Blood-Soul Demon Body

Mac Ta’s laughter grew louder and louder.

The shrill sound echoed across the ruined arena, lingering within the yin qi left behind by Shatter’s explosion. Black ash swirled around his feet in small circles before settling again around his body like a thin veil of dust.

Hao Nhien did not advance.

His hand remained wrapped around the Fire Spirit Sword, his gaze completely fixed on the figure before him.

Soul Art continued circulating on its own within his sea of consciousness, constantly warning him of something abnormal—something he had never sensed from Mac Ta before.

The presence awakening inside his opponent was entirely different from the Yin Soul Banner, the poison, or the soul field he had just destroyed. It was deeper, heavier, and carried a ferocity so savage that it barely felt human anymore.

Mac Ta slowly raised his head.

The cloudy gray eyes he had possessed at the beginning of the battle had turned dark red.

He flipped his wrist. A pitch-black dagger appeared in his hand, and without the slightest hesitation, he slashed it hard across his left wrist.

Slash!

Black blood immediately poured out.

Yet not a single drop touched the ground.

The moment the blood left his body, it stopped in midair and slowly began circling Mac Ta in rings. The remaining yin qi across the arena was rapidly drawn toward it, merging with the blood aura until the dark red-black mist around him grew denser by the breath.

Mac Ta raised two fingers before his lips.

His bluish-purple lips moved continuously.

Hoarse, fragmented syllables spilled out, completely unlike the incantations of the Eastern Plains and unlike any language Hao Nhien had ever heard.

Boom!

The stone beneath Mac Ta’s feet suddenly split apart.

Dozens of black cracks spread rapidly in every direction. Yin qi erupted from the fissures, twisting the suspended blood around him into a red-black vortex more than ten zhang high.

A deep growl came from within.

Grrr!

Hao Nhien immediately narrowed his eyes.

Inside the pillar of blood aura, a gigantic phantom was slowly taking shape.

Its head resembled a wolf’s, but two curved horns grew from its forehead. Black scales covered its entire body, while rows of rigid fur stood along its spine like upright spears. Its four legs still floated above the ground, yet as the massive figure became clearer, the stone beneath it began cracking repeatedly.

It was only a phantom.

Yet its presence was already heavy enough to make the arena react.

The savage soul lowered its head, blood-red eyes staring down at Mac Ta.

Mac Ta spread both arms.

“Come.”

Grrr!

The beast phantom immediately plunged downward.

Boom!

It entered Mac Ta’s body directly.

His entire body bent forward at once.

Bones throughout his frame cracked in rapid succession. His thin arms swelled violently, skin splitting apart as black blood seeped from the wounds. Instead of falling, the blood clung back onto his body and gradually condensed into layers of thick, rigid fur.

His fingers lengthened, the joints becoming thick and distorted, while glossy black claws nearly half a chi long grew from the tips, curving slightly like sharpened hooks.

His legs twisted into a new shape, their joints gradually taking on the structure of a demonic beast. Black scales spread from his feet to his calves, thighs, waist, and chest.

Mac Ta’s face changed as well.

His lower jaw pushed forward.

Fangs pierced through his lips.

His nose contracted.

Blood aura and yin qi gathered around his head and neck until nearly every trace of his human features disappeared.

Within only a few breaths, the thing standing in the middle of the arena no longer resembled the Mac Ta who had entered the battle.

It stood nearly three zhang tall, still upright like a man, but with the head, claws, and much of the structure of a savage beast. Black scales covered nearly half its body, while blood aura and yin qi churned around it like a small storm.

Each breath from its huge chest produced a deep, heavy rumble.

A shocked cry came from the stands.

“Blood-Soul Demon Body!”

More voices erupted immediately afterward.

“A forbidden art of the Yin Soul Cult?”

“It’s not merely increasing his strength! He’s using his own body as a vessel for a savage soul!”

Hao Nhien heard them, but his eyes never left his opponent.

Soul Art was telling him the same thing.

