Chapter 128: The Fusion Monster

A moment later, the four of them stood in front of a pitch-black cave.

This was likely a mine shaft; large amounts of black stone were still scattered on the ground. It was peat, which Xu Chen recognized.

The mine shaft seemed to have been abandoned for a long time, and the area near the entrance was overgrown with thorns and weeds.

Xu Chen said to the old Daoist and his disciple, "You two wait outside the cave. It is best if you hide. We will go in, eliminate the Soul Beast, and come right back out."

"Good, good." The old Daoist was incredibly excited, pulling his disciple to quickly hide behind several large rocks near the cave entrance.

"Let's go!"

Xu Chen walked into the cave first, his Divine Sense probing into it like a torch, seeing the situation inside the cave with perfect clarity. At that moment, about a hundred zhang deep, there was a powerful fluctuation of Soul Beast aura.

Seemingly sensing the probing of two Divine Senses, the Soul Beast's aura fluctuations suddenly intensified.

"Daoist Friend Lan, be careful. Black Mist has actually appeared!"

After the two walked more than ten zhang inside, a thin layer of Black Mist actually began to appear in the tunnel, exactly the same as the Black Mist at Black Wind Ridge, only very sparse. Moreover, being in the darkness, if not for their powerful Divine Senses, they would have been almost unable to perceive it.

And the appearance of the Black Mist indicated that this Soul Beast had indeed been entrenched here for some time.

After any Soul Beast dies, it will quickly dissipate into Black Mist.

An injured Soul Beast, even if only a single Soul Bead remains, can use the Black Mist to recover over time.

Once a Soul Beast leaves the range of the Black Mist, it will continuously release Black Mist; therefore, the longer a Soul Beast stays in one place, the more this Black Mist will accumulate.

Thus, based on the range and concentration of the Black Mist in the cave, one could roughly judge that this Soul Beast had not been here for a short time and had not moved for a very long time.

The two continued to go deeper one after the other. The surrounding Black Mist grew thicker, and the Soul Beast's aura fluctuations became more and more obvious. At the same time, images of the Soul Beast began to feed back into their souls. After Xu Chen saw clearly, his whole person froze, and his heart could not help but thump wildly.

Because he saw an extremely terrifying scene.

More than a dozen human and beast corpses were actually piled up and fused together, forming a giant bat shape hanging upside down in the cave. Wisps of Black Mist, like breathing, were continuously emitted from these corpses and then absorbed back in. Just in this process of inhalation and exhalation, a large amount drifted into the cave, forming the Black Mist that filled the tunnel before them.

Lan You also saw this situation; her face turned deathly pale in an instant, and with a gasp, she grabbed Xu Chen's arm tightly with both hands.

"Daoist Friend Lan, don't be afraid. It's just rather disgusting. You stay here, I will go take a look alone!" Xu Chen regained his composure and said, forcibly suppressing his own emotions to comfort her.

"No, I'm going with you!" Lan You shook her head in terror and determination.

"Alright then, stay behind me!" Xu Chen raised his hand to summon his Flying Sword and continued forward.

"Squeak—"

Suddenly, a sound that irritated the soul rang out. Within the churning and flowing Black Mist, dense, fist-sized phantom bats suddenly flew out.

"Daoist Friend Lan, be careful, guard your soul well!"

Xu Chen gave a warning, and his Divine Sense suddenly turned into a tidal wave, rolling toward the depths along the narrow tunnel. A large number of phantom bats were directly shredded into powder under the Soul Impact, with almost not a single one escaping.

Soul Impact is a Magic Spell skill that only cultivators above the Zhenyuan Realm can practice, but it has extremely high requirements for the soul; it is considered a form of hard collision and contest between souls.

Generally speaking, there are very few contests like this between cultivators of the same rank unless it is a life-or-death feud of last resort. Otherwise, one careless move could result in severe damage to one's own soul, especially if the opponent has a soul-attack type Magic Treasure, which is extremely dangerous.

Cultivators in the Refining Essence into Qi stage almost all use Yuan Qi Magic Spells and rarely use soul-based Magic Spells.

Back in Jingshi, Yulong Zhenren used Soul Impact to forcibly suppress the three of them, but he was almost scattered into nothingness when Xu Chen borrowed the blue light of the Jade Bead to counterattack.

Therefore, soul-based Magic Spell attacks are a double-edged sword; they hurt the enemy and oneself. One careless move and you kill yourself.

However, for Xu Chen, there were no aftereffects because he had the Blue Light Treasure Bottle protecting his Sea of Consciousness. Even a Spirit Realm Great Cultivator probably could not shake his soul, let alone these Soul Beasts that only had the strength of First Stage Demon Beasts.

Moreover, these fist-sized phantom bats were even weaker, almost only capable of causing damage to the souls of mortals. Even if they broke into the body of an ordinary cultivator, they could not cause much danger.

Xu Chen had already felt it very clearly through the Soul Impact used to exterminate these bats; they were even weaker than the one he killed in the city just now.

Seemingly sensing that the large number of small bats had all died, the giant corpse-bat hanging in the cave emitted violent tremors. A large amount of Black Mist rolled out, and on the corpses that were melted and connected together, eyes opened and mouths gaped everywhere, emitting miserable roars.

