Chapter 245 – The Abyss Approaches

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Accelerating the construction of the passageway naturally comes at a cost.

"Su Yu once said that if the Holy Spirit Cult on the Douluo Continent wanted to speed up the construction of the passage, they would need to sacrifice at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives just to have a chance at accelerating its formation."

However, the Holy Spirit Cult currently has neither the strategy nor the means to carry out such a massive sacrifice. So it's clear that the acceleration of the passage isn't due to their efforts.

If it's the Abyss itself, as the initiating party, actively working to hasten the construction of the passage, then the price they're paying must be even greater.

Thinking of this, Snow Empress sensed the surrounding spiritual energy—and sure enough, she noticed a change.

"The spiritual energy is rising."

She could now clearly perceive an increase in the world's elemental energy—not just in density, but in overall quality as well.

Of course, with time, this increase may gradually dissipate through the natural energy cycle of the Douluo Continent.

However, the Extreme North is vast. For the spiritual energy to rise in both quality and quantity across such an enormous area, the Abyss must have paid a tremendous price.

"This isn't death and depletion within the plane itself, but rather an immense amount of energy being directly infused into the Douluo Continent to accelerate the passage's formation."

The Abyss is truly willing to make a heavy investment.

Yet, even though benefits are already appearing before a war has begun, Snow Empress's expression did not relax. Instead, her face grew increasingly grim.

This only proved that the Abyss was determined to seize the Douluo Continent. Once the passage is fully formed, what awaits the continent will be a thunderous strike from the opposing side.

"But... why?"

Dragon Valley.

Su Yu remained unaware of the changes occurring in the Extreme North.

He had not anticipated that the Abyss, instead of pausing or waiting, would act on its own to collide with the Douluo Continent—attempting to forge a spatial passage before he had even begun to lure them in. Even more surprising was that they took the initiative to infuse an enormous amount of energy to speed up the process.

In Su Yu's mind, the Abyss merely daring to approach after the Douluo Continent had lost contact with the God Realm was already bold enough—it had exceeded his expectations.

Dragon Valley.

Dragon's Graveyard.

Electrolux's breakthrough didn't take much time. His understanding had already reached sufficient depth, and as Su Yu repeatedly resonated with the laws of the plane, Electrolux took the opportunity to align his own insights with the rules of the Douluo Continent.

His spiritual form gradually solidified, and a powerful force radiated from his body. His divine sense steadily transformed, while the world's elemental energy gathered and condensed to form a physical body made of energy. This body fused with his divine sense to create an entirely new form of power.

"I only have my divine sense left. While I can now condense a body made of pure energy, it still falls short compared to a true body of flesh and blood."

Although he said this, Electrolux understood well that the advantages of an energy body far outweighed those of a mortal one.

At this moment, Su Yu was no longer paying attention to Electrolux's breakthrough. He had begun focusing fully on constructing the core array for his battle armor.

He intended to integrate all the insights he had gained during his exploration of the continent, along with the intricate techniques of his latest theories, into his core array. By doing so, he aimed to make the condensation of a virtual soul core as effortless as possible.

Time passed.

For Su Yu, constructing a core array had become second nature.

In essence, it was about transforming his insights into something that could be etched—a process similar to drawing runes.

Thanks to his repeated accumulation of experience, he had already mastered the foundational transformation methods. What he was doing now was simply putting everything together in harmony.

Half a month passed.

Su Yu completed the construction of his core array.

Another half month later, he refined it further—constantly revising its details while adjusting the state of his soul power to prepare for the next step: condensing his second soul core.

"Everything is ready. It's time to begin."

Taking a deep breath, Su Yu prepared for the final adjustments.

To be honest, the set of sentient metal that now formed his armor had been nurtured by him since his Soul Emperor stage. Bit by bit, he had cultivated its spirit with his own strength. Su Yu was unwilling to damage it during the process of engraving the core array and condensing the second soul core.

And it wasn't just because this set of armor already occupied the quota of sentient metals his spiritual power could bond with.

His spiritual power had already reached the Spirit Domain Realm—solidly within the mid-stage. Even if he were to contract with two or three more sets of sentient metal, it wouldn't be a problem at all.

