Devour the Vine! Fuse the Poison! Break Through!

Bulbasaur was alive, an independent life. Its martial soul form defined its extraordinary nature, but it also meant it could be injured...

Yue Hongsheng swept through the outskirts of Emerald Forest in a frantic streak of ghostly violet light, carrying Lin Xia and the severely wounded Bulbasaur. At last, he stopped in a decaying forest barely an arrow's flight from the Dark-Gold Dreadclaw Bear's territory.

Yue Hongsheng carefully placed the barely breathing Bulbasaur onto thick moss. His withered fingers rested on its cold, stiff blue-purple skin. The instant a thread of pure poison Soul Power entered, it collapsed—the "Life Poison," infused with an intent to plunder, was madly devouring the little one's remaining vitality!

"The Life Poison has already corroded the core of its bloodline... If we return to the academy before treating it, it will certainly die!"

Yue Hongsheng's voice was hoarse, and for the first time, an imperceptible trace of frustration and helplessness flashed through his eyes.

"If we cannot remove the source of this poison within two incense sticks' time, it..."

"Two incense sticks?!"

Lin Xia felt as though he had been struck by lightning, and overwhelming panic swept through him. He staggered to his knees beside Bulbasaur. Its once-vibrant scarlet eyes had been clouded by a gray haze, while the miraculous seed on its back—the symbol of life—had shriveled and cracked!

Icy despair nearly crushed him—was the companion who had been by his side ever since he crossed into this foreign world truly going to die here to save him?

At that critical moment, Yue Hongsheng's earlier analysis exploded in Lin Xia's mind.

"Life Poison plunders vitality, yet contains the essence of its origin... Life-Poison Unity must be broken from the source!"

The young Emerald Ghost King Vine, its body flowing with emerald light and violet energy, was still sealed in Yue Hongsheng's hand!

An utterly insane thought flashed through his mind!

Lin Xia abruptly raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, but they burned with the fire of a desperate gamble.

"I'll cure Bulbasaur's poison! I'll save its life!"

Yue Hongsheng's pupils contracted sharply.

"What are you trying to do?!"

"Recall my martial soul! Devour the vine! Fuse the poison! Break through!"

Lin Xia enunciated every word, each one seeming to be tempered in steel and fire.

"Bulbasaur is inherently a symbiotic form of the Life Seed and the Toxic bloodline!"

"Only by using the young Emerald Ghost King Vine's life essence as a catalyst, incorporating both its poison and vitality into my Soul Ring breakthrough, can we have a chance of forcing the death energy out of its body!"

"Ridiculous!"

Yue Hongsheng shouted furiously, his withered hand clenching instinctively. "This poison is incomparably tyrannical. If your flesh-and-blood body enters this, it will inevitably be corroded! And if you recall your dying martial soul and fuse with its wounded body, the slightest mistake will mean the destruction of both soul and life..."

"Besides, this young vine is already more than six hundred years old. What Soul Master refines a Soul Ring by refining the soul beast along with it?!"

"So what?!"

Lin Xia cut him off sharply, his fingertips already piercing his palm and drawing blood.

"A martial soul is an extension of the body itself. If Bulbasaur hadn't rammed open that ghost vine to save me, I would already be dead. And if Bulbasaur dies, my path as a Soul Master will be severed as well. What difference is there between living like that and dying?!"

"Senior, please protect me. Even if today becomes an Asura hell, I will carve out a path to survival!"

Before his words had faded, he bit through his tongue, sending his vital blood mixed with Soul Power drifting directly toward Bulbasaur!

"Buzz—!"

Deep violet radiance surged forth!

The dying Bulbasaur transformed into a streak of light and rushed into Lin Xia's body as he recalled it.

"Madman! This is simply..."

Yue Hongsheng was both shocked and enraged, but it was already too late to stop him.

Lin Xia drew a dagger from his waist and stabbed it directly into the helpless young Emerald Ghost King Vine.

More than thirty strikes later, after successfully killing it, Lin Xia directly swallowed the young vine into his body.

"Now! Come on!"

"Aah—!"

