Chapter 320: The Malicious Aura Crystal
Zen had resisted Bryson's flying swords attack easily with his bodily strength. In fact, he had beaten Bryson so hard that the latter had gotten seriously injured. This had shocked the members of the Luo family, who were now, admiring Zen's strength heavily.
Initially, they had thought highly of Zen, but just like what had happened in the All Peaks Competition, no one really believed that Zen could defeat Dick of the Illuminating Soul Realm with his strength at a mere grade 2 of the nature level.
However, that was then. Right now, Zen was at grade 3 of the nature level but he was facing an opponent at the Illuminating Soul Realm, the Blood Prisoner, wanted by the government and chased for a long time by Cloud Sect.
Unless someone actually witnessed it, it would have been impossible to believe the outcome.
After the blood streaks released by the Blood Prisoner entangled Zen's arm, they tried to enter Zen's skin, like several thousand worms or centipedes trying to crawl inside.
His own refined blood as well as strong malicious aura was hidden in those streaks, which could even cut into an iron plate several centimeters thick. The Blood Prisoner could suck the flesh and blood from people whose body had been engulfed by those powerful rope-like streaks. But that was under usual circumstances.
Normally, the person whose blood and flesh were swallowed by him would have become a shrunken, sucked skeleton, miserable and quite dead.
“Scream, Bloke. Let out your sad and shrill cries!” The Blood Prisoner's terrible face without any skin on it shrieked and showed a merciless smile.
But just as his streaks tried to enter Zen's body, the Blood Prisoner suddenly felt that something was horribly wrong.
This time, his invincible blood streaks couldn't penetrate this pathetic man's skin.
How was that possible!
To be honest, the Blood Prisoner experienced more of Zen's strength than Bryson.
Bryson had tried to kill Zen with his flying swords, which were being controlled only with a little bit of life vitality. After the swords had bounced away from Zen's body, Bryson had thought that it was impossible and was wondering whether Zen had a special treasure to protect his body.
But the Blood Prisoner had directly used the blood streaks made from his own life vitality to penetrate Zen's skin. He could have directly gathered the information reflected from those blood streaks. The intensity and the strength of Zen's skin was far beyond his expectation. His all-conquering blood streaks were completely ineffective on Zen.
When the Blood Prisoner was stunned, Zen sneered, “You must be tired from all that floating about in the air. Why don't you come down!”
Suddenly he made a fist with his hand entangled by the blood streaks and pulled with his mighty strength which had surprised even the Blood Prisoner himself. At the same time, he threw a punch at the ground severely.
“Bang!”
The great force with which his hand hit the ground left a big hole. Before the sound of this punch could be completely dissipated, another loud bang was heard. The Blood Prisoner, pulled down from midair by Zen's heave, fell heavily on the ground at a furious pace and made that second bang.
Countless cracks appeared on the ground and a human-shaped hole got indented not far away from Zen. From the hole the disgusting smell of blood started rising continuously.
After a short while, a volcano of blood burst out from that hole suddenly and it splashed on the ground all over the periphery of that hole. The slate on the ground blackened immediately, and several furious hisses could be heard. In an instant, the slate melted. The blood volcano had a strong corroding effect.
In no time, a hand made of pure blood reached out from the hole. When the Blood Prisoner emerged, he was covered completely by a layer of crimson-colored light, so akin to blood as to be easily confusable with it. He was like a creature which had been born in a blood pool.
“I am surprised. Can a simple disciple of Cloud Sect be so powerful? You are just at grade 3 of the nature level, but you can force me to burn my blood and do such a miracle!” The prisoner's face was also covered with that disgusting light and only red slits were visible where his eyes should have been. At that moment, he didn't look like human anymore, but a blood ogre.
Seeing that the Blood Prisoner had changed and the momentum on his body had increased greatly, Zen was also astonished.
It appeared that the killing way was really a shortcut. If it was not so easy to be swallowed by the malicious aura when practicing in the killing way, nobody knew how many warriors in the world would take this way. The Blood Prisoner was only at grade 1 of the Illuminating Soul Realm, and his foundation was not as steady as the disciples of Cloud Sect, but he could promote his strength greatly after he used the secret method to arouse the malicious aura in his body.
Nobody knew how many creatures the Blood Prisoner had killed across his years of practicing and hiding. Each time he killed someone, he could accumulate more malicious aura which he could later utilize. With that in mind, Zen really was not in the mood to talk with him. He moved suddenly and started a weird step. Lifting the Streamer Sword in his hand lightly, he chopped his enemy, hoping to end him once and for all.
“Die!” The sharp Streamer Sword chopped with a silver radiance and the blade rushed towards the Blood Prisoner.
“That's going to be of no use.” The Blood Prisoner waved his hand. Layers upon layers of blood-colored crystals suddenly emerged from his arm, like blood-red emeralds and formed a thick armor on his arm. There was a strong malicious aura hidden in each of those crystals and the sword couldn't possibly cut through them all.
“Crack...”
Zen's sword radiance chopped several crystals to pieces but was blocked at last.
The Blood Prisoner sneered, “Your strength really surprises me, but you are bound to be my delicacy!”
“Poof!”
Six blood-red bone spikes emerged from the Blood Prisoner's body instantly. Each of them was several feet long, and resembled the disgusting legs of a spider. They surrounded Zen immediately.
