The dark and bloody abyss swallowed us whole, but it was too late to turn back now. I had already activated my demonic aura, an abnormal fatigue still lingering on my body.
Mer Xia's Ancient Sword Body glowed with an intense green light as she charged forward to face the incoming demons, but unknowing to her and Lei Zhao, I would be unable to provide any sort of meaningful support. The rest at the Red Parade’s Inn was clearly not enough to help me recover this abnormal fatigue that had been plaguing my body for the duration of my stay in the Demon Realm.
"Merry careful!" I would call out to her, my tired voice barely managing to reach her ears. My body would feel like lead, every muscle screaming in exhaustion.
She would turnback to me, her jade-green eyes flashing with concern. "Xu, why are you so weak? What's going on?"
With a solid head shake, I would try to clear the haze from my mind. "I... I just need some time… I’m still too tired from all the fighting before reaching the Parade..."
But deep down, I knew it wasn't that simple. The sudden burst of demonic energy I had unleashed earlier had taken its toll on me as well, and I would soon pay the price.
As Mer Xia turned away to face the demons, Lei Zhao's voice echoed through the darkness. "Guys, we're surrounded! We need to move!"
I would grit my teeth and forc myself to stand up straight. If I couldn't fight, then at least I could attempt to break a seal and attain new power so that I may be of some use. "Mer Xia, buy me some time," I whispered, taking a position of meditation.
The demons would clos in, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly light as they would charge towards us. Mer Xia's green aura would flare once more, as she would leap forward to meet them head-on. Her sword slicing through the air with deadly precision, striking down multiple demons at once, leaving traces of jade-green energy all around as the blood of demons would splatter on the ground.
Lei Zhao would fight alongside her, the Mythic Buddha Reincarnation Method’s palm aura crackling with divine energy as she would take on the demonic horde. Her palm technique refined and powerful, each hit strong and precise, but she could only kill them one at a time.
Despite their best efforts, they would be vastly outnumbered.
“HURRY UP STUPID!” Lei Zhao would loudly remark, “We can’t hold out forever!”
“Give me ten minutes, I need to enter my inner world, it’s time I try to break one of the seals.”, I would proclaim, as I would enter a deep meditative state.
Upon entering my inner world, the darkness would envelop me like a shroud. The air thick with the scent of smoke and brimstone, and the sound of crackling flames echoing through the rocky halls.
I could feel the weight of my own power coursing through my veins, a burning sensation that threatened to consume me whole. I had entered this realm before with Yuiren’s help, but not like this - not with such raw evil energy coursing through my very being. The newly formed demonic energy in my body would clearly have an impact, but just how much?
As I would walk forward, the ground beneath my feet would begin to shift and writhe like a living thing. The walls of rock around would begin to dissolve, revealing a great void that would stretch out before me.
Suddenly, a multitude of draconic beings, humanoid in form, would appear all around me. Their scales glinting with abnormal energy, their eyes burning with an inner flame. With synchronized mighty roar, and flames erupting from their mouths - a stream of ice-fire that would have evaporated any mortal man, would hit my body.
But as the reincarnated original Dragon God, I would be no mere mortal. And so, the flames would serve to temper my body and mind, followed by rapid cooling from the ice, in a never ending cycle, this would be the nature of the second Yin Yang Dragon Core trial. The trials that would awaken my soul’s strength, sealed under the five trials of the Yin Yang Dragon Core, a technique of pure neutrality. “The first trial I have undergone due to Yuiren’s interference, I hope I can force the second and break the seal without too many issues this time.”, is something I thought to myself, but unbeknownst to me, the corruption of my newly awakened demonic powers would seep into my core, merging with it and creating something similar to a Demonic Core, similar in nature to what Yaozrui is supposed to have.
With my eyes closed and a deep breath, the Yin energy of the draconic flames would burn at my Dragon Core from one side, searing away all impurities and imperfections, my neutral energy of Yin and Yang would battle with the pure Yin of the newly formed Demonic Core, which would then be hit by the pure Yang of the ice energy from the other side, freezing it in time, forging my new-found Demonic Core into something more divine in nature under rapid this rapid succession of energy exchange from one extreme to the other. I could feel my senses expanding, growing more acute with each passing moment, the rusty blade gifted by Yaozrui would have a reaction, it’s as if the Demon God knew this would happen when he gave the blade away.
Demonic energy is not something that is supposed to be present within this trial, but instead it is something demons are born with, it is impure, a symbol of corrupt divinity. Fallen Angels are said to be the fathers of all demons, primordial beings of divine corruption, but not even them would be able to comprehend what would now form within my inner world.
And then, without warning, the dragons vanish due to a sudden outburst of energy which would affect the outside world just as much as my inner world.
Stolen novel; please report.
“W- WHAT?! XU?” Lei Zhao would yell, “XU WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” Mer Xia would follow with a yell of her own, both clearly confused by the sudden outburst that would burn the nearby demons away.
“LEILEI, QUICKLY, THIS IS GETTING OUT OF HAND!”, she would yell at her bhikkhuni friend,”You have to use your evil subduing powers, he’s losing it!”
Lei Zhao would begin focusing all of her energy onto the surface of her palms, creating a bright-yellow, divine aura, activating the Mythic Buddha Evil Subduing technique she would have mastered over five years of intensive training at the Zhòuyǔ sect, but to no avail, as the energy exuding from my body would no longer be evil in nature. The neutral draconic Yin and Yang energies would merge with the pure demonic Yin energy, absorbing the divine nature of Lei Zhao’s Evil Subduing technique’s energy.
“Mer, I can’t, he- he’s sucking out my energy…”, she would fall to the ground, exhausted, her energy depleted.
