[Energy source 'Spirit Beast Core' (Type: Qi) gained!]
[Ejecting host from Consciousness Subsumption realm]
[Reverting host to original form...]
Alex opened his eyes - his real eyes - and saw detached lumps of unfamiliar muscle and flesh sloughing off his form, falling away like dead leaves from a tree in autumn. Steam rose from his shoulders as he flicked off pieces of bloody flesh, evidence that he had been far into the process of transforming into a blood familiar of the little demon.
[2-hour mana cooldown ended. Skills now available for use]
Hmm, more than 2 hours passed? That took much longer than expected, I thought it would only take 5 minutes or so, like last time, he thought, pulling at a particularly persistent strip of foreign muscle as he assessed the notification. After his first encounter with a bloodbeast the entrance to the secret realm and its subsequent defeat, he had discovered a unique aspect of Eclipses blood absorption enchantment. As the blade drank the defeated creature's blood, the beast’s flesh had withered away, revealing the twisted body of a would-be disciple whose name he couldn't remember. Eclipse hadn’t reacted to the blood until the beast had lain dead. Perhaps it was because the blood was too rich in Qi? Or maybe the system siphoned the Qi, allowing the blade to absorb its essence? It could easily absorb Jun Li’s blood due to him only being at the Qi gathering stage and thus hardly having any Qi that extended beyond his pathways and meridians.
Alex found himself wondering at the number of growth-type weapons out there in the wider universe and the extent of their capabilities. The potential his blade Eclipse held was quite staggering.
And now that he had absorbed the blade and bound it to his soul, Eclipse held the power to negate the terrifying transformation of these bloodbeasts.
As the final mound of flesh slid from his form, Alex surveyed his surroundings. Looking around, he exhaled in surprise as he found himself in a deep cavern surrounded by what could only be described as a pack of blood familiars identical to the one he had battled in his mindscape.
He counted at least fourteen living blood familiars, their towering forms of sanguine flesh flexing with raw strength as they appeared to be feasting on a large corpse of some unrecognisable beast. They had yet to notice him with their attention focused as it was on their feast.
The environment was dimly lit by pools of molten lava scattered around the uneven ground. Jagged rock formations loomed, potential cover and obstacles should the creatures finally notice him.
A strange sensation erupted from his chest as Alex saw thin almost imperceptible strings of mana extending directly from his heart, breaching his skin, and growing like tree branches until they reached high into the sky, far beyond the limits of his Swordsaint’s Domain.
Amidst the shadows of the deep cavern, a glint caught his eye as he followed the thin trails of his mana strings. Looking up, he saw many glints of blue and silver light hanging in the air high above, like glass or crystal stars suspended in the air and reflecting the fiery heat of his surroundings. A connection of mana blossomed from the countless strings extending from his heart, and Alex realised what the strange constructs high above were.
They were swords.
About a hundred of them, summoned by his skill, Thousands Become one. Alex counted around 20 real swords mixed in with the mana constructs, and among the twenty, about five that shone subtly with a light that could only have been Qi. The real blades must have been pulled from the lake of blood when I summoned the thousands become one skill, and the blades must have followed me the entire time I had turned into a blood beast. I thought they would have instantly crashed into the pack chasing us, but I guess they need my will to strike. And judging by the number, it’ll be a rain of swords that fall like a cluster bomb.
Neat. But will it be enough to kill them all? Alex doubted it. Maybe it would take out one or two, or five or more if the Qi-enchanted swords struck the creatures directly in their spirit beast cores, but that was a long shot and one that would be more likely to alert them to his presence than eradicate them. At his level, and with his stats, there was only so much destruction a long-ranged skill could do.
But who said he only had to use one skill?
He looked up at the swords, utilising his all-encompassing control over the mana within his Swordsaint’s Domain to move the thin mana-strings to align the blades, as a puppeteer would move strings to control a marionette. The strings shifted and the blades above twinkled with reflective light as they moved, until each of the imperial cultivator weapons that possessed Qi were spread evenly above the pack, in a way that would allow his next action to deal the most damage possible.
Judging by the strength of the spirit beast cores of the creatures closest to him, they each seemed to be at the peak of the first level of Qi gathering or in some cases at the beginning of the second level. There are nine levels to Qi gathering, and the first and second levels have physicality matching someone with ten to fifteen thousand stats points in each category. Each creature here has somewhere from fifty to seventy-five thousand total stats each, don't they?
He let out a sigh, thinking the words to activate his skills and resolving himself to commit to a dangerous contingency.
Thousands Become One.
