The battle erupted in an instant!
Ouyang Duanhai was unarmed, but his breastbone twisted in a bizarre way. The deep-red Phoenix Bird, wings spread as if ready to take flight, extended all the way beneath his arms and along his arm bones.
The demonic Phoenix Bird Totem seemed to fill his entire body, and his movements suddenly became nimble and swift.
Like a streak of deep-red bloodlight, Ouyang Duanhai—whose eyes had long since lost all trace of humanity—appeared before Jin Yang in the blink of an eye.
His winglike hands swung, easily knocking each Cicada Wing Sword down to the bottom of the pool.
"Whoosh!"
A blood-red pillar of light shot from the crown of Ouyang Duanhai's head. Within it, countless feathers shaped like leaves seemed to swirl.
The feathers whistled through the blood-red pillar, and faint, shrill Phoenix cries rang out, making the eyes of those watching from the pool bottom sting.
At a glance, it looked as though another slender, deep-red Phoenix Bone had pierced Ouyang Duanhai straight through from the crown of his head.
Jin Yang's face went ashen. He yanked a jade pendant carved with a Chi Dragon from his waist and hurriedly held it before himself.
The exquisite Chi Dragon Totem inside the pendant released a cold glow through its intricate patterns. The water before Jin Yang's chest froze in an instant, turning into a massive slab of thick, solid ice.
"Bang!"
Ouyang Duanhai charged over savagely and smashed the ice into pieces. Jin Yang, clutching his life-saving Cold Chi Jade Pendant, was sent tumbling through the water toward the pool bottom, spitting blood.
As soon as he moved away from the Phoenix Bone, the extremely bloodthirsty Ouyang Duanhai stopped pursuing him and returned to his position at the giant python's skull.
His blood-red eyes fixed on the luminous white glow slowly condensing at the center of the Phoenix Bone.
The feathers within the blood-red pillar rising from his crown spun about, as if forming some exquisite array. They seemed intent on drawing out the Phoenix Marrow about to take shape inside the Phoenix Bone.
A cloud of blood drifted above Jin Yang as he fell to the pool bottom, where he hurriedly used the jade pendant carved with a Chi Dragon to absorb his blood, strand by strand.
He pointed at Ouyang Duanhai, standing on the giant python's skull, and urgently urged Hong Tai and the others to kill him at once.
Hong Tai and the others had intended to help him, but when they saw Ouyang Duanhai—now transformed into something inhuman—smash the ice formed by Jin Yang's protective pendant with sheer physical strength, they suddenly hesitated.
Ouyang Duanhai's fierce fighting prowess exceeded Hong Tai's expectations. The Dark Ghost cultivator who had pursued Zhou Qingchen earlier hadn't expected the notorious good-for-nothing of the Seven Great Families to become so troublesome.
After pondering for a moment, he casually tossed aside the iron chain he had been holding and stopped worrying about Ning Yao's fate.
He shook his head at Jin Yang, signaling him not to rush, then communicated with the two Pulse-Opening Realm leaders through gestures.
Afraid Ouyang Duanhai would get to the Phoenix Marrow first, Jin Yang saw that it was nearly formed and stubbornly climbed up from the pool bottom despite his injuries.
His expression was agitated as he repeatedly gestured at Hong Tai, urging him once more to kill Ouyang Duanhai.
Hong Tai had no idea what the gathering Amber Glimmer was, and sudden suspicion stirred in him.
He knew little about the secrets of the Heavenly Phoenix Remains. The Dark Ghost Chief hadn't explained them clearly when they set out, either.
Jin Yang, of course, was different. Given his relationship with the Chief, he surely knew more about the secrets surrounding the Heavenly Phoenix.
One was Ouyang Duanhai, the other Jin Yang. Both were staring fixedly at the shining white speck inside the Phoenix Bone, their yearning so obvious and urgent. Could it be...?
At that thought, Hong Tai made up his mind as well.
He signaled for the python to come over, then stroked its head and sent the loyal creature swimming around the pool bottom to search for anything unusual.
He then beckoned Xu Rui and the masked leader, telling the two to flank him, one on each side.
After doing all this, he waited until Jin Yang had gotten back to his feet, then the four of them headed toward Ouyang Duanhai together.
Also at the pool bottom, in a dim spot pressed close to the rock wall, Pang Jian watched the battle that had ended as abruptly as it began.
After relying on a jade pendant to survive Ouyang Duanhai's furious strike, Jin Yang, a man of noble status, immediately became cautious and meek.
The python Hong Tai kept as a pet, however, began moving around the pool bottom.
By the time Pang Jian noticed it, the python seemed to have sensed him as well. It quietly swam toward him.
Pang Jian cursed inwardly.
He had wanted to wait until the Dark Ghosts and Ouyang Duanhai fought to the death, then take advantage of the situation. He hadn't expected Hong Tai to be so vicious as to send the python searching for him.
Hong Tai's python was not only intelligent, but faster than Pang Jian in the water. He felt he would have a hard time holding it off.
He prepared to retreat through the stone gate at once!
Yet just as he was about to pull out of this mess, a violent, twisting pain suddenly came from the dantian beside his navel.
Deep within the Spirit Sea he cultivated day after day, a raging storm had somehow erupted. It was as if some foreign thing had been roused and was thrashing about inside his dantian.
Pang Jian was instantly at his wits' end.
The living thing crashing around in his dantian Spirit Sea made him wonder if cultivating the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art had caused him to go mad and start hallucinating.
His scalp prickling from the pain, he could no longer muster the strength to retreat through the stone gate.
He hadn't cultivated spiritual sense, so he couldn't see the state of his Spirit Sea. He could only faintly feel that something was struggling, trying to burst out of it.
