Chapter 212: Shocking Changes

The moment he put the Heavenly Truth Songstone away, the blood-colored floating palace’s attacks abruptly intensified in strength. Dust flew everywhere as the range of its attacks increased by yet another hundred feet, aimed straight at Anubi.

At this moment, the Scarlet Heart no longer needed the Heavenly Truth Songstone’s aid to determine where his attacks should be targeted — a group of soldiers was rapidly retreating, and the person leading them was Anubi himself.

The Scarlet Heart naturally understood what it signified given its intelligence. Even though he didn’t understand why his opponents would suddenly reveal themselves at this critical juncture, he was clear that this was the real Anubi. More importantly, Anubi was carrying the aura of one of his old treasures.

It wasn’t the Heavenly Truth Songstone, but rather a treasure that he had kept in his outer storehouse — the Charming Fragrant Mud. Applying just a small amount would greatly stimulate a person’s consciousness energy.

Su Chen had rubbed a bit onto Anubi. With the Heavenly Truth Songstone as the initial signal flare and the Charming Fragrance Mud as a sustained homing beacon, and Anubi’s identity on top of that, it was more than enough for the Scarlet Heart to latch onto Anubi and refuse to let go.

After having taken care of this matter, Su Chen began to head in the direction of the imperial carriage.

It was now time for him to grab the treasures and go.

The battle was still raging on fiercely, but the overall situation had changed somewhat.

The battle had originally been enveloped by a vortex that was centered around the blood-colored floating palace. But after the palace started charging at the rear, the vortex had thinned out significantly, which then disrupted the flow of the revolving energy. As such, the situation on the battlefield had changed drastically. Previously, there had been some semblance of order, but now the battlefield was completely thrown into disarray.

Battles always devolved from order into chaos, and the sudden change caused by the palace’s changing direction had only accelerated this process.

At this moment, a distinct front line couldn’t be made out at all. Ravagers and Demonic Beasts were sporadically scattered all across the battlefield, desperately fighting for their own lives. The Demonic Beasts beat their wings and stomped their hooves, while the Ravagers howled madly in turn. The atmosphere was incredibly harsh and brutal.

Blood spilled copiously, and lives ended callously.

The Beasts and Ravagers were now tangled in a battle of attrition in regards to lifeforce, and the scales were slowly but surely tipping in favor of the Ravagers.

This was not actually that surprising a development. From the very start, the Ravagers had been stronger than the Beasts, and the blood-colored floating palace’s unrelenting advance had only weakened its own side.

Even so, wiping out the Beasts in a short period of time was not going to be easy.

Killing occurred all over the place in the battlefield. There was no longer any semblance of a battle formation, and tactics had been thrown out the window. Strength and will were the only factors remaining.

Moving around amidst this kind of environment was not an easy task to accomplish.

However, after gaining some elementary understanding of how the sea of Origin Energy reacts, Su Chen could move around in this chaos much more easily. At this moment, he was like a fish in the sea, nimbly darting around as his school of human subordinates followed him closely. All around him, massive sharks were fighting, but as a small fish he was able to easily avoid the more dangerous areas and instead travel through the relatively safer areas . Occasionally, he would take a risk and skirt past two stronger groups duking it out with each other.

His group moved at a rapid pace, smoothly piercing through the chaos. Soon, they arrived at a location filled with Demonic Beasts.

“This is where the Demonic Beasts have separated, and thus where they are the most concentrated. Once we charge past this group, we’ll have arrived at the carriage. Notify all soldiers to deploy their flying swords. We will charge soon!” Su Chen yelled loudly.

At this point in time, there was no longer a need to hold back.

“Yes, sir!” all of the soldiers following Su Chen yelled.

Seventy or so flying swords were immediately pulled out, transforming into streaks of light that shot forwards with astounding speed. Even Su Chen pulled out a Soul Armament, the Moon Shadow Flowing Frost Sword, and attacked alongside the rest of them. With his current level of consciousness energy, controlling two Soul Armaments at the same time was no problem.

If his earlier fighting was him holding back so that he was able to just barely cope with the situation and protect himself, then he was now putting his full strength on display.

Everyone’s strength had greatly increased after Su Chen passed the Immaculate Cultivation Technique and the flying swords to them. The effects were obvious as soon as they attacked.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! As the streaks of sword light descended, the Demonic Beasts standing at the very front immediately had their hearts pierced.

A few Ravagers’ lives were actually saved because of this. However, when they turned around and realized that their saviors were actually humans, they were dumbfounded.

“ROAR!” A massive Iron-Skinned War Rhinoceros charged forwards, Origin Energy virtually pouring off of its body. This War Rhinoceros was actually a Demonic Lord.

“Careful, it’s a Demonic Lord!” one of the Ravager soldiers yelled out.

The group of human soldiers, however, charged right at the War Rhinoceros.

The Ravager soldier sighed, believing that this group of human soldiers was about to meet their end.

Demonic Lords possessed an awe-inspiring strength that average human soldiers would never be able to resist.

An instant later, however, a jaw-dropping scene occurred before his very eyes.

The humans manipulated their seventy swords to suddenly merge together into a single massive flying sword.

“Descend!” one of the soldiers barked.

The massive sword chopped down, right into the War Rhinoceros’s body. The War Rhinoceros’s howl of pain was cut short as it was suddenly bisected from top to bottom.

The Ravager soldiers were immediately struck dumb.

That was a Demonic Lord!

A Demonic Lord was killed by a group of human soldiers that easily?

The frightening, gigantic sword continued to fall until it finally slammed into the ground, sending huge chunks of rock flying everything and leaving a deep fissure in the ground.

Any Demonic Beasts that lay in the path of this attack were immediately wiped out.

