Chapter 440: The Roar of the Giant Turtle and the Battle Demon God

"Ah Chu, y-you're suddenly so scary that I can hardly handle it."

Sitting atop the massive stone turtle statue, Xia Youhui looked at Chen Chu’s Purple Spirit points, which had surged by 90,000 in a single day. Even though he was already used to such feats, he still couldn't help but feel shaken.

Over 90,000 points meant Chen Chu had slain tens of thousands of level 5 contaminated void monsters in just one day.

Tens of thousands of level 5 monsters! Across all three years of martial students at East Xia, there weren’t even ten thousand cultivators at the Fifth Heavenly Realm combined.

Of course, as the void monsters near the borders had mostly been cleared, level 5 monsters were now a rare sight.

The monsters Chen Chu had slain today were likely all level 6 and above, with a considerable number of level 7 ones, which explained why his points had surged so dramatically, given the limited time.

"

Sigh!

The gap between us just keeps widening," Xia Youhui muttered, feeling somewhat exhausted.

Though he wasn’t the type to envy his brothers’ hardships or successes, seeing his once slower brother now shine so brightly would make any normal person feel a bit of disparity.

After all, Xia Youhui himself was a genius—reaching the Fifth Heavenly Realm in less than a year. His defense was said to be invincible among those of the same realm.

Suddenly, Xia Youhui sat up straight, pumping himself up. "I can’t just sit here and admire Ah Chu. I have to act and grow stronger, even stronger!"

With that, he turned his gaze toward the stone turtle statue beneath him.

He wasn’t sure whether it was due to cultivating the Black Tortoise Earthly Art or the secondary transformation of his physique after absorbing the turtle-type colossal beast's Essence, but he had a constant feeling that this stone turtle was no ordinary statue.

However, after several days of examining it, he still hadn’t gained any insights.

"What is the secret here?" Xia Youhui scratched his head, his gaze suddenly falling on the turtle’s head, which seemed to be howling at the moon.

Whoosh!

In a flash, Xia Youhui crossed dozens of meters and arrived atop the dragon-like head, which was as broad as a platform.

Looking down at the dark landscape below, he inexplicably felt his chest expand with a sense of boundless freedom. He couldn't help but let out a long howl, his voice echoing and growing louder.

Roar!

The Dragon Turtle beneath him suddenly let out a silent roar, shaking Xia Youhui's consciousness into chaos and startling him.

His true power erupted involuntarily, manifesting as a yellow giant turtle phantom several meters tall, one that enveloped a five-meter radius around him.

From afar, it looked as though a small Black Tortoise[1] was lying atop the enormous turtle statue, both howling at the moon, their divine auras strikingly similar.

Boom!

The massive turtle statue trembled slightly, and the runes on the incomplete stele it carried on its back began to glow, triggering a unique power within.

Just as Xia Youhui finally activated the latent power within the stone turtle, Li Hao, with his towering figure, sat by a fire and checked his name on the leaderboard.

Ranked 132nd, his Purple Spirit points a total of 5,143.

These points came from slaying over three hundred level 5 monsters, more than twenty beginning-stage level 6 monsters, ten middle-stage level 6 monsters, and a few late-stage level 6 monsters over the past few days.

For someone who had just broken through to the late stage of the Fifth Heavenly Realm, this was already a significant achievement.

Although those contaminated monsters had lost their reasoning and could no longer use combat skills or innate abilities, making them slightly weaker than ordinary beings or cultivators of the same level, this performance still paled in comparison to the 90,000 points Chen Chu had gained today.

"I’m still not strong enough," Li Hao murmured, his eyes growing more determined and intense. To catch up to that monster and fulfill the promise of their duel, he needed to engage in higher-intensity battles, and risk everything to break the shackles of his genes.

Standing beside the dismembered corpse of a void monster, a blond young man licked his lips. Glancing at the leaderboard, where Chen Chu’s name shone at the top, his eyes gleamed with a sickening excitement.

"I really want to dissect his body and see what kind of structure it has to unleash such power."

That night, no one felt like chatting. After checking the leaderboard, Bardas and the others silently found spots to cultivate.

For these geniuses, who were considered the top in their respective countries, the blow was too great, leaving them without the will to speak. It wasn’t as if any of them had any more information; they had already shared most of what they knew in the past few days.

By the campfire, Gabriella, who had been roasting meat, glanced at Chen Chu in the distance and whispered in awe, "An Fuqing, this guy’s a monster, right?"

"Yeah, definitely a monster." An Fuqing nodded in agreement.

Chen Chu's cultivation speed surpassed even hers, and she was considered a genius with top-tier cultivation ability and comprehension. If he wasn’t a monster, what even was he?

This wasn’t even mentioning his absolute dominance at the same level. Even with her mastery over the four great sword wills, she couldn’t compare.

While the two girls quietly gossiped, a surge of power suddenly erupted from Chen Chu, who was eating dinner in the distance.

Boom!

Under the force of his overwhelming power, the surrounding air was instantly compressed and exploded outward, creating fierce winds that blew in all directions and caused An Fuqing’s and Gabriella’s long hair to flutter wildly.