There were two layers of will inside that body, forcibly overlapping but never truly merging.

The referee outside the barrier had already shouted a warning, but the monster only slowly turned its head.

A dark red gaze swept outward.

Even from within the arena, Hao Nhien could feel the invisible pressure spreading from it.

When the creature spoke, Mac Ta’s voice was mixed with a second sound—a deep, hoarse growl that clearly did not belong to him.

“The battle…”

“is not over.”

It turned back toward Hao Nhien.

Its fang-filled mouth stretched into a grin.

“Quan… Hao… Nhien…”

“Die.”

Boom!

The stone beneath its feet exploded.

Hao Nhien only had time to see a dark red blur suddenly enlarge before his eyes.

The invisible Spirit Wings behind him burst immediately.

Whoosh!

His body shot diagonally to the left.

A claw swept through his previous position, releasing three black claw trails that tore through the air. Before they even fully struck the arena floor, the stone below had already burst into three deep trenches.

Hao Nhien had barely landed when a shriek of air came from his side.

The scaled tail swept horizontally.

The distance was too close.

He only had time to raise the Fire Spirit Sword.

Clang!

A terrifying force slammed through the blade.

Both of Hao Nhien’s arms instantly went numb, and his entire body was hurled sideways.

The moment his feet touched the ground, he continued sliding for more than ten zhang, blood and qi surging violently inside his chest.

He had barely steadied himself when the monster was already upon him again.

There were no more words and no more probing attacks.

Claws, fists, and tail came in an unbroken chain, forcing Hao Nhien to use Phong Van Step, Spirit Wings, the Fire Spirit Sword, and the Tieu Dao Sword at the same time just to maintain distance.

The Tieu Dao Sword struck the shoulder joint.

Clang!

Sparks flew.

It failed to pierce.

The flying sword immediately changed angle and thrust toward the armpit, where the scales were thinner.

Clang!

Still blocked.

The Fire Spirit Sword slashed across the shoulder.

Slash!

A patch of rigid fur was burned away, and the flesh beneath quickly blackened. Yet almost immediately, the blood aura around Mac Ta gathered toward the wound, shrinking the burned flesh inward before a fresh layer of rigid fur grew over it.

Hao Nhien immediately noticed.

The recovery ability of the Blood-Soul Demon Body was indeed powerful, but it was not without cost. Each regeneration thinned the blood aura around Mac Ta by a small amount. The loss was minor, but it was enough to prove that this recovery could not continue forever.

At that moment, Hao Nhien sensed a tiny Lightning fluctuation from the nearby formation system.

Crackle!

The Fire Spirit Sword struck the monster’s arm. Lightning passed through the point of contact and penetrated directly into the yin qi and blood force maintaining the outer scales, causing Mac Ta’s enormous body to freeze for a single beat.

But only for a single beat.

The savage soul roared from deep within him. Black-red energy erupted violently, forcing the body back into motion before it continued pressing forward.

Hao Nhien immediately retreated beyond claw range. He had just prepared to change angle and counterattack when his eyes caught several hair-thin black lines flickering through the air around Mac Ta before vanishing.

His steps slowed immediately.

Hao Nhien had seen this before.

When he fought the Sand Fox King, power exceeding the local limit had caused space in the Western Wastes to show signs of instability.

The current situation had not reached that level. Mac Ta’s cultivation had not entered Golden Core.

But the Blood-Soul Demon Body had forcibly pushed his instantaneous combat output dangerously close to the threshold at which the space of the Western Wastes began to react.

Each time Mac Ta released his full strength, the thin black lines around his body appeared more clearly.

Psst... this chapter was scraped from NovelPhoenix, and the author would much rather you read it there.

Hao Nhien could not continue meeting him head-on.

His gaze briefly swept across the barrier.

Beyond it was the entire square.

Farther still was Hoa Van.

A Huyen Bang battle was not worth gambling all of that.

