Chapter 437: Using a soul as an anvil

The strange creature made of blood and shadow was now covered with a few bony parts here and there. On its reddish skin, there was sickly green hair that were growing. From its strange neck, a head was slowly being formed. And right now, it was clawing its way out of the Drop of Wrath. Cao Yun could feel its wrath. Even now, he had to use all of his mind cultivation not to be washed away by those impulses.

In the physical realm, Cao Yun's eyes were injected with blood and his entire body was coursing with adrenaline. His limbs were shaking. Because of those signs, the weakened Gu Song was convinced that his offensive was successful. However, those signs were in fact showing the absolute opposite. The young man had unleashed the most ferocious thing hidden within the Drop of Wrath. If he had tried to slowly take over the Drop of Wrath, it would have taken him decades to get rid of that inner demon without taking any risk. On the other hand, by trying to replace it with his own Po of Jing, he had made the thing mad.

As Axiu Qian had been completely obliterated, that thing had no intelligence and was acting on instinct alone. As such, it would have lashed out against Cao Yun if it had felt threatened by him too much. For months, he had felt it grow more and more restless. He knew that he had to choose between being slower with his mind cultivation or confronting that abomination. Thankfully, Gu Song had given him another option. If he had to face that thing to rule the Drop of Wrath, he might just as well have someone else weaken it first.

Gu Song was obviously unaware of all of that. In his eyes, Cao Yun was unleashing a powerful attack against him. Thus, he retaliated in kind. From his cauldron, the giant skull made of Ghost Energy flew directly toward the Flying Poison as it was still partially within the Drop of Wrath. Cao Yun's Five Agents were now all lowered, protected by the thick base of the Nine Soul Peaks.

Gu Song's skull tried to bite into the Flying Poison. Once again, a monstrous scream echoed throughout Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. No matter how hard the skull was trying to bite into his enemy, the Flying Poison was too resistant for it. From the inner demon's back, a new pair of arms spurted out. With claws made of bones, they grabbed the skull. The Ghost Energy had taken the form of a faint and sinister blue flame. As that flame was consuming the bony claws of the Flying Poison, the inner demon had caused many cracks to appear within the giant skull.

Now that it was almost out, the Flying Poison used the Drop of Wrath to give itself the impulse it needed. It jumped high in the sky and the teeth of the skull were reduced into fine powders as it escaped its maw. Then, the three tails of the demon went toward the skull, whipping it away, far away from the Drop of Wrath. On the abomination's back, there was now a long red fur. The hair were growing again and again. And now, it had a real head, but with no eyes and no ears. It was just a giant mouth with strange and deformed teeth.

Once again, its back became agitated and two new limbs appeared, wings as wide as the creature itself. The sea of consciousness around the inner demon was being corrupted, Death Energy was spread all around it. Cao Yun saw that thing as a mixture of Bone Demons and the bloody beasts he had thought in the Demon Palace. It had no intelligence whatsoever and was just animated by anger, fury and rage. Thankfully, Gu Song was its only target right now.

The solemn hymn of the 'Death Verses' were not permeating that space any longer. Instead, Cao Yun was just chanting them around his Five Agents.

"Boy, be careful. I'm not sure that even this Gu Song can fight that thing. Hell, not even that Xiao Xuefeng could fend too well against it."

"He studied Ghost Energy and Death Energy quite a lot. I'm sure he can endure long enough. But I just need him to weaken it. Then, I'll take over."

"But if Gu Song's Soul Embryo is destroyed, not even me will be able to read his memories."

"I know. I am ready to intervene when it becomes necessary. But for now, I'll use his soul for my own purposes just like he used the souls of so many people for his devices."

Gu Song's Soul Embryo contained a small part of his own soul, otherwise Gu Song couldn't control it as he was still only a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior. And faced with that thing, his very soul was shaking in fear. Usually, he was the one inflicting fear into the souls of his victims. His very first instinct was to run away. Unfortunately, Cao Yun's bloody chains were still trapping him. Besides, if he tried to attack the bloody chains right now, the feral beast would dismember him. He could imagine what it was like to be devoured by that thing. Gu Song could clearly feel a thick Death Energy, it was a corrupted Po in front of him.

Even knowing that, fighting that creature seemed perilous. For once, he wasn't sure whether or not he could survive. His only chance might be for his full Soul Embryo to enter the fight. Even then, he wasn't sure he could fight. And in the physical realm, the last part of Gu Song's Soul Embryo was protecting his own soul. Because of the Heart Reversing Tormentor and the Black Heart Flame, he had been forced to push the rest of his Soul Embryo into his Upper Dantian. Technically, he could be considered to have become a 5th-grade Spirit Warrior. Indeed, the point of the 4th-grade Spirit Warrior stage was to send one's entire Soul Embryo to reside within the Upper Dantian, in contact with the soul.

Of course, Gu Song had been forced to do so to answer the emergency. As such, it had damaged his Soul Embryo and his soul just as they were assaulted on all fronts. However, he had none of the benefits. Even if he survived this encounter, he might never be able to progress any further in his cultivation. Indeed, repairing a soul and a Soul Embryo was a long and arduous process. Besides, his Upper Dantian that had been strengthened in the previous grade of his cultivation was now partially damaged as well. This was a huge setback, all because of a stupid kid!

The kid was thankfully about to die. He could see that his sea of consciousness was in turmoil. His body was shaking and blood had filled his eyes. However, Gu Song's joy was short-lived. Instead of seeing Cao Yun fall to the ground, he felt an intense pain in his very soul. Despite the bloody chains trapping its other half, Gu Song's Soul Embryo was still connected to it. Thus, the pain and anguish traveled back to him. Right now, Cao Yun was doing to him what Mei Hua had done to the Soul Weaving Cyrtophora who had tried to devour her soul.

