Chapter 539: Watching From The Sidelines
The demonified Jiang Tianxing hadn’t been killed.
On the contrary, Luo Chen was actually the one to suffer severe injuries.
Qin Lie, who cultivated the Blood Spirit Art, could sense that multiple streams of fiendish blood energy had rushed into Luo Chen’s body. This blood energy was relentless. It continued to ravage Luo Chen’s nerves and internal organs even after his clash with the blood demon.
Luo Chen didn’t dare to waste anymore time talking, immediately sat down, and started the recovery process.
He went through his body eliminating these refined streams of fiendish blood energy, slashing each of them apart.
“Jiang Tianxing definitely wasn’t a match for Luo Chen before transforming into that blood demon!” Du Xiangyang exclaimed, his expression grim. “Yet… now his terrifying aura scares even me.”
“Sen Ye and Feng Yiyou don’t dare to do anything either.” Xue Moyan shared his worry. “They observed Luo Chen’s attack and noticed that Jiang Tianxing is difficult to deal with. They’re probably worried that he’ll attack them if they enrage him.”
“If no one kills him, Jiang Tianxing will just continue consuming the blood of those ancient elites and get stronger and stronger,” Song Tingyu said, feeling a headache coming on. “What are we going to do?”
For a time, no one had an idea what to do about Jiang Tianxing. They felt that they couldn’t actually do anythinghad the feeling that they could not do anything to Jiang Tianxing.
It seemed as if all they could do was just watch him like this.
And, as expected, Jiang Tianxing did continue to act!
This time, the blood form he had transformed into looked at the body of an ancient spirit turtle.
This spirit turtle lay on its back, taking up hundreds of acres within the Land of Buried Gods. It resembled an enormous, four-cornered table with curved sides. Strange patterns reminiscent of the earth’s mysterious pulse were engraved onto the belly of the spirit turtle’s shell, which was turned up toward the sky. A green glow emanated from it.
This potent green energy seemed to float around the spirit turtle like fine silk. It seemed capable of protecting the spirit turtle’s body for an eternity.
However, none of this was a problem for Jiang Tianxing, who had traded his rationality for madness and an instinctive thirst for blood.
The blood demon leaped straight at the body of the ancient spirit turtle!
“Prak prak prak!”
The dense bloody light surrounding the blood demon’s body fiercely clashed with the green energy around the spirit turtle’s body.
“Bang!”
Surprisingly enough, the blood demon that was over ten meters tall suddenly exploded as soon as it collided with the green energy.
It erupted in a huge shower of bloody rain, filling the entire area with a pungent stench.
Seeing this outcome, the eyes of everyone who stood at the edge of the frozen lake, including Sen Ye, Yu Men, Du Xiangyang, and Song Tingyu, lit up with approval.
“Well done!” Pan Qianqian exclaimed.
Qin Lie, however, wasn’t even smiling.
Xue Moyan’s brow was deeply furrowed as well.
Both of them were well aware of the miracles that Blood Fiend Sect’s spirit arts were capable of. They could tell from the way the blood demon erupted, as well as the shower of bloody rain, that it was in fact executing one of Blood Fiend Sect’s spirit arts, Blood Arts: Explode! This was a technique that used blood containing the user’s soul consciousness to corrupt a target’s heart and body.
Bloody rain scattered through the air, penetrating the barrier of green energy the instant it recoiled from the clash and splashing onto the body of the ancient spirit turtle.
The second each drop of blood splashed against the spirit turtle’s exposed belly, they melted into it like water soaking into a sponge.
“All of the blood droplets vanished into the spirit turtle’s body!” Pan Qianqian cried.
Everyone who had just attributed the blood demon’s sudden eruption to good fortune once again grew serious. They noticed that something was amiss.
“Blub… b-blub… blublub…!”
An odd, bubbling noise emanated from within the ancient spirit turtle’s belly, almost as if its blood were boiling.
Realization swept across Qin Lie’s face.
“The Blood Refinement Art!”
“Th-this…” Xue Moyan could barely contain her disbelief. “Even after transforming into a blood demon, Jiang Tianxing can still execute Blood Fiend Sect’s spirit arts…”
“The Jiang father-son pair may be even more difficult to deal with than we thought!” Qin Lie said, his expression so heavy that one could squeeze water from it.
According to the records of the Blood Codex, a blood demon created from the blood of a fresh corpse could only exist as a blood puppet for a short period of time. It would have no intelligence and would not be able to execute any spirit arts. It would only have an inherent desire to kill and an instinctive thirst for blood.
Back in the Nether Realm below the Scarlet Tide Continent, Xue Li had created a blood demon.
That blood demon had been a hundred times stronger than the one that Jiang Tianxing created. Its body had been tremendously large, and its fiendish blood energy overwhelmed both the heavens and the earth.
However, the blood demons that Xue Li were ultimately just puppets that couldn’t execute spirit arts, let alone carry out strategies in combat. They didn’t know how to feign exploding to bits, nor could they use Blood Arts: Explode to create a bloody rain capable of bypassing the defenses of the ancient spirit turtle’s body and directly corrupting its flesh.
