Shedding Influence

The Spirit Core glowed in Lei Mingxing's fist, siphoning all the Qi in its surroundings regardless of element and wildly transferring them into Lei Mingxing's body until it had no energy left. Having turned a dull gray color, the emptied Spirit Core gradually crumbled, with its dust taken away by a soft breeze.

Lei Mingxing, on the other hand, felt like her whole being was a bundle entirely composed of pain. Her muscles screamed as they were forcefully ripped apart again and again, because they continued to regenerate, unwilling to be done in without a fight. Until ultimately the uncompromising flood of Qi forced them to bow their heads, becoming so tough that they couldn't be ripped apart anymore.

The same thing went for her tendons, which were stretched until their breaking point only to slowly return to their original position, repeating this process indefinitely, until they wouldn't become loose from the stretching no more.

The only part of her body that didn't resist as much were her bones. They were hammered to perfection, glowing with an indomitable golden aura.

This entire process already hurt like hell ten times over and an ordinary person would have died after less than a minute of it, but the worst part had yet to come.

After the tempering of her flesh was completed, the tidal wave of Qi moved on, condensing into one single entity.

One after the other, her meridians, if you could even call the sparse colorless splinters wrapped in black goo that, were thoroughly flushed clean by a stream of Qi that struck as abruptly and painfully as lightning. Not one drop of the black goo remained.

As soon as the black corroding force had disappeared, the dying meridians seemed to come back to life. They hungrily absorbed the Qi around them regardless of element, swelling and growing in the process until they were too full to swallow anymore.

The meridians weren't the end of it though, there was still one last hurdle.

The Dantian.

At this point, it couldn't be called a Dantian anymore, it was a murky, gooey mess that swirled at the center of Lei Mingxing's body. The lightning-like Qi slammed against its sticky surface many times, but there was no discernable change, only the Qi had severely weakened in the process.

The Qi circled around the 'Dantian', these actions almost gave one the impression that the Qi was helplessly pondering a solution.

If the Dantian wasn't solved, the goo would just spread to her meridians again, and all this entire cleansing process would have been in vain.

Just then, a flash of golden violet light appeared inside of the unchanging darkness, desperately banging against the layer of goo.

The flash of Qi noticed the light as well, instantly cooperating with the other power to destroy the goo from both the inside and outside. Their strikes became increasingly frantic and with one last push a hole appeared in the seemingly impenetrable layer.

That was all it took.

The golden violet light escaped through the opening. As soon as it was free from its constraints, it produced a sudden explosion, its glittering light doubling in size and chasing the hidden pitch-black darkness all over the body away. Only the murky Dantian remained.

The newly mended meridians cheerfully lit up in all the colors of the rainbow as well, as if greeting an old friend.

The golden violet light shook for a moment, its brightest sheen contrasting the endless black around the occupied Dantian, preparing for one last all-out attack. If it didn't succeed this time, the consequences wouldn't be as meager as the body returning to its former blocked state, no, without the golden violet light acting as the Spiritual Sea's last line of defense, Lei Mingxing's would die a painful death. Her soul swallowed by the bottomless darkness unable to even reincarnate.

But the golden violet light knew that its strength alone wasn't enough, slowly entangling the lighning-like Qi.

The lightning-like Qi which had previously acted like the big boss was stunned as it watched the whole process, until the golden violet light began to forcibly drag it along.

It wanted to protest but soon it realized why the light was acting like that.

The goo, which had until just recently lazily drifted along, letting the lightning Qi attack it without sparing it as much as a glance, was now churning furiously. It stretched out its black tentacles to try and corrode the meridians again, but the repaired meridians held it off bravely, trapping it in the center of Lei Mingxing's body. The more the meridians resisted, the angrier the goo seemed to become, roaring like the most horrible monster from ancient times.

The lightning-like Qi trembled as it heard this frightening roar, deeply disturbed it looked at the golden violet light.

The golden violet light was as steady as ever, rushing forward with determination, so the Qi also chose to trust it. Combining and fusing with it, praying that this would be enough to slay their opponent.

They were like ancient heroes facing off against the endlessly devouring monster Taotie.

Their forces clashed, neither one backing down.

The goo corroded their energy and they burnt away its filthy tentacles.

As their stand-off continued, for one minute, two minutes, half an hour, the meridians started to lose their protective rainbow luster.

The lightning-like Qi became restless and the golden violet light also noticed this.

A deep sneering sound resounded from the goo and the lightning Qi felt a bout of helplessness, but at this moment the golden violet light pushed with all its remaining strength.

The meridians seemed to hear its last call to arms, giving it all the energy they had, leaving only a sliver to protect themselves with.

This final attack would decide victory and defeat.

The goo roared angrily, also forming one last big tentacle with all the goo it had left.

This was exactly the moment the golden violet light had been waiting for since the goo first appeared, corroding the meridians and Dantian bit by bit, while it had to watch helplessly.

The lights and darkness burst into a shower of sparks.

The battle was concluded with one last curdling scream that reverberated through the entire body.

The black goo disintegrated into nothingness and the different lights scattered. The entities of lightning-like Qi and golden violet light had disappeared, their fragments silently falling like shattered stars, before being reabsorbed by the lively and cheerful meridians.

The only thing that remained as proof of this glorious secret battle was the shimmering pearl floating in the center, an occasional flicker of golden violet light entangled with a blinking white flashing over its smooth surface.

Now, Lei Mingxing could finally start cultivating.

Though..., the person in question had no idea of the battle that had occurred inside of her. The only thing that she felt was the extreme pain of being ripped apart, drowning in her own blood, acid melting her body to the bone,...

All in all, it was a pain not unknown to her and wouldn't disturb her calm in the slightest.

Slowly, she felt the pain subside and she began to wake herself from the protective trance that made her oblivious to her surroundings.

She was not unconscious, they had eradicated that bodily reflex over time. Every time she fell unconscious because the pain was too much to bear, they would wake her soon enough, and not with gentle means like splashing cold water or slightly slapping the cheek...

Her eyes gradually fluttered open and soon focused on an unfamilar ceiling.

She glanced around with wide eyes.

Where was she?

This wasn't the river or even the Dark Spirit Woods for that matter.

She lay on an unfamiliar bed in a strange house.

Lei Mingxing quickly rose from the bed. The sound of her movements seemed to alert the owner of the house, and an unfamiliar man appeared in the doorway to the next room.

With a wide smile and greedily, sparkling eyes, he greeted her.

"You woke up just in time!"

Small theater:

Lightning-like Qi: I'm very strong and extremely fierce!

Black Goo: OwO

Lightning-like Qi: *scrambling to hide behind Golden Violet Light*

Golden Violet Light: ...