Chapter 514: Now That’s A h.e.l.l of An Experience!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Just before the demons were wiped out, the Terrorblade Abyss Lord — the only demon Baiyi had eyes for — silently slipped back into the realm crack and fled.
As a high-level demon that had spent its life in the hostile environment that is the Abyss, the Terroblade was very intelligent, unlike the lesser demons it commanded. One look at the terrifying wall of black flames was all it took for the Abyss Lord to understand that it could not face Baiyi head-on, so it turned tail and fled.
However, the Abyss Lord’s attempt at escape was futile. Its attempt to flee from Baiyi — who was not only learned in the Laws of s.p.a.ce, but had also succeeded in writing his own Spatial Law — through a realm crack was akin to an animal fleeing into a hunter’s camp to escape the hunter. Unbeknownst to the Abyss Lord, Baiyi had long since sealed the channel that led to the Abyss. The realm crack now led to a small subdimension that Baiyi had created just to trap the Terrorblade. It was a witty bait-and-switch scheme.
The Abyss Lord had not taken the resourcefulness of its enemy into consideration. Thus, it had failed to notice that the crack it came out of earlier now led somewhere else entirely, so it had unwittingly dived right into Baiyi’s trap.
Sound could not travel between realms, so one in a subdimension could not hear what was going on outside it. This time, however, the soldiers in Highland City could hear screams ringing out from the realm crack, as Baiyi played the Terrorblade to death. When the Terrorblade entered the subdimension, Baiyi sealed it and forcefully compressed the subdimension. The Terrorblade used every ability at its disposal to fight back, but it failed to stop the shrinking; a short while later, it was compressed into a meat patty.
If the Abyss Lord had chosen to fight Baiyi outside Highland City, it would have lived a few minutes longer and not died by forced compression!
When the Terrorblade died, Baiyi leisurely walked over to the realm crack and stuffed his hand into it. Moments later, he pulled out a pair of blood-stained horns.
“So, this is the legendary Fractal Horn of Inner Abysm, huh? This is my first time seeing it,” Baiyi murmured, after which he wiped blood and guts off the horn.
Baiyi probed the horns with his psychic energy and discovered a large pool of Sinister Energy within them. The horns could already be used to battle, and in its raw state, it could grant an average person Immortal-level powers.
There was something mixed in with the energy — a very faint consciousness. That was a part of the Terrorblades spirit that was split off and hidden in the Fractal Horns. As long as this spirit remained, anyone that attempted to use the horn would be attacked at some point by the spirit, in an attempt to control them.
It was a clever ruse. Since it was difficult to detect the Terrorblade’s spirit within the ocean of Sinister Energy in its horns, someone that knows little about demons could easily fall victim to it. This was the reason why only a few Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm were recorded in history. Whenever the horns appeared, slaughter would follow, partly because the wielders, who had failed to detect something wrong with the horns, got possessed by the Terrorblade’s well-hidden spirit. The possessed wielders were often led to carry out ma.s.sacres, and when the pile of bodies at their feet grew to much, the Church swooped in and destroy the wielders, the Sinister Energy, and the horns.
Hence, only the most cautious used Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm. If the horns fell into the wrong hands, only disasters would ensue, which even the wielder would not benefit from. Terrorblades combined their lingering spirit with the Sinister Energy in their hands, making any attempt at separation an arduous undertaking.
Those that lacked the skill to do that were better off forgoing the Fractal Horn of Inner Abysm altogether. However, not many could resist the allure of the horns’ immense powers.
This time, however, the person in possession of the Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm knew demons like the back of his hand. With the knowledge in the Devil Walker’s memories, Baiyi knew how cunning Terrorblades were and had a plan to counter it.
Baiyi’s consciousness slowly entered the Fractal Horns, something anyone that recently acquired Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm would do.
“A fool and his l.u.s.t for power.” The spirit snickered before making its move. It made its way to Baiyi’s consciousness and crept up his mind. At this point, if Baiyi’s consciousness left any openings, the Terrorblade’s spirit would quickly devour him. If his will was strong, the spirit would then opt to hide in the recesses of his mind, patiently bidding its time. Every time one uses a Fractal Horn of Inner Abysm, a small part of their soul would become corrupted, and if this goes on unnoticed, there would be nothing left of the user’s spirit after a while; that would be the day the Terrorblade gets reborn!
Little did the Terrorblade know that its foe was leagues ahead of it. After much effort, the demon managed to enter the man’s soul, after which it began to expand, without any opposition. Sometime later, before the Terrorblade could celebrate, it realized that it had only managed to occupy a tiny portion of the man’s soul.
The demon was not discouraged. This s.p.a.ce was enough to hide in for the time being; if the man got careless at any point in time, it would strike instantly and corrupt him.
The spirit had just finished hatching its plan when it noticed something unusual. it was being pulled away from the Fractal Horns by an unseen force. The spirit was quickly losing its connection with the Sinister Energy in the horns!
“Unbelievable. You fell for the same sort of trap twice. How did you even become an Abyss Lord with such a low IQ?” A deep voice suddenly resounded around the demon’s spirit.
