Chapter 135: The Fusion Skeleton Guard Corps

Watching Mao Mao consume the final monster and convert it into attributes and experience points, Li Ren finally let out a satisfied sigh as a bright light flashed across his body.

"Finally, level 130! That was truly no easy feat. The difficulty of leveling up after reaching level 100 is just a bit too extreme," Li Ren murmured, looking at his newly updated attributes and experience.

The path of leveling up alone is inevitably monotonous. To persevere through the monster colonies and push his level up entirely on his own is quite an accomplishment. He owed this success to the patience he had cultivated from the games he played in the past.

Recalling the "Free Advancement" option he chose every ten levels, he thought back to the Blood Essence of the Skeleton Guard he had received from the Skeleton King when they first met. Now, their levels had reached the same threshold. It was time for the final attribute enhancement to be completed. He felt a flicker of curiosity about what would come after the Skeleton Guard, the pinnacle of the advancement tree. With that in mind, Li Ren selected the Skeleton Guard advancement.

A dark red light enveloped him. His jade-white bones shifted rapidly within the crimson glow, his entire frame transforming into something more majestic, appearing increasingly sturdy and powerful. Suddenly, a massive surge of energy erupted from within his body, as if manifesting out of thin air, crashing into him.

The intensity of this power climbed rapidly, surging directly toward the red spirit fire burning in his eye sockets. This sudden force was so overwhelming, bordering on madness, that his spirit fire—which had already grown powerful and deepened into a dark red hue—began to flicker like a candle in the wind, appearing as though it might extinguish at any moment.

Li Ren’s mind dissolved into chaos. The sheer force of the energy felt as if he had slammed his head violently against a wall. His brain was filled with a buzzing, drone-like noise; he could not focus on a single thought, and his entire being felt blurred and indistinct.

In this state of delirium, the green skeleton spirit fires he and Shadow had retrieved from the Black Soil Domain long ago suddenly emerged from his Ash Ring on their own, floating one by one around him. It was a ghostly and terrifying sight, though quite fitting for his identity as a skeleton. Just as he felt his consciousness about to be shattered by that overwhelming power, one of the green flames dove directly into his body, rushing toward his unstable red spirit fire.

The moment they touched, the red spirit fire devoured the green flame. Under the influence of this sudden infusion, the turbulent red flame began to stabilize. To Li Ren, lost in his confusion, this influx of green fire felt like a traveler dying of thirst in the desert suddenly plunging into a lake. His burning soul greedily drank in that sliver of coolness. However, against the already immensely powerful red spirit fire, the green flame seemed insignificant. The cooling sensation vanished almost instantly, and Li Ren’s unconscious mind instinctively craved more.

Still in an unresponsive state, Li Ren let out a roar in reality. As if possessed by a will of its own, the green spirit fires began diving into his body one after another. Had Shadow or Fan Yunshan been by his side, they would have been seized by sudden alarm. But both of them, who knew some of the secrets, were elsewhere, leaving only the bone dragon, Mao Mao, who had also fallen into a state of unconsciousness.

Although a faint memory of Shadow’s warning—never to consume these green spirit fires until the timing was right—lingered in his mind, Li Ren was now in a state where he had no control over the situation.

Back in Falling Cloud City, Shadow suddenly felt a premonition and glanced toward the direction of the Illusion Mountains, where Li Ren was. He frowned, feeling an inexplicable sense of unease, as if a weight were pressing against his chest. This groundless sensation made him deeply uncomfortable. He slapped his chest hard and exhaled deeply, trying to soothe his nerves, but his brow remained furrowed.

"Given his current attributes and experience, he should have no trouble navigating the Illusion Mountains," Shadow reasoned, trying to reassure himself that he was merely being oversensitive. Shaking his head with a smile, he returned to the chaotic affairs of Falling Cloud City.

As the waves of green spirit fire poured into Li Ren, the surging, mysterious power within him acted as a catalyst, causing the color of his spirit fire to undergo a bizarre transformation. The outermost layer of the dancing flames began to shift from its original red, taking on a faint green tinge. As the two colors reflected against each other, they gradually began to manifest a blue hue.

Blue skeleton spirit fire!

If Li Ren could perceive his current state, there is no telling how overjoyed he would be. For the skeleton race, every evolution of the spirit fire is an immense leap in power. Even the Skeleton King currently possessed only a red spirit fire. If Li Ren were to truly evolve into a blue spirit fire, he would fundamentally surpass the Skeleton King—a prospect once unimaginable to Li Ren, who had been deeply intimidated by the King in the past.

The innate fear of a superior is not easily extinguished; it is an emotion embedded within the very spirit fire of the skeleton race, a subconscious mandate. It is difficult enough to even sense these strange feelings, let alone resist them.

The green spirit fires were all absorbed into Li Ren’s body, leaving none behind, and the sudden, powerful force began to wane as it settled. Finally, as the three forces converged into equilibrium, the evolution of his spirit fire began in earnest.