novelraw Chapter 975 - 974 - Strange Thrall
Chapter 975 - 974 - Strange Thrall
Lind had vast experience with thralls at the current moment but the current one was odd. He felt the familiar connection to a Fiend in the young man when he checked him for injury but what made that odd was he should have felt it on sight.
As he examined the man, he noticed he was totally blind to Celestial Qi he was using to manipulate the wards and Laws around them. It had started as a simple experiment but while everyone else knew what he was doing, the man clearly did not.
Why would a thrall be blind to Fiend and Celestial Qi?
He began to isolate the connection but unlike before, there was almost no resistance. It was like the connection was a thrall one but intentionally sectioned off.
He recalled his difficulty in using Celestial Qi below a certain purity and wondered if Fiends had the same issue. It would partially explain why they had vanished from the world so far as anyone could tell him.
If their Qi was next to useless, even with the air tainted by it, it would make them pull back. It still left the question of where but he could pursue that another time. It was somewhere to the west, of that much he was certain.
The few records he had been able to access were always the same. The Corruption started to the west of Kun City. It spread like wildfire after that and the chaos that followed prevented anyone finding the source, supposedly.
Looking at the current prone form in front of him gave him a different idea.
"Always long term planning, terrifyingly long term." Fiends were horrific but in direct combat they could be killed with enough power or numbers. What was truly mind numbing was the major battle a kingdom thought they won would lead to ultimate defeat if incorporated into a long term plan by the Fiends.
The Immortals were not the only ones with long lifespans. So long as they had a steady supply of people to refine, the Fiends could live forever.
They still needed an ever increasing amount to advance but the general rule remained the same.
Thus, immediate losses did not phase them like it would everyone else. Immortals, even though they could endure past the end of their physical bodies for a time, still had death looming over them.
Fiends could only be killed directly. Immortal Fiends could directly conform to a new body unlike any other being.
The only limitation was it had to be alive rather than dead.
"What is wrong with him, Lind?" Delenn was confused as she had never experienced thralls like he had. She had heard of them but it was her first true experience with one in person.
"I am unsure. Normally, if I try to interfere with a thrall, the Fiend will pull all the soul out to consume and leave a withered husk, but this one did not react at all. The Law Binding might be why but the connection felt odd too. It was almost like it was intentionally hidden." The man was also still alive.
The loss of feeling to his master was likely causing severe withdrawal feelings but that too was new information for him. Allen was the first thrall not to die on him.
Now that he could properly examine the man, he saw all the classic signs of impurities plaguing his body but his cultivation had progressed regardless. Yet, his aura remained as weak as everyone else they had found.
Why? By becoming a thrall, he should no longer suffer from the taint. Lind found it curious.
He felt he was wrong about the taint in the Qi. He assumed it was Fiend related by how it felt to him but if the Fiends were just as affected by it, then what was it?
He foresaw a lot of experimenting in his future if no one had even tried to do so. Given that Fiend agents could be actively inhibiting such research while fomenting chaos made that future likely.
Aside from the oddities, typical thrall conditioning was apparent. The man could be 20 or 2000 years old. He had no way of knowing but given he was working with a powerful group, his lifespan was likely really within his current realm of peak Sky Realm.
He was only guessing but a truly ancient agent would have been more cautious around him. Further, they would have noticed his attack earlier. A newer connection would not know the signs or be threatened by their failures.
"He has not been one long but long enough to get close to someone in MIdas Throne. It is how they work. They do not go after the leader, but their supporters. Information can be filtered or spread without raising an eye. If the leader gets implicated, which of the sea of helpers can be held accountable?" Delenn became pale as she realized how many servants were in her service alone.
All it would take is the right one in the sequence of relays to alter the fate of the world. If she heard reports of bandits but the reality was refugees, she could start a war without even realizing it.
She developed a new appreciation for Fiends but it still seemed limited in scope.
"Surely they would be found out quickly with such tactics?" He smiled sadly at her.
"If all was in a vacuum then yes, but you forget the other spies from other powers laid across the web. In the noise, which one led you astray? The Fiends can even use other legitimate spies to cover their tracks." Now her heart stilled.
She had forgotten.
The cultivation world was never kind enough to let peace abide. The powerful grow strong but the weak were always looking for a chance to rise up.
Complacency allowed monsters to feast on them without them even realizing they were walking into a trap.
She developed a new appreciation for Lind's harmony.
Lind let his harmony finally wash over the man but the result was not as expected. He did not react at all!
He narrowed his eyes. There should have been some reaction, even from the tainted Qi latching onto the impurities in the body, but there was nothing.
He let his Eyes look but he saw nothing to explain it. Why was his harmony not working? Had the Fiends finally found a way without even meeting him to fight back?
Fear passed through him but he refused to be beaten!
He pushed his Eyes to the limit yet nothing further was revealed. It was not something to be seen it seemed.
He closed his eyes and focused on his Immortal Touch. The Talent was usually only helpful to control Qi for Arts and other external applications, but Lind had always trained his to grasp the flow inside his own body. He wanted to understand everything about 6 elementals so he used all he had to do so.
It came in handy now as his senses stretched along the meridians inside Allen.
He could see the corruption with his Eyes previously but with his Touch he felt a difference! It was not just simple corruption like everyone else, it was integrating with him!
His body was slowly converting the taint into Qi!
He was wrong! He was so wrong about the Corruption! It was not to weaken the world, it was to convert it!
The Realm Refiner gathered all life and the next layer had to be stopped from interfering until it was done. Whatever was in this layer was converting the entire layer into Fiend Qi. Pure Fiend Qi!
It was a terribly slow process but it disrupted everything. They were not trying to destroy the world at all, they were trying to incorporate it!
The thrall process sped it up but revealed the flaws too.
It seemed that Heaven and Earth were not so simple to convert. Further, the process was still a mystery. What catalyst could possibly pull it off and not invoke the Wrath of Heaven? Even the Fiends could not hide from that unless they employed a massive Void of Heaven that would draw all the eyes of cultivators anyway.
So how had they done it?
He pushed it aside as he examined the integrating Qi further and learned some things. The man in front of him was not a thrall!
He could never be a thrall!
The connection was similar but the results were to speed up the integration! He would have died without the support of a Fiend, yet after a time, he could see a point the Fiend Qi would be usable to the human body!
"Why, what is the point of it?" Fiend Qi had no advantage in other races but it was clear that was what was happening in the man's body. Just using it would not do anything and given what he theorized, it would become inimical in most of the world once it happened.
So why do it?
False promises might entice some but cultivators lived long enough to confirm if they died, so why do it?
The only one with answers was the man in front of him.
"I am going to wake him up. There is something very wrong here." Lind turned to Delenn but froze as he realized something was wrong. She looked pale and was sweating. He swiftly used his harmony to check her out and was shocked to find poison in her veins!
When?! How?!
He swept the suite but everyone else was fine. He quickly turned back to the man and found he was dead! He had dispersed a poison as he died!
Lind purged the poison and put an elixir into Delenn for good measure but then froze. Why was he not affected? He was powerful and resistant but poison should still affect him, but there was nothing.
He examined his body and was shocked to see his body was actively purging the poison easily! Harmonic cleansing was superior to tempering it seemed.
Still, it proved the Fiend knew their thrall was disconnected but still had a way to kill them and anyone that caught them.
He gathered evidence quickly before it was lost as he would have to answer questions. He could already feel the headache but the more serious issue was the existence of invisible agents unless he actively scanned them.
How many would there be and how deeply did the Fiend control Kun City?