“You know, I really hate it when you talk like that.” Ling Tian said as he winced when the black sword went fully out of his body.
The sword tried to fly away but Ling Tian was faster, gripping the sword before it could even move.
“You think you can get away now? Stay here!” Ling Tian roared as the sword tried to fight back. More and more evil qi sprouted from the sword that tried to cover Ling Tian.
This evil qi further intensified Ling Tian’s injury. His wounds opened up as blood flowed freely from it. His remaining qi dispersed from into the air, leaving him empty.
But instead of feeling relieved, Fang Yu and Fang Lin felt that Ling Tian was actually more dangerous now. They could barely hear him as he muttered in his now raspy voice,
“If we were at higher stages, I have more abilities and items that I can use. If we fought at those conditions, I will undoubtedly win. But here at First Stage, my abilities were still fairly limited. If we just fought at the Second Stage, I am sure I will defeat you easily.”
“…” Fang Lin knew that what Ling Tian was saying was true. The First Stage just sets the foundation for the practitioners. Any defeats in this stage cannot be considered to be that important since the true power of a practitioner lies on their insights that starts to show at the Second Stage. Battles at the First Stage can be considered to be just sparring.
Besides, even though Ling Tian was almost defeated by Fang Lin at the First Stage, Fang Lin was not sure what will happen in they both fought at the Second Stage.
For talented cultivators like him, each increase in stage was accompanied by an explosive increase in strength. Not only that, but most of the powerful treasures can be used starting at the Second Stage.
Fang Lin was sure Ling Tian will be even more ridiculous once he reaches the Second Stage.
“Seeing your expression, I think you already know that I am right.” Ling Tian said with a grin. His face that was now covered by evil qi looked distorted as he said,
“Since my strength was sealed now, I could not use any powerful treasures to beat you. The only powerful item that I can use to defeat you was this black sword”
Fang Lin looked at the black sword warily, knowing this thing was dangerous. Such amount of evil qi just shows that it had been used to commit many evil deeds. What Fang Lin could not fathom was how could Ling Tian could obtain such an evil sword.
Actually, Fang Lin wanted to attack Ling Tian right now to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do with the sword. But to his surprise he could not even make a step forward due to the evil qi of the sword. Fang Lin instinctively felt as if his qi and mana will be tainted once he gets exposed to the evil qi. The only thing he can just do right now was to wait for Ling Tian to fail on controlling the sword, if that was still possible.
And with that waiting, chatting with Ling Tian was unavoidable.
“Don’t ask me anymore. You can say I killed its owner and as a revenge before he died, he used a sinister technique to make me the black sword’s owner. Now, the sword was bound to my soul, and it was fairly impossible to remove it. And from what you can see, I am not actually happy about it.”
Of course Fang Lin could understand what Ling Tian was talking about. From what he knew, the Million-Hand Sword God was a person who would not wantonly kill. He only kills when it was absolutely necessary.
Having an evil sword stuck with him must have possibly put his state of mind in jeopardy.
“Luckily, I had a friend of mine use some sealing techniques to seal the sword. The sealing technique that he used was composed of 10 smaller seals. Those seals were able to restrain the evil qi that this sword emits.” Ling Tian’s body then trembled as more and more evil qi entered his body.
“Each small seal unlocked will release a portion of the power of the evil sword. Right now, I just unlocked one small seal. From this you can already see how strong the original sword will be right?”
Fang Lin swallowed as he can see the evil sword visibly strengthening Ling Tian. All that evil qi that the sword released was now on Ling Tian completely changing his appearance.
Ling Tian’s skin was now pitch-black, with strange runic marks running across his body. His hair went longer as it now brushed the ground. His body became more slender with his toned muscles showing up. His injuries were now gone, with the evil qi seemingly patching them up. His left hand then grasped the evil sword which stopped trembling for now.
All in all, Ling Tian just completed his transformation. He looked hideous, and felt… evil.
“What have you done to yourself?” Fang Lin muttered as he limped towards Fang Yu. “You were willing to turn yourself into that being just to beat me?”
“Do you really think you should worry about me? I think you should be more concerned for yourself!” Ling Tian suddenly disappeared from Fang Lin’s vision as he reappeared behind him.
