74 Chapter 74: 2nd Spirit Soul!

By the edge of the Deathly Hallow Forest, Xiu Ye could be seen there, kneeling down on the black ground with his arms down, and seemingly moved his hands around with a red chalk in each hand. While standing near him was Tiangou, still wearing the same clothes she was given by Xiu Ye, and was looking around them in vigilance.

She didn't want any of her kind to screw her over! Though she was being unfair about it all.

She knew that she was being selfish; having the chance to finally leave her cage while the rest stay, waiting for the day of their salvation or the end of time, but she didn't give a damn. Harsh, cruel, ruthless, whatever. For her goal to finally reunite with her master/father, she would do anything to do it.

Even condemning the poor souls here eternal damnation.

What Tiangou didn't know however, Xiu Ye has the ability to purify them and finally bring them over to the afterlife to enter the reincarnation cycle: which he plans to do so, later on.

Xiu Ye huffed and straightened his back. Staring down at the two diameter red magic circle on the ground, with complex lines and written along with ancient latin symbols, he smiled and nodded in satisfaction. He stood up from his position and tossed the red chalk to the side.

It took him days but Xiu Ye had finally found the perfect magical ritual for him to undergo a spirit soul contract with Tiangou. This was actually the longest time that he has ever examined the weapons in his inner world and stayed in there. What's more, the magic ritual was created for a couple purposes only.

It sounds simple, and it should have taken him less time in getting the information, but each and every weapon in his inner world that involves mages have different magical systems and their spells' effects. He had to find the right magical ritual in the decades or centuries of memories in the weapons, and while analyzing the spells' effects, which should have taken him at least a year to find the right spell.

It was just plain luck that he had gotten the right weapon, within a few days, with the right spell in its history.

"Is it done?" Tiangou shifted nervously and agitation in place, barely holding the urge to jump into the circle.

Xiu Ye noticed her behavior and chuckled. "Yeah. It's done."

Tiangou's eyes sparkled as she giggled excitedly before she disappeared and reappeared within the circle, all the while Xiu Ye had kept an eye on her without even blinking.

'She's fast. If she was hostile with me and wanted me dead, she would have already twisted my head around before I can even think. And she said that she's third in place amongst the other Death Lords... Just how powerful are they?' Xiu Ye frowned at the thought and turned to glance at the direction of the center of the forest.

Even from his location, he could still feel the bottomless malice and evil radiating from the core part of the forest.

Just staring at that place made his skin crawl.

"Xiu Ye! What are you doing? Come on!" Xiu Ye turned to see Tiangou puffing her cheeks at him.

'Adorable.'

Xiu Ye smiled, amused, and walked towards her with large strides. "The magic circle isn't going anywhere, Tiangou. I'm slightly exhausted in making this, so let me rest for a bit."

Tiangou raised an eyebrow, confused. "Why would you be exhausted in drawing something on the ground?"

Xiu Ye answered, "That's because I poured half of my soul power into creating the magic circle. See, making a contract with you is the easy part: having you as a spirit soul is the hard part. Tiangou, you have an extreme amount of energies within you that I'm not sure my body could handle yet. So in order for this to work I have to seal most of your energies by separate seals. Two seals in my inner world and one in my dantian."

"Why only three? You do know I have a lot of energy." Tiangou asked in curiosity, showing no care that most of her power was being sealed. She was willing to do anything after all, and she trusts Xiu Ye to not be stupid enough to betray her.

Even if her soul, spiritual power and other abilities are sealed, she still has some ways in getting her revenge.

Xiu Ye wryly smiled. "That's because I'm not strong enough to create more seals, just making three is slightly stretching my limits. Also, I still have no idea if this is really how you become my spirit soul."

"Moreover, I'm still not certain these seals can hold your energies and even if they do, they wouldn't hold for no longer than five-six years."

Tiangou went silent. She understood what this meant, Xiu Ye was taking a gamble and she was like a delicate time bomb ready to be set off now or years later on, all the while she remains unharmed.

