Chapter 1145: Narrow Victory
The black light that was Remnant Moon pierced through the Crippled Elder's neck. Due to its extreme speed, the Crippled Elder's head and body did not separate immediately. It was only after two or three seconds that a thin line of blood appeared on the Crippled Elder's neck, followed by his head detaching from his body, and blood spraying forth.
Watching the Crippled Elder's body fall, Yang Haoran finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, he didn't allow the Crippled Elder's corpse to continue plummeting. With a gentle wave of his hand, a surge of Yin Qi enveloped both the Crippled Elder's body and his severed head, pulling them towards his position.
Yang Haoran did this not because he pitied the Crippled Elder, fearing his body would be damaged from such a fall; if he truly felt that way, he wouldn't have let the Crippled Elder end up decapitated in the first place.
He did so because he wanted to forcibly condense and extract the Crippled Elder's soul. If he didn't act quickly, there was a risk that the Crippled Elder's soul might find an opportunity to escape, especially if he had cultivated a Spirit Medium secret art like Hualing during his lifetime. Yang Haoran certainly didn't want to see that happen.
The Crippled Elder's body, enveloped by Yin Qi, was delivered before Yang Haoran. Yang Haoran immediately inspected the corpse and, just as he expected, the Crippled Elder's soul had indeed coalesced into a spirit on its own.
From this, it was clear that the Crippled Elder, during his life, had either cultivated the Spirit Medium secret art of Hualing or a similar technique; otherwise, it would have been absolutely impossible for his soul to coalesce into a spirit immediately after death.
When the Crippled Elder's soul sensed Yang Haoran's power probing, it first tried to hide within the corpse, hoping to evade Yang Haoran's detection. The result was predictable: he certainly didn't escape Yang Haoran's scrutiny. Not only did Yang Haoran discover his soul within his body, but he also used his power to seize control of it.
Though terrified, the Crippled Elder did not surrender without a fight. He knew the consequences if his soul fell into Yang Haoran's hands, so he naturally tried to break free from Yang Haoran's control. But no matter how he struggled or resisted, it had not the slightest effect. In the end, Yang Haoran successfully captured him into the Soul-Gathering Bead.
Since embarking on the path of the extraordinary, Yang Haoran had experienced numerous battles, big and small. However, grand conflicts that pushed him to such a desperate state as today were exceedingly rare, countable on one hand.
The reason for his passivity was, naturally, the disparity in their realms. Had the Crippled Elder not used his secret art to devour other Grand Spirit Masters and successfully break through to the Spiritualist King realm, then today's battle would merely have been troublesome for Yang Haoran, certainly not forcing him to exhaust all his methods and suffer such severe injuries.
And the reason he was able to defeat the Crippled Elder was largely due to the Rising Yin Pill refined by Xiang Chuan. Without the Rising Yin Pill, which allowed him to enter a pseudo-Life Soul realm, he wouldn't even have had the strength to fight the Crippled Elder.
Besides that, the Lock Yin Talisman he had personally drawn also played a decisive role. In the final moments, the several Black Talismans he unleashed were precisely the Lock Yin Talismans he had refined.
This Lock Yin Talisman possessed miraculous efficacy whether used against Underworld agents, ghostly beings, or Spirit Mediums. If the Crippled Elder had been at the peak of his strength, a Black Talisman-level Lock Yin Talisman would certainly not have had the slightest effect on him. But in the Crippled Elder's severely injured state, the Black Talisman-level Lock Yin Talisman did impact him.
Moreover, Yang Haoran unleashed more than just one Lock Yin Talisman; the power of several Lock Yin Talismans simultaneously acted upon the Crippled Elder, causing the Spirit Power within his body to be sealed in an extremely short time.
Although the power of a few Black Talismans certainly couldn't seal the Spirit Power within the Crippled Elder for a prolonged period, for Yang Haoran, a mere few breaths of sealed time were more than enough.
As for why Yang Haoran didn't use the Lock Yin Talisman earlier, choosing instead to unleash it at the very last moment, one reason was that the Crippled Elder's power was previously too strong for a Black Talisman-level Lock Yin Talisman to successfully seal his Spirit Power.
The other reason was that Yang Haoran wanted to strike unexpectedly and catch his opponent off guard, thus making it more likely to achieve his desired outcome and successfully eliminate the target according to his internal plan!
It was precisely because he considered these two points that Yang Haoran saved the Lock Yin Talisman for the final crucial moment.
In truth, Yang Haoran possessed far more Lock Yin Talismans than he had unleashed. The reason he didn't deploy all of them was that he didn't want the Crippled Elder to attach too much importance to the talismans he sent forth. If the number of talismans unleashed was too great and the display too grand, the Crippled Elder would not only take them seriously but would very likely employ corresponding defensive measures. If that happened, it would truly be a case of stealing a chicken only to lose the rice used as bait.
After successfully slaying the Crippled Elder, the sudden relaxation of his taut nerves, coupled with the side effects that followed the dissipation of the Rising Yin Pill's efficacy, caused Yang Haoran's mind to become hazy and muddled.