Hao Nhien immediately changed his fighting style, deliberately avoiding direct collisions and using Phong Van Step together with brief bursts of Spirit Wings to widen the angles of attack.

Mac Ta seemed to notice the change.

The blood aura around the monster erupted even more violently. With a roar, it accelerated and pressed in, the missed claw immediately followed by a heavy punch while the scaled tail simultaneously sealed off Hao Nhien’s remaining escape route.

Hao Nhien avoided the claw and slipped half a step away from the fist, but still had to raise the Fire Spirit Sword to block the tail sweeping across.

Clang!

The impact knocked the blade sharply aside, numbing his entire arm.

Mac Ta gave him no time to recover and continued forcing him step by step toward the arena’s edge. Each time the black-red aura swept close to the barrier, the formation lines in that area blazed brighter, until a thin crack finally appeared across one of the secondary defensive layers.

The formation masters immediately shouted from outside, and all four formation pillars brightened at once to redistribute the pressure.

While continuing to reposition, Hao Nhien glanced through the barrier and saw the guards already guiding spectators away from the areas closest to the arena.

Quan Nha had stood up.

Tieu Lan gripped a Life-Vitality Pill tightly in her hand.

Lanh Hoa had moved right up to the barrier.

But no one rushed in.

Hao Nhien understood exactly why.

Adding another powerful force to the battlefield at this moment might not save him. It could instead make the already unstable space deteriorate even faster.

The room he had left to maneuver was shrinking.

The barrier was behind him.

The Blood-Soul Demon Body was in front.

The monster lowered its body.

Both legs slammed down.

Boom!

It charged like a black mountain.

Its right claw descended.

Hao Nhien triggered the Spirit Wings to change direction, but the tail swept across his escape route while the other claw sealed off the opposite side.

There was no opening left.

He only had time to raise the Fire Spirit Sword before his chest.

Boom!

The claw smashed directly into the blade.

Hao Nhien’s arm shook violently.

The Fire Spirit Sword flew from his hand.

His entire body was driven downward.

Boom!

The arena floor exploded beneath him.

Hao Nhien rolled several times. He had only just braced one hand against the ground to rise when the massive black shadow descended over him.

Both hands of the Blood-Soul Demon Body reached down almost simultaneously, one locking across his chest while the other closed around his waist and lifted him directly from the ground.

Crack!

The inner armor beneath his robe immediately lit up, formation lines appearing across its surface to resist the rapidly increasing pressure.

But Mac Ta’s enormous arms continued tightening.

Several formation patterns began to distort.

The crushing force sank into Hao Nhien’s chest, making his ribs groan and crack as his breathing was compressed until a thin stream of blood slowly ran from the corner of his mouth.

The Blood-Soul Demon Body lifted him almost to eye level.

Its monstrous face leaned close, cold, rancid breath striking directly against him.

“Quan Hao Nhien…”

The distorted voice stretched between Mac Ta’s tone and the savage soul’s growl.

“So this is all you amount to.”

Pain tore through Hao Nhien’s chest as if it were about to be crushed apart, but his mind remained clear under the constant circulation of Soul Art.

The meridian routes tempered through repeated Lightning exposure were still capable of conducting Lightning.

The problem was that the tiny fluctuations created by the lightning stones around the formation were too weak.

They could disturb yin qi and make the Blood-Soul Demon Body freeze for a beat.

But they were nowhere near enough to break the demonized shell in front of him.

Hao Nhien needed a far stronger source of Lightning.

The thought appeared.

And immediately, one object came to mind.

Thunder Burst.

He still had two.

His intent entered the storage ring, and one Thunder Burst appeared in his left palm, which was pinned tightly against his side.

The instant he sensed the small object, Hao Nhien remembered the terrifying power sealed inside it.

If it detonated at this distance, whether Mac Ta died would no longer matter.

A large portion of Hoa Van might be dragged into the blast as well.

He had no intention of doing that.

What Hao Nhien needed was only an extremely small amount of the Lightning sealed within.

A gap narrow enough to let Lightning escape.