Lan You's face was pale to the point of having no color.

Xu Chen also felt his insides tighten and the hair on his body stand on end.

"What the hell is this thing?"

Xu Chen was not afraid at this moment, but disgusted—especially disgusted.

The bat composed of these corpses was pitch-black, hideous, and terrifying. Moreover, in its struggle, it seemed that a large amount of black corpse oil was continuously dripping down, which then turned into rolling Black Mist. Very quickly, the Black Mist in the entire cave became even thicker.

Xu Chen endured the disgust while walking forward, and Lan You grabbed his lapels tightly, following him step by step. Soon, the two arrived at the location of the giant bat composed of corpses.

Looking at this terrifying and hideous monster, Xu Chen felt his scalp tingle.

However, even so, this Soul Beast had no intention of attacking, nor did it run away. It was found by the two of them just like that, quite easily.

"Daoist Friend Lan, this thing should be in a very special state. It seems to be trying to use the corpses of these humans and animals to fuse and form its own body, to get rid of the pure Nether Black Qi state."

Xu Chen concluded based on his observations.

"Xu, Daoist Friend Xu, this thing is so disgusting. Let's kill it quickly and get out of here!" Although Lan You's cultivation was already at the mid-stage of the Zhenyuan Realm, her whole body was trembling slightly.

Xu Chen nodded slightly but did not act immediately. Instead, he endured the disgust and released his Divine Sense to wrap around the entire giant corpse-bat, infiltrating it, wanting to see clearly how this monster was combined together and how it fused with the Soul Beast into one body.

What Nether Qi is, no one in the Great Song Immortal World knows.

Even what a Soul Beast was before this, no one understood.

Perhaps the destroyed Taiyuan Sect knew, but unfortunately, the Taiyuan Sect had disappeared for three thousand years. Apart from some remaining Magic Treasures and fragments of cultivation technique Jade Slips, almost no records about Black Wind and Soul Beasts could be found.

If he hadn't been swept into the confinement Array by the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus in Spirit Fox Valley last time, he would not have known at all that the Taiyuan Sect had previously raised a strange and domineering demon plant like the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus deep in Spirit Fox Valley.

He had always wanted to figure out what the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus actually was.

Not until today, encountering this bat Soul Beast that was fusing and growing with the flesh and blood of human and animal corpses, did he suddenly have a realization: perhaps the Mysterious Water Nether Lotus was formed in this way back then, just of a different species.

But no matter what these things eventually grow into, they all have a common original name, and that is Soul Beast, or perhaps called Nether Beast.

And once a Nether Beast leaves the range of the Nether Qi, it will begin to use another method to recast its own body, and then it can survive in the mortal world just like a Demon Beast.

However, the methods these Nether Beasts use to cast their bodies are very bloody and cruel: that is, using a large number of human or animal corpses.

And as Xu Chen's powerful Divine Sense, comparable to the early stage of the Danyuan Realm, continuously penetrated deeper into the bat composed of corpses, he felt increasingly surprised and terrified.

Because he discovered that the human and animal corpses that made up the bat's body were not dead; they were still alive, only they no longer had any individual souls, because their souls had also been fused together by the Soul Beast.

Therefore, this corpse-bat hanging upside down in the cave was actually an extremely complex fusion monster; it was neither a single Soul Beast nor human or animal, but after fusing together, it possessed the dual characteristics of both a Soul Beast and a Demon Beast.

That is, this thing already had flesh and blood and was no longer a body formed purely of Nether Black Qi.

To verify his hypothesis, Xu Chen raised his hand and made a light swipe, and the Flying Sword severed half of the corpse from the bat's body.

"Squeak~~"

Accompanied by a splash of Black Water, the corpse fell from the bat, and the giant bat also let out violent struggles and screams, while billowing Black Mist emerged from the wound, and a large amount of black liquid resembling corpse oil began to gather at the wound, which soon began to congeal.

However, after being stimulated by this sword strike from Xu Chen, the giant bat's entire body began to vibrate and squirm amidst its violent struggles.

A large number of unmerged flesh chunks began to fall off its body.

Arms, thighs, fingers, and heads fell down like rain, wrapped in Black Water with a pattering sound.

The bat's body was also rapidly condensing into shape, with its wings, hooked claws, head, and Fang all becoming distinct at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Daoist Friend Xu, act quickly!" Lan You's face was so pale it had no color left, and she reminded him with terrified trembling.

"Rest assured, Daoist Friend Lan, it has no chance to escape; I still need to observe it carefully, as this may be the best opportunity for us to understand the changes that occur in a Soul Beast after it escapes the range of the Black Wind..."

While comforting her, Xu Chen's Divine Sense penetrated even more fiercely into the bat's body.

Within his powerful Divine Sense, he could clearly see the muscles, bones, blood, and flesh of humans and animals merging at a terrifying speed, turning into a complex and distinct bat body, and structuring strange yet complete tissues such as bones, blood vessels, and skin and flesh.

At the same time, he could also feel a soul carrying the aura of life constantly strengthening.

(End of chapter)