Feeding Blood

He caught her at the very last moment before she hit the ground.

Qiu Shubai’s hair fell across his blood-stained pant leg, sticking to the blood as it fluttered in the night wind.

The wasteland was cold, yet the skin on the back of her neck was burning—so hot it felt as if no living person should be at such a temperature.

He knew this was useless.

No one had beaten her into this state; her clothes were intact, and there wasn't a single open wound on her skin. All the trauma was internal. She had burned herself out too completely. She had seen the suppression effect Crimson Abyss had on the Eerie Immortal, and that was why she had dared to release her power so recklessly.

Bloodfall was shattered, and Crimson Abyss was collapsing. This wasn't just about weapons breaking; her entire being was on the brink of disintegration.

Luo Yang focused his mind, sending a thread of extremely fine mental power to wander through her meridians.

The moment his mental power entered her body, he almost couldn't resist the urge to pull it back.

It was too chaotic.

Her once-clear blood energy pathways were unrecognizable. Her own blood energy surged up from her chest, a dark, murky red. Meanwhile, the distortion power from Crimson Abyss forced its way in from every limb, a deep, bruised purple. The two forces clashed, each collision triggering violent ripples. Wherever they spread, her internal organs issued silent wails of agony.

His mental power was squeezed and distorted, but Luo Yang gritted his teeth and forced it to dive deeper.

Above her sea of energy, he saw those two objects.

Bloodfall hung on the left, Crimson Abyss on the right.

The sword tip slanted toward the muzzle, and the muzzle aimed directly at the blade. Neither sword nor gun would yield, turning her once-tranquil sea into a churning maelstrom.

Bloodfall’s blade was covered in dense, fine cracks, its pale golden markings peeling away like old characters eroded by the wind. On the other side, the distortion power from Crimson Abyss poured out of the barrel, so thick it almost solidified.

Bloodfall was clearly at a disadvantage. Every time Crimson Abyss pressed forward an inch, Qiu Shubai’s very existence seemed to fade by that same measure.

He recognized this sensation all too well. When the Eerie Immortal had targeted him earlier, it felt as if he were being dragged out of this world inch by inch, his mind filled with the bizarre thought of whether he had ever truly existed. Now, the body leaning against his thigh seemed to be being gnawed away by that very same thing.

He didn't know the logic behind it, and he didn't have time to think.

He only knew one thing: if he let this continue, the person in his arms would likely vanish from this world.

He had to make Bloodfall overcome Crimson Abyss, or at least reach a stalemate.

Luo Yang’s mind was nearly at a standstill, with exhaustion and pain constantly eroding his ability to think. His consciousness was like an old machine, creaking as it turned, liable to shut down completely at any moment.

But he still thought of a solution—though it might not even be one.

Weapon's End, Ember's Birth could make a weapon ignore damage, forcibly pushing it to its limit for a period of time.

He had tried it before. Bloodfall was the manifestation of Qiu Shubai’s own ability. Even if the blade was completely ruined after being pushed to its limit, it wouldn't be annihilated because of it.

The problem was that Bloodfall wasn't in his hand; it was inside her.

How was he supposed to control it?

The wind swept across the wasteland, causing the strand of gray-white hair on her forehead to tremble. Luo Yang looked down at her face; the breath beneath her nose was so faint it was as if it weren't there at all. He had to lean close to her nose to confirm she was still breathing.

He tremulously raised his left hand, which was covered in wounds.

The spot where the Eerie Immortal’s claw had brushed past had split into a long gash that was still oozing blood.

He stared at his hand for several breaths, and then he chuckled.

It was a humorless laugh, as if he were exasperated by his own idea.

The only solution he could think of was actually this strange.

He propped himself up with his right hand to steady his body and held his left hand over her face, about two inches above her lips.

Droplets of blood gathered between his fingers, pooling at his fingertips. They hesitated for a moment before falling like a broken string, splashing onto her lower lip.

The dark red seeped through the gap between her lips. His mental power focused on her throat.

