Chapter 156 - Hungry, Again

Fuck that guy, fuck this collar, and fuck this place!After exploring my options, I realized I didn't have many. My movement was extremely limited in the secret underground base as the Formation extended to many other reinforced doors, preventing me from opening them. I spent the entire day, at least I think it was a day, it sure felt like it, exploring and snooping around, only to be left disappointed.[Yup… This place sucks.]Apart from the Elder sleeping on the floor of his room, there really wasn't much to see. Everything was solid stone, and I couldn't even use magic to entertain myself. Not really anyway.The pain was still extremely high and I was super close to losing consciousness every time I tried to mess with the collar. It was pissing me off, yet there was nothing I could do but endure.I tried stuffing more of my blood down Elder's throat, but that damn barrier around him stopped me every time. I even tried to drown him, but then there came a pulse of energy that knocked me away and all the water I was manipulating around him, leaving me soaking wet and in pain.Magic just wasn't going to work, not while I still had the collar on me. But it was just so goddamn painful if I tried to mess with it.Having no good ideas left, I decided to just use brute force. I sat on the ground, closed my eyes, and began circulating Qi through my body. I had long since regenerated completely, but the issue was still the damn anti-magic collar. It was made to discourage magic or at least hinder it, and I was using it to train my pain tolerance.Every once in a while, instead of discomfort, I felt a weird tingling sensation when a specially powerful wave of pain went through me. It unnerved me more than the pain itself. I was definitely adapting, but I wasn't sure if I liked the direction my body leaned toward.Anyway, it was progress, and I didn't have a choice, so I couldn't complain… too much.I must have remained in deep meditation for what felt like weeks, all until the day when I finally decided I had enough, and tore the collar out of my flesh.***[Rise and shine sleepy head!]De Danw opened his eyes and squinted at the light in the room. He noticed the man had returned, but he didn't care much. He still had the collar, and he was nearly done with the poison. A few more days and it could be completely purged from his system and then he could spend some time recovering before getting his revenge.He could hardly wait.[Oh, man! You look like shit! Did you even sleep at all? What about food, have you got any?]De Danw mentally rolled his eyes. Of course, he didn't sleep. He didn't have time for that.[Me? I'm hungry. Really hungry. Haven't got a thing to eat in this place, except… Well…]De Danw noticed his gaze was honed in on him, and he could have sworn he saw the man lick his lips. He shuddered and chose not to think about it. He already knew the guy was crazy."Still acting like a clown… As soon as I'm done with this poison I'll get back to you, don't you worry."[Oh, hey! You can finally talk. Nice! How about you tell me how to open the door so I can get out of here? Just escaping the chains was a pain in the ass.]"Heh. Next time I'll make sure to stuff you into a box. Let's see how you escape then."The mad glint in his eyes made De Danw rethink his choice of words. He suddenly regretted saying anything and getting dragged into a verbal altercation. Especially since the next words and actions from his enemy made his blood run cold.[Yeah… I don't think so. I've been here long enough. It's time to go, and you are coming with me. Alive or dead, but preferably dead.]De Danw then watched in horror as Gerald took a Spirit Sword and began carving his own neck, with blood spraying everywhere. What disturbed him the most, however, was the grin the man carried on his face as his eyes stared down at him, seemingly mocking him for his weakness.De Danw swallowed with difficulty as he saw the head get separated from the body, and then watched the headless corpse carve the flesh around the collar, and finally, he heard the metallic clang of it falling to the floor.[Aaaah~ Much better.] Gerald sighed after reattaching his head and cracked his neck. He then took a few steps closer and leaned down. What should have been an otherworldly pain appeared like nothing more than a minor inconvenience.