Chapter 1797: Big Tonic

Initially, the cycle of the Black Abyss Struggle was not once every ten years, but once every hundred years. However, with the passage of time, this cycle gradually shortened until it became once every ten years in recent years.

This is where the core consciousness hides, and the shortening of the struggle cycle undoubtedly indicates the core's precarious situation.

Judging by the current outcome, the Blood Ancestor's Precious Blood has already begun to erode the core of this world. If this continues, even if the cultivators of the Red Talisman Society can still hold on, the core will not be able to endure. Once the core is completely consumed by the Precious Blood, there will be no place left for Red Talisman Society cultivators in this realm.

"In our confrontation with Sacred Blood Peak, we are at a disadvantage because they have greater numbers and Sun God cultivators. However, as the defending side, we also have an advantage: with the core's assistance, we arrived here in advance, which gives us ample time to make deployments!" Hu Dequan's voice continued to resonate.

This is also the main reason why the Red Talisman Society has been able to persevere, despite being at a disadvantage in terms of numbers and overall strength. Each time the Black Abyss Struggle begins, they arrive in this space early to set up defensive deployments.

The core is, after all, the core of this world, and it naturally has the power to grant certain conveniences to its own cultivators.

So, currently, the cultivators of the Red Talisman Society have arrived first. It will be some time before those from Sacred Blood Peak can open a passage into this place.

The duration of this time difference depends on how long the core consciousness can hold out, because the process of Sacred Blood Peak opening the passage involves breaking through the core consciousness's blockade of this space.

"Therefore, we must deploy as many defensive measures as possible. Once the battle begins, our primary task is to protect the core, and only then to eliminate the enemy! After the great battle commences, the core consciousness will repel all invading enemies. If we can hold out for a sufficiently long time, Sacred Blood Peak cultivators will be expelled from this place, and only then can we achieve victory!"

Hu Dequan had previously discussed this with Lu Ye, mentioning that this repulsion was weakening over time. Initially, the core consciousness could expel enemies from this space in just a day or even half a day, but the last Black Abyss Struggle took a full five days.

This time, it will undoubtedly take even longer.

The root cause is the weakening control of the core consciousness over this space, which is undoubtedly disadvantageous for the defending Red Talisman Society.

After briefly explaining the true nature of the Black Abyss Struggle, the cultivators quickly sprang into action. They had to make more deployments before the Sacred Blood Peak cultivators arrived.

Figures moved back and forth, transporting large numbers of meteorites and floating landmasses. Cultivators skilled in array formations then began to set up magic arrays on these objects.

Lu Ye did not immediately go to help; instead, he flew towards the glowing core.

As early as his time in the Blood Illusion Demon Eye phenomenon, Lu Ye had speculated that the core world possessed its own consciousness. This was because, during their reciprocal journey, the core world had indeed shown conscious reactions. He even tried to communicate with it, but unfortunately received no response and was instead swallowed by the core world.

After entering this realm, Lu Ye also repeatedly attempted to communicate with this world's consciousness, but all his efforts yielded nothing.

Only today did he understand that the core world's consciousness had been hiding in this special space all along, which naturally explained its lack of response to his calls.

But if this was the case, then what was the situation with the core world's reciprocal journey with him before? At that time, the core world was clearly acting consciously, searching for his traces...

Especially when he prepared to escape and manifested his Precious Blood, the core world reacted particularly strongly.

As he pondered, a chilling thought suddenly sprang into Lu Ye's mind: what if the consciousness the core world displayed at that time wasn't the original core consciousness?

So, the act of swallowing him into the core world that day wasn't led by the original core consciousness, but by another consciousness? It swallowed him, apparently sensing that he possessed the Blood Clan bloodline, and that he could become an asset to it after being consumed...

If this were true, then the truth would be quite horrifying, and the situation faced by the Red Talisman Society would be far more severe than imagined.

Lu Ye's expression shifted as he raised his hand to touch the glowing core before him.

Not far away, Hu Dequan watched with cold eyes.

He had witnessed Lu Ye flying towards the core just now but did not stop him, knowing that any cultivator possessing Sacred Power would suffer no good outcome when approaching the core. This had been confirmed in previous battles.

This was because the layer of blood-light enveloping the core seemed to possess extremely potent Sacred Power, and the closer a cultivator with Sacred Power got to the core, the more severely their strength was suppressed.

What astonished Hu Dequan, however, was that Lu Ye showed no signs of being suppressed. When Lu Ye's hand finally touched the core, Hu Dequan's eyes widened considerably.

What was happening?

He found it somewhat incomprehensible, as the scene before him defied his established understanding.

It was certain that Lu Ye possessed Sacred Power, and a very strong one at that. Yet, it shouldn't be so strong as to remain unsuppressed by that layer of blood-light...

But strangely, that was exactly what was happening.

He found it odd, but he hadn't truly grasped what Lu Ye had said earlier.

