Falling into Madness

Looking at such lopsided odds, one couldn't help but think that the actions of the Devils and the Fae was nothing other than courting death. Nevertheless, Ghost naturally didn't question their suicidal actions and had charged at the Paragon Devil with his arms spread out in attempt to end things once and for all… Only to be viciously intercepted by his parents via 2 different coloured lightning bolts that- miraculously, sent him flying.

It came as a great shock. He had always been expecting the 2 traitors to interfere, that's fine. But what he had not expected was the potency behind the strike. It was a power of the likes that he had never felt before. It wasn't the evil and bloody feature that the rest of the Devils and Fae now had, but something else altogether.

It… was like a fusion of the 2 different natured lightning bolts. Yeah, that's right. It was like the Purification of Sindia's white Lightning and the Corruption of Balik's Purple Lightning had somehow fused together to form something that rather than just try to tear his insides apart, tried to directly rearrange his composition.

The purple lightning's effect would damage, corrupt and twist apart his organs, but before his natural regeneration could kick in, the white lightning would not only harm him, but it would do… something, something that seemed to make the damage a bit more… permanent.

Thankfully he was strong enough to nullify most of its effects, but he had no doubt that if his natural defences weren't so high (courtesy of his near-death experiences at the hands of the Asura and Phoenix of Envy), he wouldn't have been able to nullify the changes that the contrasting lightning bolts attempted to perform on his body.

Be that as it may, it had still achieved its main purpose which was to stall him. The few moments that his confused fright had caused him to inspect the damage that he had suffered and weigh the costs of continuation, was enough for everything to change.

BOOM!

Out of nowhere, what seemed like a mini-tree with red coloured leaves had burst out of the ground and speared straight through his stomach and out his back with appalling ease. Then, it somehow paralysed his body, making him look like a sacrifice as he was helpless suspended in the air. But although the wound was grievous, he had suffered worse and it wasn't enough to kill him. It was what happened next that really terrified him.

GU GU GU!

It began to ferociously suck out his Blood Essence!

His Blood Essence! Blood Essence was extremely important to every living being and to have it syphoned away was not only damaging to his cultivation, but also damaging to his very life force. He was in deep trouble!

Trying his best to save himself, he wasn't aware that the tide of Devils and Fae were receding. The Blood Fiends of course tried to change them, unwilling to let their enemies flee after causing so much harm, but when a shout had alerted them to the situation of their progenitor, they were fraught with fear and indecision.

If he had the strength to, he would have roared at them to help him immediately. There he was dying and the worthless fools were actually thinking of chasing? Luckily, they eventually came to the decision to separate. The Fiend Lords and other notable members of the Blood Fiend race rushed to help him and the rest continued to chase the Devils and Fae.

The people that had stayed to help him let out numerous attacks on the blood-sucking mini tree but they barely did any damage.

Only after a long while did their combined might leave extensive damage on the mini tree, which caused it to retreat to where it had come from. Yes. Even after so long, the combined might of all the Fiend Lords had still not been able to destroy the mini tree, only managing to cause it to flee.

By then, Ghost had lost a whole 17% of his Blood Essence which caused his cultivation to Essence Cultivation to fall from the 6th Stage of Soul Refinement (4th Realm for the Enlightened Races) to the 4th Stage. A complete, and utter loss of 2 Stages– 2 Stages that had taken him years to achieve… had been taken away in less than an hour.

…INFURIATING! BONE-ACHINGLY AND SOUL-COLLAPSINGLY INFURIATING! He wanted to bite every last Devil and Fae to death with his teeth, separate the flesh from their bones with his claws, and drink every last drop of their blood until he could make back all of his losses! If he didn't do so, then he wasn't the Crying Ghost!

That day, Ghost had never before been so angry. But it wasn't the end.

The Devils and Fae that had managed to flee, actually came back a couple months later to sneak attack them again! But even despite the fact that he was alert of any kind of sudden change in the situation occurring once more in fear of history repeating itself, his efforts were in vain! Balik and Sindia had once again hit him with their abnormal fused-lightning bolts, and a blood-sucking mini tree, which he had long suspected was actually a branch of the Demonic Blood Tree that the Devils and Fae had somehow summoned here, had managed to pierce through his body again!

AGAIN!

This time however, the Fiend Lords didn't dare shilly-shally and quickly came to help him, bringing with themselves more help than last time. Still, it still took time to free him and he lost even MORE Blood Essence, and even MORE of his Essence Cultivation, which had dropped 1 more stage.

Hoh… that day. That day he really did go mad.

Faced with the innumerable losses that he had been enduring for the last few years and the sight of the Devils and Fae running away once again, something within him snapped. This time… he was ABSOLUTELY UNWILLING to let the Devils and Fae run away without paying the price again.

So he chased them.