The moment the blood entered her throat, he heard something like an echo. Bloodfall stirred within her, and in the death-like trembling of its tip, there seemed to be a flicker of clarity.

The blood that had just entered her throat began to transform with incredible speed.

He could feel his own blood being enveloped by a force he knew all too well deep within her esophagus. It was squeezed and refined, its impurities completely stripped away. The remaining portion turned into pure blood energy, sinking toward her sea of energy.

The opportunity was right here.

Droplet after droplet fell onto her lips, her tongue, and into her throat. Every drop that entered was snatched up by Bloodfall and converted into pure blood energy.

His mental power sensed a momentary suspension somewhere deep in her esophagus. A drop of blood hung on the edge of transformation; half had already been pulled by Bloodfall, while the other half still retained his own body temperature.

That was it.

Weapon's End, Ember's Birth, activate.

He pressed his spiritual sense into that drop of blood, forcibly holding the transformation process in place. This was the first time he had used Weapon's End, Ember's Birth in this way, exceeding any of his past understanding. This ability was originally meant to manipulate weapons, yet now he was using it to control a drop of blood.

He did indeed control that drop of his own blood, but the next step was even harder.

He gripped that drop of blood energy and, against the suction of Bloodfall, sank it into the deepest part of her body. He didn't move fast, carefully bypassing the turbulent flows splashed out by the clashing forces, sinking all the way into the depths of her sea of energy.

Bloodfall’s blade was right there, hanging over the sea, every inch covered in cracks.

Luo Yang gritted his teeth and pressed that drop of blood energy against the blade.

The blade shuddered, like parched earth meeting the first drop of rain.

The moment the blood energy merged into the blade, a faint, tiny golden light flickered on Bloodfall.

Luo Yang felt the channel he needed beginning to take shape.

Droplets of his blood continued to fall; he couldn't let the flow break. The first drop had cleared the path, and the subsequent blood had to form a continuous line, directly linking his own Sea of Consciousness to the Bloodfall within her.

Fifth drop, sixth, seventh.

He didn't know exactly how many he had dripped. The wounds on the back of his hand felt cold in the night wind, but the blood continued to surge. None of the injuries he had just sustained were light, and now, the fact that he couldn't stop the bleeding had actually become a good thing.

Zhang Xian and Li Jinqi watched this scene, gasping for breath. They exchanged a look, both seeing the surprise in each other's eyes.

The blood flowed down drop by drop, each one maintained in that delicate “not yet fully transformed” state by his Weapon's End, Ember's Birth. He strung them together one by one, forming a glowing red line.

One end of the line was rooted in his own Sea of Consciousness, while the other end wrapped around Bloodfall’s hilt.

With every beat of his heart, the line vibrated.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the leaves of the golden tree were shaking. Its roots constantly tunneled into his blood vessels, trying to stop his wounds from bleeding. But the tree itself was nearing its limit; its golden light dimmed and brightened in rhythmic pulses.

Three more drops fell onto her now-completely red lower lip.

In his mental world, he felt the link formed by the blood and Weapon's End, Ember's Birth finally pull taut.

Success.

A very soft chuckle, one even he could barely hear, escaped Luo Yang’s chest.

He curled his left index finger and made another cut along the deepest wound in his palm, making the blood flow faster.

Then, in his Sea of Consciousness, he sent the final command he could muster in this battle toward the far end of the line—toward the scarred but still persistent longsword deep within her body.

Weapon's End, Ember's Birth, activate again.

Bloodfall hummed within her.

Like a breath that had been held for a long time, the dense cracks on the blade were frozen by a brutal internal force and began to dissipate, starting from the tip. A platinum-white light emerged from the hilt, spreading all the way up the blood grooves, relighting the blackened markings.

The tip of Bloodfall rose.

It had been slanted toward Crimson Abyss, but now it pointed directly at it.

The distortion power on Crimson Abyss’s side shuddered, as if finally realizing that the broken sword it had been suppressing for so long had just gained a new wielder.