Buzz!
The moment the two types of power entered his spiritual consciousness, Jiang Yi’s primary soul and the seventy-two soul swords lit up. It was almost like seventy-three wolves were staring at the sheep-like powers that were flowing toward them.
“These really are spiritual powers!”
Jiang Yi heaved a sigh of relief. He controlled his soul swords and caused them to absorb a little bit of each type of powers. After he ensured that they could absorb these powers, it felt like a huge weight had fallen off his chest. He focused on channeling the powers into his primordial spirit. Jing Yi was prepared to gather the so-called god spirit.
However—
Once the primordial spirit touched the ice powers from the core, Jiang Yi’s soul felt like it froze up. He felt his soul turn into a block of ice—a block of ice that threatened to break apart anytime.
His soul had been frozen. There was no way he could control the power anymore. The ice powers in the core continued to grip him, causing his primordial spirit to become even more frozen up. Jiang Yi guessed that it would not be long before he fell apart.
Tsk! Tsk!
He was extremely fortunate. A gust of Yang power entered his spiritual consciousness and his primordial spirit. The piercing pain that had crippled him earlier was dissipating. His spirit was becoming unlocked. The Three-Leaf Lotus Flower’s Yang powers entered Jiang Yi’s primordial spirit and caused his spirit to feel like it had caught fire. A new kind of pain overwhelmed Jiang Yi and threatened to knock him unconscious.
“Hang in there! If I enter into a coma, I would surely die.”
In that fine line between life and death, Jiang Yi endured intense levels of pain. He made sure to focus on keeping all the power out of his primordial spirit, channeling them into his 72 soul swords instead. He also controlled the 72 soul swords so that they revolved around his primordial spirit. If just one shred of the power went into his primordial spirit, he would be done for.
Ss, ss…
A strange force stirred inside the Fire Spirit Pearl, causing the piercing pain in his primordial spirit to dissipate. Finally, he began to relax. His divine senses locked in on the two types of power that was being absorbed by his soul swords. It felt like there were two devils inside him—it was that scary. Had he allowed himself to pass out earlier, he could forget about ever regaining consciousness again. He was already lucky enough to turn back from the depths of hell.
He decided to get some rest so that the pain in his primordial spirit would reduce to the minimum before he deactivated the soul swords. Then, Jiang Yi closely inspected his body to find that it was taking another huge blow. It turned out that his soul swords had been absorbing power way too quickly. Now, they were beginning to shrink in size!
That’s right—they were shrinking, not growing bigger!
When three of his soul swords absorbed the Divine Silkworm and silkworm serum earlier, they shrunk as well. However, they became much stronger and more powerful. Now, the two types of powers were much more powerful. That was why his soul swords were reducing in size at a much faster pace. All 72 of them were a full size smaller in fact.
“Sh*t, the Three-Leaf Lotus flower and the internal core have only been refined by a third. From the looks of it, my soul swords will not be able to take so much power in. When their sizes hit the minimum, maybe they’ll even start cracking apart…”
The laws of physics determined that if the soul swords continued to shrink, they might become too solid and explode. Since these soul swords existed inside the spiritual consciousness, their explosion might cause his spirit to be crushed to pieces.
Moreover, if he did not control the pace at which his soul swords absorbed these energies, it could cause a mess in his powers. Then, either his body or his spirit would be utterly destroyed.
“What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?”
Jiang Yi had completely forgotten the pain that he felt in his primordial spirit earlier. Instead, his mind was now filled with images of his soul swords being reduced to a minimum size in the next couple of seconds. Then, he would really meet death.
He forced himself to calm down and face death with a rational mind. His mind moved quickly to think of a solution.
From the looks of it, he had to admit first that there was no way he would be able to control these two powers. He had already lost all feeling in both of his arms. Jiang Yi also dared not hope that he would enter the State of the Union of Heaven and Man. If he did, his body might collapse under pressure. Then, he could really forget about regaining consciousness ever again.
Thus, he had to find a way to store all the power entering his body. However, the star sphere could not absorb these two types of power at all. They were spiritual powers—apart from the primordial spirit, only the soul swords would be able to take it!
The primordial spirit?
After tasting the intense pain earlier, Jiang Yi did not dare to ever try it again. He knew that he would certainly die if he tried to make his primordial spirit absorb the powers.
That left only one path for him to try. He had to find a way to get all the power into the soul swords!
