Poison God's Heritage

The feeling of me seeing the life of this piece of ore as if it was a movie was suddenly interrupted as I felt incredible pain in my hand.

Back in my sea of consciousness, the sword that I had gripped tightly had managed to slice its way out of my hand and free itself.

It pointed at the Dragon Soul, greedier than before, and shot toward it. But I wasn't going to allow it to do as it pleased, especially in my own domain.

I reached my hand forward to grasp the glowing sword once again, trying to stop it, but the weapon dodged again, and again arriving even faster at the tower as it bore through its walls and went right for the heart of the dragon's soul.

Yet, against the sword's expectation of finding a meek soul that it could destroy, the soul opened its eyes and held its hand up, stopping the sword in place.

Then the soul stood up and approached the frozen sword, grabbed it by the hilt, and swung it once.

A massive section of the tower was split and it cleanly slid off into the bottom of the sea of consciousness.

Yet, as if annoyed, the dragon soul realized that the sword in its hand was not being 'tame' so it unceremoniously threw it away, as if it was disregarding it completely.

The sword shuddered as if it had feelings of its own, a feeling of indignation and humiliation, it shuddered and shuddered, and then its blade split into eight perfect copies extending all from the sword's hilt.

The sword began growing and transforming into a massive hydra that planted its four feet into the deep sea and had all of its horned serpent head roar in anger against the dragon's soul.

The dragon soul didn't like that as it seems, but instead of acting it went back to its throne and sat down, completely disregarding the hydra.

"You're telling me it's my problem to deal with," I sighed as I looked at the massive hydra.

This was something I'd seen before, back when the Poison God was angry at the Wind Realm's prince. He used his sword this way, it transformed into a multi-headed hydra that attacked his enemies with relentlessness.

"Well then," I said as I slapped both of my hands together, "let's see if you can handle this," I said as I spread my hands apart, manifesting tens of thousands of inscriptions. Imperial Inscriptions.

I then slammed both my hands against the hydra, with my epic proportioned size in my own sea of consciousness, it was like swatting a fly.

The creature was by no means weak, as it managed to 'survive' the two palm blows as if they were nothing but giant feathers. On the other hand though, instead of physical pain, the hydra squealed like a stabbed pig as it realized what the purpose of the inscriptions was.

"Soul Sealing Shackles," I muttered as the inscriptions began harmonizing with each other, causing even more pain to the creature.

The massive hydra began swaying, feet, body and all of its heads spewing poison and toxic breaths all over my sea of consciousness, trying its best to stop the agonizing pain it was feeling, but to no clear avail.

The seals began their work, as they were the perfect tools to stop and seal a soul under my personal influence, they were a great weapon to use against souls, ghosts, and spiritual beings.

In this painful process, the beast realized that it had been trapped inside my Sea of Consciousness, and if it can't figure out a way out, it will be sealed and killed.

Suddenly, the hydra, as if was suddenly frozen in time, had all of its body harden and turn to stone, every bit of it became completely petrified.

Frowning at this strange interaction, I used my Divine Sense to see through he stone and understand what was going on, yet before I fully dove into the Serpent I was pulled back into the real world.

"Stop dozing off!" Dao Shen shouted as the massive serpent came charging at us.

"Domain!" I called and summoned my domain, even partially.

A massive dome erected itself around us and momentarily stopped the serpent. My domain was by no means strong enough to stop this oversized noodle, so I did my best to just stop its momentum, even for a fraction of a second due to the effects of Delusions of my domain which are able to deny physical displacement.

The sudden stop of the serpent caused it to feel as if it had struck a massive wall while going at full speed.

The payment for such an action was me spewing out a pile of blood all over the floor in front of me.

"That was amazing," Dao Shen said, but he didn't feel too happy about it nonetheless.

"I have some bad news, and some even worse news," Dao Shen said.

"Start with the bad news," I said as I wiped my face.

"That guy, after he went into your sea of consciousness, for a moment I thought you caught him, but he is back," he said.

"What that's not possible, I had him trapped inside…" I said.

"That's what I thought, I noticed that his soul which I couldn't sense before was now active, and it's wounded… and you're right, he isn't Du Shen this thing is a Sword Spirit." Dao Shen said.

"Yes," I said as I looked ahead, on the head of the serpent the Sword Spirit was incensed as it looked at me.

"What's the worse news?" I asked him.

"The Poison… that we suffered at the labyrinth stage is acting up. I'm losing Qi to a stupid degree, my body is basically emptying out as we speak, I have a minute at most before I become as weak as a mortal…" he said.

Due to me having swapped bodies with Shen Mo, I wasn't affected by the poison, so I wasn't feeling these symptoms.

"Can you devour?" I asked him.

"I already did that, it doesn't work, all my abilities are being sealed one after the other," he said as he huffed.

"This wanna-be fucker…" I cursed.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Dao Shen.

"This Sword Spirit isn't Du Shen, it wants to be him. It spent all of its existence in blood and carnage, and when it accompanied Du Shen, it learned and witnessed from him, then decided to be him after he passed. Since no one was able to wield that cursed sword, it grew its own ego and decided that it shall have no master but itself…" I said.

"That's pretty interesting," Dao Shen said.

"It really isn't the time to be impressed, what that means is that it will have to collect all the books if it wanted to be Du Shen. Meaning, while right now it has the upper hand, we're really fucked…"

Dao Shen looked around and cursed, "Bunch of useless baggage," as he spoke at the cultivators who looked too mortified to even function.

"You there," Dao Shen said addressing Du Shen, "You know that you'll never be Du Shen, you're nothing but a Sword Spirit, an object to be used, a tool, you'll never be human."

"Is it really wise to taunt it like that," I said.

"It definitely isn't, but this will rile it up, when things are riled up, they're bound to make mistakes," he said.

Suddenly, as if realizing and half admitting what Dao Shen had spoken as true, the sword spirit shot forward.

"See," Dao Shen said as he prepared something behind his back. I saw a glistening talisman behind Dao Shen's back, I couldn't understand the meaning of it, but it was something close to a sealing object.

Just as the sword was about to pierce Dao Shen's chest, and while Dao Shen smiled as his 'stunt' worked the sword disappeared, causing both me and Dao Shen to be stupefied for one second, the sword then appeared only this time, it had pierced through Dao Shen's arm, the talisman, and his back, appearing on the other side of his chest.

The sword then slowly retreated away from Dao Shen's body, and manifested into Du Shen's appearance, "You know that I'm nothing but an object, so why did you even think that I would be riled up with your words? Foolish human, your emotions drive you. And it's because you thought I was human, that you will perish," Du Shen said as he placed his hand on Dao Shen's neck, and just like that, the sword Spirit looked at me, with a taunting gaze it said. "Only you are left," he said, and instead of absorbing Dao Shen, the opposite happened.

The sword entered willingly into Dao Shen's body and into his sea of consciousness.

It couldn't have been more than a second before Dao Shen's eyes closed and opened once again, lifeless for a moment, then brimming with a glistening silver glow that I've only witnessed in that memory.

"Perfect," the sword spirit said, "Much easier to possess than yours," he said.

"Not only that," the sword spirit said as he flexed his hands, "It feels more… real, more attuned…" It then touched its own head and as if thinking for a moment it smiled and said, "No wonder… this one is actually a descendant of Du Shen… Well now, it possesses five books, and I obtained two earlier from that scum…all left is the five books you own, and I shall be whole!"