Chapter 24: Bloodsucking
This time, the explosion Lu You delivered to the Evil Eye was even more violent than the last. Even though Lu You was in a hidden passage over a hundred meters away from the treasure hall—and the passage had already collapsed, blocked by countless chunks of rubble—stray electric currents still surged through.
Afraid that it still wasn't safe enough, and worried that the Evil Eye might notice him smashing through the rocks and charging back in, Lu You activated a large number of Sharp Metal Talismans inside the tunnel. In an instant, the entire passage was reinforced several times over. Even if the Evil Eye wanted to get in, it would take some time.
Lu You had just finished setting things up when hurried footsteps came from behind. Bai Zihua and Zeng Yan's group rushed over. Seeing the collapsed tunnel, several of them froze for a moment.
They had just felt the ground shake violently. Now, seeing a figure in red robes and the caved-in passage, they immediately assumed this was the aftermath of the mysterious figure fighting the Evil Eye.
"Daoist friend, that tombstone is the formation's core of this ancient tomb. Since we're still inside, it means the formation hasn't been lifted yet and that the Evil Eye is still alive." Bai Zihua didn't approach the mysterious figure, carefully watching their reaction. No one knew whether the mysterious figure was friend or foe, but when he saw that the mysterious figure's gaze was clear and unclouded by the Evil Eye's control, Bai Zihua finally relaxed a little.
Lu You spotted Zeng Yan alive among the group and also let out a breath of relief. Unable to speak because of his identity, Lu You picked up the wooden sword imbued with Sharp Metal Talismans and carved into the ground:
I'll send you out. Ladies first.
That was what he wrote, but what Lu You was really thinking was: there was only one woman in Bai Zihua's group—Senior Sister Zeng Yan. He would use a Teleportation Talisman to send her out, then slip away himself. As for the others inside, Zeng Yan would surely contact the Verdant Cloud Sect. Whether it was rescuing people or dealing with the Evil Eye, the sect's true experts would take action.
Bai Zihua glanced at the words on the ground. Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately instructed Zeng Yan, "Great! Since there's a way to leave without breaking the formation, as long as one of us gets out, we can immediately contact the Golden Core elder stationed outside to help break the formation."
"Daoist friend, please escort my junior sister out. The rest of us will stay here to look for the Evil Eye and find a way to stall that thing, so we can destroy it together with the elder. That thing controls people's minds and drains their life essence. If it isn't eliminated, the mortal cities will likely suffer at its hands." Bai Zihua pushed Zeng Yan toward the mysterious figure.
Zeng Yan wanted to refuse, but Bai Zihua said sternly, "You must go out. The Verdant Cloud Sect knows you entered the tomb, and you're still carrying my sword. The sect might not trust this daoist friend's identity, but they'll definitely trust yours. This mission must be reported by a Verdant Cloud Sect disciple for the elders to take it seriously." He paused, then continued, "As for me, I have to stay here. That way, even if the Verdant Cloud Sect doesn't want to act, my grandfather will personally come to rescue us. Only then can we bring along the other senior and junior brothers and sisters trapped in this ancient tomb."
Lu You looked at Bai Zihua in surprise.
He never expected this second-generation cultivator to have such resolve—to even use himself as bait to force the Verdant Cloud Sect to rescue everyone else as well. After hesitating for a moment, Lu You raised his sword again and carved another line into the ground:
Be careful of the Golden Core.
After carving those words, Lu You suddenly felt that something was off. He glanced again at the two lines on the ground, and in that instant, realization struck. He grabbed Zeng Yan with one hand and reached for the Teleportation Talisman with the other.
Before Lu You could activate it, the ground cracked open with a sharp ka. A battered, broken tombstone burst up from beneath Lu You's feet and directly stuck to him, pinning him against the stele.
Lu You had just reinforced the rubble and the tunnel with Sharp Metal Talismans, but he had overlooked the ground beneath his feet. The tombstone was the core of the ancient tomb's formation and had long been intimately familiar with the structure of the place. Since it couldn't break through head-on, it simply came up from underground.
