525 Against The Odds
I sank into the heart of the Serpent God as a hot knife would sink into butter. Deeper and deeper I went until I reached the center, then began absorbing. Absorbing EVERYTHING!
From Qi to blood. But enough not to harm the heart, for now, that is.
The Serpent God was a beast of epic proportions, with a size that was big enough to consume entire planets, and if I, a single man were to absorb from it, It would be like trying to drink the sea with a spoon.
However, thanks to the Poison God's full art of devouring, I discovered… more like realized something.
The physical can be moved into the none physical. Which might sound absurd at first, but I could do it. In no way will I ever be able to fully consume the serpent as I physically cannot, since the sheer size difference. But, I can put the serpent somewhere then eat it, slowly.
Though to do that I need to weaken the serpent first.
Currently, I'm absorbing the serpent's blood, but not any blood, the heart blood, or what we could also call, The Blood Essence of the Poison Serpent god.
Compared to the trillions upon trillions of liters of normal blood that's running through the Poison Serpent God, the Blood Essence is no more than ten liters or so, and it's all in its heart. And I'm about to consume it whole, and it can't do anything to stop me.
The blood essence of the Poison God is golden in color, unlike the normal red. And inside it's heart, it surrounded me and thus I began consuming it not letting a single drop escape.
The serpent god immediately realized the danger it was in, and began wailing in desperate agony as it felt its Blood Essence being consumed without it being able to get rid of me. I was like a parasite that was deep within its heart, and it had no way to remove me or harm me.
Or so I thought at first. Until I realized that the temperature of the heart began rising rapidly.
"You want to cook me alive with your body heat, too bad for you," I grinned as I called upon my Heart Flame, pushing back against the heat of the heart, and further refining the golden blood.
I absorbed and absorbed some more, enough that my body was saturated but I still consumed more.
My veins began bulging as the searing hot blood of the Serpent God began premating through my body, trying to destroy it from within.
This would have been an absolute certainty of death for me, if I didn't learn more about the path of the Body. as the more of the golden blood mixed with my own blood, my body began repairing the damage and forcing the golden blood to submission.
Bit by agonizing bit, I fused the golden blood into my marrow, and bones and used it to feed my veins.
Gaining a more enhanced body, at the expense of destroying every cell in it then rebuilding it using the new blood.
The Serpent God's blood was saturated with qi and bountiful in nutrients to make the perfect body. And not only did it not interfere with my Poison Meridians as I had feared, on the opposite, it enhanced them to do their job even better. The meridians swelled and gained more strength and robustness as my white bleached bones began to turn gold from the blood.
My own blood seemed to disappear as the Serpent God's blood completely took over.
At one point, the pain and agony were so much, feeling as if my entire body was being disintegrated bit by bit, I almost lost consciousness and focus, and in that moment I notice scales growing on my arms.
I bit my tongue, adding pain upon pain to wake myself up and resume my focus, in case I was to lose it here, I'll transform into a snake.
The scales were immediately shredded off, and I resumed my agonizing consumption.
The serpent's heart boomed louder and louder, further breaking my body, but with the power of the Blood Essence, I was able to repair it in a heartbeat.
The echoes of the heart were loud, but after an hour, two, and then a dozen more, they began to lessen.
Losing its blood essence, the Serpent God couldn't do anything but weaken as it realized that it was in probably the deepest and most dangerous situation it had ever encountered since it had seen light for the first time.
My tendons became far stronger and more elastic, my veins felt as if they were made of diamond but with the elasticity of flesh. And my muscles burned with unbridled power, enough that the mere fact of moving my arm caused the sound of thunder to echo, and I wasn't even halfway done.
More of the blood seeped into my body, further reinforcing me, feeding me, and nurturing my physic to that of a being far superior to a human.
The agony continued for a few days, the agony that felt as if I was being slowly roasted on the flames of hell itself, but still, it was agony worth suffering, for the reward was unbelievably worth it.
But all things come to an end. Though my cultivation base didn't move up a single ounce, even with the monstrous amounts of Qi I consumed, my body felt as if had reached the realms of godhood.
But, for some reason, I couldn't make that Qi my own, it was strange, it was as if I had absorbed Saint Qi, but it had a different code that wasn't compatible with my body.
Could it be a higher level of Qi? Something as different as the Heavenly Qi, to Saint Qi.
Perhaps, but if that was the case, that would mean that the Serpent God's cultivation is in a higher realm than that of the people of the vast expanse, even the Queen of the wind realm, the strongest of the Vast Expanse uses saint Qi.
