The energy of Wind Burial dissipated, and Black Snake crumbled into dust with it, leaving only drifting ash that settled into a layer of black residue on the ground.
Shadow Fluffball poked its head out of the nearby ground, opened its enormous mouth, and sucked in all the residue, then began chewing.
Even reduced to ash, this tissue from Ju Snake's body contained extraordinary energy. To Shadow Fluffball, it was a powerful tonic.
Above them, the black smoke that represented Ju Snake's consciousness had grown faint without a physical form to sustain it and looked ready to disappear.
Driven by the instinct to survive, the black smoke immediately drifted toward Ju Snake's main body. As long as it returned quickly enough, this portion of its consciousness could still be preserved.
Unfortunately, if transferring its mind were so easy, it would never have been trapped for over a hundred thousand years.
The black smoke moved more and more slowly. The dark vapor making up its body rapidly dissipated, shrinking at a visible rate.
This consciousness that had been preparing to escape accounted for over ninety percent of Ju Snake's total consciousness! That was no small amount. Once this portion of its mind disappeared, recovery would take hundreds of thousands of years, leaving Ju Snake's main body in a muddled state for an extraordinarily long time to come.
The black smoke stared unwillingly at its main body, still a hundred meters away. It desperately wanted to drift over, but no longer had the strength. It wavered down to the ground, its consciousness gradually blurring.
In its daze, it seemed to sense someone approaching, then a hand carefully lifting it.
Several seconds later, it suddenly felt itself being placed somewhere warm. The surrounding aura felt extremely familiar, yet also stirred an inexplicable resistance.