The sudden change in the situation caught Su Chen completely off-guard. He had never seen something like this before.
âQingluo, whatâs wrong?â
Gu Qingluo hurriedly clasped her arm and pressed on her wrist as she said, panicking, âItâs sucking my bloodâŠâŠ Heavens, itâs trying to take all of my energy away!â
Su Chen hurriedly tried to pull the Sky Armor off of her, but given how powerful its defenses were, how could Su Chen possibly hope to rip it off with brute strength?
Gu Qingluo yelled, panicked, âItâs my bloodline power! Itâs trying to absorb my bloodline power!â
What?
Su Chen was stunned.
Could it be that it was her Origin Beast Bloodline that had incited this kind of response?
Wait a minute!
He suddenly realized that the Gu Clanâs blood was used to refine Lifesource Candles, whose effect of amplifying an Origin Skillâs power seemed eerily similar.
Could it be that this âdivine beingâ was actuallyâŠâŠ
An idea suddenly popped into Su Chenâs mind.
However, now was not the time to think about these theoretical things. Gu Qingluoâs bloodline was still being absorbed uncontrollably, so Su Chen calmed himself and said, âQingluo, control your strength. You are its owner! Whether or not it takes your power is dependent on your will. If you donât want to give it your power, then it canât take it from you!â
âWhat should I do?â Gu Qingluo was beginning to panic.
Su Chenâs instructions sounded quite easy in theory, but the problem was that whatever was sucking away at Gu Qingluoâs bloodline had no intention of respecting her authority.
Su Chen lowered his head, deep in thought. âAny creature, even a divine one, must have a consciousness, and it is likely that the same holds true for the Sky Armor. Only by targeting its consciousnessâŠâŠâ
âI canât do it. My consciousness power is insufficient, and itâs also resisting me every step of the way,â Gu Qingluo said dismally while shaking her head.
âIâm also here.â Su Chen stepped forwards and hugged Gu Qingluo tightly as he gently said, âRelease your consciousness and let me in!â
Gu Qingluo shut her eyes and opened up her consciousness without reserve to Su Chen.
Her entire heart was laid bare in this moment.
In that instant, their hearts became truly connected, and their wills melded, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between who was Gu Qingluo and who was Su Chen.
At that moment, however, a powerful will suddenly appeared.
A profound voice reverberated through the room as this powerful presence manifested itself. âQingluo, what happened?â
It was one of the clanâs Ancestors!
Gu Qingluo felt her heart tremble.
Even though the Sky Armor had only caused a limited commotion, the fluctuations of Divine Power had still ended up catching one of the Gu Clanâs Ancestorâs eyes.
The Ancestor who had appeared was the Gu Clanâs Fourth Ancestor, Gu Xinrong.
Su Chenâs arrival was of utmost importance to the Ancestors, so Gu Xinrong had left a fragment of her will near their room to keep an eye on the situation. Any commotion would be immediately noticed by her.
Gu Qingluo was just about to reply when Su Chen instructed her not to be distracted.
They had reached the crux of the merging process, and no distractions would be tolerated.
Even though Gu Xinrong had nothing but good intentions, Su Chen found that her goodwill was impossible to accept in these conditions.
When Gu Xinrong received no response, she grew alert, and almost instinctively attempted to enter the room.
Her consciousness, however, was simply too powerful. It would definitely influence Su Chen and Gu Qingluo as soon as she entered the room, and as such, it was impossible for Su Chen to allow Gu Xinrong to ruin the situation. He had no time to explain, so he could only unleash a wave of consciousness power in an attempt to stop her from entering.
Boom!
A Divine Palace appeared behind his own head, and a wave of vast consciousness power enveloped the entire room.
Gu Xinrong discovered that her consciousness fragment had actually been prevented from entering the room.
What was happening?
Even though she had merely tried to send in a fragment of her will, she was still an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator, someone who stood at the peak of humanity. And yet, right now her consciousness fragment had been unceremoniously stopped at the door, causing her to immediately feel like she had lost face.
Gu Xinrong knew that Su Chen would never do anything that could harm Gu Qingluo, and that he probably had a good reason for keeping her outside. However, given her explosive personality and impatient temperament, her fighting spirit was kindled by the fact that a junior was trying to keep her out.
Oh? Youâre not going to let me in? Well, Iâm going to come in anyways.