'Damn it—I went to save someone and ended up sacrificing myself.'
Lu You let go of Zeng Yan. If he activated a Teleportation Talisman now, he would only end up teleporting the Evil Eye along with himself. He glanced at Zeng Yan and Bai Zihua. For once, Lu You decided to be a good person—he scattered a large number of Teleportation Talismans onto them. In the next second, before Zeng Yan, Bai Zihua, and the others could even react, these disciples of the Verdant Cloud Sect were all sent out by Lu You.
At the critical moment, there was no time for regret. In one breath, Lu You activated hundreds of thousands of Golden Light Talismans. At that instant, it was as if a Buddha had descended into the world—countless Golden Light Talismans combined into a massive golden body that enveloped Lu You within. The Evil Eye tried again and again to crush Lu You to death, but each blow was blocked by the Golden Light Talismans. At this moment, the Evil Eye was like it had been smeared with glue, tightly stuck to Lu You, yet completely unable to do anything to him.
"So it really was injured by the Thunder Technique Talismans." Seeing the somewhat battered and broken Evil Eye, Lu You felt a bit more at ease. The reason the Evil Eye was suddenly clinging to him was because it was afraid he would blow it up again with Thunder Technique Talismans. Clearly, the storm of Thunder Technique Talismans that had filled the main hall earlier had taught it a brutal lesson.
"You think I wouldn't dare to die together with you, so you're trying to wear me down instead?"
With a thought, Lu You took out several spirit stones directly from the small cauldron in his mind. They appeared in his palm and were instantly drained to powder. With that little cauldron in his sea of consciousness, he had never been afraid of a battle of attrition.
The Evil Eye also sensed Lu You's spiritual energy recovering. Both of its eyes opened, its pupils filled with hatred and confusion. Unable to crush Lu You with the tombstone, the Evil Eye once again attempted to seize control of Lu You's mind.
But this move was useless against Lu You as well. He activated the Purifying Heart Talismans. Perhaps because he had activated too many at once, at this moment, Lu You felt as if he were the one and only sage under heaven. Everything in the world seemed bland and tasteless, devoid of meaning. He glanced at the Evil Eye and found it merely irritating to look at, with not the slightest emotion stirred by it.
Crack
A fissure appeared in the tombstone. The Evil Eye actually separated from the stele and floated toward Lu You's brow. Immediately after, an extremely sinister stream of spiritual energy was born.
It turned out that since the Evil Eye couldn't break through Lu You's external defenses and couldn't affect his mind, it still had a way to stimulate and draw out the life essence at Lu You's brow.
A disturbingly human-like smile surfaced in the Evil Eye's pupils.
In truth, devouring life essence was the Evil Eye's most powerful ability.
At this moment, under the stacking effects of the Purifying Heart Talismans, Lu You was exceptionally calm. Sensing the spiritual energy surging within his body and forcing its way toward his brow, Lu You suddenly had a strange thought.
The blood the Evil Eye wanted to devour was also the cultivator's cultivation origin. In reality, this cultivation origin was the precursor to the Golden Core and the Nascent Soul. Cultivators constantly nourished this origin life essence with spiritual energy, until it eventually fused with that energy and condensed into a Golden Core, or even became a Nascent Soul. The higher one's cultivation realm, the stronger this origin blood would be; conversely, the lower the realm, the weaker it would be.
Lu You's cultivation realm had always been his weak point. At merely the fourth level of Qi Refining, he hadn't even reached the stage of refining his life essence yet. If the Evil Eye hadn't acted, Lu You wouldn't have known how to control his own cultivation-origin blood at all.
"Life essence is tied to one's cultivation origin and is incomparably precious. What if I put it into the little cauldron?"
Looking at the Evil Eye, whose pupils were full of feral delight, Lu You had a sudden inspiration. He stopped resisting and allowed the Evil Eye to refine his origin life essence out of him. In the next second—before the Evil Eye could even swallow it—Lu You abruptly controlled the little cauldron to devour a single drop.
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