Chapter 60 - Demonization of Xuan Zhen (1/2)
“Where are you going little bastard? Today I’m going to torture you a million times. Rip up your skins and burn out your soul so that you will never enter into reincarnation.” Xuan Zhen, with his surging speed, opened his arms wide and targeted right at Shiao Chen. At the same moment, he had already thought through numerous methods to torture Shiao Chen and to make him so painful that Shiao Chen would ask for death, but he wouldn’t do as Shiao Chen wished.
Yet, at this same moment, a sudden omen of danger rose from within his heart and made it skip a beat. When he looked up, he found the panic on Shiao Chen’s face had long gone. It was now replaced by sneer. In his hands were a pile of yellow talismans which, glistening with spiritual power, were cast right at him.
Although with no idea of the level of those talismans, the strong sense of death forced him to pat on his forehead without hesitation to summon up an earth-yellow small shield in the size of a few inches. He desperately input his spiritual power into the shield, an action that instantly turned it many times bigger than the original size into a one-meter huge shield in a second.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
This was a small talisman with densely intertwined cinnabar texture which nearly formed a huge net. As the talisman exploded, an invisible light ring appeared, tightly binding Xuan Zhen—Technique of Great Binding.
This talisman in burning red looked like, against the yellow paper, a cloud of leaping flame that roared ahead with waves of overwhelming heat. As it was suddenly lit up, a huge scarlet fireball as big as a human head appeared out of nowhere and thumped down with a bang before exploding—Technique of Great Explosion.
Lines on the talisman silently gave out mild breath. The winding and turning seemed to carry softness. Oozes of vapers were liquified automatically around it. As the input of spiritual power, the light blue lines suddenly emitted luster in sky-blue color. Though it seemed mild and plain, the sharpness aroused chilling terror in one’s mind—Technique of High-Level Water Needle.
…
…
In order to kill Xuan Zhen in one fell swoop, Shiao Chen spared no resources he owned. All of the high-level talismans were thrown out. Though of various properties, they were more than enough to kill any Gold-Core cultivator once the power was integrated.
In this regard, Shiao Chen was full of confidence.
Witnessing Xuan Zhen fall into the explosion core with a shield in his hand, Shiao Chen stepped thirty meters backward to avoid collateral harm, but he didn’t retreat too far away. This time, with the aim of killing this man, Shiao Chen had suffered heavy loss, so he was determined to make this trip fruitful. After all, Xuan Zhen was a late Foundation-Establishment cultivator as well as a survivor of a lately destroyed Sect, definitely a man with great wealth.
Rumbling sound of explosion lasted for a strong quarter before it died away. The spiritual power between heaven and earth within miles around turned chaotic by this ferocious blast, and the earth-shaking boom could be heard hundreds of miles away.
“Damn! He is still alive!” Shiao Chen screened with divine sense and infinite horror sprawled onto his face at once. Staying far away from the explosion site, he was still daunted by the overriding power from there. He never expected Xuan Zhen’s survival.
After flame and vapor faded away, Xuan Zhen’s figure gradually appeared. The defense shirt of spiritual tool level on him was now worn out, hardly concealing his body, and the meticulously groomed hair bun was now shattered down. Black patches on his face was supposedly caused by the exploding fireball, making him look pitiful. As for the shield in his hand, a crack stemmed from the middle to cross the whole shield. If the strength of the explosion ignited by talismans increased by five percent, Xuan Zhen couldn’t have emerged from the calamity.
“Little bastard, I’ll kill you!” Xuan Zhen was terrified this time because since his cultivation, he had never felt so near to death. The crazy explosion of the talisman kept echoing in his ears and horrible spiritual power was insanely tearing up his body as if at any moment he would be annihilated by it.
The sight of the huge shield in his hand almost drove him to cry. That was Thick Earth Shield most treasured by his sect and only became his after the sect was crashed. For a decade, the shield had helped him through many life-and-death moments, but now it should be damaged by Shiao Chen.
Rage. Roaring rage that seemed to be burning down heaven and earth made Xuan Zhen’s eyes bloodshot and triggered gusts of impulse to kill cruelly from deep in his heart. The unbound long hair was floating in the air even without wind, and the ragged gown rattled loud.
“Howl!” He bellowed like an animal while endless dark smoke began to rise from his face, twisting and twining like hideous earthworms. His long hair turned weird scarlet, and dark purple blood vessels on his neck swelled and popped up.
Demonization!
Xuan Zhen, with moods running up and down drastically as he went through the life-and-death, demonized in an instant under endless resentment and rage.
The demonization of a cultivator would go through infilling of demon spirit, burning out of spiritual power and divine sense, deprivation of divine intelligence and finally degradation to walking dead that desired nothing except for killing until annihilation.
Shiao Chen’s pupils violently contracted, and his shield shimmered around him in a high frequency as he desperately ran outward. He never wanted to fight with a horrible monster completely out of its mind.
“Roar!”
Now Xuan Zhen had a distorted face with bloodshot eyes and slightly open mouth from which drizzled ceaseless drops of saliva, a look that made him a real monster. However, the pressure of spiritual power from him soared again, unexpectedly reaching the Final Complete stage of Foundation Establishment, also commonly known as False Core stage.