But absolutely no wider than what his body could conduct.

Spiritual qi from his left hand slowly touched the outermost seal.

Hum.

Thunder Burst trembled.

A sense of danger instantly ran down Hao Nhien’s spine.

Behind that tiny shell did not feel like a few trapped Lightning strands.

It felt like an entire storm had been forcibly compressed inside.

The moment he touched the seal, the meridian routes in his left arm tightened sharply.

Hao Nhien understood immediately.

He could not control what was inside.

The only thing he could do was create a path for it to pass through.

If the seal opened even slightly wider than intended, the amount of Lightning rushing out might exceed his body’s limit before he could close it again.

The Blood-Soul Demon Body also sensed the danger.

Its dark red eyes immediately dropped toward Hao Nhien’s left hand.

The savage soul roared violently from within, and both arms tightened at once.

Crack!

One of the formation lines on Hao Nhien’s inner armor went dark.

He clenched his teeth, closed his fingers around Thunder Burst, and loosened the outer seal by the smallest gap he could manage.

Crackle!

One violet-white Lightning strand escaped immediately.

The first strand alone made his entire left arm burn.

This Lightning was completely different from the faint fluctuations around the formation.

It was violent, heavy, and carried an ancient pressure that made his meridians feel as though countless needles had pierced through them the instant it entered.

Hao Nhien did not try to merge it with his spiritual qi.

He did not attempt to keep it inside his body.

He simply opened the meridian routes he had already trained and created a discharge path from his left hand, through his body, and toward his right arm.

The first strand passed through.

The second followed immediately.

Then the third.

Thunder Burst shook violently in his palm.

That was enough.

Hao Nhien instantly knew he could take no more.

His meridian routes were already burning near their limit, but the three strands of Lightning had been guided in the same direction.

They did not condense into a physical weapon.

Instead, they were forced out through Hao Nhien’s right hand along a single narrow path, extending forward into a thin, sharp spear tip of violet-white Lightning.

Crackle! Crackle!

Electrical arcs burst repeatedly around it, filling the air with the smell of scorched metal.

Mac Ta immediately understood what Hao Nhien intended.

The hand gripping his waist released, claws changing direction to seize Hao Nhien’s right arm.

But that exact moment was what Hao Nhien had been waiting for.

Soul Art immediately accelerated.

Inside his sea of consciousness, an invisible Soul Sword appeared.

Hao Nhien stared directly into the dark red eyes before him.

He could not see through a soul as though looking at a physical object, but through Soul Art, the two layers of will occupying the same body had never been clearer.

One was Mac Ta.

The other was the savage soul possessing him.

They were forcibly controlling the same body, but they had never truly become one.

Every time the savage soul surged, Mac Ta’s own soul produced a tiny offset.

The weakness was not in destroying either one.

It was in striking at the exact instant when the connection between them fell out of rhythm.

The Soul Sword stabbed forward.

Hum!

There was no external explosion.

But the Blood-Soul Demon Body suddenly froze.

Its dark red eyes lost focus for a single instant, while the claw reaching for Hao Nhien’s right arm stopped in midair.

Mac Ta’s soul had not been destroyed.

The savage soul had not dispersed.

But the two wills forcibly overlapping each other had fallen out of alignment for one beat.

That was enough.

Hao Nhien immediately thrust his right arm forward.

Flash!

The distance between them was so short that the Blood-Soul Demon Body had no chance to evade.

The narrow violet-white Lightning spear pierced directly into the center of its forehead.

Then the entire amount of Lightning Hao Nhien had drawn from Thunder Burst erupted at the point of contact.

Boom!

It was only an infinitesimal fraction of the power sealed inside Thunder Burst.

But against a forbidden art maintained by yin qi and soul linkages, that amount of Lightning was already devastating.

ROAR!

The monster threw back its head and howled.

Lightning ran from the center of its brow down the neck, shoulders, and chest before spreading through both arms and the lower body.

It did not merely burn flesh and scales.

