Chapter 52: Limit Break, A Sword and A Supreme’s Sigh (1)

Dragons.

Dragons!

Dragons!!

Neo was sick and tired of seeing these creatures.

During the time it had taken him to reach the seventh level essence cultivation of the F-Rank, all he had seen was dragons.

Even the strange creatures had finally disappeared.

Neo seemed to have outgrown the need for them.

But if dragons were all he would see for the time it would take him to reach his current goal.

He saw a very bleak future ahead.

Everywhere he looked, he saw the form of the damned creatures.

The ground.

The sky.

Everywhere!

This damned world was testing the limits of his mind.

He ran all sort of techniques to calm his mind, but they barely worked.

Neo had reached the limit of his willpower.

The very absolute limit, and now he discovered the flaws in his willpower.

Life for him had always been easy.

Be it his life in the Immortal World, or the one after he was cast to the mortal world.

There had been no challenge that could push him to this point.

But looking at the world he was in now.

All he had around him were creatures that would kill him, if he didn’t kill them first.

His mind struggled to find the meaning in everything.

It wasn’t the killing that taxed his mind or the monotonous grind.

It was the solitude.

He had told himself to bear it.

He tried.

But this burden wasn’t so easy to bear.

Neo sat on the dry and arid ground.

His heart heavy.

He breathed a deep sigh.

He pulled out his sword from the sheath.

His fingers tapped the gleaming sword as he placed it on his legs.

He had done well to take care of the sword.

Despite the unending grind it had gone through, it still gleamed.

A testament to the amazing quality of the sword and Neo’s care.

He tried his best to relax his mind.

The taps became gentler.

He closed his eyes as he entered a trance.

Devour.

His mind turned to the bloodline that he had awakened on the brink of death.

The very reason he was right here, at this moment.

He had no doubt that Devour was the only reason he was qualified to come this close to a supreme.

He, an F-Rank, had bantered with a supreme.

Something he still found shocking.

No matter how many times he thought about it.

It always felt like a dream.

One of them was at the very bottom of cultivation.

The other was at a very high peak. The peak of cultivation itself.

Mortal and immortal.

Their paths shouldn’t even cross.

"My dear bloodline, what are you?"

RUMBLE!

An aura so vast, it defied his comprehension answered him.

Neither the question, nor the reply was spoken aloud.

Neo had entered a meditative trance.

The words he had spoken to Devour, had been said in a realm where only the two of them existed.

Neo had connected to his bloodline.

They communicated in the most direct way that was possible.

This was the same way every bloodline bearer communicated with their bloodline.

It was a unique form of cultivation.

Neo didn’t understand what the rumble meant.

But he felt the vast aura of Devour.

An aura that surpassed its previous self by a margin so large it was incomprehensible.

Whatever Devour had been consuming since they entered this world.

It had grown so much that it had transformed.

No wonder it had been elated when they had landed in this world.

Its true form displayed for all to see.

He wondered what history it had with the Ancient Supreme.

He had found the words they exchanged to be very cryptic.

There were a lot of things he still didn’t know.

And why was it that a bloodline that was forbidden.

A bloodline whose host should be destroyed on sight, had interested the Ancient Supreme so much.

Why was she so invested in him?

He had no idea.

Her reasons?

Her goals?

Why she had asked him to reach the very peak of the Expanse?

He shook his head.

He threw all these aside.

He needed to connect with Devour on an even deeper level.

His cultivation had increased.

He could gain even greater control of Devour.

He was at the seventh level now.

The eight level was the next milestone.

He would get there.

His goal of breaking the limit was getting closer.

The path ahead was...

SHRIEK!!!

An absurdly harsh sound blasted Neo’s ears.

He was already up, his sword slashing in the direction the sound had come from.

The trance had been abruptly broken, but his senses remained sharp.

He could tell the source of the sound despite how it pervaded everywhere.

His slash into the air had been right on target.

But what followed his slash hadn’t been what he expected.

The source of the sound had been rushing at him.

It was still a distance away when Neo had slashed his sword at it.

The sword aura had just left his sword, when the creature reached his position.

It was fast.

Neo couldn’t deny this fact.

It had reached him almost as soon as he saw it.

His sword move was powerful.

It should have at the very least pushed the creature back.

But no such thing happened, the sword slash passed through the creature like it wasn’t there.

Its form, like a burning fire, enveloped Neo.

It was hot.

Very hot.

So hot it made a dragon’s breath feel like the average sunny day.

Neo knew his skin would have burned up, if he hadn’t been strengthening his body.

His timely use of a defensive technique had also prevented any further harm.

His essence aura blasted out in full.

Small swords, tiny as a finger, formed all around him.

They were created from his white essence aura which spread through a wide area.

The moment all of his essence aura had transformed into these tiny swords, they converge towards his body.

They vibrated as they moved.

Their tiny vibrations resonated into a sharp aura that cut everything around him.

Even the fire that enveloped his body wasn’t safe.

Neo knew even if the creature didn’t die, it would be gravely injured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The fire dispersed, and he saw the true form of the creature.

It wasn’t like any normal creature he had ever seen.

It somewhat reminded him of the first time he had seen a strange creature.

His first entrance into the true outlands with Mia’s team.

Those creatures had looked somewhat ethereal, but they had been very much real.

This one, however, was truly ethereal.

Its form ghostly like the wind.

It was in the shape of a large bird, its whole body the bright red of flames.

It could be seen, but nothing seemed capable of touching it.

The fire that had dispersed, began to burn anew on the creature.

Its true form became obscured.

SHRIEK!

That damned shriek again.

Neo raised up his sword.

He slashed once.

This one was not a rushed move.

It was carefully prepared to hurt the creature.

A creature that he guessed to be a phoenix.

He watched the flames disperse, the phoenix shriek in pain.

Then he was sent flying into the air.

His eyes unable to tell up from down.