I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 394: Come Closer

He landed hard with his boots sinking into sludge.

More attacks followed.

Glowing white arc sliced through the air like blades turning into throbbing orbs.

They surrounded Victor from all corners and detonated unpredictably, leaving a chain reaction that trapped him in place.

They were like chains anchoring him to that specific position.

"Annoying technique," Victor muttered and Shadow Blinked.

Victor reappeared directly behind the creature with Phantom Dusk already in his hand.

The blade tinged as he slashed.

A crescent of dark, refined qi tore through the beast’s back, carving a massive gash from shoulder to hip. Black-blue blood sprayed as the creature screamed and was hurled forward, crashing through the marsh and skidding to a stop dozens of meters away.

It writhed and its massive form began to deflate, collapsing inward as bone retracted and flesh folded unnaturally.

Within seconds, it had returned to its small, cute form, lying on its side and wailing pitifully.

The sound was... pathetic.

Victor exhaled slowly and slid Phantom Dusk back into its sheath.

"...You really shouldn’t do that," he said while walking toward it. "That kind of trick gets you killed."

The small creature whimpered, curling in on itself.

For a moment, Victor felt a faint twinge of guilt.

He knelt, extending a hand.

"Easy," he said. "I won’t—"

The marsh suddenly boiled.

Dozens of glowing eyes snapped open beneath the sludge.

Then one after the other, heads emerged.

Grotesque, massive heads identical to the creature’s transformed form earlier appeared...

Only that these ones were twice as large.

One hundred...

Two hundred...

They rose from the marsh with towering, malformed bodies dragging themselves free as corrupted qi rolled off them in suffocating waves.

The small creature on the ground stopped crying.

Its eyes glowed.

Victor straightened slowly.

He looked around at the encirclement, then down at the small creature which was now grinning.

"...Figures. Fool me twice... I guess its shame on me this time..."

The marsh creatures roared in unison while unleashing pressuring qi.

Victor sighed, rolling his shoulders as void energy subtly reinforced his body.

"Alright then," he said calmly. "Here we go."

The Silent Vein Marsh exploded into chaos as the first creature moved.

The marsh detonated beneath its feet as it lunged, covering tens of meters in a single bound. Its arm swung down like a falling mountain, condensing qi around the limb until the air whizzed.

Victor vanished with Shadow Blink and the arm pulverized the ground where he’d stood, splitting the marsh and sending waves of sludge erupting skyward.

Victor reappeared midair behind another creature.

Before he could strike—

A second monster spat a spiraling helix of condensed qi which split into three mid-flight and curving unpredictably through the air.

Victor twisted violently, barely avoiding one spiral as another grazed his shoulder.

His robes tore and flesh burning where the qi grazed bone.

He landed hard, skidding across the ground and was immediately forced to leap again as a third creature slammed both fists together, releasing a shockwave that flattened everything within a fifty-meter radius.

"Alright," Victor muttered while lowering the arms he used to block the attack. "hmm if I was still at Nascent Soul Realm, that attack would have made my body crumble..."

Victor analysed how much damage he took and realized that these creatures were truly powerful. Even with his current physique level, they still injured him.

They attacked together now, moving in formations as some launching ranged qi constructs while others charged and others shaped the marsh itself into weapons. Rough spikes erupted from below. Viscous sludge hardened into binding tendrils that snapped toward Victor’s legs.

One wrapped around his ankle.

Before it could pull Victor used Shadow Blink again.

Victor reappeared on the head of a creature mid-charge, driving his heel into its skull. The impact sent cracks spiderwebbing across its headplate, but it didn’t fall.

Instead, it roared, releasing a pulse of soul-disrupting qi that struck Victor point-blank.

His vision blurred and blood leaked from his nose.

He flipped backward, barely landing upright as three more creatures closed in.

Victor’s eyes sharpened and he drew Phantom Dusk again.

The sword vibrated with a depth that made the air around it feel thin, as though space itself was being stretched toward the blade.

<[ Dragon Breathing Arts Activated ]>

Victor inhaled as qi spread through his body, filling his lungs with fiery hotness.

The moment he exhaled, a massive draconic flame burst out of his mouth, coiling forward with intensity and slammed into a bunch of the creatures.

