Ba-dum! Ba-dum!
Wei Wuyin's true dragon heart pounded fiercely as if responding to his words, ensuring that it was here, that it was ready!
This was the last piece of the puzzle, capable of not just sealing the fate of overcoming this calamity, but the prospect of 'conquering' this Calamity of Hell!
As an Exploitative Blessed and ambitious cultivator, Wei Wuyin's instincts had always been to take the most out of any situation, and the Heavenly Daos accommodated that personality trait of his perfectly. While Calamities of Hell were not part of any Karmic Fortune, in Wei Wuyin's eyes, they were the greatest sources of fortune that held the greatest risk!
Step!
He walked a few dozen steps, and the heat rose! Flames burst out, rushing towards him like a flood of reckoning with no escape in sight, and he was drowned once again by them! They emitted a temperature that was a few thousand degrees higher! Wei Wuyin's physical body was already like molten steel, and this only pushed it towards the edge of melting but not quite!
If it wasn't for his innate Absolute Hot Fire Energies, Scorching Ash Magma Energies, and Absolute Zero Ice Energies that were joined by Elemental Origin Energy, that refined his physical body for the last three decades, he would've already had his physical body melted and his soul exposed!
SOUL EXPOSED!
As an Inheritor of Sin, his physical body was an additional shell of defense. Typically, an Inheritor should have three layers of protection against the cleansing power of Hell and these flames—the physical body, the Outer Shell of the Soul, and the refined True Soul of Sin!
Unfortunately, Wei Wuyin only had two! And his physical body wasn't remotely close to being as powerful and resilient as a Realm of Sage cultivator's physical body. Even if the Realm of Sages began at the True Sage Phase of the Mystic Ascendant Realm, the Eighth Stage of the Realm, the comparison would be laughable.
Even right now, Wei Wuyin had merely taken a little over a thousand steps in a 108,000,000 steps journey, but he was already pushed to the brink of his physical body melting! If his physical body melted, his soul would be exposed, and no divergence of pain could be performed, so he would either be incinerated by the fires of Hell or cleansed by Hell's power.
There was no other outcome.
Soon, the flames abated once again, doused by some natural function of Hell.
Wei Wuyin looked at his hands, seeing his skin and muscles literally melt as his bones became visible was strange. This was especially so when he felt none of the soul-rending pain that he should experience by such an event. Simultaneously, his Secondary Mind was violently thrashing in his Sea of Consciousness, spiraling as if mad, unable to do anything but unleash a screeching howl in a hellishly soul-trembling tone.
Wei Wuyin kept moving!
Step! Step!
The molten road burned the soles of his feet, and he left behind a melting portion of flesh with each step, sticky and twisted, as he stepped forward. At some point, he was walking with just his leg bones.
Two thousand steps!
Periodically, a storm of flames would rage and devour him. Then, it would dissipate until he either traveled a certain number of steps or a certain amount of time was eclipsed. This type of hellish experience would force anyone to rush ahead out of raging fear of dying, but Wei Wuyin remained absolutely calm and took a single step at a time with an expressionless face!
Wei Wuyin could be said to no longer have any flesh! What little remained melted into his molten bones that exuded a reddish-gold glow! Shockingly, there was a burst of silvery light now and then as mucus seemed to continuously be produced, even from his bones! This mucus melted into his bones!!
"Inexhaustible?" Wei Wuyin realized that the silvery mucus was exhibiting characteristics that he predicted the Neo-Dawn Paragon-Forging Pill would have. The mucus was replenishing itself if removed by some unnatural power, much like the Renewal Yang or Renewal Yin Physiques' Primal Sources!
Moreover, he felt that his flesh and blood had been replenishing without any action, largely contributing to why he could walk this far. Two thousand steps! He didn't stop despite his current situation, and calmly took each step as the flames of Hell raged!
Three thousand steps!
Four thousand steps!
Wei Wuyin now heavily resembled the first time he traveled through a Void Portal; he was a bare skeleton with silver eyes exuding an eternal aura, three dangling lumps of flesh between his legs, a grey-ish heart that was several times the size of a normal human's, and his seven-colored throbbing brain! Even his bones were burnt a turbid black, giving one a strange, uncomfortable feeling.
Looking at his bony hands, Wei Wuyin smiled with no lips, "I probably look like the Black Skeleton, huh? Well, that was a female skeleton, so probably not with this thing dangling about." Despite being on the verge of total collapse, his bones already showing signs of melting, Wei Wuyin still could think and joke. It was a coping mechanism to wrestle with his rising fear despite his firm confidence.
HUM!
A blade hum once again resounded, and his silver eyes brightly lit as he held steady. This was it! He was waiting for this moment! The blade hum was the second part of the Calamity of Blade and Fire, and it was the most dangerous portion of this Calamity of Hell! If one didn't run at the sound of it, they would meet the blade! Either you rushed forward towards the end of the Agonized Road to dodge or experience the edge of this blade! And the further you went, the stronger the flames, the sharper the blade!
Either scenario would lead to your inevitable cleansing!
Wei Wuyin didn't feel anything, but a blade had lodged itself into his glabella! If he was a soul, this would be a crucial and fatal location that would end his life! His skull was pierced!
"Now!" Wei Wuyin's mind still reacted despite having his brain sliced into, slowly being cut into pieces as the blade vibrated out a hum of its hell-slicing sharpness, and his heart began to beat like raging thunder!
MARK OF EDEN!
Wei Wuyin tapped into the latent unrefined lifeforce within the Mark of Eden, sending out seemingly endless strands of life-replenishing power!
Within a picosecond, the damage to his brain was healed!
A nanosecond later, his brain was sliced almost entirely in half!
A picosecond later, his brain was HEALED!
He was healing faster than the blade could cut! Unable to slice into his brain's glabella where his Mind's Eye existed, it wasn't capable of piercing into his soul! It was stuck! Stuck in his brain!
The pain should've been so unbearable that no one could perform any activities while suffering it, but Wei Wuyin's Secondary Mind took it all without the slightest complaints!
With heaven-defying speed, his flesh instantly regrew. Then, the heat proceeded to melt it! Then, his muscles, skin, and every ounce of flesh REGREW!!
HOLD!!!
It kept happening endlessly and Wei Wuyin took a slow breath as his eyes focused intently on the Agonized Road before him.
"RUN!" Wei Wuyin lowered his posture like a predator as the cycle of destruction and regrowth happened over and over again without end! There was a ferocious intensity in his eyes that could shake demons and divinities alike, and then, with unrivaled willpower, he pressed his sometimes bony, sometimes melting, sometimes whole feet against the road and—
WHOOSH!!!