Consciousness Deprivation, Seizing the Snake Gall

The trace of youthful clarity in Tang San's eyes was suppressed. The hand gripping the knife no longer thrust toward the snake's mouth; instead, it slid along the edge of its fangs. He twisted aside to evade the bite, and his left hand rose from his sleeve.

Yu Xiaogang collapsed beneath a tree, his throat full of poisoned blood. When he saw that left hand rise, his face looked worse than it had from the poison. "Tang San, you can't use that!"

Ji Yuan ignored him completely.

The blood pack's body was his tool. When a tool was about to break, he had to use its hardest part to smash open the situation.

A dark gleam sank into Tang San's left palm. The phantom of the Clear Sky Hammer formed there, but did not fully emerge. Ji Yuan merely borrowed a heavy, sinister force and poured it through Tang San's arm into his knuckles.

After missing its bite, the Datura Snake immediately turned back. Dark green venom still clung to its fangs as its snake eyes fixed on Tang San. Its body coiled, ready to pounce again.

Ji Yuan controlled Tang San's foot to press into the mud. The true body hidden in the sole's inner layer also pressed tightly against the ground, dark red roots gripping the old cloth and borrowing the force to stabilize this body.

Tang San's consciousness battered against him from deep within his sea of consciousness, his voice filled with shock and fury. "Who are you? Let go of my body!"

Ji Yuan did not answer.

He merely gave Tang San an even deeper seal.

When the Datura Snake lunged, Ji Yuan did not retreat. His left hand smashed straight toward its head.

The black hammer phantom appeared for only a brief instant before he forcibly pressed it back into his palm. All its power concentrated on his fist as it struck the Datura Snake beneath the jaw.

The sound of cracking bones mixed with the snake's hiss. Its head was knocked upward, venom flinging from its mouth onto the nearby bark. The bark immediately blackened and began to smoke.

Yu Xiaogang could barely hold himself up. His fingers clawed at the mud as he shouted with difficulty, "Good chance—seven inches!"

Ji Yuan sneered.

As if he needed Yu Xiaogang to teach him.

He controlled Tang San's right hand to toss aside the now-useless short knife. His fingers hooked into the gaps between the snake's belly scales. Taking advantage of the instant the Datura Snake raised its head, he braced its body with his left knee and drove his right hand in beneath the seven-inch mark.

The scales sliced open the back of Tang San's hand, and poisonous blood seeped in through the wound.

Tang San's consciousness roared from within his body. "Are you insane? That's deadly poison!"

Ji Yuan still did not respond.

Poison?

To Tang San, this was a fatal weakness. To him, it was food.

After his right hand tore open the snake's belly, a rancid stench burst forth. A dark bluish-green snake gallbladder, wrapped in flesh and blood, lay inside. The soul power and toxicity within were so dense that Ji Yuan's true body in the sole tensed.

This was the fattest part.

The Datura Snake writhed in agony, its tail sweeping toward Tang San's waist.

Ji Yuan made Tang San lunge forward, nearly pressing his entire body atop the snake's belly. His left hand pinned down the snake while his right hand forcibly ripped out the gallbladder.

The instant the gallbladder left its body, the Datura Snake's struggles became chaotic. Its head slammed into the ground, and a hoarse cry escaped its mouth.

Seeing Tang San's hand covered in snake blood, Yu Xiaogang's vision darkened with panic. "Don't touch the gallbladder—throw it away! The poison inside is the strongest!"

Ji Yuan controlled Tang San to lower his head and press his wrist against the side of his shoe.

A thin crack opened in the sole's inner layer.

Dark red roots drilled out through the old cloth and attached themselves to the gallbladder's outer membrane. Once their tips pierced it, they began to draw it in.

The blood vitality, toxins, and soul beast essence contained within the gallbladder flowed through the roots into Ji Yuan's true body.

The sensation was overwhelmingly rich.

Ji Yuan's true body had originally been nothing more than a dry, hardened wooden thorn. Now, the grass fibers within were scoured by toxic power. Dark purple patterns crawled upward along the roots, while the remaining green leaf veins blackened before being stained with streaks of red by the blood vitality.

Tang San's consciousness sensed that the gallbladder in his hand was losing its power, and his shock and fury deepened. "What are you doing? That's soul beast essence!"

At last, Ji Yuan gave him a cold, hard reply in his mind.

"Yours? Are you worthy?"

Tang San could not hear the words, but he could feel that disdain pressing into the depths of his consciousness through the parasitic point.

He struggled even more desperately, the remaining inner force of the Mysterious Heaven Skill crashing wildly through his meridians.

Impatient, Ji Yuan drew away that bit of inner force and casually sent it into his true body as well.

