Duan Ke felt like a weight was put on her head as she struggled to maintain the Aural Blinding Chains.
"NOW! I'll restrain them!" Duan Ke shouted.
Lin Mu closed his eyes the moment he heard her and started to chant something. At first no voice came from his lips, but soon esoteric chants were heard coming out from it. The chants were low, almost like a whisper but grew louder bit by bit.
And in less than thirty seconds, they were as loud as the chants of an entire monastery full of monks.
Duan Ke who heard the chants felt the weight on her mind lighten up and her heart felt a lot calmer as well. It wasn't the first time she had felt something like this before either and Lin Mu had used it on her once before.
'Just like that… back then too…' Duan Ke recalled.
~WHOOSH~
She was soon brought out of her thoughts and saw a change in front of her. The red aura started to churn and was being sucked back into Lin Mu's body. The red aura entered through the very same cracks it had escaped and when a certain amount entered, the crack sealed up as well.
What Lin Mu was chanting was none other than the Calming Heart sutra, which was the counter to the Burning heart sutra. Earlier, he was unable to do this since the red aura that escaped from his body would interrupt him every time he did that.
But now that it was restrained, he was free to chant it at full power.
The effect of it the Calming Heart sutra reversed the effects of the Burning Heart Sutra and started to revert Lin Mu's body.
At first his body shrank and the upper layer of red skin turned into mist that surrounded him. Nothing could be seen underneath it and only the esoteric chants could be heard. The chants continued for another minute before the mist dissipated and along with it the chant.
~CLANG~
The chains made out of runes fell to the ground and Duan Ke dismissed them.
~CRUMBLE~
The eight stakes seemingly broke apart too, having exhausted all their durability. It was evident that this skill put a lot of strain on them.
'Eight Binding Stakes at the High Grade were used up just like that… and it wasn't even used to suppress an actual being, just some aura.' Duan Ke thought to herself, finding it all stunning.
The Binding Stakes were a common type of resistive spirit tool that were used by cultivators. They could be used independently as weapons or in formations to make binding arrays.
They were available right from the low grade to the peak grade. The ones that Duan Ke had used were at the high grade and were refined personally by Jing Wei. They weren't normal Binding Stakes and were his own unique product thus were stronger and much more versatile.
But even then, they had been broken. And thous was when Duan Ke had used the Aural Binding Chains. It was a skill that was originally used to restrain the aura of a person or an entire place to prevent others from detecting it.
Duan Ke had guessed that since the volatile mist was also an aura, it should work on it. Her bet turned out to be correct,, but even then the effort needed was massive. Duan Ke had ended up expending nearly a third of her entire spirit Qi store.
~HAAA~
Snapping out of her thoughts, Duan Ke looked back at the young man, who had returned to his normal appearance.
Lin Mu laid on the ground and took deep breaths, feeling exhausted.
~step~step~
Duan Ke approached Lin Mu and took out several pills from her storage.
"Eat them. They should help." She spoke.
Lin Mu lightly nodded his head and shoved all the pills into his mouth. And he didst' stop there either. He took out several more pills from his own storage and started eating them as well.
These were pills that were used for healing, but since they also had a lot of vital energy within them, they could technically be used as food rations. And that was what Lin Mu's body was desiring right now.
His stocks of beast meat had been depleted a while back, thus he couldn't eat that either.
'And here I thought my stomach had enough energy stored in it… just a single use of the burning heart sutra and the transformation used up a majority of it…' Lin Mu was a bit lost too.
He understood that the amount of energy that was used up this time was a lot more than the last time he used the Burning Heart Sutra against Ku Waowen.
'Why did the energy consumption increase?' Lin Mu wondered to himself.
"Finally! The connection works again." Xukong's voice was heard once more.
"Senior!" Lin Mu replied.
"Looks like the increase in your body cultivation directly affects the burning heart sutra too. That 'demonic' form of yours has changed accordingly as well. But I think you noticed that." Xukong spoke.
"Mmhmm… yeah. The defenses were certainly a lot more higher, so the True Gold Body Forging Arts definitely modified the 'demonic' form." Lin Mu replied, recalling the gold lines and the gold layer that was underneath the carapace like surface.
Even the toughness and sharpness of his claws had increased by a lot from what he had experienced.
This gave Lin Mu a lot to think of and he realized that the Burning Heart Sutra will need to be tested whenever he improved his body cultivation. Or if he used them at times like this, he might get caught off guard.
He also understood that the only reason he started to lose control was because he spent too long in the demonic form and used up a lot of vitality. The more he lost, the more hungry he got and the weaker his control got.
Duan Ke was unaware of the conversation that was ongoing in Lin Mu's mind and thought that he was just assimilating the pills.