As Gu Song's soul was being weakened, the shadow of the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish was pulling on it stronger and stronger. With this new pain within, it had become almost impossible to resist. Because Cao Yun could not take Gu Song's soul himself as he didn't have any spiritual senses, he had found another way. In the physical realm, he had no chance in a direct confrontation. However, within his sea of consciousness, he had no doubt that the middle Spirit Warrior would meet his demise. And until now, he seemed to be right.

Since the beginning of the assault, the time of only two incense sticks had passed. In that time though, Gu Song had almost been destroyed. He had assassinated early Spirit Warriors and even a few middle ones with his poisons and some trickery. But now, he would be obliterated by some junior. At that moment, he firmly believed that Mo Tian had failed because of that boy. He was just too strange. Even if his Qi cultivation was strong, it wasn't heaven-defying. On the other hand, what was going on in his sea of consciousness was just beyond Gu Song's understanding. He knew though that if the part of his Soul Embryo in there was destroyed, he would follow. He would never be able to resist the suction force and all of his soul would meet the same fate.

Gu Song even found himself hoping for the Xue family to intervene. He would certainly be discovered, but he might be able to shift the blame on Cao Yun, accusing him of being a demonic cultivator. In the confusion, he might even be able to escape. After all, he had some contingencies just in case.

-

Speaking of them, the Xue family was still in a great confusion. However, Patriarch Xue Liu decided that the scream of Xue Rui was reason enough for him to throw away a huge fortune. The array formations now used to entrap them had cost their family around a thousand Yuanbao if he added all the expenses to set them up and maintain them. But if an enemy had seized his own weapon, then it wasn't his anymore. He would prefer to see them destroyed than being used against him.

Since Cao Yun didn't have all the time in the world, the array formations had barely changed. In fact, he had just altered the pathway of the defenses. That meant that instead of forming a impregnable wall outside of the Xue residence, it had formed this wall within, in a certain way Cao Yun had designed. In fact, it wouldn't be too difficult to alter it or even stop it. But the surprise had overtaken everyone. Besides, the only experts of those array formations were separated. They would need several more minutes to get to where they had to go in order to stop this array formation and regain full control.

Although he wasn't an array formation expert, Xue Liu knew enough to understand that. However, he felt as though there was simply no time. Thus, he begun to use all of his strength to break the wall blocking his path. Other elders felt it and understood what he was trying to do. Since they knew this barrier, they also knew where its weaknesses were even with the few modifications. Following the example of their patriarch, they began to attack the wall. The array formation would be damaged, but they could still rebuild and find out how someone had altered it. In the future, their defenses would be even better.

Of course, both the Governor and General Yun were warned of the incident. General Yun had been ready to act right away. As such, his army was mobilized all around the Xue residence. When the Governor's forces appeared, he had already the control of the area and claimed that he was protecting the place. Maybe it was an offensive by the demons. After all demons had indeed tried to play around with the outside array formations on the border. But none had ever directly attacked the Subei Province. However, General Yun was just stalling for time.

Even during a crisis, he knew that Governor Jiahe would take way too long to take any decision. By the time he had made up his mind, the crisis would be over. Whether Cao Yun's plan had worked or not was not certain though.

-

Inside Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, the Flying Poison was flying straight toward the cauldron made out of Ghost Energy. Cao Yun wasn't sure whether it had felt that this was the origin of the attack or if it was just attracted by the Ghost Energy itself. The next action of the inner demon seemed to answer his question.

The Flying Poison's muscles bulged as he ripped apart some of the skulls forming the cauldron itself. One by one, he was taking them and crushing them in his bony claws. Each time, the blue flame within flowed directly into its makeshift body. As the beast was enraged and feeding off of that Ghost Energy, its green hair was still growing all over, it felt as though it was sick.

Gu Song's Soul Embryo distanced itself from the cauldron. Still controlling the skull though, he sent it against his enemy. From the cauldron even more flames erupted. Flying Poison was covered in blue flames that were burning away its green hair just as fast as it was growing. But the bloody beast became more and more enraged. From its shoulders, yet another pair of arms appeared. It had now six arms, two wings and three tails. With its fists, the creature was punching through the skulls, reducing them to dust, clawing at them, ripping them apart.

In Cao Yun's eyes, it felt as though he was destroying real human skulls as though they were just made out of chalk. Nothing Cao Yun had ever seen was as violent and brutal as that thing. After all, it was pure rage. In fact, it was probably how Cao Yun had looked when the Drop of Wrath had taken over his body.

Seeing that the blue flames were barely slowing down the creature but fueling its rage instead, Gu Song changed his approach. They all converged into the giant skull. Then, the skull was completed by a full skeleton, mimicking a human skeleton. The proportions weren't perfect and some bones were looking very strange, but it was humanoid at the very least, contrary to the Flying Poison. Besides, the skull alone was the size of the bloody demon itself. And the rest of the body was proportionate.

Contrary to the Bone Demons, that skeleton was made out of Ghost Energy, not Death Energy. It was the Flying Poison who was Death Energy.

Just as Flying Poison was punching, clawing, ripping apart the cauldron, it felt the presence of that towering skeleton. By instinct, it flew upward, avoiding a hand that was trying to grab and crush it. In the air, its wings grew. Then, the rest of its body became half as large as the skeleton. Since they were both spiritual entities, they were not made of material stuff. As such, the very notion of size wasn't particularly important. They could condense or expand their energy. What really mattered was the energy itself. And Cao Yun could sense that Gu Song had already lost a lot of his Ghost Energy and he was reluctant to use Death Energy against the Flying Poison. He was right...