161 - Strange Cultivation Method

First - Previous - Next

As soon as Qin Yun left the barrier, a flexible limb came swinging his way like a whip, rushing through the air as it produced a loud shrill. He tilted to the side, avoiding the blow with ease. Once again, this elastic limb struck against the barrier, shattering into countless grey particles, becoming a dense fog.

Qin Yun raised his knee, striking the creature square in the chest. The beast flew backwards, arms flailing as it tried to regain its balance, but then fell forward as the claws on its feet dug into the dusty grey soil, creating two large ravines.

This simple physical blow had blown Kai over a dozen meters away from the shimmering barrier. It clutches at its chest, grey particles spewing from the hole now present where Qin Yun had struck.

Qin Yun frowned. Through the recoil, he realized the creature possessed no bones or similar structures. Its body was flexible—able to contort itself in ways a normal vertebrate could only imagine. And yet, it was by no means weak.

“Quite impressive,” Qin Yun said, slowly approaching the chimera. “I haven’t seen one of your kind before. How about letting me dissect you?”

Qin Yun showed a mocking smile, prompting further rage from the creature's mouth. As usual, its words were merely a collection of sounds, yet were now even more incomprehensible, for they were laced with gurgles of dense particles rushing into its mouth with each breath.

It rose, a grey liquid spilling from the open wound, only to evaporate into gas, which filled their immediate surroundings. As if recycling those particles, the creature took deep breaths and began to heal rapidly. However, much of this grey fog had reached Qin Yun, clinging to his clothes and filling his lungs.

Still, he looked unperturbed, only looking at the struggling creature rapidly regenerating as he took a deep breath. He felt the grey matter rush to his lungs and then enter his bloodstream, corrupting his being. Even his skin was no impenetrable barrier to this infection. The particles seeped into his pores, invading his flesh, yet the crystal heart at the core of his chest beat more vigorously than ever, allowing his blood to flow unimpeded.

Even as he stood, feeling the taint spread throughout his body, a smile remained on Qin Yun's lips, for the process had begun. Every time the blood flowed throughout his heart, he could feel the Corruption being refined, then diverted to his qi centre.

The process was by no means enjoyable. He could feel his flesh breaking down when the Corruption invaded, causing him no small amount of pain. Even the refinement process was miserable, as he could feel the strain on the newfound organs, yet it all was worth it once the purified energy reached his lotus, causing it to grow, if ever so slightly.

With each breath he took, filled with an untold amount of Corruption, the lotus's first leaf became ever closer to blooming.

The creature growled loudly, like a frightened beast, but then the grey fog permeating the land began to swirl like a hurricane with the beast at its core. In less than a few seconds, all the grey had been dragged back into the beast, almost as if under its own gravity. Mere moments later, the hole in the creature’s chest was closed, showing no signs of injury except for one single aspect.

A piece was missing, no more significant than the tip of Qin Yun's pinky. Qin Yun barely noticed the change despite looking closely, yet to the creature, it was all too evident. It looked toward Qin Yun, and for the first time, Qin Yun saw something other than hunger and rage in its features: shock!

“My bad,” Qin Yun said, his tone dripping with contempt. “It's just a tiny shard; you probably won't miss it, right?"

The beast howled before swiping its right hand low to the ground, uprooting many strange flowers littering the endless plains. As soon as they left the ocean of dust that was the ground, they burst into grey particles, filling back the world with a grey fog.

Mere moments later, after the creature had taken another deep breath, the fog had thinned considerably, and the missing piece on its chest had now been replaced. It proceeded to rush Qin Yun like a wild beast, both arms flailing, sharp as they cut through the air.

Qin Yun could feel the murderous intent filling the space between them. It was thick and heavy, even denser than the grey fog still lingering around him.

Qin Yun looked unconcerned. He was merely breathing as he would normally, allowing the fog to fill his lungs and slowly converting it into his own strength.

The process was long and tedious. Much of the conversion process was filled with waste. Every time Qin Yun exhaled, his breath was as black as soot, a concentrated version of the Corruption which then returned to the world before being absorbed by the countless flowers, creating an endless cycle that Qin Yun had hijacked for his own purpose.

“Come,” Qin Yun said nonchalantly as he received the creature’s strike.

It was heavy, yet not something his body couldn't bear. From this strike alone, Qin Yun could feel the Corruption seep into his flesh, corroding even his bones. Yet, the destructive nature of this substance lingered mere moments before Qin Yun felt his blood flow throughout his body, transporting this foreign essence to his crystal heart.

"Pitiful," Qin Yun shrugged as he felt the sudden rush of pain leave as fast as it arrived. "Aren't you supposed to represent some realm-defying entity? Have you been asleep so long that you've forgotten how to fight, or have you never encountered someone resistant to your corrosion before? I know you can do better than that!"

Qin Yun's taunt seemed to have worked, for the beast lunged at him. However, it was but a mere beast, after all, devoid of any rational thinking or even deception. Its blows, although powerful, were relatively straightforward, naive even. Qin Yun could easily predict their trajectories and evade them with the narrowest of margins.

