Swallowing the Stars: Heart of the Martial God

Chapter 29 Breakthrough
In the seventh level of the sixth trial tower.

Scalding sand churned beneath his feet. Ling Xuan squinted, gazing at the giant mother nest in the central green space in the distance, emanating a ghostly blue poisonous mist.

The flesh-colored nest, sixty meters in diameter, is covered with holes, and viscous venom flows slowly along the pits, making a "sizzling" corrosive sound when it comes into contact with the sand.

"Buzz—" A sharp insect chirp tore through the sky, and dozens of cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the mother nest, from which a thousand green mantises surged out like a black tide.

These insectoid creatures, half the height of a human, waved their serrated forelimbs, their compound eyes glowing with a bloodthirsty red light. Wherever they passed, the green vegetation withered instantly.

"Just in time!" Ling Xuan roared, flames surged around him, and his three-pointed double-edged sword drew out a blazing blade light, "Flame Blade First Bloom."

"Dragons fight in the wild." The trials of the Trial Tower allowed Ling Xuan to fully digest the spatial laws demonstrated to him by the Qianwu Kingdom Lord. Thousands of spatial illusions were activated simultaneously, like crimson dragons weaving through swarms of insects.

The blade precisely pierced the gap in the mantis's carapace, twisting and turning as green juice mixed with bits of flesh gushed out; with a sweeping motion, the blade grazed the mantis's neck, severing its head, and white mist rose from the severed wound.

Just as he was focusing all his efforts on killing the swarm of insects, a transparent figure suddenly appeared from the top of the mother nest.

The six-meter-tall Zerg Queen spread her crystal-clear butterfly wings, her face shrouded in swirling mist, revealing a pair of vertical pupils that glowed with purple light.

She gently waved her arm, and a hundred blood mantises shot towards Ling Xuan like arrows. These blood mantises were stronger and more powerful than the green mantises, and their bodies were also enormous. Their carapaces gleamed with a metallic luster and were far harder than those of the green mantises.

The first strike of the blade energy landed on the mantis armor, leaving only a white mark.

Ling Xuan's expression hardened slightly, and his sword technique suddenly changed as he unleashed the second level of "Burning Wave Horizontal Slash".

The three-pointed double-edged sword spun rapidly, and as the blade swept horizontally, flames surged like waves, forming a flame curtain a hundred meters wide.

The fiery slashes came one after another, like waves that engulfed the swarm of insects.

The blood mantises, fearless of death, charged forward one after another, meeting the fiery slashes head-on.

One slash, two slashes, the swordplay continued unabated, each slash heavier than the last.

Finally, on the seventh strike, Ling Xuan's sword momentum reached its peak. He flipped in mid-air and unleashed all the accumulated sword momentum in an instant, slicing the oncoming blood mantis in half. Shards of its carapace scattered like shrapnel.

However, just as he was distracted, a blinding purple light suddenly burst forth from the Queen Mother's eyes, and an invisible soul shock instantly struck him.

"Soul-Suppressing Cauldron, appear!" Ling Xuan's soul trembled, and a small cauldron emitting an ancient aura appeared.

The power of the soul was poured into it, and the small cauldron immediately shone brightly, firmly resisting the soul attack.

The violent collision stirred up ripples in the void. The Queen Mother let out a unwilling cry, her wings flapped rapidly, and the nest began to expand wildly.

In just a few breaths, the diameter of the mother nest had reached 120 meters, and countless insectoids poured out from more holes.

Ling Xuan took a deep breath, and the power of the Flame Law surged wildly around his body: "Trying to overwhelm me with numbers? Dream on!"

He leaped high into the air and unleashed the third level of "Blade Domain Selection Kill," condensing three hundred-foot-long fiery blade beams from his three-pointed, double-edged blade, which cleaved straight into the core of the mother nest.

Seeing this, the Queen Mother launched another soul attack, but it was easily neutralized by the Soul-Suppressing Cauldron.

At the same time, Ling Xuan's blade struck the Mother Nest hard, and the violent explosion stirred up a cloud of dust, with the flames turning the entire desert red.

Ling Xuan's figure transformed into a crimson dragon and instantly approached the mother hive. Long before the explosion, Ling Xuan had already locked onto the figure and location of the Zerg Queen. Now, taking advantage of the sandstorm, he directly beheaded the Zerg Queen with a single blow, right before her pitiful gaze.

"Look, the Flame Demon's points have suddenly skyrocketed to 7777770000."

"Doesn't that mean the Flame Demon has also passed the sixth Trial Tower? And judging from his condition and the speed at which he passed the seventh floor, he should be able to pass the first floor of the first tower as well."

