"Beastsouls eradicate the world, and fiendgods shake the heavens! Did you learn it well, brat?" The voice of the Hexapath Sword God came from the mouths of the two yin-yang fiendgods and shook Tianming's ears.
"How can I even begin comprehending something like that? Cut me some slack!" Tianming said.
"Not bad. With your ambition, if you’re able to master a ten-thousandth of what I have shown, you'll have done well enough."
Tianming didn't know what to say. "What I meant was it didn't make sense to me at all!"
"You're a brilliant student." The old man withdrew his sword intent and sat back down.
"Can you demonstrate it a few more times?"
"You're a brilliant student."
"You have no balls."
"You're a brilliant student."
It was over. Tianming had more or less memorized the mantras of the two sword formations, but he didn't really understand them at all.
"It's alright, I'll just learn it slowly. This sword art was devised when he ascended, and I'm still quite far off from that. I only need to understand a part of it," Tianming said, calming down.
"Young man, you’d better learn it fast. I want to copy your notes," Ying Huo said.
"You little!"
Tianming left the sword palace with the new techniques in mind. The place was still really quiet and the sword god eventually closed his eyes and turned back into a rock.
......
He returned to Soulburn Hall and sneakily spent time with Feiling for the better part of the day. Once he felt he was well rested, he went to the Fiend Palace.
"I'm not surprised this Archaionfiend Eye is something my dad came across during his first life. Even with the Soul Tower in my sea of consciousness, I’m still affected by it if I stay here too long. I must be careful," Tianming said.
"That's right. Everything in moderation, whether it be your relationship with people or your progress with other things," Ying Huo said with a serious look.
"Chicken Bro, who are you talking about?" Meow Meow asked.
"It's a secret."
"Pervert! Ying Huo, you're the one who corrupted the atmosphere in my lifebound space!" Tianming snapped and shot him a glare.
There was nobody else but him in Fiend Palace, thanks to the request he had made. "Let's continue."
He took out Archfiend, wrapped it around the eye, and began his assimilation. Eventually, a few days passed.
I'm feeling a little dizzy now. Guess it's about time, he thought. He felt like he was falling deeper and deeper. Little did he know that at the foot of the Heaven Sacred Mountain stood a girl in black and her lifebound beast, the Archaionfiend itself!
Soon, it was the fourth day and Tianming had fallen deeper and deeper. The Archaionfiend Eye seemed like it was on its last legs. As its essence was being sucked away, it stared deeply into Tianming's eyes. Eventually, a red mist began clouding his vision, growing thicker and thicker before turning into bloody strands that pierced the whites of his eyes. Though he had planned to leave on the fifth day, he didn't seem to be able to move away.
He began hearing many voices in his head, all of which tempted him to walk closer and closer towards the abyss. "Continue, keep on keeping up! You'll succeed! It's your last chance!"
The Archaionfiend seemed excited, as if it had already won. It knew that if it didn't act now, it would never have another chance like this again. Though Lin Xiaoxiao seemed a little unnerved by it, she didn't say anything.
"A few more days and I'll be able to implant my will into his soul! These Sky Plunderers are too weak, yet they dared to steal my eye. How sacrilegious." The fiend gave one final push. Eventually, ten days had passed.
"It's done! He no longer has a sense of self! Xiaoxiao, let's go straight to the entrance of the Old Deepstar Path at the Earth Branch to meet up with him!" the Archaionfiend said excitedly.
"Alright. We're only taking the chain, right?" she asked.
"Don't worry."
She then snuck there with the beast. As for Tianming, he left the Fiend Palace and went straight for the Old Deepstar Path, Jian Wufeng and Xuanyuan Yu following behind him. They always guarded the entrances of the places where Tianming went to train. Today, Tianming proceeded to the Old Deepstar Path as he usually did, with nothing about him noticeably different apart from his reddish eyes.
However, he didn't stop at the Deepstar Pool along the path, but instead went toward the exit at the Earth Branch. Soon, he went to the wilderness in the Earth Branch and saw Lin Xiaoxiao waiting for him at a valley ahead.
"Give me the chain," Lin Xiaoxiao said.
