Volume 2, Chapter 73 – Devouring (Two-in-One)

This is impossible!

Bolou’s consciousness slipped into chaos. On reflex he refused to believe what he was seeing, pouring more and more strength into the thick black greatsword. But no matter how he pressed down, all his effort did was make Bai Xiang shift her feet a little farther apart—that stance simply made it easier for her to distribute the force coming from above.

But her hands?

Those fair, spotless hands were slender and long-fingered, with a faint pinkness visible beneath the nails. One of them was still the only thing holding up the heavy sword. The other, her right hand, slowly lifted and, under the gaze of Bolou and everyone else, reached back behind her head.

That was where Feixiang Heaven’s hilt rested.

Bai Xiang closed her fingers around the hilt with excruciating slowness, then drew it out bit by bit.

“Clang…”

As the blade slid past the metal lip at the mouth of the scabbard, it naturally drew out a soft, continuous scraping sound—faint, yet unbroken, like the taut string of Bolou’s heart being plucked by fear.

I’m afraid?

Realizing this, a violent rage surged up from the depths of his chest.

Bolou took Bai Xiang’s motion as a deliberate attempt to put pressure on him—just like when he’d dragged the edge of his greatsword along the floor in front of Leng Qiu. He thought Bai Xiang was trying to rattle his nerves with the same kind of theatrics, to throw off his state.

She must be one of those swordsmen who are very good at controlling the rhythm of a fight.

Bolou thought.

His master, Chan Master Liaokong—the old monk in the python-embroidered robe—had once told him that some swordsmen had such powerful souls and abundant spirit that they could interfere with physical reality itself. With just a look or a movement, they could plant suggestions in an opponent’s mind; paired with the right Demon Pool, they could even drag people into illusions.

So am I in an illusion right now?

Bolou’s mind was in utter turmoil.

His gaze followed Feixiang Heaven’s blade as it crept upward, millimeter by millimeter. At the same time, he bit the tip of his tongue, and a sharp pain and the taste of blood spread through his mouth.

Not an illusion?

Bolou’s eyelids twitched.

But if it wasn’t an illusion, how could something this absurd be happening… A girl this age stopping his full-powered, cleaving strike with one hand, without even taking a single step back?

She didn’t have muscles like his, did she?

Her body was so slender, her skin and face so pale and delicate they looked like they’d bruise at a touch. Compared to him she was like a fragile doll—so how could a body like that hold such terrifying strength?

“What do you have inside that body of yours?”

A question.

Spoken at arm’s length.

Bolou forced himself to treat it as a distraction tactic. He remembered how Chan Master Liaokong had warned him: when you meet an enemy who is good at controlling tempo, do your best not to follow their rhythm.

What did that mean?

If the other party strikes a strange pose, don’t look at it.

If they say anything, don’t listen—and definitely don’t answer.

The best counter was to throw your whole self into your own fighting rhythm, and unleash a relentless, unthinking assault—something Bolou was indeed best at. That was the surest way of dealing with someone like this.

Bolou remembered all of that.

He remembered it so clearly he could replay every word his master had said in his mind, tone and cadence and all.

But he found he couldn’t do it.

Bai Xiang’s voice was a little low, and the way she put force into her words was casual, almost lazy. The ends of her sentences blurred just a little, like she really was just that curious, asking with the detached interest of a researcher.

There was something almost magical in that voice.

Bolou’s gaze dropped of its own accord, and met—

Her golden eyes.

They were like twin golden vortices.

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They spun and folded in on themselves… becoming a vast, bottomless cluster of stars, drawing Bolou down and down, as if they meant to suck his soul right out of him.

His eyes suddenly went unfocused, as if he’d turned into a different person entirely. One hand slipped off the sword hilt, and he let out a dull “aaah…” like a dementia patient, reaching out to grab Bai Xiang’s face.

“You really are being pulled along by a powerful soul,” Bai Xiang murmured, her movements unchanged, only her gaze tracking the approaching fingers. “So there is another remnant soul hiding in there.”

“You!”

The whisper snapped Bolou awake. His true self came back in a rush. He yanked his hand back, face flushing red, and with a roar swung his sword sideways at Bai Xiang again.

“Clang!”

Bai Xiang’s right hand held Feixiang Heaven. A light flick of her wrist, and the blade slid into the exact path of the thick black greatsword. The two blades locked, jamming together in a deadlock, and the accompanying tiger’s roar was cut off once more.

