I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 382: We’re Staying

The soul bond sent a fractured, strained and bleeding feedback.

Victor’s gaze snapped instantly toward the abyss.

He did not hesitate.

The ground shattered beneath his feet as he launched forward, crossing hundreds of meters in a single step. Wind whistled in his wake, crushed flat by the sheer density of his aura. As he reached the abyss’s edge, the world seemed to recoil.

The abyss was wrong.

It was not merely deep... it was hungry.

Darkness churned far below like it was alive.

A thick, gray-black mist rolled upward from its depths, clinging to the air, corroding stone, withering everything it touched. Even his qi dispersed unnaturally within it, breaking down into inert fragments.

A place that devoured existence.

Any normal living being would have been reduced to nothing the moment they descended.

Victor stepped forward anyway...

The mist swept toward him and died.

His aura pushed outward automatically, unleashing a vast oppressive presence that crushed the mist flat, dispersing it like fog before a rising sun. The withering effects never reached his skin. The abyss itself recoiled with its darkness retreating a fraction as Victor descended.

Below him, Gojo was falling.

The massive frost raptor’s body shrank rapidly with distance as blood trailed behind him like a frozen comet tail. His wings twitched weakly, damaged beyond flight. His consciousness flickered but the bond held.

Victor reached him in seconds.

As his hand closed around Gojo’s body...

A colossal iris slid open along the rough wall of the abyss, vast enough to dwarf mountains.

Layers of spatial distortion warped around it, folding light and shadow inward. The pupil dilated, locking onto Victor with ancient, alien awareness.

It noticed him and time seemed to slow in this moment.

Victor felt the gaze brush against his soul, probing, measuring and testing the edges of his existence.

He did not allow it to continue.

His fingers tightened around a part of Gojo’s body and...

<[ Shadow Blink Activated ]>

Space collapsed and the abyss vanished.

They reappeared on the surface in an explosive displacement of air causing the ground to buckle outward from the sudden return. Victor landed smoothly, cradling Gojo’s massive body as he set him down carefully.

The frost raptor was barely alive.

Deep gashes marred his skull. Blood soaked his feathers. His breathing was labored and uneven. One wing was bent at a dangerous angle with the bones cracked.

Victor knelt beside him briefly.

Just long enough to confirm it.

Then he stood.

Across the abyss’s ledge, the beast that had done this stirred.

The massive creature was embedded into a rock face, half-buried by debris and its body twitching as it struggled to rise. Cracks ran along its armored hide where Victor’s breakthrough pressure had slammed into it earlier.

Slowly, it lifted its head.

Its eyes locked onto Victor.

Instinctual fear rippled through it.

Victor’s gaze met it.

There was no roar.

No declaration.

No rage-fueled scream.

Only a calm, simmering fury that burned deep beneath the surface, cold and absolute.

Victor unsheathed his legacy sword.

The blade sang softly as it cleared the scabbard letting out a clean and sharp sound that cut through the oppressive silence. Space around the sword subtly warped as threads of Void Emperor qi wrapped around the steel like invisible veins.

Victor vanished and reappeared directly before the beast.

Before it could react, Victor’s foot connected with its face.

The impact was catastrophic.

The beast’s skull caved inward as it was launched backward causing its massive body to skip across the ground like a stone over water before smashing into another rocky outcrop with bone-crushing force.

Victor landed lightly where the beast had been standing.

And leapt again.

He crossed the distance instantly with his sword already raised. The beast lashed out reflexively, sweeping its massive tail toward him in a desperate counterattack.

Victor’s sword flashed towards the left and the tail fell.

It hit the ground in a heavy, wet crash, severed cleanly from the body. Blood sprayed outward in a wide arc, hissing where it touched the corrupted earth.

The beast screamed but Victor did not pause for a second.

He adjusted his angle mid-air, twisting his body with fluidly as he brought the sword down again.

One more slash separated the beast’s head from its body.

It fell in slow motion, massive and lifeless, striking the ground with a thunderous impact that sent cracks spiderwebbing outward. The body collapsed moments later, twitching once before going still.

Silence followed.

Victor landed and straightened.

