Chapter 271: Call Of The World
Everyone watched on nervously as the corrupted qi continued flowing into Liu Feng’s body. The dark energy spread like poison through his veins, visible beneath his skin as twisted black lines.
"Stop!" Xiang Yu commanded sharply, and Liu Feng immediately removed his hand from the source of corruption. The flow of dark qi ceased, but the damage was already done to his arm.
"Now control the corrupted qi and keep it contained to just your arm," Xiang Yu instructed.
He thought to himself that it wasn’t wise to attempt a full-body treatment when he had no idea if his theory would actually work. He needed to test slowly and carefully, starting with something manageable like a single limb. Losing an arm was certainly preferable to losing a person, and besides, an arm could be easily regenerated through some means.
Xiang Yu grasped Liu Feng’s corrupted arm firmly and closed his eyes in deep concentration. His divine sense immediately began probing the affected area, scanning every detail of the corruption’s spread. The others watched on nervously, their faces tense with worry as they wondered if it would really work.
Although Xiang Yu possessed the light element, solving this problem wasn’t as simple as just injecting light qi and calling it a day. While the light element was indeed strong against the dark element, the same could be said for the dark element.
Injecting light qi recklessly might work when dealing with a creature made purely of dark qi, where you could simply overwhelm it with opposing energy. But when dealing with a living person, the situation becomes far more complex and dangerous.
When two opposing elemental forces met inside a demon’s body, they would battle each other and lead to the creature’s destruction through the overwhelming damage of their elemental combat. However, in a human being, you have to exercise precise control to ensure the opposing forces don’t fight each other destructively. If they did clash uncontrolled, the best case scenario would be Liu Feng losing his arm completely. The worst case scenario...well...
Xiang Yu concentrated his divine sense on the afflicted arm, scanning and analyzing every minute detail of what was happening inside the limb. He watched with fascination as the dark energy slowly corrupted the healthy tissue, spreading its influence through muscle fibers and bone.
He observed how Liu Feng’s natural qi was valiantly fighting off the corruption at isolated points, creating small pockets of resistance against the invasive force.
After thoroughly analyzing the corruption’s behavior patterns and understanding how it interacted with Liu Feng’s natural energy, he began his treatment. He carefully isolated the exact coordinates of each individual dark energy particle within the arm, mapping their positions as well as accounting for any movement which was a lot as they kept moving rapidly. Then, with painstaking care, he began the process of inversing them one by one.
He couldn’t simply perform a blanket inverse transformation on the entire arm, as there were countless other things that made up the limb - blood vessels, nerves, bone, muscle tissue, and Liu Feng’s own qi.
Inversing everything indiscriminately could lead to catastrophic complications, potentially destroying healthy tissue along with the corruption. And if he inversed his qi it could lead to qi poisoning or qi deviation in the worst case scenario.
Instead, he had to identify every single dark particle individually and inverse each one personally, a process that required intense concentration and precise control.
After about a full minute of meticulous work, all traces of corruption had been completely destroyed. The black veins faded from Liu Feng’s arm, and the healthy pink color returned to his skin.
Xiang Yu opened his eyes and released Liu Feng’s arm. The results were fine but he wasn’t completely satisfied. This method worked, but it wasn’t practical for large-scale applications. It had taken a full minute of intense concentration just to cleanse a single arm - using this technique on a completely corrupted person would be incredibly time-consuming and mentally exhausting.
"It works, but it’s not applicable on a large scale for now," he announced to the others, noting their relieved but still worried expressions. "But no need to panic - I’ll figure out a better solution soon enough."
He paused for a moment, then decided this was an excellent opportunity to get some benefits. A slight smile crossed his lips as he continued, "If any of you happen to have high-level resources, I’d really appreciate it if you sent them my way. They would be incredibly helpful for advancing this research."
He quickly added with a reassuring grin, "Of course, I’m not asking for them for free."
With that, he reached into his storage ring and emptied its contents onto the ground before them. A dazzling array of treasures spilled out - high-level formation disks, special pills, talismans, and weapons. Among the collection were even several pseudo-divine treasures.
When they saw this incredible display, their eyes instantly brightened.
"Grand Elder, no need to worry about anything!" they eagerly assured him. "We’ll send people to gather the resources you want right away!"
Xiang Yu thought to himself that much of what he was offering probably couldn’t even be purchased by these cultivators, regardless of how much wealth they possessed. Many of these items were simply too rare or too high-grade to appear in normal markets. But it didn’t matter to him - he genuinely needed those high-level resources not just for the corruption research but also other things. Well, he decided to consider the difference in value as essentially donating to a worthy cause. After all, these resources were ultimately going to be used in the fight against the demonic invasion that threatened everyone in the region.
...
After dinner, Xiang Yu assigned the two remaining captured demons to his light clone, instructing it to focus entirely on studying them and how their corruption works. This research would take absolute precedence over all others at the moment as it was their most immediate concern at the moment.
If they managed to properly decode the inner workings of this dark energy, the possibilities were endless. Xiang Yu could create specialized runes and formations capable of blocking the corruption entirely. He could even sell these to other sects and cultivators for a profit.
Who knows, he might even be able to develop a nuke that when deployed on the lotus, would destroy it completely. Though he admitted that such a thing was probably too ambitious for now, given their current understanding of the enemy.
Earlier that day, after their meeting had concluded, Wang Jian had made the decision to return to his own sect. Xiang Yu had actually expected him to remain here as it seemed considerably safer. But then again, Wang Jian didn’t seem like the type of person who would abandon his responsibilities, especially since he had a daughter and an entire sect depending on him back home.
As for Liu Feng, he did not follow Wang Jian back to the Golden Edge Sect. Instead, the young master announced that he would be going to meet up with his people who had presumably arrived in the region. Even though Liu Feng had no obligation to help with their research, he voluntarily promised to conduct his own independent study of the demons and share his findings with Xiang Yu. This generous offer genuinely impressed Xiang Yu, and he found himself thinking that this Liu Feng fellow wasn’t so bad after all.
Even though Liu Feng had a main character name, he wasn’t arrogant like Li Yao and also wasn’t self-centered like one would expect from a young master. He genuinely seemed to care about others and was willing to contribute to the greater good without expecting anything in return. Although their personalities weren’t exactly similar, Xiang Yu felt that they would get along well.
As he was thinking of this, he suddenly realized that he didn’t really have any friends. His entire social world revolved around just three people: his master, his martial aunt, and Li Yao. Well, he supposed it didn’t really matter much - he had always been more focused on survival and cultivation than building social connections anyway.
Meanwhile, Li Yao had gathered together with the five elemental spirits. The spirits looked at her nervously. Before, they had been somewhat equally matched in terms of power, able to interact with her as peers.
But that had changed. Now, Li Yao was so overwhelmingly stronger than all of them combined that they felt like children in her presence. And that was without her even activating her true spirit form.
"Did you also receive the message?" Li Yao asked.
The five spirits nodded in unison.
Li Yao thought to herself that she had received this message that, according to the Empress, had come directly from the world itself. Since she was a spirit, it was her fundamental responsibility to protect the world from existential threats. And right now, the spreading demonic corruption represented exactly that kind of world-ending danger that demanded her intervention.
...
A/N: "the same could be said for the dark element" - meaning the dark element is also strong against the light element. This is true for all opposing elements. Each can be stronger than the other. Fire - Water