Shrieks rang out as flames tore through their encirclement.

Victor didn’t waste a single second before turning towards the other end and stepping forward to meet the nearest creature head on.

The creature swung while Victor slashed.

<[ Shadow Crescent Strike Has Been Activated ]>

A crescent of catastrophic void-dark qi erupted from Phantom Dusk. The strike tore forward, widening as it traveled, devouring air, sludge, and sound alike.

Half the Silent Vein Marsh vanished.

The crescent cleaved through dozens of the colossal creatures in a single arc, bisecting bodies, annihilating cores, and continuing onward until it struck the far end of the region where it carved a canyon hundreds of meters long.

A brief silence followed before the remaining creatures howled.

Qi surged violently as rage replaced coordination. Attacks became heavier and more reckless. Entire sections of the marsh lifted into the air, compressed into massive orbs of sludge and qi before being hurled toward Victor like meteors.

He leapt.

Rolled.

Blink.

Reappeared.

Slashed.

Blocked.

Still—he was getting hit.

A glancing blow hit his ribs, a spear of qi pierced through his thigh, forcing him to tear free with a grunt.

Victor spat blood and laughed once.

"You’re not the first hundred that tried this..."

He slammed his palm into the ground.

<[ Frost Bloom III Activated ]>

White-blue sigils flared beneath his hand.

From the marsh erupted petals of frost, blooming outward in an ever-expanding wave. Ice spread across the sludge, freezing it solid, climbing up the creatures’ legs, locking joints in place, halting momentum mid-charge.

Dozens of them froze partially, roaring as frost consumed corrupted flesh.

Victor didn’t stop.

He moved like a phantom.

Shadow Blink carried him from one frozen target to another as Phantom Dusk flashed again and again, severing limbs andslicing through thick hides that once would have taken minutes of effort.

At this point, more than half of the beasts were already annihilated but the numbers were still high.

A creature tackled him mid-blink, disrupting the technique just enough for him to reappear half a meter off-target.

Pain exploded as jaws closed around his shoulder.

Victor roared and drove his fist into the creature’s eye socket, detonating qi inside its skull. It collapsed but another struck immediately, slamming him into the frozen marsh hard enough to crater it.

Blood pooled beneath him but Victor pushed himself up slowly while smirking.

"...This is getting annoying... but I wouldn’t have it any other way..."

~ Ten Minutes Later ~

Victor stood alone amid shattered bodies and frozen sludge with his chest rising and falling and his robes stained with blood.

Phantom Dusk tinged softly at his side.

He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and exhaled.

"...Been a while since I had a proper battle," he muttered. "Pretty exhilarating..."

He looked down at his injuries but noticed they were nothing fatal.

Although, he battled these beasts without activating his Void Emperor Bloodline, it was still a good battle to him.

He knew activating Void Emperor Bloodline or using any one of his overly powerful Bloodline Abilities would have ended the battle earlier which was why he didn’t use them.

He noticed that recently his battles had been getting easier and easier so now more than ever he craved tougher opponents.

Victor resumed his journey, stepping through blood and broken bodies as system notifications popped up in his line of sight.

He still had one more region to cross before he got to the Corrupt Triangle.

...

...

The third region looked the worst.

There was no ground.

Just floating platforms of broken stone suspended in midair, descending downward in a rough spiral.

Below them was nothing.

Not darkness.

Not mist.

Just absence.

Victor stepped onto the first platform.

It trembled violently.

Spatial distortions rippled through the air, bending distance and direction unpredictably. Some platforms appeared closer than they were. Others farther.

Victor narrowed his eyes.

A trap for the unwary.

He stepped forward carefully, relying not on sight but on spatial perception, feeling the subtle resistance of reality itself.

Halfway down, the air trembled and a figure appeared ahead.

It looked... human.

A cultivator in tattered robes, standing calmly on a platform.

"Senior," the figure said softly, "I will guide you safely onward on one condition..."

Victor stopped and studied the figure.

They looked real enough but he couldn’t sense their cultivation level.

"You’ll guide me onward to safety?" Victor questioned.

"Yes."

"What’s the condition?"

The figure paused briefly before responding. "Come closer..." he beckoned towards the platform he was standing on.