Chapter 781: Meng Hao Awakens!
Within the Blood Cocoon sat a cross-legged figure with pale white hair. His body had no skin on it, making it possible to see the various blood vessels and other meridians. Overall, he looked completely horrifying.
His eyes were listless, and a monstrous Devilish aura emanated off of him, making him seem like a Blood Devil!
This was Meng Hao!
He had absorbed the qi, blood and cultivation bases of more than 100,000 cultivators, as well as their souls.
However, he had been destroyed by the explosion of the false Immortal puppet, washed over by the force of eradication. Therefore, even what he had already absorbed was not enough to completely restore his body.
The cultivators in the outside world called his name, and the sound continued to grow louder. It entered into the Blood Cocoon and echoed in Meng Hao’s ears, muffled and distorted as if time were passing slowly, stretching out the sounds.
Gradually, Meng Hao’s eyes were no longer blank, but rather, bright and clear.
“I… am Meng Hao….” he murmured. A tremor ran through him, and his mind seemed to fill with rumbling as his memories flooded back.
There were memories of his early childhood, and then that night when he was seven years old. His parents went missing, and he ran out into the fog to look for them. Then there was the Reliance Sect, the Violet Fate Sect, the Western Desert, the Demon Immortal Sect, the Milky Way Sea, and finally the war of the Southern Domain.
He remembered everything. He remembered his and Xu Qing’s wedding. He saw her soul enter the River of Forgetfulness. All of it caused him to tremble. Then he looked down at the back of his right hand and saw that same mark that had appeared before, flickering and glittering.
This time when he looked down at the symbol, there was more…. There were unfamiliar memories, broken fragments that he couldn’t quite piece together.
Within those fragments were memories from before when he was seven. However, the setting was unfamiliar. It was not the State of Zhao, but some other place. It was some location where there seemed to be seven moons, one of which was bright, six of which were dark.
Underneath that unique sky, he was being carried in the arms of a woman. Off to the side was a young man who was smiling at him. Further off to the side was a tall old man, who was laughing kindly.
The man and the woman were not unfamiliar to him. They looked exactly like the father and mother that he remembered from when he was young.
As for the sky and the land, it was a world Meng Hao didn’t recognize.
What he did know was… it was not South Heaven.
“That curse targeting one of the lands of South Heaven didn’t affect me at all…. Is it possible that I actually wasn’t born here?” Before, Meng Hao didn’t have the time to consider the question. Now, here in this Blood Cocoon, his mind stirred with scattered fragments of memories.
After some time passed, the mark on Meng Hao’s hand faded. He looked up, and heard the voices calling to him from the outside. Slowly, he rose to his feet. The Blood Cocoon exploded, transforming into a shocking, blood-colored whirlwind.
Meng Hao stepped out from within the whirlwind, into the view of the Southern Domain cultivators. What they saw was a Meng Hao with white hair and ferocious features. His body had no skin, making him even more terrifying. However, they continued to call his name.
“Meng Hao!”
“Meng Hao!”
“Meng Hao!”
Pill Demon, Patriarch Song, and Patriarch Golden Frost sped over to appear at Meng Hao’s side. Meng Hao’s second true self was also recovered, and appeared off in the distance.
“Hao’er….” said Pill Demon. Seeing Meng Hao’s current condition pained him in his heart.
Meng Hao clasped hands in greeting, then softly said, “Master, I’m fine…. These are merely the excesses of the sixth level of the Blood Demon Grand Magic.”
“The sixth level of the Blood Demon Grand Magic!” Patriarch Song exclaimed with a gasp.
This truly was the sixth level of the Blood Demon Grand Magic. As soon as Meng Hao’s body fell apart, the sixth level automatically activated. It seemed that in order to truly enter the sixth level, it required all the blood in the body to dissipate.
“As of now, you….” Pill Demon trailed off and didn’t finish his sentence.
“Master,” said Meng Hao, his eyes flickering with red light, “are there still cultivators from the Northern Reaches’ second wave army left in the Southern Domain?”
“Yes!” he replied. “There were a total of six fronts. The third and fourth overlapped here, but there are still four others scattered in the four cardinal directions. There are still roughly 100,000 Northern Reaches cultivators out there.” A flicker of worry could be seen in Pill Demon’s eyes. He knew what state Meng Hao was in. He was bedeviled, and would carry out slaughter like a Devil.
“Master, I’ve found my path to the Third Severing,” said Meng Hao. He looked at Pill Demon, then clasped hands and bowed respectfully.
Pill Demon looked at him seriously for a moment, and then suddenly laughed out loud. Relieved, he waved his hand, sending a jade slip flying out that detailed the locations of the four Northern Reaches armies.
Meng Hao caught the jade slip, then turned to clasp hands toward Patriarch Song and Patriarch Golden Frost. Finally he looked out at all the Southern Domain cultivators, clasped hands and bowed. With that, he flew up into the air. His second true self rippled and vanished, becoming his shadow as he shot off into the distance.
After Meng Hao left, Pill Demon produced a pill furnace and then unleashed a vast quantity of medicinal pills for the Southern Domain cultivators to use to recover. Then he, Patriarch Golden Frost and Patriarch Song started to set up spell formations.
They knew that the war wasn’t over. The Northern Reaches’ third wave, which was the strongest of all, was currently en route. It wouldn’t be long before it arrived, and then the true battle for victory or defeat would begin.