The campfire crackled as sparks scattered in all directions, the flames swaying wildly in the gusts.

A few minutes later, the surging aura around Chen Chu finally subsided. Gabriella looked at him with a hint of disbelief. "Chen Chu, did you just have another breakthrough?"

Chen Chu nodded slowly. "Yes, I had a sudden insight just now, a small breakthrough in my cultivation art, and I also reinforced my body a bit."

Gabriella and An Fuqing exchanged glances.

What a monster—he even managed to break through while eating dinner.

Of course, the truth was that the Thunder Fiery Dragon Emperor, following the lead of the Red Colossal Beast, had slain a beginning-stage level 9 colossal beast. After devouring its flesh, the feedback had strengthened Chen Chu.

However, with the Dragon Emperor's normal speed, it should have already killed that level 9 beast by the afternoon.

Zhulong’s guidance had been unreliable. While swimming beneath the ocean, it would suddenly stop, spacing out as if its mind had crashed. Even if the Dragon Emperor sent it flying with a swipe of its claw, it would take a moment to recover.

Faced with this, the Dragon Emperor had all but given up the idea of devouring the Red Beast during its fifth evolution to plunder its ability. It didn’t want to end up with dementia at just one year old.

In fact, when the Red Beast chose to join the Dragon Palace, the Dragon Emperor had already decided not to absorb its abilities from the start. While the beast’s abilities were indeed powerful, its flaws were just as significant.

During the day, it could only use its elemental abilities, and at night, it could only rely on its physical strength. Though both were amplified tenfold, its capabilities were far too limited.

Compared to Zhulong’s abilities, the potential for growth through gigantification, which could stack with other skills and talents, was far stronger.

***

By morning, as the darkness receded, Chen Chu slowly opened his eyes after meditating and cultivating all night. The Tianyuan Stones in his hands had turned to ashes, scattering to the wind.

After a night of cultivation, the battle phantom’s realism had increased by another 3%.

Nearby, An Fuqing sat cross-legged beneath a small tree at the edge of the hill, still immersed in cultivation. Sharp sword will swirled around her, and her clothes and long black hair moved as if blown by an invisible wind.

Further down the hill, Gabriella was already up, dressed in blue work clothes and busy tinkering away on the enormous arm of her mech.

Seeing the black-and-white mech loaded with heavy firepower modules, Chen Chu felt a bit puzzled. "Gabriella, hasn’t your mech finished upgrading yet?"

The blonde girl stood up and shook her head. "It’ll take another two days. There are some conflicts between the arrays in the module combinations that need adjusting."

"I see." Chen Chu stood up.

After glancing at An Fuqing, who was still deep in cultivation, Chen Chu gave a slight nod to Gabriella. His figure then flashed, and he turned into a streak of golden light, dashing off toward the distant ruins.

Watching Chen Chu disappear into the dim ruins, Gabriella's expression turned serious. "His killing intent is so heavy today. Looks like he’s about to go on another massacre."

Though martial arts were primarily used for combat, most cultivators saw them as a means of self-defense, used only to eliminate enemies or defend humanity. Chen Chu’s relentless slaughter of monsters was a rare occurrence.

While accumulating more Purple Spirit points would mean starting from a deeper point on the path to divinity and even the chance to earn an initial origin reward, the risks were high.

That was why, once they had gathered enough points, most people chose to explore the ruins cautiously.

Nine hundred kilometers deep in the ruins, Chen Chu’s halberd, enveloped in golden light, swept across, shattering a late-stage level 7 monster that had lunged at supersonic speed.

At that moment, Chen Chu's eyes were blood-red. A rune resembling an eye, the Blood Sea Purgatory, glowed between his brows, while the murderous aura around him grew increasingly intense.

As Chen Chu immersed himself in slaughter, his mind and body synchronized, and one advanced monster after another was obliterated. Blood energy gathered, and his Hellblood Battle Will gradually advanced toward perfection.

At the same time, Chen Chu’s Purple Spirit points were rising on the leaderboard at an alarming rate. The king Xie Chen watched with a calm expression—he was used to it by now.

A late-stage level 7 monster was worth 300 points, and a beginning-stage level 8 monster earned 1,000 points.

Since most of the monsters Chen Chu killed were level 7 with a few beginning-stage level 8s, his efficiency soared by the end of the seventh day, with the number of monsters slain exceeding two thousand.

Under these circumstances, his points skyrocketed to 343,000, gaining nearly 150,000 in a single day.

Such terrifying progress left everyone numb.

When Chen Chu appeared on the small hillside that evening, his bloodshot eyes emitted an intense killing aura, making those around him uneasy.

The dark purple murderous aura surrounding him had not receded, instead intertwining with the blood sea projection that spread over a seventy-meter radius, creating a towering, rolling storm of killing intent.

The imposing aura even startled An Fuqing, who had been in secluded cultivation all day.

"Chen Chu, are you okay?"

From within the swirling black-purple murderous aura, Chen Chu’s low voice responded. "I’m fine. Right now, I’m just immersed in a killing state and trying to push my battle will to perfection."

An Fuqing and Gabriella exchanged glances and said no more.

