In the center of the boiling blood pool, a blood-red sword rose and fell with the surging of the blood. Bands of blood-red patterns bound the sword, and streams of blood flowed into it, seemingly absorbed by the sword.
"What's going on with this blood pool and the sword?" Ye Han muttered in confusion. Looking down at his feet, he noticed various intricate and intertwined patterns beneath the surface of the blood, complex to the extreme.
"A magic array," Ye Han exclaimed.
Magic arrays were typically used for defensive purposes or sealing, so why was one here? Ye Han connected this to the sword in the center of the blood pool. "Could it be for sealing it?"
For a moment, Ye Han was bewildered by everything before him. Having come to this continent, he only had a basic understanding of the Qingming Continent and knew very little else.
"Sacrificial Sword," Ye Han said slowly, eyes fixed on the red sword in the blood pool.
According to his memories, when an ordinary sword accompanies its master through endless years, it slowly absorbs the energy released during the master's cultivation. After a certain period, it develops a sword spirit, becoming attuned to its owner's will. Not only does its power greatly increase, but the sword's grade also improves significantly.
This process requires a very long time: tens of thousands, even millions of years, and no one can be certain of the exact duration. There is, however, another method: using the essence blood of living beings to nourish the sword. Essence blood contains the essence, energy, and spirit of a being, which can quickly awaken the sword's spirit.
A sword is born for slaughter, and it is the hand that wields the sword that kills. The sword itself is just a tool, adorned with gems and carvings that beautify this instrument of death. Yet, its essence remains unchanged, the cold that seeps into the marrow, the propensity to bleed in the darkness.
Only through endless slaughter and the nourishment of fresh blood can a sword become a true instrument of killing, filled with murderous and deathly energy.
"Regardless, I need to solve my own problem first," Ye Han said, stepping forward toward the blood pool.
The intense stench of blood hit him, invigorating his spirit like a drug addict, and he walked towards the depths of the pool with evident pleasure.
As Ye Han ventured deeper, the blood pool suddenly roiled violently, the magic array below it flashed with red light, and six living blood dragons soared out, rushing fiercely towards Ye Han. His black robe was instantly disintegrated.
Unfazed by the assault of the blood dragons, Ye Han let out a long howl and transformed. Two huge purple wings flapped wildly behind him in the blood pool, blood waves surged around him.
The blood dragons, upon encountering the blood waves released by Ye Han, changed direction and began to spiral around him. In a short while, they completely enveloped him.
Ye Han's body was covered in upturned purple scales, and copious amounts of blood infiltrated his body, flowing through all his veins and capillaries.
He sank slowly until the blood from the pool completely submerged him. The pool continued to boil and seethe, and a fifty-yard radius was shrouded in red mist. Strangely, no matter how much mist was churned up, it always floated within the space of fifty yards, as if something was holding it back.
Sitting at the bottom of the blood pool, Ye Han quietly reveled in the pleasure the blood brought him.
"The essence blood here is not abundant in energy, but the power it contains is immense. How much blood from how many people would it take to form such a vast pool?" Ye Han quickly controlled the refining process of the essence blood with his Sida, gradually replacing the blood flowing in his veins with the refined energy.
Just as Ye Han was about to replenish his blood energy, he suddenly felt a daze in his soul, an unusual sensation that made him wary. A zombie's soul, being bound by death, should not experience such fluctuations except for the simple use of soul power.
The abnormality of his soul compelled Ye Han to delve into it to find the cause. Although the soul played only a few simple roles for a zombie, it was still fundamental, the foundation of all beings in the universe.
Ye Han had not entered his soul space since he advanced from the mid-fourth tier to the late-fourth tier zombie phase. Re-entering his soul space, he was stunned by the sight of the tumultuous blood sea, the blood clouds teeming throughout the space, and black lightning flashing. He had never imagined his soul would manifest such a scene.
Since the soul played a minor role for zombies, Yan Yuhuan's memories had no understanding of the soul. However, the memories of the Celestial Emperor were quite detailed.
The soul is pure, always serene. Blood seas
, red clouds, giant waves, and lightning should not appear in the soul. The menacing and bloody scenes are not typical for a soul space. In the Celestial Emperor's understanding of the soul, such phenomena had never occurred.
Standing in the soul space above the surging blood sea, Ye Han sifted through the memories of Yan Yuhuan and the Celestial Emperor, hoping to find the cause of the anomaly in his soul space.
Without spatial reference, time in the soul space was indeterminable. It could be a moment, hours, years, or even centuries.
After scouring through the memories, Ye Han came across a possibility: his soul was transforming into a resentful spirit.
Resentful spirits are born from those who die with great injustice and unwillingness, whose souls gather and linger with vengeance, never dissipating, and eventually take shape after long exposure to sinister energy. They are a form of existence where the soul is alone, without thought, only possessing an extreme thirst for blood.
Ye Han, though turned into a zombie, had his soul assimilated by the Sida before contacting the secret technique to transform his living body into a zombie body. His soul was not completely trapped; he had cultivated with the extremely yin energy, also a kind of sinister energy from the heavens and earth, containing the sins and resentful energy of billions of living beings on the continent. When refining, the pure yin energy was absorbed by the Sida, but the residual blood evil energy could not be expelled from the zombie body.
However, Ye Han's soul was not like other zombies, completely disconnected and trapped within the Sida. Ye Han's forceful transformation of his body into a zombie form required the soul to control the transformation, hence maintaining a slight connection. Thus, the blood evil energy ultimately surged into the soul space, accumulating and causing the anomaly in Ye Han's soul space.
"Sigh, I never expected that a momentary oversight would lead to such severe consequences," he thought. The occupation of the soul by the blood evil would corrode the soul, ultimately causing it to dissipate.
Zombies are not actually afraid of this blood evil. Other zombies, whose souls have a faint connection within their bodies, naturally cannot allow the blood evil that remains within them to surge into their souls, bringing no harm whatsoever.
Far from affecting zombies, the blood evil is well-utilized by them. That's why zombies are associated with surging blood waves and sky-high evil energy.
Though sighing, Ye Han would not wait passively for his own destruction, so he began searching his memory for ways to evolve his soul.
Finally, in Yan Yuhuan's memory, he found that the Sida, while a high-level cultivation technique for zombies, could also act on the blood evil within the body, allowing zombies to wield even greater power from the blood evil.
Ye Han sat cross-legged above the blood sea in his soul space and ran the Sida, creating a large "Sida" character floating above the blood sea, roaming about.
A huge purple fire black hole appeared behind the "Sida." The fierce purple flames spread throughout the space. In a short time, the entire soul space was enveloped by the purple fire, and the blood sea boiled under the burning of the "Sida." The rising blood fog was absorbed by the black hole of purple fire behind the character.
In an instant, Ye Han felt a brutal energy surge through the meridians in his body, rushing towards the Sida. The submerged Ye Han in the blood pool saw the purple fire around him surge. An evil aura emanated from his body.
"Boom!" Blood waves churned. A purple fire figure burst from the pool, bringing up vast blood waves.
"Day by day, I sing wildly; who is to be the hero in this fleeting world?" A voice that shook heaven and earth rang out over the quiet space of the confinement of the End of Days. Boundless blood evil filled the entire confinement, permeating every corner.