Chapter 91: Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven Requests a Call

Success flickered on the horizon.

Under Bibo’s desperate control, his Demon Power gradually coalesced, surging toward the critical threshold of a breakthrough. Yet, Bibo felt no excitement—only a hollow, sinking dread.

“My blood… it’s not enough!” he gasped.

He could feel his physical form rapidly failing. His vitality guttered like a candle in a gale. While burning one’s essence could grant a temporary surge of power, it was a debt paid in years of life. At this rate, he would burn to ash before he ever touched the next realm.

Outside the treehouse, Wu Yuan sensed Bibo’s aura flare with a sudden, violent intensity. He knew immediately that the beaver was gambling his life.

Wu Yuan frowned, his gaze lingering on the wooden walls. He hesitated for a heartbeat before sighing. “I planned to wait until you were on the brink of death to save you,” he murmured. “After all, you’ve sacrificed much for Little Green Mountain. I can’t simply watch you perish.”

He raised a hand, a sphere of golden light condensing at his fingertip.

Spirit-Gathering Power.

The radiance was blinding, thrumming with concentrated spiritual energy. With a flick of his wrist, Wu Yuan sent the sphere streaking through the air like a fallen star, vanishing into the hut.

Inside, Bibo was a shell of his former self. His flesh had withered against his bones, and his consciousness drifted in a gray haze. He thought he heard the Great King’s voice, but dismissed it as the final hallucination of a dying man.

“Focus. Calm your Qi. Try once more!”

The voice carried an undeniable, sovereign authority that sparked a sliver of hope in Bibo’s fading mind. Then, the golden light collided with him.

As the energy merged into his marrow, vitality flooded back into his limbs. His shriveled muscles filled out, and his tattered essence began to knit itself back together. Bibo’s eyes snapped open, wide with shock.

“It’s real… The Great King intervened!”

He didn’t waste a second on gratitude. Seizing the influx of power, Bibo mobilized every drop of Demon Power for a final, frantic charge. He threw himself at the barrier between realms, fueled by the King’s grace and a desperate hunger for life.

He charged toward hope.

Wu Yuan looked back at the treehouse one last time, shook his head, and turned away.

“Lucky fellow,” he noted. “He actually pulled it off.”

He could feel the new, steady pulse of power emanating from the hut. Bibo had successfully stepped into the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

Wu Yuan returned to his own treehouse and picked up a jade slip to resume his studies, but his mind refused to settle. Bibo’s suicidal determination had left a mark on him. He set the slip aside and walked to the window, staring out at the sprawling canopy of Little Green Mountain.

“Will I one day be like Bibo?” he wondered aloud. “Scrambling for a chance at a breakthrough? Risking everything on a coin toss against death?”

His grip tightened on the windowsill, his gaze turning cold and resolute.

“No. I won’t allow myself to be backed into a corner where I have no choice. Never. I will be the master of my own fate. I am the Rat King, and I will lead Little Green Mountain to a future so glorious that ‘chance’ becomes irrelevant.”

Bibo’s struggle had served as a sharp wake-up call. Wu Yuan realized that since his victory over the Goat Demon, things had been perhaps a bit too smooth. With the Providence of the mountain favoring him, he had grown slightly lax.

He took a deep, grounding breath and picked the jade slip back up. To protect his home and secure his life, he needed more than luck. He needed overwhelming strength.

Later that night, Wu Yuan drifted into a deep sleep. The world was silent, save for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

However, a fragment of his consciousness—the part linked to the Spirit Mulberry Tree—detected a tremor. An invisible force was subtly attempting to breach his mind.

“The body is starting to dream?” Wu Yuan’s subconscious recoiled.

Since embarking on the path of cultivation, he had never dreamed. For a cultivator, dreams were rarely just dreams; they were signs of mental exhaustion, or worse—curses, nightmares, and occult interference. Even if it were a prophetic vision, Wu Yuan preferred his Karmic Pearl for such insights. This felt like an intrusion.

The Spirit Mulberry Tree reacted instantly. Its roots, intertwined with Wu Yuan’s form, pulsed with a sharp, stinging pain.

The sensation hit him like an electric current. His eyelids flickered. His stagnant consciousness, jolted by the physical agony, began to claw its way back to the surface.

Wu Yuan forced his eyes open, his heart hammering against his ribs. “What the hell was that?” he hissed, cold sweat beading on his fur. “Too close.”

But before he could mobilize his defenses to hunt for the intruder, a prompt flashed across his vision.

[Green Intelligence: Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven is requesting to initiate communication. If refused, special measures will be taken to re-establish the connection.]

Wu Yuan blinked, his confusion momentarily overriding his fear. “What? Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven?”

He felt a sudden, sharp prickle of intuition—an omen of impending blunt-force trauma.

“Wait, what ‘special measures’ do you—”

BANG!

A massive, spectral force slammed into the back of his head. It felt as though someone had tried to peel his skull open with a mallet. The world spun violently. Thanks to his tempered physique, Wu Yuan didn’t black out immediately, though his vision turned into a kaleidoscope of dancing spots.

“I’m… I’m going back to sleep, okay?” he groaned, clutching his head. “Just stop—”

BANG!

The second strike was even more merciless. Even Wu Yuan’s robust body couldn’t withstand a direct assault on his spirit. His consciousness buckled and collapsed.

As he fell into the darkness, the world twisted and warped. His spirit drifted, pulled by an irresistible tide toward a place beyond the physical realm.

“Damn it…” was his last coherent thought.

When Wu Yuan finally regained awareness, his first instinct was to shield the back of his head.

However, he quickly realized he wasn’t in his treehouse anymore. He was surrounded by a phantasmagoria of shifting lights and impossible colors that eventually solidified into a single, breathtaking image: a mountain peak that pierced the very heavens.

On the slopes of that gargantuan mountain, countless Demon Beasts were clawing their way upward, locked in a silent, savage race toward the summit.

A realization flooded his mind, delivered by the very air he breathed.

“So,” Wu Yuan murmured, his eyes wide with awe and trepidation. “This is the Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven.”

Wu Yuan’s heart stirred as he received a piece of information.

“So, this is the Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven!” Wu Yuan’s expression turned to shock, never expecting that what he had been seeking would suddenly appear before his eyes.