Chapter 441 - Eye-to-eye Reborn!

Chu Xun never stopped wailing. With eyes as red as blood and the veins of his skin bulging grotesquely like veins, Chu Xun looked more beast than man.

It was so painful. Having his bones snapped one by one would still be less agonizing than this.

“Would he be fine, Teacher?” Jing Hong gasped, visibly distressed.

“The Suan Ni is an ancient beast of untold ferocity and malice. Not even us dragons would dare flippantly antagonize a Suan Ni in its adult stage. And a drop of Suan Ni True Blood is as rare as it gets. Chu Xun’s physical endurance needs to be stronger, and this Suan Ni True Blood is just the thing he needs.”

Coming from the World of Cultivation herself, Jing Hong knew full well the rarity of the True Blood and its boon to Chu Xun. But she just couldn’t take the sight of Chu Xun suffering with pain.

“Can you unseal his powers, Teacher?”

Emperor Ao rejected flatly, “He needs the Suan Ni True Blood to temper his soul, his physical endurance, and his skin. He would only use his Hong Meng Immortal Qi if I unseal his powers and that would only be a wicked waste of the True Blood.”

She knew Emperor Ao was doing this all for Chu Xun’s own good. Still, watching him writhing and wincing with agony pained her and she could not bear to see anymore.

“ARGGHHH!”

Chu Xun screamed and screamed dismally, his eyes looking as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. His skin glowed with a sheen of red and myriads of many-colored radiance.

“LET ME OUT, OLD MAN!” It was like he was about to die. His head was in such pain that he could hardly think clearly.

“Still strong enough to whine and curse,” observed Emperor Ao dryly, “This will be a long day.” And the ancient being leisurely strode to his pond and began fishing.

Roar!

The silhouette of the Suan Ni—now barely the size of a man’s palm—radiated an aura of ferocity and avarice and it pounced at Chu Xun.

If only he still had his powers, Chu Xun thought. He could have easily defeated the mere shade of this ancient beast. But without his powers, he could only find it off using his brute physical strength.

It was so painful that tears were practically streaming down his face. He had never looked so pathetic before and as the Suan Ni silhouette charged, he pinched his nose and dove into the water.

The silhouette as large as a man’s hand threw red-glowing girth into the wall of the urn, causing the entire vessel to shake.

It appeared to hate water. Hovering over the surface of the water, it bared its fangs and waved its claws menacingly at Chu Xun, roaring at him nonstop.

Chu Xun stayed underwater and thought, “Go on! Don’t stop! Break this stupid urn! That might free us both!”

Emperor Ao cast a lazy look and teased, “Good idea. Go on then, for all the good that’ll do you.”

Chu Xun could stay underwater for hours if he still had his powers. But without them, he was only a tad stronger than the average man and holding his breath for three to four minutes under the water was the best he could do.

Splash!

Chu Xun could not hold his breath any longer and he shot out just in time for the Suan Ni to swat at his face.

“OUCH!” Chu Xun howled painfully, although he felt more indignant than hurt. How dare this beast strike him in the face?!

Chu Xun turned livid. Without even thinking, he acted on impulse and swung a fist at the beast. But all he got was the clank like he was hitting a pot and the searing sensation scalding his hand. He seemed to even catch the smell of flesh burning!

This damn beast is like a hedgehog that I cannot touch or hit!

The Suan Ni hurled itself again at him and the mere sight of it coming made Chu Xun’s hairs stand on ends and he quickly held his breath and dove back into the water.

The animal scarcely larger than an adult’s hand brandished its talons over the surface of the water mockingly, taunting Chu Xun from above.

Damn it, a beast! Looking down on me!

Being underwater did not make Chu Xun’s pain subside. His still convulsing and throbbing body sent pulses through the water.

Splash!

A few minutes later, Chu Xun could last no more and he had to come up to breathe and the Suan Ni saw its chance to attack again.

This time, the vicious little beast fiercely battered at the back of his head.

“OUCH!” Chu Xun caterwauled awfully. His vision went dark the moment he felt himself being hit and the impact stupefied him that he fell back into the water.

He slammed facefirst into the water, gulping down some water that nearly choked him and that managed to awake him. The Suan Ni leaped and stepped on top of his head and he heard a sizzle. His hair turned red like it was on fire and he felt a searing pain surging straight into his brain

“AWWWW!”

Chu Xun screamed like a banshee, wincing and convulsing with extreme anguish with froth pouring out of his mouth. Then his eyes went white and he fainted. But it hardly lasted three seconds; another jolt of pain shot through him and he woke up shrieking and howling again.

If only he could just faint. It would have been a relief that he would readily welcome. But he just couldn’t.

