Transmigrating Into a Fantasy World: Signing in During Pregnancy, Reaching the Summit with My Childhood Sweetheart

108: Chapter 108: Refining Spiritual Intent and Tempering Body with Star MarrowDawn dispersed the night, but it could not disperse the deathly silence and oppression permeating Black Stone Village.

The ancient well was temporarily sealed by the chaos star core, with Starlight screens flowing to firmly lock the heart-palpitating evil aura beneath the well. No more black Qi seeped out in the village, and those terrifying dried corpses had turned into true withered bones. However, the land around the well remained pitch black and barren, emitting a cold aura; the villagers stayed far away, treating it as a forbidden zone.

The mountain bandits were either dead or had fled, leaving behind a mess and several corpses. The surviving villagers showed little joy of surviving the disaster, but rather numbness and deeper exhaustion. They silently cleaned up the aftermath, burying the dead and repairing houses, as if last night was just an exceptionally terrible nightmare, and after waking up, they still had to face this desperate reality.

In Granny Zhang’s courtyard, Nangong Xuan sat leaning against the wall, his face even paler than yesterday. Forcing the activation of his Sword Intent Soul source last night had worsened his injuries; at this moment, even moving a finger caused piercing pain. Inside his Dantian, the crack-filled Golden Core was lifeless, like a cold black hole constantly devouring his already weak vitality.

Su Muxue was still unconscious. Although her breathing had stabilized somewhat, the loss of her Taiyin Immortal Body’s Origin was not something this thin Spiritual Qi could compensate for; she was like a flower lacking nourishment from its roots, slowly withering.

As for Lin Mo... his chaos star core had turned into a Seal, embedded atop the ancient well, facing off against the existence beneath. Nangong Xuan could vaguely sense that the chaos star core was slowly and continuously absorbing the Death Qi seeping from the well to maintain the Seal, but it itself seemed to have fallen into the deepest hibernation, its consciousness silent and unable to communicate.

Hope was like a flickering candle in the wind, so faint it made one’s heart uneasy.

Nangong Xuan closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. Despair was useless, and self-pity even more so. He had to find a way to break the deadlock.

His cultivation was completely gone, and the Spiritual Qi here was exhausted and extremely inert; the conventional path of cultivation and recovery was already cut off. But... was there really no way at all?

He recalled the details of last night’s battle, the scene of Lin Mo’s chaos star core devouring the Death Qi, and the world key fragment’s reaction to the ancient well... a bold, almost insane idea gradually took shape in his mind.

This ancient well was the source of disaster, but perhaps... it was also the only place of opportunity?

The black Death Qi seeping from the well was of extremely high quality, containing the most fundamental intent of ”Ending” and ”Nirvana,” even purer than the Sword Intent he had comprehended. If Lin Mo’s chaos star core could devour it for its own use, then... could he also try to draw a trace of it to... temper this broken Physical Body and the Golden Core that was on the verge of collapse?

Not to absorb energy—his body simply couldn’t withstand that pure aura of death. But rather... to draw lessons from its ”Nirvana” True Intent, to achieve rebirth through destruction; without destruction, there can be no construction!

Fighting poison with poison, seeking life through death!

This idea was extremely dangerous. A slight mistake would result in being completely eroded by the Death Qi and turning into withered bones. But other than this, he saw no hope.

He opened his eyes, his gaze once again turning toward the sealed ancient well, his eyes becoming incomparably firm.

He called Er Niu and asked him to help move him to the position closest to the ancient well’s Seal that could still ensure safety—the edge of the courtyard wall, directly facing the well. At this position, he could clearly feel the suffocating pressure of deathly silence behind the light screen.

”Child, what... what are you doing? That well is very sinister, you mustn’t get close to it again!” Granny Zhang was deeply worried.

”Don’t worry, Granny, I know what I’m doing.” Nangong Xuan smiled weakly without much explanation.

He sat cross-legged, casting aside all distracting thoughts. He no longer tried to draw the thin, inert Spiritual Qi from the outside, but instead sank his entire mind into his body, into that crack-filled, lifeless Golden Core.

He no longer tried to ”repair” the Golden Core, but rather... to ”feel” its ”Nirvana.”

The Golden Core is where a Cultivator’s Dao foundation gathers. Now that it was covered in cracks and devoid of spiritual power, in a sense, it was already in a state of ”Nirvana.” It’s just that this Nirvana was a ”deathly stillness” leading toward total extinction.

What he needed to do was to comprehend the trace of ”Nirvana” intent hidden within the extreme destruction of the Death Qi in the well—just as Lin Mo’s chaos star core had done!

This process was fraught with danger. His Divine Thought cautiously approached the Golden Core; every touch felt like touching a cold crystal of death, stinging his Divine Soul. He endured the discomfort, carefully experiencing that meaning of all things ending and returning to nothingness.

At the same time, he separated an extremely weak strand of Divine Thought, like a thread, and cautiously extended it outside his body, approaching the ancient well’s Starlight screen to perceive and receive the ”intent” of the extremely thin Death Qi permeating outside the screen.

Inside the light screen, the power of the Seal was dominant, and the Death Qi was greatly suppressed. Outside the light screen, faint traces of the aura that had dissipated last night still remained.

The moment his Divine Thought touched that trace of external Nirvana intent—

Boom!

It was as if an ice needle had pierced the deepest part of his Soul! A cold sense of great terror, great despair, and the end of all things instantly struck his consciousness! It was thousands of times stronger than experiencing the deathly stillness of his own Golden Core!

His whole body shook violently, as if falling into an ice cellar, and he almost collapsed and lost his cultivation immediately!