The actions that Jiang Tianxing took today seemed impossible even for Xue Li.
Jiang Tianxing even surprised Qin Lie, who was familiar with the records of the Blood Codex. He knew that the Blood Demon Art recorded in the first half of the Blood Codex was nowhere near as eerie or bizarre as this one.
“Could it be that the Blood Spirit Art undergoes a qualitative change after a martial practitioner abandons themselves to evil ways, consumes human blood, and discards their rationality and conscience?” Qin Lie inwardly asked himself.
“Bang!”
The ancient spirit turtle’s body suddenly exploded. The green barrier that surrounded it dissipated since there was no longer any energy to maintain it.
Once the spirit turtle’s body burst apart, the essence within its flesh was quickly drained as well.
“Graaauuuuuugh!”
A roar resounded from the blood demon as it exited the spirit turtle’s remains and reformed itself.
The fiendish bloody aura that it exuded was so potent that it could actually compare to a vast sea of blood. Its aura was so overwhelming that even the Demon Sealing Tombstone and the three spirits noticed the threat that it now represented.
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
An icy tornado appeared of nowhere and rushed toward the blood demon, imbued with a freezing frost concept that threatened to turn everything to ice.
A small figure could be seen at the center of this raging tornado, hovering amidst the frigid streams of howling wind.
It resembled a goddess of ice ruling over that icy tornado.
“Jia Yue!” Gao Yu yelled from his position at the edge of the frozen lake, his harsh eyes flashing with excitement.
With a frenzied roar, the blood demon charged toward the approaching ice spirit in its icy tornado, a shocking aura of blood surrounding its reformed body.
An instant later, it rushed into the tornado and clashed with Jia Yue, who was currently possessed by the ice spirit.
Rays of bloody light shot from the tornado and spread in every direction. Incredibly sharp blades of icy light slashed at the blood demon.
The power of absolute frost enveloped the blood demon with layer upon layer of ice like waves of water, seeking to reduce the blood demon to a bloody ice sculpture.
The blood demon howled angrily, madly struggling against the power of the ice spirit. A fiendish blood aura capable of destroying the world shone from its bloody eyes. The silhouettes of the spirit turtle and the Wood Race clansman appeared in the bloody screens of light around the blood demon, seemingly assisting it by empowering its aura and making it strong enough to resist the ice spirit’s sealing power.
“This…” Du Xiangyang was dumbstruck.
When everyone else could only watch Jiang Tianxing plunder one body of an ancient elite after another, the ice spirit actually came out of hiding.
The ice spirit wanted to stop the blood demon from destroying the Land of Buried Gods!
As the master of the Forbidden Land of Ice and the guardian spirit of the Land of Buried Gods, the ice spirit seemed intent on both leaving the Graveyard of Gods and protecting it at the same time. It wanted to use the Graveyard of Gods as a future source of power!
It would never allow the blood demon to continue devouring the bodies of the ancient elites resting in the Land of Buried Gods.
—The ice spirit always believed that these remains belonged to it, and it alone!
This turn of events stunned Qin Lie.
“It looks like we don’t need to do anything,” he said.
The ice spirit had actually appeared at a critical moment to seal the blood demon that Jiang Tianxing had transformed into. It would freeze it, preventing it from further damaging the remains of the ancient elites in the Land of Buried Gods.
This sudden development turned the situation in the desolate plain of the frozen lake into two battles: one in which the Demon Sealing Tombstone fought the earth, metal, and water spirits, and one in which the ice spirit fought the blood demon. All of these combatants were equally matched and completely focused on fighting.
It was as if they had all strangers that were unconcerned with one another.
“Let’s just observe,” Du Xiangyang said, his eyes narrowed. He sat down and took out a couple of spirits stones to recover his strength. “All we need to do right now is watch.”
The rest of the group exchanged glances, then followed his lead and sat down as well. Considering the battle taking place in the Land of Buried Gods, and bit of strength they managed to recover would better prepare them for any shocking changes that could occur in an instant.
Qin Lie also sat down as he watched the battles below with astonishment, waiting for something new to occur.
“Swoosh!”
In the next moment, a bloody light suddenly emerged from the space between Qin Lie’s eyebrows. The bloody bone dragon and the body of the Blood Progenitor, which had been sucked into the Soul Suppressing Orb, surprising flew out along with that light.
“Patak!”
The Bloodthirsty Dragon had become several times smaller than its original size and was now a concave object about half an arms length. It looked like a sanguine dragon bone and glittered with translucent, bloody light.
The Blood Progenitor’s body, on the other hand, was the same size as before, resembling a translucent, bloody ice sculpture.
Swoosh!”
The first half of the Blood Codex, which had been hidden within Qin Lie’s spatial ring, emerged without warning. With the appearance of a bloody bone fragment, it suddenly shot into the Blood Progenitor’s chest, vanishing in a flash of light.
“Whoosh!”
The moment the first half of the Blood Codex emerged the concave object that lay quietly on the ground, which was the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s newest shape, transformed into an armguard. It floated into the air, firmly attaching itself to the left arm of the Blood Progenitor.
In that instant, the Blood Progenitor’s body erupted with brilliant, bloody light.