The entire process went incredibly smooth, to the point it felt surreal.
Wei Wuyin and Lin Ming swore respective oaths upon their Spirits of Cultivation, establishing an agreement to deliver the token to Lin Ming, forfeiting his right as a Token Wielder and receiving first pick of the final cache. To accomplish this deal, it was further established that Wei Wuyin would accompany them to the final cache.
During which, neither party could act against the other unless the other party acted first. Of course, this meant they would suffer the consequences for breaking the oath, but who knew what would happen? It was best to establish firm rules in one's oath in case of a special situation.
Wei Wuyin was finally amazed by Lin Ming's intelligence, digging himself a way out of an oath. His earlier questions might be attributed to the suddenness of his proposal. After all, if Wei Wuyin consumed the eighth-grade, high-tier Spirit Cleansing Elixir, the same used to break Tuo Bihan's Spirit Oath, then Lin Ming would be forced to stand there and take a beating. The foresight was impressive.
After all the matters were settled, leaving no glaring loopholes, Wei Wuyin was asked to leave. They didn't wish for him to disturb the process or benefit from it.
For a split second, Wei Wuyin was tempted to see if he could interfere with this formation, but thinking about how the controller of this formation was clearly absent from the scene, he could make the assumption that it was handled by the Mystic Ascendant that protected Tang Xingyun. He didn't wish to dance on the edge of a deadly knife again, so he left the Sky Zephyr Temple without any argument after forfeiting his right as a Token Wielder to Lin Ming.
Within the temple, the spell formation for the Engorging Foundation Method, the World Transference Spell, was resumed after a brief period of preparations. The attendant of Tang Xingyun was extremely nervous, feeling uncertain after being pushed to do this.
Her name was Xiuyin, without a surname. With her anxious expression and twiddling fingers, she seemed like a nervous young girl. There would be very few who would believe that this young girl was an outstanding talent, reaching the Gravity Emission Phase, the Sixth Stage of the Astral Core Realm, before the age of three hundred.
Her youthful appearance was attributed to her unique yin-based cultivation method that invigorated her longevity, keeping her skin young and her body's rate of progression slow. With her stunted growth, she came off as a fourteen or fifteen year old little girl with black pigtails and rosy cheeks.
When it was her turn, she had to brace herself, however. After all, she was the attendant to Tang Xingyun, and that was a better way to say maidservant assigned to attend her every need, act as a meat shield if necessary, and follow her orders to the 'T'.
The circle she sat on started to glow, and the runic characters that were lively and flourishing beneath her started to manifest into the world, encircling her. She had to clench her fist and bite her lips to not instinctively resist as she felt the danger from those runes.
They flew to her, attaching to her petite body like tattoos. Before long, her entire body was littered with them. They swam within her skin as if she was a body of water, glowing from time to time brighter than before. She felt her meridians, dantian, and Sea of Consciousness suffer a strange pressure, like a finger pressing against one's temple.
'This isn't so bad.' Her thoughts were a little placated. Unfortunately, she was a little too quick to assume that was the beginning.
Shush!
A chaotic air erupted from her body, causing her clothes to flutter about as if in a storm. She felt her gravitational forces that had been absorbed into her Astral Soul be slowly dragged out, pulled with immense force that felt as if someone was yanking out her inner intestines.
"AHHHHH!!!" She was unlike Tang Xingyun, screaming her lungs out at the soul-tearing pain she had to endure. Her voice only got louder by the second, and even tears started to flow endlessly down her face.
She wanted it to stop!
"STOP! PLEASE!! STOP!!!" She desperately begged in the loudest voice imaginable, pleading to everyone and all that was holy for this pain to cease. Those clear tears became blood-red, glimmering with traces of silvery gleam. These were the yin energies infused in her blood, condensed and refined. It allowed her body to retain her petite and youthful state.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" She kept screaming.
And screaming.
And screaming.
And screaming!
For three minutes, she didn't stop even after her voice became hoarse, her mouth dry, and her face drenched in a shade of glaring crimson. She had even tried to resist the extraction power, but an Ascended was operating the formation. She couldn't resist. Her gravitational forces were extracted mercilessly, funneled into Lin Ming who sat in the center.
He was feeling incredibly uncomfortable hearing those screams, wanting to stop the spell formation, but he couldn't speak as the gravitational forces were infused into his Astral Soul containing traces of Xiuyin's soul. It was a miracle that Xiuyin could.