“HOW COULD YOU, AO! YOU LOUSY WORM! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

“JING HONG! SUCH CRUELTY! I’M DYING! I’M DYING! YOU’RE TURNING INTO A WIDOW!”

“JUST YOU WAIT, YOU LOUSY WORM! WAIT TILL I’M OUT! I’LL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND WEAR YOUR HIDE LIKE A COAT!”

“SAVE ME, JING HONG! I’M DYING! THAT OLD LOACH IS KILLING ME!”

Chu Xun shrieked, yelled, cursed, and wailed to no avail at all. All he managed to receive was a throat parched to the point of steaming.

Emperor Ao turned a deaf ear to the cries and insults and indulged in his leisure and vices nonchalantly.

It pained Jing Hong to watch him, but there was nothing she could do.

For one long month, Chu Xun’s torment at the hands—or claws—of the Suan Ni went on like a treadmill that he looked feeble and thin like a malnourished beggar.

Without food or drink, without rest or sleep, Chu Xun was lucky that he did not turn insane from the incessant torture.

The Suan Ni had shrunk to half its former size.

“This will take a month, at this rate,” commented Emperor Ao pensively.

Hearing that his imprisonment here would last a month, it was all Chu Xun could do to prevent himself from banging his head into the wall to kill himself.

But Emperor Ao had not been idle; he had been carefully observing and he knew that in that one month, the Suan Ni beast had not missed an inch of Chu Xun’s skin above his waist. It had struck him everywhere in his upper body.

“What are you doing, you wretched loach!?”

The look Emperor Ao gave made Chu Xun feel uneasy enough that he felt a dread bristling up his back.

“Your upper body has been well-tempered by the Suan Ni True Blood. Now for your lower body,” said Emperor Ao pensively.

“SURELY NOT!?” Chu Xun blurted loudly with fright.

With a flourish of his arm, Emperor Ao magically drew out every drop of water from inside the urn.

“NO, YOU LOUSY LOACH! YOU’RE KIDDING ME!” Chu Xun screamed, trying desperately to tip the urn over.

Unfazed, Emperor Ao ignored him and magically pulled, and Chu Xun came back out with a massive burst of magical energy.

Jing Hong’s sweet oval face blushed. Chu Xun came out stark naked.

“Not bad,” Emperor Ao commented with a teasing tone, “Well endowed.”

Chu Xun was so ashamed that he could have killed himself if not for the fact that he was angry enough to want to slaughter the ancient dragon and gobble him out of spite.

Emperor Ao flipped his palm over and Chu Xun, still hovering in mid-air, twirled around upside down before he fell headfirst into the urn with his lower half still sticking outside.

“You’ll focus on tempering the lower half of your body in the next month,” said Emperor Ao wickedly, using some unknown magic to keep Chu Xun inside.

Chu Xun had never felt so angry and mortified before. Being left naked upside down with his buttocks bare for all to see; for once, he really did contemplate killing himself.

There was no more water inside the urn and Chu Xun’s naked body upside down in the urn was unsightly enough that Jing Hong, her face still as red as a tomato, quickly ran away.

“LET ME GO, YOU LOUSY DRAGON! LET ME GO, OR I’LL START CURSING EVERYONE OF YOUR FOREBEARS!” Chu Xun roared.

“Be my guest!” Emperor Ao conjured a magical enchantment that kept all sounds trapped inside. He could squeal and curse all he wanted and no one outside would hear him.

In fact, Chu Xun could hardly devote any attention to hurling curses at him. Restrained and incapacitated by Emperor Ao’s magic, the Suan Ni silhouette, now half of its former girth, was having an easy time ramming at him.

“ARRGGGHH!” Chu Xun cried and howled, twisting and recoiling with agony as the one-month-long journey into Purgatory began.

For seven or eight days straight, Chu Xun screamed until he went hoarse. He became lanky and gaunt that committing suicide really was part of his consideration for one time during this arduous if not excruciating torment.

As if it registered no fatigue nor weariness, the Suan Ni never stopped smashing itself into Chu Xun as if it was enjoying it.

One day, Chu Xun was yelping when he realized the Suan Ni was aiming at a particular body part of his. The notion scared him out of his wits and he yelled with horror, “No! NO! NO! NOT THERE! GO AWAY! NO!! AAAWWW!”

His cries were so loud that they even penetrated the magical barrier.

Emperor Ao was fishing when he heard Chu Xun’s screams that managed to scare a fish away before it was about to bite on the bait.

Emperor Ao glanced around with surprise. What’s happening?! Can’t the enchantment stop his voice from coming out?!

Then he saw where it was that the Suan Ni was biting. He stared wordlessly, stunned, then he burst into peals of laughter, rocking back and forth.

