Could the seal have failed? Evan Yang eyed it suspiciously, unwilling to believe it, then followed closely behind the Blood Sphere, wanting to see what it was up to.
He watched as the Blood Sphere rolled along, not moving by instinct but as if being drawn by some sort of external force toward a certain direction.
Evan Yang followed close behind, and soon, the Blood Sphere actually returned to the original blood pool. At this moment, the blood pool had already reverted to a pool of blood.
With a splash, the Blood Sphere fell into the pool, sending blood flying. Then Evan saw it roll to the center of the pool.
"?" Evan Yang approached the shore of the blood pool again and noticed an extra layer around it. Activating Heaven's Eye Sight, he discovered a formation hovering above the pool.
The array eye of the formation was precisely the Blood Sphere.
Why is there a formation here? And it's even cloud-shaped, Evan muttered to himself. He split off a thread of divine sense to investigate and soon spotted a figure hiding in the darkness—it was Warren Wong.
At this moment, he seemed to be controlling something. "Could it be him?" Evan Yang took out a needle, aiming straight at Warren Wong. With a swoosh, just as Warren was controlling the formation, he suddenly sensed danger. By the time he reacted, a needle had already pierced his chest, the sting making him grunt as he glared resentfully at Evan before disappearing.
Seeing Warren vanish again, Evan turned his attention back to the formation and noticed the Blood Sphere still spinning there. "So it's not that the seal failed—it's that it has some kind of connection to this place."
So Evan waited by the shore, guessing that Warren Wong would likely show up again. Although he didn't know why Warren was summoning the Vampiric Blood-Sprite back, he was certain this wasn't just a simple summoning. He split off multiple threads of divine sense to keep watch for any changes nearby.
At the same time, he locked a thread of divine sense onto the Blood Sphere, wanting to see how it would react.
The Blood Sphere, sealed by Evan Yang, couldn't exert its original power and simply spun in place, showing no real change.
Hidden in the shadows, Warren Wong grew anxious, seeing that Evan Yang had no intention of leaving.
Every time countless threads of divine sense swept over him in the darkness, Warren muttered in shock, "Damn it, how is his divine sense so strong?"
Warren was terrified Evan would discover him, because at this moment, other than running away, he had no way to deal with Evan.
"Weird, why hasn't the Vampiric Blood-Sprite reacted yet?" Warren muttered curiously after waiting in the dark for a long time, noticing that everything was quiet and nothing he expected had happened.
Evan Yang was also curious why Warren hadn't appeared, so the two kept guessing about each other.
Finally, Evan stood up, ready to fly to the Blood Sphere, pull it out, and break the formation to see what would happen.
As soon as he stepped onto it, he felt the blood surge, just like when several people had flown over before—the blood tried to drag Evan under. But Evan wasn't an ordinary Soul-Forming expert. With a flash, he combined Soaring Sky Dance Steps with Phantom Steps, and using his speed quickly escaped the blood. He soon arrived above the Blood Sphere and channeled his power to drag it up.
During the process of pulling it up, he felt a powerful pull from below. Evan used all his strength to yank it free, forcibly breaking the array eye of the formation.
He originally thought that was the end of it, but what happened next left Evan Yang stunned. The spot where the Blood Sphere had been instantly erupted in a geyser of blood, and the surrounding blood became fiercely turbulent.
Evan cursed inwardly, "This is a chain-linked array!" A chain-linked array means that triggering one formation causes other formations to react in turn.
The blood pool instantly turned into a boiling sea of blood, surging violently, and Evan Yang was swallowed into the blood by an invisible pull.
"This formation... but this—" Evan realized that the second triggered array wasn't an ordinary formation, because his vision blurred right in front of him.
The thunderous sound of boiling blood drew Warren Wong's attention from nearby.
"Is it working?" Warren Wong, thinking the Blood Sphere was finally active, was overjoyed and prepared to retreat. But when he activated his divine sense to check, he was stunned—everything was a blur of blood-red, and inside the pool was a person: Evan Yang.
"How did he get down there?" Warren Wong exclaimed in shock.
Seeing this situation, Warren hurried away and went to the Transmission Stone to report what had happened to the people there.
When the people on the other end heard, they exclaimed, "He fell in?"
"Yeah, looks like the formation activated," Warren replied.
"The formation activated? Then he's doomed," said the owner of the voice, laughing after hearing the blood pool's array had started.
"But he's holding the Blood Sphere. It seems like the Blood Sphere can't do anything to him," Warren Wong said suspiciously, picturing Evan Yang gripping the sphere.
"It doesn't matter. He's only temporarily controlling the Blood Sphere. As long as he falls into the blood pool and the formation activates, even if he's a Spirit-Wandering expert, he'll never escape. In the end, he'll become a Blood Slave," the other person laughed.
"Blood Slave?" Warren Wong exclaimed.
