Volume 5, Chapter 93 – Fusion

After they passed through the “factory” reeking of blood, the way ahead finally grew quiet.

Rongwen led them through a corridor crowded with glass display cases, then took another elevator down at the end, bringing them to level -31.

Rumble…

When the doors opened, all Tao Sicheng saw was darkness.

But there was an echo.

That meant the space here was just as large, probably about the same size as the “factory” from before.

So what kind of place was this…?

There was no movement at all. Was it an actual storeroom?

Tao Sicheng looked toward Rongwen. Rongwen spread his hands toward her in a gesture.

Was that supposed to mean she had to go out first by herself?

Tao Sicheng hesitated, but once she thought about how Rongwen was certainly far stronger than she was, and that any resistance on her part would be useless anyway, she gritted her teeth, took a step forward, and walked out of the elevator into the darkness ahead.

The first few steps were fine. The sensation underfoot felt exactly like the steel hanging stairs she had been walking on earlier.

But on the seventh step, Tao Sicheng’s movement paused.

She lowered her head and lifted her shoe. It felt as though she had stepped on some kind of sticky foreign matter. When she pulled her foot up, she could feel it stretching after her. It made her sick.

Unable to stop herself, she reached out for the handrail, only to stumble and come away with a palm full of some unknown slime.

Pa!

Suddenly, several clusters of lights shone down around her, illuminating part of the darkness ahead.

Tao Sicheng’s eyes went wide.

She saw countless sticky strands of flesh covering and spreading across the space. Piled together, they looked like a giant flesh nursery filling the whole plant floor. Embedded quietly atop that nursery was a massive cocoon more than ten meters tall, and under the lights she could vaguely make out an irregular shadow writhing inside it.

This was a little… way beyond the syllabus.

Tao Sicheng whipped her head around and immediately tried to flee back to the elevator.

But it was too late. Something wrapped around her ankle, and in an instant she was yanked up by one leg and left hanging in midair, forcing a short scream out of her.

“Sis—!”

Seeing this, Tao Kangyuan immediately tried to charge out. He struggled desperately to pry Rongwen’s hand off his shoulder. “Let go… you bastards! What are you trying to do to my sister!?”

“That is her good fortune. What would you understand?”

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Rongwen swept him with a cold glance.

“She has fused with a Spirit-Vein Demon, survived after the parasite died, and also possesses the Nine-Fusion Spirit Vein.”

“If any one of those conditions were missing, the only end waiting for her would be to be eaten.”

“Right now, Master is curious about what makes her special and is willing to share a single body with her for a time. What a great honor that is… Don’t be too ignorant of what’s good for you.”

What was he even talking about…?

Fusion, parasites…

I don’t understand!

Tao Kangyuan was still struggling, but Tao Sicheng had already reached the fate that awaited her.

Hanging in midair, she saw clearly the fleshy tentacles gripping her. But she was only an ordinary mortal who had never cultivated, so naturally she had no strength to resist. She could only let those tentacles hoist her up in front of the giant cocoon, as though she were staring into the shadow inside it.

[So it’s you…]

[This soul aura is indeed somewhat special…]

[I won’t lie to you. I want to fill the vacancy left after that Spirit-Vein Demon died—in other words, I want to share this body with you.]

[Are you willing?]

It was actually asking for her opinion…

What was this trying to do, perform an experiment?

Or was it that he did not want to kill her outright or eat her, because whatever he intended to do with her required her absolute submission…?

In the space of an instant, Tao Sicheng understood everything. Gathering her courage, she replied, “What do I get in return?”

[During this period, you will be granted authority second only to mine.]

That voice answered her.

[Aside from that, I will treat your body the same way I would treat my own flesh.]

[I will help you cultivate.]

[I will open those blocked meridians of yours.]

[I will let the true power of the Nine-Fusion Spirit Vein see the light of day again.]

[And in the end, if one day I obtain what I want, I will allow you to keep all of this and leave safely.]

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“…All right!” Tao Sicheng said at once. “I agree!”

She did not waste effort on anything else, such as trying to force the other party into making a Dao oath. The moment his words ended, she nodded immediately.

[A wise choice.]

A soft chuckle sounded by her ear.

Mmgh—!

Tao Sicheng’s eyes flew wide as the world suddenly spun around her. It felt as though those tentacles had flung her above the cocoon and were now letting her fall freely downward.

I’m… I’m going to fall!

Splash!

It felt as though she had dropped into some kind of liquid.

The liquid carried a hypnotic effect. Her consciousness sank into a daze. She did not even notice when the clothes and ornaments on her body were corroded away. She only curled into herself, drifting slowly in a posture like that of an infant inside the womb.

Gradually, some flesh began to attach itself to her.

It first wound itself around Tao Sicheng’s ruined right cheek, which was still a bloody mess of flesh. Rather roughly, it filled in the pits and gouges there, burrowed into her skin and flesh to take root, extended nerve-like tendrils, and linked them with the nerves in her brain.

Once that process ended, the uneven flesh naturally smoothed away, little by little restoring that half of her face to completeness. The skin looked incomparably tender and glossy, with no trace at all of the old scars that had once been there.

Then, suddenly—

Tao Sicheng’s newly formed right eye opened, and a streak of golden light flashed through it.

Crash!

