Following the method for drawing out baleful aura described in the cultivation art, Xiao Yu shaped his magic power into needles as fine as ox hairs and drove them hard into a dozen or so acupoints on his body.
An icy chill instantly swept through him. "Hiss!" Xiao Yu could not help shivering.
Before he could react, wisps of something resembling dark gray mist began seeping out of the openings all over his body.
Yet after this "mist" emerged, it neither dispersed nor drifted away. Instead, it kept gathering within a foot of his body.
When his head came into contact with the mist, he felt irritation rising within him, along with an urge to vent it.
"So this is baleful aura?" Xiao Yu studied the mist that was trying to influence his emotions and mind, feeling rather curious.
He had heard that prolonged exposure to baleful aura would gradually affect a cultivator's temperament, making them bloodthirsty. If left unchecked, it would erode their reason. In the worst case, they would lose their mind entirely and become a walking corpse that knew only slaughter.
In truth, Xiao Yu's understanding was somewhat incomplete. What he was seeing now was baleful aura that had already taken tangible form. Only aura of this kind would produce those consequences.
Over a lifetime, cultivators would inevitably kill and encounter all manner of experiences, leaving them with varying amounts of baleful aura. Ordinary people could not see it. Moreover, unless it was deliberately accumulated, this aura would slowly dissipate until it could no longer be sensed. Under normal circumstances, it would have little effect on the body.
Only when someone accumulated a vast amount of baleful aura in a short time, as Xiao Yu had, would it exceed a threshold and cease dissipating on its own.