Chapter 174: 174- BT [5]

CRACK.

The radiant Nascent Soul shattered like fragile glass.

Agony unlike any physical torment tore through him. The pain was beyond anything physical.

For it was the unmaking of his very spiritual self.

Fang Yuan’s physical body convulsed, slumping forward, more blood leaking from his nose and ears.

The light in the cavern died, as if the source had been extinguished.

For a full second, there was only chaos and him slowly losing his consciousness.

But Fang Yuan’s will did not vanish. It coiled back, sharp and unyielding, honed across two lives, one of failure, one of a cautious survival.

He was not just a man in that instant, but a single, stubborn point of awareness adrift in the wreckage of his own spirit.

From emptiness, form, the thought rang in him. From stillness, motion.

He began to gather the pieces. Not to put them back together as they were, but to weave them into something new.

Each glittering fragment of his former soul was a star, and he was the gravity that pulled them into a new constellation.

He didn’t force the fragments instead, He guided them. He allowed the fragments to drift and settle, not into a solid form, but into a shimmering, ethereal outline of his shape.

It was semi-transparent, a being of potential energy and spatial resonance.

A hollow silhouette of himself, translucent and ethereal, rippling with spatial resonance.

Not spirit, not body, but something in-between, an emptiness that invited power, a vessel born of Void.

A Void Spirit.

As it settled into place within his dantian, the external world reacted.

The warping of space around him intensified, no longer a chaotic byproduct but an extension of his new being.

The thin black lines he’d seen earlier now glowed with silver light, and with a thought, he could feel them, could feel the texture of the space around him.

He had done it.

The violent spiritual tempest subsided. The warping of space smoothed out, leaving the cavern still.

The only sound was the drip of water and Fang Yuan’s ragged, steadying breaths.

He slowly pushed himself upright. His body was a wreck, covered in a film of blood and impurity expelled during the tribulation. He felt utterly drained, hollowed out.

But as he closed his eyes and looked inward, he saw it. The Void Spirit, a serene, ghostly twin to himself, sat in his dantian.

It was calming and felt infinite.

Powerful in a way that was silent and absolute.

With a mere flicker of intent, he could feel them, the texture of existence itself, pliable, malleable under his perception.

Slowly, he straightened, every bone aching, his skin slick with expelled impurities, his frame trembling from exhaustion.

He looked like a broken man on the edge of collapsing.

He opened his eyes and raised a hand. He didn’t grab for spiritual energy. He reached for the space in front of him.

His fingers didn’t just move through air, they moved directly through a medium he could now feel.

And with just a faint exertion of will, he folded the space between his hand and a rock on the other side of the pond.

The rock didn’t move from its place. His hand also didn’t move. But for a nanosecond, the distance between them ceased to exist.

His fingertips felt the cool, damp surface of the stone and then the space snapped back, seamless and whole, as though nothing had happened.

Fang Yuan lowered his hand.

A slow, bloodied smile curved across his lip after realising he really had ascended to a whole new realm.

Fang Yuan exhaled slowly, lifting his arm.

With a casual sweep, all the formation flags scattered throughout the cavern trembled, then flew obediently back into his sleeve.

When the last one clicked into his grasp, he finally looked around.

The spirit pond, once brimming with vitality, had shriveled to a cracked basin.

Veins of dried essence clung faintly to the rock walls, but the water was gone, consumed in the storm of his breakthrough.

Fang Yuan’s mouth twitched. "...Ah. How am I going to explain this to the elders?"

His gaze lingered on the ruin he had wrought, irreplaceable spirit water reduced to dust. After a long pause, he swallowed dryly and muttered, "... Whatever happened has happened, it’s a loss but i suppose it’s also a gain for the clan."

As he walked, an odd sensation crept over him.

The cavern felt... different, as though its very walls had shifted in some imperceptible way. He couldn’t name what was wrong, but his gut twisted with quiet certainty, something was amiss.

He stopped mid-step. And instantly his divine sense surged outward, except this time, it was different.

In the Nascent Soul realm, his perception had been sharp, able to dissect minute details.

But now, with his Hollow Spirit body, his awareness pierced deeper. He no longer sensed only the surface, he saw beneath.

The fine seams in space itself shimmered before his mind’s eye, like hairline cracks in glass. He could see them.

He extended further. The city sprawled out in exquisite clarity beneath his sense, every courtyard, every breath of wind.

His awareness brushed across the Wu Clan and there, faint and thin, were traces of teleportation formations.

Before, such things would have been invisible. Now they were glaringly clear.

A faint pulse of weakness tugged at his core. His new strength came at a cost.

The Hollow Spirit realm was vast and alien to him, and the drain on his energy was immense. He would need time to adapt.

Just then—

A crisp, mechanical chime echoed in his mind.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Congratulations, Host!

You have successfully advanced to the Hollow Spirit Realm.

Rewards Granted:

100 × Qi Condensation Pills

100 × Qi Realization Pills

100 × Qi Transformation Pills

100 × Golden Core Pills

100 × Nascent Soul Pills

10 × Hollow Spirit Pills

1 × "Guide to the Hollow Spirit Realm" (manual)

Fang Yuan’s eyes narrowed, the words etching themselves deep into his mind like molten script on stone.

Then, slowly, his lips curved into a smile.

"Ten Hollow Spirit Pills, is it? System... you truly are concerned for me after all. So eager to see me steady my realm, hm?"