However, Yang Haoran didn't have many wounds on his body, unlike the Crippled Elder, who was riddled with countless large and small injuries. That was because throughout the entire battle, Yang Haoran had almost always been on the offensive, while his target was mostly on the defensive, which was why his own wounds were few.
While his wounds were few, his injuries were far from light. The main source of his injuries was the Spiritual Art, Howling Ghosts and Wailing Wolves, which the Crippled Elder had unleashed upon successfully breaking through to the Spiritualist King realm. At that time, Yang Haoran was still at the peak of the late-stage Earth Soul realm, facing a significant power gap compared to a Spiritualist King. Thus, he suffered a great loss under that Spiritual Art, spitting blood on the spot.
He was still relatively fortunate, having only sustained severe physical injuries. Bai Xue, who was a realm weaker than him, had completely lost her combat effectiveness. One must know that a demon's physical body is exceptionally formidable, yet even so, it instantly caused Bai Xue to be gravely wounded and lose her ability to fight. This clearly demonstrated how powerful the Crippled Elder's sonic attack had been at that moment.
Of course, this was also greatly due to the Crippled Elder's unexpected use of that move. Had it not been for that, and had Yang Haoran and Bai Xue been prepared, they wouldn't have suffered such a tremendous loss from that single attack.
After feeling a wave of dizziness wash over his mind, Yang Haoran didn't force his body to do anything else. Since there was no longer a need to seize every second as in combat, he put away the Soul-Gathering Bead, swallowed a healing dānyào, and began to recover by meditating in mid-air.
Below, Bai Xue saw Yang Haoran successfully slay the Crippled Elder, and the heavy stone in her heart finally lifted. She did not disturb Yang Haoran's healing, sensing his current weakness, and thus felt that Yang Haoran truly needed some time to recover from his injuries.
A faint green glow emanated from her massive body, and then Bai Xue reverted to her human form. She hadn't resumed human form earlier because her opponent was still alive; she needed to constantly be in her strongest state, ready to deal with any sudden incidents that might occur and to assist Yang Haoran at critical moments.
Now that the opponent was dead and the battle was over, there was naturally no need for her to maintain her original snake body.
After resuming her human form, although the clothes conjured by Bai Xue's Demon Power were brand new, her body beneath them bore numerous wounds. Fortunately, these wounds were sealed by her power and no longer bled; otherwise, her pristine new clothes would quickly have become blood-soaked garments.
Due to the severity of her injuries, even after consuming a healing dānyào, she had merely managed to cling to life and was still far from full recovery. Thus, Bai Xue's complexion was exceptionally pale at this moment, devoid of any color. However, normal movement and the casting of simple techniques posed no problem for her.
Bai Xue glanced at Zhong Siyu, who remained in a coma, then left her spot. She decided to clear the battlefield for Yang Haoran.
In truth, there wasn't much of a battlefield to clear from today's grand battle, as none of the deceased had burst open their independent spaces upon death. Furthermore, their opponents were all Spirit Mediums; they didn't possess magic tools like exorcists, nor did they have Demon Weapons like Demon Hunters. For Spirit Mediums facing Underworld agents, their most valuable assets were their own souls and their Guardian Spirits.
Today, these individuals either had no Guardian Spirits, or their Guardian Spirits had already been taken by Yang Haoran. As for their souls, with the exception of Shang Yuanqi, the other four Grand Spirit Masters had all been devoured by the Crippled Elder, their souls included. As for the Crippled Elder's own soul, it had been collected by Yang Haoran.
Bai Xue's so-called "clearing the battlefield" was actually her intention to condense and collect Shang Yuanqi's soul, and incidentally, to see if anything else had been overlooked.
Arriving beside Shang Yuanqi's corpse, Bai Xue sensed it slightly, and her expression couldn't help but subtly change. She had not found Shang Yuanqi's soul within his body.
At first, she thought it was because her senses were weakened by her severe injuries, which was why she hadn't detected any soul in Shang Yuanqi's corpse. But when she placed her palm on Shang Yuanqi's body and carefully probed, still finding no trace of his soul, her expression turned rather displeased.
She recalled that when Yang Haoran had slain Shang Yuanqi earlier, he had only seized the opportunity to collect Shang Yuanqi's Guardian Spirit, not having enough time to collect his soul. Afterwards, no one else had touched Shang Yuanqi's corpse, so by all accounts, Shang Yuanqi's soul should still have been within his body.
Now, since Shang Yuanqi's soul couldn't be detected within his corpse, it could only mean one thing: after Shang Yuanqi's death, his soul had coalesced into a spirit on its own and silently escaped from the corpse, leaving behind only an empty shell!
Thinking this, Bai Xue looked up at the restriction barrier deployed in the area. Seeing that the restriction barrier set up by Yang Haoran was still intact, the unpleasant look on her face vanished, replaced by a charming smile.
Comments