Chapter 187: Setting up a Soul Contract
‘Dying is not the best thing to compare this to,’ Hui Yue grumbled as he looked at how Deng Wu slowly sat down with his back against the cold stone wall and his hand touching his forehead; the place where the drop of blood entered into his body.
“Hello?” The guy asked as he looked around turning his head from one side to the other. After standing up and looking at where he was seated, he turned towards Hui Yue and looked at him with an indignant expression on his face.
“I can’t hear Little Dragon. Did it not succeed?” He asked curiously with a frown, uncertain whether or not he was satisfied with the result. His question, however, was answered with a snort from the bird in control of the white-haired young man.
“Of course, you can’t hear his voice,” Lan Feng said to the older man, “You still haven’t done the most important part of the transfer. All I did was prepare your body. Making it able to contain Little Dragon’s soul.”
“Oh,” Deng Wu said looking fairly dumb, “Will it hurt as badly as just now?” He asked fretting slightly. He knew that he was supposed to be able to take the pain, however, having gone through the excruciating experience once, he had no wish to do so again.
“Don’t worry,” Lan Feng answered carelessly while he was looking at the azure dragon figurine within his hands, “This won’t hurt.”
Having looked at the dragon figurine for awhile while mumbling quite a few words to himself, he finally sat down. He looked at Deng Wu with a serious expression on his face.
“When you and Little Dragon met each other, Little Dragon was a Saint ranked beast.” Lan Feng started with an explanation and knowing the phoenix, the explanation would not be repeated. This made both Hui Yue and Deng Wu listen intently.
“Little Dragon then passed on some of his cultivation base to you,” He continued. “By doing so, your Qi started to get infused with some Dragon Qi which only belongs to the dragons. It is quite spectacular that you managed to stay alive with Dragon Qi in your body. Only someone as dumb as that damned lizard would gift his cultivation away.” Lan Feng continued to mutter before he once more looked at the black haired man with a serious expression.
“Well since you managed to survive with Dragon Qi in you, I gifted you a cultivation technique,” Lan Feng continued. “That had pretty much a fifty-fifty percent chance of death, or that you successfully be able to change all the Qi within your body to Dragon Qi. Fortunately enough you managed to once more surprise me and change all your Qi into Dragon Qi.”
“Now, remember I told you that only dragons have Dragon Qi, so to see a human with it is nothing I have ever seen before, nor is it something I have heard about. But it is quite fortunate if you did not have Dragon Qi within you I would not have been able to give you some of Qing Long, our venerated ancestor’s blood essence.”
“What this blood essence has done is basically change every cell within your body. Your body no longer contains the cells of humans, instead, it contains the cells of dragons. You are basically a human-dragon now.” Lan Feng said carelessly, his words causing shock amongst both Hui Yue and Deng Wu. At first they were shocked to hear how Lan Feng had gambled with Deng Wu’s life, but secondly neither of them were capable of understanding that Deng Wu no longer was a human; that he had turned into a human-dragon!
“You see, Little Dragon’s soul is the soul of a dragon. Now I can easily manage to move him into your body, but, sadly, he is no longer a Saint ranked beast and upon moving him I will have to kill you. Killing you with him only being an Emperor means he will not have enough strength to make the two of you reincarnate. So I needed to come up with something else.”
“Now that you have the body of a dragon it is possible for us to make a much smoother transition,” Lan Feng said with a smile. “Now what I need the two of you to do is as simple as a Soul Contract. It’s really quite simple, both Hui Yue and I managed to do it ages ago.”
Clearing his throat, Deng Wu looked at the figurine within Lan Feng’s hand and his thoughts went back to how the dragon had helped him out many times in the past. A determined expression appeared on his face, and with a nod he looked at the white-haired young man currently controlled by the phoenix and said with a steady voice, “Just tell me what to do.”
“Okay,” Lan Feng nodded satisfied with the expression on Deng Wu’s face. “This is going to be quite different from how it was with me and Hui Yue,” He started. “Hui Yue and I already shared a body when we set up our Soul Contract, however, we need to make one between you and Little Dragon so that he can enter your body.”
“Come here,” Was the order given directly, and without waiting Deng Wu walked straight towards him. Upon reaching Lan Feng, the phoenix used some of Hui Yue’s spiritual energy and with steady hands cut a deep wound on Deng Wu’s arm. As his blood splashed onto the azure dragon figurine.
Deng Wu’s face turned pale, but this kind of pain was nothing compared to having every cell in his body changing while still awake. He easily managed to suppress the pain he felt.
“Take your consciousness and enter the azure dragon figurine,” Lan Feng said with a loud voice and Deng Wu did as he was told. As soon as he entered the said figurine,shockingly azure light shone through the corridor in which they were currently standing.