Ling Tian raised his sword nonchalantly as he sent it slashing down to Fang Lin.
“Puchi!” Blood spurted out of Fang Lin as a large gush appeared on his back. Fang Lin then shouted in agony as he felt the evil qi penetrating his insides. They started wreaking havoc on his organs, trying to destroy as much of them as possible. Fang Lin could only kneel in agony as he used his remaining qi to suppress it.
“Ugh. Detonate!” Fang Yu grimaced as she clenched her left palm. After saying this, the symbol Θ exploded inside Ling Tian’s body, releasing enormous amounts of death energy that spread inside him.
With her connection to the symbol Θ, Fang Yu was able to determine its function after it absorbed Ling Tian’s vitality.
This symbol was able to convert a person’s vitality into a death energy that was specifically made to damage the owner of the absorbed vitality.
That means once a person’s vitality was absorbed by the symbol, this vitality will be transformed into death energy. If this energy was used on other people, the effects will be weaker. The effects of the death energy will only be the greatest on the person where the vitality came from.
Right now, Fang Yu used all the death energy she harvested from Ling Tian against him.
Ling Tian felt this death energy damaging his insides. His body started to turn gray as the death energy penetrated his cells.
He let out a roar as he used his evil qi to purge this death energy. This proved to be difficult, since his evil qi and the death energy were almost of the same attribute. This made it harder for the evil qi to remove the death energy.
Ling Tian could only watch the slow removal of the death energy. He knew it will be removed, just that it will take much longer. Aside from that, he also had to focus most of his attention on purging the death energy.
He used his remaining attention to look at Fang Lin and Fang Yu’s condition. Fang Lin was kneeling on the ground as he purged the evil qi inside of him. His injuries and fatigue made it harder for Fang Lin to remove the evil qi.
As for Fang Yu, she looked exhausted now as she seemed to have depleted most of her energy. That was to be expected, since she used two powerful moves against Ling Tian that managed to injure him.
Ling Tian was not worried that Fang Yu and Fang Lin will fuse together. He was sure that they will not do that because of his evil qi. That evil qi will affect even the original body, and Ling Tian was sure that Fang Lin and Fang Yu knows that too. But he was sure that they will fuse once Fang Lin completely removes the evil qi.
Ling Tian could see that all three of them were at a stalemate now. The winner will depend on who recovers first, Fang Lin or Ling Tian.
Ling Tian then urged his evil qi to remove the death energy faster.
Ling Tian did not use any items to help him because of his current form. His current form was not suited to receive medication. His current evil attribute will just reject medicinal pills. What’s worse was that the holy items that can purge this death energy will greatly damage him with his evil from.
So Ling Tian can only rely on his body to remove the death energy.
While he was busy on his task, Ling Tian suddenly saw something that made him go pale. He could see Fang Yu grabbing some things from her spatial pocket. What appeared out her hands were some talismans.
These talismans were not the defensive talismans Fang Lin was using earlier. They have a different use, and that was to cleanse evil spirits!
“You know, there was an island located at the western seas of the Immortal Continent.” Fang Yu said with a drawl. “Aside from cultivation, the residents on that island also practice another way to strengthen themselves. It was through the interaction with natural spirits.”
Fang Yu then waved the talismans on her hand as she said, “You can say purging evil spirits was one of their occupations. These talismans right here were given to my friend which she then gave to me.” Fang Yu then let out a feral grin as he said,
“What do you think will happen if I used these talismans on the evil qi on Fang Lin’s body and against you?”
An evil spirit was an entity made up of either evil qi or evil mana. Since Ling Tian was filled with evil qi right now, he can be considered to be an evil spirit. That means he will be affected by Fang Yu’s talismans.
“You shameless bastard!” That was all that Ling Tian could say as he saw Fang Yu activating her talismans. “You think your weak talismans will damage me? The evil qi in my body was of no low-grade!” He let out a roar as he rushed towards Fang Yu, with his sword cleaving down towards her.
“Die!”
In response, Fang Yu threw the talismans towards Ling Tian’s direction.
“Ding!”
The evil qi and the talismans let out a pleasant sound as they collided against each other.
