing a cataclysmic surge.

The Creation Peak trembled with a thunderous roar.

The stars and lands, now devoid of Beast Gods, began to pulse with crimson energy. Some stars' deep seas and valleys were stained with hues of blood energy, each contributing their might to the Beast Temple.

Whoosh!

The Beast Temple, now aloft, shrank into a Shrouded Tower under Yuen Bu's refinement. Effortlessly, he held it in his palm, transforming it into his most adept divine weapon.

Even without manifesting the colossal form of the Heaven Lifting Giant Ape, Yuen Bu's presence exuded an imperious aura capable of rending the very fabric of the void.

"Zhiya!"

He launched the Beast Temple, now cradled in his grasp, towards the thick, purple sea of Demon Energy where the Demon Phoenix resided.

As the Beast Temple, first diminished then rapidly expanding as it fell, enveloped the bloodlines of nearly a hundred Beast Gods and the infinite blood energy it had amassed, it hurtled toward the deep purple sea of Demon Energy.

Zhiya's face was etched with utmost gravity. As the Beast Temple bore down upon her, she envisioned the myriad of formidable beings, forged by the Origin Blood of this realm over eons, now transformed into a relentless tide of beasts.

The Beast Gods had become an army, a multitude that filled the void, making the Starfield around Creation Peak seem suddenly overwhelmed with their presence.

This was a Beast God torrent powerful enough to battle the mightiest in the Origin Realm!

Crack!

The chair beneath her voluptuous form inexplicably shattered, releasing phoenixes that soared from its broken remains.

Her secretly nurtured spiritual pets in the deep purple sea whimpered softly, as if longing to flee.

Their cries warned her that she was no match for the current Yuen Bu and the Beast Temple.

She needed to make her way back to the Phoenix Shrine without delay!

Cracks emerged within the purple sea, and the dense demonic energy within flowed toward the numerous spatial fissures.

One such fissure shimmered with light, revealing the enigmatic Phoenix Shrine.

Yu Zhu, the White Divine Tiger, and the loyal Beast Gods stood tall in a realm of deep purple.

The Phoenix Shrine was nestled there.

"Zhiya, today I will capture you all. You, Yu Yuan, and the Secular Bird, I will slay you all within my domain."

The Beast Temple crashed down, obliterating the spatial fissures, and the phoenixes born from the chair turned to ash.

In one of the fissures, the dark purple world contorted like a distorted reflection in water. Realizing Zhiya couldn't escape in time, the Phoenix Shrine, capable of traversing the void, made its way from that realm toward Creation Peak.

"Come on, I welcome you!" Yuen Bu bellowed with laughter, then turned to swipe at Yu Yuan.

From the depths of the void, a colossal arm, as long as a mountain range and covered in blood-red lightning, each hair embodying the profound laws of life, emerged.

Clang!

Yu Yuan, soaring skyward, was slammed into the side of Creation Peak by the massive arm that seemed to reach out from the void itself.

It was heading straight for the Creation Pool.

"You're going down too."

Yuen Bu snorted, and the Light Origin Spirit, who had been incessantly mocking him on the Light Star, plummeted alongside Yu Yuan toward the Creation Pool.

"Perhaps the pool requires your strength as well."

The Eye of Life, now under Yuen Bu's control, echoed with his maniacal laughter, "Today, I will either perish in the Desolate Realm or be reborn!"

The mountain's belly groaned, its walls turning a deep crimson, brimming with boundless, potent blood energy.

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