Chapter 98
His demonic energy hardened into dark vines that caught her wrists and ankles.
They hauled her up and drew tight, pulling her out spread-eagled in the air.
In those few seconds Celeste’s imagination sprinted through every horrific thing about to happen to her.
She was seconds from breaking, then Soren moved, and she realized she’d gotten him completely wrong.
He did nothing improper, he put his hand over her dantian and activated the devouring power of the Heavenly Dao Demonic Form.
He went past her vitality without touching it, her soul power, and her spiritual energy.
What Celeste felt had no name, there was no pain in it at all, it was clean, and cool, and every meridian, every inch of skin, every strand of hair got scoured through by that devouring force.
The Witch Poison in her pulled together into one dense knot.
A second later it was gone, swallowed whole.
The toxins crossed into Soren and turned into raw nourishment, driving into his muscles and bones.
Celeste’s body felt so light it barely registered as hers.
Soren still came out further ahead, she’d only been put back to what she was before the poison, he’d been tempered.
Soren let out a slow breath of turbid air, his spirit felt scrubbed clean.
Celeste felt the Witch Poison gone from her body and just sat there, blank.
She couldn’t make it add up.
The demon lord hadn’t tortured her, he’d devoured her Witch Poison and pulled it out, what was he actually after?
Celeste had nothing, unless he wanted her nursed back to full health first, so the torture later could be worse.
A tiny smile touched the corner of her mouth, then reality caught up and her brows knotted.
Why the hell am I happy about that? This is insane.
"Demon lord, I know what you’re up to."
"So even if you sucked the Witch Poison out of me..."
"...don’t expect me to thank you for it, okay?"
"Although, having said that..."
"...you really are amazing for a demon lord."
"To actually be able to suck away Witch Poison."
Maybe she was just too nervous and talking to keep her courage up, whatever it was, her tone had shifted, she’d started tacking cute little particles onto the ends of her sentences.
Soren wanted the job finished in one pass and had no patience for chatter, he pushed through his palm, and a wave of gentle warmth went out of it.
The Human Path Demonic Form activated.
A specific kind of energy particle came off the feet of the Dao Lord of the Human Path, running the runic lines of the Form Diagram back into Soren.
From there it went through his palm and into Celeste, the particles were mild, no secondary damage anywhere.
Soren pushed his demonic sense in after them and watched her organs.
Under the Human Path Demonic Form’s catalysis, the damage she’d carried for years was closing up fast enough to watch.
What grew back had more life in it than the originals.
The ability didn’t stop at her organs, it overhauled her whole physique.
Every muscle and bone that had wasted away from years in a bed or chair came back to perfect condition.
No standalone pill could touch this, even Soren marveled at it privately.
Per the Strategy Encyclopedia, the thing was passive.
Used on himself, he wouldn’t even have to trigger it, take a wound and the Human Path Demonic Form fires on its own, healing, stabilizing, regrowing tissue.
Grind him down to one drop of blood essence, and as long as his soul held together, that single drop could rebuild him a whole new body.
A terrifying ability, already on par with Lysara’s Extreme Yin Holy Body, where the Dao body never perishes so long as the divine soul burns.
Once the Human Path Demonic Form was fully unlocked, it would leave the Extreme Yin Holy Body in the dust.
Soren could take someone else’s soul, pair it with a surviving drop of their blood essence, and grow them a complete body.
The Extreme Yin Holy Body couldn’t do that at all.
He pulled his hand back, the dark vines on her wrists and ankles broke into specks of light and blew away.
Celeste hit the floor with an Aiyou, rubbed her sore rear, stood up, and was winding up to glare at him.
Then she froze like she’d been struck by lightning.
"Huh? I’m standing?"
"I... I really stood up?"
Her eyes went red, she turned her senses inward, fast.
Those wrecked organs, the ones that needed a constant drip of pills and spiritual fluids just to keep her breathing, were whole, not a flaw left, she bit her tongue in case she was dreaming.
That hurts! Doesn’t feel like a dream.
She still couldn’t believe it.
A few seconds with his hand over her dantian, that was all it took.
She spun around to look at him, delighted past reason. "Hey, demon lord! Slap my face!"
"Hurry up!"
Soren stared at her.
Slap!
He’d held back on purpose and she still went sailing through the air like a feather.
She scrambled up clutching her stinging cheek, and instead of being angry, she was thrilled.
"Wow! What did you do to me?"
"This is a miracle!"
"It really isn’t a dream!"
"The Witch Poison’s completely gone! Even the organs the poison ate through have recovered!"
Soren watched her with no expression at all, the way you’d watch an idiot, she wore herself out celebrating and finally reined it in. "Alright then."
"I accept my fate!"
"Come on!" Celeste hopped onto the bed, spread her arms and legs out, and patted the empty space next to her with the calm of someone facing the executioner.
"What are you standing there for?"
"Come on over."
"Why aren’t you coming?"
"You’ve already nursed my body back to perfect condition."
"Which means you’re definitely about to do excessive things to me, right?"
"It doesn’t matter anymore."
"I don’t care whether you’re a demon lord."
"You cured my body, on that basis alone, I’m willing to let you do whatever you want."
"Call it me repaying the favor, ha!"
"Also, can we discuss something? Could you not kill me, my grandfather, or the innocent villagers here?"
"I haven’t even been outside this mountain village to see the world yet, if you absolutely have to kill me, could you wait a few years?"