Chapter 413: Breakthrough And Corruption
The golden Jiao spirit head roared silently and jerked its body so hard it successfully escaped one of the pythons' grasp. At the same time, its eyes blazed gold. "Pinnggg!" Two rays of translucent light shot out toward the other black python.
With a clasp, the serpent phantom was snapped into half by the golden ray. The victim gave a whimper as its spiritual aura dimmed before dying out completely.
With two of its captors destroyed, the golden Jiao spirit swung its body even harder as it tried to struggle out of the remaining three pythons.
A single strike of the black blade tore the air like a strike of lightning as it severed the golden Jiao spirit into half. For some reason, the black glint of the sword managed to deal damage towards spirits. In a flash, the golden Jiao spirit was severed into two pieces, its golden aura dying very quickly.
The blade did not stop, carving through the air several more times and chopping the spirit into a dozen pieces that scattered through the air.
Close by, Shi Mu's golden eyes slowly returned to normal as he gripped onto the pommel of his Heavenly Meteoric Black Iron Knife.
Seeing the change of tides, the five mirages were instantly overjoyed while charging toward the pieces. They then each bit on a portion of the severed Jiao spirit, chewing and swallowing it.
The golden Jiao spirit had yet lost its fight even now. Its severed body shimmered with gold as the parts tried to merge back together, but every time it almost succeeded, Shi Mu's sword beam would come right on time to snap the spirit back into pieces.
The golden Jiao spirit heaved many enraged bellows, but none of them seemed to have worked or created any effect.
In a manner of seconds, the last piece of Jiao spirit had been bitten and consumed by the black pythons.
Seeing that, Shi Mu performed a hand sign and the totem on his chest shone in brilliant light. Five mirages of pythons flashed before they merged together into one on his back and slowly entered his chest.
Shi Mu could feel a surge of tremendous spiritual power within his body. It was so great that Shi Mu almost had a feeling that he wasn't going to contain it very well.
He took a deep breath and sat down cross-legged. He started the Secret Totem Technique to slowly draw this newly-acquired spiritual strength into the python totem in his chest bit by bit.
Time flew. It wasn't until an hour later when Shi Mu's eyes suddenly bolted open. The totem tattooed on his chest shined brightly as a mirage of a feral snake flashed behind his back—however, instead of being five-headed, the mirage of the snake had seven heads now!
The two newest additions were not the average heads of a snake—they were the heads of a Jiao serpent.
A golden horn could be seen springing from the golden Jiao head while the two strands of gilded beard hanging on two sides of its jaw billowed in the mind. Its golden scales glistened brightly, emanating the majesty befitting the king of snakes.
Overall, a powerful pulse of spiritual power radiated from the totem on Shi Mu's body. He stood up, enjoying the powerful tremor, his heart filled with joy. Then, as a thought occurred to him, the spiritual energy from the totem coursed out of his chest and into all parts of his body.
Boooom!
Shi Mu's body blazed with light as golden Jiao scales surfaced from his body, covering him. His body swelled as if it was being pumped in the air until he had grown an extra two feet or so, shimmering with dazzling gold.
Then, with a pang coursing from his forehead, a half-foot long golden horn sprang out from his forehead. It glowed in a chilling golden light, seemingly pointy and sharp.
He closed his eyes, the fluid-like Real Qi and the new strength of his totem combining together into a harmonic improvement of total power surging past all two stages until he reached Later Earth-rank.
His body was filled with amplified powers. Shi Mu enjoyed the surge, his heart swelling with so much excitement that he let out a long cry towards the sky. His voice even managed to cause ripples in the air noticeable even by the naked eye as they spread below, kicking up dust and sand with the sound.
Then, the cry stopped. In the midst of the roaring dust clouds, Shi Mu turned into a dart of golden light before his body was completely gone.
All that could be seen was a dart of golden light hurtling toward a group of low hills.
Sounds of punches pelted the air as the golden silhouette zipped in and out of the hills, shooting out beams of punches into the hills and the ground.
Booom! Booooom! Booooom!
The earth quaked at his rampage, the hills shuddered at his power.
With a flash of gold, a mirage of a punch struck a blow onto the earth, instantly tearing a large crater on the ground. Then, a golden beam struck onto one of the hills and the poor mount toppled immediately.
The undead creatures around the Darkwater Lake watched the scene from afar. Their usually emotionless Soul Flame eyes were suddenly flickering as their bodies quaked.
The golden silhouette rampaged through the hills for a minute or so before finally stopping.
By this point, the geography of that area was already completely changed—the hills had toppled, and the earth was scarred with all sorts of craters.
Shi Mu was standing at the side of one of the craters, his eyes squeezed shut as if he was trying to sense something.
Then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and the golden horn on his forehead blasted out a beam of golden light as thick as an average adult's thumb.
Booom! Booooom! Booooom!
The golden beam penetrated through several cliffs before it disappeared over the horizon to god-knows-where.
Shi Mu eyes flashed in gold as exhilaration colored his face. His body once again turned into a dart of golden light before springing toward a far end.
A few moments later, he reached a mountain cliff. On it, a thumb-sized hole had bored through the granite wall. There were signs of rocks melting on the edge of the hole, but there was not a single crack around it.
Shi Mu studied the hole for a while as a look of satisfaction slowly crept into his face. This golden beam attack was just as powerful as the beams of his Meteoric Iron attack!
Of course, he was beyond himself now that he was accumulating more and more trump cards!