A miserable scream tore through the forest!

A torrent of emerald and deep-violet poison pierced into every limb and bone like living thorns!

The Emerald Ghost King Vine's "Life Poison" erupted violently within Lin Xia's body!

The vitality in the left half of his body was frantically drained away, his flesh withering like rotten wood. Poison slurry surged through the right half, his skin ulcerating as foul black blood poured out!

His meridians were on the verge of splitting inch by inch beneath the dual torment of plunder and corrosion!

No one knew how long this torture lasted. Lin Xia was about to give out, his body on the verge of collapse.

Yue Hongsheng gritted his teeth and was about to forcibly strip away the Soul Ring when he was stunned by the strange phenomenon rising around Lin Xia—deathbed reciprocation!

Bulbasaur, fused within Lin Xia's body, actually detonated the last trace of its "photosynthetic power" in reverse!

A phantom of warm sunlight bloomed above Lin Xia's crown, firmly shielding his heart as it engaged in a brutal tug-of-war with the invading emerald poison!

When the deep-violet toxic aura encountered this radiance, it wound upward like weary birds returning to the forest, turning into black thorns that protected Lin Xia's bones!

"Fighting poison with poison... Using sunlight to counter life-plundering... He's using Bulbasaur's innate talent to reconstruct the balance!"

Yue Hongsheng murmured in shock. This completely confirmed his ultimate hypothesis about Life-Poison Unity!

Without further hesitation, his withered hand moved through the air like butterflies among flowers, tapping Lin Xia's major acupoints. Pure poison Soul Power became channels that guided the raging torrent—

"Hold on! The poison is being refined in reverse by your martial soul's origin!"

Time crawled thickly through unbearable agony.

Lin Xia's body had become a battlefield between life and death. Emerald poison light and sunlight Soul Power annihilated one another, only to be reborn again.

Just as Yue Hongsheng worried that Lin Xia's blood would run dry, a sudden change occurred!

That mass of black thorny poison mist abruptly contracted inward, forming a savage violet mark along Lin Xia's spine, like both a vine and a sword!

At the same time, his body gave a mournful cry as surging origin energy broke through its seal and poured into the violet mark!

"Boom—!"

An orange-yellow Soul Ring shot into the sky from beneath Lin Xia's feet, its edges flowing with an emerald-like halo of life!

Yue Hongsheng stared at the scene unfolding before him, utterly dumbfounded. Though he had seen far too many miracles on Lin Xia, this was the first time he had witnessed one so directly!

Swallowing a soul beast, absorbing a Soul Ring within his body, forcibly taking in Life Poison...

All these things had happened to one person, and he had somehow not died in the end.

Yue Hongsheng did not even know what words or emotions could express the shock he felt at that moment.

Half an hour later...

The poisoned blood and withered skin had all shed away. His newly formed skin was lustrous as jade. Lin Xia staggered to his feet, his closed eyes betraying neither sorrow nor joy.

The instant his eyes opened, his left pupil gleamed emerald like a forest brimming with life, while his right pupil was a violet abyss concealing a churning sea of poison!

"Lin Xia, how do you feel..."

Lin Xia exhaled a long breath of foul air but did not respond to Yue Hongsheng. What he cared about most now was still Bulbasaur.

After releasing Bulbasaur, Lin Xia saw that its eyes remained closed. He stepped forward and pulled it into his arms. After carefully examining it and confirming that the Life Poison in its body had disappeared, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

At that moment, Yue Hongsheng also came before Lin Xia. Seeing that Bulbasaur was fine, a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes.

"Bulbasaur is fine. It only needs to rest for a while. As for you, I don't even know what to say. Still, your madness truly won its life back and saved your path as a Soul Master!"

Hearing Yue Hongsheng's words, Lin Xia did not feel happy at all. If he had been more careful before, perhaps this accident would never have happened.

They would not have been forced into such a life-or-death gamble.

"Just luck."

Yue Hongsheng smiled. "No matter what, the outcome is good. Still, the way you and Bulbasaur are now does surprise me a little. Your body doesn't feel unwell, does it?"