“Ha!” Bolou stomped forward another step, the force so great his sandal split apart and the tiles beneath his foot shattered. He drove his knee like a hammer toward Bai Xiang’s left hip.

A faint flicker passed through Bai Xiang’s eyes. Her left hand slid under her own arm, palm coming up to meet Bolou’s lower leg, while her right hand, gripping Feixiang Heaven, swept around behind her neck and swung back.

“Bang!”

His kick landed solidly. Bai Xiang’s body shuddered once and drifted lightly sideways to the left.

Bolou, having fully committed to the kick, had all his weight on his other leg, the right. He wanted to adjust his stance and chase, but it was too late. Bai Xiang simply took advantage, stealing the positional initiative. As she shifted past him, her right arm chopped down. Her blade smashed hard onto the thick black greatsword.

“Boom!”

Bolou had no choice but to take the blow head-on. He tried to summon the Tiger Soul, but the instant it collided with Feixiang Heaven, the massive force shattered it. His lone supporting right leg buckled under him, and he was actually chopped right over by that single strike. His tower-like body slammed down on his rear, crashing into the ground with a heavy thud.

“How does she have that much strength?”

Zhao Jinyan gaped, marveling as he shook his head. “That’s not right… that doesn’t line up with basic science…”

“Floating Duckweed Stance?”

Others—like Xia Ran, Xu Xi, and Abbess Li Sheng—were staring, utterly dumbfounded.

Because what Bai Xiang had just used wasn’t Yuming martial arts at all, but one of the Benling Thirty-Six Stance Arts: the Floating Duckweed Stance that Xia Ran had used before!

“Body like floating duckweed, borrowing wind to turn to rain”—those eight words were the very essence of the Floating Duckweed Stance. The way Bai Xiang had just casually employed it wasn’t even standard form; she’d only borrowed half a move. Yet it was obvious she had already grasped the heart of the stance art! She was in no way inferior to Xia Ran’s execution!

Xiang Xian immediately turned her head to look at Old Wang Ran, only to find Wang Ran also turning his head to look at her.

Their eyes met, and they quickly confirmed one thing— I didn’t teach her that (I never showed it to her).

Then she could only have learned it on the spot…

Xiang Xian felt her temples start to throb.

Bai Xiang had the Jade Spirit, that much was true.

But for the Jade Spirit to analyze, to break things down, to learn—that all took computation.

When you’re doing a math problem, can you simultaneously work through a physics problem?

No, because that’s just not possible.

Right now Bai Xiang was fully immersed in a life-and-death battle. Her thoughts and computational capacity undoubtedly had to be serving that fight. In theory she shouldn’t have any spare processing power left to analyze and learn the Floating Duckweed Stance.

And this had looked like nothing more than an offhand move.

Casual, as if she’d just lifted her leg to take a step…

“Impossible… impossible… impossible…”

The smoke and dust cleared, revealing Bolou’s twisted face.

His eyes had gone completely blood-red as he glared at Bai Xiang. All the muscles of his body suddenly collided together in a ripple. On his bare torso, those dark tattoos gradually took on a layer of blood-red, and along his arms and shoulders there emerged the outline of a ravenous tiger in blood-ink lines. The color was still deepening!

Purple-red!

Purple!

Deep violet!

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Splat, splat!

Great gouts of deep violet blood sprayed out from the blood-tiger lines, swirling into the deep violet demonic aura as it rolled and boiled. In a heartbeat, a ferocious tiger phantom four or five meters tall leapt forth and pounced at Bai Xiang alongside him!

“Roaaar!!!”

This tiger phantom was very clearly different from before—more condensed and far more savage, vivid as if it had been granted a soul. When the greatsword chopped down, the phantom whipped around Bolou, its tail lashing toward Bai Xiang!

“Clang!”

Bai Xiang’s brows drew together slightly. She lifted her sword and made a quick horizontal cut. The blade slammed into the thick black greatsword with explosive force, making Bolou’s wrist jolt and cutting him straight out of the blood-and-qi phantom. He crashed to the ground and stumbled back several steps.

Bai Xiang angled her blade to catch the tiger’s tail. From its edge erupted a formless, invisible gale of raging sword-Qi. With a single sweep she shredded the tiger phantom, then strode toward Bolou.

Bolou’s mouth twitched. He released his blood-qi again, forming the Tiger Soul once more. His chest and abdomen swelled as he drew breath, then he roared from deep in his lungs.

“Roaaar!!!”

Tiger King Wind-Howl.

Soundwaves battered the eardrums, the wind hammered the body, and the soul-suppressing roar could lock a person’s spirit in place, stripping them of resistance for a brief instant.

