Soul Transfer, Body Possession!

"Crack!"

A barely audible sound came from his sea of Qi, and a trace of blood seeped from the corner of Feng Zhuo's mouth.

The Spiritual Qi, once shaped like droplets, had fully condensed into a dense spiritual liquid. As it surged through his meridians, it made the sound of a babbling brook.

Foundation Establishment Middle Stage-he had done it!

But there was no joy in his eyes. His fingers clamped down on the charred remnant of the branch.

The Primordial Spirit Spring's remaining power had yet to fade. Carrying violent Spiritual Qi with it, it crushed the divine tree's remnant branch into a skyful of azure light.

This was the real gamble!

Like parched earth drinking in a long-awaited rain, his damaged Yi Wood Sacred Physique greedily devoured the Yi Wood Qi.

Just as its vitality reached its peak, Feng Zhuo's skin suddenly cracked.

Blood resentment Qi spread along the green light, withering flesh and blood wherever it passed.

"What's happening?!"

Flames surged all over Yanba. He aimed his demonic fire straight at the divine tree. "You're trying to harm my master?!"

"It's the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine's blood resentment Qi!"

A fissure opened in the Yi Wood's trunk before it finally explained, "It has been entangled with this old one for countless millions of years. Its blood resentment Qi mingled with my Yi Wood Qi long ago..."

Before it had finished speaking, Feng Zhuo's left eye had already turned scarlet.

Like a disease clinging to the bone, the blood resentment Qi rushed along his meridians toward his heart meridian.

The spiritual liquid in his sea of Qi collapsed at its touch. Both the demonic fire Yanba had sent into him and the spiritual fire within Feng Zhuo retreated far from it.

In the chaos, a scene flashed through his sea of consciousness: being devoured by Glazed Purifying Fire after forming his core in his previous life.

Feng Zhuo suddenly laughed.

"You want it? Take it all!"

Three drops of Primordial Spirit Spring hidden beneath his tongue exploded, and violent spiritual power forced the blood resentment Qi into his left arm.

He held two fingers together like a blade. A cold gleam flashed, and his entire forearm was severed at the elbow!

He had cut off his own arm to survive!

"Roar-"

Yanba's anguished cry shook dead leaves loose like rain.

The blood gushing from the wound splashed onto the remnant branch, activating the Yi Wood essence hidden deep within.

The Everlasting Spring Scripture circulated frantically. Flesh sprouted wildly from the severed limb, and in the blink of an eye, a new arm grew, as though carved from jade, with a blue-green luster flowing beneath its skin.

The dead Yi Wood suddenly rustled and trembled. "Fight poison with poison, then rebuild after destruction... I did not lose unjustly."

Feng Zhuo had thought of such a way to deal with the blood resentment Qi and use its Yi Wood Qi to reforge his Sacred Physique. It accepted its loss!

At that moment, Feng Zhuo's red robe was soaked in blood, and a blue-green luster flowed over his regenerated forearm.

With the Everlasting Spring Scripture cultivation method alone, his spiritual power at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage was fifty percent more abundant than that of others at the same stage. More importantly, he had reached completion of the Everlasting Spring Scripture's second layer, and thirty percent of his Yi Wood Sacred Physique had been restored!

It was not over yet.

Feng Zhuo staggered to his knees, pressing his newly grown left arm against the remnant branch.

The liquid spiritual power in his sea of Qi had settled, but only now did a true storm rise in his sea of consciousness.

"Is the Primordial Spirit Spring's medicinal effect... only truly beginning now?"

Feng Zhuo managed to pull at the corners of his mouth.

The two strands of Divine Sense he had separated earlier had long since run dry, but now, like a parched riverbed caught in a sudden downpour, they were being frantically replenished by the spirit spring's lingering power.

"Ghh...!"

Feng Zhuo suddenly curled into a ball, pale golden traces of blood seeping from his seven orifices.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator's sea of consciousness should have been no larger than a pond, but now it was forcibly expanded into a lake.

The Divine Sense-enhancing medicinal power left by thirty-five drops of spirit spring was pushing his Divine Sense, which had reached the Golden Core Early Stage in his previous life, to an even more terrifying level.

His Divine Sense was on the verge of a breakthrough when Feng Zhuo suddenly clutched his right eye. "This is...!"

Yanba was horrified. "Master! Your pupil is bleeding!"

There was still blood resentment Qi left!!

The blood resentment Qi counterattacked at that moment.

A wisp of Evil Qi hidden in his right eye transformed into a blood-colored centipede and shot straight into his sea of consciousness.

Feng Zhuo was so furious that he laughed instead, deliberately dropping his defenses and letting it penetrate deeper.

"Go!"

