Chapter 3485: An Impending Disaster

Lin Mu knew there was now an impending disaster within him.

"The pill won’t stop," Lin Mu thought urgently. "If I don’t act now..."

Another wave surged.

His body screamed.

A storm was gathering within him, one far more dangerous than any external tribulation.

And this time, there was no easy escape.

The pain did not lessen.

If anything, it grew sharper with every passing minute.

Lin Mu sat motionless atop the barren rock, yet inside his body, chaos reigned. Immortal essence surged like an endless tide, battering against structures that had already reached their limits.

An hour ago, after his breakthrough into the sixth stage of the Three Apertures Invoking Technique, he had still possessed a narrow margin of safety. His apertures had expanded, their capacity increased, and for a short while he had been able to guide the excess immortal essence into them without issue.

That margin was gone now.

The three apertures spun violently, their vortexes bloated and saturated. They could take no more. Yet the Martial King Ascension Pill did not care. It continued to release immortal essence in relentless waves, as though mocking the very concept of limitation.

Lin Mu gritted his teeth.

He could feel it clearly now. The apertures were leaking.

Wisps of immortal essence escaped the vortexes in erratic bursts, shooting out like elastic balls striking walls and rebounding chaotically through his meridians. Each collision sent a jolt of pain through his body. Some wisps slammed into his organs, others scraped against his bones, and a few even brushed dangerously close to his soul.

This was no longer a controlled cultivation process.

It was containment failure.

Lin Mu forced his breathing to remain steady as his mind raced.

"I cannot expel the pill," he thought. "And I cannot stop its digestion."

The runes in his stomach were operating autonomously now, responding only to the nature of the pill and his earlier command to intensify absorption.

Even if he willed them to stop, the momentum had already been established. Interrupting it forcibly would create an internal vacuum, a sudden imbalance that could tear his meridians apart just as easily as the overflow itself.

He understood it now.

This was why the Martial King Ascension Pill was said to raise one’s body cultivation by an entire stage, sometimes even two.

It was not gentle.

It was overwhelming by design.

For most cultivators, the pill would push them from the fifth stage of body cultivation straight through the sixth and perhaps even into the seventh. For a stable cultivation over years or centuries, a cultivators body, would have already adapted to the technique’s structure, and would gradually endure the infusion, their cells strengthened by the process until the apertures could safely close.

But Lin Mu was not most cultivators.

He was already at the sixth stage.

And the seventh stage was not something one could rush.

The Aperture Closing Realm was not a single leap. It was a prolonged transformation. One had to slowly infuse the body with immortal essence from the apertures, allowing flesh, bones, organs, and even the soul to adapt before the apertures were sealed.

If Lin Mu attempted it now, the result would be catastrophic.

His apertures might close, but the sudden, uncontrolled infusion of immortal essence would blow his body apart like an overfilled vessel shattered from within.

Hours passed.

Lin Mu’s body began to show the toll.

Fine fissures appeared along his skin, invisible at first, then darkened by blood seeping through. Some wounds opened externally, crimson lines tracing down his arms and torso.

Others formed internally, tearing through muscle fibers and stressing his organs. Even his Burdenless Dominator Physique struggled to keep up, its regenerative capabilities pushed to their limits.

Lin Mu let out a low groan as pain lanced through his chest.

"Think," he muttered hoarsely.

Xukong was watching from within the ring, his usually calm demeanor fractured by anxiety. He had seen countless cultivation crises in his long existence, but this one was uniquely dangerous.

"The obvious solution is the seventh stage," Xukong said, tension evident in his mental voice. "But you are not ready. Forcing it will kill you."

"I know," Lin Mu replied.

Xukong hesitated, then added, "I could attempt to forcibly extract the remaining pill."

Lin Mu’s eyes narrowed.

"No," he said immediately. "Too risky."

Removing the pill abruptly would create a sudden drop in internal pressure. The immortal essence already released would have nowhere to stabilize against, causing violent backlash. His meridians might collapse. His apertures could rupture completely.

It was not a solution.

Within Lin Mu’s mindscape, Lin Mo paced restlessly, his devilish expression unusually serious.

"This is troublesome," Lin Mo said. "But not unsolvable."

Both minds turned inward, analyzing the Three Apertures Invoking Technique with ruthless clarity.

They reviewed its structure.

Three apertures.

Linked.

Circulating.

Storing.

They thought of Blueback.

They thought of the Lapis Link Body Array Totemic Art.

But that path was closed. Blueback’s solution relied on an external array integrated into the flesh, something Lin Mu could not replicate now without years of preparation.

They needed something else.

Something fundamental.

Hours dragged on.

Lin Mu’s breathing grew heavier. Blood stained the stone beneath him. His vision blurred at the edges, but his mind remained frighteningly sharp, driven by sheer will.

Then, amid the haze of pain, a question surfaced.

A simple one.

"Why," Lin Mu murmured, "is the Aperture Linking Realm limited to only four links?"

Lin Mo froze.

The question echoed.

The technique described three apertures as the absolute limit. That was clear. More apertures would destabilize the system entirely.

But the links?

The scriptures spoke of four links. Two straight connections between the middle aperture and the top and bottom, and two curved connections linking the top and bottom indirectly.

But nowhere did it say only four were allowed.

Lin Mo’s eyes widened.

"There is no such rule," he said slowly. "Only convention."

Realization struck them both at once.

"More links," they said together.

It was a mad idea.

An insane one.

But insanity was sometimes the only path forward.

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