Chapter 33: Demon Spirit
Inside the alternate space, the Soul Death God, which had been brutally kicked by the goblin, had just stood up when this roughly tens of thousands of square meters large alternate space sealed shut, giving it no chance to escape.
Over ten meters tall, draped in a black robe, the Soul Death God floated up, exuding an imposing deterrence. However, it had taken a straight kick to its torso, been weakened by the Priest's Ancient God-type abilities, and been hit by the Voodoo Warlock Baze's strongest voodoo.
As the Soul Death God rose, the broken outer shell on its chest scattered from within its robe, clattering to the ground. From the extent of the fragmentation of this large area of outer shell, it was clear how vicious that straight kick had been.
As for asking the Soul Death God how it felt after taking that kick, at that moment, it felt as if its body had been hit by a planet, with no room to resist with its strength.
The fluctuation of that technique-type ability was naturally detected by the Soul Death God, given its thousands of years of rich experience. But what it couldn't understand was just how deranged a person would have to be to develop a technique ability to be so singular and terrifying.
Indeed, at high ranks, the more singular a characteristic of an ability, the more terrifying it becomes. This is the abandonment of flashy brilliance, concentrating everything into one.
Not only did the Soul Death God, as the party involved, find this straight kick unbelievable, but even the Priest and Voodoo Warlock Baze, as onlookers, were secretly shocked. For a moment, they even wondered if the Soul Death God might be instantly killed by this kick.
Facts proved that the Soul Death God, as a deity that had existed for thousands of years, could still withstand this straight kick, though the damage was quite severe.
Inside the alternate space, Su Xiao walked step by step toward the Soul Death God. As he moved forward, his slightly numb right calf recovered. This kick was indeed a bit too forceful. Fortunately, he had previously maxed out all six types of [Basic Passives] to X, and the resulting powerful physique prevented this kick from backfiring on himself.
Seeing Su Xiao step forward, the Priest and Voodoo Warlock Baze chose to watch from behind. This wasn't betraying a teammate; rather, the Priest provided ability reduction, with each second reducing the Soul Death God's various resistances, while Voodoo Warlock Baze maintained the voodoo effect, dealing continuous true damage to the Soul Death God.
When he was still several tens of meters away from the Soul Death God, Su Xiao drew the longsword at his waist and almost simultaneously released the Blade Demon Spirit. Composed of dark blue smoke, the Demon Spirit had the exact same build as Su Xiao, holding a crystal longsword.
With a bang, the Demon Spirit shot forward with a sonic boom, charging fiercely at the Soul Death God, reaching it in an instant.
The Soul Death God raised its hand, which looked like nothing but skeletal remains, and with its height advantage of over ten meters, pressed down in the air. A soul force field spread out, like a gravity field, and with a crash, it crushed the Demon Spirit.
'Blade Path Sword: Azure Demon.'
Whoosh!
A ten-meter-sized Azure Demon slashed out, passing through a gust of wind pressure, barely missing the Soul Death God as it dodged sideways, its robe rustling in the wind pressure.
With a crackling sound, the giant Azure Demon behind the Soul Death God shattered on its own, splitting into dozens of smaller Azure Demon slashes. Like they could track, they curved in arcs, leaving graceful blue-green slash marks in the air, and slashed toward the Soul Death God's back.
Detecting this, the Soul Death God was puzzled. Why was it being tracked without being marked by an ability? And tracked by a sword technique ability at that? This was very unreasonable.
Because this attack was too sudden and unreasonable, the Soul Death God, caught off guard, only managed to block most of the Azure Demons with a soul floating shield, while the rest slashed into its back.
As for why the Azure Demon could track the Soul Death God, of course, the Azure Demon couldn't track enemies, especially since Su Xiao had no marking ability. But the Azure Demon could track the Blade Demon Spirit, which was marked with energy of the same origin. More precisely, Su Xiao controlled the Blade Demon Spirit to retrieve the Azure Demon blade chain after it was slashed out. The Azure Demon blade chain, while being retrieved, happened to hit the Soul Death God.
The frontal slashing power of the Azure Demon often disappoints, so the strategy was changed. The slash appeared to be a giant blade aura, but was actually a blade chain attack, deliberately allowing the enemy to dodge. Then, using the Demon Spirit's form to retrieve the blade chain, the chain was pulled back at a faster speed and with stronger cutting power, thus hitting the enemy along the retrieval path.
