Chapter 3041: Forcibly Draining The Pits - Walker Of The Worlds

The Earth core in his spleen began to rotate like a grinding stone, pulling in the dense elemental particles from the ash. The Fire core in his heart ignited like a forge bellows, drawing in every trace of seething flame that crackled around him. And unexpectedly, the third core—his Metal core, embedded deep between his lungs—began to stir. Fine particles of metallic essence, drawn up from beneath the basin, flowed through the ash like liquid mercury, finding their way into his body. With each breath he took, Lin Mu could feel his cores expanding, refining, and pulsing with power. But it wasn’t just passive absorption—he actively *willed* the energy into himself, forcibly consuming more than the environment would usually allow. He gritted his teeth. "Let’s push it further." Suddenly, Lin Mu released the restraints on his cultivation technique. The energy intake rate exploded. Flames burst from the surface of the ash, lashing out in wild arcs as the ambient Earth Flame surged toward him, as if pulled by a gravitational force. He was like a black hole of elemental energy, devouring everything in his vicinity. Back near the edge, Elyon flinched, feeling the sudden fluctuation. "What... what is he doing?!" Daoist Chu’s expression hardened. "He’s doing what only he can. Forcing the Earth Flame to obey him." In the Ember Hollow Hall, when Lin Mu had pushed his technique too far, the arrays had started to collapse, shutting down vents, stalling forges, and dimming street lamps across the entire district. But here—there were no arrays. No limiters. The Earth Flame was unbound. And it began to react. The tide of molten ash in the pit began to churn violently, the surface collapsing slightly as massive quantities of elemental essence were sucked downward toward Lin Mu’s body. Great ripples moved outward from his location, drawing in ash, smoke, and essence alike. The pit’s level began to fall. "What in the world..." Elyon muttered, stunned. He could feel it—he didn’t need to be an expert in formations to know that Lin Mu’s absurdly greedy cultivation was disrupting the entire natural flow of the Verdant Ash Basin. It was like draining a lake by drinking it. "Is this... really just a human?" he whispered. Meng Bai stood in awe, watching from the edge with wide eyes. "It’s like he’s turning the Earth itself into a tonic..." Ashy chirped excitedly, translating the twin snakes’ hissing. "They say Master is cooking soup for his body!" Daoist Chu snorted in amusement. "Not inaccurate." As the tide began to lower, revealing faint structures deep below the surface of the pit—collapsed platforms, half-melted pillars, and strange blackened ruins—the answer became clear: Lin Mu’s gamble had worked. The Earth Flame had responded. And soon, the mark Elyon spoke of—the last trace of the missing elders—would be within reach. The Earth Flame Pit, which had once seethed with molten ash and roiling elemental energy, now lay still—eerily quiet and completely drained. The once untamed waves of molten black and crimson sludge had vanished like the retreat of a mythical sea, leaving behind only scorched stone, crystallized minerals, and the ruins of an ancient structure buried deep beneath the ash. Twelve hours earlier, when Lin Mu first leapt into the pit, it had still been a bubbling cauldron of fiery death. But now, even the ambient heat had dropped noticeably. Gusts of dry wind carried flecks of cooled ash across the floor of the massive basin, and small crystalline shards glittered faintly among the newly revealed terrain. Towering pillars—charred black and streaked with lava residue—jutted from the ground like the bones of a long-dead giant. Their tips, once submerged beneath the ash tide, now stood exposed. The upper arches of tunnel entrances were visible along the pit’s inner walls, previously hidden from sight. It wasn’t a low tide. It was no tide. Elyon stood at the edge of the pit, utterly gobsmacked. His golden eyes were wide, pupils constricted in disbelief as he stared into the hollowed-out basin that stretched like a vast bowl beneath him. "T-this... this isn’t possible," Elyon muttered. Meng Bai glanced at the wolfkin tracker with a raised brow. "You okay?" "I’ve been coming here on and off for three months," Elyon whispered, ears twitching in stunned agitation. "Even at the lowest tide, half the basin was always covered. This is something else. This is like the earth just gave up on resisting him." Daoist Chu simply smirked and let out a breath. "And people say he’s just another sword cultivator..." Elyon turned to the experienced cultivator and gestured vaguely toward the drained pit. "This isn’tjustSword Dao. This is something far more primal. What sort of technique is he using to do... this? And how is his body even surviving it?" At the center of the empty basin, Lin Mu stood at ease. His skin was mostly untained from the endless storm of elemental energy that had surged into him except for some dried ash that now stuck to him, but his expression was calm, composed, and almost... satisfied. Wisps of smoke still rose from the exposed rock around him, but his body remained untouched—untainted by heat or pressure. If anything, he looked stronger than before, a quiet radiance surrounding him as if the very earth recognized his presence. Elyon watched as the last few strands of golden-orange Earth Flame flickered away from Lin Mu’s form. "If I had picked a fight with him earlier yesterday..." he said, gulping audibly, "I’d be nothing more than a scorch mark by now." Daoist Chu chuckled. "Yes. You would’ve died before realizing you’d made a mistake." Meng Bai added with a grin, "And then Master Lin Mu would’ve probably sighed about wasting the ash." His words seemingly terrified the wolfkin who tried to put up a composed look but his trembling tail gave away his true emotions. Inside Lin Mu’s body, a silent transformation had taken place. The three cores that were part of the Omnicore Ascendancy—his Fire Core, Earth Core, and Metal Core—had undergone tremendous growth over the twelve-hour period. Before, they had been roughly the size of small peas, carefully nurtured through extensive training and supplemented by rare herbs and elemental resources.