"Xie Ming! Stop your pointless resistance and just die!" Wang Bo screeched as he sent a powerful ray of corrosive black flames at Xie Ming who stood within the Nine Souls Formation.
The situation was not going well considering that the Munchies and Junkies were originally on par with each other. However, Xie Ming was still under the process of recovery. The members of the Junkies and the Munchies weren't anomalies like Jam and co; capable of battling well over their stage or realm. Xie Ming being a flaw in the formation made him a target, and the moment that the Nine Souls formation broke down, the Munchies would gradually gain an increasing advantage.
Luckily for the Munchies, they had allies at their time of crisis. Minutes had already come and gone, with neither the Nova Tribe, Mu Clan, nor Li Clan succeeding in killing off any of their allies. Thus, if they could hold on for a couple more minutes, they would easily stomp their enemies with the arrival of the Whirls and Red Hawks.
Wang Bo narrowed his eyes at the silent defence the Junkies had. They never talk trash back to him, no matter what… so his sinister side felt an itch. "Xinyi'er why don't you go on and tell your dear companion over there what we did earlier?"
Xie Ming physically recoiled as he heard the cold and ambiguous words come from Wang Bo's mouth. As a Saint God of a rival faction he obviously knew of the Munchie Chieftain's favorite "hobbies." Though his body momentarily shook, he kept his defensive stance and did his best to dodge and counterattack; trying his damndest to ignore the obvious psychological warfare.
Xie Xinyi also became a bit sluggish, though she did her best to hide it from Xie Ming. The last thing she needed right now was for her Dao Companion to lose himself in rage get himself as well as everyone else killed. Alas, Xie Ming noticed…
Getting an acceptable result, Wang Bo laughed with uncanny mirth. He gestured for everyone to keep up their attacks, while he himself slowed down just enough for Xie Ming to focus on his speech. "Ah yes~ The silky smooth flesh of my dear Xinyi'er, how could I forget." Wang Bo spoke as if he were reminiscing in some wonderful past. His words were ambiguous enough to cause anyone to misinterpret him. Furthermore, the lust that seemed to penetrate Xie Ming's heart made the situation all the more chaotic.
Slowly, Xie Ming started getting sloppy. He might not have noticed as Wang Bo ordered the other Munchie Saint Gods to purposely avoid damaging him as much. But everyone on the Junkies side was sweating bullets. "Ignore him!" "Don't get distracted from this fight!" "Believing in the words of a fiend will bright about all our deaths!" All these messages coming from his colleagues and friends were ignored, as not a single one came from Xie Xinyi to deny Wang Bo's words.
"Ha! The way I played around with her… if you could believe how rowdy and fancy this little lass is~ Oh, but you're her Dao Companion. Of course you'd know~" Wang Bo kept his trickery afloat and his act was all the more convincing as he was talking about something he experienced. He and Xinyi both knew what he was talking about: the time he threw her around for spitting in his mouth.
However, Xie Ming didn't know this. For all he knew, Wang Bo was directly calling him a cuck to his face. Xie Xinyi's silence didn't help his case either, as she was too traumatized from the utter terror Wang Bo instilled in her from their previous encounter. There just hadn't been enough time to get over those chilling words Wang Bo had thrown at her as an ultimatum. Being told that you would either have to kill yourself or get raped in front of your Dao Companion would take a heavy toll on not only to her, but anyone…
Not communicating with Xie Ming, devolved his sanity further and eventually… "Shut up..." A cold whisper from a fuming Xie Ming struck out against everyone's hearts. "What was that? I'm only speaking the truth." Wang said, as he turned to face Xie Xinyi, even though his senses were more than clear with what Xie Ming was up to.
He continued "Really, Xinyi'er, the taste of your saliva… its still evident in my mouth..." Though these profound obscenities were spoken with the most obviously lustful tone imaginable, the dark look he gave Xie Xinyi when Wang Bo spoke them would perhaps have given insight into a the real story. Unfortunately, Xie Ming was like a bull that had come face to face with a red tarp; he truly was about to lose his mind.
"One more word out of your mouth..." Xie Ming said, but he was cut off. "And what?" Wang Bo said, as merry as a mischievous child. A crack could be heard as a chip shot off Xie Ming's mouth; he was gritting his teeth so hard they were starting to shatter. "Oh and her throat, with my..." Wang Bo continued, but a roar that shook both the earth and the heavens stopped everyone in their tracks.
Everyone, literally everyone, on this battlefield and on Jam's side stopped what they were doing. They all turned to face south, were a Stellar Roc had descended. The Stellar Roc had Mu Sangzi in one of its claws.
