Chapter 527: A Foundation Building Expert with a Core Formation-Level Soul

The lady sect elder stared in horror, her lips trembling and her knees weak. Her newfound geriatric status made the matters even worse.

Her eyes were locked on Aksai, who stood calmly in front of the first elder’s corpse — his arm still dripping with blood, the man’s heart clutched in his hand like some kind of demonic treasure.

‘No… no wonder he could survive the Wild Devil Lands for so long when it was at the peak of its chaos. He…. he didn’t have to survive that land. It made him thrive,’ She thought to herself.

Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. Her voice was lost.

No… this couldn’t be. She had felt it. The artifact had worked.

She had poured her entire Spirit essence and most of her remaining life force into activating it. The Soul Pulse had clearly surged through the battlefield.

She knew it had reached Aksai. She had seen the moment his eyes widened, the shock that had frozen his face.

But now… it was clear.

He had faked it.

He had pretended to be affected, just to let them think they had won. Just to watch them fall into the trap he set with a smile.

The other two elders were just as frozen, faces pale, breaths shaky. One took a small step back without realizing it. The other clutched his sword tighter but did not lift it. There was no strength left in them to fight, only fear.

Blood dripped onto the ground from Aksai’s fingers, each drop loud in the otherwise quiet space.

He looked down at the still-beating heart in his hand and let out a bright, almost playful laugh.

“Did you know…” he began, his voice calm and clear, “that a human heart can keep beating outside the body?”

He looked up at them with a childlike curiosity in his eyes.

“As long as it gets enough oxygen, it has its own little electric system. It doesn’t even need the brain’s input. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

He gave the heart a little bounce in his hand. It pulsed once, then again. A soft, wet thump.

Aksai smiled wider.

“This is especially true for Foundation Building Spirit cultivators. Their life force is strong. Their organs… tough. With enough care and proper handling, their hearts can last hours outside their bodies. Isn’t that amazing?”

The lady sect elder felt a deep shiver run through her bones. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even lift her head fully. Her hand gripped the artifact tightly, but now it felt useless — like holding a paper charm before a flood.

Aksai stopped admiring the heart and turned his attention fully to the three elders in front of him.

He tilted his head and asked in a soft voice, almost as if they were old friends chatting by a fire.

“I wonder… if I can make a formation. A special kind of heretic Dao array. Offensive? Defensive? Maybe support type?”

His smile didn’t fade. It only grew warmer.

“One that uses human hearts as its foundation.”

The lady sect elder’s eyes widened further. Her hands shook now.

“I mean, think about it,” Aksai continued, eyes glinting with a strange joy. “Wouldn’t such a formation—fueled by the powerful hearts of high-level Spirit cultivators—outperform anything else out there? Could it beat the top 2nd Order formations from your sect?”

He leaned in slightly, his voice lowering into a near whisper that still carried through the air.

“What do you think?”

Then he straightened up again, eyes bright, and asked in a cheerful tone:

“Do you want to donate your heart for this experiment?”

The silence that followed was painful.

Aksai laughed gently, as if pleased by their expressions.

“For science, of course. What do you say?”

The lady sect elder stared at Aksai, her wrinkled fingers trembling around the lantern-shaped artifact. Her lips parted, and her voice came out hoarse, dry, and broken.

“H-How… How did you manage to evade the Bloodfiend Artifact’s attack?” she asked, barely able to stand. Her eyes, once sharp and proud, were now wide with confusion and fear. “It… it should have worked. It should have worked on practically anyone who wasn’t a Core Formation Lord…”

Aksai tilted his head, watching her with an amused expression. His lips curved into a smile, slow and deep, which made the elder’s stomach churn.

She gritted her teeth, her voice rising. “What did you use? What did you do?!”

Aksai chuckled softly as if she had said something adorable.

“Why should I evade the attack?” he replied with an easy smile.

The old woman’s eyebrows furrowed. She felt rage boiling inside her again.

“TELL ME!” she shouted, her voice shrill. It echoed across the dome-like battlefield, bouncing off the thick vines like the last cry of a dying bird.

