Against the Gods

Chapter 475 – The Primordial Profound Ark’s Halt

This time, Yun Che endured for fourteen and a half hours.

Yun Che, who was constantly in a state of complete concentration so he could resist the spatial storm, did not notice the change in the amount of time he could hold out against it. But Jasmine had calculated it precisely; even though it was only a thirty minute increase, but it was enough to reveal that Yun Che’s body and profound strength had undergone a startling number of subtle changes after he had been tempered by the last fourteen hour storm.

Once Yun Che reached critical point again, the spatial storm subsided once more.

Yun Che, who had one foot in the grave, collapsed on the floor, and began to desperately gasp for air. Then, he used forty percent of his concentration to resist the calmer spatial storm, and the other sixty to recover his profound strength and heal his wounds. Once he had recovered to a sufficient degree, the spatial turbulence started to go wild once again….

On the third try, Yun Che endured for fifteen hours!

And on the fourth, he endured close to sixteen hours….

Time, within this inescapable tiny space and a seemingly endless spatial catastrophe, slowly flowed along. In this period, Yun Che did not engage in combat with anyone, but every breath he took, was even more dangerous and life-threatening than any fight. His body had slowly become tougher and tougher each time it regenerated. He had no leisure to train his profound strength, but it experienced a startlingly explosive growth, becoming stronger and stronger as he released and recovered his profound energy at a frightening frequency.

Eight months later, Yun Che’s profound strength had broken through straight to the fifth level from the initial stage of the Sky Profound Realm… he had averaged one level every two months! This was the Sky Profound Realm we were talking about! Going from level one to level five within the Sky Profound Realm was much harder than going from the initial stage of the Elementary Stage Profound Realm to the peak of the Earth Profound Realm. This meant that the speed of his improvement in these eight months was even faster than his speed of improvement in the three and half years since he received the Evil God’s Profound Veins.

This rate of improvement was enough to ceaselessly amaze and confound the greatest experts of the Sky Profound Continent.

At the same time, because Yun Che was mostly in a state where he released his profound energy at the maximum output, even though his profound energy level rose at a ferocious rate, it was especially stable and condensed. At no point of time did his profound strength experience any of the lightness or instability that normally came with a rapid increase of profound energy.

“This time, he actually endured for five days.” Jasmine muttered to herself softly. Her eyes had clearly documented Yun Che’s every change.

At this moment, Yun Che had once again reached to the critical point of what he could endure.

Following the substantial weakening of his profound strength and regenerative ability, Yun Che’s body began to violently distort. A snapping sound was heard, and Yun Che’s bones began to fracture under the might of the spatial storm, while his meridians began to rupture…

“Looks like that is about enough.” Jasmine stretched out her hand, meaning to cut off a good portion of the spatial storm. At this time, Yun Che suddenly let a scream of anger; discontentment and pain ripped out from his mouth. His profound strength and spirit were supposed to be exhausted but they began to swell up fiercely as Yun Che doggedly resisted the spatial storm’s attack against his body. Jasmine’s movement consequently became slower as she saw that Yun Che’s body started to emit a flash of dull, profound light. She muttered to herself, saying, “Is he going to make a breakthrough again… Hm! That’s not right!”

“ROOOOAR!!!!”

A low and astonishing dragon cry started to resonate from Yun Che’s body, causing the space around him to tremble. As the dragon’s cry resonated, the shadow of an azure dragon surfaced behind Yun Che. The dragon’s shadow expanded rapidly, continuing for a full five breaths before vanishing gradually. At the same time, Jasmine could feel the presence of the Primordial Azure Dragon from Yun Che’s body, albeit a presence which had seemingly entered the wilderness of death.

Crack…. Crack… Crack…

The crisp, clear sound of bones moving began to come from Yun Che’s body. However this was not the sound of bones fracturing, but the sound of bones slowly regenerating. Even his flesh began to regenerate, but his spirit remained barren and weak, tottering on the brink… However, it was in this exhausted and strained spiritual state, that he tenaciously withstood the impact of the spatial storm.

“His Dragon God’s bloodline has reached the concentration of one-thousandth!” Jasmine said in an astonished voice, she was far clearer than Yun Che on the significance of possessing one-thousandth of the Dragon God’s bloodline. Under normal circumstances, within the body of a mortal from the lower planes, it would take many years for the tiny amount of Dragon God’s marrow in Yun Che’s body to just produce one drop of the Dragon God’s blood. But in this Primordial Profound Ark, after having his body undergo a countless number of rebirths, while stimulating the Dragon God’s marrow at the same time, with the addition of the nourishment which came from the energy of heaven and earth produced by the Great Way of Buddha, all of this combined together to increase the thickness of Yun Che’s Dragon God’s blood by nearly twenty times in the span of less than a year!

The current Yun Che, even without releasing the slightest bit of profound energy, already had a physique which was strengthened to the point where his body could take an attack from a low level Throne, and basically not receive any real wounds from that strike.

“Seems like he can continue to resist for a while longer.” Jasmine lowered her palm, and with eyes that rippled with red light, continued to scrutinize Yun Che, observing every single change that was happening to him.

