73 Too Much To Eat

"BANG"

The impact between the flying horse and the huge vortex summoned by Darkscale echoed all around. This time, the spirit didn't get immediately destroyed by the vortex.

The winged horse howled in rage, dark sparks of energy flaring up from its body while the whirlpool generated by the Pretorian's Breath ate his body. The creature didn't show pain, but it seemed even more furious than before. Maybe that was because it was trapped and couldn't attack the individual rich in Bloodline Power that it could feel only a few meters away from itself.

On the other side of the fight, Darkscale was gritting his teeth in concentration. For a moment he almost had to stop practicing cultivation, swept away by the force of the impact between the creature and his vortex.

That horse could use an incredible amount of strength. Darkscale was now certain that if that thing hit him directly, he would die immediately. Thankfully, the Pretorian's Breath was such a good weapon against the spirit.

Summoning all his willpower, the snake managed to resist the collision. He then was also able to endure while the Kjruka tried to resist and fight off the power of the Breath.

It wasn't easy, but the serpent managed to grind down the mindless spirit. It took time: two long and tortuous hours instead of the few seconds he used when absorbing the bird from before.

When he finally managed to break it all down, he didn't feel any joy at all in that victory. His mind already was thinking of a new problem, something that normally would have made him very happy but now made him feel an extremely bad premonition: there was too much energy.

'This is too much to absorb...'

The now completely destroyed horse had been broken down in numerous strands of dark energy that were spiraling around the vortex. The Heavenly Battleground Technique was working its magic, purifying the Ghost Energy and preparing it for being stored inside Darkscale.

Yet, the snake had a very bad hunch about what was going to happen when all that energy tried to enter his body. This wasn't at all on the same range of power of the two creature he slaying and absorbed before.

Compared to them it was a dozen times richer in Ghost Energy! Darkscale remembered very well that just a single one of those creatures managed to satisfied his energy requests for a long time. He managed to absorb them both just because of the energy expenditure he had when he lost his mind and chased after the violet Buddhist cultivator.

Without that outburst, he surely wouldn't be able to consume at all the second mindless ghost, the large bird spirit.

'It's too late for regrets... here we go'

Focusing on the Heavenly Battleground Technique, the serpent started to digest all that Ghost Energy. His Natural Heart was filling with power at an incredible rate. In a few moments, he felt the energy container that was present inside of him become completely full of energy.

He could also sense that some sliver of ghost energy was constantly escaping outside from the small fissure that he had considered an injury for a long time, before being told the contrary by Spike.

Now that his Natural Heart was bursting with the energy he had the sensation that the escaping flow had worsened. However, the energy that moved out from his Natural Heart wasn't at all in the same quantity of the one that was introduced inside by his Heavenly Battleground Technique.

Continuing the process; the snake could feel the Ghost Energy inside of him being compressed by the constant arrival of new power, and he started also to feel a deep sense of nausea.

This is was like the first time that he felt this way while practicing cultivation. He felt like was almost bursting, like if he kept on consuming energy he would surely explode.

However, the snake ignored the sickening feeling he had in his stomach and he pushed aside the idea of stopping his cultivation technique. If he did so, his whole plan against Carelia would fail: only when all the normal Ghost Energy had been separated from the Bloodline Power he would be able to absorb the latter.

This meant that without absorbing all the Ghost Energy that the spirit left him, he wouldn't be able to touch the Bloodline Power and couldn't send the corrupted side of that energy to Carelia.

His whole plan was based on his absorption of Bloodline Power from the mindless spirits. He would then send all impurities that he found to the betraying "MAID" that was infesting Star Leaf's body!

So, for his plan to succeed, he needed to endure!

Darkscale continued to absorb the immense quantity of Ghost Energy left behind by the large horse, but his expression was darkening minute after minute.

After a dozen minutes, his Natural Heart was so much full that the serpent could feel the formation of countless cracks on its surface.

'Argh'

Naturally, such an occurrence caused the serpent long lingering pains. It was like if someone was stabbing him repetitively from the inside. Any normal person would have completely abandoned any plan that they had to stop such a sudden agony, but Darkscale didn't.

When the pain became so strong that he felt himself beginning to give up, the serpent immediately summoned the memories of Carelia lying and tricking him.

'I can't let her win!'

She had been dishonest with him for so long, she even dared to make him panic about the energy quantity in the Ghost Pool when it was now obvious that she hid a large portion of it.

He needed to get revenge. He couldn't just concede to someone that played with him like that. Plus, she also had Star Leaf under her.

"I can do it!"

The snake pushed his head inside the vortex and started to absorb even more energy. His opened fangs shined beneath the large vortex and a victorious roar emerged from his throat while rivers of energy entered inside of him.

He ignored the pain and kept absorbing energy. Soon, new cracks started to form around his Natural Heart, and the ones that were already there became deeper and wider.

The compressed Ghost Energy inside the energy container started to exit at an even more rapid rate from Darkscale's body, but it wasn't still enough to make up for the power flowing inside of the little snake's Natural Heart. Especially now that he had augmented the rate of absorption by placing his head inside the vortex full of energy.

'More!'

For what seemed like a millennium to the young serpent, he kept on absorbing Ghost Energy and letting the Heavenly Battleground Technique to push the power towards his poor Natural Heart.

The organ was now in tatters, a long way from the shiny and healthy energy container that it was once. Now, there were cracks everywhere, some even incredibly deep. The most serious one was a large irregular gap that ran across all the Natural Heart.

That was the first crack that ever appeared on his energy container, caused by the Blue Man he encountered in the Blood Woods. After the attack of the strange monk, Darkscale spent a long time in his cultivation session with Star Leaf to mend that injury.

Naturally, this was before he had his chat with Spike about how he was supposed to advance as a Devil Cultivator.

Now, under such an incredible pressure coming from the amount of energy inside his Natural Heart, not only the crack had been opened again, but it had worsened ten thousand times.

The most frustrating thing was that even after having damaged his body so much, the snake hadn't been able to completely take in all the power left behind by that damn horse!

'Fuck, if this keeps going this way it won't be long before... '

Halfway through that thought, Darkscale face changed.