Since the Azure Demon was often outplayed by enemies, the first stage of the Azure Demon's attack was deliberately made for the enemy to show off. The second stage, the retrieved blade chain, was the fatal killing move.
The smaller blade chain Azure Demon indeed had stronger penetration. Several half-meter-wide Azure Demons actually cut through the Soul Death God's body, gathered into a blade chain, were retrieved by the Demon Spirit, and finally shattered due to loss of energy maintenance.
The current Azure Demon was only in its early form. The retrieved blade chain was composed of 50 small Azure Demons. If further developed, it could likely produce a blade chain of hundreds of small Azure Demons, which would be retrieved by the Demon Spirit to penetrate the enemy. If circumstances allowed, the Demon Spirit could then throw the retrieved blade chain again, dealing a third stage of attack to the enemy.
With a hum, a ten-meter-long soul greatsword formed in the Soul Death God's hand, slashing horizontally with unstoppable force. This was an undefendable attack, ignoring physical defense and directly damaging the soul.
With a swish, the soul greatsword slashed through the Demon Spirit, cutting it in two, and then hit Su Xiao. However, at that instant, Su Xiao had already penetrated space through Dragon Shadow Flash, successfully evading this blow.
Having unleashed this killing move, the Soul Death God felt a surge of frustration. It could accept that Su Xiao dodged this attack, but the problem was that the dark blue smoke shadow completely ignored this soul slash.
Under Su Xiao's control, the Demon Spirit charged straight at the Soul Death God. Just as the Demon Spirit was a few meters away, a soul shield wall appeared in front.
Crack, crack, crack~
The crystal longsword in the Demon Spirit's hand transformed into a crystal warhammer, smashing heavily onto the soul shield wall. With the explosion of the crystal warhammer, a breach was smashed into the soul shield wall.
Almost simultaneously.
'Blood Smoke Cannon.'
A Blood Smoke Cannon shot precisely through the breach in the soul shield wall, hitting the Soul Death God's face. As broken outer shell fragments scattered, the Soul Death God staggered back.
A blood qi phantom appeared behind Su Xiao. As the soul greatbow was drawn, the Demon Spirit instantly transformed into black smoke, constructing a black smoke arrow on the soul greatbow.
Bang!
The three-meter-long black smoke arrow pierced through layers of spatial ripples, heading straight for the Soul Death God's face. The Soul Death God raised its skeletal hand, covered in soul crystal matter, in front of its face, planning to block this attack and then counterattack Su Xiao, using its soul ability advantage to suppress him.
The black smoke arrow was extremely fast, reaching the Soul Death God's hand in an instant. But the next moment, Su Xiao swapped positions with the black smoke arrow, appearing right in front of the Soul Death God's face, having already built up his slashing momentum.
'Blade Path Sword: Extreme.'
Clang!!
A brilliant slash cut through. [Extreme] was originally the peak of close-combat slashing power, and now, after a full 2-second charge, its slashing power was pushed to the absolute limit.
Pfft~!
The Soul Death God's hand was severed at the wrist. Its five eyes were all fixed on Su Xiao. Its remaining other soul hand reached out, intending to grab Su Xiao and use a killing move. But the next moment, Su Xiao swapped positions with the Demon Spirit again.
The black smoke arrow form of the Demon Spirit had only flown for 0.15 seconds and was about to hit the alternate space's boundary wall when, due to swapping positions with Su Xiao, it suddenly appeared right in front of the Soul Death God.
Boom!!
The Soul Death God was shot, tilting its head back and staggering. It covered its face with one hand, its five eyes now reduced to two. Dark blue smoke drifted out from between its fingers, returning behind Su Xiao to reform the Demon Spirit.
"Roar!!"
The Soul Death God let out a soul-shaking roar. But Su Xiao, as if foreseeing this, manifested the blood qi phantom and fired a Blood Smoke Cannon enhanced by double blood souls. With overwhelming power, he forcibly interrupted the Soul Death God's soul-shaking roar.
With a rumble, the Soul Death God was blasted by the Super Blood Smoke Cannon, crashing into the spatial boundary wall behind it. Without giving it even 0.1 seconds to catch its breath, a black smoke arrow shot toward it again.
