Khan ignored everything else, closed his eyes, and focussed his full attention on his body. He needed to work out exactly what was going on here.
Firstly, how was the Void Blood Pill siphoning away the energy which was rightfully his own?
He considered switching to 1st stage formation whilst he tried to solve this problem, because that way, he would also be able save some spirit stones. In the end though, he realised that with more energy passing through his body, it would be easier to find anything unusual.
The white drills of searing light entered his body, drilled through his flesh, bones, organs and wherever else, then exited out the other side and curled around within the formation, redirecting back towards him.
There were 25 drills passing through him at any one time, with remnants of energy scattered throughout his entire body at all times. He knew that the energy could only be stolen from him whilst the drills were within his body.
Khan didn't possess any Blood Energy Spells used for searching or perception, but he was very sharp when it came to any changes within himself. As he sat there, he paid close attention to the energy left behind by the drills.
Gradually, he formed a mental picture of the internal energy changes within his body. Although he couldn't directly observe the searing drill energy inside of his body, he could create a perfect mental image using his displaced Blood Energy.
Unknowingly, 12 hours passed by without Khan moving an inch. Hui did as instructed and refilled the formation with another 200 spirit units worth of spirit stones whenever it ran low.
After learning that Khan was only this enraged and motivated because someone wasted his time and stole a few hours of his training efforts, the Fu sisters left without saying a word.
Khan continued to focus. Another hour passed by, and finally…
'There it is!' His mind focussed on the state of his Blood Energy, watching as the searing energy left behind by a drill entered his flesh…but then vanished!
It wasn't absorbed into his body, but was taken elsewhere, somewhere that Khan couldn't see!
The only way for something to enter his body and then disappear whilst seemingly not moving anywhere, was if the energy was entering his own soul.
However, his soul was gaining no benefit from all this. It was almost impossible to observe one's own soul directly before reaching the Rank 6 Soul Realm, but if his soul was growing stronger, he would notice changes in his perception, the same type of changes that occurred whenever his Soul Realm increased.
'I don't care if it's impossible, nobody steals from me!' Even though he had been at it for 12 hours now, Khan's vicious aura increased once again.
Despite not suffering the same level of pain as previously, it was still significant, maybe 5-10 times worse than the 1st stage. Enduring this torment for so long was steadily wearing him down.
Because of this, even with Khan's Vital Life Realm physique, his body was in a state of near total exhaustion. Khan seemed to not notice, perhaps he simply didn't care, and somehow, his mind and willpower remained unaffected.
If anything, the more he felt his body draining of energy, the more irate he became and the more killing intent he released!
'If finding my soul by myself is impossible, then I'll just have to follow a route that someone so kindly left behind for me!'
Khan focussed more intensely than he had ever focussed in his life. The cumulative attention that he paid during a decade of school on earth couldn't compare to his current focus in this single instant!
He focussed on the drills passing through his body, attempting to locate the path taken by the stolen energy. He gradually grew increasingly exhausted, until his body was on the verge of giving out.
He could always try again tomorrow, but every second that this pill was disrespecting him, was a second that Khan couldn't sit still! He wanted to take back everything that he was owed, and then he would take his compensation for the trouble!
His full attention now followed the dispersed parts of his Blood Energy. This was the trail of the white drill energy, which he followed with his own strand of Blood Energy. He condensed this strand of Blood Energy as much as possible as he felt the drill energy doing likewise. It was as if it was collapsing in on itself, as if….
Blink!
Suddenly, everything was black.
'So I'm really here again…' Khan thought, finding himself within that endless black void once again.
This time though, he felt no uncertainty towards the situation. He was very certain about why he was here. Since a couple of days ago, he had also developed one or two speculations about the nature of this void, of the soul, and the truth behind what that pill was doing 'inside his soul'.
Everything was black, he had no body or sense of direction. Everything felt extremely surreal, as if he was in the midst of a dream.
After pondering calmly, Khan abandoned all of his preconceived notions of what 'reality' should be. This was surprisingly easy…he discarded his fundamental world view as if it was a piece of trash.
'If I don't feel my body, then I don't have a body. If I can't sense direction, then this space cannot be measured as such. Meaning that if there is someone else here…'
Whoosh!
Khan didn't move from the spot, but everything around him, this entire void, shifted rapidly until he was satisfied.
"You…!" A startled voice rang out around him. This was the very same voice that had left a simple yet imposing message in his mind; it was the spirit of the Void Blood Pill!
Nine red symbols appeared and attempted to surround him, but suddenly, the spirit of the Void Blood Pill paused in shock.
Khan calmly gazed forwards, not with his eyes, but with the void itself.
The last time he was taken to this place, he was overcome by confusion and couldn't work out where he was. The aura of the pill that seemed to surround him had taken his full focus.
