Chapter 44: Dragon-Blooded Protagonist Power Fantasy (43)

Qin Yang spat out a mouthful of fresh blood and slowly climbed up from the ground.

She had caught his bladeless sword, and in return, she had given him a bladed one. Although the Prajna Green Lotus within her body was still drawing in spiritual energy to replenish Qin Yang's completely hollowed-out dantian, Qin Yang felt that the waves of bone-deep pain did not originate from his dantian, nor from his internal organs injured by the sword qi.

The pale blue flames that raged at the tail end of the "Floating Life Does Not See the Sovereign" sword surged to the heavens, invading his sea of consciousness along countless threads, ruthlessly ripping something out of his sea of consciousness as if carving away his flesh and cleaving his bones.

Clutching his stomach, Qin Yang slowly stood up.

The pain spread from every direction of his sea of consciousness. In the brief moment it took him to stand, the agony finally forced him to sink his divine sense downward to probe within his sea of consciousness.

Tens of thousands of densely packed, minuscule pinholes, resembling the twitching mouths of fish, now covered almost every corner of his sea of consciousness.

Qin Yang's scalp tingled, and he did not dare to look any further.

Seeing the young man, now covered in blood, slowly rise from the ground, the surrounding crowd spontaneously parted to make a way for him, all of them watching him in silence with complex and pitying gazes.

On the other side, the [Dragon-Abusing God System] was on the verge of going mad.

The Venerable's remnant soul had been left unconscious by Su Bai, and not only did it have to painstakingly tend to it daily using soul-nurturing secret arts, but it also had to spend a massive amount of reward points just to rescue Qin Yang—rebuilding his dantian, helping him form a pact with the Vermilion Bird, and subduing a rare heavenly flame. The extent to which it had debased itself to act like a loyal dog was practically comparable to Qin Yang's own parents.

Yet this ungrateful wretch had decided to quit whenever he pleased. The [Dragon-Abusing God System] didn't even want to bicker with Qin Yang over how much its reward income had plummeted due to losing the six-year pact. Let's talk about the plotline instead: according to the original setting, this Grand Convention of Three Thousand Daoist Laws was supposed to be Qin Yang's stepping stone to fame across the cultivation world, but because he ran into Su Bai, he couldn't even manage to fight his way into the battle for the championship and runner-up titles!

"Qin Yang," the [Dragon-Abusing God System] said in a gloomy tone. "Do you think that defying my decisions comes with no consequences whatsoever?"

"Or do you believe that all these years of me painstakingly helping you rebuild your dantian, form a pact with the Vermilion Bird, and subdue the strange flame were simply meant to please you, this Son of Destiny favored by the Heavenly Dao?"

Wracked by the violent pain in his sea of consciousness, Qin Yang tilted his head to the right, supporting it with his right hand, completely lacking the strength to acknowledge it.

However, such behavior undoubtedly infuriated the [Dragon-Abusing God System].

"Back then, that sword strike from Su Bai injured the Venerable's remnant soul. Do you think I've exhausted my efforts all these years to nurture this shred of consciousness just for what?"

Hearing these words, Qin Yang felt a jolt in his heart.

At that very moment, details that Qin Yang had deliberately chosen to ignore beforehand were finally linked together, thread by thread.

The Soul-Nurturing Jade Pendant could nourish the soul, but it could also be used to swap souls with its contractor. Yet back when he entered the Venerable's immortal abode, the Venerable had remained tight-lipped about this soul-swapping business. It was only when he confronted Su Bai and fought for the sword that the Venerable used the ownership of the Dragon-Singing Sword to force him into making a decision amidst such a chaotic and urgent crisis.

At that time, he was merely at the peak of the Heart-Condensation Realm, and the divine sense and spiritual energy he injected had already been enough to sustain the Venerable's power at the early Division-Spirit realm. If his cultivation had reached the Golden Core stage, or even his current peak Division-Spirit realm, and at that moment he proved unable to defeat the Candle Dragon, and the Venerable then proposed the soul-swapping method—would a Great Ascension realm venerable's divine sense have completely seized his body?

To take it a step further, the duration of the soul-swapping technique relied on the spiritual energy and divine sense he continuously fed into the Soul-Nurturing Jade Pendant. Had the Venerable failed to slay the Candle Dragon within a quarter of an hour, or even an hour, then given that a Great Ascension realm venerable's power can move mountains and fill seas, it was entirely possible that he would have been forced to exhaust every last drop of his divine sense until his physical vessel was completely usurped.

His vision began to blur, and Qin Yang felt his eyelids fighting heavily. He shook his head, forcing himself to stay awake, but finally, amid a sudden burst of gasps and exclamations from the crowd, Qin Yang stumbled forward by a large step and collapsed face-first to the ground with a dull thud.