[You are very strong, Elder De Danw, I'll admit that. But see, here's the thing… I am immortal.]De Danw opened his eyes wide as his prisoner began laughing maniacally, and Qi began to gather in large, way too large, amounts in between his palms. [And immortality wins every time! Hahaha!]Then there came the blinding light, of destructive magic.***The massive Qi Blast exploded point blank, tearing my clothes to shreds and peeling off my skin. My entire body was in pain. Yet, compared to the things the collar did to me, this kind of pain barely tickled.The dude on the ground was completely fine though. Quite unfortunate."Hahaha! Immortal my ass! Just look at yourself! That's a nice look. Careful you don't kill yourself with that magic." De Danw laughed. He was mocking me.I gave him an unamused side eye and regenerated.[Laugh while you can. We'll see how you'll laugh after I break your little shell.] I began by shooting my Sun Ray at him, straight in his face, to little effect. De Danw continued to laugh."You can't kill me, kid. Might as well take your own life and spare me the trouble of torturing you later. Although considering you managed to resist the collar, I might have to get creative."[Silence, old fart. Your death is certain, only the way in which you will die is still to be determined.]I stopped after a few minutes and took out Tiny and all his cores. I constructed his body and powered him up, before giving my order.[Tiny, go sit on him. No, wait, actually, keep jumping on his chest. Let's see how good his barrier truly is.]And Tiny did so. Ten tons of rock began producing tremors as he jumped up and down on the Elder's chest. It was a small surface for such a large golem, so sometimes he landed on his face or groin. Though he was always protected from harm, it brought me great pleasure to see Elder De so terribly annoyed by the noise and the tremors."Stop this lunacy at once! You hear me?!"[What? Did you say anything? I can't hear you, there's too much noise!]"Tell your golem to stop! Stop it now! I can't even hear myself think!"I internally laughed and turned around, showing him my back. I might have been having fun, but I was seriously in trouble. My magic wasn't strong enough to pierce his defenses, at least not without any special tricks.I paced around, thinking, and scouring the memories for any clues. The only one who used to be in the Spirit Realm and might have had a way to help was the old ghost. But his mind and Soul were so far gone, that I struggled to find anything useful.I soon heard an explosion and the rumbling abruptly stopped. I ran back and saw Tiny collapsed in the far corner of the room, his body slightly cracked."Hah! That's what you get for attacking me you stupid thing! If you think my defenses lack attacking power you are sorely mistaken!"I frowned and went to collect my guy and after examining, I realized the pulse of energy somehow turned him off. I guess it disrupted the energy flow inside, and without a proper consciousness, it couldn't reboot itself. That was a slight problem I would have to leave for later.After storing Tiny away, I turned my attention back to Elder De.[Decisions, decisions… What am I going to do with you?] I tapped my foot on the ground while crossing my hands. I didn't really have any good ideas."Oh, give it up already! You are not breaking through my barrier."[Hmm… We'll see.]Having no other ideas I could come up with, I decided to try everything. And by everything, I mean everything.I took a moment to bring all relevant information to the front of my mind and began.Fireball. Chock full of Golden Qi, also the first magic I ever used, I fired at the Elder. It exploded, filling the room with flames, yet did nothing to his protection.I shot Wind Blades and Stone Bolts. Both doing little to nothing. There wasn't even much stone for me to use since it was all reinforced and protected by Formations.I started by throwing out all known Mortal spells and then moved to stronger ones.Ice Age Lance. It exploded, freezing the place. That got me an idea, and I dropped the temperature of the room until I felt I couldn't go any further. It was becoming exponentially more difficult to do so."It's kinda chilly in here, isn't it?"Of course, the Elder didn't mind, even if it seemed he was affected by the cold.I took a sword and empowered it with a Spirit Stone. Then I focused and thrust it forward.