But the main reason was... Su Yu was a bit sentimental.

Okay—he just didn't want the hassle.

"While the technique of Heavenly Forging may seem mature, without successfully enduring a heavenly tribulation, there's no way to know whether something crucial might still be missing. I really don't want to waste more time on forging."

It wasn't just about the time spent forging a new set of armor with Heavenly Forged sentient metal. It was also the potential need to refine the technique, or even reconstruct and improve the entire core array.

Right now, Su Yu was fully immersed in a breakthrough state. His soul power had already synchronized with the newly constructed core array.

If he switched gears to forging and underwent tribulation, his internal state would undoubtedly shift.

After all, Su Yu was absolutely certain that he would gain new insights during the heavenly tribulation.

He raised his right hand to his forehead and made a sweeping gesture. In the next moment, a carving knife appeared in his hand—its entire body crystalline, as though formed naturally. Despite being infused with immense vitality, the blade radiated a sharp, bone-chilling cold.

With the Blade of Living Spirit in hand, Su Yu summoned his battle armor as well.

Su Yu infused his spiritual power into the Blade of Living Spirit. The blade transformed into a concentrated stream of life energy, merging with his spiritual power and flowing deep into the battle armor in the form of pure energy.

This was the second form of the Blade of Living Spirit, a mode Su Yu had developed specifically for battle armor—designed to etch core arrays into sentient metals by interacting directly with their innate spiritual essence.

Using only spiritual power for stabilization was inefficient. Drawing inspiration from traditional soul tool crafting, Su Yu further refined the Blade of Living Spirit into a Spiritual Blade, capable of simulating the action of a carving tool within the spiritual essence of sentient metal to engrave the core array.

This was the unique trait of the Blade of Living Spirit.

Without question, no other carving tools currently in existence could accomplish this. However, it was theoretically possible to create a type of soul tool—not a carving-tool soul device per se, but one that could assist spiritual power in temporarily taking the form of a blade, mimicking the characteristics of a true carving tool.

Perhaps in the future, such soul tools or spiritual soul skills would become just as crucial to soul engineers as carving tools are today—maybe even more so. Each one could rival the top-tier ranked carving tools in the soul engineer world.

For now, Su Yu pushed those thoughts aside. With the Blade of Living Spirit attached to his spiritual power, he began outlining the spiritual essence within the armor, following the structure of the core array he had constructed.

The original framework was gradually refined and repaired, progressing step by step toward his envisioned design.

The core array patterns required for a Super Battle Armor were vast and intricate—far more complex than even the most advanced Grade 9 soul tools.

In fact, each individual component of the Super Battle Armor could be compared to one of the most powerful Grade 9 soul tools, and the core array had to include interlocking resonance links between all armor pieces, raising the difficulty immensely.

The entire armor set consisted of more than a dozen parts, and Su Yu intended to eventually integrate it with his Thunder God's Whip, Blue Silver Seed, and other equipment.

Even though the process was somewhat easier than when he had first reached Grade 9 Soul Engineer level before the Soul Master Tournament, it still took Su Yu about two days to finish a single component.

And so, after a full month, Su Yu finally completed the engraving of the core array for his Super Battle Armor.

"Not bad."

Yes—more than just not bad.

Completing the Super Battle Armor in just one month was a clear testament to Su Yu's extraordinary soul tool crafting skills.

Each armor piece now radiated a sense of vitality, as if infused with life and spirit. Under Su Yu's control, the components seamlessly integrated with each part of his body.

"Cycle War Armor—Fusion!"

Now elevated to the level of Super Battle Armor, Su Yu had given his armor a simple name.

As the Cycle War Armor assembled, pieces radiating with a violet-gold glow and interwoven with shimmering blue-green light patterns spread across Su Yu's body in a brilliant display.

His soul power fluctuations surged, piercing through the suppression of his physical energy and even breaking the restraints of Dragon Valley.

Dragon Valley naturally suppressed soul power and martial spirits, preventing soul masters from using them within its bounds. However, suppression didn't mean erasure—soul power and martial spirits still existed within.

