The blast wasn't really the outwardly explosive kind but more of an intense collision of their spirit energies.
The blue and red strands intertwined tirelessly and enveloped both boys in a form of colourful cocoon.
The speed of the moving strands increased exponentially until it became a blur and formed a lone orange strand that split in two and entered the boys' chests.
Wen Yu felt the energy strand moving along his meridians. It was quite hot but not too uncomfortable. It felt more like a sauna.
The lone strand within him soon got to his dantian and began probing his spirit sea. Once, twice, three times.
There seemed to be a wall blocking the way. Wen Yu grit his teeth and tried to absorb even more spirit force from the hex stone before him.
Duyi was refining spirit force even faster than the hex stone and Wen Yu was more than happy to lap up the excesses. He supplied the energy strand with the converted spirit energy and joined in to push against the wall.
This was the farthest he'd ever gone in assimilation. Before, whenever he tried to probe his spirit sea with his own energy, it dispersed before making contact.
He had no idea his spirit sea was blocked! Where did this wall come from? Why was there even a wall in the first place?
His encounter with the trailers as a baby couldn't have possibly led to this, so how come?
He pressed on with all his might. It was beginning to get hotter and hotter. It soon got really worse because he began to feel a mixture of extreme heat and extreme chill.
One second he was freezing and the next he was tossed in a smelting furnace.
He gasped out in pain as he assisted the energy strand in hammering against the wall. He was lost in his own world and didn't notice that his unstable state was beginning to affect the kid too.
Duyi felt the aggressive force coming from Wen Yu and slowly opened his eyes. He called out to him but there was no response.
He couldn't even move as he was trapped outside an energy shield that suddenly appeared around Wen Yu. He could only watch in helplessness and slight fear as Wen Yu's temperature changed rapidly.
Freezing, then burning up and then back to freezing again. We Yu was soaking in his own sweat and bulging veins were beginning to appear on his skin.
Duyi grit his teeth and tried to expand the energy shield to allow himself entrance. There was fierce resistance but he pushed harder and, little by little, the shield began to let up.
He was both shocked and pleased with this development. Usually his potential was too small to make any significant change to the littlest of spirit energies, not to talk of an energy shield.
But now, his once shallow spirit sea seemed to have gotten a bit deeper and his capacity for spirit force increased.
He could already feel himself on the verge of advancement yet he held himself back as he slowly got into a crawling position and tried to reach Wen Yu.
This would've been easier as their hands were placed against each other's earlier but somewhere in between, the energy shield had split them apart.
He finally got in position and started painstakingly crawling over. It was so hard, he was holding back his advancement so he wouldn't trigger Wen Yu even more but Wen Yu's state was triggering him!
Wen Yu felt so much pain. It felt as if a thousand hot and cold needles were tearing his skin apart. The wall was too thick and he soon decided to give up for now but then he found out that he couldn't wake up.
He'd gotten in too deep without realizing! He kept trying but he couldn't rouse himself from this state. He wondered what could have caused this and then his consciousness trailed to the orange strand of energy.
He suddenly changed targets and started using his pitifully frail spirit energy to combat against the orange strand.
He was in too much of a hurry to advance and wasn't really aware that there had been something blocking his spirit sea all this time, hence, he'd accepted the orange strand without thinking.
Now this proved to be a mistake. Using brute force against the wall right off the bat was too dangerous and spelled suicide so he needed to take down the over stimulated orange energy strand before he imploded from the pressure.
He tried to use his spirit energy to put off the orange strand but there was not much progress as the strand easily dissipated his spirit energy with minimal effort. Such strong vitality, it was like a cancerous cell!
He tried to move his physical body again but his body was rigid. His heartbeat was beginning to increase, he wasn't about to die from over stimulation of spirit energy right?
He could feel everything going on around him but couldn't communicate with the world outside, he was in some sort of semi-coma.
Duyi finally reached Wen Yu in time to see rips appear on the boy's skin and droplets of blood seep out.
His eyes shook. What was going on? He suddenly hesitated, what if he interrupted Wen Yu and this led to a form of backlash that crippled both of their assimilations?
He bit his lip and finally decided to probe with his own spirit consciousness. He started slowly at first but when Wen Yu's gasps began to get louder, he increased his pace.
The red strand of energy trickled out of his palm and latched onto Wen Yu's skin. After fighting through the resistance, the strand slipped into Wen Yu's body.
Everywhere felt cold and Duyi shivered. He controlled his spirit consciousness to search for Wen Yu's following the trail left behind by the orange energy strand.
He soon arrived at where Wen Yu's spirit sea was supposed to be located but what he met was two different spirit energies clashing before a wall of sorts.
Calling it clashing was overdoing it, the orange strand was completely suppressing the blue strand without much of a fight!
Duyi easily recognized the blue strand to be Wen Yu's spirit energy and the orange strand to be the combination of both their spirit energies.
He quickly directed his own spirit energy over to the pitiful blue strand and coiled around it.
There was another resistance at first but it seemed Wen Yu soon recognized him and eased up a bit. With both spirit energies combined the orange strand became weaker but not by much.