This is Swallowed Star, not Resident Evil.

Chapter 72 Burning Out, Polishing Effect

rumble--

My brain was buzzing.

The mentalist's face contorted in pain, yet he gritted his teeth and persisted in flying at high speed within the spaceship's passageway.

"You can't escape!" Ye Yang's fire domain followed him like a shadow, his voice booming.

A sixth-tier planetary-level expert is hunting down a peak ninth-tier celestial-level expert—this fantastical scene unfolds here.

"Ahhh—this kid's completely insane! He's burning his soul! No wonder his soul attack is so powerful... But precisely because of this, if we can just hold on a little longer, until his soul is completely burned away!"

The mentalist had a strong will to survive. Even though he was attacked by Ye Yang's soul time and time again, and was occasionally in pain and lost his mind, and the distance between them was getting closer and closer, he did not give up.

Instead, they fought back while fleeing for their lives, using telekinetic weapons.

Fortunately, Ye Yang was also quite skilled in controlling the arc blade disk, repelling their counterattacks one by one.

It was also because the enemy's mental attacks were weakened by the attack of the Heart Sword Formation that Ye Yang was able to easily block them.

"Luckily, this guy didn't cultivate any soul defense techniques, otherwise he might not have been greatly affected after taking my soul attack. In that case, it wouldn't be me chasing him, but him chasing me instead."

Ye Yang discovered that although this enemy's foundation was stronger than the female warrior's, she had not cultivated any soul defense techniques. While he couldn't kill her with pure soul attacks, he could certainly cause serious disruption.

"It's been half a minute... I feel like I'm about to burn out completely... I have to finish this quickly."

While relentlessly pursuing the mentalist, Ye Yang felt a void in his mind; three and a half of his six miniature planets had already burned away.

With a thought, Ye Yang sent out a small metal piece along with the curved blade disc, attacking the enemy in front of him.

Then, the curved blade disc was knocked away by the enemy's telekinetic weapon and was quickly retrieved by Ye Yang.

But the small metal piece sped past the mentalist even faster, getting stuck at the edge of the spaceship's exit passage ahead.

However, the mentalist had a chance to notice all of this, but he was so overwhelmed by Ye Yang's mental sword array attacks that he could barely keep up with the high-speed flight and change of direction while counterattacking with his mental weapon.

"exit!"

Upon seeing the faint light of the starry sky, the mentalist immediately saw hope for survival, and his eyes lit up.

The little monster behind him was incredibly powerful, attacking him more than ten times in just half a minute. His soul injuries piled up, and he was now severely wounded.

If he had another half minute, he was afraid he would really die!

"The exit! That place, as long as we can get there..."

The mentalist couldn't help but reach out his hand.

He seemed to see a beam of extremely beautiful starlight, a hope for life that he longed for and found peace in.

"I've been tricked!" Ye Yang was overjoyed. This time, he didn't use the Heart Sword Formation to attack, but instead used an illusion technique.

The moment the enemy is close to hope is also the moment when their morale is most likely to slacken!

"Die!" Ye Yang gritted his teeth, burning his soul, and poured all his 564 times the power of his psychic energy into that piece of metal fragment, equivalent to manipulating a seventh-level psychic energy of the Eternal Star.

Beneath the plating of the metal fragments lies an incredibly hard and sharp red copper mother!

puff~

Ye Yang didn't feel much resistance with his telekinesis. The fragment of the Crimson Copper Mother directly pierced through the C4-grade alloy helmet on the psychic's head and cut through the second-tier Force armor he was wearing.

It passed right through his head!

With the brain crushed and consciousness shattered, the soul naturally vanished instantly.

"Phew~"

Ye Yang took deep breaths and stopped burning his soul.

However, with just this moment of relaxation... his consciousness instantly ceased, and his utterly exhausted soul fell into complete hibernation.

I don't know when I'll wake up.

……

"Ye Yang... Ye Yang... Ye... you..."

A faint sound came, then quickly receded, and then disappeared without a trace.