Perhaps this is the reason why this serpent managed to overpower whoever tried to hunt it down. Simply because the two were in completely different realms of cultivation.
But, though the Qi in this blood is of a higher grade, I won't let it go to waste, I compressed it, secured it, and placed it within my Dantian, in my Sea of Consciousness. Though I can't use it now, a day shall come when I'll be able to do so.
Opening my eyes on the seventh day, the heart I was in looked shriveled up, and the golden blood was no more than a few specs and drops, too few for me to even bother seeking and consuming.
The effects of the Blood had died down, and I couldn't use it anymore as I had reached the peak of body evolution.
But this wasn't my goal. My goal was the serpent god itself. I absorbed its blood essence, but that was just the beginning.
Weakened and exhausted from having its Blood Essence stolen, the Serpent God could do nothing but send soul-wrenching wails of agony through the vast expanse.
Now for the next and most dangerous step…
I began releasing my divine sense, and I felt it more robust and more powerful than before, my reach was so great I thought I could scan an entire planet with my Divine Sense alone.
And there I felt it, an oppressive, devastating, and most shocking Divine Sense, that of the Serpent God itself.
Clashing heads against this divine sense is nothing short of suicide, and I didn't need to clash against it, I beckoned it to me. Into my Sea of Consciousness, open for all to enter, and without any defenses to protect my mind. All to lure it in, to lure the physical into the nonphysical…
***
Within the rims of the northern domain, where the Poison God's Trial door had opened before. A lawless empty space folded, revealing the silhouette of a being so massive that even planets would break upon contact with it.
It was the squirming body of the Poison Serpent God, it was in pain, so much pain that it wailed in a sound so bleak and so strong, the fabric of space itself began to rip and tear apart revealing hundreds of spatial tears that let in the winds of the void.
Cultivators from afar witnessed this event and realized that something ominous was going to happen.
Oracles and seers predicted the end of the world since the ruler of the vast expanse was experiencing agony predicting its own death. And some thought that it would be the greatest fortuitous encounter of their lives if they were able to witness the death of a being so great and then loot from its corpse whatever they could.
But, many theorized and no one acted.
***
Far away, in the Heavenly Academy, Master Rain, Dao Shen, Zhang Tian, Meng Hao, and a seriously injured Queen of the Wind Realm were resting in the tower.
The Queen's right arm was completely gone, and her body had burns that seemed unwilling to heal no matter the treatment.
The dark face of Zhang Tian spoke of his worry aplenty, but none could have predicted the growth of the Fire Lord, being able to compete with the Queen and injuring her to this extent only at the cost of a few internal injuries that he could probably heal in little time.
No one spoke of the events that had passed. Not even Meng Hao dared ask the wounded Queen to revive his beloved, Soul Revival requires a great deal of focus, and with the baleful fire Qi rampaging within the queen, bringing her back had more risks than benefits, not only would the queen further weaken, there was a risk of failure.
Yuyu entered the room of the four, her face looking awfully exhausted.
"Something is happening to Shen Bao's avatar," she said.
Frowning, Master Rain spoke, "What do you mean? Wasn't it just a mindless soulless husk?" he asked.
"It was, but… it seemed that it's starting to regain its composure, it not longer rampages in the prison cell, it's calm and… it's cultivating," Yuyu said.
Master Rain found the notion of a soulless body cultivating absurd, and since he was interested in the strange and absurd, he asked her to lead the way.
Dao Shen followed suit, and so did Meng Hao, leaving Zhang Tian to tend to his mother.
Arriving at the cell, the group noticed the body which had already torn several pieces of reinforced bricks and stones from its madness that lasted three years, calmly sitting in the lotus position.
"How is this possible?" Master Rain muttered as he entered the prison cell.
The body opened its eyes, they no longer were unfocused but seemed to have some semblance of light to them, yet it was weak, so very weak.
"Could…" Yuyu muttered.
"No," Dao Shen immediately shut down the thought, he knew what she was about to say.
"It's still without a soul," Dao Shen added. "But, it seemed that the body received a command of sorts…"
"What do you mean?" Master Rain asked.
Dao Shen approached the corpse and placed his hand on it.
Soon, he snickered, then began laughing like a hysterical madman.
Confused everyone kept wondering what happened and Dao Shen's answer came soon enough.
"That bloody bastard…he lives still,"
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