In the end… the Southern Domain’s chances of winning were small. But they would fight nonetheless!
It would be better to die in battle than let the Southern Domain be overrun.
Meanwhile, Meng Hao shot through midair in a beam of blood-colored light. He sped forward, jade slip in hand, heading toward the second front, which wasn’t very far off.
“The Blood Demon Grand Magic has three strata. With the first stratum, I can battle early Dao Seeking. With the second, I can battle mid Dao Seeking. With the third stratum complete, and my current cultivation base, I can definitely shake the peak of Dao Seeking!
“If I can perform my Third Severing and step into Dao Seeking, then… I would be considered invincible within the Dao Seeking stage!” Meng Hao’s expression was placid, but his heart was thumping.
“Regarding my Third Severing… I already have the basics lined up.” He looked down toward the ground and saw a shadow that others would not be able to perceive, which was his second true self.
As he proceeded onward at top speed, he was soon able to hear the sounds of battle. Though It was not the shocking sound of hundreds of thousands of cultivators fighting, it still caused everything in the area to shake.
There were tens of thousands of people on the battlefield, locked in combat.
One side was in a state of constant retreat, and the other side was pushing them relentlessly. The ground was stained with blood and littered with corpses.
20,000 Northern Reaches cultivators were currently fighting 10,000 Southern Domain cultivators. Most of the group of Southern Domain cultivators was made up of Violet Fate Sect disciples. Among their forces were Chosen of the Violet Fate Sect who had not completely grown into their prime, and as such, were unable to take the lead. Currently, the cultivators taking the lead were three aged Spirit Severing cultivators.
On the Northern Reaches’ side, there were four Spirit Severing cultivators.
Booms filled the air as the Southern Domain army was forced into constant retreat. Their three Spirit Severing cultivators were seriously injured. Their army had suffered severe casualties. Chu Yuyan was there fighting, her face pale, blood oozing out of her mouth.
There were many familiar faces, some who had already fallen, some who were still holding firm.
Meng Hao shot down from the sky like a bloody shooting star that stained the sky red. As soon as he appeared, the tens of thousands of bitterly fighting combatants were shocked to the core.
This was especially true of the Southern Domain’s Spirit Severing cultivators, whose pupils constricted. They were unable to tell whether or not this person was a friend or an enemy!
That was not the case with Chu Yuyan. She dodged a fatal strike, coughed up some blood, and then looked up at the figure in the beam of light. Her heart trembled.
He had white hair, and no skin. He was fearsome and terrifying to the extreme. And yet, she could still tell… that it was Meng Hao.
“What’s… happened to you…?” she thought, her heart aching. She had her pride, but even with that pride, when she saw Meng Hao like this, pain filled her heart.
BOOM!
Meng Hao slammed into the middle of the Northern Reaches forces like a meteor. Massive fissures spread out across the land, and numerous Northern Reaches cultivators coughed up blood and then directly exploded.
The four Spirit Severing cultivators from the Northern Reaches were in shock. They gritted their teeth and attacked, but before they could even get close to Meng Hao, he waved his hand out in front of him, causing a vast red mist to spread out.
The four Spirit Severing cultivators had just begun their charge when the mist bored into them. They began to scream; shocking, earth-shaking screams. They were powerful Spirit Severing experts, but it only took the blink of an eye for them to begin to wither up. Qi, blood, cultivation bases, souls; all were extracted. As the mist spread out, anyone caught in it became a desiccated corpse that toppled to the ground.
The sight of it shocked all of the Northern Reaches cultivators. More miserable shrieks rang out as the red mist continued to spread.
Moments ago, the Northern Reaches cultivators’ faces had been covered with malevolent, murderous expressions. Now, they were trembling in terror. Their bodies withered up, their cultivation bases vanished, their souls were wrenched out.
Soon, the entire battlefield was filled with the sounds of screaming. The Violet Fate Sect disciples backed up, their faces ashen. The scene which was playing out in front of them left them stunned, with looks of horror on their faces.
“Who is that!?!?”
“His entire body is the color of blood! He has no skin! His magic is Demonic!”
“How come… that looks a lot like Meng Hao’s Blood Demon Grand Magic…?”
Chu Yuyan looked at Meng Hao in the middle of the Northern Reaches cultivators, and it felt like she was looking at a Blood Devil. Her heart ached as she realized that Meng Hao also had an air of sorrow to him.
Rumbling filled the air. The 20,000 Northern Reaches cultivators around Meng Hao screamed miserably as, one by one, they became desiccated corpses. Eventually, the red mist returned to Meng Hao. Cracking sounds could be heard from inside of him.
His previously skinless body now had some skin on it. His qi and blood were more vigorous, and up above in the sky, thunder rumbled.
“Meng Hao! It’s… Meng Hao!”
“It really is Meng Hao! I couldn’t tell before, but now that there’s some skin on him, you can tell… it’s Meng Hao!”
“How come he looks so different!?”
The Violet Fate Sect disciples were shocked. However, even as their voices rose, Meng Hao leaped up into the air. He looked down at the crowds, and his gaze lingered for a moment on Chu Yuyan. As he turned to leave, his voice rang out.
“Go meet up with the others at the Blood Demon Sect!”
