17: Chapter 17 is all mine!

A few breaths later, the violent aura on the White Ape Demon began to recede.

His muscles shrank back to their original size, the blood-red light on his fur dimmed, and the flames in those blood-red eyes gradually extinguished.

He seemed as if all his strength had been drained, and his body swayed.

The aftereffects of his Divine Ability had arrived.

After the surged power receded, the White Ape Demon's limbs began to go weak, his breathing became rapid and chaotic, and his chest heaved violently.

Seeing that Tu San no longer had the ability to resist, he released Tu San's leg, staggered back two steps, leaned against a dead tree, and gasped for air.

Tu San lay on the ground, motionless, his wings twisted at an impossible angle, grey-brown feathers scattered everywhere, and his body covered in bruises and bloodstains.

The eruption of a Divine Ability from a First Stage Mid-level, approaching the Late Stage, had beaten Tu San until he had only one breath left.

As for the White Ape Demon himself, he was also completely exhausted.

Not to mention fighting, it seemed that even an ordinary wild dog could bite him to death—though, of course, that was only on the surface.

Behind them, Wu Li stood up from the branch.

He spread his wings, glided silently between the two broken bodies, and landed on a protruding rock.

His bean-sized black pupils first looked at the White Ape Demon, then at Tu San, and he tilted his head.

"Caw caw caw~"

A low, hoarse crow call squeezed out from Wu Li's throat.

Wu Li squatted on the rock, his bean-sized black pupils fixed on Tu San, unmoving.

A few breaths later, he saw a layer of indescribable grey gas slowly overflowing from Tu San's body, like ink in water, spreading bit by bit until it finally enveloped Tu San's entire body.

Wu Li was no stranger to that grey gas; it was the aura of death.

Tu San was completely dead.

Wu Li shifted his gaze away from Tu San and landed it on the White Ape Demon.

The White Ape Demon leaned against the dead tree, eyes closed, his chest having stopped heaving; he looked no different from Tu San, but Wu Li stared at him for a long time, his brow slightly furrowed.

Nothing.

There was no such layer of grey gas on the White Ape Demon.

He was playing dead.

Wu Li tilted his head, and a hoarse voice squeezed from his throat: "Stop pretending. I don't see the aura of death on you."

"Are you waiting for me to go over so you can kill me in one strike?"

The White Ape Demon's body stiffened slightly.

A moment later, those blood-red eyes slowly opened, and deep within them, a trace of remaining strength was still burning.

He slowly raised his head, staring fixedly at Wu Li, his gaze full of hatred and unwillingness.

"Roar!"

A low, hoarse roar squeezed out from the White Ape Demon's throat; the sound was no longer as deafening as before, but carried a sense of despair and madness before death.

The White Ape Demon suddenly sprang up from beside the dead tree, using his very last breath to charge towards Wu Li.

"I really don't know if you are smart or... stupid."

Wu Li spread his wings, his black figure drifting backward like a falling leaf, landing steadily on a dead branch.

The White Ape Demon's giant palm swept past his feet, grabbing only a handful of air.

Wu Li squatted on the dead branch, looking down at the White Ape Demon, slowly raising his right wing, the tip pointing at him.

Demon Power surged within his body, blood-colored scriptures emerged from beneath his feathers, condensing at the wingtip into a blood-colored rune the size of a fingernail.

It was the Blood Seal Curse.

The rune spun, blood light flickering, like an opened Blood Pupil.

Wu Li's wing pinched in a human-like manner.

The blood-colored rune suddenly exploded, turning into a red ripple that spread in all directions.

The White Ape Demon's body stiffened abruptly; wounded as he was, he had almost no ability to resist in the face of the Blood Seal Curse.

"Roar... Roar roar!!"

The White Ape felt a fiery power surge from deep within his body, as if something had exploded in his blood vessels.

His Qi and blood began to run wild, no longer flowing along the Meridians, but rampaging through his body like a runaway horse; his eyes began to bloodshot, and blood seeped from his nostrils, ears, and corners of his mouth.

"You!!!"

The White Ape Demon pounded his chest desperately, trying to suppress the rioting power, but the Blood Seal Curse had already penetrated his Bloodline; it was simply something he could not resist.

His pounding became weaker and weaker, and more and more blood flowed backward, dripping from the corners of his mouth onto the ground, gathering into a pool of dark red.

Finally... "Thump..."

The White Ape Demon's body fell heavily to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, his eyes wide open, pupils dilated, mouth agape, but he could no longer make any sound; blood flowed from his seven orifices, the reversed blood surged up, and he completely breathed his last.

Finally, only after Wu Li saw the aura of death on the White Ape did he fly over with peace of mind.

Wu Li leaped down from the dead branch and landed between the two corpses.

He looked at the broken bodies of the White Ape Demon and Tu San, blood light flickering in his bean-sized black pupils.

The corpses of two Tier 1 Demonic Beasts, their flesh and blood, bones, and most importantly... their essential blood.

"It's all mine~"

"Caw caw caw~"

Wu Li's breathing became rapid.

According to the records in the Blood Eye Pagoda Sutra, to condense a Blood Pupil requires a massive amount of essential blood. In his past life, even with all his preparations, Wu Li had never truly succeeded in condensing a Blood Pupil.

Because the blood in the later generations was simply... inferior, with not a single trace of Spiritual Qi within it.

Now, with the essential blood of Tier 1 Demonic Beasts, it was finally enough for him to attempt it.

Thinking of this, Wu Li spread his wings, flapping them with all his might, using every ounce of his strength to drag Tu San's corpse bit by bit into the depths of Desolate Ridge.

An incense stick of time later, the two corpses were placed side by side under a dead tree. The White Ape Demon's grey-white fur and Tu San's grey-brown feathers were intertwined, fresh blood soaked the soil, and a heavy stench of blood permeated the air.

Wu Li stood between the two corpses and closed his eyes.

He opened his beak, and a hoarse voice rang out over Desolate Ridge, low, slow, and carrying an eerie rhythm.

"With blood as scripture, condense scripture into a curse, gather the curse to form a pupil..."

Blood-colored scriptures emerged from beneath Wu Li's feathers, one, two, three... more and more, denser and denser.

Those scriptures twisted and rotated, forming circles of blood-colored halos around Wu Li, enveloping his entire being.

The corpses of the White Ape Demon and Tu San began to tremble.

Wisps of dark red blood seeped from their wounds, as if drawn by something, slowly rising into mid-air.

The blood gathered and rotated in the air, forming a fist-sized ball of blood, glowing with an eerie blood light.

Red light flared intensely in Wu Li's pupils.

"Floating life, pagoda, my eye has no end, use blood to sacrifice to the eye, use the eye to devour life, floating life's myriad forms, floating life's final path..."

Wu Li's hoarse voice echoed across Desolate Ridge, and blood-colored scriptures flew out from within Wu Li, merging into that blood ball.

The blood ball began to expand, from the size of a fist to the size of a head, its rotation speed increasing, emitting a "buzzing" sound.

The essential blood of the two Tier 1 Demonic Beasts was being refined bit by bit...