"Death to all beings." Tang Peng's right arm began to grow into a deformed and monstrous form, while one sigil out of the many sigils on it resonated and grew even brighter. Tang Peng's eye pupils had completely changed to a mix of green and black whirlpools, swirling within each other in twisted harmony.
He could feel a connection to the wishes of the dead, which were filling him with hatred and this power. Not only that, he could now see the dead monkey's soul inside of him, which was being imprisoned inside a dark cage formed of Yin energy and sigils.
"I understand now. The powerful grudges left behind by the dead... The negativity within, their desire to execute their will..." Tang Peng could feel the hatred bubbling within his soul. The spiritual soil produced was entirely white, but there were ominous intents within the soil.
As hatred overcame Tang Peng, he quickly took deep breaths to stabilise himself. He got rid of all the thoughts in his mind, allowing him room to breathe. After a few seconds, the feelings of hatred retreated back into his soul, and Tang Peng turned back to normal.
Tang Peng started to pant for air, the moment that his body went back to normal. He did not know what would have happened if he really allowed the hatred to conquer his body.
Sure, it was a source of unfathomable power. He had felt like the strength of his arm was boosted by a deadly force when his emotions were out of control. He could feel that this source of power had 7 forms, and that he had only touched on one of them.
However, this strength came at a price. It nearly instantly took over Tang Peng's mind. That meant that he could not fully utilise this power, unless he was really looking to die.
At most, he could probably utilise 60% of this devilish power if he wanted to keep a rational mind. It was good enough for him. After all, he had managed to get a cultivation method and a secret technique he could utilise.
He decided to name this form that he could switch into. Since this power was because of the resultant grudges and mix of Yin Qi, it shall be called the Hatred Yin Form.
Tang Peng did not want to focus on this power any longer. He wanted to quickly absorb this Yin Qi that was still on this mountain for cultivation! However, he suddenly felt a strange connection to the ring in his robes.
Upon taking it out, he could feel that the ring was resonating with his soul. After closing his eyes, Tang Peng focused on the connection with the ring, and suddenly entered a giant space. The whole space was a void, without any colours at all. Tang Peng walked around it, but quickly found that there were restrictions to its size. He also found some pill bottles lying nearly along one boundary.
He understood the ring's purpose immediately, as soon as he resonated with it. As long as he remained within a 5 meters radius of it, he could transfer items that was touching him into its interior space. The same way, he could pull the items out from anything that was contacting his body.
This was extremely convenient for him, so he threw the purple robes and the "Yin Gathering Art" book inside of it first. He did not know what was inside those pill bottles, so he did not dare to touch them for now.
Since he had already absorbed all the Yin Qi that was in this area, Tang Peng moved out of the high mountain areas, and went to the lower mountain area. Even though the mountain was steep, he could still find objects on which he could sit on.
As Tang Peng drew in the Yin Qi in the lower areas, he instantly frowned. The amount of Yin Qi here was not even a fourth of the purity that the Yin Qi that was in the area of the corpse had. After he refined it through his soul, there was only a pitiful amount of spiritual soil that was produced. It was like a grain of sand added to a mound of sand.
That was it? Tang Peng was surprised. He thought that from the dense negative aura, there would be more spiritual soil produced from the Yin Qi. Since there was no more Yin Qi on the mountain, he would leave first. Of course, he did not know that some soul shards from Lai Qing had already absorbed all the pure Yin Qi on the mountain.
As he lifted his head up from his cultivation posture, there were a couple of figures that were assembled in the sky. Even though they were blurry, he could see their faint outlines.
One of these shadowy figures took out a sword, before flicking it and sending it directly towards the mountain. To be more specific, it was sending it directly to where Tang Peng was standing!
"This is so unfair..." Tang Peng was about to leave, but exactly at this moment, someone had to ruin his plans, which had been going smoothly up to this point. He felt like he was about to spurt out some blood because of his resentment.
As he tried to move away, he realised that he was too slow. Even though cultivating had allowed him to gain some incremental increase in his physical strength, it did not compare to when he was surrounded by thick Yin Qi.
