A Night of Desperation
Chapter 603: Source 602 One

From the exterior appearance at this moment, Yu Hong felt somewhat apprehensive about this newly emerged trait.

In the space of his mind, he approached it and extended his hand, gently touching the black-and-white light ball.

Immediately, an invisible flow of information streamed into his mind.

’Fusion successful, you have obtained the trait: Ancient Wanderer.’

’Ancient Wanderer (They are above the universe, above the changes of time, eternally unmoving, standing as unchanging shadows beyond the river of time.)’

’Warning: Your essence has surpassed the known dimensional limits, automatically stepping into an unknown area.’

’You have obtained the Ancient Wanderer talent—Decay Resistance (All attacks below Heavenly Venerate cannot escape the constraints of time and space before you, unable to touch your true essence, damage reduced by 99%)’

’You have obtained the Ancient Wanderer talent—Freedom (All energies below Heavenly Venerate are too low-level for you, can be manipulated and affected by mere thought)’

’You have obtained the Ancient Wanderer talent—Eternal Forge (Your body is reinforced with race enhancement, defense, strength, speed, increased by 150 times)’

’You have obtained the Ancient Wanderer talent—Drift (When time and space are destroyed, you have one opportunity to jump out of the current dimension, limited to oneself, decision time is 30 seconds)’

Hiss....

Seeing this, Yu Hong already understood that the level of the Black Mark had far exceeded his imagination.

What level is an Ancient Wanderer??!

He didn’t know, but whether it was Heavenly Venerate or top Star God, they were powerful beings who could freely manipulate time and space. An Ancient Wanderer being immune to time and space influence was clearly already quite close to these two levels.

"Although I have successfully fused, I don’t feel any different myself..."

Yu Hong sensed his entire body, indeed not finding any problems or changes.

’No... there are still changes...’ Yu Hong carefully felt, suddenly noticing that the unconscious pressure that would occasionally seep in from outside was no longer felt.

He felt as if he were sailing through ordinary space, completely unperturbed.

’But being unaffected by time and space, accelerated cultivation might be out of the question.’ He sighed, unwilling to waste time, beginning to ponder what to strengthen next.

He walked to the window, gazing at the massive corpse of the Heavenly Venerate outside.

"Time is short. If I want to keep going without being overtaken by the Great Annihilation behind, the only way is to strengthen the safe house and my cultivation and Outer Eye. But the strengthening of these two takes too long... the quickest way to enhance myself..."

His gaze fell once again on his traits.

Now he had a total of twelve traits. He could still fuse three more times!

And the time required for fusion wasn’t long due to his own cultivation realm and mana enhancement.

He immediately pondered.

’The impending danger is unprecedented. Simply increasing overall power will clearly be too slow. Right now, prioritizing resistance and ensuring my survival while going deeper is key.’

He tried to minimize the scope of the Black Mark enhancement in his mind.

Having determined the direction, he set his sights on the newly emerged Ancient Wanderer, with all body reinforcements stacked onto this trait. If he wanted to strengthen further, he’d have to sacrifice other traits to boost this one.

’The strength of this trait is extremely high; regular traits shouldn’t overshadow it... it’s worth a try.’

It’s not the time to hesitate, he was not in his usual state, and if strengthening and fusion couldn’t yield a trait to escape his predicament, retaining the Ancient Wanderer would be meaningless.

Having figured it out, Yu Hong grabbed the still-warm Ancient Wanderer light ball and forcibly merged it with another, the King of Decay.

From this point on, the series of traits from King of Decay was completely fused.

The two light balls twisted, forcibly merging together into a golden light ball with black-and-white threads swimming on its surface.

An even more eerie aura emanated from the light ball.

’Fuse this?’

The Black Mark inquiry arrived. Simultaneously, a countdown appeared on the surface of the light ball: 11 days, 3 hours, 8 minutes.

’Yes!’ Yu Hong immediately confirmed.

The next moment, the terrifying mana of his Mahayana Realm began to flood out wildly.

After more than half an hour, the flooding stopped.

The countdown flashed, officially starting.

Only then did Yu Hong breathe a sigh of relief, exiting the trait space.

Regaining his senses, his gaze passed through the external void, looking at the gigantic dark red corpse of the Heavenly Venerate.

’Why not.... see if it can be converted?’ He felt the insatiable hunger for vitality inside him, immediately becoming tempted.

Soon after, the Black Black Spirit door opened wide, and Yu Hong gently floated out.

He initially felt the radiation of the Heartless Belt outside.

Nothing felt.

It was as if a special thick skin covered him, firmly blocking everything from the outside.

With a flash of thought, within seconds, arrays surrounded him, mana surged, and he immediately teleported away from his original location.

The next moment, he directly appeared on the surface of the gigantic dark red Heavenly Venerate corpse.

In his field of vision, the full sight of the corpse was not visible.

Yu Hong looked around, finding himself on a dark red plain.

The ground had dense semi-arc patterns, incredibly hard, stepping on it felt akin to an ordinary person stepping on metal.

Having ensured the surroundings were safe, Yu Hong steadied himself, crouching down and touching the dark red hard surface on the ground.

