Chapter 1049: Transforming into a Serpent

"If you were still a Body Integration Realm demon python, I would naturally show you some respect. But now, you're nothing more than a bit of essence blood, yet you dare be so fierce."

With that, Li Qing blinked and activated the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra.

When he opened his eyes again, his pupils had transformed into golden vertical slits. His gaze, now imbued with both chilling yin energy and majestic authority, locked onto the blood-red serpent in the bottle.

The moment the blood-red serpent met Li Qing's gaze, it recoiled in terror, its previous ferocity completely vanished.

Li Qing's Nine Serpent Heart Sutra used the nine-headed serpent as its visualization focus. Naturally, his Serpent Gaze of Deception now carried a trace of the True Spirit Nine-Headed Serpent's pressure. The essence blood of a mere earth nether python was utterly suppressed.

After thoroughly terrifying the essence blood, Li Qing poured the trembling blood-red serpent out of the bottle.

Simultaneously, he activated the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra and swallowed the earth nether python's essence blood in one gulp.

Boom!

A torrent of berserk demon qi erupted from his body, making his entire frame tremble slightly.

The most critical part of practicing the second layer of the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra was to drive the visualized snake aspect to devour the essence blood, and finally merge the two into one to cultivate a serpent spirit.

This step naturally carried the risk of failure. If the visualized snake aspect was too weak, or if the grade of the snake demon's essence blood was too high, it could lead to failure.

Conversely, if the grade of the snake demon's essence blood was too low, the resulting serpent spirit would be too weak and useless.

Therefore, Li Qing rationally chose the essence blood of a snake demon at the Body Integration Realm, which was the most suitable for him.

It was neither beyond the capabilities of his visualized Nine Serpent Heart Sutra nor so weak that it would result in a useless serpent spirit.

However, even so, this was still the essence blood of a Body Integration Realm snake demon. It contained a trace of the Earth Nether Python's will from its living days. Taming and completely refining it was by no means an easy task.

Li Qing suppressed it with his own powerful divine soul while simultaneously operating the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra, doing his utmost to subdue it.

"Hiss!"

The Earth Nether Python began to struggle, fighting back frantically. But Li Qing's divine soul was so powerful that it remained completely immovable, pressing down on the essence blood like a great mountain.

After an unknown amount of time, the Earth Nether Python's resistance finally weakened.

Seeing this, Li Qing immediately drove the phantom shadow of the nine-headed serpent in his sea of consciousness to approach the earth nether python's essence blood.

The moment it drew near, the once arrogant and ferocious earth nether python instantly became much more docile.

"So it was this simple..." Li Qing felt that what he had done earlier was somewhat redundant and couldn't help but chuckle wryly.

The nine-headed serpent slowly lowered one of its heads and swallowed the earth nether python's essence blood, which was prostrate on the ground, in a single gulp.

The two fused together. Before long, the eighteen cold golden serpent eyes of the nine-headed serpent actually gained a touch of vitality, becoming vividly lifelike.

Seeing this scene, Li Qing was so frightened he thought the nine-headed serpent was about to revive within his body.

But he soon discovered that was not the case. The phantom shadow of the nine-headed serpent had merely gained a bit of vitality from devouring the earth nether python's essence blood and had not yet developed its own will.

Li Qing breathed a sigh of relief and intensified his efforts to refine and nourish the serpent spirit according to the steps in the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra.

As time passed, the once phantom-like nine-headed serpent became increasingly solid.

Finally, after Li Qing successfully attempted to nourish it with his own qi and blood once, he had finally achieved the preliminary entry level of the second layer of the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra.

"Phew! This really wasn't easy. A serpent spirit modeled after the nine-headed serpent should have no shortage of potential."

As he spoke, Li Qing extracted another point of his qi and blood and fed it to the serpent spirit.

After consuming Li Qing's qi and blood, the Nine-Headed Serpent's spirit grew slightly, an increase almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

This was the process of nurturing the serpent spirit. From now on, Li Qing would use his own true essence, qi and blood, and divine sense power to feed it. The stronger the serpent spirit became, the more powerful the abilities it could unleash.

Afterward, he repeatedly fed it with true essence, qi and blood, and divine sense in turn, and the serpent spirit grew stronger in each corresponding aspect.

"With this serpent spirit, I can continue attempting to cultivate the final layer of the Nine Serpent Heart Sutra. However, the serpent spirit has only just been formed. Even if I cultivate the third layer, I probably won't be able to use it to sacrifice for too great a power."

"It might be better to try feeding the serpent spirit with other things—for example, the seven-colored true essence I condense from my own lifespan..."

Taking action immediately, Li Qing sacrificed his own lifespan to condense approximately two hundred years of seven-colored life essence.

Buzz!

This time, his lifespan, which had been frozen, dropped again.

Seeing this, Li Qing was slightly stunned before muttering to himself, "So that's how it is. After reaching the void refinement realm, one's lifespan no longer declines naturally, but it can still be diminished."

"For example, if I use this method to extract my own lifespan, I will still consume my life essence."

However, this was nothing to worry about. As long as it didn't truly reach zero, he could still exist in the world indefinitely, without needing to fret over his twilight years or his impending doom.

Li Qing didn't mind. Counting the lifespan he had accumulated previously, along with the additional years gained from breaking through to the Void Refinement Realm, he now had a total of over eighty thousand years of usable lifespan remaining.

Such a vast amount of lifespan was enough for him to condense a considerable number of Seven-Colored Life Essences. In the future, he could even refine treasures to replenish his lifespan, meaning he never had to worry about the day it would be completely exhausted.

Afterward, he fed all the Seven-Colored Life Essences he had condensed to the newly formed Serpent Spirit.

Upon coming into contact with the Seven-Colored Life Essences, the Nine-Headed Serpent looked like a starving man who had stumbled upon a feast. It immediately began to devour them ravenously.

In a short while, the Seven-Colored Life Essences were completely consumed, and the Serpent Spirit grew significantly larger.

"Tsk tsk tsk, such an amazing effect. It seems I can use Seven-Colored Life Essences to quickly nurture it in the future."

With that, Li Qing condensed another two thousand years of Seven-Colored Life Essence and fed it all to the Nine-Headed Serpent Spirit.

"Hiss!"

This time, the Nine-Headed Serpent's growth was even more staggering. Scales, as real as actual serpent scales, erupted from its body. The serpent spirit, which had been no larger than a small snake, instantly transformed into a giant python.

It would be more accurate to call it a Nine-Headed Giant Python now!

The serpent spirit's growth meant it could unleash even greater power.

Li Qing, delighted by the result, couldn't resist trying to merge with the serpent spirit.

Soon, his body twisted. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a Nine-Headed Serpent. The fine scales on its body shimmered with a cold light, as if a True Spirit had descended upon the mortal realm.

Within its eighteen golden serpent eyes, a chilling aura of majesty and dread emanated.