Chapter 1224: The Evil Spirit and the Girl
The person who suddenly burst out of the spatial rift and fell to the ground was a girl who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen. She had a petite, lovely figure, but her adorable face was now twisted into a savage, malevolent grimace, with obvious bloodstains at the corners of her mouth.
The girl was clad in a Blood-Clad, her body enveloped in a visible layer of black Yin Qi. This Blood-Clad was truly bizarre, as fresh blood continuously dripped from its edges. However, once the dripping blood detached from the garment, it would swiftly transform into Yin Qi and dissipate. Clearly, this was no ordinary red garment; no mere blood-red clothing could be so strange.
After the girl fell to the ground, she struggled to sit up. But no sooner had she done so than she spluttered a mouthful of fresh blood.
The blood she spluttered out was entirely different from the blood dripping from the Blood-Clad. The blood from the Blood-Clad would quickly turn into Yin Qi and vanish upon leaving the garment, but the blood she ejected from her mouth did not dissipate into Yin Qi.
"To actually plot against me and trap me like this, this young lady will not let it go so easily! Once I recover from my injuries, I will make sure your souls undergo Soul Transformation! Just you wait for this young lady's revenge!"
With a savage expression, the girl muttered this threat to herself, then wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand. Immediately after, she retrieved a Dānyào from her personal space and swallowed it.
After completing all this, the girl had originally intended to immediately sit in meditation to refine the Dānyào within her body and recover from her injuries. However, after a slight hesitation, she waved her hand and set up a restrictive barrier, enveloping the entire, not-too-large valley within it.
She had not wanted to set up a restrictive barrier, deeming it beneath her. But considering the severity of her current injuries, she hesitated for a moment before ultimately deploying one.
Large quantities of weeds were uprooted by this black tornado, and numerous clumps of soil and gravel were swept high into the air. A colossal human face materialized on the tornado, its expression brimming with fury.
"Who are you? ! How dare you trespass into my Death Valley and even presume to set up a restrictive barrier within it!"
Facing the man's furious interrogation, the girl's face showed not a hint of fear; instead, she let out a savage laugh.
"I had originally intended to recover from my injuries before dealing with you. But since you've willingly shown yourself, then come here and serve as a tonic to mend my wounds!"
The already furious human face naturally grew even more enraged upon hearing the girl's words. In his eyes, her statement was utterly arrogant. He could sense her current weakness; in such a frail state, instead of begging for mercy, she intended to treat him as a tonic for her recovery. This filled him with profound humiliation.
"Good! I'll just have to see how you intend to swallow me whole as a tonic!"
The man roared his reply, then manipulated the colossal tornado, directly crushing it towards the girl's location. Along its path, sand flew and pebbles scattered, and even more weeds were uprooted and swept into the air, creating an astonishing display of power.
In the blink of an eye, the tornado, like a ferocious beast, lunged before the girl. At that moment, the girl's body also shot into the air, her large eyes turning blood-red, and a powerful surge of energy erupted from within her. Her petite frame was further enveloped by dense black Yin Qi.
The man, who had been full of fury and approaching menacingly, instantly stiffened upon seeing the girl's dripping Blood-Clad and her blood-red eyes. He then sensed that the power emanating from the girl's body was of the same type as his own, and immediately let out a horrified shriek.
"A Blood-Clad Evil Spirit! No! It's a Blood-Clad Ghost King! ! !"
The voice was laced with obvious terror, entirely devoid of its previous fury and malevolence. As the words died out, the man, who had clearly already approached the girl, did not launch an attack. Instead, he controlled the tornado, turning it around and fleeing immediately, acting with decisive speed and no hesitation.
"Heh heh, trying to run now? Too late!"
The girl let out a savage laugh, then with a powerful strike from her jade-like hand, a colossal black palm coalesced and slammed into the fleeing tornado.
BOOM! ! !
With a tremendous roar, the tornado was shattered by the palm, dispersing into a vast amount of Yin Qi. However, this large quantity of Yin Qi did not vanish into nothingness; instead, it swiftly re-coalesced, forming a Spirit Body.
This Spirit Body appeared somewhat ethereal and highly unstable, yet its eyes, like the girl's, were blood-red. This entity was, in fact, an Evil Spirit.
This entity was indeed an Evil Spirit, but one that had only recently broken through to that realm. Originally, his Spirit Body was not as ethereal or unstable as it was now. This current state of being both illusory and precarious was entirely due to having just taken the girl's palm strike.
Though the girl's jade-like hand appeared soft and delicate, the palm strike she had just delivered was immensely powerful; otherwise, this Evil Spirit would not have been reduced to his current state.