Tiangou closes her eyes and decided to be as helpful as she could with her partner and protect him from any dangers he faces in the future. It's the least she can do to repay him for his generosity.

"Thank you..." She mutters out as she stares at him, gratitude and appreciation in her eyes.

Xiu Ye merely smiled and sat down on the ground recovering his soul power.

Two hours later and Xiu Ye stood up with a concentrated serious expression, his golden pair of eyes glowing intensely with the circulation of spiritual power. Sparks of cyan electricity flickered around his arms and torso wildly, as similar colored circuit lines appeared from on his arms to his face.

In order for this to work, he has to use everything that his got to strengthen his body and so he can handle the abundant energies of Tiangou going into his body.

The magic circle on the ground slowly shines red, the same color it was used to make it, and the circle began glowing intensely in a deep crimson color that illuminated the area around them. It was so intense that Tiangou herself had to squint her eyes and turn her head away.

Xiu Ye ignored the blinding light and started to chant.

"I am the bone of my sword." The lines on his body began to throb, units of soul power flowing constantly and circulating around his body's meridians and pathways; strengthening his body.

"Steel is my body and fire is my blood." The scent of iron started to spread from his the body. The air and space around them began trembling, reality warping.

Xiu Ye's body started to transform within seconds after he said that. He was bladed in all senses of the word. His skin had taken on a metallic sheen, seemingly made out of a mesh-like lattice of miniature sword fragments. His skin was like that of a dragon's scales. The only part of himself that wasn't totally changed was his hair and eyes.

Clenching his fists, he could feel the explosive strength, the sharpness of his skin and muscles, and the indomitable steel durability his body currently has. If Wu Zhangkong was here, he was sure, if taken by surprise, he would be able to ripped him apart with only his bare hands. He was also pretty sure that he can tank a full barrage attack of a attack type system soul emperor and come out unharmed.

Xiu Ye had taken inspiration from Tang Wulin's Golden Dragon King Arm and thought to see if he could cover, no, replace his skin and muscles with the swords from his inner world so he would be more stronger, durable and bring him much closer to fully integrate his Reality Marble into the world.

It worked, kind of. He was able to progress more with his Reality Marble. While he can replace his skin and muscles as sword fragments easily without any issues, his nervous system and other internal system still remains. Making him constantly feel the pain of having hundreds of sharp objects digging into his nerves and organs, all simultaneously sending the pain into his brain, every time he moves.

The only reason that he doesn't die by blood lost or punctured organs is because the sword fragments that replaced his skin and muscles: heals his body, but it would quickly sap all of his soul power.

The first time he did this to himself, by transforming his right arm into a literal arm of steel and iron, he had instantly fainted from the extreme pain just by moving his fingers.

What's worse, he wasn't able to move his entire right arm for a week without it suddenly having numerous cuts around it and causing feedbacks of the same pain he felt when he transformed his arm and moved his fingers.

He should have stop at that. He should have. That pain was just too unbearable for any person and it had too many faults for it to properly work in battles.

But the thought of being besieged by demigods and gods in the future, his family and friends dying, all because of his lack of strength... Xiu Ye pushed on and steeled his nerves, pun untended: he continued to experiment with this transformation of his and perfect it so he can use it.

Right now, after several months of experimentation and training with this transformation of his, Xiu Ye can replace his entire body and do some menial movements just fine, though his soul power would be consumed to heal his punctured organs. He had mostly gotten numbed to the pain now but he still can't use his transformation in a fight, the pain would be just too much and he would probably die from it as well.

Unlimited Sword Body, that's what he would call the transformation as.

"I have created over a thousand blades" Familiar weapon constructs began to appear around them, all embedded into the ground, but not a single one within the magic circle.

Tiangou watches Xiu Ye with eyes of surprise, amazement and hope. He had truly not let her down. She was more certain on pinning her life and hope into the human boy who carries the same fate and destiny as her master.