Even though the massive sword disappeared after this one strike, dispersing back into countless swords that returned to everyones’ hands, a path to the imperial carriage had been opened.

“Charge!” someone yelled.

The soldiers then all simultaneously charged at the imperial carriage.

When one of the Ravagers saw this scene, he said, dumbfounded, “These are humans? The human captives? Our cannon fodder?”

“Yes, they are cannon fodder,” another Ravager confirmed.

“If they are cannon fodder, then what are we?”

“I don’t know. I’m just glad that I’m still alive, and that’s good enough for me,” another Ravager said as he cracked a smile.

The blustering sword light slashed through the enemies as if they were vegetables, allowing the human soldiers to rapidly and decisively cleave their way through this territory.

The imperial carriage rolled towards them at the same time.

In order to save the emperor, many of the Ravager generals who had previously been protecting the imperial carriage had started slaughtering their way through the hordes of beasts, which meant that the imperial carriage was now only manned by the substitute Le Feng and the few Ancestors and guards responsible for keeping an eye on him.

More specifically, only those people were keeping an eye on the Origin Bone Scepter and the Vitality Totem.

Su Chen quickly arrived in front of the carriage.

The few Ancestors standing guard there stopped him. “Sir Lontu, please stop there.”

“His Majesty and the Head Ancestor have sent me here to retrieve the Origin Bone Scepter and Vitality Totem. Here is the command medallion,” Su Chen said as he pulled out the aforementioned command medallion, allowing them to inspect it.

The Ancestors accepted it and, after verifying that it was genuine, allowed him to pass.

Su Chen stepped up to the carriage’s high platform.

When Le Feng saw him, he smiled and said, “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Su Chen replied with a similar slight smile, taking the Origin Bone Scepter and Vitality Totem from Le Feng’s hands.

They had finally succeeded!

Su Chen’s state of mind was stable as he accepted the Origin Bone Scepter. All he felt was a profound wave of energy roll over his body. He knew that this was an effect of the temporal energy of the Origin Bone. However, the moment his finger touched the Vitality Totem, Su Chen felt his entire body go numb as a strange energy from the Vitality Totem began to flood his body. He felt his mental state tremble as his body was filled with life force.

At the same time, the Vitality Totem began to glow hotly, shooting a streak of light into the sky.

“Hm? This is?” Su Chen was stunned.

This sudden and strange scene rendered everyone present speechless. The Ancestors stared at him in shock, and even Le Feng was dazed.

“This…… What is going on?” Le Feng asked, completely dumbfounded.

“I don’t know,” Su Chen replied uncertainly as he stared intently at the Vitality Totem in his hand.

Nothing like this had happened when he had held the Thunder Spirit Totem.

Light continuously flickered across the surface of the totem, as seemingly infinite life force surged into his body.

Suddenly, Su Chen had a feeling that he could absorb the Vitality Totem.

Su Chen decided to follow this feeling. He tried to open himself up and allow the energy to fill his entire body. Then, he watched as the totem began to tremble uncontrollably in his hands.

The trembles grew more and more violent to the point that Su Chen felt like he was about to lose his grip on the totem.

However, Su Chen did his best to hold on. At this moment, his entire body was linked with the totem, which was starting to glow even more intensely. Its radiance actually forced Le Feng to take a few steps backwards.

Then, a shocking scene appeared before them all.

More and more ash began to shed from the Vitality Totem.

“It’s molting!” Le Feng yelled.

“I know,” Su Chen replied.

If he were to let go, then he might be able to stop this scene from unfolding. However, Su Chen didn’t want to do that.

He felt like he was experiencing something unique and miraculous, something that had never occurred before throughout all of known history.

If he were to miss this opportunity, then it might not ever come again!

As such, he could not relinquish his grip.

He stared at the totem in his hands, which seemed to be dissolving into tiny grains of sand that fell off of the totem layer by layer.

As it dissolved, a seemingly boundless energy surged through Su Chen’s body, causing him to feel ecstatic. At the same time, however, there was a sharp pain as if his body was being pushed to its limits.

Eventually, Su Chen could endure it no longer and started howling in pain.

He could feel that his body was saturated, and that there was nowhere this overflowing energy could go. However, his heart was telling him that at this moment, he absolutely could not afford to let go. Otherwise, all the progress that he had made would be lost.

He could only grit his teeth and endure the pain, the veins on his forehead bulging like mad.

“Heavens! What are you doing?” the Ancestors began to yell.

One of the Ancestors muttered to himself, then raised his hand and shot a streak of arcane light at Su Chen.

However, this streak of arcane light seemed to melt as it came into contact with the column of light, as if it were snow under a hot sun, quickly disappearing from existence.

Su Chen, on the other hand, tilted his head back and continued to howl in pain.

He could sense that his body was truly at its limit. Every cell in his body was filled to the limit with energy and bulging to the point of exploding.

“AHHHH!” Su Chen roared bitterly.

Amidst the incredible pain, he had no way of maintaining his disguise. The Ravager disguise melted away, and Su Chen returned to his original form.

At the same time, the Vitality Totem completely turned into powder and disintegrated from a small breeze. The final iota of energy disappeared into his hand. An instant later, Su Chen felt his chest suddenly turn warm.

He tore open his clothes and glanced at his chest. Another mysterious inscription had appeared on his chest.

It was the Vitality Totem.

It had actually inscribed itself onto his physical body.

When this totem appeared, the congested feeling within his body receded. What replaced it was an insatiable hunger.

“Human, he’s a human!” the Ancestors and Ravagers began to shriek.

“So my secret has still been revealed? It’s a bit earlier than I expected, but that’s not a problem,” Su Chen said as he turned around, a savage expression on his face.

“Perfect. I’m feeling hungry anyway.”

He attacked.