"Quick, call a medical cultivator to take a look!"

"My god, what on earth happened to him?"

***

"The side effects of the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill? Forcibly elevating one's cultivation within such a short span of time won't deal much damage to future cultivation paths, but looking like this after the drug wears off is still pretty standard."

"Standard my foot," someone muttered softly.

"Look at Senior Sister Su."

A number of spectators turned their heads.

The young woman stood in pristine white robes. Having just emerged from a thrilling and harrowing battle, her white Daoist robes were slashed to shreds, yet this did not diminish her calm and collected demeanor in the slightest. An ice-blue longsword was held in a reverse grip behind her back. With her back turned, her spine was as straight as the ridge of a sword. Clearly, she had used the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill just like Qin Yang to forcibly elevate her cultivation, yet there was not a single trace of the fatigue that comes from overdrawing one's strength.

Some senior brothers and sisters who had attended previous sessions of the Grand Convention of Three Thousand Daoist Laws couldn't help but shiver slightly.

They were all too familiar with the terrifying power of the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill. To be able to injure Qin Yang to such a miserable state and yet retreat unscathed, as if surrounded by nobody at all...

She was simply a monster.

While Qin Yang's side was in complete chaos, Su Bai's camp was enveloped in a festive atmosphere.

Yue Nianxin came flying over, grabbing Su Bai's arms and inspecting her up and down.

"Does it hurt?" she asked worriedly, eyeing the faint bloodstains scratched across Su Bai's face by the sword qi, and chided, "This Qin Yang is really something! You're fellow sect siblings, yet he didn't hold back at all! He's lived all those years in vain!"

Onlookers: "..."

Shen Xing pulled a bottle of soothing ointment from her pouch and said proudly, "To deal with someone like Qin Yang, there's no need for our junior sister to be injured to the point of vitality depletion."

Yun Zhu also poked her head out from behind them.

An alchemist's way of expressing concern was very straightforward. Yun Zhu shoved several pills directly into Su Bai's hands: "Dragging the Vermilion Bird out to assist us—this fellow is truly despicable! Without the Nirvana Abyss Bow and the Vermilion Bird, I bet he's a complete nobody!"

"The effects of the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill leave people utterly drained once they wear off. Are you alright right now? I have Soul-Nourishing and Calming Pills here, Soul-Nurturing Pills, Great Vitality-Replenishing Pills... they're all restorative pills. Do you want to eat a few?"

"Right, I even added some grape juice to improve the flavor."

Su Bai had initially wanted to refuse instinctively, but upon hearing Yun Zhu's last sentence, she paused for a moment, and obediently swallowed a Soul-Nourishing and Calming Pill.

When the effects of the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill faded, cultivators would indeed feel weak and exhausted. This happened because their cultivation had been forcibly boosted while their divine sense lagged behind in advancement; furthermore, after leveling up, the intensity of a cultivator's spells and sword intent increased correspondingly, requiring exponential amounts of spiritual energy to sustain. That was what caused the so-called draining sensation.

However, Su Bai had used Frost-Condensing Ice to rebuild her dantian, and the breadth and depth of her dantian far surpassed what ordinary cultivators could ever hope to reach. Moreover, Frost-Condensing Ice could absorb the primordial Qi of heaven and earth. A single Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill was not enough to exhaust her to the point of collapse.

Therefore, when Qin Yang collapsed after using the Prajna Green Lotus to rebuild his dantian, it was not due to the exhaustion brought on by the Heavenly Blood-Boiling Pill.

Countless threads of karmic cause and effect had bound Jiaojiao and Qin Yang together; this was the inescapable fate entangling the protagonist and the heroine. Now that Jiaojiao had attained liberation, it naturally meant the protagonist was no longer the protagonist.

With the world rebooting so many times, the cycle of cause and effect had long since taken root deep within Qin Yang's sea of consciousness. What else could the Devouring Ice Flames burn away besides karma?

They had also burned away the very "Dao" that Qin Yang had initially derived from Jiaojiao.

All the blessings bestowed upon Qin Yang by the Heavenly Dao in accordance with the plotline would vanish completely along with those causal threads.

However...

The Soul-Nourishing and Calming Pill really did taste quite good.

She thought to herself.

***

Two days after the finals of the Grand Convention of Three Thousand Daoist Laws, the cultivation world's forums began lively discussions once again regarding the match results.

