Chapter 90: Gate of the Abyss

Chapter 90: Chapter 90: Gate of the Abyss

The Alchemy Ghost clearly hadn’t expected Chen Yue to counter in such a way. With the full force of its downward smash cleverly deflected, it instantly lost its balance, and the heavy Pill Furnace involuntarily swung to one side.

Its body, still gripping the furnace’s handle, was pulled along by the sideways force. It staggered a step closer to Chen Yue, leaving its center completely exposed.

A sharp glint flashed in Chen Yue’s eyes. His left palm, already charged with swirling Gang Qi, was poised to strike. He seized the moment the Alchemy Ghost was off-balance and slapped at its shriveled, twisted head.

The palm strike was vicious, aimed straight for a vital point!

A look of astonishment appeared on the Alchemy Ghost’s face for the first time, but it remained extremely confident in its own speed.

Facing Chen Yue’s lightning-fast counter-palm, the Alchemy Ghost let out a short, strange cry. The cyan-black Ghost Qi around its body churned violently, and its form abruptly blurred, turning transparent.

"ROAR!!!"

Another low, majestic, and even more condensed, terrifying tiger’s roar erupted from Chen Yue’s throat.

This time, he did his utmost to compress and concentrate the power of his Tiger’s Roar Shatters the God, forming something like a Spear of Sound Waves that he blasted entirely at the Alchemy Ghost just inches away!

"Ugh-AAAAH!"

The Alchemy Ghost let out a shrill, pained howl. The Tiger’s Roar Shatters the God specifically targeted the Divine Soul and was meant to stun a Spirit Body. After being compressed and concentrated, its power was far more focused, inflicting even greater damage on a Ghostly Object like itself.

The Alchemy Ghost’s already transparent and blurry form twisted and vibrated violently. Its attempt at an Escape Technique to merge into the mist was forcefully interrupted, its body pinned to the spot.

Chen Yue’s striking left palm met no further resistance. Its momentum increased as it slammed viciously toward the Alchemy Ghost’s head.

"HIIYAH!"

The Alchemy Ghost had gone completely berserk. With no way to dodge, it stopped trying to evade. Instead, its left hand shot out, fingers forming a claw. The cyan-black Ghost Qi condensed at its fingertips into a tangible, sharp light. With a shriek that tore through the air, it clawed viciously at Chen Yue’s heart.

It was a mutually destructive gambit!

BANG!

Chen Yue’s left palm collided with the Alchemy Ghost’s left claw. The Gang Qi and the cyan-black Ghost Qi clashed violently, annihilating each other with a hissing sizzle.

Chen Yue’s body swayed, and he took half a step back, his left palm slightly numb.

The Alchemy Ghost, however, let out a pained howl.

Its left claw, as if it were porcelain struck by a sledgehammer, began to shatter from the fingertips. It exploded inch by inch, turning into a churning cloud of dispersing cyan-black Ghost Qi. Its entire left hand vanished in an instant.

Clearly, after taking a direct hit from Tiger’s Roar Shatters the God, the Alchemy Ghost’s power and Spirit Body were no longer a match for Chen Yue.

"DIE! DIE! DIE!"

The Alchemy Ghost shrieked in absolute fury. Its remaining right claw desperately gripped the Pill Furnace’s handle, using the recoil from the impact to drag it backward as it retreated.

Where its left hand had been shattered by Chen Yue’s palm, cyan-black Ghost Qi frantically writhed and converged. It began to reshape at a speed visible to the naked eye, faintly reforming the outline of a hand.

’This Alchemy Ghost is a Ghostly Object,’ Chen Yue’s gaze hardened. ’As long as its core Spirit Body and Yin Qi aren’t dispersed, it can consume Yin Qi to rapidly regenerate damaged parts. It’s far simpler and cruder than a human Martial Artist regrowing a limb.’

’What’s more, the sun in the sky is now almost completely obscured. The world’s yang energy has been suppressed to its absolute minimum, while the purest Yin Qi has reached its peak.’