CRUNCH! Mu Sangzi turned into crushed meat paste with just the slightest exertion of energy from the maddened Roc. Mu Jianshi, standing mere meters away from the prey turned predator, felt the threat of death creep up in his throat. He tried to teleport away, but the local space had become the Roc's territory, and the attempted escape drove it crazier.
The Roc opened its mouth and a beam, just as potent as Jam's fully charged space-thunder-yang beam, quickly and accurately sliced Mu Jianshi in half; the formation's protection, rendered unstable from Sangzi dying, became worthless. Then with the twitch of the neck, the beam cut up Jianshi into eerily perfect cubes.
Maddened beyond belief, Cynthia who had gone completely berserk after watching what she thought would be Arnold's death, actually managed to ignite her bloodline. This was suicide… she was just a Saint and she dared to transform into a Stellar Roc? Living after leaving this state would be wishful thinking, but now was not the time to fret over her mortality. Rather, Cynthia would take full advantage of the time she could stay in her current form and massacre as many Saint Gods as possible.
Thus, she threw caution to the wind and faced the skies. Another, much more powerful, beam shot off a couple kilometers into the air before splitting off into countless centimeter thick projectiles, aiming kill off all her enemies.
The rest of the Mu Clan's Saint Gods all died instantly as they had no protection against the Stellar Wind. Their bodies were left mutilated with what had to be hundreds or thousands of perfectly circular puncture wounds.
Of to the Junkie's side, since everyone was paying attention to the surge brought about by a transformed Cynthia, Wang Bo had stealthy made his way behind Xie Ming. Just about everyone ignored the ghastly black shadow moving about quickly towards Xie Ming, with the countless shining pieces of Stellar Wind blinding everyone in attendance. As Wang Bo prepared to decapitate Xie Ming, Xie Xinyi caught on and teleported between them. She didn't have time to properly defend with her weapon, thus she resolutely decided to just shield her Dao Companion with her bare body...
SHING! Xie Xinyi's robe-like armor was about as useful as paper, with nothing apart from a thin layer of energy enhancing it. Wang Bo's sword made a deep gash on Xie Xinyi's body from the top of her left shoulder to her waist on the right side of her body. Wang Bo cursed "Damn..." not at all happy that he wasn't able to kill her off without a doubt. Her wounds would have been much worse if Wang Bo wasn't forced to get back in formation to defend against Cynthia's all out assault.
"NOOO!!!!" Xie Ming's world crumbled before him as he watched Xinyi lose consciousness and start a free fall towards the earth. He caught her in less than a second and held her in his arms, an endless stream of tears falling from his eyes. In this moment, he cursed a thousand curses. Cursing himself for being weak, inattentive, clumsy, slow, stupid… He cursed Wang Bo, he cursed the Munchies, he cursed the world, and through the increasing madness, life started becoming less and less important in his eyes. Now, the only thing he wanted to see was revenge…
After fidgeting around with his space ring, a small pure black pill appeared in Xie Ming's hand. As the madness in his eyes became increasingly evident and the pill was being brought closer to his mouth, Xie Fang teleported to Xie Ming's side and slapped the pill out of his hand, yelling "Are you insane?! Now is not the time to get consumed in hatred!" The black pill appeared in Xie Fang's hand as well as Xie Xinyi's unconscious body.
One moment the wounded Xinyi was in Xie Fang's hands the next, she was gone; vanishing like a puff of smoke. "She's not even dead yet! Calm down!" In that moment that Xie Fang had Xinyi in his hands, he checked her with his divine sense and found that neither her heart nor dantian were damaged beyond repair. With her vitality as a Saint God, her current set of injuries were life threatening, but not in the immediate sense.
"Get back in formation before we get in an even more disadvantageous position! Don't let her sacrifice be in vain! If you get yourself and the rest of us killed because of your hatred, then all she did for you would be for nothing!" Xie Fang barked, but his tone had a hint of patience buried within. He knew just how maddening the current situation was for Xie Ming. He just came back from being tortured only to find his previous torturers about to kill his Dao Companion. Though the current circumstances were pressing, Xie Fang had just a smidgen of patience added when he dealt with Xie Ming.
Xie Ming snapped out of his emotional turmoil, and silently returned back to formation. His disposition became several degrees colder and a heavy silence pervaded whatever area he drifted through. Before going too far, Xie Fang said "Catch!" and threw Xie Ming back his black pill. He said "Use it only as a last resort." To which Xie Ming nodded.