This time, the Soul Death God didn't even need to block. As the black smoke arrow flew before it, Su Xiao swapped positions with the black smoke arrow form of the Demon Spirit again. With a charged side kick, he kicked the Soul Death God right in the face.
Thud!!
The side kick hit the Soul Death God's head. With the spatial boundary wall behind it, it slammed hard against the wall before pitching forward. However, at the same time, it used its last strength to grab at Su Xiao with its soul hand. This grab carried a powerful suction force that was unavoidable.
A black hole vortex appeared in the Soul Death God's palm as it fiercely grabbed Su Xiao. Then it clenched its fist, and a terrifying explosion sounded from within its hand.
With a boom, everything fell silent. But as the soul impact dissipated, wisps of dark blue smoke drifted out from between the Soul Death God's fingers. Its ultimate-level killing move hadn't caught Su Xiao at all. In that final moment, Su Xiao had swapped positions with the Demon Spirit. To be precise, this was the fourth time in this battle that Su Xiao had swapped positions with the Demon Spirit.
Each time he released the Demon Spirit, Su Xiao could only swap positions three to four times. Now, after the fourth swap, the dark blue smoke state Demon Spirit automatically returned to the Dragon-Slaying Flash.
Su Xiao flicked the black blood off his blade. He was just about to begin a hard-fought battle, charging at the Soul Death God opposite him, when unexpectedly, the Soul Death God, several tens of meters away, pitched forward and crashed to the ground. Black blood spread outward from beneath its tattered robe.
Seeing this, Su Xiao grew wary. The Demon Spirit ability had just entered cooldown, and he hadn't even started close combat yet. Was the Soul Death God already down? It must be a trap. At rank nine, using such a feigning death strategy was truly unwise.
Su Xiao raised his left arm, pointing his left index finger at the Soul Death God. Blood qi compressed to the extreme gathered at his fingertip.
'Blood Smoke Cannon.'
The blood spear compressed to its limit at Su Xiao's fingertip transformed into a blood-colored ray that shot out, hitting the Soul Death God's head with a boom. Amidst the spreading blood smoke, broken outer shell fragments and black blood splattered.
When the blood smoke cleared, the Soul Death God was still in its prone position. However, it seemed to be struggling to get up. But due to its severe injuries, it failed several times, instead vomiting large amounts of blood.
Seeing this, Su Xiao narrowed his eyes. The Soul Death God was, after all, a rank nine deity. Even if it wasn't among the top rank nine, it shouldn't be this fragile. But if it was acting, then this acting was truly convincing. The black blood it vomited made it look like it would die any second, as real as could be.
Su Xiao raised his hand again and fired another Blood Smoke Cannon at the Soul Death God's head. The Soul Death God still looked like it was on the verge of death.
"Brother Bai Ye, if you have a finishing move, finish it quickly. I think it might not hold on much longer."
Voodoo Warlock Baze spoke. He had originally wanted to help, but as the battle continued, he found it unnecessary.
"..."
Su Xiao stared at the Soul Death God, still feeling that this famous one of the Dark God Cult's Three Supreme Deities shouldn't be this unenduring.
"Ahem, I personally feel that it doesn't seem to be playing dead."
"..."
Su Xiao half-activated the Dragon Shadow Flash ability, charged to the front of the Soul Death God, and with dark blue smoke spreading on his longsword, activated the Demon Blade ability. He slashed through the Soul Death God's massive head. Dark blue embers scattered, and the kill was successful.
[Prompt: You have killed the Soul Death God.]
[You have obtained Origin-Level Chest: Soul of Death.]
[You have obtained 1.2% World Source.]
...
Even after killing the Soul Death God, Su Xiao was still puzzled. Why was this rank nine deity so unenduring? He had only used one straight kick + one side kick, 40-50% damage from the Azure Demon blade chain, one fully charged Blade Path Sword: Extreme, two Blood Smoke Cannons, one double-enhanced Super Blood Smoke Cannon, one Demon Spirit arrow hit to the head, and finally the Demon Blade's 25% maximum health finishing move.
Su Xiao was still in the first stage. He hadn't even activated [Immortal Constitution], meaning he hadn't entered the second stage, yet he had already pummeled the Soul Death God to death. This was indeed unexpected.