The Datura Snake was not dead yet. Its head slid along the ground, trying to bite Tang San's calf.

Ji Yuan did not even look at it. He controlled Tang San's left foot to step on its neck, then pressed down with the remaining dark force of the Clear Sky Hammer.

The snake's bones cracked once more.

Yu Xiaogang panted rapidly, his gaze confused, as though he had understood something but did not dare believe it. "Tang San, just now... what did you use just now?"

Ji Yuan controlled Tang San to raise his head and look at Yu Xiaogang.

There was no disciple's concern in that gaze, nor any teenager's panic. There was only the greed of something that had just fed.

Cold sweat broke out across Yu Xiaogang's back. Just as he was about to ask again, the poison surged upward. He coughed out a mouthful of black blood, and his vision blurred once more.

The gallbladder essence had been almost completely drained.

Ji Yuan did not greedily suck it dry enough to ruin its appearance. He left behind only a ruined outer membrane and foul-smelling fluid, then moved Tang San's right hand away from his shoe and let the gallbladder remains fall back into the mud.

Once that was done, he immediately withdrew his roots, and the sole's inner layer closed back together.

The Datura Snake's soul power began to dissipate, and a yellow ring of light rose above its corpse.

Ji Yuan glanced at the soul ring. Once he confirmed that the core spoils of battle were secured, he relinquished control of the body.

Tang San's consciousness rushed back into his body. His knees buckled, and he nearly fell into the snake blood.

He gasped for air. His right hand was covered in blood, his left arm ached as though it had been crushed beneath iron, and yet there was a blank stretch in his mind.

With the last of his strength, Yu Xiaogang shouted, "Tang San, quickly, the antidote!"

Tang San snapped back to himself and hurriedly pulled out a medicine bottle from Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridge. Staggering over to Yu Xiaogang, he said, "Teacher, hold on."

Yu Xiaogang grabbed his wrist, his gaze falling on Tang San's left hand. "Did you use that martial soul just now?"

Tang San's hands paused for a moment, and the medicinal powder nearly spilled sideways.

He remembered the sensation of losing control of his body, remembered that hand digging out the snake gall on its own. A chill ran through his heart, but he could not say it aloud.

If he said it, Yu Xiaogang would only become more suspicious of him.

Tang San said quietly, "I don't remember."

Yu Xiaogang stared at him as bloody foam welled up in his throat again. "You don't remember?"

Tang San stuffed the antidote into his mouth. "I only remember the snake lunging at me. I wanted to stab it with my knife, and after that, everything went blank."

Yu Xiaogang swallowed the powder and struggled to breathe. "In a life-or-death crisis, your second martial soul may have been stimulated and briefly protected its master. Don't worry about that for now. The soul ring is about to disperse."

Tang San turned toward the yellow ring of light above the Datura Snake's corpse, and his heart jolted.

A four-hundred-year Datura Snake.

This was exactly the target he and his teacher had been searching for.

Yet when he lowered his head and saw the ruptured snake gall on the ground, his brows furrowed again. "Teacher, why is the snake gall ruined like this?"

Yu Xiaogang saw it as well. The snake gall lay shriveled in the mud, nearly all its essence gone, leaving behind only foul-smelling liquid.

His expression darkened. "You may have torn it apart by force just now, and then it was contaminated by venomous blood. Snake gall is fragile to begin with. Don't touch it."

Tang San looked at his own hand, still feeling that something was wrong.

Had he really only unleashed his potential just now?

But that blank stretch was far too clean.

Ji Yuan digested the snake gall essence beneath the sole of the shoe. Listening to master and disciple make excuses for him, the dark-red roots pressed happily against the old cloth.

Yu Xiaogang struggled to sit up. "Don't just sit there. Cross your legs, sit down, and draw the soul ring into your body. I'll watch over you from the side."

Tang San looked at his teacher's purpled arm. "Teacher, your poison hasn't been cured yet."

Yu Xiaogang gritted his teeth. "I won't die. If you delay any longer, this soul ring will be wasted."

Tang San hesitated no longer. He walked to the Datura Snake's corpse and sat down cross-legged.

He raised his right hand. Blue Silver Grass emerged from his palm, drawing the yellow soul ring slowly downward.

Deep beneath the sole of the shoe, Ji Yuan retracted all exposed roots. The venomous power of the snake gall he had just swallowed was still churning within him, yet a new hunger had already risen.

The snake gall had merely been an appetizer.

The real feast had arrived.

The instant the yellow soul ring settled around Tang San's body, violent soul power surged into his meridians. Tang San had only just clenched his teeth when a dark-red net silently spread open deep within his heart meridian.