“Darn it Xu, what the hell were you thinking?!”, Mer Xia would mumble in confusion, “here, take some of my energy, we’re lucky master Ling’Da has thought me this…”.
And so it would continue - cycles of fire and ice mixing with the demonic and divine, each one pushing me to my limits and beyond. I could feel my body adapting, changing, as if the very essence of something new was being poured into my veins, creating something else, something which would later be known to the world as “chaos energy”.
But the demons would not just sit idly by and let this happen, jumping in on by one, they would attack Lei Zhao and Mer Xia in a last attempt at eating us alive, before my transformation would be finished, gnawing away at their sanity and bodies.
A gruesome battle would take place, the demons would slowly whittle down the little energy they would both have left after their attempt to help me with subduing the outbursts from my body. Battle and bruised, they would fight to the death, which would inevitably come unless this transformation would come to fruition.
With a blood spit from her mouth, “Damn it Xu, hurry up, you need to help!” Mer Xia would mumble in desperation, “I may be strong because of my unique body constitution, but I can’t hold them off for much longer…”
“MerMer, I’m sorry, I think it’s time…”, Lei Zhao would whisper in her ear with a hug, “I have to do this, it’s taking him too long and we clearly can’t hold out…”, with that her body would begin to glow with a divine yellow aura.
“W-What? W-Wait… what are you doing?” she would ask in confusion, watching the arms that would hug her from behind begin to glow, “LeiLei!? Why is your body glowing?”
“Love you, take care of my body…” she would reply with a smile, pouring her souls divine energy into Mer Xia with a yell, “MYTHIC BUDDHA SOUL TRANSFER!”
With a thud, her body would hit the ground, a smile still on her face. Showcasing the ultimate sacrifice of love for her beloved friends, Lei Zhao’s divine energy would flow into Mer Xia, causing a massive headache in the process due to the merger of two souls, but her energy would expand threefold.
“LEILEI NO! UUUUUUGH… this hurts…”, the headache would intensify as the merger would enter the final stages, flaring her new chartreuse-like aura and expanding it twofold, her eye displaying a similar transformation.
“YOU DAMNED DEMONS!”, she would yell, a voice that would have both her tones combined, echoing through the area, “It’s time I purged you all!”
She would first look at the body lying on the ground, with a wave of her hand she would envelop it in the same aura as her own, as if to preserve it, and she would dive into battle.
The demons would panic from the newly-powered enemy that would exude a divine aura, and like a wrathful deity, Mer Xia would cut through them with her sword, until this too would eventually break from the sheer amount of enemies she would have to face alone.
The next twenty-five minutes would feel like an eternity to Mer Xia, as her body would slowly give in to fatigue, “Damn it Xu, how are you still not ready?!”, she would mumble, blood dripping from her wounds that would cover her entire body. With a knee hitting the ground and her sword barely holding up her body, “At this rate we’ll die before you awaken…”, she would say, concerned for their lives.
A few minutes later, the forging of the core would be complete and my eyes would begin open, “I have broken the second seal”, uncontrollable tears would pour on my cheeks as I would notice LeiLei on the ground and Merry’s wounded body barely holding on.
“X-Xu… f-finally…” she would sigh with relief, barely able to sustain the aura preserving Lei’s body, “I thought you said ten minutes numbskull… it’s been more than an hour!”
“I’m sorry, you’ve done well, leave the rest to me…”
With that said, I would flare up a chaotic aura which would accidentally push both of them away due to the wind pressure, while at the same time it would scare the demons stiff and force them to stop in their tracks.
“Go easy on me, I’m barely holding on damn it!” she would exclaim with a fatigued face and worried expression.
“Take my hand”, I would grab her hand and pour a small portion of my soul energy into her, placing my hand on Lei Zhao’s body on the ground and doing the same, I would tell her not to worry.
“You’re fine now, LeiLei’s going to be fine too, I WILL find a way!”, these would be the last of my words, as I would jump into battle, slaughtering hundreds of demons at a time by using the rusted blade, the blood of demons would seep into the blade, enveloping it completely, hydrating and sating the demonic blade that would in turn break the seal which was the cause of the rusty aspect.
“I’m sorry Red Moon, looks like you’ll have to sit this one out, you deserve a rest” I would say, grabbing the handle of the once brilliant sword which has served my mother and I for many battles, now a useless tool full of cracks in the aftermath of the long and restless journey,”I swear I’ll fix you up someday.”
The once rusty blade would grow in size tremendously, turning from a one-handed rusty sword, into a giant blade emanating pure demonic energy, full of wrath. This newly formed blade would glow with a fierce, thick, black demonic aura, which would in turn make it heavier than usual.
Even with my new-found strength received after the second Dragon Core trial, I would barely be able to lift the blade due to the amalgamation of energies which have merged into the very essence of my soul. “Damn this thing’s heavy…”, using a two handed stance with half of the blade sticking into the ground, I would pull with all my might, infusing the handle with the last of my lightning energy and swipe in front, releasing a massive cone of black lightning energy which would cut through the ground, like a void storm of unspeakable proportions, which would wipe out the remainder of the demons, forcing the rest which were further in the back to either run or face eternal slumber.
The aftermath of such a blow would leave an eternal scar upon the Demon Realm, a never ending black storm and a giant canyon, which would later come to be known as the Grand Hole of Storms.
“Holy shit, that was much stronger than I thought it would be… you really are a great relic huh?”
But while the battle would be over, our troubles would only just begin. With Merry in a state in which she would be unable to fight and LeiLei presumably dead, our future would be extremely grim, as I would find out soon enough, that the Ring of Thunder would be corrupted by the unknown form of Demonic Energy of The Red Parade.