'Maybe. He will achieve what my master had in his life as well...' Tiangou closes her eyes as she ignores the three crimson chains that shot out from the magic circle and began binding her. Two of the crimson chains wrapped around her two wrists and further binded her arms. The last chain only wrapped around her waist like a snake.

"Unaware of loss, Nor aware of gain." The chains began to glow and the energies of Tiangou began to stir and enter into Xiu Ye's body.

Xiu Ye clenched his fists as he felt Tiangou's energies enter his body, the feeling was like his veins was being pumped with mercury but with acidic and healing effects. He could feel his innards being pressured and sizzled with the corrosive effects it has before it was soon healed and corroded soon after, it was a cycle. His internal body was experiencing tempering of destruction and creation.

'Is it because she's capable of using life energy that's causing my body to heal without using my Unlimited Sword Body's healing properties?'

The slow and agonizing feeling would have made him squeal in pain, if he hadn't created this masochistic transformation of his and had gotten to a more higher level of pain.

He controlled the energies flow into two different paths in his body via his pathways.

A large part of Tiangou's energies, her soul power he assumes, is slowly being transported into his dantian, which he then controlled his own soul power to be compressed and fill only a quarter of his dantian: creating room for her soul power to move into and not touch his own.

Mixing your own soul power with another, without refining it to blend well with the other, and especially having a more qualitative soul power, is stupid. It can cause many adverse effects like soul deviation, clogged pathways, or worse, crippling their dantian and ending their cultivation for life.

Acting quickly before his soul power uncompress, he compressed Tiangou's soul power into a ball in the unoccupied part of his dantian and erected a barrier around it. To prevent her more dense, powerful and destructive soul power from mixing with his.

Even though Tiangou's soul power took more than half of Xiu Ye's dantian storage, he could still feel it more coming into his dantian! He asked her how much he had drained from her and he quickly paled when he heard that he only absorbed about 20% of her overall soul power.

Xiu Ye gritted his teeth. He could feel his dantian creaking under the pressure of Tiangou's dense soul power. He has to solve this issue quick!

"Tiangou, could you still control your soul power in my body?" He asked her with a pained tone of voice.

Hearing this, Tiangou, bound in chains, closes her eyes and used what still remains of her spiritual power to see inside of Xiu Ye's body.

Seconds passed, her eyes opened, "Yeah! I can still control my soul power."

Xiu Ye's eyes brightened as a he quickly remade his plan.

"Tiangou, listen up. I want you to control your soul power and compressed it to the smallest size as you can. When all of your soul power is in my body and compressed, you immediately tell me, okay?"

"En!" Tiangou nodded and closed her eyes, begining to start controlling her soul power into the smallest volume in Xiu Ye's dantian.

Tiangou's experience of controlling her soul power shows before a second even passes: the twenty percent of her soul power in Xiu Ye's dantian had swirled like a whirlpool in a counterclockwise and quickly condensed into the size of a pingpong.

Xiu Ye's dantian was at the size of a watermelon with forty percent of it filled with his soul power, while Tiangou's pingpong size soul power had only occupied below 1%.

His eyes bulged in shock, he didn't expect Tiangou to quickly compress her soul power into that size but he didn't complain, instead, he increased the pace of transferring her soul power in his dantian.

Tiangou didn't disappoint. She quickly controlled her soul power into her soul power in Xiu Ye's dantian, making it slowly grow.

By the time that all of her soul power was sucked dry from her body and into Xiu Ye's dantian, it had only occupied about thirty percent of it in a spherical shape. Tiangou's soul power is mainly in color with a green like shade around it.

Not long after, dozens of red magical circles appeared around the entire ball of soul power: encasing it upon layers of layers of magical barriers that not even a rank B Noble Phantasm can even pierce through it.

Xiu Ye and Tiangou both let out a long sigh of relief as the final seals placed on it was sealed tight, they almost thought that the ritual had failed!

Fuck. This is why knowledge is important. Xiu Ye swore that he would find the information about making a proper contract with a soul beast in the future. He quickly shook his head to regain focus.