Ye Yang's will remained completely still, or rather, there was a slight fluctuation, but it was extremely minor.

It's like outer space.

Most of the cosmic space is incredibly smooth and quiet.

Perhaps, Ye Yang's consciousness will remain in this state of tranquility forever...

"No!!!"

A roar suddenly rang out, and Ye Yang forcefully opened his eyes and charged towards a phantom door!

"Ah... Ah ha~ Ha~ Uh..."

He was covered in cold sweat, his hands gripping the prayer mat tightly.

"Fellow Daoist, is there anything I can help you with?" the spirit of the immortal boat appeared and asked.

"No, it's nothing. I just 'died' once in the dungeon," Ye Yang said, waving his hand.

Zhou Ling nodded, then retreated and disappeared.

Ye Yang let out a long breath; his consciousness had returned to the Immortal Alliance world.

"Did I fall into a deep sleep because I burned too much of my soul? In the original story, Hong and Thor were like that, but they woke up after a little over a year, while I..."

Ye Yang shook his head: "This avatar will probably never wake up."

"Fortunately, it's not the real body. I can still use the Gate of All Heavens to project my spiritual power into the instance world, thereby replenishing my over-consumed soul and allowing it to gradually recover."

Ye Yang did not return immediately, but instead paused the instance time, closed his eyes, and digested the gains from this battle.

In this battle, he burned with passion, determined to fight to the death, his will highly concentrated.

This is completely different from the previous battles that were only a point of contact or the crushing victories.

There was real life-or-death pressure!

The resurrection point is still on Earth, and to activate the second resurrection point... you need 1 trillion Destiny Points.

Even the cheaper option of 'moving the existing resurrection point' still costs 1 trillion Fate Points.

If they really die and go back to Earth, they will not only be separated from Babata, but they will also be trapped on Earth and die!

He could only wait until more than 40 years later, with the help of the plot correction, to have Luo Feng take him out.

Because death was a serious matter and there was immense pressure, it was a true life-or-death battle. This first experience of a life-or-death battle greatly helped Ye Yang hone the 'True Meaning Embryo'.

After digesting the gains from his first life-or-death battle, Ye Yang felt something 'settling' into the embryonic form of his true meaning.

He estimated that the polishing progress had reached about 2%.

"As Master said, the true wonder of 'True Intent Martial Arts' only begins after the initial refinement of the true intent reaches 100%!"

"What kind of wonders will it possess? I'm quite looking forward to it."

Ye Yang smiled, closed his eyes again, and spent his Destiny Points to send his consciousness, along with a portion of his divine soul power, to the Devouring World.

Normally, the descent of consciousness does not require the expenditure of Destiny Points, but this time Ye Yang descended along with the divine soul power of his true body, which is why it incurred a cost.

"Well……"

He quickly opened his eyes again, and cold sweat broke out once more.

Although he looked somewhat disheveled, his eyes gleamed with excitement: "This amount of spiritual power isn't enough to completely compensate for the loss of the soul over there, but..."

"The moment I descended, I immediately entered a state of brain death. That emptiness, that state of consciousness extinguished, was terrifying, but it surprisingly had a tempering effect on me!"

"The progress in refining the nascent form of true meaning has actually increased slightly..."

Ye Yang closed his eyes again, his consciousness returned, and he broke free once more.

"As expected, it worked, but the effect was diminished. However, it wasn't the brain-dead state that honed me, but the moment I forcibly broke free from that state and my consciousness returned to the Gate of All Heavens, there was an improvement."

Ye Yang regained consciousness and broke free again... This happened repeatedly more than ten times.

"It's not working anymore... I've gotten used to it. But the training is now about 4% complete."

Ye Yang seemed to be deep in thought.

It seems that honing one's true meaning does not necessarily require experiencing "real death," but rather capturing that glimmer of light on the verge of "self-awareness" destruction.

Now Ye Yang is numb to the state of 'brain death' and can no longer squeeze out that 'flickering light'.

……