Chapter 219: Pe
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"What's going on?"
The Scarlet Heart stared at this column of light in shock.
Under the effect of this column of light, Su Chen's body, which had been rapidly deteriorating, suddenly began to expand. His muscles bulged, seemingly filled with boundless energy.
"ROAR!" Su Chen actually tilted his head back and howled like a primal beast, the aura even causing the Scarlet Heart to tremble ever so slightly.
"This is...... totemic light?" He stared blankly.
A familiar sight appeared in his eyes. Su Chen's body began to glow brightly as totemic inscriptions surfaced on his skin.
However, this light was so blindingly bright that it far exceeded the level of anything the Scarlet had ever seen before. As far as he could remember, there were only a few Ravagers who had ever reach this level of blinding brilliance.
This was...... the Greater Perfection Realm!
A Greater Perfection Totem.
The Scarlet Heart didn't understand how this was possible.
How could a human possess a Greater Perfection Totem belonging to the Ravagers?
At this moment, Su Chen seemed to have turned into a violent, barbaric Ravager. The muscles on his body were brimming with energy as they expanded, and he had even suddenly grown a fair bit taller.
The Lotus Platform retracted into Su Chen's body again. He relied merely on his physical body to resist the wave of energy that the Scarlet Heart had unleashed.
He was like an immovable mountain that a big sea crashed against. No matter how the wind howled or the rain beat down on him, he remained stationary.
"So you've finally come out to play, Vitality Totem," Su Chen chuckled with satisfaction as he inspected himself.
Ever since he had assimilated the Hemolytic Totem into his body, Su Chen had been waiting for the moment when its use would manifest itself. Unfortunately, he had tried to draw it out a number of times but to no avail.
He had theorized in the past that it would only activate in a moment of extreme danger, but he had always been lacking a means to verify that theory.
His pursuit of the Scarlet Heart was actually for many reasons. One was to try and throw off any pursuers, and another was to see if he could get this Vitality Totem to activate.
Of course, he wouldn't put his life at risk just to try and activate this Vitality Totem, so it was still important for him to be careful. Even so, having this trace of hope gave him a good reason to take some more risks.
As such, he had chosen to come despite knowing that the Scarlet Heart might have a technique for taking them both to the grave.
It was impossible to go through life without taking any risks. As long as the reason for taking a risk was important enough, that was sufficient.
It seemed like his luck was pretty good today.
Once his life force had been pushed to its limit, the Vitality Totem finally activated. No one could have anticipated the effects this activation would bring.
He was actually brought to the Greater Perfection Realm, a state that gave him a legendarily powerful battle body.
Even the Scarlet Heart's imposing pressure couldn't do anything to him.
Of course, the Scarlet Heart's heavy wounds played a critical role in this, but the resilience a Greater Perfection Realm totem conferred on a person's body was truly worthy of praise.
Obviously, however, the might of this totem was not unlimited. Su Chen could sense the power of his totemic inscriptions decreasing. He probably wouldn't be able to maintain it for much longer. Even so, it was pretty apparent that he was going to be able to outlast the Scarlet Heart.
"NO!" The Scarlet Heart howled when he saw this scene.
His body continued to decay rapidly, turning into dust.
His current strength was no longer sufficient to break through Su Chen’s iron-like body, so he could only succumb to his fate of defeat.
The wave of energy and wind began to gradually lessen, turning from a hurricane into a gale, then into a heavy wind, then into a light breeze.
By the time the wind blew past, the Scarlet Heart had completely turned into ash, disappearing without a trace.
Su Chen sighed, and the Vitality Totem went back into hibernation. A sensation of extreme hunger surfaced yet again.
However, this hunger was very quickly sated.
“Burp!”
Su Chen belched with satisfaction, as if he had just eaten a large meal.
“So that’s how it is.” Su Chen immediately understood. “If you kill your enemy, you can directly absorb their life force and store it in the Vitality Totem. At a critical moment, it will activate and increase my life force.”