"Yes, a Blood Slave. With such a powerful Blood Slave to help you, it'll be easy to find the remaining Primordial Spirits for me," the other person said excitedly.
Warren was puzzled and wanted to know what Blood Slave meant.
Seeing Warren's curiosity, the other person explained. Warren finally understood: a true Blood Slave is created by soaking in blood for a month, letting the blood permeate the body. With the help of the formation, a person loses their nature and obeys only one master—the creator of the blood pool and the formation.
After understanding, Warren left to rest, planning to come back in a month to see Evan Yang, now a powerful Blood Slave. He was delighted at the thought of punishing him however he liked.
As for Evan Yang, he had no idea that the combination of the blood pool and the formation would have such an effect. He was simply curious about the pool and the array.
Unable to leave the formation, Evan had no choice but to remain in the blood pool. But soon, he noticed something strange—the blood was furiously surging into his body.
In an instant, Evan Yang's body was flooded with foreign blood. "?"
"Blood Slave Grand Formation!" Old Clam said, drawing on his vast experience.
"Blood Slave Grand Formation?" Evan Yang didn't understand what kind of array this was.
So Old Clam explained the formation and the blood pool to Evan. After hearing it, Evan was shocked. He checked his body and found that the Heaven-Cold Seed was already operating, so he relaxed—the Heaven-Cold Seed was purifying the blood.
The incoming blood was quickly transformed into Evan's own blood under the Heaven-Cold Seed's purification, and all impurities were expelled from his body.
Bit by bit, Evan didn't notice many impurities at first, but over time, he found sticky residue accumulating on his skin.
"Kid, are you alright?" Old Clam asked, worried, after seeing so much grime on Evan's skin two days later.
"Don't worry, my body is a bit odd. If this formation wants to turn me into a Blood Slave, that's impossible." Evan smiled, certain the formation couldn't affect him.
Seeing Evan had no symptoms and hadn't lost his nature like others said, Old Clam finally relaxed. Evan continued to stay in the blood, purifying it while searching for a way out. But this formation had no array eye, unlike the Blood Slave Grand Formation Old Clam described, which was only a ninth-tier array. Evan couldn't see through this formation.
There was only one possibility: this wasn't the Blood Slave Grand Formation, but something even more advanced. Unable to leave, Evan could only keep absorbing the blood.
Moreover, the essence of the blood remained inside and outside Evan Yang's body, with much of it absorbed by his Heaven-Cold Seed. Though he didn't know what effect this would have, Evan was sure it couldn't be bad, so he simply closed his eyes and stood in the blood pool.
As time passed, the blood-red liquid in the pool gradually faded. If it was once crimson, it now turned pale red; after a while, pale red became faint red. After a month, the pool became a pond of clear water, with not a trace of blood left—except for the red stains on the rocks by the shore. All the blood had turned into transparent water.
One day, when Warren Wong went to check on his Blood Slave, he was shocked—the blood in the canyon had vanished, replaced by ordinary water. Seeing this, he hurried toward the pool.
When he arrived, he was dumbfounded—blood pool? With no blood, it was just a pond. And in that pond stood a person, covered in black grime, as if he'd just crawled out of a mud pit.
"What on earth is going on?" Warren Wong was stunned. According to the process of making a Blood Slave, this shouldn't happen. That pool had accumulated blood for thousands of years—enough to refine thousands of Blood Slaves. But now, after trying to make Evan Yang a Blood Slave, this was the result.
Not only that, Warren also saw the Blood Sphere floating on the water, now colorless and seemingly lifeless.
"Vampiric Blood-Sprite?" Warren noticed the Vampiric Blood-Sprite had lost its life aura and was even more shocked. He quickly slipped away, not daring to stay, and rushed to report the news.
Just after Warren left, Evan Yang opened his eyes, feeling much heavier. Seeing the grime, he gave an evil grin. "Interesting."
With a roar, all the filth flew off his body. After swimming around in the water for a while, he surfaced and laughed, "That feels great."
"Kid, your baleful aura is way too strong," Old Clam said, his first impression being that Evan Yang was truly frightening.
"Baleful aura?" Evan Yang laughed as he surfaced.
"Yes. You've absorbed so much blood, yet for some reason, you haven't lost yourself," Old Clam muttered suspiciously.
"It's because of my body. But I feel great—it's like I've gained a lot of power, and my cultivation has improved again," Evan Yang said with a smile.
Old Clam looked closely and found that Evan Yang's cultivation had indeed advanced—even he couldn't see through it anymore. There was only one explanation: Evan had reached the Great Perfection of the Primordial Spirit stage.
He had absorbed the essence of the blood from the entire canyon, the blood of Primordial Spirit experts accumulated over ten thousand years. If it hadn't been for the Heaven-Cold Seed neutralizing and absorbing most of it, Evan's body would have been overwhelmed and he would have gone mad.