"Hiss—"
Su Heng's pupils shrank slightly as thousands of thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.
His body suddenly swelled, as Yang Extreme True Qi infused his entire being.
In the sunlight, he left behind smoke-like substantial shadows.
Bang!
Su Heng turned and threw a punch.
Behind him, Li Si's body burst with a "pop," turning into a vast expanse of white mist.
Within the mist, two adult fist-sized golden eyes slowly lit up, their gaze carrying a human-like mockery.
A dream-like slender pure white body, enshrouded in golden flames.
A single horn on the head and five thick tails on its back.
Before Su Heng, emerging from the cloud of mist, was a creature akin to a cheetah, over three meters long.
It lunged forward violently.
Its robust beast claw collided furiously with Su Heng's palm.
Bang!
It was like a grenade exploding out of thin air in mid-air.
The air, compressed to its limit, burst forth, creating a visible white torrent.
In an instant, the grass and clods on the ground were swept up layer by layer, the trees on both sides crackled, and a vast number of dead branches and leaves fell like a waterfall.
Su Heng's chest visibly caved in slightly.
He lost the initiative and fell at a disadvantage in the collision, flying backwards to land on a rock five meters away.
Looking at the pure white demon before him, Su Heng's gaze turned solemn.
A Mist Demon...
The strength it had just demonstrated was secondary.
What truly shocked Su Heng was the innate talent and intelligence of this demon.
First, it used its own abilities to disguise itself as Li Si, luring him to this secluded valley.
Then it used the scent of the deceased Water Ghost Corpse to mask its own.
It waited until he himself unearthed Li Si's decayed corpse from this pit, his mind startled, before the Mist Demon seized the opportunity and brazenly launched a stealth attack.
This series of plans...
Though rudimentary, was indeed effective.
It was hard to imagine they came from the hands of a demon.
"If thrown into my previous life, this fellow could probably get a master's degree," Su Heng squinted his eyes. Despite the danger, he wasn't flustered and even found the mood to joke with himself.
"The only pity is, this demon still underestimated my strength."
The Mist Demon was still judging based on the strength Su Heng had shown when they first encountered each other on Heikui Mountain.
Thud!
A huge clump of pitch-black shrubs shattered with a casual swipe from Su Heng.
After crossing a steep cliff, and with a leap forward, the sounds of rushing water already reached his ears.
The pitch-black, murky Nine Curves River carved an arc at the foot of the mountain, huge swathes of foam rising with the waves.
In the distance, a shattered, abandoned and decrepit dock,
In the grass near the dock, one could still see abandoned carriages, wooden barrels, and so on.
It seemed that not long ago,
Those servants who came to get water had perished right here.
"That's fine..."
Su Heng's eyes faintly glowed red.
He opened his mouth, his chest swelling as he inhaled a large amount of air.
Like a pitch-black meteor, he crashed violently into the turbulent river, causing water to splash everywhere.
Splash!
The murky water instantly enveloped Su Heng.
The water was ice-cold, and the buzzing sound of flowing water was everywhere in his ears.
An ordinary person would instinctively feel discomfort in such an environment, but with the various innate abilities brought by the Water Ghost Poison Sack, Su Heng was like a fish returning to the sea, a bird taking flight into the sky.
First, he felt a coolness all over his body, then a tingling itch spreading through his skin.
The crimson wounds left from his battle with the mist demon,
were now quickly clotting and scabbing over...
The enhanced recovery power brought by his strengthened constitution, coupled with the metabolic boost from the blessing of water's grace.
In the span of a few breaths,
The injuries on Su Heng's body almost disappeared, leaving only shallow pink marks.
"So next..." Within the turbid current, Su Heng suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils blood-red. He bared a ferocious smile, and a spine-chilling gurgle came from his belly.
"Hunting time has come!"
"Level up!"
Swallowing the Water Ghost Corpse, he gained a massive amount of attribute points.
In an instant, they all surged into the Yang Pole Black Evil Skill, and the numbers behind blurred.
Equivalent to the experience, achievements, and various enhancements and changes that ordinary people would accumulate over three to four decades of cultivation, were now channeled into Su Heng's body.
'True Qi... is the essence of a person, the innate spirit, the breath of life...'
'If it can be cultivated to completion, pressurized, strengthened, heated... maybe it can transform into an even more formidable form.'
'The difference is like that between ordinary water flow and a high-pressure water gun...'
'This is—Yang Pole True Strength!!!'
[Yang Pole Black Evil Skill Level 9 (Special effects: Yang Pole True Strength, Evil-breaking Roar)]