Chapter 58 - Act 9. The Demonic Beast Farm on Wailing Mountain (3)

'I let the formation make me impatient. I brought it out too soon.'

In that fleeting instant, Yise reconsidered his judgment.

He had never imagined that the man would identify the ritual implement the instant his Demonic Energy was sealed, then retreat outside the barrier without a moment's hesitation. Even with his wife on her last breath, he had secured his own survival first. Judging by his remark about the principles of a Demonic Energy-Sealing Formation, being a formation practitioner must have made it easier to recognize.

This was a difference in experience. Tenth-star Qi Refining. Yise could scarcely imagine what sort of life a Demonic Path Cultivator who reached that level had led, or how many years he had lived. At the very least, this was the real thing—an enemy of an entirely different caliber from those he had faced so far.

Yise put away the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard. He would bring it out again whenever necessary, but now that its effect had been exposed, it would be the first thing targeted.

'The Needle-Firing Armor needs time before I can use it again, and he's seen through the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard.'

As Yise launched Firebolt to keep the distant demonic practitioner in check, the man lifted the hem of his robe. From his waist he drew a round disc the size of a palm. Blood-colored incantations densely covered its rim, and a single twisted pattern ran across its center.

A formation disc. The man hurled it straight at the ground.

The instant the disc struck the dirt, its pattern expanded, tracing a formation of red light that saturated the ground. A blood-colored circle spread around the man.

Yise stopped breathing for a moment.

'... A Blood Formation.'

The Daemudo Basic Handbook listed four branches of the Iron Sun Thunder Sect's secret cultivation arts. One was the Blood Cultivation Method, which built one's cultivation by sacrificing the blood of others. This formation was based on that method.

Its greatest cruelty was that it denied its victims rest. Captives were confined in agony until they withered and died. Like a vampire bat dragging its prey along, the practitioner drew a fixed amount of blood each day to nourish his cultivation. The day a victim's blood ran dry, leaving only an empty husk, was their last.

Yise stiffened slightly despite himself. This was not someone who had simply fallen into corruption and become a demonic practitioner. He was a true villain who had devoured countless lives for his own cultivation.

'He kidnaps other people's family members and bleeds them for the rest of their lives until they die...'

Yise's gaze flicked briefly toward the fallen woman.

'Yet he cherishes his own family so dearly.'

And considering how readily he would abandon even her to save his own life, it was a farce too absurd to laugh at.

Blood-red streams shot from the man's formation. Four jets of blood flew at Yise from different angles, moving at more than twice the speed of an ordinary Gushing Torrent.

Yise immediately raised an earthen wall. Soil surged from the ground to form a shield-shaped barricade.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The streams of blood burst against it in succession. Yise blocked the remaining jet with the Yellow Grand Parasol and ducked behind the wall.

The next attack took a different form. The blood split in midair and formed a grasping hand with five fingers, which swept around the earthen wall and descended on Yise.

Dokkaebi Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art.

Shadow-Net Formation.

Yise's Shadow-Net Formation collided with the demonic practitioner's blood-red palm. The tightly woven black net broke up the hand of blood and pushed it back. It lost its shape and scattered into the air.

When both attacks failed in succession, Yise could see the man beyond the ridge clench his teeth through his spirit sight.

'Our spells are roughly equal in power.'

Yise calmly surveyed the scene over the Yellow Grand Parasol. Steadying his breath, he weighed his strength against his enemy's.

Internal reserves: even his spiritual energy and Demonic Energy combined might barely amount to half his opponent's. If the battle dragged on, he would run dry first.

Ritual implements: he had no way of knowing what else his enemy carried. There were surely several more hidden away besides the formation disc he had just thrown.

Spell power: judging by their two brief exchanges, they were on a similar level. Excluding formations, Yise actually held a slight edge in the raw power of his spells.

Physique: the man's body was well trained for a formation practitioner, but clearly fell short of a Daemudo Cultivator's, who constantly honed both spell power and physique.

'There are no formations laid in advance.'

That was what Yise had feared most: fixed formations—large-scale, powerful formations that required time to set up.

Persistent formations that ran through all twelve watches of the day, such as concealment, defensive, and alarm formations, devoured resources. Only a great sect could even contemplate maintaining them. Even the single alarm formation around this mountain compound must have been a considerable burden for these two.

There was nothing beyond that.

'We're evenly matched in a head-on fight.'

The man's specialization in formations rather than combat, combined with the advantages of the Heavenly-Demonic Dual-Meridian Constitution, largely offset the difference in cultivation.

Yise completed his assessment in an instant. He stowed his hand axe in his storage pouch and gripped the Meridian-Cutting Blade. This opponent would force him to use everything he had.

Behind the earthen wall, Yise pushed lightly off the ground with his toes. The jets of blood came again.

This time, he did not raise another wall. Instead, he poured a thick layer of spiritual energy into the Yellow Grand Parasol and batted three jets aside in succession with its face. The energy-infused shield violently repelled the crimson force.

Then he charged straight ahead. Using Dokkaebi Steps, he closed on the man several jang at a time.

The man's response was swift and dispassionate. Mindful of the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard, he maintained a safe distance.

Yise deliberately chased him out of position, then abruptly changed direction. His target was the formation disc on the ground. If it was a ritual implement the man valued, he would surely come to retrieve it.

