Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 449 - 443: Cutting Off 2

Chapter 449: Chapter 443: Cutting Off 2

Ah!!!!

Aboard the Void Ship, Lin Xin was entirely wrapped in layers of Yin Mantuo foliage, with several Array Plates floating around him, isolating and protecting him as he practiced his cultivation.

Just moments ago, as he was carefully studying the memory fragments of astral whales, feeling that he might be able to enhance his understanding of the Taoist intent concerning levitation, a sudden intense pain swept out from the depths of his mind.

Curled up within the Formation, Lin Xin held his head, his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and ears, all bleeding continuously.

Countless blood vessels crazily twisted and floated on his face.

"It hurts... it hurts so much...!!!"

"Master!!" Yin Mantuo kneeled down fiercely at the side, her face filled with anxiety, worry, and fear.

She had never seen Lin Xin reveal such a vulnerable and helpless expression before.

Even when he had gone to the Gloomy Mansion to slaughter, faced illusions, and suffered from painful aftereffects, she had never seen her master in such a state.

She layered the foliage around, tightly protecting the surroundings to prevent any accidents from happening to Lin Xin at this time.

Right now, Lin Xin was kneeling on the ground, roaring madly, his voice completely muffled by the foliage and Array Plates, but the stream-like sweat flowing from his body was enough to show that his pain had reached the absolute limit in a physiological sense.

Life was worse than death!

Such a feeling was something Lin Xin truly comprehended for the first time.

If the aftereffect pains he had endured before were a one, then the pain he was enduring now was a hundred!

It was as if every nerve in his body existed solely to convey pain and had become much more sensitive than usual.

The ceaseless waves of agony were like tidal waves, crazily assaulting his flesh, seemingly trying to burst his body open.

He had the illusion that if he truly passed out now, this pain might actually cause his body to burst open completely, leaving no corpse intact.

Kneeling on the ground, Lin Xin supported himself on the deck, unable to muster any strength in his body.

Behind him, a red crystal light emerged, indicating the release of the collected essential blood in a frenzy, healing the torn injuries inside his body.

His terrifying regenerative capabilities supported Lin Xin’s body to an extreme, preventing it from bursting.

Different from other experimenters who died in explosions, Lin Xin’s body possessed an exceedingly strong recovery ability, making it very difficult for him to explode, meaning his threshold for exploding and dying was much higher than others.

This also resulted in the fact that even if Lin Xin passed out or wanted to give up and couldn’t bear it for a short time, he wouldn’t die from an explosion quickly but there was only one path for him.

That was to endure!

Pain.

Pain like never before.

Lin Xin even thought about suicide; it could end all his troubles at once.

But ultimately, he was unwilling to accept this. How long had he persevered? How long had he suffered? How long had he struggled in this world for power?

Countless nights of bitter cultivation practice, countless times of struggle on the line between life and death.

To die like this, to give up just like that, he couldn’t accept it!

Unwilling!!!

He had no idea how much time had passed.

Shh!!

Suddenly, a stream of spring-like coldness slowly flowed out from his heart, unbelievably reducing some of the agony in his body.

"What is this...?"

Lin Xin abruptly opened his eyes; the pain seemed to lessen a bit.

With a thought, he stood up with difficulty, and the surrounding foliage Formation automatically dispersed, revealing the outside situation.

In front of the Void Ship, a large flock of black beaked birds was being fiercely slaughtered by the Golden Armor beetles and the Twin-winged White Snakes.

When the Golden Armor beetles exhaled, they emitted large swaths of golden lightning, with numerous charred bird carcasses raining down like droplets.

The Twin-winged White Snakes would merely flutter their wings lightly and release numerous freezing chills, turning all the touched black birds into crystal ice sculptures, crashing down.

Lin Xin watched his subordinates slaughter with a dazed look, obviously feeling more and more comfortable inside.

He felt that what was alleviating his pain seemed to be the Lord’s Power.

It seemed that the Lord’s Power that could be fed back from slaughter was exactly what could alleviate the pain throughout his body.

But it was just an alleviation.

"...Gloomy Mansion!!"

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Lin Xin realized the meaning behind the Gloomy Mansion almost instantly in his heart.

No one could escape the control of the Gloomy Mansion, and the only way out, if there was any, was death.

His eyes revealed endless hatred.

It was just a decision he had casually made to enter the Gloomy Mansion in the past, but the consequences had brought such trouble that even now it still could not be completely resolved.

It had even turned into such a dire situation at this moment.

He had indeed escaped the control, but he had to endure this endless pain.

"It was my miscalculation." The voice of Hongye spoke exhaustively in his ear.

"How... am I to escape... this?" Even Lin Xin’s projection of thought was difficult at this point, with the intense pain stimulating all his nerves. If it weren’t for the continuous slaughter that eased the feeling slightly, he probably would have already collapsed and fainted from the pain.

"This is the roasting of the Tribulation Fire from the Abyss..." Hongye answered in a low voice. "You need to continuously burn essential blood, flesh, and existence to counteract the burning of the Tribulation Fire... The Gloomy Mansion left a contingency, you can only endure it, the Tribulation Fire from the Abyss will erupt three times every night, each time lasting an hour. You... you’d best look after yourself."

"Damn it!!!" The more Lin Xin heard, the more troubled he was.