Lu Ye had told him before that while he did possess Sacred Power and could even freely use various secret Blood Clan techniques, Sacred Power was merely one type of power he wielded!

Although this power would indeed be suppressed by the blood-light outside the core, as it originated from the Blood Ancestor's Precious Blood, whose Sacred Power was beyond Lu Ye's reach.

However, Lu Ye possessed more than just Sacred Power; he was also a human combat cultivator. Standing there, he truly couldn't activate his own Sacred Power, nor could he easily perform Blood Clan secret techniques, but his spiritual power remained completely unaffected.

If it were Xiang Yin, she probably wouldn't even be able to get close to the core.

Seeing that something was amiss, Hu Dequan was about to step forward to stop him, but in the next instant, his eyes widened even further.

This was because as Lu Ye's large hand touched the core, the hazy blood-light enveloping it suddenly underwent strange changes. Originally, this blood-light was like an outer shell, tightly encasing the core, but now it seemed to be boiling.

At this very moment, incredibly fine rootlets, impossible to discern with the naked eye, extended from Lu Ye's palm, enveloping the vast core in an instant.

Lu Ye had activated the power of his Talent Tree!

If the core were considered a cultivator, then the hazy blood-light would be an alien substance invading the cultivator's body, much like the curse poison in the Merman race's bloodline, or even more akin to the Soul-Eating Aphids in Ya Ya's spiritual sea back then.

Lu Ye activated his Talent Tree's power to see if he could refine and burn away this layer of blood-light.

After just a moment of contact, Lu Ye knew it was possible!

As the Talent Tree's power was activated, the layer of blood-light clearly showed abnormal reactions.

The blood-light transformed into a blood mist, seemingly evaporating, and its color slowly diminished.

Hu Dequan finally recovered from his shock, darted to Lu Ye's front, and asked with surprise and uncertainty, "Brother Lu, what are you doing?"

He had intended to stop him earlier because, regardless of what Lu Ye was doing, the core was not something to be casually touched. If Lu Ye harbored ill intentions, the battle would be lost before it even began.

However, after witnessing the changes in the core with his own eyes, he realized that Lu Ye's actions seemed to be beneficial to it.

"I'll explain later," Lu Ye replied, focusing intently on activating the Talent Tree's power. At this moment, he clearly perceived that during the process of refining the blood-light, some profound essences were being assimilated into his body along the roots of the Talent Tree.

He felt his own Sacred Power rapidly increasing!

Originally, after arriving in this realm, he had bestowed much Precious Blood, which had actually diminished his own Sacred Power. However, because his Sacred Power was so potent, this damage wasn't very noticeable, and he still maintained enough advantage to overwhelm other Blood Clan members in terms of Sacred Power.

To replenish the lost Sacred Power, he would have had to refine more of the Blood Clan's sacred blood.

He certainly couldn't find Blood Clan sacred blood at the moment, but unexpectedly, he had found a massive source of replenishment here!

As he pondered, Lu Ye realized that this blood-light was a manifestation of the Blood Ancestor's Precious Blood. His original intention was merely to refine and burn it away, thereby alleviating the pressure on the core consciousness, and perhaps allowing it to provide some assistance to their side in the upcoming great battle.

But this refining process was equivalent to treating the blood-light as a cultivation resource, much like spiritual jade.

When Lu Ye refined spiritual jade, the Talent Tree's roots would extend into the jade, burning away impurities while assimilating the jade's energy for his own use, thereby strengthening his foundation.

The current situation was simply that spiritual jade had been replaced by this layer of blood-light. Essentially, his current state was no different from normal cultivation.

The only difference was that in this type of cultivation, his cultivation level didn't increase; what rapidly improved was his own Blood Clan Sacred Power.

A great boon!

His previously lost Sacred Power quickly replenished and continued to increase.

Hu Dequan stood observing, growing more certain that Lu Ye's actions were beneficial to the core. He therefore abandoned any thought of stopping him, allowing him to remain there, while he himself began to oversee the various tasks involved in constructing their defensive line.

Lu Ye initially thought he could quickly refine away that layer of blood-light, but to his surprise, no matter how he refined it, the blood-light showed no signs of diminishing.

However, the growth of Sacred Power within him was evident.

This gradually led him to understand something: the core was not just superficially infiltrated by the Blood Ancestor's sacred blood; its interior was also affected. This gave him the false impression that he couldn't completely purify it.

If he had enough time, he should be able to restore the core to its original state, but there was clearly not enough time now, which made things difficult for him.

Just as he was feeling helpless, he suddenly felt a gentle touch on his spiritual sea's defenses, as if someone was knocking on a door. Lu Ye paused, then quickly reacted, immediately opening his spiritual sea and urgently immersing his consciousness, allowing his spiritual body to materialize.

Inside his spiritual sea, Lu Ye looked up and immediately saw an additional figure.

It was an old man with white hair, leaning on a cane.

He was very short, about the height of a ten-year-old child, with a long beard falling to his chest and a series of large, protruding bumps on his forehead, like a range of mountains.