The Nightmare Commences. Web Spun in the Dark.
Expecting to outrun two Divine Realm adepts when you weren’t one yourself was suspending reality. The monster running through Nieyao used alleys, roofs, blockades and secret paths without needing to think to compensate for its lack of speed, only stopping once it reached the interior of a dark building and could no longer sense Abels or Moyan Luohou’s presence.
The monster spawned flames on its hands so that it could view its demented reflection in the water pooled on the ground. “Moyan Luohou recognised me, didn’t he…?” To say he had no issues with his appearance would be lying, but he enjoyed it more than he thought he would. Perhaps being recognisable with its appearance was something to celebrate – To Gewu, that was.
Merely thinking back on what had transpired hours ago lit a fire in his chest. The defeat at Feng Xue’s hand and the humiliation Ming Feizhen subjected Gewu too broke the camel’s back.
Although Sky Palace did put Gewu in an authoritative and influential position, he had to work for the majority of what he had. Nieyao, soldiers, the four sons of Pangu… all of them were things he earned. Nieyao existed from the beginning. He established his army over the years. Pangu’s sons were born in Nieyao, so they weren’t a gift from Sky Palace.
Sky Palace gave him the blueprint for how to exert his power, but they didn’t provide him with the power. While Sky Palace supplied the taming techniques Le Kuangnu employed and the Celestial Sphere Compass Technique Gewu learnt, Sky Palace let their individual efforts dictate how far they got.
Celestial Sphere Compass Technique, a discipline that wasn’t a coveted or advanced discipline among Sky Palace’s disciplines, relied on absorbing blood and essence to enhance one’s physical attributes and, under certain conditions, reverse aging. The fact that Gewu’s internal energy never stood out despite taking innumerable lives over decades demonstrated the painful limit of its heightening property. Besides Gewu’s own interests spurring him to take it in a direction not taught, Ming Feizhen was his other motivation.
The way Ming Feizhen inserted a plethora of qi needles into Gewu’s body prior to exerting force transformed those qi needles into cutting tools; imagine it as thousands of small blades cutting off all the paths that true qi flowed along. Regardless of how potent one’s internal energy in their reservoir is, it was useless if it couldn’t be transferred to where it could be used, just as an arrow was useless if it couldn’t be loaded onto a bow. In this case, internal energy would gradually be lost due to inactivity, and there was no means of replenishing it. To even do what Ming Feizhen did without killing Gewu was a feat close to impossible.
Nobody could predict how those Gewu mistreated would treat him after he was crippled. By extension, nobody could predict how his subordinates would treat him once he was useless. Ming Feizhen wanted him to suffer what he made others suffer as punishment.
Vexed, Gewu’s wrathful trait compelled him to break the bottle of Baidizi’s blood to absorb. With Celestial Sphere Compass Technique, absorbing dozens of people’s blood simultaneously was possible, so a single bottle of blood was easy. However, that was precisely what led to the insane outcome.
Suffice to say, Gewu had considered what the consequences of humans rejecting dragon blood would be, but he didn’t expect to feel as though he’d be torn apart, not in the sense that his body would be ripped but in the sense that he could feel the pain was in every muscle fibre. Thanks to Ming Feizhen crippling him, he couldn’t even use his strength to assuage the pain. Instead of power, all he felt was pain that had him writhing on the ground.
When a soldier came back to relay a message and saw Gewu, he just stood back and watched for a good while before calling out. As per Ming Feizhen’s prediction, the elder who couldn’t speak or resist was thrown into the horde of beasts, destroying whatever rationality he had left.
The beasts feasted on Gewu without exhibiting any notion of sharing with the others. It was when he had one foot in the coffin that the dragon blood granted him new motivation, one that drove him towards the consumption of blood. He started biting back at the beasts without much awareness even more bellicosely than them. What’s more, the smell of Baidizi’s blood deterred them from resisting, making it easier for him to absorb their blood and essence. By the time he came to, he had become a full-fledged monster.
Gewu’s transformation cleared a lot of clutter from his brain, though that only made what little time he had in his new body more pronounced. Hence, he lugged his exhausted body to a bigger reservoir of blood – Baidizi.
Baidizi’s corpse was left on the ground, making it the best product for Gewu under his circumstances. Its blood rendered him euphoric, enlarged his body, boosted his strength and even granted its special ability to command beasts. The special abilities relied on blood instead of internal energy to operate, which was why he could employ them and suited his needs.
Gewu subsequently went to jump Lian Zhuiyie and dismantle Dragon-Slaying Formation. Using the uproar as a veil, he then went to absorb Chichen’s blood and essence.
Gewu’s body continued to mutate rapidly as he ran about; pain and blood accompanied every exhale, although his body was fortified each time. Every mutation moved him farther and farther along the journey of evolving into a “monster”.
Gewu was in no worry notwithstanding him still being no match for Divine Realm adepts. After all, what could possibly be more despairing for him at this point? Blood was the only thing that granted him peace of mind.
Gewu still had two more targets.
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