[Thousand Blades of Grass!]A myriad of illusions of swords formed around me, among them a few that were real, and they all shot at the Elder at once."What the-?! Hey! That's ours!"The Martial Art I stole from a Brilliant Sword Sect Disciple called Mia, I think. It had been so long and I haven't used it ever before so I nearly forgot about it and my execution was subpar. There were supposed to be a thousand blades capable of cutting through anything, but only about a dozen real swords formed.I tried again. A different sword technique that time.[River of a Thousand Stars!]It was a white beam of destruction."Hey! That's ours too! Where did you get-?!"[Lunar Blades of the Crescent Moon!]"Ah! Again?!"[Silverlight Beam of the Full Moon!]"You are not getting through! How many times- Ah, so bright! Stop it already!"[Scatter Storm Beam!]It was not enough. I was copying Shadow's techniques, but without any real experience in them, they were even weaker than the original.I gathered my Qi for one final attack. It was the strongest I could think of. I pointed my sword and fired.[Lunar Light of the Converging Silverstorm Beam!]Blinding blue light filled the room as a beam of pure moonlight clashed with the barrier. I roared as I pushed Qi through my meridians, the speed and density of it many times greater than that of Shadow himself. Yet the attack still failed to pierce.I collapsed on the ground, panting, and just stared at De Danw. The man was still fine, protected by his relics.I just watched him like that, for hours, as I let my Qi replenish. I even tried pure lightning, yet it did jack shit. I needed something stronger. Something that could break through any barrier. But I had no barrier breakers. At least not of the magnitude required to break through his.It would be even better if I got something that could ignore the barrier altogether. And then it clicked.[Hey…]"What do you want?" Elder De grumbled.[How good are your relics against spatial anomalies?]"Spatial anomalies?"I began twisting the space around us, increasing gravity at an incredibly rapid rate."Haha, that's it? Parlor tricks. I can resist the twist of space much more than you, I assure you."I nodded. [I thought so. How about a crack in space? Can you resist that? I surely couldn't.]"A crack in-?"I didn't wait for him to stop and began forming glyphs. A circle with runes encased his leg, and then I pulled. There was a horrific tearing sound as his leg was split open and a black void formed in the middle. The barrier didn't react at all."Aaaaaaah! Stop! What are you doing!?" Elder De Danw shook from pain and tried to weakly move his leg. He couldn't, but at least he tried. A for effort.[Oh… So that's how that works.] That was very surprising. His leg wasn't torn off, instead, the crack formed inside it, weirdly twisting the flesh around it. It was still intact, just with a void in the middle. Very peculiar.It seemed that if I wanted to cut it, I first had to create a void and then drag him in. That would be difficult considering the void crack was fixed in space, and Elder's relics prevented him from being moved. Very difficult indeed.I let the Dimensional Rift collapse in on itself, and that's when it happened. There was a crazy loud boom, and Elder's leg blew up."Aaaaaaah! How!?"I opened my eyes wide and jumped closer to look. It seemed like the explosion happened inside his leg, pushing bone and muscle outward with tremendous force.Blood sprayed out and fragments of his flesh were ejected, but his leg was not completely ruined. It was bad, that was true, but considering the force of the explosion, his body had to be quite strong to resist it.I licked some of the blood that landed on my face and my lips slowly turned into an innocent smile.[You know, it had been quite some time since I last ate Spirit Beast meat, and I am pretty hungry…]I began forming the glyphs of the Dimensional rift around his leg again."Nooo! This is impossible! Stop! Stop it, you lunatic! Stooop!"There was another loud crack followed by an explosion as the void collapsed with the weight of the universe behind it. Spatial distortions were no joke. They weren't something you should play around with. They were very unstable."Aaaaaaah! MY LEG!"A third and final explosion shook the underground bunker and the Elder's leg separated from the rest of his body. As soon as it was cut off, the barrier shrunk, leaving it out of it.I grabbed the bloody thing and brought it closer as my smile grew wider. Saliva began dripping from my mouth."Don't do it! Don't do it, you monster! No! It's not fair! Nooooo!"I grinned and then opened my mouth wide. [Thanks for the meal.] And I bit into the flesh of a human-form Spirit Beast. It was delicious!