She activated her consciousness power and began to pile on the pressure. Thankfully, the old woman knew how to hold back a little. Instead of immediately coming at him with her full strength, she slowly ramped up the amount of consciousness energy.
Su Chen could sense the increasing pressure bearing down upon him, but there was nothing he could do.
The situation was just too urgent. He had no focus to spare, so he could only discard all other thoughts and concentrate on merging his consciousness with Gu Qingluoâs as he responded to Gu Xinrong by tapping into his own consciousness power stores.
Even though Su Chen was only at the Spirit Burning Realm, he had formed an extremely stable Divine Palace, and his soul mastery had already reached the Tenth-Ring level â when he had ascended to the Spirit Burning Realm, his soul mastery had also increased by a tier.
Tenth-Ring Arcana Masters could hold their own against high-layer Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators. When this foundation was supplemented with Su Chen Spirit Burning Realm cultivation base and his exceptionally vast consciousness power, it was safe to say that Su Chenâs consciousness power was virtually unrivalled throughout the entire country.
As such, Gu Xinrong felt like she had run into a steel wall, and that there was seemingly no way for her to break through.
This shocked her quite badly, but she continued to pour her consciousness in in an attempt to break through.
Su Chen cursed madly in his heart.
Even though his consciousness wasnât weaker than Gu Xinrongâs in any way, consciousness power didnât exist in a vacuum, and personal skill also mattered. More importantly, he was attempting to merge his consciousness with Gu Qingluoâs at the same time, and Gu Xinrongâs pressure was distracting him from that process.
He could only curse silently at Gu Xinrong for being so untactful and do his best to hold on.
The two of them quickly sank deep into an invisible battle that was fought on the level of a personâs consciousness.
Su Chen was beginning to find it hard to breathe, which only caused his curses to intensify.
His consciousness had started the process of merging with Gu Qingluoâs, so Gu Qingluo could also sense the ferocity of his irritation. There was nothing she could do but roll her eyes.
âHm? What cultivation method has this kid been practicing? Why is his consciousness that powerful?â The old woman had long since forgotten about any official business that she had to take care of and was instead now focusing on the pressure coming from Su Chen.
Hold on!
Hold on!
Su Chen yelled repeatedly in his heart.
Their mind meld was almost complete. At this point, there was only a little bit left.
The clock was ticking down, but Su Chen had started coughing up blood.
The old woman didnât know what was going on, and her efforts only grew stronger.
Ten.
Nine.
EightâŠ
Time passed by second by second, but to Su Chen, those seconds almost felt like years.
Even Gu Qingluo was filled with a paranoid fear.
She feared that Su Chen wouldnât be able to withstand the Ancestorâs might and would be killed on the spot.
However, Su Chen gritted his teeth and refused to let go.
He knew that stopping the process now would basically undo all of their progress, and that they would miss a critical opportunity at stopping the armorâs invasion. It was entirely possible that Gu Qingluo would be sucked dry if he let go.
As such, he needed to endure no matter what.
Gu Qingluo could sense Su Chenâs determination in that moment because of their consciousness connection.
And in that moment, she was deeply moved.
She finally believed that Su Chen truly loved her.
He could come up with a plan and bow down to an enemy for Zhu Xianyao, but he could also put his life on the line by fighting against an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator for her.
Tender feelings began to swell within her heart.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One!
Success!
Their consciousnesses finally merged, dissolving the final boundary of distinction between them.
Su Chen could sense Gu Qingluoâs love for him deep within his heart, not from reading any superficial social cue. In a way, it somewhat felt like he was in love with himself. Gu Qingluo could also sense Su Chenâs towering ambition and his boundless knowledge, as well as his similarly deep love for her. Finally, Su Chenâs consciousness energy flooded into her being like an unstoppable sea. It was both his and hers.
She closed her eyes, and yet she could still sense everything around her.
Gu Qingluo could immediately sense Su Chenâs intentions without even opening her mouth. She immediately knew what to do.
At the same time, Su Chen could finally speak.
He spat out a large mouthful of blood as he barked, âYou old coot, stop! Stop! Stop! Are you trying to kill Qingluo and me?â
Gu Xinrong trembled as she immediately stopped pressuring Su Chen. âWhat is going on in there?â
âWe can talk about it later. Withdraw your consciousness energy now, or else you canât blame me for being impolite. Damn, you almost killed me!!!â Su Chen cursed angrily.
