52 - Evolution

Su Tao held a pitch black bow nocked with a pitch black arrow, and he was aiming up into the sky seemingly at nothing. He had the bow back at full draw, and even he, with his immense strength, was lightly trembling because of the pure force required to pull this bow to full draw.

This was merely an average bow meant for people at the one star silver rank, but he had put the black power of his heart into it, and it was now much stronger than before.

When Su Tao had put the power of his heart into the bow, it had looked like it was a weird black liquid that spread over the entire bow, including the string. However, that black liquid had eventually completely solidified, and the strength of the bow soared dramatically.

Su Tao had to constantly control the power of his heart within the bow in order to draw it back. Otherwise, it would simply be frozen in place, unable to draw back at all.

This was one of the unique properties of the weapons infused with the power of his heart; if they moved in the slightest or bent or needed to do anything other than exist, Xu Xin was the only person in all of existence capable of wielding them.

Nocked on the black bow was a similarly black arrow, and it seemed to be completely perfect in every way. The arrowhead on it was incredibly sharp, and it would be able to pierce through metal armor.

Then, Su Tao let go of the arrow as it began to fly forwards.

The bow released a resounding *TWANG!* as the bowstring pulled the arrow forward with immense force.

Then, the arrow flew through the air seemingly into the sky. However, this was the angle at which he could get the absolute furthest distance with his bow.

The arrow flew extremely fast through the air as it soared up into the sky. It flew for quite a while, and it finally landed almost a mile away from Su Tao. However, it was nowhere near where he had been aiming.

He had expected this though, and he was planning to use this time before the wedding to improve his aim at this distance.

The only limiting factor would be the fact that he didn't have an unlimited supply of the black power of his heart. This meant that he would have to collect his arrows every time he shot them or wait to recover every time that he did.

He was happy to see the range of the bow, but he was annoyed to see that it was nowhere near where he was aiming. But he knew the reason behind it since he was capable of seeing everything that happened to the arrow.

There were several factors that played into the arrow going off course, and this not only included the obvious factor of him trembling a little bit due to the effort required to draw the bow, but it also included things like the wind.

Normally, people would use inner energy around or in the arrow to block the wind, but since Su Tao didn't have any inner energy within the arrow and didn't want to put any in, it was affected by the wind.

Su Tao could see the wind and predict how it would change the course of the arrow, but that would take an immense amount of effort to calculate all of that so quickly, and he didn't believe that he could do so.

Another thing that Su Tao realized was that he would have to have a completely clear view of the target he was trying to hit, and in order to have that in the middle of a city, he would have to have a very high vantage point.

But he would worry about this later.

For now, he worked on predicting the course of the wind that was blowing through the area that he had to shoot through, and he was able to do so, but it took all of his focus and a long time to figure everything out.

He could figure out how the arrow would be affected in the air, but it exhausted his mind doing so. He had also gotten back the black arrow already, and he once again shot it out, using what he had planned out in his mind to figure out the course of the arrow.

He was happy to see that the black arrow struck much closer to its target than before, and he figured that he would eventually be able to get it to hit.

For the next ten days, he did nothing except this, and he managed to figure out how to easier predict the course of the arrow, and he could now strike his target.

However, at such a massive range, it would rarely hit right where he was intending, and even with his prediction abilities, he was limited in accuracy at such a range.

The arrow would at most get within a couple inches of his target, but that was enough. Through the explosion factor of the slightly unstable arrows, he was certain that a hit from this arrow would likely be enough to take Su Long's life.

Su Tao obviously continued to break through during this time, and since he wasn't even using any inner energy, he had just as much progress as if he was doing nothing, and he managed to break through 10% of the barrier to the two star silver rank.

Su Tao wasn't much weaker than a two star silver rank right now, but if he got found, his chances of escaping as a two star silver rank would be much higher. He had to have the ability to escape without using his inner energy so that he couldn't be tracked.

He would love to actually be a two star silver rank, but the possibility of him reaching that level before the wedding was essentially zero.

But it was at this moment that he suddenly had an idea.

He wanted to do anything possible to reach the two star silver rank, but he didn't want to mess up either. If he used the power of his eyes recklessly and cracked his dantian, the damage done would take a very long time to repair.

He couldn't help but get frustrated at himself for not being able to do more. He was in this situation because of something he did, and he couldn't get himself out of it.

If he didn't help Su Xue, he would get a heart demon that would affect him forever and restrict his progress to nothing. But to help her put himself in massive danger with not much way out.

At this moment, he decided that no matter what, he had to push forward. No matter what, he refused to let himself fail. He would either succeed or die trying, and he wouldn't allow anybody to stop him.

It was at this moment as he made this decision that he suddenly felt a pulse of energy from his heart.

This energy was extremely weird, and as it spread through Su Tao's body, he realized that it was black blood which was being released from his heart. It was a massive wave of black blood, and he felt that a lot of the blood in his body had turned into that weird black power.

However, this wave did not stop, and it continued to push out more and more black blood through his whole body.

This black blood was not only vast in quantity, but it was also of a higher quality. Su Tao felt at this moment as if his black heart had evolved. He could not help but be excited for how strong it would be.

However, he soon felt as if this black blood was starting to get out of hand, as if there was too much of it in his body.

This feeling got stronger and stronger, and Su Tao started to feel a little bit of danger from it.

He realized that this was because there was simply too much, so he put some of the black power into his bow and a couple arrows, but that didn't do much.

Soon, his skin lightly started to swell, and black gunk started to ooze out of his pores across his body.

In a slight panic, Su Tao put the black power into every single arrow he had with him, including the quiver itself. However, that only helped a little bit.

With nothing else to do, Su Tao started to put the black power into his clothes. This would allow him to get rid of a massive amount all at once. Instantly, his black robes started to get even darker, like the middle of the night sky.

He instantly felt his body was relieved of the previous pressure as he sent the black blood into his clothes.

He quickly saw the reason that it was so effective. It was because on his clothes, the black power went around each and every individual thread, delicately weaving its way through. Even the most minute details were captured by the black blood as it went around and covered everything.

However, unlike the string on the bow, the black power that went into his robes flowed like silk in the wind, and it was actually quite pretty to look at.

After a few moments, the entirety of his robes had been covered by the black power, and they looked perfectly black, as if they didn't exist properly.

Finally, Su Tao felt that his heart was calming down and that it had stopped producing such a massive amount of the black blood. As such, he stopped putting the black power into his robes.

However, he realized that, even after he had stopped putting the black power into them, it was still lingering on them, and he could interact with it at any time and control it.

He felt that every thread of the robes were under his control, and this odd feeling gave him an idea.

The idea that he had was to use the robes on his body as a form of defense, and maybe it could even heal itself. After all, anything that the black power merged with became stronger.

The only question was how much stronger his robes had become since they were originally just pieces of cloth. But if he could manage to succeed, he might have a strong defense that could repair itself, which was something that could not be said for many people under the gold rank.

As such, he took out his knife and tried to cut a small portion of his robes, only to find that he almost couldn't.