69 Damn You Darkscale

Darkscale's was furious.

Everything, from his eyes, to his movements and his aura gave off a feeling of anger, of insane and uncontrollable madness.

He continuously pursued Devassa, roaring from time to time when he bashed the grey walls erected by the violet serpent almost as he was a living wrecking ball.

The reserved, intelligent and planning creature that he had become after facing so many adversities seemed gone, replaced by a berserker beast.

He was clearly way stronger than the violet serpent, but he wasn't able to catch her or inflict her serious wounds even after trying for so much time. This was in part because of the defenses of grey energy that she left behind her, slowing down his chase, but also because he wasn't using his entire strength.

For example, he didn't use the poison technique that he now excelled in, nor he tried to any one of his signature tricks when he fought with her.

He simply used pure and rough force, like if he had regressed to the status of a common beast. Darkscale was fueled by an irrational desire for blood. He wanted to devour his enemy, not just punish him for the sneak attack that she launched on him.

His wild and brainless behavior continued for a long time. It seemed that each time he managed to land an attack on the violet snake, he fell even deeper into the berserker rage.

Maybe this would have continued until the situation became irreversible. Until he became like that Ghost Insect that he absorbed not too long ago.

Thankfully, this wasn't the case: when the Buddhist Cultivator exploded with grey energy, pushing him hundreds of meters east. Darkscale had to stop for a moment to regain his balance before going back to the chase.

That pause, mixt with the shock received by the impact with the Devassa's strange grey energy, stopped the raging berserker state that he was in for some moment. What he was left with was a very confused daze.

'What the fuck I'm doing?'

The memories of the attacks that he launched against Devassa were still fresh in his mind, but the serpent almost didn't dare believe that he was the one that made such wild assaults.

That wasn't his fighting style at all. That wasn't him.

'What happened?.. that centipede maybe?'

He was confused, but not stupid. His nimble mind immediately linked the consumption of the strange ghost with the behavior changes that he was experiencing. The problem was that even if he knew exactly what was happening to him, it wasn't very useful without the knowledge on how to stop it from happening again.

He could feel it, the anger: it was like a predator crouching down inside his body, ready to reappear without any warning.

The serpent sent his Will Manipulation inside his own body, to get a better idea of what he was dealing with. The moment his consciousness started to examine his own flesh, he immediately started to feel something consuming it.

No, not consuming it.

Altering it.

Making it angrier, a fury with no one controlling it. The serpent was ready this time, and tried to control it, to stop this force from consuming his mind and reducing him to the same mad animal that he was turning into moments ago.

Unfortunately, it was like trying to block the flow of an entire river barehanded: impossible.

Darkscale felt his body fill with incredible energy, burning violet fire that made him roar in anger, spreading violet cracks in the air around him.

He was in pain, trying to stop this unbound current from drowning his conscience once again.

'What is this?!'

Confused, Darkscale felt that this blazing energy didn't come from his cultivation base. It didn't emerge from his Natural Heart and it didn't have that familiar gloomy feeling to it that made him think of the Ghost Energy, nor it was Blood Energy. It was hot, yes, but it also brought with it a suffocating sensation of might that wasn't even close to what he normally felt coming from Blood Energy.

In fact, there was only one time he ever felt something similar. A burning and mighty sensation like this wasn't something that he would ever forget.

"Cursed Blood"

Darkscale gasped. He now saw the correlation between the blood that changed forever his life and the power that he was feeling all around the place in this Yellow Lake.

It wasn't exactly the same, but it was very similar.

He felt it on the Bone-Mountain, he felt it on the absurdly complex array that was opened by Carelia and he felt it on the corpses and remains that were all around the cave. Now he was feeling it on his own flesh.

He remembered what Devassa screamed to him when he was absorbing the Insect Ghost.

"Bloodline Energy."

It was different from both Ghost and Blood Energy. This Bloodline Power was stronger, it was more majestic and... savage. There was a sense of wildness that was brought with the wave of power, something that was making him loose completely his mind again.

He soon felt that he wasn't in control anymore, and became a spectator in his own body while the latter darted with savage fury towards Devassa again.

Darkscale felt his last whisp of consciousness being rapidly eroded by this wild bloodline energy, no matter how much he tried to fight it.

He could feel that his whole body was filled with this new type of energy. If before it was only a feeble trace that he had to concentrate to sense, now it was the main thing that he felt when he scanned his own flesh.

Even before feeling the radiation signature of his Natural Heart, he felt the wild power of the Bloodline.

'Wait... Natural Heart!'

Darkscale's conscience moved again towards the Natural Heart, observing how it was the only place inside his whole body that didn't seem to be affected at all by the Bloodline Energy.

Without thinking about it twice, he moved the last remaining wisp of consciousness that he still controlled towards the energy container.

He immediately noted that the attack of the corrosive bloodline power became way weaker next to the core, but this only bought it time and wasn't a complete solution to his problem.

He needed to find a way to completely stop the process and then start working on taking back control of his own body!

He scanned the Natural Heart, trying to understand how it was the only part of his body that kept resisting to the corrosion caused by this damned Bloodline Power.

'Hmm? What's that?'

After looking around the small container filled with silver and red energy, he noticed that all around it there was something that the bloodline energy tried to avoid at all costs. It was nothing more than a translucent paper-thin surface.

A blue surface. Hmm... blue?

'It's still here?'

The Blue Energy from the link! The moment he saw it, he immediately recognized it! It was the energy that the Blue Man put inside of him and Star Leaf, forming a connection between him and the human.

'It can repel Bloodline Power?'

Wanting to give it a try, Darkscale cut half of the remaining consciousness he had into two parts and used one to gather some Bloodline energy and feed it to the blue surface.

'What the-?'

...

In the same time, on the outside, the black serpent was still following Devassa like a rabid dog. There was no intelligence left in those furious eyes of his, only pure madness.

She had led him to the place where other Ghosts like the insect from before existed, but the serpent ignored them and kept following her with white foam dripping from his fangs.

"Damn you, go follow the other!"

Devassa had almost played all of her cards. If things continued like this, she knew that she would not be able to keep outrunning from him forever. Plus, she had no confidence in being able to fight him.

"Damn, Damn, Damn..." continuously muttered the violet serpent. She was thinking of trying to lead him right before one of those ghosts and try to see if they would attack each other, when an incredible amount of killing intent pressed on her being.

A loud explosion came from the location at the center of this zone filled with giant One-eyes statues. A tower fo violet energy mounted hight towards the far ceiling, before running down like a rain of little violet comets.

Then, an angry shout filled with killing intent echoed all around the cave.

"DAMN YOU DARKSCALE"