’One wanes while the other waxes. The Ghostly Object has an even greater advantage now.’

Chen Yue took a deep breath and pushed his Perfected Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield to its absolute limit. Gang Qi flared from his skin like fire. With each step, he left a deep footprint in the bluestone ground as he charged toward the Alchemy Ghost once more, carrying an peerless momentum.

Just as the Alchemy Ghost was rapidly retreating, Chen Yue’s left hand shot out like an iron pincer. With Gang Qi flowing around his fingers, he seized the other side of the Pill Furnace.

TSSSS!

His hand was met not with the expected cold of metal, but with a bone-chilling cold that seemed to seep into his very marrow. It felt like grabbing a block of ten-thousand-year-old mystic ice, its frigid Yin Qi frantically trying to invade his body.

But the muscles in Chen Yue’s arm bulged. His Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield roared to life, driving his Qi Blood to forcibly suppress and expel the terrifyingly cold Yin Qi. His fingers dug into the furnace’s body as if they had taken root.

"You!"

The Alchemy Ghost’s retreat came to a sudden halt. The flickering, ghostly green Ghost Fire in its eyes contracted sharply, filled with disbelief and rage.

It never imagined Chen Yue would dare to grab its personal Pill Furnace—one refined with earthen fire and poisonous miasma—with his bare hands. It was even more shocked that his strength was great enough to hold the furnace steady, forcibly halting its retreat.

The cyan-black Ghost Qi enveloping the Alchemy Ghost erupted like flames. Its remaining right claw dug into the furnace handle, and it pulled back with all its might, trying to fling away both the Pill Furnace and Chen Yue.

"ROAR!!!"

The third tiger’s roar boomed out!

"UGH-AAAAH!"

The Alchemy Ghost’s body convulsed as if struck by a sledgehammer, twisting violently. The explosive momentum it had just built up, along with the frantically circulating Ghost Qi within it, was forcibly interrupted and dispersed by the roar that struck directly at its Divine Soul.

The pulling force from its right hand instantly weakened by more than half. The concussive shock to its Spirit Body even caused it to flicker for a moment.

Chen Yue put all his strength into his core. His right foot stomped down, shattering the bluestone beneath. His left hand, gripping the Pill Furnace, unleashed an unparalleled force. Twisting at the waist, he dragged the heavy Pill Furnace—and the Alchemy Ghost desperately clinging to it—straight toward him.

Man, ghost, and furnace were pulled together in an instant.

The moment he pulled his opponent close, Chen Yue’s right palm—charged with Gang Qi and the terrifying power to shatter mountains—shot out unceremoniously toward the Alchemy Ghost’s shriveled, twisted head.

The strike was vicious, brimming with killing intent!

"Kid! You’re pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you!"

The Alchemy Ghost let out a shriek so shrill it cracked, filled with boundless venom and madness.

Its right hand still refused to release the Pill Furnace, and its shattered left hand hadn’t had time to fully recover. In its desperation, it lifted its right foot. Ghost Qi condensed into a sharp point around it, and with a piercing screech, it kicked viciously at Chen Yue’s lower abdomen.

It was the same brutish tactic: a mutually destructive exchange, using offense as the only defense.

BANG!

Chen Yue’s right palm, which had been aimed at its head, struck the right arm the Alchemy Ghost threw up to block. The immense Palm Force scattered the Ghost Qi around the hastily raised arm and produced the sound of bones cracking under the strain.

The momentum of Chen Yue’s right palm barely slowed before it slammed into the juncture of the ghost’s left neck and shoulder blade. The cyan-black Spirit Body cracked like cheap pottery, a web of fine fissures spreading from the point of impact.

Meanwhile, the Alchemy Ghost’s kick to Chen Yue’s abdomen, though blocked by his Gang Qi, still rocked him. The condensed, cold Yin Qi and brute force caused his Qi Blood to roil and his Protective Gang Qi to fluctuate wildly.