Grimacing and roaring, he let out bubbles underwater, strange, faint sounds escaping his mouth.
He planted the Dragon-Patterned Spear with one hand and clutched his belly with the other, the pain forcing him into a crouch.
He silently swore that if he ever cultivated using the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art again, he would never absorb every kind of energy he came across.
He believed the strange disturbance in his dantian had been caused by his wanton absorption of Profound Yin Power and the acidic, poisonous energy in the pool water.
Just on the verge of passing out from the pain, he struggled to look ahead—and saw the python swimming toward him.
The python was as thick as a barrel, its scales patterned in black and white. It held its head high, its green eyes glowing like ghost fire.
Pang Jian sighed over his bad luck. Of all times for his dantian to go haywire, the python Hong Tai kept had come looking for him now.
He didn't even have the strength to flee. All he could do was watch the python come to eat him.
It was just like the Phoenix Bone that had fallen from the sky and devoured the giant python at the bottom of the pool.
It seemed he, too, was about to meet the same miserable end.
Feeling utterly helpless, Pang Jian resigned himself to being devoured by the python, but then the pain in his dantian rapidly subsided.
Looking down, he saw strands of pitch-black thread emerging between the fingers of the hand clutching his belly.
Each black strand looked like the venomous mucus secreted from the giant python's mouth and mixed into the pool water above.
With every new black strand emerging between his fingers, the pain in his dantian eased a little. As the strands slipped out, they twisted around one another.
They twisted and twisted, until they formed a thin black snake.
The black snake was only as thick as a child's arm, its entire body seemingly covered in black iron scales. Yet Pang Jian sensed no flesh or blood within it. It seemed instead to be a form of dark energy made tangible.
Suddenly, he remembered the so-called Spirit Sha—and that ethereal blood shadow.
They were exactly alike!
"A spirit body, or maybe... a soul?"
Pang Jian stared blankly at the black snake, refined from strand after strand of black thread. He couldn't shake the feeling that it was the giant python's beast soul.
The python Hong Tai kept was heading toward him. As it prepared to swallow Pang Jian, it also saw the black threads swiftly take the shape of a snake.
When the python with emerald-green eyes finally made out the black snake's form, fear suddenly appeared in its cold, green gaze!
Its raised neck and head trembled slightly.
It seemed to want to flee at once, but just like Pang Jian, who had been in agony moments earlier, it couldn't move at all.
It watched helplessly as the black, alien snake—many times thinner than itself—slipped into its gaping jaws and disappeared into its head.
Then the strange snake devoured its beast soul, turning its body into its own vessel.
The Spirit Sha in this world could possess fellow cultivators. Naturally, a vicious creature of the Dark Giant Python's level could also possess one of its own kind through its beast soul.
The Dark Giant Python's beast soul swiftly took over the python's body, and its green eyes turned pure black.
After getting used to its new body, it slowly stretched out its coils and pounced at Pang Jian just as before.
Pang Jian had only just regained control of his body. Stunned by what he had witnessed, he still hadn't figured out what had happened when the python pounced at him again.
Pang Jian had no choice but to raise his Dragon-Patterned Spear and fight.
He suddenly leaped up through the water, unleashing the savage strength in his arm bones. Without caring whether he could land the blow, he thrust at the python with its newly blackened eyes.
His spearhead pointed straight at the python's eerie, pure-black eyes!
The python stared straight at him with its pair of black eyes—or rather... at the antique Bronze Gate Pendant beneath the gap in the clothes over his chest.
Fear gradually surfaced in the python's pure-black eyes, and it began to hesitate.
It writhed through the water, its tail whipping aimlessly. It could swim in any direction that way, or keep charging forward to tear into Pang Jian as he came at it with reckless abandon.
Whatever it had remembered, even though it could have easily struck, it stubbornly refused to charge again.
Just as Pang Jian and the python were about to collide, its thrashing tail seemed to turn into a head of its own, carrying it swiftly backward.
It had actually run away!
"The giant python's beast soul had dispersed into the black pool water and been absorbed into my dantian Spirit Sea along with the acidic, poisonous energy!"
"That was the last Thread of Life the giant python left itself when its flesh was devoured! The Phoenix Bone only wanted its flesh and had no interest in its beast soul."
After his Dragon-Patterned Spear thrust missed, Pang Jian watched the python flee and finally understood what had happened.
The black threads that had drifted out of his body and condensed into the black snake belonged to the owner of that enormous skeleton—the terrifying source of the Blackwater Pool being declared a forbidden zone.
It was the giant python's beast soul.
Now it had possessed the body of the python Hong Tai kept, moving about in the vessel of a weaker relative.
Just as Pang Jian finally understood, the fleeing python circled the pool bottom in a wide loop, then suddenly appeared behind him and sank its teeth into his back.
Caught completely off guard, Pang Jian failed to react in time. The python's jaws closed around his entire back.
A sharp pain struck in an instant!
"Gurgle!"
Pang Jian cried out in pain and choked on several mouthfuls of water. To his surprise, his spine and breastbone hadn't been bitten through by the python.
At that very moment, he felt the Bronze Tablet on his chest grow hot again!
The heat spread through his entire body at an unbelievable speed, even enveloping the python biting him!
The Dark Giant Python, afraid to kill Pang Jian head-on, had possessed one of its own kind. It had even circled around deliberately, using a trick to try to kill him with a single bite—yet it hadn't expected Pang Jian's breastbone to be as hard as divine iron.
Just as it wanted to release him and flee, a strange heat quietly spread from Pang Jian's body toward it.
The Dark Giant Python realized something was wrong. This time, it was the one trying to flee—but it could no longer escape.
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