It repeatedly struck the streams of yin force maintaining the forced overlap between Mac Ta’s soul and the savage soul.

The connection points already thrown out of rhythm by Soul Art immediately destabilized.

Crackle!

One broke.

Then another.

The phantom beast behind Mac Ta suddenly appeared, opened its mouth in a scream, and tried to tear itself free from the host body.

But Lightning continued pouring through the point between the brows, denying the two wills any chance to synchronize again.

The arms holding Hao Nhien immediately lost strength.

He fell.

Just before hitting the ground, the invisible Spirit Wings opened for one brief burst, shifting his trajectory enough for him to land several steps away.

The moment his feet touched the stone, one knee dipped.

His breathing had become heavy.

Thunder Burst was still in his left hand.

Hao Nhien did not hesitate for even a beat.

He immediately closed the tiny gap in the seal completely.

Hum.

The muted thunder was forced back inside.

The sense of danger rapidly diminished.

Hao Nhien returned Thunder Burst to the storage ring at once, and only then noticed that his left hand was visibly trembling.

The skin of his palm had been scorched red.

The meridian routes running up his arm burned as though they had been clawed apart from within.

Drawing out only that tiny amount had already pushed his body near its limit.

Thunder Burst was clearly not something he could casually borrow power from.

Ahead of him, the Blood-Soul Demon Body was still standing.

But its structure had already begun to collapse.

A crack sounded from the left horn.

The fissure rapidly spread before the entire horn shattered.

Black scales across the chest peeled away one after another, the rigid fur burned to ash, and the body nearly three zhang tall began shrinking.

The surrounding blood aura still tried to gather and repair the body, but each time it approached, the residual Lightning inside immediately scattered it.

The savage beast phantom appeared once more behind Mac Ta.

It roared and struggled to pull its entire soul-body free from the host, but before it could fully escape, the massive figure trembled violently and shattered into fragments of yin qi.

At the same time, the demonized shell covering Mac Ta’s body rapidly dissolved.

A thin figure fell from within.

Mac Ta dropped to his knees in the middle of the arena, both hands braced against the stone while black blood poured continuously from his mouth.

The dark red in his eyes slowly faded back to the cloudy gray of before.

He gradually raised his head and looked toward Hao Nhien.

His bluish-purple lips moved.

The distance was too great for Hao Nhien to hear.

He did not approach.

One final remnant of Lightning flashed across Mac Ta’s forehead.

Crackle.

His body jerked once.

Then collapsed onto the stone.

This time, he did not rise again.

The yin qi around him quickly began to dissipate.

The forbidden art had nearly drained all blood vitality from his body. His flesh visibly shriveled, and within only a few breaths, what remained had contracted into a blackened husk before crumbling into ash beneath the lingering wind across the arena.

Only a few charred bone fragments and half-burned blood markings remained in the ash.

Hao Nhien stood silently and watched.

Mac Ta was the first person to die in any Huyen Bang challenge Hao Nhien had accepted since arriving in Hoa Van.

But from the moment Mac Ta tried to tear his soul directly from his body, this battle had no longer left room for mercy.

Hao Nhien looked at the final traces of Lightning fading from the Fire Spirit Sword.

Before this, Lightning in his understanding had mostly represented destruction, penetration, and suppression.

But just now, what Lightning had severed were the linkages forcibly binding a savage soul to Mac Ta’s soul.

Like chains.

Hao Nhien did not rush to draw any deeper conclusion.

He simply remembered the feeling.

The square remained silent for several breaths.

No one immediately cheered.

The battle had changed too quickly.

Only moments ago, Hao Nhien had been trapped inside the grip of the Blood-Soul Demon Body, his inner armor nearly reaching its limit.

Now Mac Ta lay motionless amid the black ash scattered across the arena.

Hao Nhien slowly raised his eyes toward the stands.

Quan Nha was still standing in the front row, both hands only just lowering, spiritual qi around her fingertips not yet fully dispersed.

