76 Smell Sense

Darkscale stood still, his eyes closed.

His body looked like it was in a very bad state. There wasn't any apparent injury, there wasn't blood or visible damage to his flesh, but he still looked incredibly unhealthy. The usual black perlaceous luster on his scales had completely disappeared. Now they looked incredibly decrepit and lifeless.

If someone could see him in the state he was, they would probably assume he was already dead. His whole body looked like a lifeless lump of snakeskin. There was still a faint violet glow that surrounded him, but it was also slowly dying off.

The moment the violet light was completely extinguished, something else began to happen to that pile of dead-looking flesh.

First, it was a single twitch. It looked like a muscle spasm and it was so fast that if one didn't pay enough attention it would have come and gone away without anyone noticing.

Then, that chunk of skin began to vibrate as a creepy scratching sound started to start to echo in the air all around.

It was like if something was clawing at a slab of though iron or the shrill sound of two swords meeting with violence.

A protuberance appeared on the upper left side of the black snake's body. Something was trying to dig itself a path out from under the snake's skin. The louder was the sound of the scratching, the bigger became the bulge.

It continued until it became like a little mountain growing off Darkscale's lifeless body. It was enormous, many times bigger than the body itself. The image was something that would without doubt disgust anyone that knew the black colored snake.

When the swelling became of the same size as a mature Emerald Elk, meaning at least two meters in high, it stopped to grow. The sound continued for a while, but nothing happened to the size of the strange giant tumor that seemed growing off of Darkscale's body.

Suddenly, the metal sounds stopped.

The place around Dakrscale returned to a calm silence for a few moments before a low growl started to resound from inside the large protuberance.

Almost as it was responding to the orders of its master, the air in the zone started o become heavier and heavier, until the ground itself started to tremble under its weight.

"ROAR"

Suddenly, a terrifying sound made the still air explode in a violent typhoon that brought ravaging winds in every direction. The large eye-shaped statues all around crumbled down in dozens of heavy white slabs of hard rock. The ground started to break up, and deep rips began to appear all over the place.

The large sack of skin that protruded from the snake burst open, revealing a sea of violet light that blinded everyone and everything for hundreds of meters.

The sound or the roar became even stronger and a large shadow emerged from the opened flesh of Darkscale. It was bathing in the violet light... no, it was the source of the violet light!

A wild mantle of violet energy was surrounding this large black figure. When the light dimmed down, the black figure was revealed to be a giant dark-skinned snake.

Now, it was coiled around a broken pillar that used to hold the statue of one of those stone eyes. The statue had been broken in many pieces of rocks a couple of moments earlier and now the top of the pillar was occupied by the head of the giant snake.

Two purple eyes shined with intelligence on the large triangular face of the creature. The snake moved its gaze all over its own body, looking very surprised.

Then, the beast moved its gaze toward the ground, eying the large sack from which it had come out and the little snake body attached to it.

A sharp light lit up in the creature's eyes. The snake remained in the same position for a couple of minutes, almost as he was thinking of something.

Then, without any notice, the immense serpent started rapidly losing sizes. This continued rapidly until it was as big as the snakeskin on the ground.

Now, it was very more recognizable: it was Darkscale!

"Extraordinary"

Silver light sparkles exploded from the little snake's mouth, while its purple eyes looked around with extreme marvel.

Everything around him looked so sharp and detailed. It didn't matter if it was right under his nose or hundreds of meters away, he could count the number of insects moving on the large luminescent mushrooms relying only on his sight!

His other senses were even better! He could recognize plenty of new scents that before he couldn't even feel. This was true especially of a scent that he could feel everywhere around him: in the ground, in the air... inside him!

"This..."

After a moment of concentration, Darkscale realized that this had to be the scent of the bloodline power he had absorbed from the crazy spirits!

The entire place had different hues of that same scent. He could feel it on every corpse, no matter how much decomposed. Each one had a slight difference in it, but most of the remains had some level of bloodline scent in them.

Far away, he could even feel some moving entities that were having that familiar scent on them. Darkscale blinked his eyes twice, before giving a new large sniff to the air.

"No, they have three very familiar scents on them...mad ghosts"

Yes, the other two scents Darkscale was feeling on them were the corrupted bloodline power and the Ghost Energy. He was sure about it. Those were powers he had dealt with and he was very familiar with them.

Something moved around with Ghost, Bloodline Power and Corrupt Bloodline Power? It needed to be one of those crazy spirits.

"Amazing."

Darkscale was in awe of this new level of sensitivity. His sense of smell seemed able to recognize energies in miles.

It was even better than his ability to his normal ability to sense energy signatures from the radiation that they emanated! In fact, if he concentrated enough, he could feel many other energies scent all around him. Some he recognizes, like the traces of what seemed to be Blood Energy. Otherwhere instead completely foreigner. Probably those were energy he didn't know about.

"So this is what being a real cultivator feels like?"

Darkscale loved it. With senses this powerful, no one would be ever able to ambush him or surprise him without him knowing!

He sent his willpower towards his new energy container, feeling the enormous quantity of power that was stored inside of it.