Such pain erupted three times every day! He doubted whether he could bear it even twice and might soon just want to commit suicide.

"Don’t worry, the Tribulation Fire from the Abyss is a type of fate tribulation. If you can endure it, the more times you do, the stronger your perception will become. When burning, your soul’s willpower will be dozens or even hundreds of times greater than your normal state."

Of course, the premise is that you can suppress the pain and truly take advantage of that state..."

Hongye said indifferently.

Looking at Lin Xin, who was kneeling on the floor, his sweat, tears, nasal mucus, and everything else had soaked the surroundings, even forming a small puddle.

"Do you need me to relieve you of your misery?"

After a moment of silence, Hongye asked softly.

Lin Xin turned his face to the side, with blood still streaming from his eyes, staring at him ferociously like a demon.

"I... will not die!!"

A muffled voice came through.

Hongye fell silent, unable to think of any better solutions under such circumstances.

His voice slowly faded, vanishing, as he departed directly.

In Lin Xin’s condition, to hold on was to embrace death without hope of life. Hongye saw no hope.

Less than ten breaths after Hongye left—

Chi!

Suddenly, Lin Xin thrust a claw fiercely into his own chest.

The intense pain in his belly shocked his nerves, seemingly cancelling out a part of the excruciating pain from the Abyssal Inferno.

"I will not... die!!" He was covered with a fearsome expression and bloodied face, only his eyes were full of unspeakable terror and resilience.

Chi!

Lin Xin’s other hand also pierced savagely into his chest, reaching into the wound to tear at the flesh violently.

With a ripping sound, a large chunk of flesh was torn away, momentarily alleviating part of the agony caused by the Abyssal Inferno.

His chest was now gaping with a bloody wound, the sternum cracked, and a piece of flesh missing from each side, looking as if he’d committed harakiri.

Yet bizarrely, a slight relief appeared across Lin Xin’s face.

Compared to the torment of self-mutilation, the pain from the Abyssal Inferno was a hundredfold worse.

He pulled out his hand, and behind him, the radiance from a blood-colored crystal shone. Instantly, the wound on his chest was completely healed within a single breath.

It was as if the moment he withdrew his hand, his injury had already fully recovered.

"I will not die...!!"

He plunged his hand into his belly again, blood flowing down his body to the deck, then swiftly returning to his body under the glow of bloodlight, as if alive.

Yin Mantuo stood by his side, her eyes wide, staring blankly at her master’s self-destructive madness.

She didn’t understand why things had suddenly come to this. But the massive crisis brought about by the Soul Contract informed her that her master was in an extremely dangerous state.

If the master died, all of them bound by contracts would also perish instantly, soul and all.

This was the price of a Soul Contract, inescapable by anyone.

She had no idea why her master, who was fine just a moment ago, had suddenly turned like this, but she knew that all she could do right now was to guard the surroundings, to not allow any threat to come near this place.

Not just her, the Golden Armor bug Keke Sai and the Twin-winged White Snake also understood this, frenziedly slaughtering every living creature around the Void Ship.

The flock of blackbirds was quickly exterminated, and as the Void Ship continued its journey, it encountered several lone sky whales, all of which were jointly slain by the three beings.

Through the soul link, they could clearly feel that Lin Xin’s condition seemed to be improving with the increase in the slaughter.

Seeing the effectiveness, they began to kill anything they encountered. Everything alive that the Void Ship came across was to be eradicated!

From midnight until the early morning, the several flocks of strange birds and a few sky whales that the Void Ship encountered were all butchered by the three monsters.

Finally, Lin Xin, protected by countless vines in the center, seemed to have calmed down somewhat.

Zhao Ke went up to the deck with his wife for a breath of fresh air but was astounded to see an odd vine sphere, taller than a person, with Yin Mantuo standing beside it, cold and motionless.

The Golden Armor insect and the Twin-winged Snake had also transformed into humanoid forms, standing on either side of the ship, silent, with somewhat tense expressions in their eyes.

Remnants and fragments of monsters lay scattered all around the Void Ship.

Even the air faintly carried a trace of a light stench.

"Where is Brother Lin?" he asked in surprise.

"The master is at a critical juncture in his cultivation practice, do not disturb him," Keke Sai explained.

"Is that so?" One reason Zhao Ke came up to find Lin Xin was because the purple egg with him had undergone some changes.

But it seemed that now was not an opportune time to approach.

Without prying further, he went back to rest.

Time slowly passed until the afternoon, when the vine sphere slowly opened up, revealing Lin Xin inside, ragged and disheveled.

He knelt on the ground, his face slightly contorted. He was gasping for air, and his complexion was paler than ever.

"Three times a day... the Netherworld Manor! Heh... hehe..." A hint of madness and distortion flickered in Lin Xin’s eyes.

Nothing was crueller than giving someone hope before abruptly tearing it to shreds, plunging them into despair.

Lin Xin was just like that, having felt like he had obtained the greatest hope only moments ago, now faced with the greatest despair.

He indeed had severed his tie with the Netherworld Manor, but at the cost of such painful existence.

Everything seemed to have returned to square one, or even worse, fallen into a more dire state.

"I... will not die!!"

Lin Xin muttered lowly, the distortion and madness in his eyes growing more intense.