Her body became an afterimage as she flew out through the opening of the giant cocoon. Her naked body landed on the hanging stairs as she raised both hands, opening and closing them, carefully feeling out this new flesh.

Her bearing at that moment was extremely strange.

Only the right half of her face was awake, with one eye open. The left side of her face and her left eye remained asleep, with no sign whatsoever of awakening.

“So that’s how it is… so this is the Nine-Fusion Spirit Vein.”

“After all, these two talents came from the same root to begin with. Acquiring this truly will help me speed up my grasp of Jiuli’s gift.”

“All the effort spent having this girl delivered here was not wasted. It was indeed the right move on the board.”

Yet when “she” spoke, what emerged was not Tao Sicheng’s clear, bell-like young girl’s voice, but the magnetic male voice belonging to the Demon Lord.

“Congratulations, Master!”

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Rongwen, waiting at the side, immediately dropped to his knees.

“May Master recover soon, reclaim your divine power, and sweep across the world!”

“You think too highly of me.” The Demon Lord took a set of young girl’s clothes from the tray Rongwen was presenting and smoothly dressed himself in them. “For the time being, I have no interest in conquest. All I want is to continue probing the mysteries of life… and to figure out what exactly she is.”

“No matter what, I still congratulate Master on fulfilling your wish!”

“You really do know how to flatter.” The Demon Lord looked at Rongwen. “Look at me. Raise your head.”

“Huh?”

Rongwen raised his head instinctively, and at once met a golden eye of uncanny beauty.

In a single instant, his consciousness was swept into that golden pupil. It felt as though he had drifted inside a whirlpool for years. When he was finally thrown back out, he stumbled back three steps in succession and collapsed onto the floor, all strength drained from him.

“Feel carefully.”

“Your blood-qi circulation path now.”

Rongwen did as instructed, and immediately discovered that another path for blood qi was now present within him. He tried adjusting and correcting his original circulation according to that new path. The intense pain made his eyes bulge wide as large amounts of sweat burst from every pore in his body.

And yet he did not feel it as suffering. Instead, he gritted his teeth and knelt toward the Demon Lord, crying out in joy, “Thank you, Master! Thank you, Master!”

How could Rongwen not know what he had been given?

He had been bestowed an even more powerful body-tempering method!

As long as he fully digested this gain, with blood qi and surging demonic power combined, he estimated that he could break into the Demon Venerable Realm—and might even have a chance of comprehending a Divine Ability belonging to Jiuli itself through his bloodline!

“Get up.”

The Demon Lord had him follow along and asked while boarding the elevator, “How is the vessel’s younger brother?”

“He was rather too agitated… I had Rongyin knock him out and take him away. He is unharmed.”

“Give him a few days to accept reality,” the Demon Lord said. “I did not eat his sister, in the end. He will accept it. He is clever.”

“Master…” Rongwen asked, “now that you have made an initial recovery, the plan to support the Feathering Sect…”

“Of course it proceeds as before.” The Demon Lord narrowed his eyes. “‘Soul gu’ are ineffective against her. I know that very well. But the people around her cannot possibly be the same as she is.”

“And those officials as well… She has done nothing but adopt high-pressure measures against them. In private, that has surely already stirred up a great deal of resentment. Those are all opportunities. Opportunities that can be seized and used.”

“Go tell them this: I need the Xuantian Holy Mother to get as close to her as possible, and to remain with her for as long as possible.” The Demon Lord’s tone turned stern. “If they cannot even manage that, then there is no point in the Feathering Sect continuing to exist.”

“Yes.” Rongwen nodded. “I will go inform the Feathering Sect people at once.”

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After Rongwen left, the Demon Lord guided Tao Sicheng’s body up one floor and entered a spacious office there. He walked to the desk and switched on the computer.

Once it booted up, he operated the machine with practiced ease. Before long, a photon screen lit up in front of him, displaying the familiar face of Blood Lord Xue En.

“You’re late… hm?”

Xue En had originally intended to mock him, but what appeared on the screen was a fresh, delicate little girl. The sight shocked him so badly that the rest of his words jammed in his throat.

“Do you like my new appearance, Father?”

“…I have no interest in playing these disgusting games with you.”

“The time is about up, Father. So your answer is…?”

“I still need some time to think.”

“It was precisely because Father was too indecisive that Blood Soul Heaven split apart in the first place.”

“…”

“Very well. Since Father still hasn’t decided, then we’ll postpone it. But I have a new request here. I want to borrow a few people from Father.”

“Borrow people? Who?”

“Kong Tianbao, Kong An… and every last person who once received her favor, only to choose betrayal afterward.”

“That won’t be difficult. But what do you want them for?”

“Persuasion.”

“What…?”

“They’re fairly familiar with that country,” the Demon Lord said with a smile.

“They may be traitors, but as long as they show a certain degree of goodwill, they won’t be killed or executed immediately. What I want is precisely that gap in time.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I want them to start fires everywhere and scatter her attention.”

“That way, I’ll have time… to search out and receive certain secrets.”

As he spoke, the Demon Lord opened a drawer, took out a small booklet, and began flipping through it outside the camera’s view.

The booklet was printed with many little stick-figure drawings in an extremely crude style. On the cover, written only in ancient seal script, were three large characters.

The Sun-Chasing Scripture.