Tieu Lan still gripped a Life-Vitality Pill.

Tieu Nhan had only just sat back down, her face pale.

Farther away, Lanh Hoa stood right against the barrier with one hand resting on the hilt of his saber, while Luu Thanh stood immediately behind him.

All of them were looking at Hao Nhien.

He only gave a slight nod.

Nothing more needed to be said.

He was still standing.

His mind was clear.

That was enough for those outside to understand that the battle had truly ended.

Lanh Hoa saw the gesture.

He slowly closed his eyes for one breath, then opened them again and struck his fist hard against his chest.

Boom!

No shout followed.

The Hoa Ky warriors behind him did the same.

Hundreds of fists struck armor in a single deep, heavy beat.

The sound rolled across the silent square.

Only after that did the cheers truly erupt.

“Hao Nhien!”

“First rank!”

“He won!”

“Mac Ta is dead!”

Those who had recognized the Yin Soul Banner reacted even more strongly.

Calls of “Yin Soul Cult” spread repeatedly through the crowd, while transmission jade slips began lighting up everywhere.

But the more experienced elders did not celebrate immediately.

Their eyes remained fixed on the black ash, the charred bone fragments, the broken Yin Soul Banner, and the remains left behind by the Blood-Soul Demon Body.

A man ranked third on the Huyen Bang truly having ties to the Yin Soul Cult had implications far beyond an ordinary ranking challenge.

The referee waited until the formation had fully stabilized before entering the arena.

After checking the place where Mac Ta had fallen and confirming that his presence had completely disappeared, he turned toward Hao Nhien.

“Mac Ta is dead.”

He paused, then raised one hand.

“The winner—Quan Hao Nhien!”

The cheers surged again.

The referee then walked toward the wager platform.

The sealing formation had automatically stopped the moment one side lost all signs of life. Hao Nhien’s golden token and Mac Ta’s exceptional-grade spirit stone remained intact inside.

There was another object among the ash not far away.

A jade token of an entirely different color.

The referee bent down and picked it up.

The number three still glowed clearly across its surface.

Mac Ta’s Huyen Bang token.

The body could die.

The ranking token remained completely intact.

The referee studied it briefly, then collected it according to Huyen Bang procedure.

Hao Nhien paid little attention.

He took back his own token together with the exceptional-grade spirit stone.

Just as the referee was about to lower the barrier, Hao Nhien suddenly looked up.

A powerful presence had appeared high above.

It was not cold and sinister like Mac Ta’s.

It carried no obvious evil aura or killing intent.

Yet it was so heavy and steady that the atmosphere across the recently relaxed square changed instantly.

Hao Nhien raised his gaze.

A man stood upright upon a flying sword in midair.

A black cloak covered his tall frame.

Long hair was tied neatly behind his head.

The lower half of his face was hidden behind dark cloth, leaving only a pair of bright, cold eyes sharp as blades.

His aura slowly descended.

The weaker Foundation Establishment cultivators in the stands instinctively tightened their defensive spiritual qi, while the cheers that had filled the square rapidly faded into silence.

The man on the flying sword did not look at Mac Ta’s ashes.

He did not care about the Yin Soul Banner.

He did not look at anyone else.

His gaze remained fixed entirely on Hao Nhien.

His voice came down from above.

Not loud.

Yet perfectly clear across the entire square.

“Very good.”

“Quan Hao Nhien.”

Hao Nhien stood in the middle of the arena.

His robe was torn in several places, blood still stained his shoulder, the corner of his mouth had not yet dried, and his left arm continued burning from having conducted Lightning from Thunder Burst.

But the instant he heard that voice, his gaze changed.

The man on the flying sword continued.

“Your next opponent is me.”

He paused.

“Do you dare accept?”

The entire square seemed to freeze.

Hao Nhien stared at the man for a long time.

The voice.

The aura.

The build.

That alone was enough.

The corner of Hao Nhien’s mouth slowly lifted.

“Duong Quang…”

“You finally came.”