172: Chapter 172 Guardian in the Turbulent Spacetime
The moment I crashed into the portal, my world plunged into a state of extreme... chaos and... darkness!
I felt as if I had become a canoe, drifting in the midst of a Category 12 hurricane!
Countless space fragments, filled with a destructive aura, were slicing towards us from all directions like the sharpest blades!
"Rip!"
"Rip!"
I could clearly hear the sound of those space fragments, capable of easily tearing through steel, grazing my back!
I could clearly feel the excruciating pain as my King Rank Yao Beast body, comparable to a Magic Treasure, was sliced open again and again!
It was not ordinary pain; it was the pain of the most Origin-level space tearing, enough to make even the Soul tremble! Every wound felt as if it were trying to drag my flesh and blood, along with my Divine Soul, into the endless Void Realm!
But I dared not relax for even a second!
I held Lin Qingzhi tightly, shielding her in my arms!
She was my everything!
She was my "Dao"!
With my back, my flesh and blood, and my King Rank Yao Beast bones, I constructed a barrier of flesh for her—the most primitive, the most savage, yet the most solid barrier!
I was using my life to block all the fatal damage from the space-time turbulence for her!
I did not know how much time had passed.
Perhaps it was just an instant.
Perhaps it was a century.
Just as my consciousness was about to be completely submerged by that endless, excruciating pain, I finally felt the delicate body in my arms, which had been cold and stiff all this time, suddenly tremble!
I felt a pair of cool, soft arms wrap tightly around my waist.
I felt a pretty face, warm with crystalline tears, bury itself deeply into my chest.
I heard a sob filled with endless heartache and... reliance.
"Mo Wen..."
The voice was very soft, so soft that it almost dissipated into the violent turbulence.
But it was like a ray of the warmest sunshine, instantly piercing through my Soul, which was about to be swallowed by the darkness!
At that moment, I suddenly felt that the countless wounds on my body, deep enough to see the bone, no longer hurt.
It was worth it!
Damn it, everything was worth it!
As long as she was fine, what did it matter if I were to suffer Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering right now?
An unprecedented, powerful will erupted from the depths of my Soul!
That was no longer just a simple desire to survive.
It was a supreme belief called "Protection," one that allowed me to face any death!
I let out a silent roar towards that endless darkness!
"Come on!"
"If you want to hurt her, you'll have to step over my dead body!"
I don't know how much time passed, just when my consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness—
"Boom!"
A huge, irresistible repulsive force suddenly came from beneath us!
In the next second, Lin Qingzhi and I were like two tattered sacks hit hard by a high-speed train, tossed out in a sorry state by a space crack that appeared out of thin air!
"Bang!"
I slammed heavily onto a piece of hard, cold... rock!
The violent impact pulled my consciousness, which was already on the verge of its limit, back to reality.
I struggled to sit up, looked down at my upper body, which had almost no intact flesh left, and then looked at Lin Qingzhi, whom I had been shielding tightly in my arms—she was unharmed, save for a slightly pale complexion.
I let out a long sigh of relief.
Only then did I have time to look around.
We seemed to be in a huge valley.
All around us were rolling, towering snow-capped mountains covered in white snow!
The air was filled with a familiar, fresh scent that carried a hint of biting cold.
Spiritual Qi!
Although it was far less dense than when we were in the Xuan Realm just a moment ago, it was at least ten times more dense than the Blue Star, which was devoid of Spiritual Qi before we left!
We... are back?
I looked up at the sky.
And then, I froze.
I saw that the sky, which was originally azure and cloudless, was now covered with pitch-black cracks, like huge scars!
Those cracks were as large as a black Dragon traversing the sky!
The small ones were like hideous, terrifying centipedes!
Waves of energy from another world, filled with chaotic and tyrannical auras, were continuously seeping out from those cracks!
"Roar!"
"Howl!"
In the distance, within the rolling mountain ranges, there were intermittent roars of Yao Beast, filled with tyranny and madness!
This...
Is this damn place still the Blue Star I knew?
What on earth happened here during the time we were gone?!