Behind him, Eirene stood amidst the carnage with her form still stained with dark blue blood. She watched him without expression. Her posture remained unchanged. The swarm had been eradicated. The battlefield lay still.

Victor turned back to Gojo.

He knelt again, placing a hand firmly against the raptor’s injured skull. Celestial Restoration activated, causing golden qi to flow outward, merging with his newly transformed soul energy. The healing was slower than he wanted... but it was working.

Gojo released a low, pained rumble.

"You did well," Victor said quietly.

Ahead of them, the abyss stirred again...

Victor rose to his feet, standing between the wounded raptor and the darkness beyond with sword still in hand.

The battlefield had gone quiet but a heavy, oppressive stillness followed calamity, where the land itself seemed to hold its breath.

Broken stone, scattered corpses of the swarm, and the massive headless body of the abyssal beast lay strewn across the blackened earth.

Victor exhaled slowly.

Only now, with the immediate danger dealt with, did he allow his awareness to widen beyond Gojo.

He turned towards Eirene.

She looked untouched in appearance except for the blue blood... there was no tremor in her hands, no sign of fatigue in her stance. Her eyes followed Victor calmly as he approached.

"You’re not injured?" Victor asked.

It was a simple and direct question.

Eirene blinked and paused briefly before she answered.

"No," she said. "My form is intact."

Victor nodded, accepting it without further inspection. He turned away almost immediately, returning his focus to Gojo.

But Eirene remained still, watching him.

No one had ever asked her that question before.

Not when she was the calamity.

Not when she was the retribution.

Not even when she was bound.

The concept of concern was always directed at her attackers rather than her. She was so unfamiliar with a living being showing concern for her that she did not know how to respond to it, so she did not. Instead, she stored the sensation away, nameless and unresolved.

Victor knelt beside Gojo again.

The massive frost raptor lay sprawled on his side with his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. The wounds across his skull and torso had closed significantly and his feathers were already knitting back together where bone and flesh had been exposed. Still, Victor could feel the damage lingering deeper inside... fractured internals, strained channels, torn tissues that qi alone could not immediately mend.

"Hold still," Victor murmured.

Gojo let out a soft rumble that resonated through the ground. It wasn’t pain this time. It was acknowledgment.

Victor activated Celestial Restoration again.

Golden light flowed from his palms, threading into Gojo’s body like luminous veins. The healing was thorough but taxing, demanding precise control and a constant flow of qi. Victor shifted position, moving along Gojo’s massive frame, directing the restorative energy where it was most needed.

Then he did something else.

He leaned in and spat lightly onto his palm.

Eirene’s gaze sharpened a fraction.

Victor pressed his saliva against one of the deeper gashes near Gojo’s shoulder.

Immediately, there was an effect.

Flesh merged together as if time itself had reversed... Bone realigned... Feathers regrew in a blink. The wound vanished entirely, leaving no scar behind.

Victor repeated the process, moving methodically from neck to flank to wing joints. Everywhere his saliva touched, the damage disappeared as though it had never existed.

Gojo released a louder rumble this time, visibly relaxing as the pain receded.

But Victor could feel it.

The internal damage resisted the shortcut.

Those injuries required sustained restoration, careful layering of qi that could not be rushed. Celestial Restoration glowed brighter as Victor poured more power into it.

One activation.

Two.

Three.

After the fifth, a notification shimmered at the edge of Victor’s vision.

> [Celestial Restoration has entered cooldown.]

Victor clicked his tongue softly.

He withdrew his hands, exhaling as the golden light faded. Gojo was in a far better state now.

He was breathing steady and his consciousness was stronger but he was not healed enough to fly. Forcing movement would only aggravate what remained undone.

"We’re staying," Victor decided aloud.

The land around them still felt wrong. And he was reminded of the eye within the abyss. Every instinct told him that lingering here was dangerous.

But Gojo’s condition left no alternatives.

Victor stood and looked toward the abyss once more.

Then he jumped.

The leap carried him cleanly across the chasm in a single bound. On the far side, the colossal corpse of the abyssal beast lay sprawled across shattered stone and its lifeless body still radiated residual pressure.