A single palm strike possessed such power. In the Evil Spirit's view, if he took another one, he would surely undergo Soul Transformation. Therefore, as soon as his Spirit Body successfully re-coalesced, he continued his escape, not caring that his Spirit Body had already become unstable.
It wasn't that he didn't care, or that he didn't want to manage it; it was that he simply had no time to care, and no power to manage. At that moment, he had only one thought in his mind: to quickly rush to the edge of the restrictive barrier with the utmost speed, then use all his strength and means to forcibly tear open a gap in the barrier. Through that gap, he could escape the area. While he couldn't guarantee a successful escape from the girl's grasp, it was at least better than being trapped within this restrictive barrier. If he remained trapped inside, the hope of successful escape would be even more remote.
As for why this Evil Spirit didn't choose to fight the girl to the death—after all, it was clear that the girl was severely wounded and an arrow at the end of its flight—it was because she was a Ghost King, and a Blood-Clad Ghost King at that! He, on the other hand, was merely a spiritual entity who had just stepped into the Evil Spirit realm, his cultivation not even stable yet. How could he possibly contend head-on with a Blood-Clad Ghost King? Even if this Blood-Clad Ghost King appeared severely wounded, he still lacked the courage to directly confront her. A starved camel is still bigger than a horse!
Moreover, he had only taken a single palm strike from her, and his Spirit Body had already become unstable. With such a vast disparity in strength, going head-to-head with her was simply courting death.
The Evil Spirit's reasoning was sound, and choosing not to directly confront the girl was indeed the correct decision. However, a correct choice does not necessarily guarantee the desired outcome. The very instant he turned to flee, surges of Yin Qi suddenly enveloped him from all directions. Unable to evade, he was entangled by this Yin Qi, forcibly dragged towards the girl's location. During this process, his Spirit Body visibly shrank at a speed discernible to the naked eye.
The Evil Spirit realized what was happening, and a look of terror appeared on his face. He struggled forcefully, trying to break free from the Yin Qi's restraints, but it had no effect whatsoever. Finally, after letting out a scream of both unwillingness and agony, his Spirit Body was directly swallowed whole by the girl.
Death Valley originally contained more spiritual entities than just this Evil Spirit. However, he had devoured all the other spiritual entities, using them as tonics to successfully advance himself to the Evil Spirit realm. Thus, at present, he was the sole spiritual entity in Death Valley.
When the girl appeared, he didn't immediately recognize her as a Blood-Clad Ghost King. That was because, at first, he only sensed her weakness and the Yin Qi emanating from her body. Furthermore, after the girl burst out of the spatial rift, she tumbled into the thick grass, and her Blood-Clad was obscured by the foliage. Therefore, at that moment, he hadn't even considered the girl to be a Ghost King, let alone a Blood-Clad Ghost King.
In his view, the intruder was either someone from the Underworld Office or a Spirit Medium. His reasoning wasn't unfounded: on one hand, the powers of the Underworld Office, Spirit Mediums, and spiritual entities all relied on Yin Qi, making their energies quite similar and hard to distinguish. On the other hand, he sensed that the intruder possessed a physical body, unlike his own Spirit Body. Thus, never having imagined the intruder could be a Ghost King, he instinctively assumed they were either from the Underworld Office or a Spirit Medium.
Regardless of whether they were a Spirit Medium or someone from the Underworld Office, since they were severely wounded and had come to him, in his eyes, they could naturally only become his tonic. Despite his outwardly angry facade, he was actually secretly overjoyed. How could he not be happy when a tonic had delivered itself right to his doorstep?
It was precisely because he viewed the intruder as a tonic that he had appeared without hesitation, even adopting the pretense of wanting to devour them alive. However, reality had been a harsh slap to the face: he hadn't swallowed the intruder as a tonic; instead, he himself had become the intruder's tonic, devoured whole by them.
After the girl swallowed the Evil Spirit whole, her pale complexion not only showed no improvement whatsoever but instead, she again spluttered a mouthful of fresh blood, her expression appearing somewhat pained.
The girl's sudden spitting of blood wasn't due to the complete consumption of the Evil Spirit's Spirit Body being unbeneficial to her. Rather, it was because her recent use of thunderous methods to deal with the Evil Spirit had forced her to overdraw some of her strength, causing her body to be unable to bear the strain and thus eject blood from her mouth.
Truth be told, swallowing the Evil Spirit would certainly provide her with some benefits. It was just that she needed some time to thoroughly refine this Evil Spirit. Before the refinement was complete, the benefits naturally couldn't manifest.
The girl was clearly aware of this. After spitting out a mouthful of blood, she immediately concealed her body within the dense grass below, then proceeded at the fastest possible speed to refine both the swallowed Evil Spirit and the healing Dānyào she had consumed.
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