But after those three minutes were over, the screaming finally came to a sudden and abrupt end.
And it wasn't because Xiuyin had grown tired.
Her head sagged to the side, lifelessly limp and her eyes were blank. The soul-ripping pain had caused her Sea of Consciousness to rupture apart, unable to withstand such outrageous torture.
"…" Tang Xingyun turned her head, noticing the issue. The extraction was still going, but the life from Xiuyin's body was flowing away at a rapid pace. Her eyes widened as she panicked, "Save her! Stop it!" Yet the spell formation continued operating, mercilessly taking from Xiuyin and delivering it to Lin Ming.
If they stopped, Venerable Spiritwalker could easily save Xiuyin's life.
Bai Yuxi was behind Xiuyin, directly, so she saw the entire process from beginning to end, including that moment when her Sea of Consciousness shattered apart, and her body fell limp. She bit her lips. 'This is an Evil Method. There were risks,' is what she thought to justify this situation.
"STOP!" Tang Xingyun regretted not asking this earlier, and she aggressively demanded it with an imperious disposition that befitted a noblewoman.
"Choose!" Venerable Spiritwalker's voice resounded. Tang Xingyun and Bai Yuxi were violently shaken by the spiritual impact of her voice, awakening them to an alert state. "I can stop the formation and save her. If I do, you three will suffer irreparable damage to your souls as a backlash, and that man of yours, he'll lose all of his cultivation for sure, maybe even his life. So choose."
An Evil Method's Spell Formation that required an Ascended wasn't a simple thing. It was given the classification as 'Evil' for a reason.
Tang Xingyun instantly went silent, her eyes reflecting complex emotions. To sacrifice herself for an attendant? To sacrifice Lin Ming's future? To sacrifice all of their futures?
"Continue! Don't stop, no matter what." Bai Yuxi said with the utmost determination. She was next, but she was fearless. She already paid an extreme price that would affect her future for Lin Ming, so she might as well push it further.
They remained silent as Xiuyin's Sea of Consciousness dissipated. Her soul energy was extracted in its entirety, giving it all to Lin Ming, and thereby ending her chances of resurrection.
Her body went extremely limp, like a true corpse.
She was dead.
Lin Ming's eyes were explosively red as he seemed to want to scream to the heavens above and the hells below. He didn't expect anyone to die for him. But they had started this decision—there was no turning back.
"…Continue." Tang Xingyun's eyes noticeably dimmed, her teeth were gritted, and her fists were clenched. Xiuyin had been her attendant since she was a little girl. The amount of regret she held in her heart was endless.
The formation went into a brief pause, needing a few minutes before Bai Yuxi's turn.
Outside the Sky Zephyr Temple, Wei Wuyin was floating quietly as he observed the fluctuations of energy within. His Eye of Immortality kicked into effect, seemingly restoring his Celestial Eyes to their normal state after his suppression of it ended. With the agreement made, there was no need for him to continue with the act.
"How unfortunate," he quietly remarked. His eyebrows furrowed slightly, adding: "Why did that Ascendant let her die?"
While he'd never seen the formation, he was familiar with a Mystic Ascendant's power after it surged into him. There was no way a person of that level couldn't save her, or at least her soul. Even Wu Yu in his spirit form saved Hong Ru, and that other, evil-eyed skinny old man restored He Yanglei with a finger tap.
Yet…
"I have my assumptions, but clearly this person's quite ruthless." He shook his head in pity. An unjust death.
As time passed, Bai Yuxi's spatial force and uniquely refined mana that enabled the mixture of Soul Idol, Spatial Resonance, Gravitational Forces, and various other powers to form a Worldly Domain was extracted from her. Unlike the girl, she only grunted in pain.
If one examined this, it was clear that Tang Xingyun suffered very little pain. That girl suffered pain that wasn't the slightest bit suppressed, forcefully causing her Sea of Consciousness to break, and Bai Yuxi experienced mild pain. This was clearly deliberate, inconsistent, and incredibly suspicious.
His theories on what happened was fortified, getting a little clearer picture.
But the process mattered not, the end result was everything!
Wei Wuyin could feel a unique power forge within Lin Ming's dantian. From his body, a faint World Pressure leaked!
