Xin Feng woke up with a terrified face due to the nightmare.
[You have lost…]
'Damn it! I shouldn't let others touch the crystal… It's too terrifying. That was probably why it was so easy to grab onto it. A trick of that parasite to catch a stronger host.'
"Watch out!"
'Wha-'
Xin Feng leaned his body to the back the moment he sensed the tentacle of a hand sweeping at him. Fortunately, it wouldn't have hit him anyway, because Hua Mei was able to stop the monster in time by covering it with the water around it and freezing it. As a result, its tentacle was frozen halfway before Xin Feng, which gave him the opportunity to rush at its central area to get the core out again.
The ice was already cracking, so he had to perform his approach fast. He punched with the same force as before, making the ice shatter. Surprisingly, a mark of his fist was the only thing left behind on the monster's body.
'It knows…'
Man and monster stood still, facing each other. Both stood a distance of a hundred yards away from each other, breathing to the extreme with vapor coming out of their mouth. The monster charged in, but Xin Feng wasn't planning to approach it in the same brutish method again. He formed a spinning wind blade between his hands, and threw it at the monster.
The blade was able to leave a deep scar on the right side of its mouth, making its mouth useless. , Other than throwing his wind blades, he didn't do anything else but wait for the monster to get within a five-meter radius from him. The wind blade drained more than a half of his total mana points after all.
"Make it wet!" Xin Feng shouted right before the monster entered within the five-meter radius range.
Hua Mei who understood what he meant, yelled the technique "Wilting Autumn trailing arrows!"
Nine arrows flew in the direction of Xin Feng, but they changed their course to find themselves in the monster. All of the arrows accurately hit the monster's wounded mouth. The arrows lost their form, as they shot themselves to breach the monster's blood veins.
The water thinned the blood of the beast, causing it internal injuries. It made the parasitic crystal inside the monster realized the danger of the water, which made it control the body in a way to let the water out of its pores as to let its host not die. Such a way was by letting the monster's pores rupture, letting the water escape and lay all over its body as a result. This meant that the monster did exactly what Hua Mei wanted.
'Oh… Quite impressive of Hua Mei. I thought she didn't understand what I meant for a second."
'This will make things easier.'
Xin Feng focused on his last amount of mana to summon a strong lightning bolt from the sky. Within less than a second, a bolt of lightning with the width of an average sized man struck the monster.
The loud thunder echoed through the empty lands, scaring away the beasts that hadn't fled yet. A due to the strength of the lightning and the liquid that came from its pores, the lightning was able to strike the parasitic crystal.
Just to be cautious, Xin Feng scanned the body of the monster with the "Heaven's judgement" technique thought by Hua Mei. The technique was able to make him see the spiritual energy within everything, depending on his cultivation realm.
Thanks to the technique, he was able to see a filthy toxic yin Qi concentrated in one area, and know that that was the core. With great caution, he covered his hand with a layer of dirt before removing the crystal from the body. Apparently, the crystal had six-insect like legs, and it would screech every now and then, due to the occasional sparks of electricity that appeared on its body.
"You're quite the little sh8t aren't you…"
"Balance, can I put this in my inventory?"
[…]
[Yes, you can put anything in your inventory. It is part of your own reality, after all]
*Gasp* "doesn't this have some similarities to space magic then?!"
[Yes]
"Haha! Hua Mei, we won!"
"Hua Mei...?" He searched for her, only to find her lying on the ground not too far from him.
"Give... Me... A… Minute…" She blabbered in exhaustion.
"Oh, my apologies. Hehe, that attack of yours must've been a powerful one, huh… It sure did a good job" He approached her, and patted her back to congratulate her.
"…"
"Pleasant conversation." He smiled and said with sarcasm, and lay beside Hua Mei right after, in wait for her.
…
An entire day had passed, and it was morning again. Hua Had recovered her Qi and stamina, and was able to venture again. Since her mind was clear already and not exhausted, Xin Feng showed her the crystal and warned her about the dangers if touched as well.
"How did you not get affected by it when you touched it?"
"Oh, trust me. I almost lost to it…"
"If it wasn't for my strong will that I've gained from living as a torture ball and slave, I would've turned into something like that ugly thing."
"This is why I recommend not to touch it. It is not guaranteed to win against its mind attack after all."
"I see. Thank the heavens, for I would've died if you got possessed."
Xin Feng nodded, before he continued with his report. "I was able to get its memories, and thanks to it I can assume that the Crimson Lunar cult is making these creatures to get rid of cultivators. This thing hunts after creatures that absorbs spiritual energy, to eat or possess."
"I believe the reason they made it look like a beast core, is to let cultivators pick it up heedlessly. It also has an alluring aura, which makes it easier for it to be picked up by cultivators."
"Also, with the heaven's judgement technique, I was able to sense yin Qi in the crystal. Anomalies are what the Inner Devine Retribution sects are informative of, so we should probably ask them about this sometime."
*Sigh* "Looks like that evil cult has found a way to weaponize anomalies. We should tell the patriarch about this..."