Just as the white fireball was within ten yards of Yan Luo, a crimson shimmer appeared in front of her—it was Shi Mu.

　　He gave a loud growl, his scorched-black fist turning bright red as it burst into burning flames before hurling out as a fiery palm meeting with the sprinting white fireball. The latter shimmered a little as white forks of flames exploding out of the surface unevenly, their edge as sharp as blades.

　　The flaming hand was easily cut into pieces before breaking into pieces in a burst; It didn’t put up a fight at all!

　　The white fireball was stopped only by a slight second before continuing its path towards Shi Mu.

　　Even at such close range, Shi Mu couldn’t feel any heat emanating from the white fireball. It was so surreal and unsettling that every fiber in Shi Mu’s body saw the attack as incredibly life-threatening.

　　He bit his mouth and spat out a mouthful of essential blood into his left hand as he muttered an incantation.

　　Phoooowwwh!

　　His left hand was once again ablaze, while the single spout of blood turned into a blood rune that gleamed once before melting into the flames engulfing his hand.

　　The five fingers of his left hand clenched into a fist!

　　The flames dancing on his left hand turned a deep red color while a dart of scarlet red snaked out of the flames before it wrapped around the fire to become a dark-red lotus of flames.

　　Bamm!

　　The white fireball had now collided with the fire lotus. In an instant, the lotus immediately snared the fireball into itself like a trap.

　　The fireball struggled wildly, its flames blazing as it tried to escape. Then, a sudden surge of incredible heat blasted from within the white fireball, threatening to burn even the void around it as the space warped and twisted from the intense heat.

　　Heatwaves purged through the air in tides. Shi Mu’s hair and the hem of his clothes started to burn a scorched brown.

　　His face was unnaturally ruddy. His left arm burned so red hat it was almost bleeding as his veins popped.

　　The white fireball still trapped within the dark-red lotus emitted ear-splitting squeaking sounds as if it was being consumed by its own heat. Streams of mist escaped from it as it shrunk.

　　Shi Mu was completely drenched in sweat, but he spat blood into his left hand and muttered another incantation. As the blood fused with the fire on his left hand, it shone brightly and the dark-red lotus instantly enlarged to one size larger than it was.

　　The newly-accentuated dark-red flame lotus finally managed to wrap the white fireball completely, then it tightened.

　　The white fireball exploded into streams of white, coursing past the red lotus before fusing into his hand. With the white river of fire coursing into his fist, Shi Mu’s left hand was once again scorched black—now all the way to his elbow.

　　Shi Mu fell to the ground, spitting a mouthful of blood as he convulsed, but he regained control of his body and stood after a while.

　　At this moment, he could only feel intense heat rampaging through his internal organs as he once again experienced the sensation of having his cells grilled by an internal flame. His blood was roaring, his Real Qi almost completely exhausted.

　　Seeing that Shi Mu had managed to actually absorb the entire white fireball, the gigantic Bone Worm let out an aghast yet silent roar as it threw its body downward at Shi Mu.

　　Shi Mu planned to duck out of the attack, but just when he wanted to shift his body, his face turned white in a millisecond as his footing stumbled before his knees buckled.

　　There was a flash of silver standing before the Bone Worm—a tiny frame clad in silver armor, it was none other than Yan Luo.

　　Her Soul Flames flickered when she shot a quick sideways glance at Shi Mu, then she turned to face the Bone Worm, raising her head to let out a long howl so shrill it was no longer heard by human ears.

　　In a split second, the Bone Worm’s charging body was suddenly stopped cold in its tracks as it looked at Yan Luo, now completely engulfed in an aura of silver. The Soul Flames in its pupils suddenly tightened in sobriety and heedfulness.

　　Yan Luo’s body glowed brighter and brighter by the second until, with a flash above her head, a large silver apparition materialized.

　　It was a lean, graceful figure in white armor with a blurry visage. A silver spear in hand, the figure’s feet rested on a blooming white lotus.

　　The girl in armor was surrounded by silver flames, making her look like a goddess of war descending from the heavens above. A powerful oppressive feeling emanated from the energy construct like tides rushing towards all sides, forcing all in the audience to bend their knees in obeisance.

　　Shi Mu’e eyes lingered on Yan Luo’s godlike energy construct, and as his body experienced its suppressive mien, he felt a heavy pound on his chest, not unlike someone smacking him with a rock.

　　The flames on the gigantic Bone Worm’s body sputtered and roared, yet as if it was halted by the sudden aura emanating from Yan Luo’s energy construct, it stopped in midair. For some reason, the apparition of a lady in armor before it filled the monster with an almost instinctive sense of foreboding.

　　And when a primal creature sensed that its life was being threatened, its fight reflex was induced as well—and sure enough, the Bone Worm’s dormant primal instincts were triggered bit by bit.

　　It let out a baleful shriek and charged toward the silver energy construct, its jaw opened wide as a burst of white flames poured out.

　　The silver lady in armor’s eyes watched the Bone Worm and raised her hand to give a large horizontal swipe with her silver spear. In a second, droves of silver shadows of the same spears materialized in a dense pack.

　　Boom!

　　The silver spear shadows clashed with the white pillar of flames, but it was the flame pillar that broke into sparks and explosions as they turned into small white flames.

　　Shi Mu, meanwhile, had one of his knees buckled on the ground. He tried to suppress the searing pain within his body as he watched the fight in the air.

　　That white pillar of flames may not be as powerful as the white fireball from before, but it was still a powerful attack in its own right, yet the silver figure energy construct easily destroyed it in a second.