"It's not that simple. The difficulty of each trial tower increases exponentially. Yan Shen has already passed the seventh floor, but isn't he now trapped on the first floor of the seventh tower?" Someone shook their head, indicating that they were not optimistic about Ling Xuan.

Inside the seventh trial space, ten thousand blood-haired mammoths surged in with earth-shattering steps.

Each behemoth was ten stories tall, its fangs crackling with frost and lightning, and its breath instantly froze the ground into an ice field. Their strength was comparable to the top 100 geniuses in the Genius Battle. "Wandering Dragon."

Ling Xuan touched the ground with his toes, his body moving like a dragon, skimming along the rock wall to avoid the head-on charge of the mammoth herd.

Once a mammoth herd launches a mass charge, it's very difficult to stop. If you try to stop abruptly, you'll only be knocked over and trampled to death by the charging mammoths behind you.

Ling Xuan was incredibly agile, constantly maneuvering and dodging on the flanks.

As he passed a giant beast, Ling Xuan flipped his wrist and unleashed the first level of the Fire God's Absolute Domain Blade, "Flame Blade's First Bloom."

The three-pointed double-edged sword unleashed a blade of light dozens of meters long, precisely slicing into the soft flesh behind the mammoth's knee. Flames exploded along the wound, causing the giant beast to collapse to its knees in agony.

"Boom!" The mammoth horde behind immediately filled the gap, forming an impenetrable wall of attack.

Using the momentum, Ling Xuan leaped into the air, twisting his waist and spinning in mid-air, the blade moving with his body.

"Burning Waves Slash".

The flames surged forward with the precision of mechanical gears, melting the mammoths' tusks in their wake and causing their flesh to sizzle and smoke.

A large number of giant beasts crashed to the ground under the impact of the scorching waves. The mammoths behind them did not care about the life or death of their companions. They continued to charge fearlessly, trampling the mammoths that were not yet dead on the ground.

After landing, Ling Xuan tapped his toes repeatedly, drawing a strange Z-shaped trajectory on the ground, cleverly avoiding the trampling of the mammoth herd.

Just as the encirclement was about to close in, he suddenly stopped and slashed out with his three-pointed, double-edged sword at three different angles.

The fiery cage woven from three illusory figures spun rapidly, spewing out thousands of feet of crimson light like precisely meshed gears.

As soon as the first mammoth's giant hoof stepped into the blade's domain, the blade wrapped around its ankle like a chain, turning flesh and bone into dust in the intense heat.

One after another, the blood-haired mammoths charged into the blade domain and were slaughtered, but Ling Xuan was not careless at all, moving around the edge to kill the lone blood-haired mammoths.

"Look! Yan Shen has already reached the second level!" The exclamation from the observation tower caused the geniuses of the Qianwu Kingdom to change their expressions drastically.

On the leaderboard, Cao Benqi's score skyrocketed, the bright red number 1,777,777,000 stinging everyone's eyes, while Ling Xuan's less than 10 billion points seemed incredibly meager in comparison.

"The outcome is decided; Ling Xuan is finished." The genius from the Yan Divine Kingdom sneered.

The geniuses of the Qianwu Universe Kingdom did not answer, but instead kept their eyes glued to the leaderboard. As long as Ling Xuan's points continued to increase, the competition was far from over.

At this moment, in the first level of space, tens of thousands of giant beasts stepped forward simultaneously, and the resulting sound waves shattered the spatial barrier in the distance. Ling Xuan's figure was in grave danger amidst fangs and ice blades.

But his eyes grew increasingly bloodshot, and every swing of his knife was filled with determination.

One hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred.

As Ling Xuan was trapped in the mammoth herd, his hiding space became increasingly smaller. The three giant beasts launched an attack from three directions simultaneously, and frost and lightning intertwined in mid-air to form a death cage, while their hooves were raised high.

"Third brother!" Ling Yue's heart clenched.

"Go, third brother!" Ling Xue had already gotten out of her mother's arms and was pinching her father's arm to cheer for Ling Xuan.

Fortunately, Ling's father is at the stellar level, while Ling Xue is only at the planetary level, so no matter how much he pinches her, it won't hurt.

At the critical moment, Ling Xuan's aura suddenly erupted, and thousands of illusory bodies instantly appeared from the void.

The accumulated experience from half a year of fierce fighting erupted at this moment. Countless insights were digested in the battle and applied to reality, which would eventually become the resources for Ling Xuan's progress.

(End of this chapter)