He could only defend against the attack on the spot. He closed his eyes, and tapped on the wills of the dead that was inside the spiritual soil. A violent energy filled him, which made him want to destroy everything!
The fingernails on Tang Peng's right hand elongated, along with his arm changing to a crimson red colour. He used his arm as a weapon, wildly swiping at the sword.
The Porcupine's Reflection was not used in his fight against the old man, so a porcupine head formed of Qi appeared, attacking the sword together with Tang Peng.
Even with the combined defence of both the talisman and the Hatred Form, the flying sword was still too much to handle for Tang Peng. The Porcupine's Reflection only held for 3 seconds before losing its effect, while Tang Peng was directly sent crashing against the mountain from the impact made.
Huh. I guess I really fulfilled my wish. How ironic. Tang Peng realised his wish of spurting blood out that he had just now came through. Tang Peng then coughed out more mouthfuls of blood. Even the soul within Tang Peng was badly affected by the attack, but that could be said as a good thing for Tang Peng, as he could now remain cool headed for longer.
There was huge damage dealt to all his internal organs. If his meridians really existed in the first place, he would be instantly crippled on the spot. He could feel some of his spiritual soil leaking out from his soul, making him grunt in anger and pain.
The blast of a Soul Nurture cultivator was not to be underestimated. They could fully utilise the power of the Rotating Core at this point, drawing it out to deal a powerful blow to the body and soul. That was why it was so hard to breach through the barrier to Soul Nurture Realm.
However, it was a piece of cake to the person who had shot the sword at Tang Peng, Zhou Qing. He was one of the legendary talents of the previous era, having a potential of 8.9. He then rose to prominence as the leader of the Dragonic Sect's main firepower, the Dragons of Lang Tian, before becoming one of the top elders of Dragonic Sect.
He and the elders that was sent to search for Tai Qi was attracted to the mountain, due to the sudden burst of demonic energy in the area. They were all shocked to see that the demonic energy had disappeared after they had arrived at the mountain.
At that moment, Zhou Qiang saw a figure that raised its head to look at them. He suspected that they was a demonic cultivator, since he was on this mountain, so he fired a sword with 10% of his strength to try and probe them.
That figure really was a demonic cultivator, as he could feel a demonic energy arise from the figure when he blocked the sword. However, the figure was probably very weak, as they was blasted away instantly. It should be enough to instantly kill them, but Zhou Qing wanted to see if they were still breathing.
"Look! Look! LOOK!" Zhou Qing was distracted by shouts from a fellow elder. That elder was frantically pointing towards a point on another mountain. As the elders turned to look at the place that was being pointed at, their faces were filled with utter shock. One elder even started to violently convulse, even though they had seen their fair share of bloodshed.
The weapon "Dragon God" that was split in half was being gripped by a person devoid of all energy. The blue and majestic robes that was covered in dust was also worn by someone who had lost their energy.
On a mountain, two extremely powerful people had been fighting to the death. Nothing was left behind, but endless pain.
*****
Lai Qing grimaced. He had nearly reassembled his whole soul, but he had felt that a part of his soul and his body had been reduced to nothing but Yin Qi. The loss of his soul piece would at least set back his cultivation base by one level. He had felt the signal from the soul piece to return, but that signal was shortly destroyed.
Lai Qing closed his eyes, before turning into a shadow form, moving through the space of the underworld in order to find the mountain where his soul shattered. As he moved out of the shadows of the mountain, he felt a cold fury.
Both the book and the robes on his body were all taken away. There was no corpse to be found. Closing his eyes, Lai Qing used an invisible mist to feel around for the perpetrator. A vision formed of the invisible mist showed the soul piece's pain from its last moments.
"A youngster like him actually dared to lay his hands on my belongings. I will break him into splinters, and make him feel the worst pain possible! Then I will chain him up in my World of Pain!" Once Lai Qing saw Tang Peng's face, he locked it into his memory. Even though he wanted to execute this arrogant pig immediately, he needed to recover for now.
Lai Qing stepped back into the shadows, as he slowly merged into the darkness around him. Lai Qing's eyes, which had turned completely incorporeal, then finally became mist, before moving towards a certain place.