Chapter Ninety: Spiritual Energy Detonation

A bloodthirsty orb took on the shape of a ferocious beast and, under Wang Hai’s command, lunged viciously at Yang Xiao.

Facing such a formidable opponent, Yang Xiao could only use the thunder sigil to draw the surrounding lightning into frenzied assaults on the beast, while at the same time wielding the Dragon-Snake Sword to unleash the Sword Soul realm of the Peerless Sword Art. Once invoked, that realm split into hundreds of identical swords, which swarmed the bloodthirsty beast from all sides.

“So it is the Peerless Sword Art of the Heavenly Sword Sect? Are you a cultivator from the Heavenly Sword Sect? To have raised the Peerless Sword Art to the level of the Sword Soul realm is the work of a rare genius indeed. In the entire Heavenly Sword Sect, there are probably not many who can do it. Especially among the younger disciples, I have never even heard of a cultivator like you. But no matter how astonishing you are, you still cannot be my match today. After all, the Bloodthirsty Orb is a spiritual treasure, while your sword is merely a high-grade spirit weapon. No matter how many tricks a high-grade spirit weapon may have, it cannot possibly withstand a spiritual treasure’s attack.” Seeing Yang Xiao use his sword to block the Bloodthirsty Orb, Wang Hai was somewhat surprised, but he still looked confident of victory.

And as Wang Hai had said, though Yang Xiao’s swords could hold it off for the moment, the encirclement of hundreds of swords still could not inflict any real damage upon the bloodthirsty beast formed by the Bloodthirsty Orb. Instead, the beast kept battering the surrounding swords aside. If not for the immense power of the Sword Soul realm, and the fact that the Dragon-Snake Sword was of excellent quality, ordinary spirit weapons and techniques would never have been able to withstand the beast’s savage charge.

Even so, Yang Xiao’s Dragon-Snake Sword could only delay the beast for a time. This was not a long-term solution. Given enough time, Yang Xiao would inevitably fall into disadvantage, so if he wished to win, he had to employ other means.

Recognizing the severity of the situation, Yang Xiao naturally would not delay any longer. While using the Dragon-Snake Sword to entangle the bloodthirsty beast, he once again activated the thunder sigil and madly drew upon the surrounding lightning to launch a fierce assault at Wang Hai’s true body.

An overwhelming thunderous pressure, many times greater than before, descended instantly upon Wang Hai. Though Wang Hai’s cultivation was not weak, he still could not help but feel alarm in the face of such immense lightning force.

Originally, Wang Hai had entered the core region of the Wasteland Thunderland while bearing the crushing pressure of the thunderous field. That was why, in his struggle against Yang Xiao, he had to keep using his spiritual energy to resist the lightning around him, while Yang Xiao, in this lightning-filled environment, moved with complete ease. As a result, Wang Hai could not bring out his full strength, whereas Yang Xiao could perform beyond his limits. That was precisely why the two were locked in such a fierce and evenly matched struggle. Otherwise, had this been outside the thunder region, Yang Xiao would likely have had no choice but to flee upon seeing Wang Hai, and would never have been able to fight him head-on like this.

Within the lightning environment, Yang Xiao could wildly direct the power of thunder against Wang Hai’s body, and that force actually gathered into the form of a thunder dragon, clawing down toward Wang Hai’s head.

At this point, Wang Hai was naturally even more shocked. He had not expected Yang Xiao to be able to wield the surrounding thunder to such an extent, in no way inferior to his own spiritual energy and, under the immense shadow of the thunder dragon, Wang Hai’s own spiritual energy even seemed somewhat insignificant.

The thunder dragon seemed ready to swallow the spiritual energy surrounding Wang Hai whole. Yet Wang Hai’s cultivation was indeed extraordinary, and he still held stubbornly against the thunder dragon’s assault.

“Good. Now is the perfect time to seize his Bloodthirsty Orb.” Yang Xiao thought with delight. He had never intended to kill Wang Hai with the thunder dragon, because in their earlier clashes, the power of the thunder ought to have been roughly equal to the spiritual energy surrounding Wang Hai. At best, the two had been evenly matched. However, using thunder to suppress Wang Hai created an excellent opportunity for Yang Xiao to make the Bloodthirsty Orb his.