Now though, his mind was clear. After thinking about it, it was quite simple really. Khan was not inside of this void, because he was the void itself. This void…was his soul!
'Pure black, hahaha. No wonder I mistook it for an empty void at first.'
He somehow doubted that a pure black soul was normal.
"How could you have possibly come to this place? This is the eternal void, the-" As the imposing female voice rang out through his mind, Khan interrupted without a single shred of mercy.
"Shut up bitch, I know it's my soul. Now give me back everything you took from me! The energy, the time, all of it…then multiply it by 100 and maybe I'll let you off!"
Khan's voice echoed throughout the void. When he stopped trying to think of himself as a physical entity with a body, and instead accepted that right now, he existed as this dark space without direction or distance…when he did this, he became the entire darkness. The Void Blood Pill could no longer surround him, because it was Khan that now surrounded it!
Originally, he clung onto his assumed idea that he possessed a body, leading to his consciousness compressing into a tiny portion of space, a portion that the pill wrapped around and nearly devastated. But now, his consciousness had become endless!
"How could a being with a mere Elementary Stage Soul, a soul barely above a mortal's, possess this level of conscious control?!" The female voice screamed out in shock.
It was strange, but in a way, Khan felt like he was omnipotent right now. He was staring down at the nine red rotating symbols from every direction simultaneously. At the same time, he felt like there were thousands, perhaps millions of versions of himself being created and destroyed in an endless cycle. He adapted to this feeling instantly and maintained his same cold expression throughout the feeling of his own endless life and death.
This apparently shocked the spirit once again.
"Just what sort of control is this?! How could you adapt so quickly?! For an Elementary Stage being to achieve control over their soul to this extent…it could only be achieved for a single instant! But this…..this can only mean that you are continually creating and destroying your own sense of self, time and time again, enduring the feeling of your own endless creation and destruction! Just what the hell are you, what kind of monstrous being would go so far?! And for what purpose? Just what is so important to you that you would even give up your own sense of self?!"
Throughout the voice's ramblings, Khan just stared coldly.
Truthfully, the being was right, he wasn't even close to being mentally sound right now and he couldn't quite process everything that was going on either. So, he didn't try to. If he couldn't understand it, then who cares?
That wasn't important anyway. He wasn't here to comprehend the true nature of reality, the meaning of life and the source of consciousness. He wasn't here seeking enlightenment.
No…there was something far more important that he needed to do…
"You stole from me…if you refuse to pay me back…then I will just steal everything you have for myself!"
Khan spoke slowly, each syllable echoing from different directions, reflecting and repeating endlessly; it was extremely jarring. He was obviously struggling to sustain his focus in this space, but the being down there only became more and more dumfounded as it realised just how far this 'Elementary Stage being' that it had previously disdained was willing to go…
All because he couldn't tolerate being robbed!
"Wait a moment. Are you seriously telling me…that you went this far…just because of the energy that I absorbed from your body?"
Finally, it understood him now!
"So you understand…then you understand why I'm taking everything back. That is…everything you own…" Khan's voice echoed as he suddenly urged the entire black void to compress down towards the being.
Although this space was certainly his soul, he knew that he didn't have the ability to properly control it yet. He currently had the feeling of coming into existence as a flash of light, then vanishing before he could even process what was going on.
Only by having this process repeat in an endless loop could he maintain this improvised control. But…it wouldn't last for much longer.
This was extremely unstable, he would eventually exhaust himself, and then, his consciousness would no longer be in this place. Perhaps he wouldn't even remember what had happened when he woke up.
That was why he couldn't wait around any longer. He needed to act immediately.
The spirit clearly didn't expect him to do this.
"You're crazy! No, seriously, stop or you'll kill us both! You're collapsing your own soul right now! You're literally using your soul as a damn net! Oh my dao you're seriously not going to stop…I've lived for nine primordial eras, but you are by far the craziest being that I've encountered! Damnit, could I seriously die in such a ridiculous way?!"
After that, the spirit said no more. The black void collapsed in on itself, covering the red runes entirely, until nothing but darkness remained. As the void collapsed even further, it seemed like it would never stop falling further into itself. Eventually, even this spaceless void no longer existed here.
…
Just as the nothingness encompassed all directions, a red light suddenly erupted outwards, rising up, further and further, until…
Blink!
The red light stretched outwards and continued to shoot up. It then stretched out in all directions, nine times over. Nine red symbols forcefully pushed back and entered this space of absolute nothingness. The symbols suddenly lit up and a ripple spread out, then gradually, the scene from just a few seconds earlier actually appeared again.
Khan's reappeared, right before he collapsed his soul inwards. He was just about to reach the red runes and collapse in on it again, but then…
"Hah…I can't believe that an Elementary Stage being has actually forced me to do this." The red runes were watching this scene of the past and let out a gloomy aura. All nine red runes then combined, compressed together, and forced the darkness between them into a single point.