Phoenix Leap, Boundless Dodge, Phoenix Leap. A tsunami of swords came rocketing towards not just the pack of creatures, but towards Alex’s location, too, as he rapidly retreated from the midst of the pack. As a portion of his skill’s summoned blades entered the limits of his domain, he saw them clearly— several of the enchanted blades under his skill’s control were filled with unreadable patterns of Qi, and all of them rocketing towards the pack while blazing subtly with Qi.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire, he thought.
Mana Blade.
Utilising the absolute control of internal mana given to him by Swordsaint’s Domain, Alex held the flow of his skill’s mana with meticulous precision and began to guide it in a direction of his choosing. It was an idea he had gained through learning to cultivate through the Charging Bull Breathing Technique. When he usually activated Mana Blade, the skill’s mana would shoot from his heart to the arm holding a blade and erupt into the blade to drastically enhance its cutting power while infusing it with mana. But with the total control of internal mana given to him by his domain, he commanded the flow of Mana Blade, threading it through his pathways like a needle through fabric, the energy surging within him in a controlled storm as he redirected it back toward the core of power concentrated in his chest. His breaths matched the rhythm of this internal current, sharp and deliberate. He pushed the mana back toward his chest and into his heart, feeling the intense concentration of power that accumulated there, a pulsating engine of constantly generated energy within him.
Stolen story; please report.
Then whilst the energy lay within his chest, he pushed his Mana Blade through the thin mana-strings leading from his heart to the countless shooting blades summoned Thousands Become One.
Thin lines of visible blue light shot out from his chest, like the delicate strands of a spider’s web. They connected with the countless blades suspended in the air around him. The cave lit up, transformed into a constellation of blue suns, and the beasts froze, caught in the light and distracted from their feast by the sudden change.
Mana drained from him, a floodgate opened too wide, slipping through his control like sand through fingers as his skill, Mana Blade, infused the countless blades he had summoned, far more than the single blade it had originally been utilised for. The powerful force of mana filled all summoned constructs and real blades to deal heavy damage, but it was the five enchanted weapons that carried Qi that caused true havoc.
His skill, Mana Blade, infused the enchanted blades, merging energies that were never meant to coexist. The five blades that carried Qi erupted into a violent clash of forces, a collision of two storms in the same sky. The dangerous clash of energies erupted, a wave crashing against a brittle shore as the entire sea of blades and chaotic energies crashed into the pack.
The world exploded into white, erasing all other colours.
Alex shut his eyes as his perception of time sharpened, but the afterimage burned and his domain flared, searing his vision and capturing every detail of the chaos he had unleashed.
The chaotic merging of mana and Qi spread from the five blades to the pathways of mana that connected them in an instant, the destructive force splaying outwards, flowing into the mana pathways like poison in a bloodstream and erasing anything they touched from existence in a spray of destruction. It was as if he had created a spiderweb that turned anything it touched into a void of nothingness, completely erasing it from existence. The spiderweb of connected blades quickly became a network of void capable of severing all that crossed its path with absolute finality.
The energy sliced through the pack, bisecting creatures at sharp angles, leaving no trace of those directly struck by the five blades. The void surged along the threads, speeding towards Alex like bullets fired from a gun. With no time to waste, Alex deactivated his skill in a rush of panic, disconnecting himself from the deadly force of impending death just before it could consume him. He pulled back, retreating from the brink, his breath quick.
The merging of mana and Qi created a hungry absence that erased everything in its path. A thread of voids. Or an abyss.
“Holy shit, I almost died.”
He landed some distance away and surveyed the result of his first intentional attempt at merging not just two skills, but mana and Qi offensively.
All of the creatures were down, some lay sliced in two or in multiple pieces by the chaotic threads of the obliterating void, while others lay still, knocked unconscious by the impact of hundreds of blades and clashes of fundamentally opposing energies. A chaotic fractal pattern of destruction lay in the stone and magma floor where his attack had simply erased stone from existence, and five circular craters filled it in parts where the blades of Qi had simply erased the creatures they had struck and anything that surrounded them.
It had been something of an experiment, but there had been nothing to suggest it wouldn’t work, after all, wasn’t mana blade meant to work with any blade in his grasp, whether it was a mundane blade or a blade already filled with Qi?
Alex found himself wondering how someone like Mistress Yan Hua would deal with an attack like that. She’s probably fast enough to dodge all of the blades and threads of void, unless I caught her by surprise or had a skill fast enough to match her. Anything at the Qi gathering stage would be toast, though, but I’d be in the range of fire too.