　　As the white flame pillar was swept away, the silver lady apparition leaped about ten dozen yards—and in a blur, she had flashed above the Bone Worm’s head, as if she just teleported. With her arms swinging, the silver spear emitted blinding silver lights until it had extended into a big polearm before landing the blow on the Bone Worm’s head.

　　The Bone Worm finally understood the change in its situation, but it was too late to evade the attack.

　　In its furious, hysterical bid for life, the flames of its eyes danced erratically as it lifted its head suddenly and emitted an aura of white light. Then, as its body shrunk to half its original size in that white light, the Bone Worm opened its mouth wide and spat out several bursts of white, misty typhoons, before they merged together into a white dragon to meet the silver spear attack.

　　Booooommm!

　　The two collided, resulting in an earth-trembling racket as the resulting gales scratched through the earth.

　　Dazzling lights had encased both Yan Luo and the Bone Worm—nobody from the outside could see what was going on.

　　When the sky-covering display of silver and white lights finally dimmed, a single figure fell from the sky. It was none other than Yan Luo.

　　She looked quite unsightly at the moment, with her armor cracked and falling out of place in midair. Her skeletal figure that had just recovered from the last deadly fight against Liu An, was once again marred by all sorts of palpable jagged lines. The Soul Flames lit in her eyes were dim, an indication that she had exhausted much of her energy as well.

　　A rumble echoed through the air as the Bone Worm fell from the air as well, slamming hard onto the ground and kicking up waves of dust and dirt.

　　The Bone Worm’s cranium was split open once again, but this time it could no longer patch it up again like before—simply because the Soul Flame within its head had already been completely snuffed out.

　　Yan Luo struggled to stand up and walked towards the Bone Worm, her Soul Flames sparkling.

　　When she reached close to the underbelly of the Bone Worm’s body, Yan Luo froze. Then, with the black rod in her hand blazing with light, she stabbed the Bone Worm’s torso. With a twist on her wrist, the black rod carved out a large cavity in the Bone Worm’s body, and in Yan Luo went.

　　Not far from the Bone Worm’s carcass, Shi Mu sat up with his legs crossed and took out a pill. He swallowed it, and as the effect kicked in, he finally looked much better.

　　A few moments passed before he finally stood up and walked to the side of the Bone Worm as if he was still shell-shocked from all that had transpired.

　　Not only that, he saw how Yan Luo had managed to kill a Heaven-rank Bone Worm despite being one rank lower than it. In other words, Yan Luo had completely disregarded the disparity between their power ranks and prevailed!

　　Shi Mu stared at the cavity in the Bone Worm’s underbelly, his eyes twinkling.

　　He had a feeling that Yan Luo must possess some sort of secret with her—or maybe, Yan Luo was a very, very uncommon entity back when she was alive.

　　It took about fifteen minutes before Yan Luo emerged from the cavity in the Bone Worm’s body, her hand gripping on a single transparent bone. It looked like a piece of a vertebra, similar to the other bones on Yan Luo’s body. In fact, it seemed that it belonged to the same body.

　　The spine was emanating a devastating pulse of power, but it was nothing like common magic or Real Qi. It seemed to be the power of a more primitive source.

　　Yan Luo’s silver armor had been completely torn off, laying her real body bare. As Shi Mu studied her new state, his heart throbbed a little.

　　It was now very palpable that Yan Luo, indeed, missed this single vertebra in her body; Previously he had not been able to get a clear sight of it, but now that he could, he noticed that this vertebra is different from Yan Luo’s body.

　　It was then a faint grey glow radiated from the transparent bone.

　　In a span of seconds, Yan Luo seemed to be recovering; the cracks in her bones were quickly healing up.

　　A few moments later, Yan Luo raised her head and looked at Shi Mu, her Soul Flames dancing a little before she asked, “Why did you step in just now? Are you… okay?”

　　“It’s alright, don’t worry.” Shi Mu gave her a toothy grin.

　　Yan Luo said nothing.

　　“Is this the bone you were looking for?” Shi Mu asked, eyeing the vertebra in her hand.

　　“Yes. When we return, I would need to close myself off for a few days. I need you to help protect me,” Yan Luo said, her eyes fixed on him.

　　“Er, no problem,” Shi Mu replied after a brief stun, nodding his head.

　　Then Yan Luo turned and walked toward a pile of glowing, crystalline bones. On the other hand, Shi Mu turned to where Bi Ling was.

　　…

　　A day later, Shi Mu and Yan Luo returned to the Darkwater Lake they had been living close to for days. The undead army that had been posted around the lake as sentries was still around.

　　Yan Luo did not even say anything before walking straight into the lake, her body slowly vanishing into the water.

　　Shi Mu scanned the surroundings and found a place to sit nearby, his hands holding onto a spirit stone as he tried to heal and recover.

　　A few days later, next to the Darkwater Lake, Shi Mu’s eyes fluttered open as he inhaled sharply. He turned and eyed his left hand.

　　After absorbing the white flames spouted by the Bone Worm, his entire left arm had become completely blackened and was starting to weigh a lot.

　　However, due to his past experience, Shi Mu wasn’t very worried about it. In fact, he seemed downright excited. He believed that, once he managed to forge the power of the flames provided by the Bone Worm with the single drop of White Ape Essential Blood, he would be able to make great headway in his Nine Revolutions Mysterious Art.

　　With that thought in mind, Shi Mu closed his eyes once more and started to revolve the Real Qi within his body slowly as per the technique.

　　He had originally planned to start training his Nine Revolutions Mysterious Art after returning to the Western He continent’s realm, but now the Fire Attribute energy in his arm had once again become full to the brim after he absorbed the Bone Worm’s fire energy. Besides, now that he was on guard duty for Yan Luo, he might as well train.