Then, he spread his perception over his own body. “Not only so, but after this Vitality Totem activates, some of the remaining energy will directly enter my body and silently resculpt it.”
Su Chen had developed a preliminary understanding of how the Vitality Totem worked.
There were two primary uses for the Vitality Totem: one was to sculpt and improve a user's body, increasing their strength, while the other was that it would activate in a critical moment, increasing a person's life force drastically.
Now, it seemed like Su Chen's limit was equivalent to that of a Greater Perfection Realm Ravager.
But what would happen if Su Chen's physique continued to improve?
Even Su Chen himself was unclear what that might cause.
Well, he didn't need to worry about something so far off in the future anyways. The most important task at hand was to deal with the Scarlet Heart.
The Scarlet Heart had disintegrated in battle, so no corpse was left behind. No resources from his body were left behind, not even a Demonic Emperor Origin Crystal.
On the other hand, the Scarlet Heart had left behind quite a few good things.
One was an Origin Ring.
Given the Scarlet Heart's status, it was impossible for him not to have possessed an Origin Ring.
He might have caused his own body to be consumed, but the Origin Ring was not part of his body and was not consumed.
Su Chen picked up the Origin Ring and glanced it over. It was exceptionally large for an Origin Ring. The one Su Chen possessed could store a lot of items, but this one was equivalent to a few hundred lower-tier Origin Rings in terms of storage. It was obvious how much storage space it possessed.
Naturally, there would be many items kept within such a spacious Origin Ring. Most importantly, the Scarlet Heart had only just swept across the Iron and Blood Country, so anything of value would have naturally been kept inside this Origin Ring.
Su Chen almost fainted when he opened the Origin Ring and saw what was inside.
"Are you serious? You even collect Seven Shadows Grass and hundred-year-old Fire Cicadas? You can't possibly have been that poor, right?" Rather than being ecstatic that the Scarlet Hesrt had collected such a wide breadth of resources, Su Chen actually began to complain.
In his view, what the Scarlet Heart owned was truly not worth even mentioning.
It wasn't that none of the resources would fetch a fair price - it was that Su Chen already possessed all these things.
Collecting any treasures he laid his eyes on was denigrating of his status as a Demonic Emperor.
However, that was not actually too surprising. After all, the Ravager territory was quite poor, and many of the locations had been plundered by the Heavenly Might Battalion already. As such, the treasures remaining were quite limites.
However, the most important factor was still Su Chen's provocation.
Su Chen had dealt a serious blow to the Scarlet Heart's state of mind and composure, so the Scarlet Heart had tried to reclaim what he had lost as quickly as possible. As a result, his appetite had greatly increased, making it so that he even began to harvest common materials.
"You really were so hungry that you didn't care what you ate," Su Chen muttered to himself.
Of course, there was a decent amount of good items there as well.
There was a Demonic King Origin Crystal, some rare cultivation resources, and some unique Ravager materials.
However, the most valuable item was still a wooden box.
The moment he contacted the box, he could sense a powerful strand of will emanating from it.
Su Chen immediately realized what this was.
"The soul of a God of War...... this must be Sachar's soul!" Su Chen muttered.
Just like how the Beasts’ cores were very useful to the Intelligent Races, the souls of deceased Intelligent Race individuals were exceptionally useful to the Beasts. Apparently, they could increase a Beast’s combat intelligence, converting the accumulated battle experience into actual strength. However, the Scarlet Heart’s intelligence had reached the peak a long time ago, and it didn’t actually have much use to him. But for a King-level existence, it was a treasure that would allow them to break into the Emperor realm, because contained within this soul was profound comprehension and experience.
However, these things were only useful to Beasts, not really to those of the Intelligent Races, just as the opposite was true for Beast Cores.
The Origin Races and the Intelligent Races supplemented each other in the first place.
“What a pity. I have no pet to use this on,” Su Chen sighed with some regret.
