A Night of Desperation
Chapter 610: Guide 609 Four

On the light screen, it was clearly showing the situation of the Heartless Belt from which they had just escaped.

At this moment, within the Heartless Belt like a starry sky, the branches of the Night Mother Tree were being completely submerged and shrouded by the massive swathes of black mist emerging behind them.

This time, the black mist was entirely pitch black, without any gleams, like thick black sludge; once touched, it adhered completely and couldn’t be shaken off.

The places contaminated on the Mother Tree were crumbling and disintegrating, while the shadow monsters on it were flying up like swarms of insects, trying to escape.

But their speed in this vast Heartless Belt was too slow, too small.

As a result, looking from afar, it appeared like a movie scene slowed down dozens of times; they had just taken off and were instantly engulfed by the thick black mist, disappearing completely.

The cities on the branches were also collapsing and disintegrating upon contact with the black mist.

At this moment, regardless of any surrender faction forces, they were being rapidly devoured indiscriminately.

"The Great Annihilation has accelerated..." Feng Xuezi sighed. "It’s not just here." He formed a spell with his fingers.

Instantly, the massive light screen in mid-air flickered and changed, splitting into several different scenes.

All of them showed the Great Annihilation approaching different regions within the Heartless Belt.

The black and white threads of the Wind Disaster were forming a colossal and boundless black and white wall, quickly advancing towards this direction, devouring countless peculiar monsters unable to escape along the way.

At the forefront of the black and white wall, a gigantic colorful tornado was rapidly flying away from the wall.

"That’s the stagnant storm of the Wind Disaster. The Storm Temple is the largest and the only surrender faction force within the Wind Disaster. The people inside spend most of their time sleeping, only going out to hunt and supplement their cognition when needed," Senior Fu Bai explained.

"I’ve never encountered it in the Wind Disaster," Yu Hong said slightly surprised.

"That’s normal. When their cognition is sufficient, they like to hide themselves completely, making them relatively safe and harmless most of the time," Senior Fu Bai nodded. "If it weren’t for the Great Annihilation this time, they probably wouldn’t have shown themselves."

Yu Hong nodded and looked toward the other screens.

He unexpectedly saw a familiar large ship.

"Isn’t that the Vitality Ship from Golden Sparrow Tower?" His eyes flashed.

An ancient style large ship was fleeing rapidly under the pressure of the black and white wall, blinking and flying a great distance in an instant.

"They’re not dead yet?" He had once had a conflict with the ship owner You Can of this ship.

"Golden Sparrow Tower survived the last Great Annihilation, naturally they have their methods," Senior Fu Bai said, "This force is very low-key and hidden. Although not strong, its legacy is ancient, dating back to the peak period of Qinghe Mountain."

"That’s indeed ancient...." Feng Xuezi nodded.

Yu Hong scrutinized the screen carefully, noticing that the aura of the Vitality Ship seemed different from when he encountered You Can before, perhaps the ship owner had changed midway.

He continued to watch; the remaining screens all depicted scenes of various surrender factions being devoured by the Great Annihilation within the Heartless Belt.

Countless monsters, flying objects were being indiscriminately crushed, devoured, submerged.

"Good or evil doesn’t matter. Facing the Great Annihilation, everything returns to nothing..." Feng Xuezi sighed.

"According to the map estimate, the Heartless Belt has roughly 35 days until it’s completely annihilated, then it’s the turn of the Invisible Belt...." Senior Fu Bai said, "If these surrender faction forces do not enter the Invisible Belt, they’ll surely follow their own survival methods. If we observe carefully, maybe we can find a way to survive by following them."

Yu Hong hesitated upon hearing this.

At this moment, his bloodline rank was extremely high, and he felt differently. In the face of the Great Annihilation, he didn’t believe the surrender factions’ methods would be applicable to them.

The surrender factions had adapted to the internal environment of Source Disaster, existing as immortal entities. Their survival difficulty was far easier than his and the others’.

"Alright, let’s not talk about this. Zheng Rou. Thanks to your timely rescue this time, I thought I was definitely going to die...." Senior Fu Bai turned his gaze softly towards Yu Hong.

As for the slightly embarrassing scene just now, he naturally treated it as non-existent.

Anyway, with the blinding golden light at that time, no one clearly saw his actions or expressions.

"Fortunately, you risked taking action, otherwise...." Senior Fu Bai didn’t finish his sentence, but everyone knew that even if he had self-detonated to hold them off, he might not have stopped the pursuing squads.

Everyone on the ship would have died then.

Yu Hong looked at Senior Fu Bai, hesitating to speak.

He actually wanted to ask what the senior intended by stretching out his arms and puckering his lips just now.

But seeing the senior’s expression, it seemed to have been forgotten.

"What are you talking about, Senior? If it weren’t for you back then, I wouldn’t have known how much danger and trouble I’d face.... Now, it’s just a little ability to repay the favor." Yu Hong said solemnly.

"Don’t be anxious. I’ve discussed with your master. With your current situation, the previous cultivation technique is no longer suitable for you. However, Qinghe Mountain doesn’t have a sufficiently compatible technique either. Your bloodline Sacred Body, we can’t match with any known record of Sacred Body, so the only method now is...."

He flipped his hand, taking out a black-golden square.

"This object is called Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme. It was once crafted by the Nine Calculation Heavenly Palace Sect formed by Sacred Bodies. Later, the sect was annihilated, and the remaining forces joined Qinghe Mountain, becoming a branch of the sect. That’s how we learned of its existence," Senior Fu Bai explained.

"Your Sacred Body’s origin is unknown, powerful, with many hidden secrets. We won’t ask, you don’t have to tell. Your cultivation technique no longer aligns with your current Sacred Body, but if you repair this object and use it, it can deduce the most suitable ultimate cultivation secret for any Sacred Body."

