107: Chapter 107 Possession

The night was like ink, in the back mountain of Lotus Pier.

Wang Chongyang was the fastest, rushing back from the direction of the Ning Family stepping on a Flying Sword. From afar, he saw a dark red blood shadow holding something smash through the brick wall of the backyard and flee desperately toward the depths of the mountain forest.

The blood shadow's entire body was mixed with black pus and fresh blood, and its aura was as chaotic as a stirred-up pool of ink, yet its speed was astonishingly fast, dashing a hundred zhang away in the blink of an eye.

"Heisha."

Wang Chongyang let out a cold snort, and the Flying Sword under his feet suddenly accelerated, his grey robe flapping loudly in the night wind.

He did not directly pursue that blood shadow, but instead detoured to the flank, utilizing the cover of the terrain to silently sweep toward an ancient pine forest ahead.

The Divine Sense of the Foundation Establishment Stage had long locked down Heisha's escape route—although this person fled quickly, he was panicking and choosing the wrong path, heading straight toward the Ning Family, and that ancient pine forest was his only way through.

Heisha stumbled down from mid-air, the fake life bought by the bursting of his corrosive venom pustules rapidly fading, and the wound on his abdomen began to ooze black pus once again.

He leaned against a pine tree, panting heavily, and glanced back at the pitch-black night sky behind him—no one was pursuing him.

He grinned, squeezing out an arc on his blood-stained face that was uglier than crying, and muttered, "I traded my natal Magical Artifact for a sliver of a chance at survival. Once I recover from my injuries, I'll carve up this brat first—"

Halfway through his words, his smile froze on his face.

Deep within the pine forest, a grey figure slowly walked out.

The moonlight fell on the newcomer, illuminating his washed-out grey cloth Daoist robe and a face with wrinkles as deep as knife cuts.

Wang Chongyang stood with his hands behind his back, the crimson flames around his body not yet extinguished, evaporating the dew in the pine forest into a sheet of white mist.

He did not speak, only quietly looking at Heisha. In those eyes that had been turbid for most of his life, there was no anger, no killing intent, only a calmness that made one's spine chill.

Heisha's lips trembled, and he instinctively took a step back, stepping on and snapping a dead branch beneath his feet. The crisp sound was exceptionally piercing in the silent pine forest.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something—begging for mercy, threatening, naming a price, anything would do—but when he saw that calmness in Wang Chongyang's eyes, all his words choked in his throat.

That was the gaze of looking at a dead person.

"Wang Chongyang, listen to me—"

Wang Chongyang did not listen to his defense, taking his life while he was vulnerable.

The crimson flame palm prints, like two intertwining fire dragons, slashed a dazzling arc across the night sky, striking Heisha directly in the chest with a single palm strike.

Heisha flew sideways, and Wang Shoudong in his arms slipped out of his grasp, rolling into the grass not far away.

He crashed through and snapped two ancient pine trees as thick as two people could hug before rolling to the ground, coughing up wild torrents of blood. A large part of his chest collapsed, and who knew how many ribs were broken.

He collapsed in the pile of rubble, his limbs convulsed a few times, and then there was no more movement.

Wang Chongyang walked up to the corpse, only then seeing clearly that what he had been holding was actually Wang Shoudong.

He crouched down and extended two fingers to probe Heisha's carotid pulse.

The pulse had completely ceased.

He withdrew his hand, and just as he was about to stand up to check on Wang Shoudong's condition, his pupils suddenly constricted.

At the center of Heisha's brows, an extremely faint dark red phantom abruptly darted out. Fast as lightning, in less than the blink of an eye, it had already crossed a distance of several zhang, drilling straight into the glabella of the unconscious young man in the grass.

"Possession!"

Wang Chongyang struck out with a palm, but it was already a step too late.

That remnant soul condensed like a thread; the speed was too fast, the distance too close, and it was premeditated—Heisha had already calculated his retreat before taking that palm strike, abandoning his Physical Body to seize this unconscious young body. This was his only chance to turn the tables.

"Sixth Uncle!" Wang Yaowen rushed out from the mountain forest, just in time to see that dark red phantom sink into his son's glabella. He looked as if all his strength had been drained, his complexion as pale as paper, and he stumbled over to Wang Shoudong's side, pulling him tightly into his arms.