But he gritted his teeth, his Dao Heart holding firm, forcibly stabilizing that strand of Divine Thought to prevent it from dissipating. Like a reef in a raging tide, he struggled to analyze and understand that trace of external Nirvana True Intent, cross-referencing it with the Nirvana state of his own Golden Core.

Pain! Extreme pain!

This was not physical pain, but torture originating from his Dao Heart and the Origin of his Soul. His consciousness swayed wildly on the boundary between life and death, as if he would be swallowed and assimilated by that endless deathly silence in the next second.

Sweat flowed down his forehead like a stream, instantly turning cold. His body trembled uncontrollably, his face as ashen as a dead man’s.

Granny Zhang and Er Niu watched from the side with their hearts in their throats, yet they didn’t dare to disturb him.

Time passed bit by bit.

Nangong Xuan seemed to be fighting a silent, extremely dangerous war. His aura was sometimes so weak it seemed it would vanish the next second, and sometimes it struggled to reveal an extremely stubborn trace of vitality.

Just when he felt he was about to reach his limit and even his Divine Soul was about to be frozen—

At the very Core of the lifeless Golden Core within him, that point which was originally absolute nothingness and darkness seemed... to be touched by that trace of external extreme Nirvana True Intent, and it... trembled slightly!

It was as if an invisible ”Singularity” had been born in the endless darkness!

Immediately after, a weak but incomparably pure Nirvana Dao Rhyme, devoid of any negative emotions and of the most fundamental nature, was born from that Golden Core Singularity and slowly spread out!

This newborn Nirvana Dao Rhyme was different from the Nirvana Sword Intent he had previously comprehended, which carried destructive attributes; it was more neutral, closer to the fundamental state of ”The Great Dao of Non-Action” and ”All things returning to the void”!

With the appearance of this newborn Dao Rhyme, the cracks on the surface of his Golden Core actually... stopped worsening! Although they were far from repaired, that trend of continuous collapse and extinction was forcibly halted!

Not only that, his broken Meridians and exhausted blood Qi, under the circulation of this newborn Nirvana Dao Rhyme, although still damaged, seemed to be injected with a strange ”resilience,” no longer so fragile.

What surprised him even more was that when this newborn, pure Nirvana Dao Rhyme flowed through his body, the extremely inert Spiritual Qi in the surrounding air actually seemed to be ”soothed” and ”governed” by a higher level of power, becoming... a bit more docile, and began to extremely slowly and spontaneously merge into his body, nourishing his parched Meridians!

Although the speed was agonizingly slow, this was indeed a real, self-occurring repair! He didn’t need to actively guide it!

It worked! He had gambled correctly!

Although his cultivation was far from recovered and his combat power was still nearly non-existent, he had finally found a glimmer of possibility for survival and recovery in this spirit-severing land!—Not by absorbing Spiritual Qi, but by comprehending a higher level of Nirvana Dao Rhyme, using this Dao Rhyme as a foundation to nourish himself and govern the external inert energy!

He slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath of turbid air carrying a freezing chill. Although his eyes were tired, they burned with a long-lost radiance.

”Child, are... are you okay?” Granny Zhang asked cautiously. She felt that Nangong Xuan’s temperament seemed to have undergone a subtle change; he was still weak, but he had less Death Qi and more of a profound calm.

”I’m fine, Granny.” Nangong Xuan showed a genuine smile. ”Perhaps... we are all saved.”

His gaze once again turned toward the ancient well’s Seal, toward that chaos star core.

Lin Mo used the chaos star core to Seal the ancient well and devour the Death Qi. And he, perhaps, could use this environment to temper his Nirvana Dao Intent and reshape himself!

This path was unprecedented and destined to be extremely difficult, but he finally saw a direction.

Just then, Su Muxue, who had been unconscious, suddenly had her eyelashes flutter slightly and let out an extremely weak groan.

Nangong Xuan’s heart tightened, and he quickly moved over.

He saw that Su Muxue was still not awake, but her furrowed brows seemed to have relaxed a bit, and... at the center of her brow, at some point, a very faint Mysterious Mark outlined by weak Starlight had actually emerged!

The shape of that mark actually bore some resemblance to certain patterns on the surface of the chaos star core atop the ancient well!

And in her hand, where she had previously clutched the iron lump, although there was nothing there, an extremely faint ripple of aura originating from the same source as the chaos star core still remained.

Nangong Xuan suddenly realized: before Lin Mo’s chaos star core turned into the Seal, did it leave a trace of its Origin aura inside Su Muxue’s body? Or was it because Su Muxue had been clutching it, and her Taiyin Immortal Body had unconsciously absorbed and fused with an extremely tiny amount of nirvana starlight refined by the chaos star core?

Was this... a blessing or a curse?

Looking at the faint mark on Su Muxue’s brow and sensing that weak ripple from the same source, an even more insane idea uncontrollably emerged.

Since his Nirvana Dao Rhyme could draw the inert Spiritual Qi of this place...

Then, could this trace of aura in Su Muxue, which shared the same source as the chaos star core... better communicate with or even draw the power of the sealed chaos star core? Or... absorb the more docile Death Qi that had been purified by the chaos star core?

If he could guide a trace of the Death Qi seeping from the well, filtered by the chaos star core, to nourish Su Muxue’s depleted Taiyin Origin... this thought made his heart race.

Dangerous! Also extremely dangerous! But perhaps it was the only hope to wake Su Muxue!

He looked at the ancient well’s Seal, then at the weak Su Muxue, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.

Finally, it turned into absolute determination.

He had to try.