Yise sprang forward like a released spring. The change was too sudden to follow unless one had anticipated it.

Yet the man's reaction was the exact opposite of what Yise had expected. Even as he watched Yise dash toward the disc, he did not move from his spot. No—to be precise, he had begun a different action.

He drew three small flags from his robes. They cut through the air and planted themselves in a triangle around him.

A formation that required three formation implements. The more demanding setup meant it would be more powerful than the formation disc.

The moment Yise reached the disc, an alarm rang in the back of his mind.

'... No. This is...'

He already sensed that something had gone wrong, but momentum carried his hand onto the disc. Just as his fingertips registered its hardness, it crumbled with a crunch and scattered like dust.

It was a single-use ritual implement. As far as the man was concerned, it was already spent and disposable—a consumable that vanished after serving its purpose of deploying a Blood Formation.

'I misjudged him.'

Yise turned his head too late. The energy pouring from the triangular arrangement of formation implements was already making his skin prickle.

"Let's see you remain standing after a Slaughter Formation, you dog of Daemudo."

The air rang with a chorus of slicing sounds. Hundreds of translucent blades rose simultaneously from within the triangle and raced toward Yise.

It was killing energy, forged from something and by some means he could not identify. This instant formation would hack his body apart merely for standing there.

Instinctively, Yise raised the Yellow Grand Parasol before him and summoned spiritual energy to protect his body. But the activated Slaughter Formation was not something such soft measures could stop.

His thick robe split into strips in an instant. Flank, shoulder, thigh, arm—blood spurted from every cut at once. Some of the killing strikes left deep gashes even in his bones.

He fought down the urge to scream at the heavy pain. His breath caught. A mouthful of blood spilled from his lips, and he staggered, losing his balance.

That was when the man's anguished cry rang out.

"My wiiife!"

Yise turned to see the woman impaled on the Earthen Spear finally slump limp. The man's gaze swung back toward him. His eyes rolled wildly, and his lips trembled with rage.

"I swear..."

He howled like a beast.

"I swear I will make an offering to my wife with your blood..."

Yise immediately pulled a Healing Pill from his robes and tossed it into his mouth. It was a stopgap, but it would at least let him move.

The pain was another matter. The medicine closed wounds; it did not stop them from hurting. Every breath felt as though a hot needle were being driven between his ribs and pulled out again.

The demonic practitioner raised his brush-shaped formation implement again and began drawing an instant formation. Yise moved to plant the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard.

As though to prove a point, the man abandoned the formation he was drawing and retreated.

Taking that opportunity, Yise washed the blood from his body with Gushing Torrent, then drew two more talismans from inside his robes: an Invisibility Talisman and a Spirit-Concealing Talisman.

The Invisibility Talisman hid his body, while the Spirit-Concealing Talisman masked his energy. He vanished from the man's sight.

"...?"

A beat too late, the wild-eyed man searched the place where Yise should have been. Only bloodstains remained.

He hurriedly tried to draw an instant defensive formation, but a round ritual item flew in from somewhere and burst.

BANG!

A deadly poison spilled from the shattered poison bomb. The man stopped breathing too late—and the poison did not enter through breath alone. It seeped into his body through his skin, eyes, ears, and every opening.

His blood and energy lurched out of alignment. His bestial eyes briefly lost focus and wavered. The fingers holding the brush trembled, distorting the defensive formation symbols he had just begun drawing.

At that instant, Yise's figure reappeared out of thin air. The Meridian-Cutting Blade already shone with the golden light of Adamantine Lock.

The man instinctively turned and thrust out his bare hand. His Demonic Energy met Yise's spiritual energy head-on. Between the colliding knife edge and bare hand, the two forces pushed against one another.

They were evenly matched. In that moment of deadlock, Yise moved his other hand.

Dokkaebi Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art.

Four-Direction Strike.

Four shadow hands surged from beneath the ground and struck down at the demonic practitioner. As the startled man split his Demonic Energy to block them, Yise's Meridian-Cutting Blade moved again.

This time, he did not aim for the neck. He went for the ankle. All he needed was to lodge the blade anywhere in the man's body, and victory would swing his way.

"You persistent little...!"

The man reflexively gathered Demonic Energy at his toes, but he was a moment too late. Yise's Meridian-Cutting Blade had already sliced halfway through his ankle.

Unfortunately, Yise failed to leave it embedded.

But his assault was not over. The Stone-Hand Necklace had activated, and its stone palm smashed down on the demonic practitioner's head.

Coughing blood, the man frantically threw a single-use ritual implement and opened up some distance.

Blood stained his robes, poison coursed through his body, and dirt covered his head. Even the way he stumbled backward, dragging one foot, was wretched. He looked every bit as battered as Yise, whose entire body was covered in wounds.

It was just as Yise thought he had driven his enemy into a corner.

The man stretched a hand toward his wife's corpse on the ground behind him. Red energy drew upward in threads from his fingertips.

His wife's blood. And the blood of the demonic beasts Yise had impaled earlier.

In the end, he had decided to sacrifice even his own family and her demonic beasts to the Blood Cultivation Method. A decision truly befitting a demonic practitioner.

Watching the droplets of blood slowly gather, Yise felt an instinctive sense of danger.

This was dangerous.

His Dokkaebi Senses screamed a warning.