The silhouette of the ancient beast barely half the size of a man’s hand stubbornly refused to let go. With incredible jaw strength, it hung from Chu Xun’s manhood appendage like a pendulum, swinging left to right and vice versa in an oddly sickening rhythm.

Chu Xun sobbed, snot bubbling out of his nose with the force of his hysteria. His proud and heroic image was now in ruins.

…

Time flitted past quickly. In just a flash, a month had gone by.

The Suan Ni was gone and Chu Xun emerged as gaunt as a skeleton. But his body glowed with a soft red luster that one might wonder if he had just bathed in blood. His aura was as thin as a paper; his two-month-long grind with the Suan Ni had left him utterly spent.

Emperor Ao undid the magic of his enchantment and freed Chu Xun from the urn and unsealed his magic before lobbing him into his pond.

SPLASH! SIZZLE! BUBBLE!

As soon as Chu Xun hit the water, it sizzled and steamed as if he was a red-hot piece of steel. The water in the pond bubbled and churned.

Rumble!

The natural energies nearby all flowed like multitudes of tributaries, joining into a river that coursed into Chu Xun.

Chu Xun sat cross-legged in the pond with his eyes closed, absorbing the natural energies flowing into him with the appetite of a blackhole.

This went on for one whole week.

By the end of the week, in the early hours of daybreak, Chu Xun’s skin burst and cracked like a hardened crust turning brittle.

Chu Xun’s skin was cracking, and the crack lines elongated all over him like a spider’s web.

Then, everything stopped. The cracking of his skin paused, but Chu Xun’s skinny torso began ballooning suddenly.

Bang!

With a sudden eruption, Chu Xun’s outer crust shattered and burst, revealing a new layer of skin as smooth and white as ivory.

An evolution.

This was his true evolution after gaining a new coat of flesh after gaining the Ancestral Dragon bones.

Chu Xun blinked his eyes open and they flared with purplish radiance as a powerful and strong aura surged forth.

Splash!

Water splashed everywhere as Chu Xun leaped up to the bank of the pond. He waved a hand and felt the natural energies answering to his beck and call, whisking both winds and mists around him to his will. His powers had grown considerably.

It would appear that not only he had experienced a physical evolution, but even his powers had also risen to the latter Golden Core stages.

“Not bad!”

Emperor Ao called loudly as he approached, tossing to Chu Xun a fresh set of glazed-white robes he usually wore.

Chu Xun put on his clothes. Unnatural winds tossed gently around him as if in resonance to his powers, the fabric of his robes snapping in the wind. His lips curled into a grin and his hand came up without a warning to fire a bolt at Emperor Ao.

“You brat,” Emperor Ao gasped, having caught off-guard. He lifted a hand and easily parried away Chu Xun’s bolt.

“Do you dare to lower yourself to my power levels and spar with me?” Chu Xun taunted.

Emperor Ao burst out in laughter. “Very well. Let’s see how good you are against a fighter of the same stage.”

Emperor Ao quickly reduced his powers and kept them inhibited at the latter Golden Core stages, just like Chu Xun’s.

Swoosh!

Chu Xun shone brightly in a rush of purplish illumination. He took one step and reappeared right in front of Emperor Ao with his fists on the ready and imbued with Hong Meng immortal Qi.

The ancient dragon frantically cloaked himself in an energy shield of white and he drove his fist forward, its force rolling forth like thunder.

Rumble!

Their fists collided and a terrifying blast of shock wave swept forth.

Emperor Ao could not believe it. One punch from Chu Xun sent him flying.

Chu Xun vanished and darted forward with ungodly speeds like an apparition, raising his fists to attack again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After a mere handful of exchanges, Emperor Ao began to feel pressured by Chu Xun’s onslaught. Again and again, he was being forced backward and the impact of Chu Xun’s incessant pummels had left his hands throbbing with pain and numbness.

Chu Xun’s strength not only dwarfed him even though they were of the same levels of power cultivation, but even his speeds had also far outstripped his.

“All right, that’s enough, you brat!”

Emperor Ao was yelping with apparent fright at the sight of Chu Xun catching up to him with his fists brandished to attack.

But Chu Xun was just too fast. His fist smashed into his face and launched him like a cannon ball into a mountain a few hundred meters away, causing another terrifying explosion.

Chu Xun curled into a smug grin. He was using this as a chance to return to Emperor Ao the favor of torturing him for months.

Swoosh!

He shot after the ancient dragon like a fleck of light. Reaching the spot of rubble where Emperor Ao had vanished, he fired bolts after bolts of Hong Meng Immortal Qi like a neverending Gatling gun volley.

Rumble!

The mountainside tilted and a landslide began to tip every boulder and rock down its slopes, piling more debris on Emperor Ao.