“What — Where am I?” The Terrorblade’s spirit cried out in terror.
Baiyi was not interested in providing the midget an answer. He then used his entire consciousness to crush the Terrorblade’s spirit. For a second, the Terrorblade felt like a cricket under a plummeting mountain.
A long, ear-splitting shriek rang out in Baiyi’s spirit. A few seconds later, all became quiet; the Terrorblade was no more.
In its place was an empty, undamaged soul container, which previously the Terrorblade’s spirit. When the Terrroblade’s spirit crept into Baiyi’s mind, the soul container came with it, and now that the spirit was no more, the soul container was left empty. It was akin to a hard disk drive that had just been reformatted.
What Baiyi had done was a new technique invented by the Lich Walker during one of the Voidwalker’s brainstorming session, which occurred when Baiyi obtained the Northern martial savant’s soul many years ago. While a soul was in a physical body, attempts to forcefully expel it would completely damage the soul container. That was no different from smas.h.i.+ng a gla.s.s jar with a sledgehammer — only a floor littered with gla.s.s shards would remain. Restoring the jar to its previous state would be impossible, as well.
However, if one first coc.o.o.ned the gla.s.s jar with clay before applying force to it, the gla.s.s would shatter, but the jar would retain its shape.
The Lich Walker came up with this method a short while after Pseudo-descending through a fragment of Baiyi’s consciousness. Moments after the pseudo-descending, the Lich Walker had noticed the abnormal strength of Baiyi’s soul. If an average individual attempted to share their soul, they would leave themselves open to spiritual corruption or mental instability. However, Baiyi, who had shared his soul numerous times, had never faced this problem before. Thus, he used his soul, like the aforementioned clay, to encase the Terrorblade’s soul container, after which he forcefully crushed the spirit within.
The overwhelming strength that Baiyi’s soul possessed would not come as a surprise to anyone. After all, it was this soul that bent a part of the Void, in which it created a haven for other banished souls. Only Baiyi could attempt such a feat without suffering any backlashes.
“Gotta’ hand it to you, Lich; you’re pretty creative. Initially, I dismissed this technique, calling it something crazy. How was I to believe that there existed any idiot that would want to merge their souls with mine? Welp! Who would have thought that it would actually happen?” Baiyi muttered as he examined the empty soul container in his consciousness.
A few minutes ago, Baiyi had thought that the Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm would be his only reward for slaying the Terrorblade. Who would have expected the Abyss Lord to be this generous? Not only did it gift him a large pool of Sinister Energy, but it had also given him a decent soul container, as well. Although the strength and volume of the Terrorblade’s soul container paled in comparison to the Northern Warrior’s soul container, it was still a good harvest. Baiyi decided to use it immediately he returned to the future. The soul container could be used to by other Voidwalkers to Pseudo-descend, or it could be used to strengthen the powers of the Voidwalkers that had already Pseudo-descended.
“Hey, since you’re this generous, could you have left more behind for me?” Baiyi chuckled as he stuck his hand into the realm crack once more. The realm crack led to the subdimension that Baiyi had compressed greatly, and there was only enough s.p.a.ce inside it for an adult’s hand to briefly moved around.
Baiyi used his hand to sift through the ma.s.s of demon flesh and blood. It almost seemed as though he enjoyed it even though it was really disgusting.
The soldiers and sorcerers, who were still atop the city wall, watched Baiyi confusion. They had yet to come to terms with the fact that a sorcerer had wiped out a horde of demons with just one spell. They began to wonder if the sorcerer was actually their Emperor, His Majesty. To them, it was a shame that the Abyss Lord was able to slip back into the realm crack before the sorcerer could take action against it. If they had managed to slay the Abyss Lord, their victory would have been more historic!
Watching the sorcerer stick his hand into the realm crack, time after time, the spectating army thought he was upset that the Abyss Lord had managed to escape. It was as though he was trying to feel the Abyss Lord out, after which he would pull it back out. A few sorcerers began to wonder if they should just ask the lone sorcerer to stop; after all, sticking one’s hand into a crack that a horde of demons had just come out of was dangerous.
After thinking about this for a while, the sorcerers decided to be quiet. Having witnessed the power that the stranger wielded, none of them were bold enough to advise him.
Some moments later, they watched the stranger pull his hand back out. What they did not see, however, was the small, slimy eyeball in his grip.
“That’s it? Just the Eye of Skadi? After all that, you only left a little icy eyeball?! Some high-level boss you were! p.i.s.s off,” Baiyi grumbled under his breath.
The eyeball in question could only be obtained from an ice demon called ‘Skadi’ — another rare species of demons, mutated from average Eye Demons. The eye was filled with ice power, and it could be used to add ice element to one’s attacks. It was a very useful tool for magic.
Although the eye was useless to Baiyi, it could still help Mia a lot; after all, her favorite elements were ice and water.
“I guess the verdict is out: I reaped some really good rewards this time, huh?” Baiyi nodded in satisfaction. “After staying in the past for so long, I finally get something good out of it. Now, this is the kind of experience a time-traveler should be ent.i.tled to!”