While Wang Hai was occupied with resisting the thunder dragon, his control over the Bloodthirsty Orb loosened. Seizing the chance, Yang Xiao sent out a surge of dense spiritual energy, working together with the power of the Dragon-Snake Sword to first sever Wang Hai’s connection to the orb. Then that spiritual energy wrapped around the Bloodthirsty Orb.

Once it lost its link to Wang Hai, the Bloodthirsty Orb immediately returned to its original form, becoming a blood-red pearl. Yang Xiao promptly stored it in his spatial pouch. Of course, even then he still kept it enveloped in spiritual energy, for Wang Hai’s aura still clung to the orb, and it would have to be slowly refined away.

“So that was what you wanted: the Bloodthirsty Orb.” Only then did Wang Hai understand that he had been tricked, and regret surged through him. If he had recalled the orb to defend himself earlier, this would never have happened. He had been too arrogant, and that had brought him to this point. Yet when he tried to use his spiritual energy to reconnect with the Bloodthirsty Orb, it was as though the attempt had sunk into a bottomless sea; he could no longer sense it at all.

“You insolent brute, you dare seize my spiritual treasure! But if you think that merely suppressing the Bloodthirsty Orb with your spiritual energy will be easy, you are mistaken. Let me see how much strength you still have left to hold me down!” Wang Hai said, then began to resist fiercely. He still believed the surrounding lightning pressure had been unleashed by Yang Xiao. Since the other side had used such a powerful killing move, it could not possibly last much longer.

Of course, Wang Hai did not know that the thunder force trapping him did not require much of Yang Xiao’s own spiritual energy at all. All of it came from the thunder sigil. By now, Yang Xiao had already devoted most of his spiritual energy to suppressing the Bloodthirsty Orb.

Wang Hai’s resistance indeed achieved great effect. It seemed he had used some method of forcing out his potential, causing his spiritual energy to surge sharply at once and driving the surrounding thunder dragon into wild disarray.

But Yang Xiao would naturally not allow Wang Hai to break free. Just after seizing the Bloodthirsty Orb, the Dragon-Snake Sword was left without an opponent in midair. At this moment, Yang Xiao would of course use it to deliver a fatal blow to Wang Hai. In the Sword Soul realm, hundreds of Dragon-Snake Swords struck together at Wang Hai, and the momentum was truly terrifying.

“Not good. How can his methods be so formidable?” Wang Hai’s heart jolted. He had only just been about to break free from the thunder dragon’s attacks, yet now he was forced to face the killing onslaught of so many swords. This left him with no path of escape. In his prime, he might still have been able to resist for a while, but now much of his own spiritual energy had already been consumed. Faced with the combined assault of countless flying swords and the thunder dragon, he had virtually no chance of victory left. Only death remained.

Wang Hai was also a ruthless man. When he saw there was no hope of winning, he chose an extreme measure: spiritual energy self-detonation. As the name suggests, this means forcing a portion of one’s own spiritual energy to suddenly swell and explode, using that blast to contend with the enemy.

Ordinarily, a Qi Condensation cultivator would never use such a method unless absolutely necessary, for it would not only greatly reduce one’s cultivation, but the self-detonation could also inflict severe damage upon the body. In fact, it could even make future advancement exceedingly difficult.

Wang Hai chose spiritual energy self-detonation because he had some confidence to rely on. His Blood Refinement Sect practiced arts somewhat different from the norm, depending on the absorption of blood from other cultivators or spirit beasts to increase cultivation. Moreover, his master possessed several miraculous healing elixirs, so for Wang Hai, the damage from spiritual energy self-detonation would be far less severe. With a year or two of hard cultivation afterward, he might not be unable to fully recover his present strength.

The self-detonation of spiritual energy was of course immensely powerful. It not only forced back the thunder dragon and the hundreds of flying swords, but even Yang Xiao was drawn into the blast and coughed up a mouthful of blood. After all, Yang Xiao had also been directing those numerous flying swords with his spiritual energy. When Wang Hai’s spiritual energy exploded, it naturally damaged Yang Xiao’s as well, leaving him injured to a considerable degree.