Gu Xinrong went pale with anger, but she also knew that she had probably caused a great deal of trouble for Su Chen and Gu Qingluo. Her face reddened, but she ultimately remained silent as she hurriedly withdrew her consciousness power.
If it had been any junior other than Su Chen, she probably would have slapped them to death for speaking to her in that tone even if she was the one in the wrong.
Gu Qingluo gathered her consciousness energy and began to infuse it into the Sky Armor. Very quickly, she began to sense some kind of response out of the armor.
The armorâs will appeared somewhat hazy, and it was clearly lacking in intelligence. However, it was unbelievably vast, preventing Gu Qingluoâs consciousness from entering the armor.
Gu Qingluo knew that this was the Sky Armorâs consciousness. Or, was it an element of its divinity?
The Sky Armor had originally been an inanimate object, but after being imbued with a divine spirit and the faith of the masses, it had developed a consciousness.
Because this consciousness was still maturing, it typically remained hidden, choosing only to manifest itself at critical moments.
Such as now, when it had sensed the power of Gu Qingluoâs bloodline.
This was akin to the instinctive thirst of a baby for its motherâs milk.
The Sky Armor was just as desperate for Divine Power.
It had lost the nourishment of the Mother Goddess Sect, and at that moment of extreme thirst, it had suddenly sensed the smell of fragrant milk nearby.
Even though this new milkâs scent was different from its motherâs, milk was still milk.
That explained what had just transpired.
Gu Qingluo felt a lot more confident after understanding what had happened.
She began to try and convince Sky Armor to not be so greedy.
However, the growing consciousness also behaved like a child, and there was no reasoning with it. If it wanted to eat, then it wanted to eat. It left no room for negotiation.
Gu Qingluo felt completely helpless.
Thankfully, Su Chen was also present.
Through Su Chenâs consciousness, Gu Qingluo knew exactly what she needed to do.
If you donât have intelligence, then Iâll give you intelligence!
A moment later, Gu Qingluo began to infuse the armor with her consciousness.
A vast will began to surge into the armor.
If the willâs intention was to wipe out the armorâs consciousness, then the armorâs consciousness would have fought back. But since this will was being offered to it as a supplement, the armorâs consciousness didnât hesitate to take it in.
However, this will was also imbued with Su Chen and Gu Qingluoâs human intelligence. When the armorâs consciousness absorbed this strand of will, it also absorbed this intelligence.
Actually, the end effect was even stronger than anticipated because the intelligence had appeared too suddenly. As soon as that spark of intelligence appeared, it overtook and overpowered the primitive consciousness from before. In other words, this Sky Armor had basically become a clone of the merged Su Chen and Gu Qingluo.
Since it was now a duplicate of her will, it was only natural that it didnât want to hurt her anymore.
The Sky Armorâs strap began to loosen.
Gu Qingluo let out a long sigh of relief. She inspected her bloodline power and found that eighty percent of it had been absorbed in this brief period of time. âThank goodness. Any longer and I would have been sucked dry by this guy.â
âItâs my fault. I put you in harmâs way,â Su Chen said in shame.
Their consciousness separated, and the feeling of being so closely joined together disappeared along with it. As such, they could only rely on words to communicate again.
But Gu Qingluo didnât seem to mind. âYou didnât know that this would happen. And we were able to gather some good fortune in the midst of disaster. Now, this Sky Armor truly belongs to us. Without my permission in the future, no one else will be able to use it.
Yes, the Sky Armor had truly officially recognized a new master this time, and it would only obey Su Chen and Gu Qingluo in the future.
As for the bloodline power that Gu Qingluo had lost, she would be able to recuperate it after just a few days of eating and sleeping well.
Su Chen, however, had lost a significant portion of his consciousness energy, and the Ancestorâs actions had also tormented him quite badly. However, in his eyes, such a price was worth gaining the Sky Armorâs complete loyalty.
âSu Chen, may I come in now?â Gu Xinrong asked.
She only asked this time after hearing the two of them talking to each other.
Su Chen frowned. âTroublemaker! If only you were this polite earlier.â
An Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator and the ancestor of an Origin Beast Bloodline clan was casually called âtroublemakerâ by Su Chen. Gu Xinrong almost spat out a mouthful of blood.