Currently, Su Xiao's three stages had changed after obtaining the [Awakening Stele] and gaining several new Law-Destruction abilities. The changes were as follows:
First Stage: Primarily focused on Blade Grandmaster and Melee Grandmaster, supplemented by the Demon Spirit's flexibility. Defense in the first stage was average, but attack capability was relatively strong.
Second Stage: The Blade Demon Spirit was recalled, and health dropped to 25%, triggering the [Immortal Constitution] ability. This increased Su Xiao's body defense by 599 points, sharply boosting his frontal combat power, entering a combat style centered on blade techniques + melee.
Third Stage: Health dropped to 20%, entering a near-death state, triggering the Blood Spear Grandmaster's passive for increased melee attack damage, providing a powerful 65% boost to melee attack damage. In this state, Su Xiao not only had the strong defense from [Immortal Constitution], but his attack power also reached its peak, entering a combat state completely centered on blade techniques.
Interestingly, in Su Xiao's ability system, the more singular his attack methods, the stronger he became. When he was still using the Demon Spirit and Blood Spear abilities, the enemy's experience was thrilling but not the worst. When Su Xiao only used normal slashes, that was when the enemy's nightmare truly began.
As for why the Soul Death God was so unenduring this time, to be precise, it wasn't that the Soul Death God was unenduring, but that after obtaining the [Awakening Stele], Su Xiao's overall combat power had made a qualitative leap.
The Shadow of Law Destruction was a inheritance system that grew stronger in the later stages. However, due to various reasons, Su Xiao had never had the chance to use the [Awakening Stele] to master new Law-Destruction abilities. This also meant that to ensure his combat power, he could only stack passives heavily, ensuring he didn't fall behind among his peers.
From rank one to rank nine, Su Xiao had persisted like this. And without obtaining the [Awakening Stele], he had still achieved an ability system that grew stronger in the later stages, precisely because he had stacked many passive abilities.
After the previous world progress ended, Su Xiao finally obtained the [Awakening Stele] and began to gradually master several core abilities of the Shadow of Law Destruction. These several Law-Destruction passives, combined with the passives he had been stacking all along, caused his combat power to undergo a qualitative improvement.
The Soul Death God was certainly not weak. It had a powerful divine body, was strong at mid-range, and had extremely strong suppression power. If it were Su Xiao's previous ability system, just getting into close combat with the Soul Death God would have cost him dearly.
Now, with the Demon Spirit, the two advances using the Demon Spirit's position swap were both damage-free advances, and both caught the Soul Death God off guard.
Perhaps the Soul Death God, until its death, couldn't understand why, with the [Soul Force Field] interfering with space and the [Invisible Soul Chain] spread within a hundred meters around, Su Xiao could still swap positions with the Blade Demon Spirit. Was this a space-type or energy-type ability? Regardless of which type, under such sealing, it should have been interfered with.
The real problem was right here. Su Xiao's position swap with the Blade Demon Spirit was neither type. It was simply the purest form of position swapping.
Of course, this was one of the three strongest abilities in the Shadow of Law Destruction's ability system. The first was [Demon Blade Execution], the second was [Position Swap]. As for the third, although Su Xiao had currently mastered it, he hadn't yet awakened the full form of this ability.
The Soul Death God was beaten senseless by this simple ability. All its soul-type suppression and knockback abilities were completely useless against this position swap.
Just think about it. A strong person primarily focused on mid-range combat, after being approached damage-free by a three-technique grandmaster, how vivid would the pain mask on their face be?
And this damage-free approach, the Soul Death God experienced twice. Once, it took a fully charged Blade Path Sword: Extreme. The second time, its head took a fully charged side kick. Then it fell forward. It wasn't playing dead; it was really about to die. Don't forget, it was under the Priest's weakening ability and Voodoo Warlock Baze's voodoo when it experienced these two heavy blows.
After experiencing an intense battle, the alternate space became increasingly unstable. Seeing this, Su Xiao walked out of the alternate space and returned to the Rock Temple.
As Baha closed the alternate space passage, that alternate space began to collapse. There were tens of thousands of such alternate spaces in every world, and they would generate on their own over time.
