Beibei felt the hand resting on his shoulder. It wasn't heavy, but it carried an oppressive force that left him unable to summon even the slightest urge to resist.
Almost without thinking, Beibei took a step back.
Tang An raised his left hand, palm facing the Spirit-Devouring Demon Vine.
His second Soul Skill, Life Manipulation, activated.
A vast, oceanic surge of spiritual power poured out like an invisible tide, instantly invading the demon vine's core consciousness.
Tang An took the matter a little more seriously this time. But instead of directly crushing the demon vine's spirit, he precisely wove three layers of illusions, each nested within the next.
The first layer: its natural enemy had arrived.
In the demon vine's perception, its enemies vanished. In their place appeared a seemingly endless swarm of Spirit-Devouring Bees, blotting out the sky. Every bee raced toward it, tail stingers flashing with the paralyzing venom that specifically countered it.
The second layer: an unbounded sea of flames.
The ground beneath the demon vine became scorching magma. Crimson flames swept in from every direction. It could feel its vines charring and curling in the blaze, its scales bursting in the heat, and its sap evaporating into white steam.
The third layer: the wails of its kin.
The shrill cries of countless Spirit-Devouring Demon Vines being torn apart by Spirit-Devouring Bees rang in its ears. The screams came one after another, sharp and mournful, like countless steel needles stabbing into its consciousness.
But to Beibei and Tang Ya, the scene looked entirely different.
The Spirit-Devouring Demon Vine suddenly froze. Then it began thrashing about as if it had gone mad, its vines lashing wildly while black devouring light shot in every direction. Not a single blast landed on anyone.
Then, something even stranger happened.
Wounds began appearing on the demon vine's body out of thin air. Its scales shattered, its skin cracked, and dark purple sap seeped from the fissures.
Three of its vines suddenly shuddered and snapped clean in half, their jagged ends as if gnawed by countless tiny teeth.
The petals of the black flower began falling one by one. The black mist at its heart grew thinner and thinner, and the entire demon vine withered before their eyes.
That was the true horror of Life Manipulation.
It didn't merely create illusions. It twisted the target's senses so completely that it could no longer tell reality from fantasy.
The Spirit-Devouring Demon Vine believed it was being gnawed apart by Spirit-Devouring Bees, and its body believed it too. Its scales cracked, its vines snapped, and its Life Origin drained away at a frantic pace.
Its own body was responding to injuries that didn't exist. Every bit of pain it suffered in the illusion manifested in its body for real.
Beibei stood frozen, his eyes wide as bells.
He had attacked for ages without bringing the demon vine down and had even been injured. Tang An merely raised a hand, and the nearly three-thousand-year-old Spirit-Devouring Demon Vine was driven to the brink of death.
And he had seen it clearly: the wounds on the demon vine hadn't been caused by any outside force. Its own body was mutilating itself.
The gap between them was so vast that Beibei couldn't even feel jealous. All that remained was stunned disbelief.
"Xiao Ya, finish it." Tang An lowered his hand.
Hearing him call her "Xiao Ya" warmed Tang Ya's heart. She immediately gathered her Soul Power and drove a Blue Silver spear through the demon vine's core.
A deep purple Soul Ring slowly rose into the air. Tang Ya sat cross-legged and began absorbing it.
The Dark Blue Silver Grass eagerly unfurled the instant it touched the Soul Ring, hungrily reaching toward the devouring Origin.
But before long, Tang Ya's expression changed. The power of the two-thousand-eight-hundred-year Soul Ring was too overbearing, far beyond what her thirtieth level of Soul Power could withstand.
The black devouring force rampaged through her meridians like a ferocious beast gone wild. Wherever it passed, sharp, needle-like pain stabbed through her meridians, and her veins bulged.
The veins at Tang Ya's temples throbbed. Sweat poured down her face, and her whole body trembled violently. She could barely keep from collapsing to her knees.
A hand suddenly pressed against Tang Ya's back.