Aksai looked at her like someone watching a spoiled child throw a tantrum.

He walked a few steps forward, casually, blood from the heart in his hand still dripping onto the roots below.

He finally spoke, calm and clear like a teacher giving a lesson.

“The artifact should work on any Foundation Building cultivator,” he said.

“That much is true. If you had used it against someone else, even someone in the late Foundation stage, it would have torn apart their soul. Perhaps even the Perfect Stage Foundation Building cultivators would not be able to do anything against such attacks.”

The lady sect elder clutched the artifact tighter, listening.

“But…” Aksai continued, “the artifact’s rule isn’t based just on Spirit cultivation. Not really. It’s not about which realm your body is in. It’s about your soul. As long as your soul hasn’t passed a certain threshold, the Bloodfiend Artifact can rip through your defenses, no matter how strong your body or your cultivation might be. That’s why its users believe that its attack can not be stopped.”

He paused for a moment before speaking up.

“Usually, only those who have stepped into the Core Formation Realm have souls strong enough to resist it. That’s the usual rule. But not for me. I’m different.”

The second elder, who had been quiet until now, took a step forward. His face was pale. His voice shook.

“Wait… Are you saying… your soul is as strong as a Core Formation Lord’s?” he asked.

There was a part of him that wanted Aksai to admit that he is indeed a Core Formation Lord acting to be a Foundation Building Expert so that the latter can catch them by surprise at a crucial time. This way, they would be able to justify the fact that all four of them were unable to target and kill a Foundation Building realm drifting cultivator.

He stared at Aksai like he was looking at something unholy. “Have… have you already become a Core Formation Lord?”

Aksai raised a brow and rubbed his beardless chin, acting thoughtful.

“Yes and no,” he replied after a moment.

“My Spirit cultivation is still at the late-stage of Foundation Building, far from establishing my Foundation. I haven’t broken through the wall yet. But my soul… my soul was tempered in a special way recently.

You can say that it’s already at the level of an early-stage Core Formation Lord. This was the reason I told you to go ahead and use that artifact.”

The second elder took a step back, stunned. The third elder’s face twisted in disbelief. The lady sect elder’s hands went limp, and the artifact almost slipped from her grasp.

Aksai looked at her again, this time glancing at the lantern artifact in her wrinkled hand.

“So I’d suggest you stop using that thing,” he said with a chuckle.

“It can’t hurt me. But if you keep forcing it, it will only drain your life faster. And you’ve already aged years in just a few breaths. Any more and you’ll drop dead without even needing me to raise a finger.

Since I have to make a statement for your sect, I have to leave your bodies behind here without turning you into one of my puppets. But I can still make use of your hearts. And I want them to stay young and not be affected by the overuse of a Bloodfiend Artifact.”

He narrowed his eyes slowly, his calm voice turning cold.

“Dying by old age is not a good experience. Why do you all want to die in such a way?”

A pause followed, heavy and sharp.

“Let me offer you an easier path. A quiet end. No more burdens, no more sect duties, no more shame,” he said, his tone like silk wrapped around a dagger. “It’s the least I can do for your eventual contribution to science.”

The air turned cold after Aksai finished saying his words. He decided to wrap up the incident.

The heart in his hand still beat faintly, but he tossed it aside like someone tosses a grocery item in their shopping cart. It landed with a soft, wet thud on the roots below.

The blood on his fingers shimmered faintly under the dome’s eerie light. Then, his body tensed, and a silvery aura flared to life around him—Qi, pure and dense, coiling around his arms like smoke made of steel.

Late-stage Argent Body Realm was at work.

He didn’t chant any spells. He didn’t raise his hands to summon formations or call out techniques. Instead, he simply walked forward before disappearing into thin air.

In the next moment, another shrill sound was heard followed by the sound of someone’s ribs getting broken and torso being pierced by a bare hand.

A blue whale’s heart is the size of a small car.

Its heartbeat can be heard over 2 miles away underwater.