Stranger Danger

Some distance away , Ye Qing was probing the lump of flesh with his demonic thought. He did not sense any danger from it besides its vast and terrible power. So, he commanded the Ghost Dragon Boat to move closer.

To guarantee his safety, Ye Qing unleashed his Earthly Sovereign True Body and Yin Yang Spell Eyes. The Earthly Sovereign Bell was flickering in and out of existence above his head as well. Should any danger rear its ugly head, he should be able to protect himself at first notice.

However, he did not encounter any danger despite moving forward until he was right in front of the lump of flesh. As it turned out, the lump of flesh did not possess any consciousness whatsoever. It was consuming the surrounding demonic fire instinctively.

Although the lump of flesh was obviously anomalous and wicked, he did not feel any discomfort or resistance toward it whatsoever. On the contrary, he felt close and fond of the lump of flesh. It was probably because of the Ghost Dragon Boat.

After investigating it at close range and still not sensing any threat from the lump of flesh, Ye Qing finally reached out and grabbed it with his bare hands.

Ye Qing did not feel the slickness and softness he expected to feel when touching the lump of flesh. Instead, it was hard, smooth, yet warm like a jadeite.

It was at this moment Ye Qing experienced a moment of disorientation. He felt as if he was seeing a blurry image of two people waging battle against each other.

The two men were wide like mountains and over thirty kilometers tall. They appeared august and honorable. One man was wearing a set of golden armor and wielding a sun wheel that shone golden, while the other man had a pair of horns growing out of his head and was wreathed in green flames. Both of them seemed mighty and untouchable.

If they were humans once, then they were human no longer. They were either a god or a demon. The two gods or demons fought a battle that shattered the sky, sundered the earth, drained the ocean, sank the earth, shifted the stars, spun the constellations, dimmed the moon, and darkened the sun.

It was impossible to say how long they had fought, only that it ended with the two-horned god demon being impaled by the golden-armored god using a spear and having his heart ripped out.

"Damn..." Ye Qing's own heart and mind twitched with pain when the heart was impaled. He subconsciously withdrew his palm because of it.

The second he withdrew his palm, the images in his mind disappeared abruptly. He had already witnessed the two-horned god demon's ending though. After losing his heart, the god demon plummeted into an endless abyss, whereas his heart was casually discarded into a lake.

Although he had already withdrawn his palm, and the twinge of pain had disappeared, Ye Qing felt a lingering sense of sorrow for some reason.

"Could it be..."

Suddenly, Ye Qing realized something and took several steps away from the lump of flesh. While examining it, he noticed the large hole that existed at its center and froze in place.

As it turned out, the lump of flesh wasn't an ordinary lump of flesh after all. It was most likely the heart of the two-horned god demon.

He knew this because the two-horned god demon's heart was dark green in color and translucent like a gem. Color wise, it was nearly identical to the lump of flesh in front of him.

Besides that, the two-horned god demon's heart had been pierced by the golden-armored god using a spear, and the lump of flesh in front of him had a penetrating wound that looked very much like it was inflicted by a spear.

To confirm his assumption, Ye Qing carefully probed the gap with his demonic thought. As expected, he sensed a terrible wisp of spear intent from it.

The wisp of spear intent was overflowing with the power of destruction and annihilation. It filled every inch of the gap and prevented it from recovering.

It was impossible to say how much time had passed since the wound was inflicted, but the spear intent remained absolutely terrifying. It was immense like a voluminous river, boundless like the heavens, and blazing like the sun.

"Yep. It all matches up." If Ye Qing wasn't sure before, he now knew with a thousand percent certainty that this lump of flesh was the two-horned god demon's heart.

He was stunned, to be honest. He had imagined all sorts of possibilities prior to coming here, but he never thought that the lump of flesh would be a heart. The heart of a god demon to be exact.

Even more astonishing was the fact that these two god demons probably hailed from the distant past—he reckoned that their fateful battle had happened several hundred thousand years ago—and still the masterless heart did not decay into dust. No, on the contrary, it was slowly but surely regaining its vitality. The masterless spear intent was the same. Despite the passage of several hundred thousand years, it remained as sharp and deadly as ever.

It was simply unthinkable. Unimaginable.

He could only say that both the golden-armored god and the two-headed god demon were too powerful; so powerful that even time and age could not erode their marks of existence.

A while later, Ye Qing pushed away the stray thoughts and focused on figuring out the connection between the heart and the demonic fire. This was the main reason he had come after all.

Unfortunately, he failed. He just could not see some sort of definite connection between the two.

The biggest possibility was that the demonic fire just so happened to possess the kind of power the two-horned god demon's heart needed. The heart was also so powerful that it could absorb the demonic fire's power without being corrupted by it.

This was just one possibility though. There might be other possibilities that he hadn't yet discovered.

"So... should I take the heart, or take the heart, or take the heart?"

Ye Qing rubbed his chin while wondering if he should take the heart or not.

For one, the heart could absorb the demonic fire's power. In other words, it could effectively suppress the demonic fire. With it in hand, he would be much safer when searching for the source of the demonic fire.

Two, other connections might exist between the heart and the demonic fire. It might have an unexpected but hopefully desirable effect during their upcoming operation.

And three, both the heart and the wisp of spear intent were unbelievably powerful. If he could study, absorb, and refine them for his own purposes, then he would become much stronger than before. It was also obviously beneficial for his ascension to Sagehood.

So really, he wasn't actually wondering if he should take the heart. He was thinking how he could obtain it and whether it would be dangerous or not.

"Let's give it a try!"

Of course, thinking was useless. Nothing could be confirmed unless he took action. So, he did.

The first thing Ye Qing tried was to put the heart into Nine Heavens. It worked.

No seriously, it worked just like that. It was so smooth he almost couldn't believe it.

"This seems too easy." Ye Qing rubbed his nose in astonishment. He was so sure that some sort of mishap or accident would occur, and yet absolutely nothing happened at all.

Ye Qing thought self-derisively to himself:Dude, what are you thinking? Things went perfectly for you for once and you feel uncomfortable? Are you a masochist now?

With that done, Ye Qin turned around to leave... and flinched all of a sudden. He waved his hand, and the heart reappeared at the bottom of the sea.

"I knew it was too good to be true." Ye Qing sighed. Accidents and mishaps may be late, but never absent.

The good news that it was just a minor mishap. The power contained within the heart was so powerful that the internal space of Nine Heavens could not withstand it. Had he ignored it for a moment longer, his Nature's Shell would have exploded to bits.