"Skree!!"
The sudden eruption of bloody light nearby startled Xiaoqiu once more. Its nerves, already frayed thin by repeated shocks, caused it to leap nearly three feet straight up, every hair on its body standing on end. Panicked and confused, it whirled towards the source.
What it saw next made its tiny eyes widen in disbelief. The formidable crimson dagger it knew so well had risen into the air of its own accord, radiating an utterly alien aura Xiaoqiu had never felt before. With a sharp "Whoosh!", it shot forward.
Xiaoqiu blinked, and the blade was suddenly there—hovering less than a meter above Lin Feng's chest! Before the creature could even process this, the dagger plunged downward with terrifying speed. With a sickening "Thwick!", it embedded itself deep into Lin Feng's chest!
"SKREEE!!!" Everything happened too fast. Xiaoqiu hadn't had a chance to intervene. Realizing what had happened, it let out a shriek of pure terror. Instinct took over, and it lunged desperately, tiny claws reaching for the dagger's hilt protruding from Lin Feng's body.
"Hummm..."
But before Xiaoqiu could touch the Blood Demon Blade, a ripple of crimson light exploded outward from the weapon. The force struck Xiaoqiu like a hurricane. Sent flying backward without any chance to resist, it tumbled through the air and slammed into a stone pillar ten meters away with a sharp "Crack!". It hit the ground and lay utterly still, knocked unconscious instantly.
Silence descended once more upon the half-collapsed great hall. Xiaoqiu and An Xiyue lay unconscious on either side. Even Lin Feng's agonized cries had ceased. He lay on the ground, completely motionless.
Yet, Lin Feng's state defied expectation. He had been pierced by the Blood Demon Blade, but unlike the cultivators or demonic beasts it had struck before, he wasn't instantly drained of blood and life. Instead, the opposite seemed true. His entire body flushed a deep, angry red, as if all the blood within him was raging, straining to burst through his skin.
Unprecedented changes wracked Lin Feng's body. Simultaneously, within the depths of his Mind Sea, an equally monumental transformation was unfolding...
... The spectral battle raging between the two Void Tempering powerhouses left Lin Feng, a mere Golden Core cultivator, utterly helpless. Though this was his inner sanctum, his desperate struggles to resist were futile. His Mind Sea was steadily consumed, inch by inch, by the invading souls. Gradually, even his consciousness began to blur and fade.
"Am I dying…?" Lin Feng's awareness drifted, strangely calm after the initial terror, fury, and crushing sense of injustice. Only profound sorrow remained. Flashes of his life played before his fading mind—so many things undone, so many dreams unrealized. And now, he was to die ignobly, his very flesh stolen for another's use…
Despair washed over Lin Feng. A bitter, silent laugh echoed in his fading thoughts. His consciousness grew foggy, the scene within his Mind Sea dissolving into indistinct shapes. He didn't even know who would ultimately claim his body...
"SHWIIISH!!!"
Just as Lin Feng teetered on the brink of oblivion, a streak of crimson light lanced into his Mind Sea! Like lightning cleaving the heavens, it arrived—sudden, overwhelming, slamming directly into the heart of the two ancient souls' spectral battlefield!!
"Wha—? ...AHH!!"
"NOOO!!!"
Dimly, Lin Feng seemed to hear two distinct cries of utter terror and disbelief. Then… darkness swallowed him completely.
As for the souls of Gu Lengyue and Feng Liefeng? The instant that blood-red radiance touched them, they began to dissolve. Like morning mist beneath a searing sun, they evaporated with terrifying speed. There was no chance for resistance, no time for a final curse. In less than the blink of an eye, both souls dissipated into nothingness, as if they had never existed.
The Mind Sea, abruptly vast and empty once more, held only the lingering crimson glow. It hovered silently for a few heartbeats. Then, as swiftly as it had arrived, it withdrew, leaving behind only a faint, echoing whisper in the void:
"Not yet…"
...
Simultaneously, in the 'outside' world—the ruined hall—the Blood Demon Blade embedded in Lin Feng's chest suddenly flashed. Its malevolent light vanished in an instant. Then, with a smooth motion, it withdrew itself. It clattered to the stone floor beside Lin Feng with a metallic "Clang!". Strangely, no blood gushed from the wound on Lin Feng's chest. Peering closer through the tear in his robes, An Xiyue would see… no wound at all! Not even a scar.
