55: Chapter 55 The Marrow Cleansing Pool Exploded

The preparations went faster than expected.

The orders from the Military High Command were issued directly to the management office of the Northern Theater's No. 1 Marrow Cleansing Pool.

All routine security clearance procedures were bypassed, and the special passage was opened immediately.

Li Zhengyang was placed in a life-support pod, escorted by four Martial Kings, and taken all the way down along the underground passage.

The elevator descended for a full three minutes.

Commander Han Tieshan followed behind. The further down they went, the higher the concentration of spiritual energy permeating the air became.

By the time they reached the lowest level, fine beads of sweat had already begun to seep from his skin.

For him, the concentration of spiritual energy was becoming difficult to bear.

The No. 1 Marrow Cleansing Pool was built four hundred meters underground, at the intersection of a natural spiritual vein.

The entire pool was carved out of a single piece of black iron ore, and the walls were covered in dense array patterns, each one glowing faintly.

The Marrow Cleansing Divine Liquid in the pool was a pale green color.

It looked very calm.

But everyone present knew that the energy contained in this pool was enough to allow ten Martial King-realm powerhouses to undergo a rebirth.

"Put him in."

Lei Qianjue's voice echoed through the hall.

The four Martial Kings opened the life-support pod and lifted Li Zhengyang's charred body out.

His condition was even worse than before.

He was barely hanging on.

"Put him down."

Lei Qianjue waved his hand.

Li Zhengyang's body was slowly lowered into the pool water.

The moment he made contact—Boom!

The entire underground facility shook violently.

Two rows of overhead lights exploded, and broken glass rained down.

The four Martial Kings were knocked back several steps by the shock; one of them dropped to one knee, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

The pool water was boiling.

The originally calm, pale green surface began to churn the instant Li Zhengyang entered the water.

A massive amount of bubbles surged up from the bottom of the pool, roiling and bursting.

The color of the pool water was changing.

Dark golden veins appeared within the pale green, the two colors intertwining and churning.

The array patterns on the pool walls all lit up, emitting a white light as the entire energy containment array of the Marrow Cleansing Pool operated at full power.

This was an automatically triggered emergency mechanism, indicating that the energy fluctuations within the pool had reached a dangerous threshold.

"The pool wall temperature is rising!"

Wang Zongren stared at the monitoring equipment beside him, his voice trembling. "The internal temperature has already exceeded one hundred degrees, and it's still rising!"

He turned his head to look at Lei Qianjue, the color draining completely from his face.

"Venerable Lei."

Lei Qianjue did not respond.

His attention was entirely focused on the pool water.

Beneath the surface, Li Zhengyang's body was repeatedly deformed by the strangling forces of two powers.

The Marrow Cleansing Divine Liquid poured in through his pores, while the Dragon Emperor's essence counterattacked from within.

The two fought for every inch within his meridians and bones.

Every inch of flesh was a battlefield.

The vital sign curves on the monitoring equipment went wild.

His heart rate skyrocketed from twenty beats per minute to hundreds, then plummeted to near zero, before skyrocketing again.

It repeated over and over, without any pattern.

"His cells are disintegrating!" Wang Zongren's voice shook. "The muscle tissue disintegration rate is at forty percent... sixty percent... It's over."

After saying this, he took a step back.

All medical knowledge told him that a disintegration rate exceeding seventy percent meant irreversible death.

Commander Han Tieshan clenched his fists until they cracked.

He wanted to say something, but his lips moved without making a sound.

The pool water was still boiling.

The dark golden veins grew more numerous, slowly consuming the pale green.

Lei Qianjue stared at the changing color of the pool water.

He did not speak.

——

Black.

Nothing.

Li Zhengyang's consciousness was sinking.

All around him was thick, dark gold, wrapping around him and peeling away his senses layer by layer.

First, the pain disappeared.

Then his sense of touch and hearing.

His memories were falling away.

The first to vanish were his most recent memories: the Dragon Emperor, Fortress No. 7, Commander Han Tieshan's headquarters.

Then, the earlier ones began to blur.

Yang Hucheng, the Martial Arts Technical College.

Further back.

Beishan.

That rainy night when he killed for the first time.

Further back.

Director Wang's fat, pig-like face flashed before him and shattered.

What was the name of that bald guy who gave out high-interest loans?

He couldn't remember.

Everything was peeling away.

He was even starting to forget his own name.

Li...

Li what?

His consciousness was collapsing.

Those dark golden things were eating him, bit by bit.

Just as the last fragment of his consciousness was about to be extinguished.

The dark golden Dragon Emperor's essence stalled.

It couldn't swallow any further.

That Dragon Emperor's essence, so tyrannical that it could crush the soul of a Martial King, stopped dead in its tracks before his final obsession.

It wasn't because this thought was powerful.

It was because it was too stubborn.

Stubborn to the point of being unreasonable, stubborn to the point of defying logic.

The Dragon Emperor's essence surged repeatedly, striking again and again.

It didn't budge an inch.

Then.

Pshh.

In the darkness, a faint light shone.

The system interface.

It was mostly shattered, a piece missing from the top left corner, and several lines of text on the right were garbled.

But it had indeed lit up.

[System core damaged... conducting... emergency reconstruction...]

[Detected... super-tier energy source within host: Dragon Emperor's Essence.]