After such a blow aimed at his forehead, Qin Yun evaded by tilting his head and retaliated with a cross-counter, shattering his opponent's skull and scattering the flesh everywhere. Chunks of what seemed to be plant matter rained down upon the grey meadow, fertilizing the soil as they exploded into particles.

The headless corpse fell on its back amid its fellow corrupted entities, and Qin Yun stood over it, bathing in the dense fog that lingered. Qin Yun opened the floodgate, letting this ocean of Corruption ravage his innards until they were full of its power, but even for him and the resistance he had accrued as he battled against the corrosion, this proved too much. His body could barely bear the strain.

He leapt backwards, far enough that his back was now against the shimmering barrier. But of course, now that his body was flooded with Corruption and his veins turned black, bulging against his pale skin, Qin Yun was refused entry. He could feel this safe haven in this sea of desolation was denying him.

As for the headless corpse, a maelstrom formed over it, a hurricane of power pooling right over where its head used to be, even shattering the nearby flora if only to extract the necessary power to regenerate the flesh. However, this was all but a drop in a bucket within this endless expanse of grey.

Qin Yun waited, expunging the energy he couldn’t control as he refined the rest, nourishing the lotus dwelling in his core. It grew at a rapid pace, much faster than Qin Yun anticipated.

While he could have made the first leaf bloom a long time ago, even as soon as he reached the peak of the Qi Refining realm, Qin Yun had refused to do so, for fear that his foundation would have been lacklustre.

The peak of the Qi Refining realm had been granted to him on a silver platter by the Heavenly Dao with minimal effort on his part. Qin Yun had been reluctant to use this ample amount of tribulation qi and merge it within the lotus leaves, using it as a foundation for the lotus's further growth. He didn't trust the Heavenly Dao enough for it not to come back and bite him in the ass.

He couldn't allow the tribulation qi to be the only foundation of his strength. At first, fusing it with Corruption was nothing more than a fantasy. He theorized that while the two energies were antithetical and were able to restrain each other, he had no way to make them merge. However, this was before the ravenous egg came into the equation. With its aid in refining them, Qin Yun had finally seen the path forward.

He was now at a crossroads, finally on the verge of entering the Foundation Building realm. All he needed to do was to continue absorbing the Corruption, merging it with the remains of the tribulation lingering in the crystal heart until the first leaf finally bloomed. Still, there was no telling if his body could survive the process.

While he could slowly convert the Corruption into something usable, it was nonetheless nothing more than a poison, able to completely ravage multiple worlds. The only reason he had yet to be taken over by the corrosion was his body forged through heavenly tribulation, becoming an artifact, but even that had its limit.

The more Corruption he ingested, the faster his body was breaking down. It became a race to see if he could reach the Foundation Building realm before the Corruption took him over, yet he also had to contend against the rabid creature seeking to rend him apart.

Speaking of, it was already back on its feet. Around it was now a sizeable barren circle devoid of any plants. However, what Qin Yun found peculiar was the changes to its form. It seemed to have hardened. Its long and flexible limbs had become slightly shorter, while its head was now encased into a hardened shell akin to a helmet.

Before Qin Yun could thoroughly investigate the change, the creature lunged again, not deviating from its habitual mindless charge. Almost by instinct, Qin Yun dodged the creature's rapid jab, slipping below the blow as he struck the hardened shell with all his might, but to his surprise, the beast didn't intend to dodge. In fact, it seemed to take a step forward instead.

Qin Yun’s fist rammed straight through the creature’s head once again. Despite being slightly sturdier, needing Qin Yun to put much more force behind his fist, the creature’s head still ended up in a rain of flesh and grey particles, but that was when Qin Yun’s blood ran cold.

His pupils dilated as he saw the creature still stand upright and tilt to the side as it raised its leg, imitating the first blow to its chest that Qin Yun had delivered. It was almost a one-to-one replica, down to the most minute intricacies. It was a perfect blow, able to efficiently transfer momentum into blunt force trauma—or it would have been if not for the imbalance of missing a head.

While his right hand was busy ripping through the creature's head, Qin Yun used his left to strike the incoming knee to the side, nudging it off course enough that it only grazed the side of his clothes, but that was enough to shatter the hem of his robe into powder.

Yeah... that would have hurt, had that been a direct hit, Qin Yun thought as he shuddered.

He frowned, but a smile couldn't help but creep up the corner of his lips. While the beast was disoriented and missing a head, he spun on his heels, twirling before delivering a backhanded kick straight into the beast's abdomen, prompting it to go flying back into the distance, allowing Qin Yun to catch his breath and ingest another mouthful of Corruption, adding it to his already saturated system.

"How interesting," he muttered, looking at the headless body tumbling in the distance like a puppet with cut strings. "Is it learning from me as we fight, or are eons of destructive urges finally coming out of its dormant state?”

For the first time, Qin Yun adopted a fighting stance, watching as the creature rapidly consumed the surrounding grey fog and even the nearby flora as it recreated its head and missing abdomen, even upgrading its mismatched parts.

However, Qin Yun felt no urge to stop it. In fact, he looked forward to it, his own fighting instinct waking after a long dormancy, slowly sharpening themselves to their utmost limits. It was an opportunity he wouldn't miss.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

First - Previous - Next