The palm was scorching, carrying an intensely overbearing aura of destruction. It was Tang An's right-hand Martial Soul, the Crimson Annihilation Hammer.
The power of destruction Tang An sent into her was not vast. It was merely a fine, faint thread.
Yet wherever that thread passed, the frenzied devouring force in Tang Ya's meridians seemed to have its throat seized. It didn't dare move.
The forces curled up and trembled, clinging tightly to the walls of her meridians as if afraid the aura of destruction might brush against them, even by the smallest amount.
Tang Ya could clearly feel the devouring force that had tormented her to the brink of death. Before the sect master's Origin of Destruction, it was as docile as a stray dog that had just met the wolf king.
It wasn't being suppressed. It was instinctively afraid.
Tang An's voice sounded beside Tang Ya's ear, calm and unhurried. "Steady your mind and follow my guidance."
Tang An's Origin of Destruction slowly advanced through Tang Ya's meridians, driving the trembling devouring force toward the Martial Soul core of her Dark Blue Silver Grass like a shepherd herding sheep.
Tang Ya's Dark Blue Silver Grass sprouted layer upon layer of tiny black scales before their eyes. Dark purple patterns curled along the edges of its leaves, and the aura of her Martial Soul climbed steadily.
Under the intimidation of the Origin of Destruction, the absorption went faster than anyone could have imagined. In less than half an hour, Tang Ya suddenly opened her eyes.
The instant Tang Ya stood up, the light around her dimmed for a moment.
She raised her hand. A pitch-black Blue Silver Vine emerged from her palm, its vines a full size thicker than her Blue Silver Grass had been before. The dense black scales covering its surface pulsed rhythmically as if breathing, and the air seemed to warp slightly as the vines swayed.
"Third Soul Skill—Spirit-Devouring Cage!"
The blackened Blue Silver Grass shot out, weaving a huge cage of black vines around the tree, which was as thick as a bowl.
Every scale on the cage's inner wall devoured frantically. The tree withered and shriveled before their eyes. In just five or six breaths, the lush tree had become a charred, dead stump, its trunk riddled with horrifying pits of corrosion.
Meanwhile, the Blue Silver Grass in Tang Ya's hand looked even more vibrant, and a droplet of black liquid gathered at the tip of a vine.
"The Spirit-Devouring Cage has three effects: trapping, devouring, and corrosion." Tang Ya's voice trembled with barely contained excitement.
"An enemy trapped inside will have their vitality and Soul Power continuously drained, with a conversion rate of about forty percent. At the same time, the scales on the cage's inner wall release corrosive mist that eats away at the enemy's defenses and body from within. And also..."
Tang Ya shifted her thoughts. The black vine cage suddenly contracted inward, all its vines tightening at once like a giant hand closing into a fist.
Under the combined force of corrosion and physical pressure, the already dead tree collapsed completely, crumbling into a heap of black fragments.
"I can also control it as it contracts. The longer you're trapped, the smaller the cage gets, the denser the devouring becomes, and the stronger the corrosive effect."
Beibei watched the tree get sucked dry before his eyes and crumble to ashes. Then he looked at the Blue Silver Grass in Tang Ya's hand, radiating a cold, dark aura. His brow furrowed into a tight knot.
This was clearly an Evil Soul Master's method.
"Tang Ya," Beibei said, his voice full of restrained displeasure,
"Your Soul Skill... why does it lean so heavily toward the methods of an Evil Soul Master? Draining vitality and corroding the body—those are clearly an Evil Soul Master's methods. Is there really nothing wrong with this Soul Ring?"
Beibei turned to look at Tang An. His gaze no longer held only the awe and shock he'd felt before; now it carried unmistakable accusation.
Tang An's strength had certainly left him shaken, but one thing was one thing and another was another. He couldn't stand by and watch Tang Ya take a path that might lead to utter ruin.
"Tang An, what kind of Soul Beast did you choose for Tang Ya? What if a Soul Skill like this backfires on her in the future?"
"What if Tang Ya can't control it, and the desire to devour eats away at her mind? Have you even considered that?"
Before you continue