“Boom!”

Bai Xiang simply ignored all those secondary effects. As she rushed forward, a cracked shell of air formed around her body, and she smashed into the range of the Tiger King Wind-Howl in a flash. Her hand lifted, and she thrust with her sword.

“Vmmm—”

“Crack!”

The sound of the blade slicing through the air and the detonation of compressed air rang out together. In the space between them, it looked as if something had been split neatly in two. A fine, straight sword mark appeared beneath the platform, and the tiger phantom was cleaved down the middle.

“Clang!”

Feixiang Heaven and the thick black greatsword clashed yet again as Bai Xiang kept advancing, forcing Bolou steadily backward.

This feeling of being overrun by sheer, frontal force was utterly unfamiliar to Bolou. Panic and fear rose uncontrollably in him. In a rush, he gathered the remnants of the Tiger Soul—cut in half but fortunately not shredded—and recombined them, layering them over his skin like armor. With the ferocious tiger mask on his face, he stared at Bai Xiang again and locked his eyes with her golden pupils!

Tiger King Soul-Suppressing Gaze!

Bai Xiang arched one brow. In an instant she focused her soul-ability into her eyes. Strange, bewitching light flashed across those pupils.

Boom!!!

She felt no effect at all from the soul-suppressing gaze!

Instead, it was Bolou whose soul was shaken by her look. He felt the golden vortices he’d seen earlier transform into a crushing cosmos, closing over him from above and below, like a pair of heavenly and earthly millstones grinding him to dust!

He let out a furious roar laced with panic. “Aaah—”

But it cut off the next instant.

A cold pain burst through his chest and abdomen, like being sliced open with a metal blade. Before he could figure out what was happening, a pale hand pressed down on the top of his head, smashing him into the shattered ground with thunderous force.

I’m going to lose…

Bricks and stone crumbled; dust flew.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl in that moment. Bolou could feel the terrifying power pouring from Bai Xiang’s hand. Blood seeped from his nose and mouth as his consciousness drifted into a half-faint. The scene before his eyes flickered in and out.

“Master.”

“What is it?”

“If we get the leading role in the land-reclamation project, does that mean we’ll have a chance to go back to Great Yu… Will Little Hu and I have a chance to find Father and Mother?”

“You’re right. As long as we secure primary control, our mission is half done. Then we can entrust the Yu people to help you search for your parents.”

“But it’s been so many years. Are they really still alive?”

“The Yu people aren’t man-eating demons. Whoever abducted them back then was likely just short on labor. By rights they should still be alive.”

“So don’t overthink it.”

“Train well, and just wait for them to come back.”

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Then the second scene unfolded.

“Master, this Earth-Heart Stance is too hard, too exhausting. I don’t want to train it anymore.”

“That won’t do. Among all the students I’ve taken a liking to, your talent is the greatest—especially that naturally strong spirit and full soul of yours. You’re a perfect match for the Earth-Heart Stance. You have to hold on!”

“But Master… it really hurts. I feel like I can’t take it anymore…”

“The richer the soul, the more intense the sensations it receives. Well, I suppose it’s not entirely your fault… Drink this.”

“Master, what is it?”

“A ‘tonic’ that will help you achieve mastery faster.”

Master was lying.

Bolou had always known that.

He’d known it from the start.

Ever since he’d drunk that black “tonic,” every time he began to train the Earth-Heart Stance or any other method, he would fall into a strange, muddled state.

He dozed and woke, again and again.

When he dozed, it was like daydreaming—like watching his own body move on its own.

When he woke and examined his inner state, he always found his cultivation had leapt forward noticeably compared to before, and many of the wrong routes had been corrected.

It was as if another guest had squeezed into his body—an old man who was sometimes kindly and sometimes vicious and violent, forever driving and urging him to keep cultivating.

This had been the state of his entire cultivation career up to now. His muddle-headedness only grew worse and worse; sometimes he zoned out even while being scolded by his master, and every so often he could hear that old man’s voice echoing in his mind.

Like right now.

“Delicious… get up…”

“Kill her…”

“Rip her apart…”

“Eat her alive…!!!”

His awareness went dark, and Bolou slipped into “sleep” again.

At the same time, his body in the real world suddenly convulsed. His hands slapped down on the ground, and he exploded with a terrible power that shouldn’t have belonged to him.

“Crack!”

The force was so great that when he pushed off the floor, the bones of his arms tore straight through the skin.

“Snap, snap!”