Deep within his sea of consciousness, the scarlet spiritual fire that had lain dormant suddenly erupted!

The flames took the form of a phoenix, whose wings whipped up waves of sky-scorching heat as it swooped down on the remaining Evil Qi!

The centipede formed from blood resentment Qi hissed and spewed a poisonous mist, but the scarlet phoenix tore half its body apart with one claw.

"Now!"

Flames blazed in Yanba's leonine eyes, and his natal demonic fire turned into a chain that plunged into Feng Zhuo's brow.

The dark red chain of fire wrapped precisely around the Evil Qi's mangled remains, and a phantom image of Nüba appeared at the end of the chain.

Though it possessed less than one ten-thousandth of the ancient fiendish deity's might, it carried a ferocity that could burn all eight directions to ash!

"Sizzle-"

Where the demonic fire chain strangled it, the blood resentment Qi melted away like lingering snow.

The last wisp of Evil Qi struggled into a gap in the chain, only for Yanba to swallow it with a savage grin. "A mere wisp of blood resentment Qi, and you thought you could harm my master?"

A sudden change occurred!

The flames around Yanba flickered, and a hair-thin blood-colored mark appeared at the core of his dark red demonic fire.

He lowered his head and looked at the tip of his claw. A wisp of black flame appeared out of thin air.

The flame gave off no heat, yet it burned so fiercely that the light around it warped!

"This is... Soul-Scorching Flame?"

As Nüba's descendant, he knew all too well what this flame meant.

Though for now he could only kindle a flame the size of a candle's, it was a forbidden fire that specifically countered souls!

Outside, only an instant had passed.

The scarlet phoenix phantom in Feng Zhuo's sea of consciousness gave a long cry and dispersed, while his lake of Divine Sense rippled with brilliant golden light.

Divine Sense with the strength of the Golden Core Middle Stage spread out like a tide. Within thirty li, the rustling of crawling insects and ants could be heard clearly.

He suddenly turned to Yanba. "You swallowed that thing?"

Yanba's deer-like feet bore five sharp claws. Black fire flashed briefly at the tip of one. "It tasted decent."

Feng Zhuo narrowed his eyes at the blood-colored mark at the core of the demonic fire, then suddenly drew two fingers across his newly grown left arm.

A drop of blue-green blood fell into Yanba's mouth. "Don't let it turn on you, stupid lion."

The thirty percent of Feng Zhuo's Yi Wood Sacred Physique that had been restored was embodied in his regenerated left arm!

The withered Yi Wood trunk suddenly let out a laugh like rotting wood snapping. "I never thought that after keeping lonely watch over the Soul-Devouring Vine for ten thousand years, this old one would misjudge things twice today-"

The cracks in its trunk suddenly burst with azure light. "It would be one thing to possess a damaged Sacred Physique, but you've even contracted a Calamity Beast that can devour blood resentment Qi!"

"Old wood!"

Heart-Scorching Flame rose from Yanba's claws, tongues of fire licking the Yi Wood's cracked bark. "Just now, you deliberately lured my master into absorbing Wood Qi tainted with blood resentment."

"Don't think praising me now will make me forgive you for trying to harm my master!"

Feng Zhuo had no desire to exchange more words with a dying Yi Wood.

He flicked the blood scab from his palm, his scarlet robe stirring without wind.

He stared at the twisted grain on the trunk and, in a daze, saw hundreds of thousands, even millions, of resentful souls struggling within it.

They were the remnant souls of soldiers devoured by the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine, left behind in the blood resentment Qi.

"Soul transfer."

Feng Zhuo suddenly spoke, pressing his newly grown left arm against the divine tree's roots. "When you gave me the remnant branch, you hid a Soul-Transferring Incantation inside it."

"You wanted to merge my soul into this Yi Wood and have me perish with the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine in your place?"

Soul transfer, body possession!

Had Feng Zhuo's Divine Sense not already reached the strength of the Golden Core Middle Stage, and had the Yi Wood before him not been on the verge of death, he might well have fallen for its trick!

The azure light on the dead branch abruptly froze.

"You actually saw through it?"

The Yi Wood's aged voice was full of surprise, with a hint of curiosity. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"I merely had my suspicions. At first, I truly thought you were helping me reforge my Sacred Physique."

Feng Zhuo traced a finger through the air, trailing a string of sparks. "Until the blood resentment Qi ran wild, and the Wood Qi in your remnant branch began actively devouring my Divine Sense."

"And other than you, its master, no one could control that Wood Qi."

The Yi Wood fell silent for a long time before a gash suddenly split open in its trunk.

Foul black blood seeped from the crack, and within, the heartwood hollowed out by the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine could be faintly seen.