Li Qingshan clutched at his heart. He felt his chest tighten as his ears rang slightly.
“Qingshan, stay focused!” “Hahaha, we’re done for! The journey ends here!”
Gu Yanying’s urgings and Rāhu Xiaoming mad laughter pulled Li Qingshan back to his senses. He noticed that he was still in danger. Perhaps it was only a false impression during the instant when the space-devouring beast swallowed him, but he had never reacted so violently just because of danger.
Xiao An?
The interior of the space-devouring beast was as tranquil as outer space. Countless world fragments floated there silently, together with the mountains that it had recently devoured.
Li Qingshan felt like he had entered another world and no longer had to drift through space, so it gave him a strange sense of safety. However, the threat of death did not vanish as a result. Instead, it became extremely strong. The two feelings merged together to form an extremely strange mental state.
He could not help but hold his breath and gather his attention, clutching the Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens firmly as if something terrifying was about to happen
The kunpeng pulled in its wings as well, shielding Li Qingshan and Rāhu Xiaoming as it looked around warily.
Only Rāhu Xiaoming laughed away, laughing at fate and laughing at himself. He continued until Li Qingshan smacked him in the back of his head. Only then did he look over furiously and meet a pair of pitch-black eyes. Fear and despair also appeared within them, but that was not enough to sway his tenacious will.
Gu Yanying smiled. “You’ve suffered another beating, Xiaoming! Could you try and think of some ideas while you laugh so that we can escape?”
These guys!
Rāhu Xiaoming said, “Unfortunately, I don’t have any…”
He had clearly uttered “ideas” already, but it seemed to be shrunken countless times. His voice had not been compressed. Instead, its sense of presence had been compressed.
Li Qingshan watched as a mountain suddenly vanished before his eyes. Only at a closer glance did he discover it did not actually vanish. Instead, it had become the size of a fist, flying off into the distance under the pull of an invisible force.
The kunpeng’s figure suddenly shrank to a tenth of its original size. Gu Yanying said, “That’s not me. The space-devouring beast is digesting us!”
The space-devouring beast obviously possessed the ability to digest them if it was bold enough to swallow them. The constant compressions were like the contractions of the stomach, enough to destroy everything. If it were not for the kunpeng’s protection, Rāhu Xiaoming would have definitely died. Even Li Qingshan might have died here.
Rāhu Xiaoming said, “Do you understand now? We’re going to be crushed into mince meat- no, diced meat very soon.”
Li Qingshan said, “I don’t like either of them. Yanying, break out!”
“Alright!”
The kunpeng flapped its wings and flew in the opposite direction of the mountain.
Li Qingshan lay on the back of the kunpeng, his heart tense as he held his breath. He held the Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens in one hand and Rāhu Xiaoming in the other, awaiting for the second compression.
Rāhu Xiaoming glanced at him and suddenly remembered another man, that man that he thought he had almost forgotten about already.
Father, am I still so weak?
As if a hundred years had passed, yet also like a heartbeat, Li Qingshan thought of an idea. “It’s coming!”
He unleashed the Force Field of the Earth at full power!
At that moment, there was clearly no sound at all, but it felt like the universe was collapsing around them.
The kunpeng shrank once again. Its wingspan was less than three hundred kilometres now.
Li Qingshan behaved like he had just been hit with a punch. His face was bright red, but his expression only became even more stubborn. He turned his head away and spat out some blood gently.
The Swelling Earth of the Nine Heavens was his ultimate tool, not only able to provide him with endless power, but also able to strengthen the innate abilities of the ox demon, but that power did not belong to him at the end of the day.
In that instant earlier, he had almost exhausted all of his daemon qi. All he could do was quickly replenish it from the small world. He even needed the phoenix’s vitality to sustain him through the backlash due to the Force Field of the Earth being forcefully compressed. Instead, Rāhu Xiaoming beside him was completely unscathed.
“Yanying, shrink the kunpeng until it fits within the Force Field of the Earth!”
Gu Yanying was concerned about him. “But can you hold on?”
“We need to conserve the kunpeng’s power,” said Li Qingshan.
Even in the face of almost certain death, he wanted to be a stubborn bone that was extremely difficult to digest.
Rāhu Xiaoming thought of something and suddenly said, “Stop! Turn around!”
“What?”
“We can’t break out of a space-devouring beast that easily. Even if we escape somehow, it’ll continue to chase after us, so we’ll still struggle to survive. We need to venture deeper into the space-devouring beast to confront death in an attempt to survive!”
“That’s reasonable! Now that’s something you should be saying instead!” Li Qingshan patted Rāhu Xiaoming on the shoulder with a smile.
Their mental conversation was complete in an instant. The kunpeng shrank without hesitation, turning around and flying at full speed.
She used everything she had, but their speed still came nowhere close to when they moved through outer space. She said silently, “Hold on, Qingshan!’
During that time, Li Qingshan faced another two compressions. His large, tall body shrank slightly as his organs all ruptured. His brain was a complete mess, and even the almost-indestructible tiger bones became covered in cracks. He knelt down on one knee with his head lowered on the kunpeng’s back, covered in blood, but he remained still and patient like the earth, silently counting down to the next compression.
Perhaps that would be the last compression too.
However, nothing arrived. The kunpeng passed through an invisible membrane. Li Qingshan raised his head. “We succeeded?”
Many blurry glimmers of light appeared before his eyes. Had they returned to outer space?
Rāhu Xiaoming replied, “Yeah, we’re half way there. We’ve already left the space-devouring beast’s stomach. This should be its womb. These are all small space-devouring beasts that are still taking shape.”
Li Qingshan’s shattered eyes congealed and recovered, and his vision gradually cleared up too, only to see thousands of small space-devouring beasts gathered together. What shone were their eyes, if those could be called eyes.
“How the hell are these ‘small’ space-devouring beasts?”
These damned bastards came in all shapes and sizes. None of them bore any resemblance to their mother, and none of them could be considered “small”.
Gu Yanying smiled wryly. “With how ‘small’ they are, they shouldn’t be aggressive, right?”
As she said that, all the small space-devouring beasts began to move, pressing closer towards them.
“I’m guessing these ‘small’ guys aren’t coming to greet us.”
Li Qingshan grinned. The sight before him was basically like shoving countless monsters all into a single nightmare. Instead, it seemed rather absurd.
The space-devouring beasts rapidly pressed closer. If they retreated, they would be digested. If they moved forward, they would be split among them and eaten.
Gu Yanying, “Hey, think of something, you two big men.”
Rāhu Xiaoming said, “I’m just a child, thank you.”
Li Qingshan gazed at the incoming herd of space-devouring beasts, “Xiaoming, you mentioned that space-devouring beasts turn into worlds.”
“I did.”
“I just happen to have a world, or in other words, I have a space-devouring beast.”
Rāhu Xiaoming’s eyes lit up, “That’s correct!”
“Both of you, shut your eyes.”
Gu Yanying and Rāhu Xiaoming both closed their eyes. The kunpeng shut its eyes as well.
Li Qingshan brought his palms together and unleashed the ability of the spirit turtle at full force, the Watermirror’s Image.
Xiao An’s figure appeared in his mind. She seemed to be in both pain and sorrow. Afterwards, he shut his eyes as well.
“May the heavens be watching over us.”
The space-devouring beasts engulfed them.