The flesh all over his body split open, blood spraying outward. Under the blessing of that unnatural strength, his whole body jerked up as he lunged, jaws gaping in a ravenous snarl truly like that of a starving tiger, biting straight for Bai Xiang’s throat.

The change was so sudden that even with mental preparation, Bai Xiang’s eyelid twitched.

This was still an exchange meet—she couldn’t very well kill him. In that instant, she could only lift her left hand to clamp down hard on “Bolou’s” neck, while the sword in her right flashed, severing both his arms at the shoulder. The limbs fell with the thick black greatsword still attached.

Hm?

Even like this, she could feel “Bolou’s” strength still climbing!

He’d already had both arms cut off, and his neck was in her grip, yet his eyes still bulged, his lips stretching wider and wider in a crazed rictus. He kept lunging forward on his toes, snapping wildly, upper and lower jaw clacking together with crisp, rapid clicks!

What is this?

Abbess Li Sheng, Old Wang Ran, Xiang Xian… many people were on their feet now, ready to rush in and break things up at a moment’s notice.

Because the situation was obvious—with both of Bolou’s arms cut off, the outcome of the match was already decided.

But what was happening to Bolou now was anything but normal!

Was this the source of that “feeling of disgust” Bai Xiang had mentioned earlier?

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“Roar roar… crack… roar… roaar—!!!”

Bolou’s body really was mutating.

Not only was the skin and flesh all over him splitting open, but thick streams of blood were spraying from the stumps of his shoulders, gathering in midair to form a tiger phantom once more.

“Roar!!!”

The phantom pounced out, then rapidly adhered to Bolou’s skin, slowly fusing with him.

Veins bulged along his arms, and the tiles under Bai Xiang’s planted foot shattered and cracked.

She stared straight into the thing’s eyes, and the world in front of her eyes trembled and warped, as if everything had doubled over on itself.

Kill…

Delicious…

Her soul could hear the cruel whispers; a wave of gut-wrenching nausea hammered at her mind. Only by relying on her soul-ability was she able to keep her body from being affected.

Splurt, splurt!

Suddenly—two jets of pinkish-white slime sprayed from “Bolou’s” severed shoulders.

The slime hit the air and solidified, in an instant forming arm bones and hand bones. A heartbeat later, a great mass of purple-red flesh burst out, flowing up over the pale skeleton like liquid. In the blink of an eye a new pair of arms had formed, even more powerful than before!

The change happened so fast that no one in the arena reacted in time. “Bolou” was already swinging those hands down toward Bai Xiang’s head, a ferocious grin twisting his face.

But at that moment, “it” saw Bai Xiang’s indifferent gaze.

Those same hateful golden demon eyes… filled with coldness and disdain, as if she’d known this was coming all along.

And in truth, she had.

Facing murderous intent, Bai Xiang did two things.

First, all the qi-sha she had been drawing in and holding back exploded outward in one breath. A storm of sword-Qi erupted from her as the center, blasting slabs of stone to pieces and flinging them into the air, while an endless cloud of dust surged up to swallow both their figures completely.

“Bolou” should have been blown away by it too. Before the sword-Qi storm, its attack was like a shriveled leaf, its body instantly carved with hundreds and thousands of cuts as blood sprayed out. Its limbs were bent and twisted by the gale, and only Bai Xiang’s iron grip on its neck kept it from being flung away.

Then why is she still holding on to me?

A question.

Floated up in its mind.

As the sword-Qi storm neared its end, “Bolou” suddenly felt a chill in its chest. Looking down, it saw Feixiang Heaven driving straight through—but deliberately avoiding every vital organ, leaving it utterly at a loss.

Then, “it” felt a pull.

A suction force was coming from the sword. Its very being—its origin—was being drawn out, steadily siphoned away, devoured by this sword.

“You…?”

Time seemed to freeze in that instant.

“Bolou’s” eyes went wide, as if it had run into something both unbelievable and utterly terrifying. Its mouth opened to scream.

But “it” couldn’t make a sound.

Bai Xiang’s hand clamped its throat tight; all its voice could turn into was a muffled whimper.

Its hands and feet had been cut off again by the sword-Qi storm just now. It had no way to resist at all. All it could do was tremble, staring at Bai Xiang with eyes full of stark terror, staring at that icy gaze of hers.

She was doing it on purpose.

Its awareness grew dimmer and dimmer, but in that moment “it” suddenly understood.

She could have made this easy on herself.

But she hadn’t.

She had deliberately dragged things out to draw me out, just so she could feed me to this soul-devouring sword…