Everyone in the temple looked at the Soul Death God's divine body. Su Xiao took out an extraction device, activated it, and extracted the soul source matter so concentrated it had become liquid. After collecting over 2000 ounces of liquid [Soul Source Matter], the extraction device automatically shut down.
Su Xiao naturally wouldn't absorb this [Soul Source Matter] directly. Instead, he would wait until returning to Reincarnation Paradise, pay space-time power as a cost, and then use his Hunter authority to filter and purify it through Reincarnation Paradise's facilities. After Reincarnation Paradise certified it as completely pure, Su Xiao would concentrate it and mix it into a potion to drink, thereby achieving maximum effect.
The Priest took out a ritual cup. This ritual cup looked like it was made of gold but had an indescribable sense of holiness, like a Holy Grail. Yet, for some reason, this golden holy cup's holiness made one's heart chill.
A suction force erupted from within the golden holy cup. The Soul Death God's divine source blood was completely drawn out, all entering the golden holy cup, causing the fresh divine blood inside to overflow. The Priest began to drink the divine blood from the golden holy cup. This scene, for some reason, was hard to look at without feeling a chill in one's heart.
Finally, Voodoo Warlock Baze came before the Soul Death God's divine body. Both sides of his face split open, allowing the corners of his mouth to reach under his ears. When he opened his mouth, his white hair grew wildly. As his sharp-tipped hands grabbed the Soul Death God's divine body, the body seemed to soften, and Voodoo Warlock Baze stuffed large handfuls into his mouth.
Seeing this, Xianlulu slowly hid behind Su Xiao's leg, not daring to breathe. She was very scared in her heart.
Just then, a sudden change occurred. A black vortex appeared ahead. After briefly erupting with darkness, it transformed into an oval mirror image.
The mirror image was dim. As the surrounding fluctuations stabilized, the scene within the oval mirror image became clear. It was a dim divine domain. Three towering divine thrones stood tall. One was empty. On the other two sat the Lust God and the Serpent God, two of the Dark God Cult's Three Supreme Deities.
The reason this spatial mirror image formed was simple. The Lust God and Serpent God had sensed the Death God's death. As the Dark God Cult's three Supreme Deities, they were all in the same boat, so they naturally wouldn't ignore this. Also, now that the Soul Death God was dead, its soul source matter, divine blood, and accumulated wealth were all very tempting.
Moreover, the Soul Death God had just died. The one who killed it was likely heavily injured, even near death. The Lust God and Serpent God intended to reap the benefits while also making the one who dared to kill a Dark God Cult Supreme Deity pay the price. It was a move that served multiple purposes.
At this moment, in the divine domain, the Lust God and Serpent God, seated majestically on their thrones, observed the situation in the Rock Temple through the spatial mirror. The expected scene of a hard-fought battle with the victor heavily injured or near death didn't appear. Instead, they saw:
A Law Destroyer covered in blood qi, with a blood beast phantom lurking behind him, holding a container of soul source matter. Beside him, a Priest with a kind smile, holding a holy cup stained with divine blood.
And a tribal high priest with primitive tattoos on his face, looking up with his mouth open, the corners of his mouth split to under his ears, releasing a fist-sized divine eyeball from his hand and swallowing it with a gulp.
Beside the tribal high priest was a small old man carrying a large cloth bag, a cheap grin on his face. Inside the large cloth bag was all the wealth the Soul Death God had stored in its spatial items.
What remained on the ground was only a nearly two-meter-high divine skull with five eye sockets, covered in cracks.
After witnessing all this through the spatial mirror, even as evil-aligned deities, the Lust God and Serpent God couldn't help but inwardly gasp. The four enemies they encountered this time seemed very formidable: soul plunderer, blood drinker, flesh devourer, wealth thief.
What made the Lust God and Serpent God even more alarmed was the way Su Xiao, the Priest, Voodoo Warlock Baze, and Kaiser looked at them. Those four gazes seemed to contain:
A new wild treasure chest.
A new source of divine blood.
New divine flesh.
A new mobile money bag.
With a whoosh, the Lust God and Serpent God on the other side closed the spatial mirror. From the speed at which the spatial mirror disappeared, the two deities on the other side seemed somewhat hasty. Needless to say, the mentality of those two Dark God Cult deities had undergone a huge change. More precisely, their mentality was somewhat shattered.