Wang Chongyang had already swept to the front, pressing down on Wang Shoudong's pulse point. For the first time, an expression of extreme solemnity appeared on his aged face.

"He is undergoing Possession."

"Take Shoudong back to the Family quickly and fetch the Soul-Suppressing Talisman!"

...

Wang Shoudong's Sea of Consciousness was a sheet of Chaos.

Ever since he was eroded by Ning Chuan's blood fiend qi, this originally clear Sea of Consciousness had turned into a churning grey fog, the fog mixed with wisps of blood color, like stirred-up muddy water.

His consciousness sank within this Chaos, waking and sleeping alternately. When awake, he could faintly hear the sounds of the outside world, his father's sighs, his mother's low weeping, and his fellow Family members pacing back and forth by his bedside.

But his consciousness seemed to be tightly dragged down by something, unable to float up no matter what.

He did not know how much longer he would have to stay in this Chaos, knowing only that there was a white object. He didn't know what it was; it was like a seed, yet also like a Lotus Seed.

It had always quietly hovered in the center of his Sea of Consciousness, emitting an extremely faint glimmer, blocking the blood fiend qi that continuously eroded inward, keeping him from sinking completely.

Suddenly, this Chaos violently shook.

A clump of dark red phantom smashed through the boundary of the Sea of Consciousness, rapidly condensing into form within the grey fog, transforming into a robust and ferocious middle-aged man.

Heisha, his Divine Soul was much more solid than in the Qi Refinement Stage. Although he had abandoned his Physical Body, the power of his remnant soul was still formidable.

He stood in the center of the Chaos, laughing up to the sky, his laughter shaking the entire Sea of Consciousness into a humming resonance.

"Hahaha—Heaven will not cut off my path! Heaven will not cut off me, Heisha! What if the Foundation Establishment Physical Body is gone? At worst, I'll start all over again! Although your little brat's Sea of Consciousness is dilapidated beyond repair, it can barely accommodate this old man's remnant soul.

Once this old man devours this meager remaining consciousness of yours, seizes this Physical Body, and nurses my injuries for a few years, at that time I will change places and still be free and happy! Being able to die in this old man's hands can be considered your kid's supreme luck for three lifetimes!"

Before his laughter had ceased, his gaze fell upon the floating white Lotus Seed in the center of the Sea of Consciousness.

That Lotus Seed was only the size of a grain of rice, with a warm luster, emitting an extremely faint white light, hanging motionless in the Chaos as if sleeping.

Heisha narrowed his eyes, grinning savagely, his Soul Power condensing into a dark red giant hand, grabbing toward that Lotus Seed.

"What kind of gizmo is this again? It looks quite like a treasure. Oh well, I'll swallow it first, and then swallow you, brat."

The moment that dark red giant hand grabbed onto the Lotus Seed, the Lotus Seed moved.

Not dodging, not shattering, but opening a fine crack extremely lightly and softly.

From the top of the Lotus Seed, a tiny, extremely faint and white tender bud broke through its shell, as thin as a strand of hair, so delicate and weak that it seemed like even a gust of wind could snap it.

That tender bud reached out of the shell, touching Heisha's dark red giant hand, like a probing, or like some extremely ancient confirmation engraved in life's instinct.

Heisha was still laughing wildly, but his voice abruptly stopped in the next second.

He widened his eyes, watching his own Soul Power giant hand being pulled into the Lotus Seed inch by inch by that tender bud.

Not devouring, but absorbing—that Lotus Seed was "eating" him.

He screamed, desperately trying to pull his hand back, but that tender bud seemed soft and powerless, yet once it entangled his Soul Power, it could no longer be shaken off.

His entire arm was dragged into the Lotus Seed, then his shoulder, and then his chest.

He struggled frantically, his Soul Power exploding waves of dark red qi in the Sea of Consciousness, but that Lotus Seed remained motionless, quietly absorbing. The tender bud grew inch by inch amidst the devouring, changing from the thickness of a hair into a slender vine, and from a vine into roots, taking root in the Chaos and sprouting branches in the void.