"!? Is this true, Senior!?" Yu Hong’s eyes lit up. He had long discovered that his rank elevation was incompatible with his low-grade mana.

Although as his rank rose, his control over mana became increasingly effortless; it was like a university student doing kindergarten math, easy and simple.

But no matter how many kindergarten math problems one solves, it won’t benefit a university student in any way.

Now, his rank had already approached that of a Heavenly Venerate. He guessed he was probably between a Golden Immortal and a Heavenly Venerate, meaning that unless he could cultivate his mana to this level, he would not be able to fully utilize all of his rank’s abilities.

Simply put, he was now like a continuously improving quality firearm, but lacking ammunition, or even having no ammunition at all.

His mana was insufficient to unleash even one-tenth of his abilities’ power.

According to his previous method, he was slowly climbing the technological tree from the era of black gunpowder, evolving and upgrading over a very long period until eventually enhancing the ammunition to a level compatible with his rank.

This approach wasn’t infeasible, but it was too slow and too time-consuming.

And the Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme given by Senior Fu Bai, according to him, could allow him to start making his own usable ammunition, greatly shortening the intermediate process, starting directly from his current rank to cultivate.

"Take it, it’s yours." Fu Bai placed the Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme in front of Yu Hong, letting it float in the air.

"Thank you, Senior, I won’t be polite then!" Yu Hong solemnly nodded, reaching out to take the Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme.

"Repair it quickly. This might be of great help to you. Essentially, it is not a man-made artifact, but an innate treasure, just slightly modified." Fu Bai reminded.

"Alright!" Yu Hong didn’t delay, immediately bidding farewell to Quan He and Yiyi, wrapping himself in mana, transforming into a silver serpent shadow, flying out of the spaceship, and returning to the Black Black Spirit.

This was one way he had discovered to use his abilities. After his mana was enhanced by the rank’s influence, he found that his mana could almost penetrate any surrounding material, as if isolated in another world, impervious and untouchable.

This was the method he had used previously to save people, using mana to wrap the spaceship and Senior Fu Bai as much as possible, then turning and fleeing.

Back to the Black Black Spirit.

Yu Hong began cultivating while waiting for the Black Mark enhancement fusion to finish.

At the same time, he carefully observed the activity patterns of invisible cataclysms within the Invisible Belt.

He now activated the dimension jump ability, allowing him to remain in a state of observing primordial particles as long as he didn’t use it.

It was just right for recording the activity patterns of the invisible cataclysms.

Meanwhile, on the Aus Academy spaceship.

Feng Xuezi and others were monitoring the outer layer of the Heartless Belt, ready to exchange intelligence with Yu Hong at any time.

Time passed slowly.

A few days later.

Yu Hong sat cross-legged on the ground of the Black Black Spirit, an oval white light screen floating in front of him, within which was Quan He’s solemn yet pretty face.

"Based on these days of observation, we can now basically confirm that the external surrender faction forces, whether it’s the Mother Tree of the Black Disaster, the Stagnant Storm of the Wind Disaster, or the Zero Pool of the Cold Disaster, or the White Star of the Drought Disaster, none of these surrender faction forces’ bases have entered the Invisible Belt. They must all know the dangers here."

Because the monitoring screen didn’t require any threshold, this task was now being handled by Quan He.

At this moment, she was communicating with Yu Hong about the recent external situation.

"What about the Light Disaster? Have there been any observations?" Yu Hong asked.

He still hadn’t forgotten about the Light Disaster he had once used as leverage.

"The observation magical artifact set up by Master Uncle hasn’t detected any traces of the Light Disaster nearby. It’s probably still farther away. After all, even a Golden Immortal can’t observe all areas of the Heartless Belt. We can only monitor our surrounding area." Quan He replied.

"So, these surrender factions all know how to survive in the Heartless Belt during the Great Annihilation among the various Source Disasters?" Yu Hong speculated.

"It’s possible... Should we continue to stay here and observe, or go deeper?" Quan He asked.

"No rush... there’s still some time before the Great Annihilation of the major Source Disasters occurs, right? Let’s wait a bit longer...." Yu Hong said solemnly. "I’m summarizing the patterns of the invisible cataclysms here, almost done. Then... even without my guidance, you can stay here safely."

"Thank you for your hard work. If you need anything, just let us know. Although we are weak, we also want to help!" Quan He said earnestly.

"Don’t worry, I won’t be polite with you." Yu Hong smiled.

Actually, he felt much better now. Even if Quan He and others did nothing, just being able to communicate and interact with him at any time gave him a sense of inexplicable relaxation.

The two chatted a bit about why Senior Fu Bai had recently been avoiding Master Uncle, and about the increasing number of people on the spaceship who were becoming languid, negative, and reluctant to cultivate and work.

It seemed that the lack of hope, coupled with daily fear, had led many academy mages to start secretly preaching the theory of physical pleasure supremacy, which was the most straightforward and cost-effective simple happiness.

After chatting for a while, the light screen disconnected.

Yu Hong took a long breath, stood up, and felt the knot in his heart dissolve.

Now, those close to him were around, the Black Mark enhancement was about to be completed today, and the future held treasures like the Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme awaiting his repair and enhancement.

Compared to the previous situation, the future now was full of anticipation.

’As long as I keep enhancing my rank and then use the Nine Calculation Heavenly Extreme to obtain a suitable cultivation method... I will definitely find the land of vitality! Find a way back!’

After reconfirming his resolve, Yu Hong closed his eyes, entered his mind, and flew towards the traits corner.

The fusion of the previous two traits had now counted down to the end.

A billiard-ball-sized pure golden light sphere floated, waiting for his touch.