Chapter 1684: Absorbing Fragments

The Embers of Civilization, are they shrinking?

Chen Ling clearly remembered that when he came before, the wreckage of civilization was scattered all over the void, but now it seemed that although those things were still embedded in the void, the distance between them had become much closer.

It was as if a huge vortex had appeared in the depths of the Embers of Civilization, and the entire embers were constantly being sucked into the center of the vortex…

“What happened here?” Chen Ling couldn’t help but ask.

“This time, the Red Star is heading straight for Earth.” Shen Qingzhu paused for a moment. “The current situation of the Embers of Civilization is somewhat similar to a ‘tide.’ As the Red Star continues to approach, everything in the Embers of Civilization will collapse toward the center of the Earth… If I leave here now, the out-of-control Embers of Civilization will pierce through the Earth just like they pierced through the former Gray World.”

Chen Ling’s gaze became incomparably grave.

The Embers of Civilization were the wreckage left after the Gray World was pierced by the Red Star. Chen Ling hadn’t expected that as the Red Star approached, this gap would also constantly tear at the Earth… In that case, if Shen Qingzhu hadn’t appeared in this world and stabilized the Embers of Civilization with his own power, humanity wouldn’t even have been able to hold on until the third Red Star descent?

Chen Ling had originally thought that if Shen Qingzhu could attack the Lingxu Realm, with his strength, killing a heavily injured and dying Lord Lingxu should be a sure thing. But now it seemed Shen Qingzhu couldn’t leave the Embers of Civilization…

With the last demigod combatant unable to be used, Chen Ling could only rely on himself.

Chen Ling took a deep breath:

“I understand… Is that Red Star fragment still in its original place?”

“Yes.”

Chen Ling nodded and quickly flashed toward the direction of that small Red Star fragment, with Shen Qingzhu following closely behind.

Chen Ling arrived at the crater and saw a familiar basketball-sized red meteorite embedded in the center of the earth, a mysterious and terrifying aura drifting in the air…

The figure in the opera robe walked to the side of the meteorite and reached out to grab it.

Shen Qingzhu’s hand suddenly grabbed Chen Ling’s wrist.

“What are you doing?”

Shen Qingzhu’s brow was locked, and confusion appeared on his face.

“My current power is not enough to defeat Lord Lingxu.” Chen Ling said in a deep voice. “I want to absorb more Red Star Wish Power… Even if I can only hold on for a very short time, I must possess the power to fight a demigod.”

“The threshold of a demigod is not so easy to cross… And you haven’t completed the Shinto self-verification, which means your ceiling is sealed. If you forcibly inject too much power, you might be blown apart.”

Shen Qingzhu’s expression was incomparably serious.

“I am not human; my body will be a bit sturdier, and it won’t be so easy to be blown apart… As long as I kill Lord Lingxu before I’m blown apart, it’s fine.” Chen Ling paused for a moment.

“But if I don’t do this, the world cannot be restarted… I cannot accept that everything done so far ends here.”

Shen Qingzhu fell into silence.

He looked at Chen Ling’s resolute red eyes, and in a trance, they seemed to overlap with a figure from his memory… Back then, they had also walked forward step by step with this kind of determination to die.

Shen Qingzhu didn’t stop him again but gently released Chen Ling’s wrist.

“Since your mind is made up, I won’t try to persuade you…” A faint smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “You, and the future of this world… are both in your own hands.”

Chen Ling looked into Shen Qingzhu’s eyes. For some reason, he could clearly feel the other’s… appreciation?

Chen Ling’s gaze fell back onto the Red Star fragment. Without hesitation, he took a deep breath and then slammed his hand onto the surface of the fragment!

Boom—!!!

The moment that surging Red Star power drilled into Chen Ling’s body, his brain roared for a moment.

This was the first time Chen Ling had come into contact with such a large amount of Red Star Wish Power. When the Calamity of Mockery originally obtained power, his consciousness hadn’t been born yet, so naturally, there was no memory. In the era archives, he had also come into contact with Red Star Wish Power, but that was just a phantom in the archive and hadn’t truly entered Chen Ling’s body…

Before this, the coin-sized Red Star Wish Power that Chen Ling had played with was long and lingering, taking him a long time to absorb before it completely disappeared.

But the Wish Power in this Red Star fragment was like a surging river tide rushing into a levee, rampaging through Chen Ling’s body. His mental energy began to soar rapidly, and his body even took on an eerie blood-red hue!

Patterns like scorching magma emerged from the surface of Chen Ling’s skin, as if a volcano about to erupt was hidden within his body, threatening to tear this frame to pieces.

Excruciating pain filled Chen Ling’s nerves, but he didn’t let go of the Red Star fragment. Instead, he hooked his fingers into the surface of the fragment and slowly pulled it out from the crater…

Dust rustled down from the surface of the Red Star fragment. This meteorite fragment from beyond the heavens was pulled out of the earth by human hands for the first time, exposing a deep and hideous crater to the air.

“What are you doing??” Shen Qingzhu asked in surprise.

“Time… is running out… I can’t stay here… and absorb it slowly…” Chen Ling gritted his teeth while enduring the pain of the Red Star Wish Power tearing his body apart. “I’ll set off first… toward the Lingxu Realm…”

After saying this, Chen Ling directly activated [Wall-Breaking], his figure turning into a shadow and disappearing into the Embers of Civilization.

Shen Qingzhu stared blankly at the direction he left, a complex look appearing in his eyes.

“I hope…”

“Everything goes smoothly.”

……

Chen Ling felt as if his body and head were about to explode.

Unprecedentedly full power filled his entire body, pushing Chen Ling’s mental energy, which had just stepped into the Eighth-Order, directly to the peak of the mid-Eighth-Order. More Red Star Wish Power continued to rush forward recklessly, penetrating every corner of Chen Ling’s body.

If the original Chen Ling was filling the container of his body step by step with mental energy, what he was doing now was filling the container with an excessive amount of water, and then continuing, until the container was filled to the point of deformation… and even cracks appeared.

But at least the total amount of mental energy in his body was indeed greater, even reaching a new level, completely exceeding the scope of the Eighth-Order.

If he continued to absorb like this, and if Chen Ling’s body could hold up, he could truly achieve the level of a demigod!

That was what Chen Ling hoped for…

But reality might be even more difficult than he imagined.

Bang—!

On the pitch-black earth, a cloud of blood mist suddenly exploded from the flat shadow!

A figure in an opera robe fell to the ground in a disheveled manner, as if he had been forcibly squeezed out of the ground. A hideous hole had exploded in his shoulder, and magma-like patterns covered the area around the wound, throbbing violently like a living thing.