“Now merge the two of you,” Lan Feng ordered, but Deng Wu just furrowed his brows clearly not completely sure how to merge himself.
“Your spiritual energy, combine it and determine some reason for how long you are sharing the body!”
Hearing the yell, Deng Wu seemed to understand what to do. His hands shone as his spiritual energy entered into the azure dragon figurine. After only a moment, the light increased in intensity and ever so slowly everything from within the azure dragon figurine was moving into Deng Wu. His hair turned azure and his eyes turned dark blue.
His eyes were open and shock was evident within as he sat down, saying nothing at all. Seeing this, neither Lan Feng nor Hui Yue said anything to the other man, it was obvious that he was conversing together with Little Dragon.
After waiting for what seemed like half an hour, Deng Wu unsteadily came to his feet. He was slightly lightheaded from the lack of blood, and the shocking changes which happened to him; however, he also sprouted a smile on his face.
Seeing this, a smile reappeared on Hui Yue’s face as he once more took control of his body.
“Let’s leave this place and return to the others,” Hui Yue said smiling. While supporting Deng Wu, the two of them returned to the chamber where they entered the staircase and together they slowly started to ascend.
Reaching ground level was done fairly quickly, and as they did they were lucky that no guards were around. The moon was hanging low in the sky, and it was clearly very early in the morning. Neither Deng Wu nor Hui Yue had any real idea about how long they were below ground.
Being in a room only lit by their own light stones did not help them tell time.When they returned to the house which was theirs, they quickly noticed that their friends were still within the same room. Some were sleeping while Xu Piao and Xie Lan were both awake and guarding the sleeping Sha Yun and Wang Ju Long.
The two looked up as the door opened, and both were alert until they saw Hui Yue. Upon looking at Deng Wu to his side, however, both of their eyes widened in surprise by the changes. His hair was azure blue and his eyes dark blue now. His body was pale due to his lack of blood and on his arm, a long scar could be seen.
Seeing their shock, he could do nothing but smile wryly. He never expected that his appearance would change as he entered into a Soul Contract, and when he looked at Hui Yue he could only shake his head at his own ignorance. Deng Wu remembered Hui Yue tell him how his appearance had changed the night he went through his Soul Contract with Lan Feng. Looking at his own situation he wondered how he had been so ignorant as to think he would stay practically unchanged, when someone like Hui Yue had changed so much.
Sitting down Hui Yue withdrew a few bottles of wine from within his storage ring. These bottles were then tosses to the random people in the room who were still awake. With quiet smiles and nods, they all gathered on the ground next to one another as they started chatting about what they came across.
Hui Yue apologized and told them that he had still not found the exit nor the Laws. What he found, instead, was the tunnels leading into the other sections of the dungeons, the tunnels which were built on top of the Vermillion Bird, the Black Turtle, and the White Tiger’s corpses.
Hearing this, Xu Piao felt somewhat more confident in what they were doing. If they ended up in a bad situation they could all rush towards the other caves. Although the Dragon Corps was the ultimate law within the dragon part of the Dungeons of the Divine, they did not have much to say within any of the other three dungeons. If they managed to escape to those other sections then they would be safe, should they end up in a bad situation.
“Well, although we have an escape plan, I still plan on going out to look for the exit and the Laws,” Hui Yue said seriously. While Hui Yue was speaking he kept observing Deng Wu. Although Hui Yue did have a Soul Contract, he had never lived his life here without Lan Feng, so for him sharing one body was something which was normal.
It had taken them a year to travel from Cave’s End to the Dragon Core, and now Hui Yue was sixteen years old. For him to share a body with Lan Feng was as natural as breathing, however, Deng Wu had never shared his body with anyone before. So for him to suddenly hear the voice of another being within himself, coupled with the feeling of seeing someone else in his dantian it was strange.
As Xu Piao was observing Deng Wu he noticed that although the older man was still slightly pale, his face was getting a better complexion and a smile sprouted on his lips. Deng Wu laughed and chatted with Xu Piao, but refused to say why he had suddenly changed.
It did not take long before his eyes started to mist without him able to control it. Deng Wu then slowly slumped to the ground falling asleep as his body no longer could handle all the strain of today’s experiences.
Looking at the sleeping Deng Wu a wry smile appeared on Hui Yue’s face. Even he did not expect that Lan Feng planned anything as deep as this for his friend. Despite not knowing, Hui Yue felt somewhat guilty for what he put his friend through. Still he felt quite satisfied with how everything turned out. An extra expert on their team, albeit not a Saint ranked expert, was still far better than what they had previously.