System Possession, One Sword Shocks the Gods

65: Sacrificing oneself to the swordThe suffocatingly dense blood-evil Qi and resentment, like tangible shackles, coiled around every member of the Ye Family. Those with weaker cultivation instantly felt their blood boiling, as if their Soul was being torn from their bodies, and they collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain. Even Cultivators like Chen Feng, who were in the Late Stage of the Kaiyuan Realm, felt their spiritual energy circulation become sluggish and their Divine Soul suffer intense impact, their faces turning deathly pale.

”It’s a Blood Sacrifice Formation! They are extracting the blood Qi and Soul of every living being here!” Chen Feng was horrified and tried to mobilize his spiritual energy to resist the suction force, but with little effect.

Ye Chen bore the brunt of it. The Sword Intent Domain he had expanded to a zhang flickered violently and unsteadily under the impact of the monstrous blood-evil resentment, its range compressed to the point where it could only protect himself and his parents behind him. He felt as if countless cold needles were stabbing into his Sea of Consciousness, attempting to pollute his Sword Heart and devour his will.

”Hahahaha!” Lin Hao appeared insane. Watching the Ye Family members struggling in the Formation and Ye Chen’s pained expression, he was immensely gratified. ”Do you feel it? Ye Chen! This is despair! This is the consequence of you opposing me and the Dark Hall! All of you will become nutrients to awaken the Demonic Lord’s power!”

The Third Elder at his feet had already turned into a mummified corpse, all vitality and Soul completely devoured by the Formation.

”Hao’er, well done.” Elder Xueli maintained the Formation’s incantation gestures, blood light surging around him, connecting with the Formation beneath his feet. His aura climbed continuously, almost breaking through the limits of the Kaiyuan Realm. ”When the Demonic Lord’s power descends and bestows grace, you shall have the greatest merit!”

”For the Demonic Lord!” Lin Hao roared fanatically.

”Chen’er...” Under the protection of Ye Chen’s Sword Domain, Ye Xiaotian and his wife, though not having their vitality directly extracted like the other clansmen, still felt difficulty breathing. Watching their son struggling alone to maintain the increasingly dim Sword Domain, and seeing the tragic sight of the clansmen around them constantly falling, their hearts were twisted with agony.

Ye Chen gritted his teeth, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. Resisting this massive Blood Sacrifice Formation was a huge drain on his spiritual energy and mental focus. Even more terrifying, he felt that the Formation beneath his feet was like a bottomless pit, not only extracting the power of living beings but also devouring the Dragon Qi of the earth’s veins. An ancient and evil consciousness, one that made him tremble, was casting its gaze here through this Formation from an infinitely distant place!

It was the Shadow Demon Lord! Even a single insignificant wisp of his will was enough to crush everyone present!

This cannot go on! The Formation must be broken! Otherwise, everyone will die!

He tried to mobilize the power of the incomplete ancient sword within his body, but the ancient sword only trembled slightly, conveying a vague sense of yearning and... disdain? It seemed that the power of this Blood Sacrifice Formation had triggered some reaction in it, but it disdained to actively devour such filthy power.

What to do? Elder Liu’s sword containment pendant? That was a trump card for saving his life, with only three chances. Could using it here completely break the Formation? If not, it would only alert the enemy.

Just as his thoughts raced and he struggled bitterly—

”With my broken body, I protect my Ye Family! With my Soul, I help the Young Lord defeat the enemy!”

A hoarse yet resolute roar rang out!

It was the heavily injured Grand Elder Ye Xiaoyun! He had, at some point, burned his remaining life Origin, broken free from some of the blood-evil bindings, and like a moth to a flame, rushed unhesitatingly toward an energy node of the Formation and detonated himself!

”Grand Elder!” ”No!” the Ye Family members cried out in sorrow.

Boom! The resolute self-detonation of a Kaiyuan Realm Cultivator instantly disrupted the energy flow of that node, causing the entire Formation to pause slightly!

But this was not enough! ”Protect the Young Lord! Protect the Family!” ”Fight these demons to the death!”

As if ignited by the Grand Elder’s sacrifice, those Ye Family guards and Elders who still had strength and had not been completely subdued erupted with a look of desperate determination in their eyes. They roared, burned their lives, and threw themselves at different energy nodes of the Formation, or charged at the men in black who were maintaining the Formation!

”Bang!” ”Boom!” ”Ah!” The sounds of self-detonations, fighting, and screams instantly merged into one! Flesh and blood flew, and spiritual light shattered!

They used the most tragic and heroic way to fight for a sliver of survival for their Family and for the Young Lord they recognized!

”No! Don’t!” Ye Chen watched as those familiar figures turned into brilliant and fleeting flashes of blood before his eyes. His heart felt like it was being sliced by knives, his eyes were blood-red, and tears mixed with blood slid down his face. These were the Elders who had watched him grow up, and the companions he had played and frolicked with!

”Ants shaking a tree, futile!” Elder Xueli snorted coldly. The Formation only fluctuated slightly before stabilizing again, its suction force becoming even stronger!

”Father, Mother, I’m sorry...” Ye Chen turned his head abruptly to look at his tear-streaked parents behind him, his eyes filled with guilt and determination. He knew he could not hesitate any longer!