The prompt text stuttered, like it was hiccuping.

Then a new prompt popped up.

[New function unlocked: Essence Conversion]

[Description: The host can directly convert foreign essence energy within the body into Blood Qi values. The conversion process is extremely painful and cannot be interrupted.]

[Estimated convertible Blood Qi: 120,000]

[Start conversion?]

His answer was only one word.

"Yes."

The moment the conversion began, Li Zhengyang regretted it.

If you took all the pain he had felt before, multiplied it by two, you might just scratch the surface of what he was feeling now.

The system was drawing the Dragon Emperor's essence out of his bone marrow, thread by thread.

Every time a thread of the Dragon Emperor's essence detached from his bones, it took a layer of periosteum with it.

His consciousness was repeatedly torn apart and stitched back together in the pain.

Blurry, clear, blurry, then clear again.

Every time he was about to give up, a number would jump on the system interface before his eyes.

[Current Blood Qi: 478,628]

[Current Blood Qi: 528,628]

[Current Blood Qi: 548,628]

...

The numbers were rising.

Every time the number increased, it meant a thread of the Dragon Emperor's essence had been thoroughly digested, absorbed, and converted into his own power.

He gritted his teeth and held on.

Thirty thousand.

When the number jumped past fifty thousand, his consciousness finally stabilized.

It still hurt, but he found a rhythm.

Inhale, exhale.

Fifty thousand.

His meridians were being reshaped.

The meridian system, which had been shredded by the Dragon Emperor's essence, was being reformed one by one under the guidance of the system.

The newly grown meridians were twice as thick as the originals, with dark golden veins on their walls.

One hundred thousand.

His bones were being recast.

The divine liquid from the Marrow Cleansing Pool permeated through his skin, acting as a binder and coolant.

The heat released by the conversion of the Dragon Emperor's essence was neutralized by the divine liquid, just enough to keep his body from being burned through.

Lei Qianjue was right.

The neutralizing effect of the Marrow Cleansing Pool was indispensable.

...

Above ground, by the Marrow Cleansing Pool.

Commander Han Tieshan had been standing for a full twelve hours; his legs were stiff, but he didn't dare to sit down.

The color of the pool water had changed from pale green to dark green, and then from dark green to dark gold.

The churning gradually subsided, changing from boiling to bubbling, and from bubbling to a slight tremor.

The data on the monitoring equipment was still jumping.

But the way it jumped had changed.

Professor Wang Zongren stared fixedly at the vital sign curves, not even noticing that the report board in his hand had dropped to the floor.

"Impossible..."

He muttered.

Commander Han Tieshan turned his head sharply. "What is it?"

"His cellular disintegration has stopped."

Wang Zongren swallowed, his lips trembling. "No, it didn't stop, it's reversing. The disintegrated tissue is regrowing."

"What does that mean?"

"Humans don't have this concept." Wang Zongren looked up, his face filled with disbelief. "This is the healing ability of beasts. High-tier beasts."

Commander Han Tieshan's heart raced, but before he could ask, another instrument nearby suddenly emitted an alarm sound.

A technician hurriedly checked it, then reported with a trembling voice, "The, the Marrow Cleansing Pool's energy reserves have dropped by fifteen percent!"

What?

Commander Han Tieshan's eyes widened.

This pool had accumulated decades of energy, enough for ten Martial Kings to use.

It had only been twelve hours, and ten percent had already been absorbed?

His gaze fell toward the pool.

In the pool water, Li Zhengyang's silhouette was vaguely visible.

His body was glowing.

Brightening and dimming, synchronized with his heartbeat.

"He is absorbing it."

Lei Qianjue spoke.

He stood by the pool with his arms crossed, having stared at the water for twelve hours; this was the first time he had spoken.

Commander Han Tieshan turned to him.

"The kid has survived."

Just that one sentence.

Commander Han Tieshan's eyes suddenly turned red.

Hour after hour passed.

The fourteenth hour.

The pool's energy dropped by twenty percent.

The sixteenth hour.

Twenty-five percent.

...

When Professor Wang Zongren walked over with the latest round of test reports, his hands were shaking.

"Commander Han, Venerable Lei."

His voice contained a heavily suppressed excitement.

"The life signals within him have begun to recover from the near-death state. The rate of recovery far exceeds our expected model."

"Oh no, it's not recovery."

He paused, using a more accurate word.

"It's a surge."

Commander Han Tieshan's heart was pounding.

"What level?"

Wang Zongren opened his mouth; the expression on his face was complex, half-believing and half-doubting, not daring to confirm.

"I need to observe further. But if the data is correct, he is breaking through the category of Martial King."

Commander Han Tieshan was shaken to his core.

Above the category of Martial King, there was only one level.

Martial Emperor.

...

In Li Zhengyang's world of consciousness, the Blood Qi value on the system panel was continuing to climb.

The Dragon Emperor's essence had been almost completely drained.

That tyrannical dark golden energy within his body, once an uncontrollable beast, had turned into tamed fuel, bit by bit transforming into his own power.

Then the system popped up a new prompt.

The shattered interface flickered a few times:

[Conditions for realm breakthrough met]

[Sixth-Rank Martial King → Breaking through → First-Rank Martial Emperor]

[Breakthrough successful.]