At the beginning, she kept making plans to make Yun Che mighty, for the sole purpose of reconstituting her body. But as Yun Che’s strength increased bit by bit, with a speed which far exceeded her initial calculations, a desire was unconsciously formed in her heart. The desire to see just how far this human could go before she left him… And this desire continued to grow more and more intense.

Only she herself had not noticed it yet.

Time continued to flow, and unwittingly, from the time Yun Che had entered the Primordial Profound Ark, a full eighteen months had passed.

And Yun Che had survived within the never-ceasing spatial storm for a full eighteen months.

The sounds of the spatial explosions were ear-piercingly loud, however, whether it was Yun Che or Jasmine, both had grown used to this noise. And the other thing they had grown used to was the presence of each other. The reason why Yun Che could bitterly endure all the way in this life-threatening and scary place was because he was not alone. Because while Jasmine continuously warned and scolded him… she also accompanied him and supported him. Even after meeting such disaster, there was still someone who faced it with him together, someone who time and again rescued him from his confusion and hesitation by pointing him in the right direction.

As for Jasmine, in these past few years, only Yun Che was besides her. Even though her appearance had never changed from the time she had met Yun Che, in terms of age, she had grown from thirteen to eighteen years old. In her life, more than a quarter of her time had been spent solely with Yun Che, with even more years to come…

And because it had become habitual, and because one tended to neglect what one has become accustomed to, neither of them ever had this thought cross their mind: If one day both of them had to go their separate ways… how would that be….

———————————————————

“It has already been half a month.” Jasmine mused as she observed Yun Che’s current state, after he had achieved what could be said as yet another inexplicable breakthrough.

Yun Che had endured for a full fifteen days before his situation became precarious again. Just as Jasmine was about to obstruct the spatial storm, the entire space began to tremble fiercely, and a gigantic roar issued forth from all directions. This situation persisted for as long as ten breaths. This new permutation caused Jasmine’s eyebrows to furrow, and she was about to release her aura to investigate what was happening to the Primordial Profound Ark, when all of a sudden, the spatial storm calmed down rapidly and the unceasing, fierce and wantonly destructive spatial rifts disappeared. Even the distortions in space began to shrink into small ripples before finally disappearing completely… And in the end, even the sound of the spatial explosions had completely disappeared.

Everything had become perfectly still. The spatial turbulence, in a situation where both Yun Che and Jasmine had not been prepared for, had disappeared.

And the only reason that the spatial turbulence would disappear was that…

The Primordial Profound Ark had stopped!

“Stopped? How come it stopped?” Jasmine knit her eyebrows together, “Can it be that the Primordial Profound Ark does not only stop over in the Profound Sky Continent, but at other locations as well?”

The spatial turbulence had completely disappeared… It was not that it had subsided like before, it had completely disappeared. This change gave a jolt to Yun Che’s completely fatigued spirit, but he was in a state where he was unable to speak or pay close attention to his surroundings. Instead he desperately concentrated his spirit, and started to heal his wounds using Great Way of the Buddha.

Without the presence of the spatial turbulence, the Great Way of the Buddha absorbed the energies of heaven and earth at a rate which was tens of times slower than before. Even though his recovery was much faster than a normal person, compared to the eighteen months he spent in the spatial storm, it was exceptionally slow.

Without needing to divide his attention to resist the spatial turbulence, Yun Che’s heart had completely stabilized. This feeling was like he had stepped from purgatory straight into a dream-like paradise. Even though he was mentally drained, and his whole body was weak and suffering from immense pain, this relaxed feeling almost made him feel like floating. A full eighteen months… He had endured in this purgatory of eighteen months and now he finally saw the brilliant, vivid dawn!

Jasmine did not disturb him, nor did she go outside to investigate. Her body sank down, and she stood in front of Yun Che, observing his current state while simultaneously gazing at the surrounding walls which were tougher than heavenly stones. Her expressionless dewy eyes were without ripple, her thoughts a mystery.

A whole day had passed, and the atmosphere remained quiet and still, with no sudden outbursts appearing. When it had appeared in the Profound Sky Continent, it had stopped for half a year. There was no way of telling if this stillness would last half a year as well.

There was also no way of telling where the Primordial Profound Ark had stopped at this time.

And for an entire day, Yun Che simply sat cross-legged on the floor, the wounds on his body healing up to roughly seventy percent. His breathing had become stable as well, and his spirit had recovered greatly. Therefore, now was precisely the right time to rouse Yun Che.

Jasmine, who had been napping the entire day, opened her eyes and looked over Yun Che. She prepared to wake him up when Yun Che’s body began to undergo a sudden change.

The dull golden pagoda rotating slowly over Yun Che’s head started to spin rapidly, and the color of the pagoda slowly became richer and richer…. From dull gold, it gradually turned into a shiny gold color! Following that, the golden light began to sink and spread across Yun Che’s body. It was as if Yun Che had put on a layer of hazy golden clothes.

“Could it be…” Jasmine’s starry eyes flashed with deep surprise.