“Be a part of my blood and flesh!” The Blood Prisoner ordered and laughed wildly. The six bone spikes tried to hit Zen!
Just at that moment, a beautiful young girl suddenly floated in and casually asked, “Zen, need some help?”
The Blood Prisoner hadn't even been able to detect that the young girl was there before hearing her voice, 'When did this young girl come? Was she here the entire time? Why didn't I, or rather, why couldn't I notice her?
Is this girl a cultivator of the Illuminating Soul Realm?
Who is she? Is there actually a young girl of the Illuminating Soul Realm among the members of Luo family?'
Even though Zen's strength had astonished the Blood Prisoner, this guy was a nature creature and couldn't defeat him. The Blood Prisoner wasn't powerful enough, but he was still able to fly. Zen was a nature creature and couldn't catch up with him, so the Blood Prisoner had a great advantage and confidence when fighting against him.
But it would have been different if Zen, along with all his strength, also had the help of a master of the Illuminating Soul Realm. And this young girl was at a cultivation level several grades higher than him. The Blood Prisoner didn't have the confidence to defeat her.
“No thank you sis. I don't need any help. I am going to end this battle now.” Zen replied sweetly with a smile.
What did that mean? The Blood Prisoner couldn't understand. Zen thought he could end this battle without the girl's help? His tone suggested that he was about to kill the Blood Prisoner at any time? 'Is this guy so na?ve as to believe that?'
Before the Blood Prisoner could recover from his shock and come to his senses, he saw another silver light flashing in Zen's hand and rushing towards his face.
The silver light was the broken flying knife!
It came instantly and unexpectedly. Hurriedly, the Blood Prisoner tried to dodge, but before he could even move, he felt a severe pain which almost stopped his mind.
“Boo!”
The broken flying knife flew right across the Blood Prisoner's neck, dismembering it from the body as easily as hot lava through butter. Fresh blood spurted from his broken neck.
The Blood Prisoner's head rolled down to one side, and the gloomy red light in his eyes dimmed slowly. It turned out that it was in fact him, who was too na?ve.
Seeing the inclining dead body of the Blood Prisoner, Zen shook his head. When it came to plain and simple fighting capacity, the Blood Prisoner, with his ability to turn into a blood ogre was powerful indeed. At the very least, he could have easily defeated Dick and was perhaps, even qualified to fight against Jacques.
Unfortunately, warriors practicing in common places other than the Cloud Sect had very few resources around them and were rarely able to find a chance to cultivate the soul. Such warriors couldn't have resisted Zen's Spiritual Thorn attack.
If Zen had wanted to end the fight sooner, he could have easily used that attack and turned the Blood Prisoner's mind into a complete mess. The latter would have been left a complete idiot in that case.
On the other hand, warriors who practiced and grew up in Cloud Sect had either a powerful soul or a special way to protect the soul.
After the Blood Prisoner had died, malicious aura emerged from his body and rose continuously for some time. Generally, the malicious aura was colorless, but if being strong enough, it would often be a bright shade of red. And given a large enough quantity condensing all at once, it could even turn fresh red.
However, the malicious aura of the Blood Prisoner was even worse-- dark red!
'He had taken in so much malicious aura! How many creatures had this guy killed?' Zen thought indifferently.
The malicious aura entered Zen's body continuously and gathered inside. If one were to compare, the malicious aura Zen had gathered after killing those people just now was hardly worth mentioning against this large amount from the prisoner's body.
It was a long while before the aura in the body of the Blood Prisoner had finished gathering into Zen's. It finally turned into three dark red crystals.
'Three blood-colored crystals stand for three wisps of malicious aura, I believe?' Zen could feel that these three blood-colored crystals had a special energy, which was made from the curse of thousands of creatures, cast before they died. It was obvious that the curse of dying people was not something nice to hold on to.
However, everything had its advantages and disadvantages. The malicious aura could devour a person's body if kept long enough, but if the person made use of it, its powers could be significant and terrible. For example, the Blood Prisoner didn't have a foundation as solid as Dick had, but the strength he had burst was far more powerful than Dick's, which was the result of the malicious aura.
'These three wisps of malicious aura are hidden in my body, but they can be harmful to me. Fortunately, I have connection with the Killing Sword Mountain and can keep them on the mountain.' Zen ordered in his mind. The three wisps of malicious aura disappeared from inside his body in an instant, and appeared on the mountain. He sensed a new energy flow somewhere in his body.
'Wow. It looks like it's super easy to save the malicious aura on the Killing Sword Mountain. I wonder how much malicious aura I can save there.'
While Zen was lost in his thoughts, a figure standing not far tried to flee. This was Ken.
It was beyond his imagination that Zen could have killed the prisoner so easily.
After all, the Blood Prisoner was being chased by the government and Cloud Sect jointly. He was supposed to be almost invincible in these counties. The government and Cloud Sect had sent several powerful men to surround and attack the Blood Prisoner, but he had still managed to run away.
Now his neck had been cut off by Zen in an instant...
Ken felt a chill running through his back. In his mind, he couldn't think of anything else except to flee.
However, just as he had moved a few steps, a young girl blocked his way out of nowhere. She had a really big smile. Yan asked in a low voice, “Uncle, where are you going?”