88 Three Screams

That point there, right in the middle of her two lungs was something important. Darkscale had the certainty that it was something of vital importance! Carelia was using so much energy to make sure that the corruption didn't manage to spread to that single point.

The snake felt that if he wanted to harm her, he needed to help the corrupted Bloodline to get inside that point.

'Why though?'

The inquisitive nature of the reptile didn't allow him to simply find a weak point and attack him. He needed to know why that point was a soft spot. It wasn't just curiosity per se: the reptile knew that if he had more information on that, he would be able to find more effective methods to deal with the traitorous AI.

However, no matter how much he tried to find an explanation for the things that were happening inside of Star Leaf's body, he couldn't find one.

'Corrupted Bloodline'

It had to have something to do with the corrupted power of the Bloodline he had sent her. That was obvious. She was trying so hard to stop it, sacrificing a large quantity of her energy and almost all her attention.

Yet, the strange thing was that her entire body was already seething with Corrupted Bloodline. It made no sense protecting one single point and leaving the entire rest of the body to rot, consumed by the corruption.

If she feared it so much, she should fear it all over her body, not only in a single spot. That made no sense.

'Wait... corruption has an effect on the soul'

That was Spike told him when he saw him. Corruption was a sickness of the soul, that lowered one's comprehension and was the major problem for Devil Cultivators.

Thinking back to the information he had about that strange force, Darkscale started to understand what was happening. That point... was where her soul was stored?

What was a soul to begin with? He had a vague idea, brought to him by memories that weren't his.

However, he didn't actually know what it was. It seemed to be something that living entities had, rarely even some kind of mineral ( as he had discovered a long time ago in his readings), something that cultivators needed to use to gain more power. Immortals, Demons, and Buddhist were especially concerned about keeping their soul pure and growing their power.

Souls helped a cultivator to comprehend things.

'It should be some kind of energy'

This idea started to take roots in the serpent's mind. Yes, it should be something like his own Bloodline Energy. If not how could cultivator use it?

If it was an energy, then cultivators should be able to use it. Linke normal energy or bloodline. Sure, using bloodline was way more difficult than manipulating normal energy, but it was still feasible.

The same thing could be said of the soul. Maybe.

The entire hypothesis was something that the serpent thought of in the spur of the moment and probably wasn't very accurate. However, he hoped that the basis of what he thought was true: that soul could be manipulated because it had proprieties like those of normal energy.

If that was true, everything was easily explainable: the fake MAID was simply compressing her soul in a single point to avoid corruption. She was doing everything she could to make it sure that her soul didn't come into contact with that Bloodline Power and fall ill like the rest of Star Leaf's body.

That was a good explanation of the strange flows of power inside Carelia.

Darkscale focused on the single point in the middle of his enemy's lungs. He tried to sniff any scent coming from that point, to sense anything at all that could verify what he was theorizing.

'Ghost Power.... no, it's different...'

The snake found a very peculiar scent, a very feeble one, but still something he had never smelled before. At first, he thought it was just another mass of Ghost Energy, but at a second exam, it felt different. He could feel some trace of Bloodline inside that Ghost Energy, fused with numerous other smells he didn't recognize. They were simply one on top of the other: they were fused into a single very bizarre but unique scent.

The more he tried to examine it, the more he realized that it wasn't Ghost Energy at all. At the same time, the more different scents he could find inside of it. They seemed infinite.

'Is that a soul?'

There was a single way to be sure.

Suddenly, Darkscale sidestepped another attack from the sky, letting another ball of white fire crash and devour the terrain where he stood a moment before.

He didn't even look at the sky, using simply his nose to keep track of the movements of the traitor in the air. His triangular face didn't even look annoyed or anything else. The snake had no emotion in his eyes.

Now that he knew how bad was the situation inside Carelia's inhabited body, he was a lot more at ease: she wasn't able to summon all her strenght at once. If she did, the Bloodline would infect that stop between her lungs and she clearly wasn't ready for that.

There was no reason to panick at all. He had all the time of the world before she could manage to get rid of all that corruption inside of her. She was acting so aggresivly because she thought he would never notice in what hopeless situation she was in.

She wanted him to make an mistake, like the one of before, when he tried to consume her white flame.

The serpent used his smell power on himself, looking in the same region as the one Carelia was trying to protect. Nothing. He found nothing.

No, wait. A very feeble trace of that smell. It was different, way different, but it gave the same feeling.

Similar to the relationship between his own Bloodline Power and that of Carelia. It looked similar, but at the same time, there was something that radically made it sure that it wasn' the same thing. Hues, small but numerous shades that made it completely another smell.

Another peculiar thing was that he was sure that his soul wans't simply accumulated into a single point, it was spread all over his body.

He tried to summon it like he did with the Bloodline Energy, but it didn't seem to work. The power, if it could be called that, was completely unreceptive.

Maybe it could be manipulated given enough time and practice, but he hadn't the time for that. Not now.

The serpent looked in the sky: he now knew that she was protecting her soul, while leaving Star Leaf's body and soul to suffer from his attacks.

'I need to keep going. I can find a way to help her once I get rid of Carelia.'

There was no time to find a way that kept Star Leaf out of the fight between him and the MAID. He would do the same thing that he had done before: finding another ghost and absorbing it to send the corruption inside his Ghost Energy towards Star Leaf using the Blue Bridge of energy that existed between them.

A silver probe energy formed itself right in front of the snake, speeding towards the east. There was a touch of Bloodline Energy trapped inside of it.

It would be enough to lure one of those stupid beasts there. He just needed to find one. Thankfully, his smell power was up to the task and had already found hundreds of Evil Spirits in the miles surrounding him.

He sent the probe to the closest one. Or at least, that was his plan of action.

Carelia eyes seemed to pop out of her sockets when she saw him transition from a nervous and desperate warrior that was fighting against time to someone who didn't even try to conceal his plan of attack.

A wave of silver energy exploded from her flame and destroyed the probe that was running away from the fight.

"BAST...DO YOU THI...K I AM TH...AT STU...PID?"

Dark liquid poured out of her screaming mouth, covering her white teeth with that black slimy substance.

Darkscale eyes narrowed. He could feel that the attack she had used to destroy his probe costed her some precious millimeters in that internal battle she was fighting. The corruption energy had closed in on that spot she was trying to keep free from it.

That meant that every time she attacked him, she would come closer to infect herself. That made things even simpler. With a smug calm, he simply created another energy probe and sent it on the same journey of the first.

Carelia, in the sky, spat red blood together with the black liquid.

"DO YO..U REAL..LY BELIE...VE I WILL ST...AY PUT U...NTILL YOU SEN...D OTH...ER POISON?!"

This time she didn't destroy his probe. Her rage seemed to have reached a melting point. The flame around her completely disappeared inside her body, flowing through the bulging black veins that covered Star LEaf's flesh.

A loud imploding sound echoed all around, followed thana terrible scream of anger and pain. Coming from the body and strangely enough, even from behind the serpent.

Darkscale was confused by what was happening: he could distinguish three different tones in that cry of pain. He was unsure of the identity of two of them, but if she had to make a guess, he would say Carelia and Star Leaf.

The third was someone that he recognized immediately. He had heard that scream many times: Winter Leaf.