Now, not only had Su Yu exposed his power, he had completely shattered the Valley's restrictions. The surge of his soul power reached the level of an Ultimate Douluo—overwhelmingly powerful.

Yet even with his full soul power unleashed, the rejection of Dragon Valley never came.

The many dragon souls that had gathered now bore a hint of spiritual awareness in their eyes, as though fragments of their former memories had returned. They felt deep gratitude toward both Su Yu and Electrolux.

These dragon souls were, after all, part of Dragon Valley's collective will. Their attitude reflected that Dragon Valley had accepted Su Yu and no longer intended to expel him.

Su Yu could clearly feel the unique characteristics of the Cycle War Armor at the Super Battle Armor level. He carefully channeled his soul power, sensing every shift and gradually adjusting to his new strength.

He spent an entire day tuning and adapting to the Cycle War Armor before moving on to the next step.

"First... I need to adjust the rotational angle of my current soul core."

Summoning his inner strength, Su Yu began rotating his soul core little by little—aligning it to a vertical angle, perpendicular to the ground.

This was something he had tried before; otherwise, he wouldn't have blindly attempted it using theory alone.

With the soul core in his dantian adjusted, Su Yu began channeling his soul power throughout his entire body.

Now, part of his soul power came from the battle armor.

The battle armor had become a part of his body, allowing his total soul power to exceed its previous limit. This excess soul power was now being used to condense his virtual soul core.

With his soul power fully restored to its maximum, Su Yu began manipulating the soul power within the battle armor.

The most challenging aspect of the virtual soul core technique was making the battle armor work as a whole, independent from the soul master's body.

The goal was to create an operational system within the soul power stored in the armor, and further integrate it with the soul power circulating inside Su Yu's body.

It wasn't enough for each component of the armor to function independently, separately connecting to different regions of the soul master's internal soul power.

Now, channels for soul power had been opened between the armor's components, effectively creating artificial meridians.

This was a technique derived from the fusion of the battle armor and its wearer. Although it seemed as if the armor's components were separate, they were actually one cohesive unit. Through the intermediary bridge of the martial soul, the soul power flowed seamlessly across the entire armor.

Within the battle armor, the soul power began to move as one, gradually forming a soul power vortex. The vortex quickly compressed.

Su Yu prompted the soul power to circulate, triggering the spiritual array within the armor. Immediately, the soul power was stimulated, starting to condense into a true vortex.

At the same time, Su Yu's internal soul core began to move in sync, forming a connection with this vortex.

Su Yu planned to condense his second soul core in the middle dantian. To make things more convenient, he chose to form the virtual soul core in the area near his heart mirror.

Under Su Yu's guidance, the soul power vortex rotated faster and faster, completing the condensation and unification of the soul power within the battle armor.

Boom!

The originally liquid, viscous soul power suddenly seemed to unlock a dam, collapsing inward at once.

Su Yu quickly stabilized the operation of his soul core, focusing all his attention on managing the operation of his two soul cores.

The collapse process proceeded smoothly, with no mistakes in Su Yu's calculations, and the second soul core successfully formed.

However, the Yin-Yang complementary soul core was still not fully completed.

Now, the truly critical moment had arrived.

Su Yu enveloped the soul core in his dantian with his spiritual power and blood energy, preparing for any potential failure that might cause a soul power conflict.

If things went wrong, with both of these forces protecting him, and with Su Yu dismantling the battle armor at the first opportunity while using spatial power to evade, he could minimize any potential damage.

Taking precautions before the fact, Su Yu began the final step.

The two soul cores, which had previously been moving in opposite directions, simultaneously began to rotate in the same direction at the same speed.

Instantly, the soul power within Su Yu's body and the battle armor went into a violent reaction.

However, Su Yu's control over his soul power was exceptional. He skillfully managed the flow of energy and made only a small adjustment to the angle, immediately connecting the soul power of both soul cores to form a small vortex.

The moment this small vortex was created, Su Yu felt the push it exerted on the two soul cores, causing their deviation to increase.

As the first vortex continued to spin, Su Yu guided the rotation of both cores, creating additional small vortices and pushing the soul cores further off balance.