“Ma- Master......” the white paper doll suddenly spoke up.
“Hm?” Su Chen turned to look at him.
The white paper doll said, “I am your pet.”
Su Chen was speechless.
He was not used to seeing the white paper doll as a pet yet.
Even so, the reality was that, while the white paper doll appeared to be human, it was still a member of the Origin Race. Its basic life essence was a gaseous cloud of air. Of course, it was not a Beast, but it absolutely could be considered a pet; after all, the word was only really used figuratively. Of course, whether or not it looked and acted like a pet was a totally different matter.
The soul of the God of War wasn’t really all that useful to Su Chen, but it was tremendously useful to the white paper doll.
It could greatly increase the white paper doll’s strength.
Su Chen thought for a moment before saying, “I’m not too used to having a human-shaped pet.”
The white paper doll immediately replied, “That’s only because I met you and purposefully took on this form. Paper is just my outer shell; if you want, I can take on any appearance.”
As the white paper doll spoke, the cloud of fog changed shapes, assuming the figure of a cute little beast. However, the paper shell on the outside had yet to fully grow out.
He had truly put in quite a bit of effort to obtain this soul of the God of War.
When he saw the paper doll acting like this, Su Chen chuckled. “It seems like you aren’t mad at me for using you.”
The white paper doll hurriedly said, “I am my Master’s slave. As long as my Master wants to, he can do anything he pleases.”
“Well, you did put in quite a bit of effort to obtain this.”
“That’s the soul of a God of War. If I obtain it, my strength will greatly increase along with my comprehension, and it will make advancing in the future much easier,” the white paper doll said excitedly.
“Since that’s the case, then this belongs to you.” Su Chen handed over the soul.
The white paper doll caught it with the cloud of smoke and began to absorb the energy inside. The powerful strands of consciousness energy were absorbed into his body. As this energy was absorbed, the white paper doll’s strength began to increase rapidly.
Suddenly, the cloud of smoke began to expand and contract as a wave of shocking energy surged wildly. The white paper doll’s paper shell began to regenerate and very quickly recovered fully. However, he was no longer in the shape of a human but of a paper crane, and he flew around a few times in midair as he howled with laughter, “I succeeded in ascending! I’ve finally ascended!”
“Oh? So you’ve become a Lord-Class existence now?” Su Chen muttered as he sensed the aura coming from the white paper doll.
The God of War’s soul had not only helped the white paper doll completely recover from his wounds but also breakthrough into a higher realm. In addition, he had obtained all of Sachar’s insights and experience, making his future cultivation path much easier.
“Hahahaha, you damned human! I want to see how you will control me now!” the white paper doll - no, the paper crane laughed madly.
“So you’re trying to turn on me as soon as you ascended?” Su Chen was not the least bit surprised.
He tried to control the Death Shadow of a Youth’s life force, but he quickly discovered that the Death Shadow of a Youth was now able to resist his control.
“It won’t work! I, the Death’s Shadow of a Youth, am no ordinary Origin Race individual. Every time I ascend, my lifeforce will drastically change. You didn’t know that, did you? Hahahaha!” the paper crane continued to cackle with deranged laughter.
“Oh, no wonder. So unique lifeforms do have some tricks up their sleeves. Not bad, not bad.” Su Chen nodded with satisfaction.
“You’re not afraid?” Upon seeing him like this, the white crane was obviously taken aback.
“Afraid? Why would I be afraid?” Su Chen chuckled coldly. “Actually, I’ve been wanting to test how big the gap is between me and a Spirit Burning Realm cultivator for a long time. I shouldn’t be able to take on an old Spirit Burning Realm expert quite yet, but as for a newly ascended Lord-Class existence...... I still have some confidence in my ability to defeat you.”
As Su Chen spoke, he raised the Mountain-Beheading Blade. “Since you insist on being unruly, then I’ll teach you another lesson and absorb some more of your life source.”