Crack! Crack!
Cracks appeared on the milky white semi-transparent eggshell. In just the blink of an eye, the Demon Spirit Egg shattered, and a creature resembling an oversized silkworm rolled out from inside.
This creature's body was also semi-transparent milky white, not like flesh and blood, but more like an art piece carved from Crystal Jade.
After the Demon Spirit rolled to the ground, it wriggled its body somewhat cutely, as if struggling to lift its head.
Upon seeing the Demon Spirit, Li Xiu immediately grabbed the Demon Armor without hesitation, resonating with it.
The box-like Demon Armor disassembled and wrapped around Li Xiu's body.
Just as the parts were sticking to Li Xiu but hadn't fully combined, the Demon Spirit on the ground suddenly leaped up, like a white lightning bolt, giving Li Xiu no chance to react, and drilled into the gaps of the not fully combined Demon Armor.
The gap was under Li Xiu's armpit, the pudgy body of the Demon Spirit wriggled rapidly, and without knowing how, it managed to meld with the clothes and burrow into Li Xiu's skin, in a blink, more than half of its body had squeezed in, leaving half its body outside wriggling wildly.
Li Xiu reached to grab the Demon Spirit's body, his five fingers covered by the Demon Armor struggled to exert force, but he couldn't pull it out, in fact, it burrowed even further.
Li Xiu made a decisive decision, his palm erupted with Demonic Light, intending to destroy the small portion of the Demon Spirit's body left outside.
The force of the Demonic Light burst struck the Crystal Jade-like body, only cracking the surface, and in pain, the Demon Spirit burrowed faster, in an instant it had completely burrowed in.
A bump the size of an egg rose under Li Xiu's skin, which quickly moved within his body.
Determined, Li Xiu relentlessly extended his fingers, grabbed at his own chest muscle, tore the skin open, and grabbed the bump that had wandered there.
The power of the Demon Armor was pushed to the maximum by Li Xiu, the Demonic Light in his palm burst out like a small sun, intending to completely destroy the Demon Spirit entwined with his flesh.
Unfortunately, this particular Demon Armor model was too outdated and was only manufactured with a low-grade E-level Demon Core, the intensity of the Demonic Light it could emit was insufficient.
The full-powered blast of Demonic Light only tore open the Demon Spirit's body with cracks, a clear liquid seeped out from the fissures.
Li Xiu was shocked; although it was only an E-level Demon Armor, the Demon Spirit was just born, and the fact that it could withstand such an attack was quite astonishing.
He almost didn't think, throwing his captured flesh along with the Demon Spirit juvenile outward.
Yet the flesh flew away, while the Demon Spirit juvenile clung to Li Xiu's right palm like superglue.
More terrifyingly, the body of the Demon Spirit juvenile quickly seeped into the palm wrapped with Demon Armor, yet again drilling into Li Xiu's right hand.
Li Xiu immediately started to dismantle the Demon Armor, though dismantling it also took time, by the time it was off his palm, the Demon Spirit had already drilled into his palm, the swelling was almost imperceptible, hardly visible.
Without thinking, Li Xiu's left hand, still wrapped in Demon Armor, bloomed with Demonic Light, turning into a bladed Light Blade, slashing at his own right hand.
He had fought many Demon Spirits over the years, yet he had never encountered such a Demon Spirit.
Demon Armor manufactured using Demon Cores naturally restrained Demon Spirits, capable of blocking the regeneration of a Demon Spirit's body.
Although E-level Demon Armor was rather basic, easily destroyed by high-level Demon Spirits, Li Xiu was encountering for the first time a Demon Spirit capable of directly penetrating Demon Armor.
Allowing it to permeate into the body would almost certainly assure death, losing a hand was better than losing his life.
Clang!
The Demon Light Slash came down on the wrist, but it made a sound like jade striking against jade, the wrist only had a bloody mark slashed on it, the skin and flesh split, yet the bone inside wasn't severed.
The white bone appeared coated in a layer of milky white Crystal Jade-like membrane, and the milky white crystalline membrane was even flowing, traveling upwards along the arm bone.
Li Xiu launched the Demonic Light again, transformed into a Light Blade, slashing upwards on the arm repeatedly, each time only seeing the flesh split open, but the bone inside remained undamaged due to the crystalline membrane, which continued to advance upwards.
Li Xiu hardened his resolve, directly slashing at his shoulder, preferring to lose an arm rather than let the Demon Spirit juvenile invade his body.
The Demon Light slashed at the shoulder-arm bone junction, yet with a strange sound, somewhat different from before, besides the sound of skin tearing and bone colliding, there was a noise as if something shattered.
Li Xiu refrained from continuously using the Demon Light to slash his body, as further slashing wouldn't just cost him his arm, but his life too.
Oddly, that crystalline membrane also ceased advancing, gradually evaporating like water vapor.
As the crystalline membrane evaporated, the flesh and skin slashed open by the Demonic Light also slowly healed, and soon scabbed over.
After a while, the scabs fell off, leaving behind pink scars, the new skin appeared smooth and transparent.
Looking down at his chest, the muscles previously clawed by Li Xiu also regenerated completely from the torn flesh.
"Did I kill it?" Li Xiu was unsure, but it seemed like he had, otherwise, why would the Demon Spirit juvenile cease?
Li Xiu dismantled the Demon Armor, inspected his body, and found no anomalies, which gave him a little relief.
"What on earth is this Demon Spirit? I've never seen it before. A newly born juvenile that's already so terrifying, I can't imagine how powerful an adult would be. I must leave here quickly, if the parents of the Demon Spirit juvenile return, it'll be big trouble, I fear E-level Demon Armor might be useless," Li Xiu glanced at the still sealed passage ahead, relaxing slightly.
The area where the Demon Spirit Egg was located was blocked, indicating that the Demon Spirit that birthed it shouldn't be back soon.
Li Xiu hesitated for a moment, but decided to complete the S-level trial before leaving here, the allure of the S-level skill enticed him to take some risks. Otherwise, who knew when he would encounter another S-level trial to pass?
Returning to the base, A Fei was already awake, sitting there waiting for him.
"What's the soonest time to start the S-level trial?" Li Xiu asked A Fei.
"In about four hours," A Fei replied after checking the phone scavenged from the base and calculating the time.
"Complete the trial as soon as possible, then we'll leave here," Li Xiu said before lying down on the bed, seizing the moment to recover his strength.
Messing with the Demon Spirit juvenile earlier had worn him out a bit.
As he slept, Li Xiu felt his right arm itch, reaching to scratch, accidentally tearing the skin.
Li Xiu awoke immediately, thinking he had scratched a new wound, but upon sitting up for a closer look, he found it wasn't the case.
The torn spot wasn't where the scars were, but dead skin on his arm.
Li Xiu's expression changed slightly, he'd seen calluses and dead skin on hands and feet, but never dead skin on an arm.
The dead skin resembled a semi-transparent white plastic, and as Li Xiu pulled along the tear, he actually peeled off a whole layer of dead skin from his arm.
Underneath the dead skin was new, white and crystalline skin that looked newborn-like, with the previous scars completely invisible.