Ye Chu’s lips pressed against Ruoshui’s. The excruciating pain from the killing aura made Ruoshui’s eyes widen in shock. She could not believe Ye Chu would do such a thing. Her mind went completely blank for a moment. The only sensation left was the warmth on her lips.
Several great cultivators could barely hold back the urge to strike Ye Chu down. In their hearts, Ruoshui was revered like a goddess. Not even the slightest blasphemous thought had ever crossed their minds. Yet now, Ye Chu dared to do something like this to her.
Seeing the great cultivators’ faces fill with disgust and prepare to kill Ye Chu before he died, Qing Wenting had no choice but to step forward. She released her aura to intimidate them and prevent any rash actions. But even Qing Wenting felt an urge to slap Ye Chu to death. Just how shameless could this fellow be? To take advantage of someone in such a moment. A man whose lust reached this level truly deserved to be called a lecherous fiend.
Qing Wenting felt utterly ashamed. She wondered how she had ever walked so closely with Ye Chu in the past.
The others looked at Ye Chu with contempt, but the Three-Yin Coloured Pattern Killing Spider knew nothing of such matters. It attacked again, intent on eliminating all these humans and devouring their primordial spirits to strengthen itself.
Ji Die, Qing Wenting, and the others had no choice but to meet it head-on. They used their heaven and earth artifacts to block its advance.
Ruoshui, whose lips were still pressed against Ye Chu’s, snapped out of her daze after a brief moment. Infinite rage surged within her. She thought to herself that even if she was gravely injured, no one had the right to humiliate her. Today, even if he was from Wuxin Peak, he had to die.
But just as Ruoshui prepared to muster a fraction of her strength to blast Ye Chu away, she suddenly noticed that the killing aura inside her body was slowly flowing out through their joined lips and into Ye Chu’s body.
This discovery made the power she had gathered dissipate instantly. Disbelief flooded her eyes. Her beautiful pupils widened as she stared at the face so close to hers. Though she could not see it clearly, what little she glimpsed showed his cheeks had turned pitch black.
Ruoshui’s heart filled with complicated emotions. She understood the terror of this killing aura. Even she could not resist it. What could a mere Innate Realm cultivator possibly do? Ye Chu was clearly using his own life to save hers.
Qing Wenting and Ji Die, along with the others, forced the Three-Yin Coloured Pattern Killing Spider back. But they had also suffered considerable internal injuries. One by one, their faces turned pale. When they turned to look at Ye Chu and saw his entire body shrouded in killing aura, they froze for a moment. Then realisation dawned on them.
“He is trading his life for hers!”
The contempt and disgust that had filled everyone’s hearts earlier vanished in an instant. They stood there stunned. The only thing that remained unchanged was their belief that Ye Chu’s lust was so extreme he would risk his life for it.
Ji Die could not help glancing at Ye Chu. Looking at the man whose entire body had turned as black as charcoal, a ripple finally appeared in her eyes. This action from Ye Chu was far too unexpected in her view.
“Hiss…”
With a fierce inhalation from Ye Chu, the last trace of killing aura clinging to Ruoshui transferred completely into his body. Ye Chu’s entire form turned as black as ink. His expression twisted in extreme agony. Everyone could not help sighing inwardly, thinking that at this point, he was surely doomed.
Even Qing Wenting sighed. Though sorrow filled her heart, she was powerless. Against such killing aura, who could possibly do anything?
They all braced themselves to watch Ye Chu turn into white bones in an instant.
“Damn it! Even if you want to die, do not die in front of me. Dying for another woman right in front of my face, are you looking down on me that much?” Qing Wenting’s eyes turned red. She could not help cursing inwardly. Remembering Ye Chu’s words about dying under a peony flower and still being a romantic ghost, she thought he truly was a shameless rogue.
Yet the scene everyone expected, of Ye Chu turning into white bones, did not occur. Ye Chu’s body twisted. He began performing strange movements.
These movements were taught to him by the old madman. Back then, they had helped him suppress the berserk true source. Right now, with his body in unbearable pain, only by performing these movements could he slightly alleviate the agony.
