Everlasting

 

“Roar!”

The One-horned Thunderbull grew enraged. In the earlier battle, it had been wounded before. However, those wounds did not matter as it could heal up its wounds quickly. This time, however, the situation was different. The One-horned Thunderbull could feel its strength flowing away at a rapid pace. In the beginning, only its blood energy essence was flowing out. Later, even its essence power began to flow out. Thus, rage turned to dread.

Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa!

Facing the threat of death, the Great Yao unleashed an overwhelming amount of power. Due to that power, both Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun’s attacks were shattered apart.

“Go all out to stop it!” Chen Feng shouted.

At that moment, every second they could obtain meant further loss of vitality for the One-horned Thunderbull. Given a few more breaths’ worth of time, Chen Feng was confident he could subdue the Great Yao. Although he might not be able to kill it, he would be able to beat the shit out of it.

“Fine! I will give it my all and use Myriad Strands Sword Beam once more!” Tie Changkong shouted aloud. Next, he pushed out all his remnant power to empower his Prized artefact, causing it to radiate with a dazzling sword light again.

Truth be told, Tie Changkong was already over exhausted. However, he knew how dire their current situation was. He had no choice but to forcibly push out all his power to unleash another attack.

Shangguan Yun was in a similar state. Due to the earlier battle, even her Prized artefact, the Flowing Cloud Ribbon, had been damaged to a certain extent. She had less than 20 % of her strength left. However, due to the gravity of their situation, she had to utilize a secret technique to greatly boost herself so that she may mobilize more of her power.

Once again, layer after layer of sky-encompassing ribbons descended from every direction towards the One-horned Thunderbull.

What power! If it were not for the fact that I had absorbed the power from a yao core before, it would probably be difficult to contain this yao power. Feeling the vast power charging through his body, Chen Feng grew increasingly cautious. He feared that he might fail to control the vast power, leading to its eruption and the destruction of his meridians.

Although the Heavengulping Absorption Technique was powerful, Chen Feng’s cultivation base was still insufficient, after all. He had only grasped a smidge of the technique. Generally speaking, using the technique to absorb and refine the yao power within yao cores would not have been a problem. However, to absorb the essence of a living Great Yao in the middle of a fight was still a very risky move.

Bang!

A lightning bolt slammed into Chen Feng’s body. Chen Feng was incapable of enduring the hit and his whole body flew into the sky. He felt electrical currents coursing through his internal organs and nearly fainted as a result.

The Soulflame within his sea of wisdom raged and waves of soul power spread out to swiftly disperse the feelings of numbness afflicting Chen Feng.

Flipping in the air a few times, Chen Feng steadied himself. Next, with a hurl, Bloody Soul transformed into a beam of bloody light to stab into the One-horned Thunderbull’s body once more.

As for Chen Feng, he pounced down. Landing upon the Great Yao’s body, his five fingers formed hooks to thrust deep into the One-horned Thunderbull’s wound. Next, a great amount of essence power began to gush into Chen Feng’s body.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

Every insight acupoint within his body released rumbling sounds. That was especially so of the Heavenly Origin acupoint and two of his Four Extreme acupoints. The three insight acupoints, possessing the aegis of Prized artefacts, unleashed a more ferocious level of power. They were like three monsters in the midst of gulping down Heaven itself as they continuously devoured the yao power flowing into Chen Feng’s body.

Sensing the increasing amount of yao essence power within his body, Chen Feng felt his emotions stirring. This rate of cultivation was too fast. Even after one year’s worth of cultivation, cultivating by absorbing the worldly spiritual energy, he would still be incapable of condensing out this much essence power. Moreover, this was the essence power of a Great Yao. It was of a far higher quality compared to the spiritual energy that he usually absorbed.

The amount of primary energy within my body is growing higher and higher. Although the toughness of my fleshly body is also increasing, it is too slow. When Tower wakes up, I will have to refine and absorb the two strands of Demongod Blood, Chen Feng thought.

The number of spirit-type herbs acquired this time is quite high as well. Some of them can increase soul power. If I can concoct out medicinal pills, its effect will be even better. It seems my cultivation base is still insufficient. I wonder when my Longevity Furnace can be used to concoct medicinal pills?

In the beginning, the Great Yao had been howling out non-stop as it struggled furiously against Chen Feng’s attack. It managed to send Chen Feng flying twice. Those two times caused Chen Feng to feel as though several of his bones had cracked. However, Chen Feng was like a blood-sucking insect. He kept going back to grasp the Great Yao tightly.

As its vast essence power flowed away, the One-horned Thunderbull’s atmosphere of arrogance began weakening. As the Great Yao grew weaker, Chen Feng grew stronger. The gap between the two kept rising.

In truth, despite the wondrousness of the Heavengulping Absorption Technique, Chen Feng’s limited strength made it so the amount of yao power he absorbed was far inferior compared to the amount that Bloody Soul was absorbing.

Even if there were two Chen Fengs, the yao essence power would have caused his body to self-destruct from overload.

Chen Feng had wanted to capture the Great Yao alive. However, the development of the situation had gone beyond his expectations. Firstly, too much of the Great Yao’s essence power had been lost. Thus, its future development was limited. Secondly, this Great Yao was too temperamental. Even now, it was stubbornly refusing to submit. Most importantly, Chen Feng could sense that those hidden observers were beginning to make their move.

