Chapter 4554 — Breakthrough! Late Golden Core

The only thing Wei Zhao found rather a pity was this: the omen, though striking and intense, had not once carried him through to a true breakthrough in any of his subsequent ordeals under the residual waves. It lingered forever at the level of an omen—it seemed he still could not force the pass.

Wei Zhao knew this restless, ready-to-break state would not last long. If he failed to break through before it faded, he would have to wait for the next omen to appear—and who could say when that would be? Cultivation was like rowing upstream: miss the moment when breakthrough should come, and one sinks into the mire, never to advance another inch. Such cases were far from rare.

"Wealth and honor are sought in peril. Looks like you'll have to take a bit of a risk." Ghost Thing advised.

"Understood." Wei Zhao nodded. Cautious as he had always been, he never refused the risks that were necessary. As things stood, he had only two ways to seize the momentum for a breakthrough. The first was to swallow the Golden Core fruit—but he had no intention of doing that. So it had to be the second: use the five-element killing auras already before him to force out a greater potential from his own body!

Anyone else would never dare such a thing, but Wei Zhao could. Since he could withstand the residual waves of the five-element killing aura, he could naturally go a step further and contrive to draw closer to it. The premise, of course, was that he must hold the balance perfectly—otherwise it would no longer be provoking his potential, but simply courting death.

Drawing a deep breath, Wei Zhao moved to a nearby cylindrical platform. On the one he had stood on before, the Five-Venom Marsh had merely grazed the top of his head; on this one, his whole body entered the marsh directly. Sure enough, a five-element killing aura beside him fixed its gaze on him at once.

If the Five-Venom Marsh overhead was a pond and these five-element killing auras were piranhas, then Wei Zhao was a live, writhing bait. Standing on the previous platform, that bait had still hung above the water's surface, so the piranhas' savagery was never roused—at most he got splashed now and then. But now the bait had been dropped straight into the pond, and the piranhas bared their fangs in an instant.

Perhaps because Wei Zhao possessed five-element spirit roots, in some sense he carried the same "scent" as these five-element killing auras, and so the auras prowling in the distance did not gather toward him. Otherwise, a hundred thousand lives would not have been enough to save him. Even so—just the one killing aura at his side was deadly enough.

Before, merely facing the residual waves of the five-element killing aura had left him in torment; now, face to face with the aura itself, his whole body shook uncontrollably. This was the instinct of a living creature confronting a lethal crisis—even had Wei Zhao wished to control it, he could not, unless he were already a dead man.

"Careful now. Don't overdo it!" At a moment like this, even Ghost Thing's heart was pounding. Though the suggestion had been his own, when it truly came to this instant, even he could not stay calm. He was on Wei Zhao's person, after all—the terror of that five-element killing aura was something he felt firsthand. One careless slip with this thing truly could kill a man, and if Wei Zhao died, he would be dragged down with him.

"I know." Wei Zhao answered in a low voice. In the same breath, the killing aura slammed into his body. Wei Zhao's teeth bit through his own lip and blood came, every muscle in him shuddering madly like chaff in a sieve. The tempering of the residual waves before had been like a thousand cuts; the agony now was a hundred times worse—and more!

Here it comes! Amid the excruciating pain, the true qi within Wei Zhao suddenly surged and raced of its own accord, spontaneously forming a counterforce against the five-element killing aura outside. Uncontrolled, it swelled violently—the moment of breakthrough had arrived!

The thick, solid barrier standing before Late Golden Core began to loosen at once under the frenzied pounding of true qi. Breakthrough was close at hand. Wei Zhao dared not slacken; he hurriedly sank his stance, withdrew from the Five-Venom Marsh, and without a word leapt down from the platform to sit cross-legged, focusing his mind to begin the breakthrough.

For one thing, facing the baptism and tempering of the five-element killing aura directly—that instant just now had already been the limit of what he could endure. For another, the process of breakthrough could not suffer the slightest disturbance; otherwise, at best he would be injured by backlash, at worst he would fall into qi deviation, and there were no few cases of men dropping dead on the spot. The five-element killing aura could only be used to seek the moment of breakthrough. To endure its baptism while still attempting to advance—that was simply seeking death, and even seeking death is not done this way.

All was ready, and the east wind had come. This breakthrough of Wei Zhao's was as natural as water finding its channel—in a mere half hour's time, without wind or danger, he was reborn anew, his whole bearing utterly transformed.

From the peak of Middle Golden Core to Late Golden Core might seem only a hair's breadth apart, yet the two meant entirely different things. Before, he had merely been a typical Golden Core expert; now he stood at a level from which higher realms could be glimpsed. The vast majority of cultivators, upon entering Late Golden Core, began preparing for the next charge—toward Nascent Soul. Chu Bubai, whom he had met earlier, was one such example.

Ordinary cultivators were like that; how much more so Wei Zhao, the strongest Golden Core who had ever broken through in perfection? For him the road from Late Golden Core to Great Perfection of Golden Core would be far quicker than for others. Setting foot in Late Golden Core already meant, for him, that Nascent Soul was not far off.

Carefully sensing the newborn power within him, Wei Zhao drew a long, deep breath. From the peak of Middle Golden Core to Late Golden Core—he could clearly feel that the rise in strength was not a meager one or two notches; it had simply surged! Naturally, Wei Zhao did not let too much delight show on his face.

To remain unmoved by favor or disgrace had always been Wei Zhao's way, and besides, having lately witnessed a mountain-opening-stage devil-cultivator titan like the old sect of the Western Mountains, and then the even more terrifying spirit-beast guardians of the spirit-beast clan, he knew this little rise in strength was nothing worth mentioning before those lofty, supreme beings. Naturally Wei Zhao would not go wild with joy over such a small breakthrough.

This journey to the Southern Continent had opened Wei Zhao's eyes wide; the heights he could now see were far loftier than before. Ascending to Late Golden Core was but a tiny, insignificant step—the road ahead was still long. (To be continued...)