The next morning, as dawn broke, a cloud of purple-black aura covering a hundred-meter radius shot off into the distance, rolling like ominous smoke.

On the eighth day, Chen Chu’s killing range narrowed to between six hundred and seven hundred kilometers. As he swept through the ruins, no monster could withstand even one strike.

"Is that guy a god of slaughter incarnate?"

Bardas, standing twenty meters tall and resembling a humanoid white tiger, watched in shock from a ruined city wall as the golden light streaked past in the distance.

What amazed him wasn’t Chen Chu’s supersonic speed, but the overwhelming murderous aura emanating from him.

The dense aura covered a range of over a hundred meters, with crimson blood light shooting skyward. The murderous energy blotted out the sun, and faintly, visions began to emerge.

It was as if he had killed millions. Bardas couldn’t help but believe it. Chen Chu truly was like a god of slaughter.

A trace of fear appeared in Bardas’ eyes. "It’s best not to provoke that monster from East Xia. His killing intent is insane."

By the end of the day, Chen Chu’s Purple Spirit points had surpassed 500,000.

Second place, Ji Wuji, had 27,000, while third place, Bardas, had 25,000. Chen Chu’s score was more than ten or twenty times theirs.

Not to mention those ranked beyond the top 100, with points ranging from 5,000 to as low as 1,000. They couldn’t even compare to a fraction of his score.

Such an exaggerated gap left Xie Chen and Ji Yongning speechless as they observed from outside the ruins. Xie Chen’s expression tightened. "Something’s off with his state."

Ji Yongning pondered. "His records indicate that during his sweep of the southern battlefield, he once comprehended a special battle will infused with blood and killing intent. He’s probably trying to break through using it.

"Battle wills and arts that involve blood aura and killing become stronger the more enemies one slays, and the more powerful the enemies, the stronger the user becomes."

Under the watchful eyes of these two kings, over the next two days, Chen Chu’s killing spree grew even more frenzied. His range shrank to between four hundred and five hundred kilometers as he continued to rampage through the ruins.

By this point, within a thousand-kilometer radius around the oasis, nearly all of the contaminated monsters had been slain by Chen Chu with incredible efficiency.

However, the ruins were vast, and the monsters Chen Chu had slain accounted for only about half of the contaminated creatures.

Every day, as he traversed over ten thousand kilometers across the ruins, almost every genius who entered the ruins had encountered Chen Chu at some point.

In these moments, the geniuses in the beginning stages of the Sixth Heavenly Realm and the late stages of the Fifth all showed expressions of fear.

Chen Chu’s accumulated murderous aura had become too terrifying.

Boom!

Purple-red murderous aura swirled as the thirty-meter-long golden halberd pierced the sky and earth. In an instant, the ground shattered, creating a massive rift over a hundred meters long.

Under the violent explosion and the sharp halberd light, the head of the fifty-meter-long contaminated colossal beast was instantly blown apart, its flesh and blood scattering across a hundred-meter radius.

Whoosh!

Dense black-purple mist gathered over the beast’s corpse, transforming into a giant misty serpent that surged toward Chen Chu. It passed through his palm, merging into the surrounding rolling aura.

The black-purple aura around him surged, covering a 150-meter radius. It was so dense that it obscured all sight, hiding his figure from view.

In addition, the Blood Sea Purgatory, amplified by the endless slaughter, expanded to a hundred meters. The hellish illusion nearly materialized into reality, faintly possessing the power of a domain.

Under the shroud of the Blood Sea Purgatory, the air distorted, and blood rivers flowed. Contaminated monsters and colossal beasts struggled within the sea of blood, screaming and wailing in agony.

At the center of the blood sea, atop a mountain of corpses formed by countless monsters and colossal beasts, stood a towering battle figure, thirty meters tall, with three faces and six arms.

The aura was so overwhelming that bands of red, purple, and black light encircled the battle phantom. Even flames and thunderbolts turned crimson under its influence.

With four blood-colored halos slowly rotating behind its head, the battle phantom—no, it should be called a battle demon phantom—resembled a demonic god from the depths of hell.

Beneath the demon god’s towering figure, Chen Chu’s blood-red eyes gleamed with violent killing intent.

For the past few days, he had been fully immersed in his Hellblood Battle Will. As the number of slain monsters increased, the murderous aura he gathered became more and more horrifying, driving his consciousness to the brink of madness and bloodlust.

In this state, if not for the synchronized awareness provided by the Thunder Emperor to maintain a sliver of clarity, Chen Chu would have likely already fallen completely into the demonic path of slaughter.

This was the price of trying to rapidly break through from intermediate to advanced in slaughter battle will. Without losing one’s sanity, how could one comprehend and break through?

Barely holding onto that thin thread of consciousness, Chen Chu glanced at the transparent panel before him.

[Abilities]

Double Pupil of the Void +15624

After days of relentless killing, the Double Pupil’s amplification had reached fifteenfold, with fifteen rune chains forming around the edges of his black-gold vertical pupils.

His deep voice murmured, "Just a little more."

1. Just a reminder here that the Black Tortoise refers to the Chinese mythical creature, also known as the Black Turtle-Snake or Xuanwu. ☜