“Yes! You can stop me for now, but you can’t stop me forever. If you dare to touch me, I’ll kill myself!” Tessa shouted, her voice trembling yet defiant. Her chest heaved as she tried to summon the last fragments of courage she had left.“It’s too late,” Lord Hades countered, his eyes cold and merciless. “You’ve been poisoned with Blossom. If we don’t consummate, your blood vessels will rupture—and you’ll die.”Tessa’s face turned pale, yet her voice remained steady. “Then let them burst. I’d rather die on my own terms than submit to you.”“That’s not an option,” Lord Hades growled, his body tense with desire and frustration. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you like this. Accept your fate, Tessa.”Before she could respond, he lunged toward her. Every step he took radiated power, his cultivation giving him speed and strength beyond normal comprehension. Tessa screamed and flailed, desperately trying to push him away, but her arms were too weak. Each movement she made seemed futile

Adam hesitated.Not from unwillingness — that had never been the problem. But he had carefully preserved her purity for a reason. His second cultivation breakthrough required it, a condition built into the method itself that couldn’t be worked around. Abandoning that now meant setting back a timeline he had already calculated down to the year.But the alternative was watching her die in front of him.Then something surfaced through the noise of the moment — a memory, sharp and sudden.“The phoenix blood herb.”He said it aloud without meaning to, pulling the small case from his side and opening it. The herb lay within, its faint luminescence unchanged, radiating the dense, layered energy it had taken years to accumulate. He had nearly handed it to a masked stranger at a lakeside. Now it might save Tessa’s life.The phoenix blood herb was among the rarest materials in existence for a reason. Its energy didn’t simply enhance cultivation — it cleansed. It moved through the body like a re

After refining the Blood Spirit Pills, Adam did not stop.He sealed himself inside the cultivation chamber again and began preparing a second furnace.This time, the ingredients were far rarer.The medicinal aroma alone was heavier, richer, carrying a faint purple mist that lingered above the furnace like smoke. Spiritual energy gathered unnaturally around the room, drawn toward the heat as if alive.Hours passed.The flames beneath the furnace shifted from crimson to deep violet.Finally, the lid trembled.A pulse of energy spread through the chamber.Adam opened the furnace slowly.Inside rested several pills, each glowing with a faint purple sheen.Purple Miracle Pills.Far stronger than Blood Spirit Pills.If Blood Spirit Pills accelerated cultivation, Purple Miracle Pills forcefully condensed internal energy and strengthened the meridians at the same time. Their effects were extraordinary.One pill alone equaled two to three months of relentless cultivation.Even for someone at A

The killing intent rolling off Lucian was not subtle. It pressed outward like a physical force, dropping the temperature of the air around them by degrees. The people nearby felt it hit them in the chest — that particular cold that had nothing to do with weather, the kind that reached past the body and touched something more primal. Several stepped back without consciously deciding to.Adam’s expression settled into something harder and more attentive. He had assessed Lucian before, back when the gap between them meant he had reason to be careful. That gap no longer existed. Lucian was formidable — genuinely so, operating at a level that put him within reach of Cosmic Island’s four family heads, well beyond what most divine grandmasters could claim. He was not someone to dismiss.He was also not someone Adam feared anymore.“If you want to try, go ahead,” Adam said, holding Lucian’s gaze without shifting. No posturing in it, no performance. Just a statement of fact from someone who ha

Adam didn’t take Lucian’s threat to heart, nor did he bother provoking him any further.To him, Lucian was merely a clown barking from a distance.His true concern lay elsewhere.Cosmic Island.Ever since learning that his mother’s disappearance was connected to that mysterious place, Adam had felt an increasing sense of urgency. Every clue he uncovered pointed in the same direction, as though an invisible hand was drawing him toward the island.As for the Jago family…A cold glint flashed through his eyes.There would be time to settle accounts with them later.For now, uncovering the truth took priority.The massive cruise ship cut through the ocean waves, heading toward the legendary island hidden from the outside world. Standing at the deck railing, Adam gazed toward the distant horizon.Beside him, Whitney remained silent.Although she appeared calm on the surface, her heart was anything but peaceful.The more she learned about Adam, the more mysterious he seemed.He was a master