Otherworldly Desert Dust

"Wu Hen, that outer-heaven substance has already seeped into the lower depths. Be careful of the crust creatures!" Rat's voice echoed in Wu Hen's ear.

Wu Hen was about to ask what crust creatures were when the earth suddenly began to tremble violently.

His body swayed along with the shaking, and then he saw terrifying cracks appearing in the ground. These fractures didn't seem to be caused by geological movements but rather by some truly fearsome lifeform from beneath the earth, forcibly prying it open with its claws!

From the depths of the newly torn fissures, countless ancient butterflies suddenly flocked out. Like birds and beasts startled into flight, they scattered aimlessly. Yet these subterranean butterflies couldn't endure light. The moment their bodies were blessed by the first ray of radiance, they began to melt peculiarly, like snowwater, leaving behind countless crystalline dust particles.

"Guu~~~~~~~"

A reverberating sound emanated from the crack, resembling a warning cry from an otherworldly entity—yet only Wu Hen's true self could hear it.

It undoubtedly belonged to an immensely powerful underground lifeform. Even Wu Hen's true body felt an oppressive force emanating from this crust creature, to the extent that his consciousness, tethered to the smaller avatar Yi Liang, began to scatter and flee. Just like those startled subterranean butterflies, it sought an escape without direction.

Wu Hen suppressed the urge to flee. Taking a deep breath, his gaze locked onto the "open fissure" clawed apart from the earth's deepest depths.

Finally, from the depths of the fissure, an enormous claw suddenly thrust forth!

It wasn't flesh and blood at all.

Its joints were forged of bronze, interwoven with magma-like veins. Each nail comprised crystallizing obsidian.

When it hoisted its body, Wu Hen was faced with a grotesque amalgamation—a cross between tortoise and centipede. Its curved, bronze-scaled dorsal shell towered three stories tall, adorned with hundreds of screaming human faces etched as reliefs. Yet beneath this shell was a segmented, centipede-like body, each abdominal segment oozing caustic acid that corroded the ground beneath.

"Crackkk!!!"

The largest bronze human face at the dorsal center suddenly opened its molten eyes. That ancient priestly visage contorted its bronze-cast mouth, producing a voice that sent chills down one's spine: "Nuwa… spawn!"

In an instant, acid rain burst forth from the gaps of its shell.

Each drop of this rain crystallized into jagged spikes mid-air, forming coral-shaped bronze clusters wherever it landed.

Wu Hen hurriedly retreated. The ground he had just stood on was pockmarked by the acid rain into a honeycomb-like warren. Catching sight of a single droplet landing on his sleeve, the fabric instantly carbonized into ash, while his exposed skin adopted an eerie bronze sheen.

"The crust creature is transforming your lifeform!" Rat's warning clashed with the monster's guttural roar.

The creature slammed its forelimb into the ground, shattering the rock beneath Wu Hen's feet as though it were brittle crackers, leaving nowhere stable to stand.

Wu Hen had no choice but to leap into the air, relying on the blazing flame energy underfoot to keep him suspended.

Suddenly, a second limb, entirely comprised of crystalline ore, emerged from the rift. This gargantuan appendage, covered in clusters of purple crystals, swept across with devastating force, leaving behind a trail of snowflake-like crystallized bronze even in the air!

Wu Hen had never seen such bizarre crust creatures before. He couldn't determine whether they were ancient fossils that had gained sentience or extraordinarily resilient organisms that had evolved into these monstrous forms by assimilating subterranean materials.

Flames violently surged across Wu Hen's entire body. Eruptions of magma burst in countless streams from the air below him, transforming the surrounding thousand-meter sky into a seething flame prison. Fixing his gaze on the bronze human faces screaming on the creature's dorsal shell, Wu Hen sneered coldly, "A Bitter-Face Bronze Corpse thinks it can howl??"

Nuwa spawn??

This implied that the creature beneath the crust recognized Nuwa God End and was acutely aware that the Soul Nesting Wood was Nuwa God End's seed bud. Why it harbored such deep resentment, Wu Hen couldn't fathom. Yet there was little doubt this entity, much like a Guanyin Worm, was one of the monstrous predators that preyed on Nuwa God End. The malice and scorn emanating from it suggested it had placed itself atop a godlike pedestal.

Wu Hen's right hand clenched in a voiding grip, and with this simple motion, the Sky Dome ruptured into nine scarlet fissures. With his Flame God Body having achieved the Mahayana realm, his power rivaled even the apex predators of the otherworldly dimensions.

Within the scarlet fissures descended hundreds of meters of flame chains. Wu Hen held these blazing chains aloft in the void, fusing them into his Flame Fire Divine Weapon, then lashed them fiercely at the Bronze Bitter-Face creature!

The molten chains struck precisely within the bronze coral thicket spawned by the earlier Nether Acid Rain. In an instant, the entire crystalline forest transformed into towering infernos!

"Kahhhhhh!!!"

The central bronze human face on the crust creature let out an ear-piercing screech, as the lash sent showers of molten bronze and sparks raining from its shell.

"Putting on airs—did you actually think you could fight back?" Wu Hen's left eye suddenly ignited with solar-like golden patterns. From the fiery fissures scarring the ground, dense formations of flame swords began to emerge. These blades arranged themselves into a magnificent Flame Sword Mountain!

The Flame Sword Mountain surged forward, colliding violently with the Bronze Bitter-Face creature's carapace. Their clash against the carapace's ancient-patterned defenses unleashed a storm of high-temperature bronze coral shards into the air!

Suffering two consecutive devastating blows, the Bronze Bitter-Face creature grew savage, its rage palpable. It seemed unprepared for the immense power wielded by a spawn of Nuwa God End. In ancient times, such beings were no higher than subterranean worms.

The Bronze Bitter-Face creature drove its purple crystal limb violently into the Earth Vein, attempting to summon the bedrock below and reshape it into its ultimate weapon.

Wu Hen naturally wouldn't let it drain power from the crust. Long beforehand, he had infused the land beneath himself with his molten domain, converting its subterrain into searing fire liquid.

Since it had crawled from the subterranean depths, its control over the bedrock was undoubtedly formidable.

But Wu Hen was cruel—he had filled the sub-surface with superheated liquid fire in preparation. Just as the creature sought to manipulate the stone beneath, Wu Hen abruptly ignited the most volatile particles within the molten liquid, transforming the previously dormant fire into a cataclysmic explosion of Blast Flame Elemental Energy!

The explosion obliterated the subterranean layer into dust, reducing the ground below into a churning molten lake beneath Wu Hen's feet.

With the rock turned to an infernal pool, the Bronze Bitter-Face creature toppled into the fire pit, subjected to the scorching baptism.

What Wu Hen wielded wasn't mere subterranean lava. The Bronze Bitter-Face creature may have endured countless magma purifications beneath the earth, evolving to withstand extremes of heat.

But Wu Hen's power came from skyfire. Skyfire had reduced entire Cang Chu landscapes to ash—ashes atop ashes, leaving no trace of subterranean existence. As the Bronze Bitter-Face fell into the molten pit, the fossilized matter covering its body began to burn and crumble, dissolving into nothingness under the apocalyptic temperature. It was the annihilation of all matter upon reaching an ultimate threshold!

The bronze human face twisted in agony, melting amidst the fiery obliteration. Its shell emitted an ear-grating, metallic lament.

Wu Hen, like a reigning Fire God, condensed the flaming chains he had wielded into Red Gold Arrows. These dazzling arrowheads rained down from the heavens, striking this presumptuous crust creature with divine precision!