In the beginning, the hidden observers had only been watching them. Now that Chen Feng’s team and the yao beast were mutually wounded, they could no longer hold back their desire to perform a golden oriole from behind [1].

“You two, be careful. Some people are planning to launch a sneak attack!” After saying that, Chen Feng sent his lance stabbing into the Great Yao’s head with lightning-like speed.

“This is the first Great Yao to die under my hands.” Chen Feng’s emotions stirred.

The One-horned Thunderbull, having lost a great deal of its vitality, was no longer capable of stopping the might of the demonic artefact. It merely managed two howls before Bloody Soul’s overpowering force pulverized its divine sense. Even some of its soul fragments were sucked into Bloody Soul.

Every time Chen Feng utilized Bloody Soul, he could feel the demonic artefact’s might. It gave him a peculiar feeling. It was as though the demonic artefact was not as simple as it looked. According to Chen Feng’s knowledge, a grade 2 Prized artefact should not possess such a monstrous power, far from it. Its ability to absorb blood essence alone was something that Prized artefacts should not be capable of.

“Could this demonic artefact have a secret origin?” Chen Feng guessed.

After killing the Great Yao, a horn and a yao core rapidly fell into Chen Feng’s hand. The two items contained vast lightning powers. It was such that Chen Feng himself felt secretly shocked.

Those two were truly good stuff. Could the items from a Great Yao be common goods? Chen Feng felt satisfied. The battle had not been in vain. Thinking how he had successfully slain a Great Yao, Chen Feng could not stop himself from feeling pleased.

Sou! Sou! Sou!

One by one, three cultivators emerged, forming a triangle as they surrounded Chen Feng’s team of three. 

“Just hand it over.” Those fellows did not bother with small talk. One of them stepped forward, his hand shooting out with lightning-like speed towards the yao core and horn in Chen Feng’s hand.

At that point in time, Chen Feng’s whole body appeared ragged, filled with wounds. There were also charred spots on his body even as electrical currents sparked about from certain spots. Anyone looking at them would believe that Chen Feng was the most heavily wounded of the three. For him to endure this long, he had likely over exhausted himself.

Seeing the cultivator take the lead to attack him, Chen Feng swiftly revealed a smile. The power within his body was roiling and swelling up, causing Chen Feng to worry about how he would go about venting them. Unexpectedly, someone had offered to die for him.

“Courting death!”

“Hold it!”

Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun shouted at the same time. However, they had used up all their strength and simply had no strength to step forward to stop the attack. Moreover, there were two more cultivators eyeing them with predatory looks. 

The attacking cultivator’s hand was about to snatch the yao core and horn in Chen Feng’s hand when a bloody light suddenly flashed out. Before all of them could see what had caused the light, a see-through hole had appeared in the attacking cultivator’s body. Furthermore, the blood within his body was rapidly flowing out. In less than one breath’s worth of time, the cultivator had been reduced to a withered corpse, which then fell to the ground. Blood dripped down from the bloody lance in Chen Feng’s hand.

Bloody Soul had absorbed too much blood essence and could no longer contain any more of them.

Seeing that, the two remaining cultivators grew dumbfounded. Next, with looks of shock etched on their faces, they turned and dashed forward. One of them quickly dashed far away while the other one flew straight towards Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun while performing an attack.

The attacking cultivator was quick on his feet. He felt that it would be difficult to escape. As such, he might as well take down Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun. That way, he might have a chance of survival.

Although he was fast, Chen Feng was even faster. Chen Feng himself did not move, but Bloody Soul shot out to nail the attacking cultivator to the ground.

“There is still one more.”

“He’s not getting away.”

Chen Feng sneered. Surprisingly, a long chain had shot out. In a flash, it reached a distance of 100 metres and tied up the fleeing cultivator.

As the Longevity Chain was tying up the cultivator, spikes shot out from the surface of the chain, stabbing deep into the cultivator’s body.

“Argh!”

The cultivator cried out in pain. He could feel the primary energy and essence power within his body flowing away at a rapid rate. His healthy body was quickly becoming withered.

“Demonic arts! This is demonic arts!” The cultivator screamed out wretchedly. There was extreme horror in his voice, one that could even put fear into ghosts.

Chen Feng scanned around and felt the other hidden observers halting their movements after seeing the deaths of the three cultivators. They were all casting horrified looks at Chen Feng.

Chen Feng retracted the chain and approached Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun. He asked, “How are you two doing?”

“I don’t even have the strength to fight now,” Tie Changkong said bitterly.

“It seems we will need to find a safe place to recuperate for a while,” Chen Feng said.

“Then, we will have to leave this mountain. What a pity. There are so many spirit-type medicines here,” Shangguan Yun said.

“No hurry. Once our injuries are healed up, we can return. This mountain is very big and the spirit-type medicines here are countless. Besides, if we can no longer find them here, we can just go back to the good old trusted profession,” replied Chen Feng with a chuckle.

Naturally, Tie Changkong and Shangguan Yun understood what Chen Feng meant: rob the other cultivators.

 1 The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the golden oriole behind it. An idiom, meaning: Preying on the hunter, who is in the midst of hunting his or her prey.↩