The attack held striking implications for his future use of the Mana Blade skill, or any skill that infused his weapons or items with mana of any kind. If he were to use such a skill while holding a blade enchanted with Qi, it could very easily lead to his dismemberment and perhaps even death.
With a twitch of his fingers, Eclipse appeared nestled in his palm, summoned from its place within his soul as his thoughts remained focused on the destruction he had just unleashed. It felt like more of a technique than a skill… but without the Qi blades it would have just been a simple mana attack, devastating, yes, but not enough to destroy a pack of Qi-gathering spirit beasts… I think I’ll call it the void web? Alex thought as he moved towards the remaining bodies of felled creatures, stabbing each with eclipse and draining them of blood and flesh. Some of them were still moving. “Nah that’s too wordy and kinda cheesy. How about Eraser Web? Or maybe just the Eraser, nice and simple.”
Mana Burn. Sovereign Clone.
Eclipse appeared before him in its demonic form, lithe and towering, its swaying tail, sharp and bladed, cutting swathes into stone floor and its horns curling above its head like a beast ready to charge. The air thickened with the scent of Iron and sulfur. Alex spoke, his voice firm, “Hey, you have an ego right? Can you talk?”
No response. The creature’s eyes, dark and deep as an abyss, remained fixed on him, betraying no sign of understanding
“Do you understand me?” Alex’s words cut through the stagnant air.
Still no response, the demonic blade’s form remained unmoving, its eyes boring into him, expectant but unmoved, like a statue in a forgotten shrine, or as though it was waiting for orders.
Resigned but still curious, Alex obliged, “Consume the bloodbeasts, leave any human forms you find inside the bodies untouched.”
“Oh, and give me your tail blade, that way we can clear these things out faster and stop any from regenerating.” The demonic blade continued to observe him as though inert. But Alex wasn’t fooled, the system had confirmed to him that it held an ego, and given the sword's enchantments and capabilities, it made perfect sense. Alex reached out a hand towards Eclipse expectantly, projecting mental images of him using its detached tail blade in their three-way battle back in his mindscape. Hopefully it gets the message and gives me the tail blade.
Eclipse tilted its demonic head.
Then, without a word, Eclipse gripped the blade welded to its hand, wrenching it free with a shriek of metal claw against welded metal palm. Shards fell, clattering onto the blood-soaked rocky ground. It placed the sharp and jagged handle into Alex’s waiting hand, the metal biting into his flesh, drawing thin lines of crimson. Then it turned and made its way towards the bodies, consuming them with voracious fervour and leaving nothing but the somewhat disfigured visages of disciples behind.
“Heh. I knew you could think for yourself,” Alex muttered, a wry smile pulling at his lips. “But we’ll have to work on that attitude.”
He followed, stabbing his blade into the surrounding bodies and flesh to reveal the forms of disciples beneath.
***
As Alex raised his blade in preparation to absorb the final and largest blood beast, one that had somehow been the least harmed by his ‘Eraser’ technique, he paused observing the creature curiously. The subtle shifts of the air shifting from its form, its currents, ebbs and flows pushed by the mouth, pores, and internal shifts of the creature, brushed against its skin.
This creature was still conscious.
The beating of its many hearts caused rings of sound waves to spread, turning soft lines clear and hard as each wave of subtle sound washed over him, adding small details within the creature that painted a picture of the disciple that lay buried within its twisted flesh. Alex began to see the disciples form as the creature stirred, as well as the spirit beast core embedded firmly within them. Alex moved swiftly to cut its core in two and end it for good.
Just as his strike was about to land, a hand burst forth from the beast’s chest, small and eerily familiar, wrapping tightly around his wrist, stopping the blow mid-air. Another hand followed, then a head, and a torso, emerging as if peeling away from the beast’s own flesh. Steam rose from the creature's form, mingling with the blood and flesh that sloughed off its form just as it had Alex mere moments before. A grotesque birth.
Within seconds, Jin stood before him, having torn free from the creature’s innards, his grin wide as a Cheshire Cat. He still held Alex’s blade, not releasing his grip.
“I see you escaped the transformation too. That’s good. But destroying our new spirit beast cores will kill us, you know?”
Alex heard groans, and turned to see a very small number of previously unmoving bodies of disciples stirring, stumbling as they rose to their feet, apparently having survived the transformation into and destruction of their blood-beast forms.
Jin, still holding Alex’s wrist, tilted his head quizzically toward Eclipse, the demonic blade, which held the last of the bloodbeast corpses high above its head. Its jaws, jagged and unnaturally wide, devoured the flesh with an unnerving hunger, more metal beast than weapon.
“What in the Emperor’s names is that?”