He stopped fighting the exhaustion and instead, surrendered to it, turning his focus entirely inward.
For a moment, nothing happened.
And then... the air around Gu Zhiwei began to hum.
It wasn't the bright, blinding, outward-projecting holy light he usually relied on. It was a deep, resonant, internal vibration.
The ambient, toxic Qi of the valley didn't poison him; it was being sucked into his core, filtered by his exhaustion, and fused with the heavy, latent Yang energy of the bear meat.
A sharp, audible CRACK echoed from within Zhiwei's chest.
It sounded like a pane of thick glass shattering under immense pressure.
A sudden skyrocketing pillar of pure, condensed, brilliant gold energy erupted from the Holy Son, completely blowing away the miasma fog for a hundred yards. The sheer force of the breakthrough sent a shockwave that ruffled Ji'an's red robes.
Zhiwei's eyes snapped open. They weren't just golden anymore; they glowed with the light of a newly formed soul.
