A deeper fusion.

He noticed Guo Luo jolting awake not long after the sun started rising, she quickly checked on his body before she sighed in relief. Guo Luo took his body and moved it to the entrance of the cave, before she herself left the cave and sat down, using the fresh morning air to clear her head.

After only half an hour, Yao Jun heard a loud screech resound over the forest. His face turned gloomy when he saw five massive crow's flying towards them, the sect reinforcements had arrived.

He saw Guo Luo do her best to crawl over to his body, but the five crows were simply too fast. By the time she reached the cave, the crows were already above her. Guo Luo struggled to her feet, standing in front of the cave, guarding Yao Jun's body, once more causing Yao Jun to wonder what he did to deserve someone that cared for him this much.

11 people jumped down from the crows, landing not far from Guo Luo. The man who seemed to be the leader waved his hand, prompting another male to walk towards Guo Luo and Yao Jun.

Seeing this man, Yao Jun was both anxious and angry. He was anxious because he was worried about Guo Luo, he knew that she was far too weak right now, even someone who hadn't even reached the 1st Mortal Earth would be able to easily beat her.

He was angry at both himself and the 11 people. He was angry because he was so weak, so weak that he could not even protect a single person, despite his struggles to grow stronger. And he was angry at the 11 people for trying to harm Guo Luo.

When the male hit Guo Luo, causing blood to be smeared on her face, his anger turned into pure and unbridled rage. Her body was covered in small and large wounds, covered in blood and dirt. She was in a truly pitiful state, a state she had only ended up in because of him.

Yao Jun swore right there that if anything happened to Guo Luo, he would not rest until he had found the sect these 11 people came from and turned the place into a sea of blood, he would not even spare the cats and dogs.

When the rage-filled his entire body, there was a reaction from his Demon God's Gate. The obstruction that had prevented his soul from further fusing with the Demon God's Gate simply vanished. As the obstruction vanished, Yao Jun's soul also vanished from where it stood, entering the Demon God's Gate.

His soul appeared at the crown of the ancient tree, his feet sinking into the branches. After his legs sank down to their knees, they stopped sinking. Once he stopped sinking, the leaves on the black tree started fluttering, moving around even though there was no wind.

Small globs of pitch black energy came out of the fluttering leaves, looking like the blood of a demon god. The globs of black energy split into five different parts, each one going their own way. One part entered his own body, one entered Little Thunder, one entered Sirius, one entered Ba-Shei, and the last one flew out from the gate and entered Little Gray's body.

When the black energy entered his body, Yao Jun felt his entire body fill up with energy. The black energy coursed throughout his entire body, filling every nook and cranny. After it filled his entire body, the five parts that the black energy had turned into seemed to resonate with each other, connecting with each other.

Yao Jun felt his mind split into five different parts, one staying within his own body, while the other four each entered one of his Demonic beasts. When his mind entered his Demonic beasts, he could suddenly see and feel everything that they did.

He could feel the cold air and wind as Little Gray was soaring through the sky, the hunger of Ba-Shei. He could also control them much more easily, no longer needing to send them an order. Just thinking about it would cause them to perform the action he was thinking about.

Images quickly started filling up his entire mind, images of places and scenes he had never seen quickly appearing in his mind. He heard the voice that he first heard when he reached the 1st Mortal Earth sound out once more, telling him that these were the memories of his Demonic beasts.

He first saw Little Thunder's memories. Watched it's parents get killed by humans while it hid in a cave not far away. Watched it survive by eating the animals in the surrounding. Watched it face a youth clad in an emerald green robe, watched it die at the hands of that youth and be reborn as his first Demonic beast.

The next one up was Little Gray. He watched it spend it's childhood with it's parents, all the way until it learned to fly. Once it learned to fly, it left the nest and soared away, looking for a place where it could make it's own home. It found a nice tree in a massive forest, but it was forced to leave the tree after a fight.

After it left the tree, it found a place where it could recuperate from it's wounds. After spending some time recuperating, it spotted a group of youths traveling through it's territory. Using it's mental energy, it lured them closer to it's home and lulled them into a false sense of security. It managed to kill all the youths but one, eventually dying at the hands of that last youth, who had managed to summon a Lightning Tiger to fight it.

Sirius's memories were the next ones he saw. The birth of a Sky Wolf heralded the death of another. These words were not just a saying, but the truth. For a Sky Wolf to be born, it needs one of it's parents to send all their energy into it while it is in the womb. This kills the parent, but ensures that the child is born.

After being born, Sirius immediately left its last living parent. Sky Wolves were solitary creatures who only rarely got together to mate, the rest of their lives were often spent alone. Not long after it left, it came across a person.