Next was her spiritual power, fortunately sealing this was much easier as his own spiritual power is just in the same realm as hers. Though still lacking compared to her own.

"Withstood pain to create weapons, waiting for one's arrival."

As the final stream of spiritual energy entered his inner world, he divided it into two and shaped it into a spherical shape.

It turned into two red orbs, both positioned near each other. He placed them in the sky of his inner world, ancient symbols engraved on its surface to show that's entirely encased in seals. Both looking like a double blood moon. They were on the opposite direction of the sun, creating a disturbing image in his inner world.

Xiu Ye stared and locked eyes at Tiangou. Both had expressions of determination and acceptance.

Xiu Ye said, with a stoic tone of voice, "Will you, Tiangou, the Heavenly Fiend Wolf, take me, Xiu Ye, as your contracted soul master, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to respect and cherish until you fullfil your dream do we part?"

Tiangou nodded and said, "I do." Her body began to turn illusory and the chains surrounding her shattered. Breaking free from the chains, she slowly floated towards the opened arms of Xiu Ye.

As slowly come towards him, a fist size white ball with green patterns suddenly came out of her chest.

It was her life origin and her entire cultivation. With this, they are binded and Tiangou is Xiu Ye's spirit soul.

"Then the deal is set." Xiu Ye wryly smiled as he embraced Tiangou in his arms. They both started to glow in a pale red light and the latter merged into him.

Two purple soul rings appeared around Xiu Ye's body, slowly going up and down, and a large headed hammer appeared floating up near his head. Sparks of white and blue electricity calmly danced around it.

Suddenly, a bizarre black-red soul ring rose up under his feet. It had a terrifying aura around it: that emitted a feeling of coldness, despair, malice, dominance, pestilence, hatred, wrath and pure evil. Eight white tribal patterns, looking a lot like a wolf's snarling face, is clearly discernable on the weird colored soul ring.

Badum. Badum.

Xiu Ye's white scleras suddenly, and slowly, changes into black. His bright golden irises slowly started going pale yellow, giving anyone who stares at him a creepy and uneasy feeling.

White bubble like substance began to appear around the right corner of his chin before slowly spreading out to cover more of his face.

Xiu Ye grinded his teeth, his consciousness seemingly gone, before he let out a loud and terrifying howl.

"RAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!"

Within Xiu Ye's inner world of unlimited blades. A humanoid shadow figure, with snake like shadows surrounding it, wearing tattered clothes but remained unseen like the rest of itself under its dark shadows, stood at the top center on the hill of swords. Its pair of narrowed yellow eyes seem to peer through beyond the world of weapons, deep in thought.

"Soon..." It whispers before vanishing from the spot and dodging the sword slash of Ryūjin Jakka, who clicked his tongue in frustration.

Tiangou soon appeared by his side, an expression of shock on her face as she stares at where the shadow once stood.

"Who was that?" She asked lowly, as she looks down on her hands. When she stared at that shadowy figure, for the first time since thousands of years, she felt fear.

Ryūjin Jakka let out a sigh and sheathed his sword, "Just someone distasteful." He then turned to a certain direction. "But let's forget about him for now. We have to wake up our partner first before he goes on a rampage." His figure disappeared from the spot like a ghost.

Back in the real world, Xiu Ye was still howling at the sky with his head tilted up. His transformation had seem to have disabled as well. Half of his right face is now covered in some sort of white mask.

Before he could continue and probably go somewhere to wreck havoc however, he was knocked out by a chop to the back of his neck by Ryūjin Jakka, who materialized into the real world.

"Truly, you are one troublesome partner."

The old Zanpakutō spirit let out a long tired sigh as he catches Xiu Ye in his arms and firefighter carried him outside of the forest, heading back to where the latter hidden his motorcycle and lied him there besides it before he dematerializes. While also wondering why it's already nighttime when it was still sunrise earlier.

Unbeknownst to them, the entire process of the magical ritual lasted for two whole days.

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