Tianming took out the chain from his lifebound space and put it in her hands, after which she turned to leave.
"Wait, Xiaoxiao!" the Archaionfiend suddenly said.
"What's wrong?" She immediately snapped alert and turned back, feeling a bad omen, only to see Tianming take out the Grand-Orient Sword and pierce it towards his own heart.
"Wu You!" She knew that the fiend was trying to make Tianming kill himself while he was still under its control.
It actually flew out of her lifebound space and looked straight into Tianming's eyes, trying to strengthen its hold on him. "Die, Sky Plunderer! How dare you steal my eye?! I'll make sure you die without your corpse intact!"
It was practically touching Tianming as a bloody windstorm came out of it and entered Tianming's eyes, causing him to speed up his suicide and use more force and speed.
Lin Xiaoxiao was almost going mad. She didn't think that Wu You would be so daring as to kill Tianming in the Archaion Sect. It looked like he would be dead for sure.
Right at that moment, Tianming suddenly flipped his sword around, split it, and stabbed both of them into the Archaionfiend's eyes, causing blood to splatter everywhere.
It shrieked, its body stiffening up in an instant. Tianming had completely punctured its eyes, much to Lin Xiaoxiao's shock. Almost immediately, Archfiend flew back into Tianming's hand. Tianming whipped it out and wrapped it around the Archaionfiend, causing its spikes to embed itself into its flesh and making countless holes within.
At the same time, Jian Wufeng and Xuanyuan Yu appeared and surrounded them, closing off their escape route. Lin Xiaoxiao and Wu You only then realized that they had been set up by Tianming.
"Impossible! I already had complete control of you! This can't be!" it howled as it rolled around on the ground, bleeding on the snow as bloody lightning crackled around it.
"You're just a wild beast. An animal. You think you can oppose me?" Tianming was overjoyed at his victory. He had the Archaionfiend completely bound by his chain. With the fiend having just reached the Samsara stage not long ago, it wasn't even able to put up a fight against Tianming, let alone the other two that had come along with him.
Initially, Tianming was planning on leaving the Fiend Palace within five days, since he wasn't one to rush things to begin with—until he heard the Archaionfiend's voice. So, he pretended to go along with it. In actuality, he had the Soul Tower guarding him, so even if he was a little dazed, he definitely wouldn’t become its puppet.
He finally understood how Xuanyuan Yuheng had become corrupted, and was frankly rather disappointed to see Lin Xiaoxiao there. He had known she was hiding something the entire time, but he didn't think it would have something to do with Xuanyuan Yuheng's death and the Archaionfiend Eye.
"You're the so-called Archaionfiend? Aren’t you a little too pathetic?" Tianming mocked. In actuality, the moment he had heard the 'Archaionfiend', he was livid. That creature actually knew about the Sky Plunderer Clan. In other words, it had been plotting to use him to get its eye back this entire time and was only forced to speed things up because his chain allowed him to quickly absorb it. To think that it thought it could kill Tianming just because he didn't seem to be in a good mental state.
"Seniors, this is a personal matter of mine, so please let me deal with it at my discretion," Tianming said to Xuanyuan Yu and Jian Wufeng.
Xuanyuan Yu had known that something was off with Tianming and followed him. Even if he was under the Archaionfiend's control, it wouldn't change the outcome of what happened today with them around.
"Alright." The two of them moved farther away.
"You got hasty and desperate. That's why you failed," Tianming said. Now, its life was completely in his hands.
"Haha, Sky Plunderer, you'll die for your thefts one day!" it growled painfully.
Tianming ignored it and continued holding tight to the chain as he walked toward Lin Xiaoxiao. He didn't feel too good about this victory of his. She stood with her fists tightly clenched as she shivered and looked away from him.
"Xiaoxiao, you're pretty amazing for switching your lifebound beasts out for the Archaionfiend," he said.
She didn't answer him.
"How have I treated you lately?"
"Really well..." she said in a hoarse voice.
"That's why I'm disappointed in you."
"I'm sorry."
"Do you think you can just apologize for an attempt on my life?"
"I...."
"Enough. Just die!" As they spoke, the Archaionfiend's body turned into a vortex of bloody lightning while still being bound by the chains.