Chapter 894: Aksai vs Four Imperial Cultivators P5
Aksai didn’t have to bother with Varesh for the time being, as most of the formation’s offensive power was directed toward him.
The strongest opponent was not always the first one that needed to die.
Sometimes, removing the weaker links was the better strategy.
Aksai’s eyes narrowed as he thought to himself.
’The concept of luck can be very tricky and very simple at the same time.
’They say that one often has to go through enough hardships before they can enjoy some good luck. Maybe there’s some truth in that.
’Maybe... my meddling with the Fortune Flames didn’t only bring me good luck but also the troubles that come along with it as a part and parcel of life.’
Aksai sighed and shook his head.
’Should I have kept Kalina’s dying Fortune Flames untouched? I don’t mind the trouble as long as the rewards are worth it, but this... this is just bad timing.
’I haven’t even properly gone through Kalina’s stuff, but here I am, preparing to loot four more imperial cultivators. Hopefully, they all have good stuff to make this battle worthwhile.’
At this point, the two female imperial cultivators had been isolated in separate layers of the Devil’s Den.
Their isolation zones were positioned only a few hundred meters apart.
Under normal circumstances, such a distance would have been insignificant to Core Formation Lords. A single thought was enough for them to cross it. Their Spirit Sense could easily cover an area many times larger.
But inside the Devil’s Den, distance had lost its ordinary meaning.
The formation had folded and layered the space between the two isolation zones. Even though Saelyr and Neshara were technically close to each other, neither could see the other’s figure.
Their Spirit Sense also failed to cross the invisible boundary separating their respective layers.
They were like two people standing on opposite sides of a wall that neither could see.
BOOM!
A crimson fire serpent crashed into the surrounding vines.
The resulting explosion tore apart dozens of Demon Vines and sent chunks of burning wood flying through the fog.
A similar disturbance came from the other isolation layer.
BOOM!
Neshara had also found a way to destroy the formation’s defensive mechanisms.
As cultivators who were only a few steps away from becoming late-stage Lords, both women were powerful.
And more importantly, they were adapting.
Aksai silently observed their progress through the formation.
’At this rate, they’ll break through their isolation layers in about a minute.’
His eyes narrowed.
The late-stage 3rd Order Devil’s Den was powerful, but it was not invincible.
Its greatest advantage came from controlling the battlefield rather than directly overwhelming powerful cultivators with offensive techniques.
The longer the battle continued, the more Spirit Essence the trapped cultivators had to expend. The isolation layers also prevented them from helping each other.
However, the formation’s offensive power had its limits.
Aksai had deliberately avoided integrating powerful Intent-based offensive techniques into it.
Droven’s earlier estimation had therefore been both right and wrong.
The imperial cultivator had correctly sensed that the formation lacked an Intent-based offensive technique.
But that did not mean the Devil’s Den itself lacked advanced Intent-driven techniques.
Far from it.
The original Devil’s Den had been created by the corrupted druids.
And the corrupted druids possessed a peculiar cultivation method.
The formation could harvest negative emotions from everyone trapped inside it.
Fear.
Hatred.
Despair.
Anger.
Frustration.
All of those emotions could be gathered and refined through the formation.
For a corrupted druid, such negative emotions were a valuable cultivation resource. They could be absorbed directly to strengthen the corrupted druid’s cultivation and even enhance certain bloodline abilities.
It was one of the reasons why the Devil’s Den was considered such a dangerous formation among those who were aware of the corrupted druids’ existence.
Aksai, however, had no intention of following that path.
He had refused to become a corrupted druid from the very beginning.
The transformation came with a peculiar emotional imbalance. The increase in power was certainly tempting. It was even frighteningly efficient.
But Aksai had never been willing to exchange his mental stability for cultivation speed.
To him, such a shortcut was not worth the risk. Even with Nuri supporting his mind, he wasn’t foolish enough to bet the safety of his sanity on such mind-altering techniques.
As a result, the negative emotions harvested by the Devil’s Den had accumulated inside the Demon Tree instead.
The Demon Tree had become the true beneficiary of the formation.
Over the years, the accumulated negative emotions had continuously nourished its bloodline.
They had helped the Demon Tree grow stronger and steadily approach the limits of the 3rd Order.
Aksai had never wasted that resource.
He simply had no way to use it in the manner intended by the corrupted druids.
The information he had obtained after killing the corrupted druid in Martial World Sharang had also been incomplete.
One had to know that the island formation was a modified version of the original 1st Order Devil’s Den obtained through Nuri’s exceptional calculation abilities. Through countless calculations and modifications, Aksai had forcefully raised its rank until it became a 3rd Order formation.
It was nothing like the original 3rd Order Devil’s Den formation.
That being said, even the 1st Order Devil’s Den inheritance contained several techniques that could weaponize the accumulated negative emotions.
In particular, the formation’s ability to transform the dead into undead woodland creatures was quite useful at the 1st and 2nd Order ranks.
Unfortunately, due to the modified nature of the Devil’s Den, the woodland undead puppets produced by the formation were basically useless against Lords and other 3rd Order creatures.
This was why Aksai had integrated the concepts of the Blood Bakshi Creation Manual (which later became a part of the Bloodfiend Manual) as well as the Scarecrow Puppet Creation Manual to enhance the effects of the woodland puppets.
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AN: Aksai started accumulating the negative emotions into the Demon Tree in order to avoid the side-effects caused by using the Devil’s Den formation while not being a corrupted druid himself in Chapter 609.