The person had a pleasant smell about him and filled Sirius with a sense of awe like he was seeing a powerful demon. The person asked Sirius if he would be willing to follow him. Sirius considered for a short while before agreeing.

Sky Wolves needed a large amount of energy to grow, energy they could get through killing and eating cultivators or Demonic beasts. Even though Sky Wolves were solitary creatures, Sirius reasoned that it would be easier to find stronger prey if it followed this man.

The man died only a few years later, and Sirius was taken away by one of the man's friends, placed inside a tower. Sirius did not mind staying inside this tower, as there was a large forest here where he could hunt as many Demonic beasts as he wanted.

One day, the person who placed him inside the tower brought Sirius to meet someone. Sirius was brought before two people. One of them seemed rather uninteresting, but the other person immediately caught Sirius's attention.

The person was still very weak, but he had the same scent as the person it had met not long after being born. And the thing that surprised it was that the scent was even stronger of this person. The sense of awe Sirius felt when he saw this person was also much stronger, like he was facing a demon king. The youth placed his hand on Sirius, and Sirius once more entered into the same garden he had entered when he agreed to follow the last person who had this scent.

The last memories Yao Jun saw were Ba-Shei's. Ba-Shei started out as a normal serpent, not a Demonic beast. It slithered out from the corpse of it's mother, and found itself in a pitch black pit. There was no way for Ba-Shei to escape this pit, so he was forced to live inside the pit, inside the darkness.

There was no source of fresh food in the pit, but plenty of corpses. Ba-Shei sustained itself by eating the rotting corpses, even the corpse of his own mother. As it lived there, it kept trying to find a way to leave the pit, to find out what laid outside this pit.

As it kept living in the pit, the energy that lurked in the darkness started seeping into it's body, slowly changing it. Before Ba-Shei realized it, it's body had completely changed. It's once normal lower jaw had split into two, a spike started growing on it's nose, as well as several spikes at the side of it's head.

Another thing it discovered was that it could now control the darkness around it, shaping it into whatever it wished. It could even vanish into the darkness, appearing in a completely empty space that was filled with nothing but darkness.

Using this newfound power, it moved through the darkness, escaping the pit. It ended up arriving in a forest, where it then made it's home, eating anything that came too close to it's territory. It quickly learned about how delicious fresh meat was, especially the meat of strong people or Demonic beasts. This prompted him to grow stronger, allowing him to eat even tastier people.

It continued like this until one day, when a youth appeared outside of its cave and taunted it. The youth was weaker than him, but he would still make for a nice snack. But it failed, the youth brought it into a strange forest, where it was eventually wounded too heavily.

It awaited it's death, but the youth stepped forward and spoke to it, tempting it with lofty promises. It promised him an entire world to feast on. It had no choice either way, so it accepted his words, allowing him to absorb it. And it was reborn, given a name, Ba-Shei, Serpent Emperor of Darkness.

After all the memories finished flooding his mind, the pieces of his mind that had left his body returned to Yao Jun, fusing back into him. But he knew that his connection with his Demonic beasts had changed completely, they were now parts of his body that he could control at will.

Once his mind returned to his body, he also felt his body brimming with energy, the pitch black energy had soaked into every inch of his body. He stopped controlling his soul, allowing it to return to his body.

When his soul returned to his body, he felt himself regain control over his body. He could no longer see everything that happened in a 15-meter area around him, but he could move his body again, see and hear with his own eyes and ears.

Yao Jun did not waste any time after regaining control over his body. He was filled with rage, and he needed something to release the rage on. His body sank into the darkness of the cave, entering a completely black space.

The space was 50 meters in every direction, exactly the range at which Yao Jun could control the darkness around him, and was completely empty. From within this empty space, Yao Jun could still see everything that happened outside, but only those who could control darkness could see into this space.

He moved his body, leaving the empty space and appearing behind Guo Luo's staggering body. He placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her body around. Ignoring the gazes of the 11 people, he planted a kiss on her lips.

The kiss was an unspoken pledge from him to her, that he would never let her go through anything like that again, that he would never let anyone hurt her ever again. The kiss only lasted for a short moment and was wet with the taste of blood, but it also carried with it a gentle warmth, the same warmth that Yao Jun felt when Guo Luo was wiping the sweat off his face.

After he finished the kiss, Guo Luo leaned her head against his body, and he placed his arms around her shoulder, holding her close. He turned his eyes to the 11 people, his eyes losing all traces of gentleness that they had when he looked at Guo Luo. A cold voice rang out from his lips as Ba-Shei manifested from the darkness of the cave behind him.

"Since you have already hurt her, there is no need for any of you to leave here."