Zip!
Khan paused, then he blinked. He looked around and found that he was back in reality. He was lying on the ground in the middle of the formation, clearly, it had deactivated after he hit the ground.
"Huh, that was sort of weird. I could have sworn that I just died…eh, guess not."
"That's your reaction? How can a living creature seriously remain so carefree after experiencing the collapse of their own soul?"
Khan was startled as he heard a voice from nowhere. He quickly looked around, but only saw Hui asleep on the floor.
"I'm inside your soul, stop looking around already."
Khan paused. His mind was a bit hazy when he woke up just now, but the memories from before were gradually coming back to him.
Slowly, his expression darkened.
"Shit, I still didn't manage to rob you…"
"That's your main concern?!" The voice almost screamed within his mind.
"Just so you know, you definitely robbed me, you robbed me of my very freedom! I was forced to bind with your soul just to prevent you from killing us both! After sending my dao consciousness back in time by a few seconds, I was planning to find a way to stop you from doing something so crazy. So long as there was a single, tiny thread of a chance that you could be reasoned with, I would have found that thread and tugged hard. But as it turns out, you are quite literally the most obstinate being in existence! The very instant you had the idea of collapsing your soul to attack me, there was a 100% chance that you would follow through with it, no matter what! How can a living creature be so unreasonable?!"
"Unreasonable?" Khan snorted coldly and glared into empty space. "You're the one that tried to devour me, then fed me some bullshit about going to sleep for 81 years, just so that you could secretly rob me of all my hard work!"
"And that was worth collapsing your own soul over?! I really was sleeping, I simply absorbed your energy to sustain myself during my sleep! And besides, it's not like I would have drained your energy all the time, probably once a month, tops!"
"Bullshit!" Khan yelled out, waking up Hui with a start. "Once a month you say? That's one time each month more than I'm willing to bear! I worked for five hours for that energy and you stole 80% of it!"
"You then went on to spend a full day searching for me, somehow succeeded, and proceeded to kill us both!" The spirit screamed back inside of his mind.
"Yeah, well…we're fine now aren't we? Oh wait, I still need compensation though…"
"Compensation? You want damn compensation?! I was born nine primordial eras ago after a Blood Dao God fell into a void star, creating an explosion that wiped out and absorbed an entire dimensional plane! I'm a treasure the likes of which can't even be classified by such lowly beings as those in this realm! I've witnessed the rise and fall of gods, accompanying legendary figures who shook the void and left behind an eternal legacy! Even those beings would speak to me with respect and courtesy, and yet you…you demand compensation because I wasted five hours of your time, even though I was forced to reverse bind myself to your damn soul just to save myself?!"
"Reverse bind to my soul? Is that…good for me?" Khan asked curiously, choosing to just ignore that highly exaggerated sounding, probably made-up backstory.
The spirit became silent for a while.
"Hey, I said-"
"Yes it's good for you! And just so you know, what I told you before really was true…if you had reached the Blood Core Realm before 81 years passed, then you could have bound the Void Blood Pill…"
Khan noticed something and grinned.
"But now, I've actually bound you right? I've bound the spirit of the treasure, not just the rest of the treasure! Am I right?"
"Yes…you are correct…" The spirit sounded extremely glum. "Actually, something like this has never happened before…and I didn't realise that I could fall to such a state. You have bound me, the spirit of the Void Blood Pill, yet you haven't bound the pill itself…in fact, I have somehow been separated from the pill…"
"Huh?" Khan frowned. "Doesn't that mean you're useless now? Where's the rest of the pill, what happened to it?"
"…I'm not sure."
"What? The pill is basically your body isn't it? It's not like you could just lose it or something, right?"
"…"
"You lost your body?" Khan didn't know what to think of the spirit at this point. How could she lose her body?
Well, he assumed the spirit was a female based on the sound of the voice, but then again, it was technically a treasure, so did it actually have a gender? Thinking about it, he didn't care enough to ask anyway.
"Look, it's not my fault that I was separated from my body! I was forced to reverse bind myself to you, meaning that I created a binding connection, from you to me, which I've never done before, because why the hell would I?! How was I supposed to know that I would somehow lose my body inside of you whilst my spirit is now trapped inside your soul?!"
Khan paused.
"What did you just say? You…lost your body inside of me? What does that mean exactly?"
"Why are you making such a disgusted face?! It's definitely not whatever weird thing you're thinking of! I just mean that my body is hidden somewhere inside of your being, perhaps my body is inside of your body even!"
"Yeah, that's actually exactly what I thought you meant…" As Khan's look of disgust only grew deeper, the spirit didn't know what to say.
"Anyway, shouldn't you answer that girl already?"