Shi Mu raised his eyebrow, as if he had just thought of something, and turned towards the direction where he and the golden Jiao serpent had been battling hours before.
With a flash of gold, the scales on his body rapidly retracted as the golden horn on his forehead slowly melted back into his body.
That was when his face suddenly twitched.
The totem on his chest was suddenly blazing brightly—despite already subduing his newfound totem, it was starting to riot within his body again!
Shi Mu froze and instantly tumbled down onto the floor, his whole body trembling nonstop.
"It's... biting back...!"
A thought struck Shi Mu like a bolt, but he understood the reason for it almost instantaneously.
The power of the Jiao serpent was too great, allowing the strength of the totem to double—which was even greater than Shi Mu's original power. Coupled with the fact that Shi Mu had remained in his transformation for too long, causing the power of the beast's soul to earn enough autonomy to eat back.
As his totem rioted, a golden mirage of the Jiao serpent appeared in Shi Mu's mind's eye, charging right at Shi Mu's Primordial Spirit, which had taken the form of a small, crimson human.
The golden Jiao phantom had a cruel grimace on his face, brandishing its claws menacingly as it charged.
The little crimson man, meanwhile, looked quite panicky as he flailed his hands frantically, summoning arcs of red lights to block the golden Jiao spirit from getting close.
With a flash of its talons, the golden Jiao phantom tore through every single red arc-like paper, completely unhindered by the little crimson man.
It was then when a flash of silver blazed through from the side as a silver seed suddenly moved in, blocking the Jiao spirit in its path—it was none other than the Lunar Quintessence, crystalized from Shi Mu's Moon-swallowing art practice!
The golden Jiao phantom swung its claw, trying to pull the silver crystal away from its path. However, as soon as its claw landed on the crystal, it cracked and broke into pieces with a loud clank, revealing a single silver full moon.
Strands of silvery moonlight extended from the full moon and wrapped around the golden phantom into layers of cocoon before dragging it back into the moon.
The golden Jiao's face was wrought with fear as if it was petrified by the silver moon; It struggled with all its might but to no avail.
Then, as the golden Jiao serpent was hauled into the silver full moon, the moon looked like a large, gaping mouth as it swallowed the golden serpent phantom whole.
It shrieked before completely disappearing into the moon completely.
After consuming the golden serpent, the silver full moon shimmered multiple times, growing in size.
Now that the golden Jiao serpent had been consumed, the source of the totem riot silenced immediately.
Shi Mu took multiple gulps of air as he slowly sat up straight.
Booooom!
The silver moon suddenly shattered before turning into a surge of incredibly pure power pouring into Shi Mu's body.
Shi Mu's expression shifted immediately, settling himself down properly in a cross-legged position as he started performing the Art of Accumulating Spirit Power to absorb this new power into his body.
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It went on for several cycles before the surge of power finally melted into the energy vortex in his dantian.
An air filled with starlight graced the top of his head. Seven stars appeared, each of them dazzling brighter and brighter before cruising toward the same destination altogether.
Then, after an unknown period of time, these seven stars merged together to form a silver crescent glowing in the faint moonlight.
Shi Mu opened his eyes and studied his own hands, incredulous.
The power vortex within his dantian had ameliorated to at least twice its previous strength while every mote of his energy had turned into liquid, emanating powerful pulses of energy.
With The Art of Accumulating Spirit Power breaking through the fifteen stages of completion, Shi Mu had broken through the ranks of Star and finally became a Moon-ranked magician!
Shi Mu tried to remain focused despite his jubilance as he muttered an incantation and waved his arm.
In midair, a puff of twenty or thirty yards large crimson cloud suddenly manifested along with low grumbles of thunder as crimson lights flashed within the flames-like cloud.
The silver crescent above him glinted, and a bolt of silver light merged into the flame-like cloud.
Then, as if the water and steam inside of the cloud were boiling, fiery lights flickered from within as disc-shaped flaming hailstones plummeted from the cloud, pelting a few hills lying a distance away like meteor showers.
Booom! Booooom! Booooom!
The sky was completely red as the storm of flames buried the hills' silhouette in a manner of seconds, causing loud rumbles that scattered to all sides over the distance.
The hills did not remain for long before each of them was completely hammered into a pile of rubble.
The flaming storm did not stop there; it continued to pelt the ground until craters of different sizes formed, which only then seemed to have exhausted its power as the cloud broke away.
Shi Mu watched the scene unfolding before him, wide-eyed and speechless.
Now that he was casting Meteoric Fire Rain with the power of a Moon-ranked Magician, the powers of the technique had become even more formidable!
Just as Shi Mu had consumed the spirit of a golden Jiao, which resulted in his spike of powers as well as a giant raise of mood, deep somewhere a few galaxies apart, there stood a cave covered with snow.
A nine-headed golden Jiao, about two hundred yards long, was coiling within the cave, its nine heads forming a circle as its whole body glowed in bright gold to form a golden formation in the middle as if it was using some sort of secret technique.
It was then when one of the heads suddenly let out a blood-curdling shriek, its face wrought with a pained expression.
Due to this single head's sudden action, the golden formation that was almost complete shattered instantly.
The other eight heads immediately raised into the air and let out a long howl filled with agony and lividity.
Their combined voices turned into a gigantic tide of sound that spread from the valley ceaselessly, causing the snowy mountains within several miles to tremble as a drove of avalanches broke out simultaneously.