But Chen Yue had long since seen through the Alchemy Ghost’s reliance on brute force. When he threw that palm strike, he had intentionally held back some of his power for a follow-up.

Seeing the Alchemy Ghost about to make another move, Chen Yue didn’t withdraw his right palm from its neck. Instead, his fingers clamped down like an iron hook, gripping the ghost’s fractured shoulder blade and pinning its Spirit Body in place.

At the same time, he had not fully committed his Palm Force. The instant he made contact, he unleashed a pulse of Gang Qi, transforming the slap into a concussive blast!

The vibrational power of his Perfection Realm Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield, combined with the fierce Qi Force of his Great Vajra Palm, surged like a flood finding a breach, pouring into the Alchemy Ghost’s fractured Spirit Body!

BOOM!

This time, the sound was a muffled explosion as the Spirit Body’s internal structure was blown apart by the violent Power. Under the terrifying force of Chen Yue’s internal and external assault, the ghost’s left neck, shoulder blade, and nearly half of its chest simply exploded.

Cyan-black Ghost Qi and flecks of cold, phosphorescent light scattered everywhere. Its head was nearly blown clean off, connected to its right side by only a wisp of Ghost Qi. Its aura instantly plummeted, and the Ghost Fire in its eyes dimmed, about to go out.

"Ghh... ghh..."

The Alchemy Ghost let out a series of hisses like a deflating balloon. Its shattered Spirit Body fell backward, crashing heavily onto the cold ground. Its remaining right hand still clung stubbornly to the Pill Furnace’s handle.

Pressing his advantage, Chen Yue pushed off his feet. His figure moved like a shadow, instantly appearing beside the fallen Alchemy Ghost.

He raised his right foot, gathering Gang Qi around it, and brought it down to stomp on the Alchemy Ghost’s head, where the ghostly green Ghost Fire now flickered on the verge of extinction.

"You deserve to die! You deserve to die!!!"

From the Alchemy Ghost’s shattered head came a hysterical, frantic shriek. It raised its partially regenerated left arm, shielding its head in an attempt to block Chen Yue’s stomp.

BOOM!

With a crack, the Alchemy Ghost’s left arm shattered inch by inch like rotten wood.

Unobstructed, Chen Yue’s foot continued its descent toward the shattered head.

However, in the instant before Chen Yue’s foot could make contact with the Alchemy Ghost’s head, the pair of ghostly green eyes—which had been filled with mad venom—suddenly grew calm.

Its gaze pierced through the dispersing Ghost Qi and met Chen Yue’s own, looking down from above.

VMMMM!

There was no sound, no impact, no light.

But the moment their eyes met, Chen Yue felt the entire world fall abruptly silent.

It wasn’t that sound had vanished. It was as if time, space, perception, thought... everything had frozen in that one instant, sinking into an absolute, deathly silence.

Chen Yue’s foot froze, hovering an inch above the Alchemy Ghost’s head, unable to descend.

The wind in the alley, the faint sounds of fighting in the distance, the howls of Ghostly Objects, even the rushing of his own Qi Blood and the circulation of the Heart Nourishing Technique in his Sea of Consciousness...

Everything seemed to have been put on pause.

Only that pair of calm, deathly still Ghost Fire eyes continued to expand in his pupils, growing infinitely large.

Within his Sea of Consciousness, the Mental Barrier built by his Heart Nourishing Technique and Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield began to tremble violently.

The outside world quickly faded and blurred in Chen Yue’s vision, as if he were looking through a thick curtain of water.

In its place, a door suddenly swung open before him.

The door was made of neither metal nor wood. It was carved with countless twisted, agonized faces and indescribable runes, all while dripping with a viscous filth.

WHOOSH!

The instant the door opened a crack, countless arms stretched out in a frenzy.

Chen Yue felt his body sinking, his consciousness blurring, and his connection to his physical form rapidly weakening...

"ROAR!!!"

A tiger’s roar, far more ferocious than any that had come before, erupted without warning from the very depths of Chen Yue’s Sea of Consciousness.