He quietly activated the mass-energy conversion of the Heavenly Venerate’s incomplete rank.

Controlling in his mind, converting the material into vitality energy.

Hiss...

Soon, a small palm-sized piece of red hard surface under his hand slowly became transparent and disappeared.

In the next moment, a brand new circular golden crystal, dazzling with piercing golden light inside, floated in front of Yu Hong.

Mass-energy conversion completed.

"It actually worked!!?" Yu Hong was shocked.

This golden crystal in front of him, just feeling it at close range, the total amount of vitality inside had already far surpassed those previous small particles.

Its size had reached the size of a watermelon.

Just now, Yu Hong had exerted all his strength to convert; at this moment, this crystal was clearly the limit of his current mass-energy conversion.

With a snap, Yu Hong grasped the crystal and immediately teleported, escaping the surface of the Heavenly Venerate’s remains.

Back in the safe house, he looked back at the remains of the Heavenly Venerate.

Although a small piece of flesh was missing from there, it still showed no signs of movement.

With his strong eyesight, he could see that the piece of flesh he had removed had hardened, and now it had restored itself to its original state, as if it had never been taken.

"Sorry, senior, I had no choice but to damage your remains. If you feel anger, please wait until after the Great Annihilation to vent it on me," Yu Hong said seriously, bowing to the dark red non-human Heavenly Venerate remains, and whispered.

Then, he began cultivation with the crystal.

He was currently in the Mahayana Realm, lacking the massive amount of vitality converted to mana. To strengthen his overall amount and achieve a breakthrough in cultivation, vitality was the foundation of everything.

After discovering this method, Yu Hong started continuously converting the Heavenly Venerate’s remains into vitality for absorption, while also waiting for the trait fusion to end.

Simultaneously, he contacted Ku Chan and Quan He in the Floating City every few days.

If not for the Great Annihilation chasing behind him, this kind of life wouldn’t be too bad for him.

Unfortunately....

A few days later, Yu Hong stood at the window, looking at the massive unconscious body monsters flying densely towards him, his face grim.

Some of these monsters were humanoid, some were fish-shaped, and others were strange shapes as if various animals and birds were pieced together.

But no matter the type, they all had two common features: they burned with silvery-grey flames and had enormous bodies.

These unconscious bodies were star-system-sized, enormous creatures that seemed like insects before the Heavenly Venerate, but for Yu Hong, they were absolutely gigantic.

Among these enormous creatures, he even saw the skeletal humans that had hunted him before; they numbered in the hundreds, buzzing like a swarm of mosquitoes flying past the Heavenly Venerate without paying attention to the safe house, flying straight towards the deeper part of the Wind Disaster as if driven by something.

Yu Hong looked in the direction they were flying from, where it had turned into a curtain of black and white threads, surging and rolling.

"Time to go...." he sighed.

Even the unconscious bodies were being driven towards the deeper part of the Source Disaster.

If he stayed any longer, he might also...

Immediately, he opened the communicator water instrument ball, trying to contact the Floating City.

But the communicator was full of static, impossible to hear anything clear at the moment, clearly too close to the Great Annihilation, causing too much interference.

Abandoning communication, Yu Hong could only wish them good luck, then went to the main control cabin, looking straight ahead through the circular glass window.

’Two more days until the fusion ends, but unfortunately.... time waits for no one....’

He calmed down, quickly released his divine sense to scan the current state of Black Black Spirit.

Confirming it was without any damage or malfunction, immediately... he let go of his control over Black Black Spirit, allowing it to continue drifting on its own.

Buzz.

Behind Black Black Spirit, just as he let it go, a faint white flame appeared.

It began to flicker, becoming half-transparent, seemingly gradually leaving this space.

About a few minutes later.

Poof.

With a crisp sound, Black Black Spirit abruptly vanished within the Heartless Belt.

Not far away, the gigantic Heavenly Venerate’s remains were already starting to touch the leading edge of the black and white threads of the Great Annihilation.

Part of the Heavenly Venerate’s body began to disintegrate silently, collapsing, disappearing....

Everything started moving towards annihilation...

*

*

*

Who knows how much time had passed.

Yu Hong slowly woke up from the muddled state.

As soon as he woke up, he was startled.

’I actually fainted??!’

He quickly sat up, spreading his divine sense to check his surroundings.

Pure white light permeated the safe house. Outside, it was a world of pure white, without any impurities.

Yu Hong slowly got up, his brows furrowed.

’Where is this? After the Heartless Belt, is it the Invisible Belt? Is this the Invisible Belt?’

He didn’t know what he would encounter in the Invisible Belt, only that Su Dan senior had mentioned that it was extremely dangerous.

Inside Black Black Spirit was completely silent, not moving, seemingly having come to a complete halt.

In the empty main control room, the Array was still operating, and the safe house hadn’t issued any warning noises, as if this was a place of peace.

Yu Hong heightened his vigilance to the extreme, approaching the window to look outside.

Outside was a pure white expanse, without any reference points. He couldn’t even tell if Black Black Spirit was moving.

He checked the clock on the wall, the time had been completely stopped by some unknown interference.

He also checked the countdown on the Black Mark.