Calamity of Tomorrow

The girl furrowed her brows upon arriving at the battlefield: "Why are humans here?" She looked down at the battlefield below, "Are you fighting with Xu Dela?"

Zhao Shouyi, witnessing this scene, lost control of his mind in an instant. Chaos-colored streams of air spiraled out of control, threatening to destroy everything in sight.

However, his lapse was momentary. Zhao Shouyi immediately steadied his Primordial Spirit, manipulating the chaotic air back to its original place, and looked toward the girl with an unsightly expression: "Xiao Pei? Why are you here?"

"Who is Xiao Pei?" The girl tilted her head, her red hair curling around her ears like a Spirit Snake: "My name is Xuan Nu." She looked curiously at Zhao Shouyi and suddenly a smile appeared on her lips, "Are you in pain? Then why suppress your true nature?"

As her words reached his ears, Zhao Shouyi suddenly let out a scream, clutching his head, and howling in agony. His Primordial Spirit's power gradually shifted toward blackness, and beneath his face, something seemed to writhe as if a monster hid within his flesh, desperate to break free.

"Damn it..." Zhao Shouyi's Primordial Spirit trembled, nearly completely unable to control the Mixed Element Sword Formation, as he could only watch helplessly as the chaotic air flow went wild in all directions.

"An aberration... at this time of all times..."

Zhao Shouyi clenched his teeth, gave the girl a deep look, and the purple-green swords that formed the purple-green sword light enveloped him. With a burst of speed, he headed straight for the ground.

Under the rolling sword light, he picked up Zhou Bai and Qian Wangsun, enduring the intense changes to his Primordial Spirit and fleeing towards the distance.

Xu Dela, transformed into a snake monster, continued to howl pursuing Zhou Bai, but then heard Xuan Nu in the sky frown and utter gently, "Stop."

The bodies of the snake monsters stiffened, their control over their bodies having been usurped.

Then Xuan Nu continued, "Come back."

Xu Dela's body instantly turned and ran in the direction of Xuan Nu.

Zhao Shouyi looked back and took all this in, and in the next moment the sword light surged faster, disappearing into the horizon.

As the land rapidly flew by beneath him, Zhao Shouyi traveled for over ten kilometers in one breath. Feeling the increasingly turbulent changes in his sea of knowledge, he immediately touched down the sword light and landed in a forest, then swiftly dug a large hole, the three of them jumping in before the sword light collapsed the entrance.

Only then did Zhao Shouyi let out a sigh of relief. He immediately sensed a world-turning turmoil within his sea of knowledge, but what surprised him slightly was that he seemed not to have lost himself yet, still able to maintain his own thoughts.

'Could it be that my current state is not an aberration?'

'Or is it that I've already mutated, but I don't think so?'

Zhao Shouyi suddenly thought of a saying, 'Madmen often do not think they have gone mad.'

But he did indeed feel like he could suppress the mutation of the Primordial Spirit. He sat down and slowly unraveled the raging sea of knowledge, feeling his Primordial Spirit slowly calming down, the blackness gradually fading.

'It seems it's not a real aberration. But if this continues, I'm afraid I won't last much longer.'

While sorting his sea of knowledge, Zhao Shouyi thought again of the Xiao Pei he had just seen, or rather, Xuan Nu.

'I... should have killed her with my own hands.'

'Has she not died? Has she turned into a Heavenly Demon?'

'And it seems like it was Xiao Pei who triggered the anomaly in me.'

In Zhao Shouyi's heart, some decisions gradually became firm.

'I must figure out what is going on before I completely transform...'

He transmitted a message to Zhou Bai and Qian Wangsun, "Don't move around after this, wait here for me to heal my injuries."

The two exchanged a glance upon hearing this, and Qian Wangsun said, "Hey, you're not planning to cultivate too, are you?"

A smile appeared on the corners of Zhou Bai's mouth, he was eager to verify the gains from the battle he had just fought.

Seeing Zhou Bai also sit down cross-legged and close his eyes, Qian Wangsun sighed helplessly and walked to the collapsed entrance. He attached his Primordial Spirit's energy to the dirt and stones, gradually gaining awareness of the vibrations of the earth, the rocks, and even the outside air.

This was the Earth Listening Technique, adopted to expand one's auditory range by sensing vibrations, allowing Qian Wangsun to perceive what was happening outside.

'Really, it's always me who has to stand guard.' Qian Wangsun activated the divine light eye technique to observe the situation inside the cave and, noticing the slightly turbid spiritual energy, suddenly frowned: 'Why does the spirit pollution seem to have gotten worse?'

"Qian Wangsun..."

It seemed as though someone was calling his name, he quickly turned his head, but saw nothing.

Qian Wangsun furrowed his brows, "Here it comes again, it looks like it's not just Principal Zhao's observation causing my illusions; I have issues myself." He couldn't help but remember the time he almost completely transformed when he stepped off the monthly examination stage at East China Dao School.

"Is it the aftermath of that time? Has the spirit pollution in the wilderness exacerbated the effects?" Qian Wangsun sighed, "Regardless, I must hold out until Zhou Bai and Principal Zhao return safely."

Meanwhile, Zhou Bai was currently looking at his Sea of Consciousness with a surprised expression. His Primordial Spirit was engulfed in a vast stretch of milky white fortune.

Zhou Bai: 'The fortune from that Heavenly Demon is too much, isn't it? I only extracted it for a moment, but there's so much? How could this be?'

'It's clear that when I previously extracted fortune from a Heavenly Demon, the effect was worse than that from a human.'

"The reason why extracting from a Heavenly Demon has worse effects than from a human might be due to the special life form of a Heavenly Demon. As for this one..." Christina analyzed, "This Heavenly Demon is at least a level 7 Great Heavenly Demon. Although I don't know how Heavenly Demons cultivate and grow stronger, from level 1 to level 7, the numbers at each level become fewer and fewer.

Which means, being a level 7 Heavenly Demon is extremely rare, which also represents strong fortune. Because its own fortune is too strong, even a light extraction yields a lot."

Zhou Bai was confused, "What about Immortal Ming Yue? She must be the strongest entity from whom I've extracted fortune so far. The same momentary extraction matches all the fortune I've pulled from Cang Ming."

Christina's eyes moved, "After all, she is an Immortal, closer to the Heavenly Dao than we are. Could there be some method to stabilize fortune?"

"Never mind, let's devour this fortune first."

Zhou Bai closed his eyes, began to operate his Heavenly Disaster Primordial Spirit at full power, and kept devouring streaks of milky white fortune. The potential of his Primordial Spirit resumed its growth.

While Zhou Bai was cultivating and Zhao Shouyi was sorting out his Sea of Consciousness, on the northwest frontline, overnight hundreds of human cultivators had either died in battle or gone missing, throwing humanity again into a state of emergency. Countless resources, powerful beings, and soldiers kept converging towards West Mountain City.