The terrifying, blood-filled flush had vanished from Lin Feng's skin. His expression was peaceful now, his body lying as still as if in deep, undisturbed sleep.
"Hmm…"
A soft groan broke the silence moments later. An Xiyue stirred, consciousness returning. She slowly opened her eyes. Confusion clouded them briefly before sharp awareness snapped back. Her expression tightened with alarm. She sprang to her feet, instantly adopting a defensive stance, her spiritual sense sweeping frantically across the ruined hall.
Relief washed over her first—no immediate threats detected. But then, confusion and dread took hold. She spotted Lin Feng lying motionless nearby, Xiaoqiu unconscious a little further off… and the desiccated corpses of Gu Lengyue and Feng Liefeng.
"What… what happened?" An Xiyue whispered, utterly bewildered. The scene was deeply unsettling. Seeing Lin Feng down filled her with fresh panic. She took a shaky breath, trying to steady herself enough to check on him, when another change erupted…
"HUMMM!!!"
A vast and powerful surge of true essence energy erupted from Lin Feng's body without warning! Transparent shockwaves rippled outward, slamming into An Xiyue. She staggered back, "Thud! Thud! Thud!", stumbling over a dozen steps before her back hit a pile of rubble, stopping her retreat.
"What... what now?!" An Xiyue cried, eyes wide with renewed fear. She stared at Lin Feng. He still lay flat, unmoving. Yet, wave after wave of immense true essence pulsed erratically from within him. The energy felt wildly unstable, volatile—as if it might explode outward at any moment, tearing him apart from the inside out.
Frustration and helplessness warred within An Xiyue. She didn't understand what was happening. She didn't know what to do! Help him? But how? Driven by instinct, she tried to step forward again, only to find herself utterly blocked. The aura radiating from Lin Feng felt like a solid wall. With her current strength, breaching it was impossible.
Powerless, An Xiyue could only watch from a distance, heart pounding, her gaze fixed anxiously on Lin Feng. What unseen transformation was he undergoing now?
...
Within the Mind Sea, Lin Feng had no sense of how much time had passed. He only felt a sudden, sharp pain lance through his spirit... and then he 'woke'.
Consciousness returned, yet he felt disconnected from his body. He seemed to float in a void of absolute darkness and silence, utterly numb.
"I'm... not dead?!"
That was his first coherent thought. Before a second could form, chaos erupted!
Lin Feng felt the formless void around him suddenly churn and convulse. Countless motes of light—shimmering in every conceivable color—materialized out of nothingness. Like rivers converging on the sea, they surged towards him, crashing into his very being... no, not his body, but directly into his soul!
"AAAHHH!!!" Lin Feng froze for a split second, then a scream tore from the depths of his spirit. An agony like being ripped apart flooded his entire consciousness. In that instant, he understood what was flooding into him: Memories. Vast, chaotic, incomprehensible fragments of someone else's life!
Within mere seconds, Lin Feng was inundated with an avalanche of disjointed scenes and sensations. Each piece of information struck his soul like a hammer blow, threatening to shatter his fragile awareness once more.
"Gu Lengyue... Feng Liefeng!!" If Lin Feng's soul had a face, it would have been contorted in pain, hands clutching its head as he snarled those names. Through the initial panic, he'd grasped threads of identity within the deluge. He understood the horrifying truth: the memories overwhelming him belonged to the two Void Tempering experts whose souls had just vanished!
"Could this... be part of 'Body Snatching'?" Lin Feng thought desperately. He didn't know the exact mechanics of soul theft. Was this the process—drowning the host's mind in the invader's lifetime of memories, overwriting the original identity?
Was that it?
But why were both sets of memories flooding in simultaneously? Had the two invaders not finished their fight? Why were the memories so fragmented and jumbled? And most crucially... why were there only memories, with absolutely no trace of the wills or consciousnesses of Gu Lengyue or Feng Liefeng?
Countless questions swirled in Lin Feng's mind, but there were no answers forthcoming. He had no time to ponder them anyway. As the torrent of foreign memories intensified, his own thoughts began to fracture and dissolve into the overwhelming flood...