“Soul sword, soul sword… soul sword!”
Jiang Yi’s divine senses locked in on his soul swords once again. The seventy-two soul swords were still shrinking. They were now two-thirds of their original size. They threatened to crack apart at any time.
These soul swords appeared inside the Mystic Divine Palace. On the Yellow Springs Path on the second level of the Mystic Divine Palace, countless Soul Devouring Crocodiles had been attacking Jiang Yi. In a bid to defend himself, Jiang Yi swallowed the Soul Devouring Crocodiles. Immediately, he felt his soul split. Then, these soul swords appeared one by one.
Some soul swords got destroyed later. At God’s Sob in the God Bestow City, he gained more soul swords again. The 72 soul swords even got upgraded by the Butterfly’s Spring which belonged to the Butterfly Lady Race. Three of his soul swords also got upgraded again by the Jewel Divine Silkworm.
Jiang Yi did not understand much about his soul swords. These things seemed weird to him. He had not heard anyone else talk about them before; neither did he know how the soul swords would develop in the future either.
“It’s going to explode, it’s going to explode!”
Time was passing by. Jiang Yi’s swords continued to get smaller and smaller. They were reaching their limits. No matter how hard he tried to think, he could not think of a good enough solution. He really was at a dead end this time!
“Eh, it would be good if these soul swords were several times bigger. Then, it would take longer for them to reach their minimum size.”
A sudden thought flashed across Jiang Yi’s mind. He jumped as he realized that there was a solution after all. If he expanded his soul swords, they would not explode!
The soul swords were not absorbing ordinary powers now. They were two extreme types of powers—like those from the Butterfly’s Spring and the cocoon. They would not cause his soul swords to expand but shrink instead! Thus, Jiang Yi pondered hard and came up with only one possible method. The soul swords had to merge together in order to expand in size physically. Then, they would never reach their limits.
If the soul swords could be broken apart, they could definitely merge as well. All he had to do was to merge the seventy-two soul swords into thirty-six, eighteen, and then a big one. For all he knew, it would not explode then!
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Now that he was on the brink of death, Jiang Yi could not afford to give it any further thought. He tried to push the soul swords closer together, forcing them to merge with one another. However, the harder he tried to push the soul swords together, the more he felt like it was impossible to fuse them together.
“I’m going all out…”
Jiang Yi used all of his might to control two soul swords. They danced together, and then Jiang Yi pushed them toward each other with everything he had.
Boom!
Jiang Yi felt his spiritual consciousness shake. The two soul swords were now cracking from the impact. However, something happened to make him jump with excitement—the power in the two soul swords got absorbed by all the others. This caused the other swords to increase in size by just a bit.
“I need to continue knocking them together!”
Jiang Yi went crazy and continued to cause the soul swords to collide into one another again and again. The remaining soul swords would then absorb their powers and increase in size. The fewer soul swords there were, the larger the remaining soul swords became.
There were initially seventy-two. Then, there were sixty… thirty… fifteen… ten…
After a short time, Jiang Yi had only five soul swords left. The soul swords that had almost reached their minimum size earlier had increased by at least three or four times again. However, as they continued to absorb more of the two types of powers, they began to shrink again.
“Continue!”
Jiang Yi checked and found that there was still half the power left in the Three-Leaf Lotus Flower and the core. He had no choice but to cause the soul swords to collide with one another again and again. Whether he could keep his life or not was all up to the heavens now.
Boom! Boom!
Four soul swords collided and caused there to be one remaining, which absorbed all the powers that the four released. His body continued to absorb power from outside. Jiang Yi was out of options now. He could only sit and wait.
The last soul sword was now the size of half of his primordial spirit. Finally, the Three-Leaf Lotus Flower and the core had run out of all powers. The remaining soul sword sat quietly in Jiang Yi’s spiritual consciousness, showing no signs of falling apart. Jiang Yi was elated. He weakly opened his eyes and fell down to the floor, panting.
It had taken him fifteen full minutes to recover from the entire ordeal. His body was back to normal now, but his robe was still plastered to his back with perspiration. There were still beads of perspiration dripping down his forehead.
He sat up and crossed his legs to look inside his soul. When his divine senses swept past his soul sword, his chest tightened. It was radiating the colors of the rainbow, and its shape was becoming mystical. It was almost like… it was mutating? This could be a sign that it was going to explode!
