Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

When Alex came back to life, he was outside of the hall, his left hand being held tightly by Bigshell in his embrace.

’Damn! That really can kill me,’ he thought in fear. Had he not decided to place his arm outside, he might not have come back alive.

Alex pulled himself away from Bigshell, who viewed him with gaping eyes. He had no idea what had just happened.

Alex took one glance at the room where the explosion had happened and was surprised to see the barrier still holding up. It was truly an incredible barrier.

He grabbed the man next and teleported over to the deck above. As soon as he arrived, he called for the others.

“The barrier is gone. You need to leave now, or you will get caught in my master’s—”

Alex’s voice stuck in his throat as he stared beyond the barrier of the ship. In front of him, he saw the Sacred Lotus Dominion, the massive realm slowly turning away from the sun as night began to fall on the land.

What was happening? How were they this close to the world?

And where was his master?

“What? How is it possible?” Bigshell shouted as he noticed it too.

“It suddenly got bigger,” one of the women said from the back. “I think… I think we teleported.”

“Teleported?” Bigshell asked. “But I thought the formation had already stopped—”

He paused, his eyes turning to Alex. “Did you activate any formation?”

Alex grimaced. ’Shit!’

He remembered the teleportation aura that had enveloped the ship through the formation earlier. He was sure he had destroyed it before it could activate, but it appeared he had failed.

“When I destroyed the formation for the barrier, there was another formation attached to it that activated on its own. I tried to stop it, which resulted in that explosion. But it seems I didn’t make it in time.”

“The spatial formation?” one of the men asked. “The two formations are attached in a way that one can only activate while the other is deactivated. The teleportation formation was acting up quite a bit before, but when the spatial barrier came up, I thought it had stopped functioning entirely.”

Alex blamed himself for the situation. If only he had learned what the formation did before destroying it, then maybe he would’ve known not to destroy it so carelessly.

’I slacked too much in learning about formations, and it came back to bite me,’ Alex thought.

“What now?” someone asked.

Alex continued staring at the realm. At the speed they were moving, they would hit the atmosphere in 2 minutes. Then, a minute after that, they would impact the land.

“Can we shut down the barrier?” one person asked.

“What would that solve, though?” another asked. “I thought the navigation system itself was destroyed.”

“It is,” Bigshell answered. “Even if we get rid of the barrier, the ship is made of Divine-grade material. It will still impact the land at just the same speed.”

“No,” Alex said as he realized something. “The land is the least of our problems right now. With all the Divine spirit stones that are cut apart and ready to explode with a single touch, if this ship hits the atmosphere, it could all detonate. When that happens… I fear the atmosphere itself may be blown away from the realm.”

As Alex said that, the people finally realized their situation. They had all been focused on the speed of the ship itself. Not one person had even considered the power being carried within it.

If it exploded, it wouldn’t just be a part of a continent or the ocean that would be in trouble, but the entire world itself.

’Less than two minutes remaining,’ Alex thought as the realm approached them. They had to stop it before it reached them.

“For now, let us shut down the barrier,” someone said. “That way we can think of something else afterward.”

“No,” Bigshell said again. “If you shut down the barrier, we all die.”

“Huh?”

“How?”

“The barriers protecting this ship are also what are holding off the explosions in the control hub. The moment you disable the barriers, a single explosion there could start a cascade that could quite literally kill us all.”

Their faces paled.

“Wait, but wouldn’t that work in our favor?” someone asked. “If we destroy it all, the ship would be destroyed. That solves the problem.”

“And do you want to do it?” Bigshell asked.

The person gulped, shrinking back.

The idea, though, wasn’t all that bad— as long as one of them was willing to die for it.

Bigshell turned toward Alex. “Can you do the same as earlier?” he asked.

Alex hesitated. While he had come back from that explosion, there was no guarantee he could come back from the next one.

These people would have to move far away from here to avoid the explosion, and in doing so, take any limb he would give them farther away from him.

The increased distance could sever the Connection to his body, making it impossible for him to come back to life.

He didn’t want to try that.

“I can’t,” Alex said. “We have to do something else.”

“What else can we do?” Bigshell asked with a solemn look. After a moment, he turned toward the group. “For now, start evacuating the ship. You all will be of no help here, so you should leave right away.”

“Big brother,” one of the women said, “you can’t be thinking of sacrificing yourself, can you?”

“Just get out!” Bigshell ordered. “I’ll do what I can.”

The other dozen people looked at him with eyes full of pride and sadness.

“You too, little brother. You’ve already done what you can,” Bigshell said, turning toward Alex. “You too can—”

He paused, noticing Alex’s stillness. There was something odd about his tiny movements, as though he were moving much faster than he should be.

The movements vanished, and Alex turned.

“I’ve got an idea.”