[Only a few days passed between the first stage and the finals of the Grand Convention of Three Thousand Daoist Laws, and I've watched this forum argue about it for the exact same amount of time. All sorts of freaks and monsters came out to meddle in this six-year pact business, and now, good grief, the results are out on the very first day of the finals! The Yongkun Chronology once prophesied the birth of the Ziwei Imperial Star. While the Venerable, as the previous Ziwei Imperial Star, truly possessed a thunder spiritual root, who said that from then on the Ziwei Imperial Star must forever be locked to a thunder spiritual root? Qin Yang came out of the Sword Tomb unable to even take the Dragon-Singing Sword with him, and instead had his dantian destroyed in a sneak attack by demonic beasts—how could he possibly be the Ziwei Imperial Star prophesied in the Yongkun Chronology? Some say this was all just the Heavenly Dao paving the way for Qin Yang to rebuild his dantian with the Prajna Green Lotus, but did Su Bai really have zero fortuitous encounters over these past six years? That Suozhao Sword in her hands—I specifically consulted a weapon-refining friend of mine, and it is actually forged entirely out of a single piece of Frost-Condensing Ice!! Furthermore, every single disciple in the Wuji Sect who knows even a shred of the inside story knows that Su Bai was not even inside the Wuji Sect for the first four years. If she wasn't in the Wuji Sect for four years, where was she? In the replay of the match between Qin Yang and Su Bai, please pay attention to the moment they swallowed the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill, when Su Bai swung the "Floating Life Does Not See the Sovereign" sword. The pale blue flames burning along the body of the Suozhao Sword, combined with Qin Yang fainting after the match and Su Bai's superhuman leveling speed over these past six years—I boldly deduce that she likely possesses a strange heavenly flame, and it's highly probable that the commotion along the Extreme North region previously was caused by her.]

1l: An inner sect trial witness speaking from personal experience: back then, however fiercely Qin Yang talked, that's how miserably he's fallen now.

2l: I've been saying it all along—what was there ever to hype up about that scumbag? Back in the Wuji Sect, he used the name of Luowa City to trade favors for himself left and right, and then turned around to entangle himself with the disciples of the Chunhui Valley. Right when the six-year pact was first dug up, the Valley Master of Chunhui Valley even personally stepped down to dispel rumors, stating that Chunhui Valley stood on Su Bai's side. Let's just say, to end up with everyone turning their backs on him—Qin Yang's character speaks for itself.

3l: Oh, please. Are things like you-scam-me-I-scam-you rare in the cultivation world? People just side with whichever party is stronger. What's the use of playing the righteous savior now? Back when Qin Yang's momentum was at its peak, I didn't see a single person dare to say a single thing was wrong with him.

4l: It's just beating a drowning dog. Heaven's sins may be forgiven, but self-inflicted sins cannot be survived. If Qin Yang hadn't been so stubborn during that inner sect trial—forget the six-year pact—he wouldn't have had his underwear stripped bare for all to see today.

...

32l: Stop talking about the scumbag, bad luck! Are none of you willing to discuss the "Floating Life Does Not See the Sovereign" sword? I rewatched the final sword clash dozens of times, and it was simply marvelous! Creating one's own sword technique is admittedly not difficult for a swordsman, but the most brilliant part is how she could instantly turn the tables on Qin Yang's sword intent based on his initial draw, converting it into her own!

33l: Yes, yes, yes! That's what I wanted to say! People are out here hyping the Vermilion Bird, hyping the Nirvana Abyss Bow, hyping the Dragon-Singing Sword and the Suozhao Sword, yet nobody is hyping the "Floating Life Does Not See the Sovereign" sword? The arena's defensive barrier was reinforced a full two times, yet when she used the Heavenly Origin Blood-Boiling Pill and injured Qin Yang to that extent, it didn't affect the defensive barrier in the slightest. To forcibly raise one's cultivation without going berserk... anyone who understands knows just how terrifying she truly is.

...

117l: To be able to fight her way to the final day of the finals of the Grand Convention of Three Thousand Daoist Laws at forty years of age, advancing to the top sixteen—how is she not the Ziwei Imperial Star? Based solely on her ability to simultaneously wield the top two divine swords on the Divine Weapon Rankings, her talent in the path of the sword is already beyond doubt.

118l: Indeed, the scariest part is that she still had the bandwidth to forge swords! A sword genius isn't scary; what's scariest is that as a swordsman, her natal sword was actually forged entirely by her own hands. I've lived for so many years, and I've never heard of anyone who both cultivates the sword and forges swords!

Inside the Four Symbols Bureau:

"The Octagonal Instrument is actually moving!"

The Octagonal Instrument monitoring the surroundings of Falling Dragon Peak began to slowly revolve, and the chaotic orb emitted a dazzling white light. A disciple on duty at the Four Symbols Bureau rubbed his eyes and cried out in astonishment: "Quick, go call the Director! Tell him there is an anomaly at Falling Dragon Peak!"