Whether the spirit-drawing stage, or the path infant's final growth.

Both required vast amounts of time and boundless resources to sustain.

Yet Shen Yi had long since gathered both.

【Year 4,600 — you incarnate as the Heaven-Devouring path infant, making a pool of demon blood to nurture your own body. Now your five viscera are complete, meridians and great apertures all in order; the fetters of before are at last broken, and you drink greedily of the essence of heaven and earth.】

Shen Yi's path-infant body slowly grew.

No longer void as before, but as solid and substantial as flesh.

Until the Heaven-Devouring path infant and his flesh completely merged.

【Year 7,300 — your physical body is too powerful, making your breakthrough incomparably slow. At last, the first thread of skin begins to shatter, fusing into the path infant.】

Ssss.

Shen Yi watched with his own eyes as his arm turned into wisp after wisp of flesh-floss, revealing the fresh new skin beneath.

The Heaven-Devouring path infant was no longer the crimson of before; having fused with the flesh, it had become a pale, faintly luminescent form.

【Year 14,000 — your originally smooth progress meets obstruction once more. The nine immortal-demons bound within your body, as the flesh shatters, instinctively wish to return to heaven and earth. You hesitate over whether to cast them off.】

"You've got to be joking."

A cold light welled up in Shen Yi's eyes.

Eating his things and still wanting to run off — where in all the world was there so fine a bargain as that.

As his mind shifted —

in an instant, the faintly shattering crimson markings were locked tight to the surface of his new body. No longer feeding them demon blood, he instead shrouded them directly with the river of blood.

Upon the crimson markings, thick blood-qi began to rise toward the sky.

Transforming at a pace visible to the eye into nine savage vicious beasts, spanning the vault of heaven, baring fangs and brandishing claws.

The flood dragon churned amid the sea of clouds, the single horn atop its…