He violently compressed and condensed all the spiritual energy in his body, along with his nascent Sword Intent Domain! No longer expanding outward for defense, he turned it inward, merging it into his own body and into the qingfeng sword in his hand!

He was imitating, imitating the Concept of ”Nirvana Returning to Ruins,” but this time, what he was sacrificing was not the enemy, but himself! His cultivation, his Sword Intent, his... life Origin!

”Chen’er! What are you doing?!” Ye Xiaotian and his wife felt the tragic, resolute aura on their son that seemed ready to burn everything to ash, and they were terrified.

”With my blood, I burn my Soul! I sacrifice my sword to sweep away the demons and evil!”

Ye Chen roared up at the sky, his voice shaking the surroundings! His entire aura soared crazily at an incredible speed! Dark golden flames burned around his body—that was his fire of life, his fire of Sword Intent!

The qingfeng sword emitted a metallic, piercing hum. On the blade, the dark golden radiance was unprecedentedly intense, as if a dark golden sun had been born in his hand! That Sword Intent was no longer about Nirvana; it carried a tragic and glorious intent to burn everything and perish with the enemy!

”Not good! He’s going for a desperate attack! Stop him!” Elder Xueli’s expression finally changed; he felt a fatal threat from Ye Chen! He no longer cared about maintaining the perfection of the Formation and struck out with his palm. A condensed blood-colored spear tore through the air, piercing straight at Ye Chen’s heart!

Lin Hao also realized something was wrong and frantically drove his spiritual energy, sending a sinister black Sword Qi attacking Ye Chen’s back!

Facing the pincer attack from front and back, Ye Chen did not dodge or avoid it. In his eyes, there was only that evil Formation core, and the Souls of his clansmen who were being devoured!

He poured all his burning power into the qingfeng sword and, aiming at the dark red Formation core beneath his feet, as well as Elder Xueli and Lin Hao in front of him, slashed out a sword strike that exceeded his own limits and carried all his will and life!

”Heaven—Burning—Sacrificial—Sword—Art!”

A sword light, whose color could not be described in words, seemed to come from the beginning of heaven and earth, and seemed to return to the end of all things, burst forth from the qingfeng sword! Wherever the sword light passed, space twisted, and the dense blood-evil resentment, as if meeting its nemesis, made a ”hissing” sound and quickly evaporated and dissipated!

The blood-colored spear and the black Sword Qi were as fragile as paper before this brilliant sword light, instantly shattering and annihilating!

The sword light did not diminish, first striking Lin Hao!

”No—!” Lin Hao only had time to let out a desperate scream before he was swallowed by the sword light, along with the sword in his hand, the spiritual energy in his body, and all his resentment and ambition, all turning into nothingness!

Immediately after, the sword light slashed fiercely onto the dark red Formation core!

”Crack—!!!” A heaven-shaking, earth-shattering loud noise! It was as if the entire Qing City trembled because of it!

The evil Formation that covered the entire Ye Family ancestral home was like shattered glass, instantly covered in countless cracks! The dark red evil light flickered wildly, attempting to repair itself, but the tragic will contained within the sword light—to burn everything and sacrifice everything—was like maggots on bones, spreading and destroying wildly along the veins of the Formation!

”Pfft—!” Elder Xueli, who was presiding over the Formation, was hit as if by a heavy blow, violently spitting out a large mouthful of pitch-black blood. The blood light around his body instantly dimmed, and his aura withered rapidly! The Formation had been forcibly broken, and he had suffered an extremely severe backlash!

”Boom!” Finally, with an unwilling wail, the entire Blood Sacrifice Formation completely collapsed! The sky-filling blood-evil resentment, having lost its support, began to slowly dissipate.

Sunlight finally spilled onto the dilapidated Ye Family ancestral home once again, completely unobstructed.

Ye Chen remained in the posture of swinging his sword, standing in place. The dark golden flames around his body had already extinguished, his face was so pale it lacked a trace of blood, and his aura was weak to the extreme, like a candle in the wind. The qingfeng sword was covered in cracks, as if it would shatter at any moment.

He had succeeded. Using himself as a sacrifice, he had slashed out this sword strike that reversed the desperate situation.

But his fire of life had also become like a burnt-out candle wick, flickering, about to extinguish.

”Chen’er!” Ye Xiaotian and his wife rushed forward, hugging their son’s slowly collapsing body tightly, tears streaming down their faces like rain.

Chen Feng and the others looked at the youth standing with his sword, who seemed like a sculpture, looked at the tragic battlefield around them, and looked at the shattered and dissipating evil Formation, their hearts filled with endless shock and respect.

Ye Chen, with the strength of one person and the might of one sword, had slain a powerful enemy and broken a desperate Formation!

However, just when everyone thought the crisis was temporarily resolved and were immersed in grief and shock—

A tiny, almost imperceptible dark red stream of light, as if possessing life, quietly escaped from the shattered Formation core. Like a venomous snake, it shot silently toward the center of the dying Ye Chen’s forehead!

That was... the most pure wisp of the Demonic Lord’s will remaining from the Blood Sacrifice Formation! It wanted to perform Possession on this body with infinite potential!

”Watch out!” Chen Feng, whose Divine Sense was the strongest, was the first to notice and exclaimed in horror, but it was already too late to stop it!

That dark red stream of light instantly submerged into the center of Ye Chen’s forehead!