“Refine killing aura into spiritual energy for one’s own use!” Ye Chu could not help recalling the words from the notes. He thought that if he could achieve this, perhaps he would not have to suffer so much. Ye Chu knew his physique was special and could not be destroyed by this killing aura, but the torment was very real.
Without any method, no matter how Ye Chu tried, he could not refine the killing aura. He could only use his body to condense it into one killing pearl after another in his palm. But this killing aura was far too terrifying. Dispersing it this way would take who knew how long.
“Killing aura and spiritual energy as one, forming yin and yang!”
After countless failed attempts to refine the killing aura, Ye Chu suddenly recalled the words from the red killing aura manuscript. He had once comprehended it partially, and it had proven correct, allowing him to step into the Innate Realm with the help of that manuscript.
Right now, Ye Chu knew the killing aura far surpassed his spiritual energy. Using the red killing aura manuscript’s method might very well destroy his spiritual energy, but he had no other choice.
Terrifying killing aura washed through Ye Chu’s body. His body underwent a baptism. Then Ye Chu used his spiritual energy to wash through in return. But his spiritual energy was far too weak compared to the killing aura. The effect was minimal. It could not achieve the same ice-and-fire tempering as before.
“Killing aura and spiritual energy as one, forming yin and yang… killing aura transforming into spiritual energy for one’s own use…” Ye Chu repeated these two phrases over and over while his body continued to twist into various strange postures.
Everyone saw that Ye Chu had not turned into white bones. Though he looked on the verge of death, he could still move and even perform bizarre actions. They could not help exchanging glances, finding it utterly unbelievable.
Even the coloured-pattern killing spider seemed puzzled. Its own killing aura had entered a cultivator’s body, yet the man had not been eroded to death. It tilted its head and stood quietly, no longer attacking proactively.
“Killing aura and spiritual energy as one, forming yin and yang, killing aura transforming into spiritual energy…” After repeating the phrase many times, Ye Chu’s muttering suddenly changed. “Yin and yang as one, forming killing aura and spiritual energy, spiritual energy transforming into killing aura for one’s own use.”
Ye Chu suddenly realised something. Why had he been fixated on spiritual energy? The old madman had once said that for certain special physiques, killing aura could be treated as spiritual energy. Ye Chu’s physique was special and unafraid of killing aura. Could he then cultivate using killing aura as spiritual energy?
A human being was inherently both yin and yang. Why force another division? If he used his yin-yang physique to cultivate both killing aura and spiritual energy, treating them as yin and yang to merge into himself, would his body reject its own nature?
With this thought, a flash of realisation struck Ye Chu.
Ye Chu guided the killing aura into his qi sea. It circulated through his entire body, slowly refining into his own essence. At the same time, the killing aura flowed into his yin acupoint, storing itself there.
Likewise, his spiritual energy was stored in his yang acupoint.
Ye Chu did not know if his reasoning was correct, but if yin and yang were truly one, then yin acupoints could transform into yang, and yang acupoints could transform into yin.
Using his primordial spirit, Ye Chu mobilised the flow of his blood. Normally, with his current primordial spirit strength, he could not achieve this. But with the help of the true source, Ye Chu still influenced his blood flow. The scorching heat of his blood entered the yin acupoint, gradually warming the yin blood into yang blood.
As the yin acupoint transformed into yang blood, the killing aura within it also began to change. The previous destructive force that only sought to extinguish life, the bone-chilling yin-cold aura, now gained traces of vitality and yang heat. The killing aura slowly transformed. Though it still carried corrosive dead qi, it no longer harmed his body and could merge into Ye Chu’s blood.
Similarly, because the killing aura carried yin-cold corrosion into the yang acupoint and transformed it into a yin acupoint, the spiritual energy there inevitably became tainted with yin-cold and dead qi.
Because both now shared similar auras, although spiritual energy and killing aura were still vastly different, they no longer stood in direct opposition. Within his body, they struggled in a stalemate, neither able to destroy the other. Astonishingly, the two coexisted within his blood.
“It works!” Ye Chu was overjoyed. Excitement surged through him. He did not know how killing aura practitioners refined killing aura for their own use, but right now, using this method to transform killing aura into spiritual energy, could he be considered a killing aura practitioner?
This was a monumental shift. Ye Chu did not know what it truly signified, but he knew his path from this moment onward would be completely different.