Ice and Fire Body Tempering, Dugu Bo's Shock!
Short black hair fluttered in the wind, and the high collar of his black clothes flapped sharply.
A smile graced Ye Qiu's increasingly unruly face as his blood-red eyes, each set with a death god's scythe, gazed quietly at the two Immortal Herbs beside the spring below.
One red, one white,
reflected in his left and right eyes respectively.
"..."
Lightning flashed and thunder crashed as the wind and rain drew ever closer.
Smiling, Ye Qiu raised a hand and patted the Crystal Love resting against his collar.
A dagger appeared in his hand.
Ye Qiu stepped forward, landed on both feet, and slowly walked toward the herb beside the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well's extremely yin cold spring.
It was a white herb,
crowned by a large, eight-petaled white flower. Its central stamen sparkled like ice crystals. It gave off no fragrance, only an intense chill.
Even its location was at the center of the extremely yin cold spring's side.
It was called the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass!
It was exceptionally cold by nature, an Immortal Herb and a rare, deadly poison. Simply approaching it could chill a person to the heart and freeze their central nervous system.
Ye Qiu would not be foolish like Tang San, who had approached and picked it despite knowing it was poisonous.
Although he had never trained in Hidden Weapons,
throwing a dagger was naturally no trouble for someone with the Mangekyō Sharingan.
He could hit whatever he aimed at, and could even control where the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass fell.
Whoosh!
Without hesitation, Ye Qiu stopped and hurled the sharp blade in his hand.
Pfft!
The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass fell at the sound.
The Tomoe in Ye Qiu's left eye spun as he used long-range Kamui to take the immortal-grade herb and the dagger into the Kamui Dimension.
Without a moment's delay,
Ye Qiu turned with effortless fluidity and raised a hand to pat the Crystal Love. A bamboo-shaped slip of jade appeared in his hand.
He fixed his gaze on the fiery red Immortal Herb beside the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well's scorching Yang Spring...
It was fiery red all over and shaped like a cabbage.
Its medicinal properties were the exact opposite of the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, an immortal-grade poison containing the most potent fire toxin!
It was called the Infernal Delicate Apricot.
It could not be cut with metal; only jade could sever it without harming its efficacy.
The jade slip in Ye Qiu's hand had been prepared specifically for it.
Whoosh!
Following the same method, Ye Qiu threw the jade slip.
The moment the Infernal Delicate Apricot was severed,
he first activated his left eye's long-range Kamui, taking it and the jade slip away together.
His right eye's Kamui followed seamlessly!
The Infernal Delicate Apricot he had just taken away and the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass from earlier were teleported out at the same time, and he gripped them in his left and right hands respectively.
Extreme cold and extreme heat naturally counteracted each other.
When the two deadly poisons came together, their terrifying toxicity was neutralized in an instant. A faint red glow rose from the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, while wisps of white vapor emerged from the Infernal Delicate Apricot, achieving a perfect balance.
But Ye Qiu's expression turned serious.
He knew this perfect balance would last only ten breaths.
Once that time passed, they would be no better than weeds.
Without hesitation, Ye Qiu activated Kamui again. The Crystal Love around his neck and the clothes on his body were all sucked into the spatial vortex at once.
The moment he was naked, he brought the two deadly herbs to his mouth,
stuffing them in by the mouthful.
The two immortal-grade poisons turned to liquid and flowed down his throat.
Ye Qiu felt his mouth water, while a delicate fragrance filled his nose.
Savoring their delicious taste,
he strode toward the spring.
Ye Qiu had taken only a few steps when his trembling body began to change.
A layer of icy blue rose from his feet, and frost covered him from head to toe in the blink of an eye. Immediately afterward, a layer of red rose in its place, and the frost receded, leaving him like a boiled shrimp.
Red and blue alternated, a world of ice and fire in turn. It was an utterly bizarre sight.
But the pain it brought Ye Qiu was excruciating!
Ye Qiu staggered forward, unable to help feeling glad that he had chosen to go Soul Hunting first. Otherwise, he might not have been able to endure this ordeal.
The medicinal effects had already taken hold.
Now was the best time to use the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well's violent power to neutralize and absorb them!
Splash!
Ye Qiu fell bodily into the spring, sending up red and blue splashes and great clouds of steam.
The entire valley fell silent once more.
Apart from the few missing herbs, nothing remained to show that Ye Qiu had ever come...
Rumble!
Thunder exploded.
Lightning bathed the Sunset Forest as torrential rain lashed down amid raging winds.
A figure straight as a javelin braved the storm, speeding toward the Sunset Forest from the direction of Heaven Dou City.
Without stopping for a moment along the way,
he charged recklessly into the depths of the Sunset Forest!
The time it took an incense stick to burn passed.
A powerful, hoarse howl suddenly exploded through the valley!
The howl rivaled the thunder, scattering the rain in the valley,
and startling the Soul Beasts in the Sunset Forest into a restless commotion.
Dugu Bo had long been in so much pain that he wished he were dead. As soon as he passed through the poison formation he had set up, he could no longer hold back his long howl of agony.
Pain! It hurt too much!
Even after enduring it for most of his life, he could not bear that pain, which bored into his heart and gnawed at his bones.
Dugu Bo's long, dark green hair was drenched by the downpour, and his gray cloth robe had long since been soaked through. He looked utterly bedraggled.
Descending from the air, he staggered to the familiar spot and sat cross-legged near the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well in the pouring rain, doing everything he could to suppress the serpent venom in his body.
Even though the two most conspicuous Immortal Herbs by the spring had vanished without a trace,
he had no time to notice.
All Dugu Bo wanted now was for the downpour to stop sooner,
and for the serpent venom in his body to subside sooner as well.
It never occurred to him that the herb garden known only to him had been robbed. And the thief was beneath the spring, which even he could not approach too closely!
Summer thunderstorms came quickly and left even faster.
At dawn, the rain passed and the sky cleared.
As the first light appeared in the east, the cool morning breeze gradually grew warm.
"Hiss, haa...!"
A gigantic emerald-green python with a horn on its head lay coiled beside the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, enclosing the dark green figure. It raised its head and hissed, as though celebrating the joy of surviving a calamity.
The nine Soul Rings circling endlessly on the ground-two yellow, two purple, and five black-gradually contracted and dissipated.
The Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor vanished along with them.
Dugu Bo raised his head and opened his eyes. Looking at the sunlight shining through the poison formation, he drew a deep breath and slowly let it out.
A trace of relief showed on his bloodless, deathly pale face.
"Finally, I finally made it through!"
Splash!
Just as Dugu Bo breathed a sigh of relief, the sound of something breaking through the water reached him.
Startled, Dugu Bo's dark green eyes instantly narrowed into vertical slits. He quickly looked toward the sound, his pupils shrinking as shock filled his face.
"This... how is this possible?!"
Splash!
A stark-naked figure actually emerged from that wondrous spring right before his eyes and stood on the shore!
"!!!"
Dugu Bo froze.
When Ye Qiu saw him, the smile on his face instantly froze, and he too stood stunned.
The two stared at each other, speechless for a moment.