Chapter 61: A Battle of Wills, A Brush with Death

“Old fiend, I knew you were hiding a malicious heart! I never thought it would be this!”

If it had been anyone else, they would have been so terrified by the ancient fiend’s plot that they would have already lost their wits, allowing him to seize their body. But after the initial shock, Qin Haoxuan quickly calmed his mind and began to think of a way to deal with the invading demonic intent.

To deal with a fledgling cultivator like him, the Undying Witch Fiend had only sent out a single strand of his demonic intent to devour his Spiritual Sense. He was already planning his new life after the possession and paid no mind to Qin Haoxuan’s words, laughing with contempt. “So what?”

The moment he spoke, his demonic intent swiftly took control of Qin Haoxuan’s body. Qin Haoxuan’s skin instantly turned as black as ink. After seizing his body, the fiend sent another strand of dark intent towards his brain. As long as he could devour the consciousness within, he would be the master of this body.

“Better to die in glory than live in shame! Old fiend, I’ll take you down with me!” Qin Haoxuan’s voice was filled with a tragic and resolute finality.

The fiend just sneered. The dark strand of his intent , like a nimble, coiling snake, shot up towards Qin Haoxuan’s mind.

Sensing the attack, Qin Haoxuan grew frantic. But his body was no longer under his command, and he couldn’t mobilize a single shred of his spiritual energy. The only thing he could still control was the Spiritual Sense in his mind.

The fiend is attacking me with his demonic intent. Can I fight back with my Spiritual Sense?

The thought flashed through his mind like a lifeline. He immediately put it into action, praying that his Spiritual Sense wasn’t also under the fiend’s control.

The vast, river-like golden light in his mind calmed him slightly. He tried to move a strand of his Spiritual Sense and found that he could. Making a desperate gamble, he mobilized a large mass of it and smashed it down on the demonic snake.

Just as it neared his brain, a golden light flashed. The Spiritual Sense, like a giant boulder, instantly crushed the fiend’s demonic intent to pieces.

The Undying Witch Fiend was astonished. Only a cultivator at the Dao Fruit Realm should be able to cultivate Spiritual Sense. Yet Qin Haoxuan, who was just about to complete the Sprouting Stage, had managed to resist his attack. Such a talent was rare and completely unexpected.

He sneered. So what if you’re talented? Although my cultivation has regressed over the long years in the Immortal-Slaying Poison Valley, and my Spiritual Sense has weakened considerably, I am still not someone a fledgling like you can resist.

He gathered a torrential flood of demonic intent and surged it towards Qin Haoxuan’s brain. As long as he could devour his Spiritual Sense, he could become the master of this body and its perfectly rooted Immortal-Demon Seed. His future in the cultivation world would be boundless.

But as the flood of demonic intent neared his mind, the fiend was shocked to find that he could not advance a single inch.

What’s going on? When he saw the vast, river-like expanse of golden light in Qin Haoxuan’s mind, he was stunned.

“Impossible! How is this possible?” he muttered in disbelief. “This defies all common sense. How can a rookie cultivator, barely stronger than a mortal, possess such a powerful Spiritual Sense? It must be an illusion!”

How could a rookie who had just sprouted a seedling possess a Spiritual Sense that was even stronger than his own demonic intent?

After millennia in the valley, his remaining power was less than a ten-thousandth of what it had been at his peak, but it was still far beyond what an ordinary person could compare to. Yet he was being held at bay. This filled him with a mixture of hatred and rage. If I had my full power, wouldn’t crushing you be as easy as lifting a finger?

The fiend launched his first true assault. The roiling demonic intent coalesced into a ferocious black dragon, its body wreathed in black mist and crackling with lightning, black flames spewing from its nostrils. It let out a deafening roar that echoed in Qin Haoxuan’s mind. If not for his strong Spiritual Sense, an ordinary person would have died on the spot, bleeding from all seven orifices.

The black dragon then charged at the golden wall of Spiritual Sense.

BOOM!

Qin Haoxuan felt his mind tremble as the golden wall nearly shattered from the impact.

The fiend’s first attack had failed. Qin Haoxuan frantically mobilized his Spiritual Sense to form a second defense. He had only one thought: I absolutely cannot let him invade my mind. Otherwise, my body will become his, and my own soul will be scattered to the winds.

Sensing the strength of his defense, the fiend launched another, even more furious assault.

Another violent collision, and this time, Qin Haoxuan’s defensive wall was completely shattered. But the fiend had also paid a heavy price. After breaking the wall, his black dragon had also run out of power and retreated.

“Good kid! If I can’t even take you down today, then I, the Undying Witch Fiend, have lived for nothing!” his voice echoed, now laced with a hint of fear. These two attacks had cost him dearly. This possession attempt, using the Demon Seed he had planted, was an all-or-nothing gamble. If he failed, his consciousness would dissipate completely.

He recalled that when he had first reached the Dao Fruit Realm, his own demonic intent had not been much stronger than Qin Haoxuan’s was now. And he had been considered a genius. Yet this boy was just a beginner. The thought filled him with shame and rage. He began to gather all his remaining power for one final, desperate struggle.

The surging demonic intent he condensed this time was so powerful that it completely froze Qin Haoxuan’s body, encasing it in a giant ice cocoon. He was prepared to risk everything.

As his demonic intent surged again, it transformed into nine massive black dragons that writhed and roared within Qin Haoxuan’s boundless sea of consciousness, turning it into a dark and frigid hell.

This is bad, Qin Haoxuan thought. He could see that the old fiend was betting everything on this last move. He couldn’t just keep defending. Even if he survived, his Spiritual Sense would be so depleted that it might take him years to recover.

If it had been anyone else, they would have been paralyzed with terror. But Qin Haoxuan made a decision that the fiend had never anticipated: he would attack.

His control over his Spiritual Sense was crude. He didn’t know how to form it into shapes to enhance its power. But faced with the nine black dragons, he decided to mobilize everything he had. Rather than wait for death, he would fight.

“Old fiend, die!” he roared with his Spiritual Sense. The sound was like a great temple bell. His towering, mountain-like golden Spiritual Sense began to hum with a terrifying, world-shaking power. The sound momentarily stunned the fiend. Then, the great golden mountain rose into the air and, trailing a brilliant streak of light, slammed into the nine black dragons.

The Undying Witch Fiend had never expected him to attack. In his mind, it was already a miracle that this fledgling could withstand his attacks. How could he possibly fight back?

But he was. And he was doing it with a brute-force method that lacked any finesse. But the sheer power of that golden mountain was something he could not handle. Before it, his nine black dragons seemed utterly insignificant.

“Then let’s die together!” the fiend shrieked. The nine dragons roared as one and charged fearlessly to meet the onrushing golden light.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM…

With nine tremendous explosions, Qin Haoxuan’s golden mountain of Spiritual Sense effortlessly shattered the black dragons, and the Undying Witch Fiend’s demonic intent was scattered into countless fragments.

Seizing the opportunity, Qin Haoxuan immediately sent out his own Spiritual Sense to hunt down and annihilate the remnants, fighting to regain control of his body. He knew he could not relax for even an instant against such a cunning old demon.

The Undying Witch Fiend was now trembling with fear. He still couldn’t believe that a cultivator who had just sprouted a seedling had not only withstood two of his attacks but had also launched a counterattack and completely crushed his intent. How could his Spiritual Sense be so powerful?