The Leopard demon's challenge was ignored and it continued to face the attacks and ambushes of Yoze's three spiritual energies. After enduring the unfavorable situation of having to defend its life for some time, the Leopard demon knew it had to take the initiative.
"Pop!"
With a determination of surviving the Leopard demon abandoned the protection that its blood gave it in favor of the increased movement ability that its pure spiritual energy form would allow it.
However, the Leopard demon wasn't going to abandon its blood without making Yoze pay the price. Once the Leopard demon left it caused the pool of blood to explode inside Yoze's body and dealt a heavy blow to Yoze's right leg. Even with how heavy his flesh was, the explosion was so strong that it created a hole in his calf.
"Glad it didn't have enough force to destroy my bones and it wasn't anywhere near my head or heart." Looking at the damage that the Leopard demon's sacrifice caused Yoze couldn't help but be grateful it had done it while it was not near any vital organs
However, the Leopard demon's sacrifice had sealed and sped up its death since the protection from the blood had been giving his spiritual energies a headache. Other than the few times the Three-Headed Fox demon was able to sneak attack the Leopard demon and take a small chunk of its spiritual energy they weren't able to harm it much.
However, while its sacrifice did do a great amount of damage to Yoze's physical body it wasn't able to do much to damage the spiritual energies. The Elephant demon spiritual model even sealed up the hole using its spiritual energy to make a barrier that the Leopard demon couldn't escape from unless it was willing to be ripped to pieces by the Serpent demon and Three-Headed Fox demon.
With the hole blocked and three spiritual demons lusting to tear it apart the Leopard demon gritted its teeth and searched every inch of Yoze's body. After facing several painful attacks and losing a majority of its spiritual energy the Leopard demon came to the painful realization there was no main spiritual energy.
At least it couldn't find a trace or even a lick of spiritual energy other than the three spiritual demons attacking it.
"Damn you, I concede! I'll become your puppet I just want to live." The Leopard demon was wise enough to know that it lost this battle so it conceded, hoping that Yoze's desire to have another demon spiritual puppet was greater than his desire to kill him.
Unfortunately, the Leopard demon's misunderstanding of the situation and overestimating how much control Yoze had over his spiritual energies during these attacks only allowed the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed Fox demon to get deep bites into the Leopard demon's spiritual energy. The pain of being eaten alive made the Leopard demon scream in pain and lash out.
The moment the Leopard demon lashed out at the three spiritual demons, they dodged the attack before going in for another bite. With the Leopard demon's spiritual energy mostly consumed by the ravaging spiritual demons the Leopard demon felt fatigued and weak and could only watch helplessly as it grew weaker and his enemies became stronger.
"Fine, I'll take you down with me!"
Understanding that Yoze must not be interested in making it his spiritual puppet, the Leopard demon decided to end it all and self-detonate. Gathering the last remaining spiritual energy it had the Leopard demon became a brown spikey ball that radiated death.
With the brown spiked ball so close to his heart Yoze could instinctively feel the danger it posed to his life. Even the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed demon seemed to also sense the danger that the spiked ball had to their existence and went berserk.
The three demons transformed back into the spiritual energy state and formed a three-layer barrier separating the Spiked ball from Yoze's internal organs. The Armored Elephant demon on the bottom layer for its stronger defense capabilities and the heavy pressure it had on the ball.
The next layer was the Serpent demon as it helped to increase the pressure on the spike spiritual bomb. Lastly, was the Three-Headed Fox demon who formed the last layer to prevent any rogue energy from dealing significant damage to Yoze.
Just as the three-layered barrier was formed the spiked ball detonated as the previously neat and orderly brown spiritual energy became chaotic. From the inside out it was ripped apart as it rapidly expanded before slowing down. The external pressure coming from the Armored Elephant demon and Serpent demon greatly slowed down the explosion however it wasn't enough to stop it from colliding with the first layer of defense.
Due to the Armored Elephant demon's blocking a good chunk of the spiritual energy and allowing the weakened energy through for the Serpent demon to deal with. The Serpent demon used the oppressive and sharp nature of its spiritual energy to destroy some of the larger waves of explosion before passing the weaker ones to the last barrier.
By the time the Leopard demon's spiritual energy reached the last layer and the Three-Headed Fox demon had to deal with it, the remaining energy didn't have enough power to escape the last barrier and was completely blocked.
With the Leopard demon's spiritual energy no longer having the ability to act in a coherent manner it was easily devoured and absorbed by the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed Fox demon. After the Leopard demon's death, Yoze shook his head as he could sense that his spiritual energies were getting ready to fight once more.
More powerful than ever, the war in his body was even stronger, and were more unforgiving of each other trying to rip each other's throats. Knowing that this was temporary Yoze just waited it out and by the time it ended, he was covered in his blood as this war didn't simply make him unable to move but caused flesh wounds to appear on his body.
"It's finally over," Yoze sighed as he felt his spiritual energies peacefully return to their paths.
"What do we do now?" Jewel asked.
"You can stay here while I go find the Leopard demon's main body." Yoze's eyes shined as he looked at the Leopard demon's panel.
[Name: Leaka Tily]
[Age: 5 years old]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 5), Spiritual Speech (Grade 7), Swamp Diving (Grade 7), Swamp Leopard Body Cultivation (Grade 10), Hunting (Grade 9), Wisdom (Grade 3)]
Since he was still able to see the Leopard demon's panel meant that even though Yoze killed the Leopard demon spiritually as long as its body was still alive he could copy its talents.
Thinking about it more Yoze felt like he understood why this was the case since for demons their bodies still contained their spiritual energy. So in theory as long as they kept collecting more spiritual energy they could come back to life.