He could drink it?
Yu Xian swallowed hard and decisively stored the Heaven-Weeping Blood Sword into his storage ring.
Although an overwhelming sense of weakness washed over his body the moment the Heaven-Weeping Blood Sword was put into the ring, his attention was not on himself at all, but rather on the puddle of blood on the ground.
He crouched and cupped the blood in both hands, feeling as though he were holding a ton of gold.
Ever since he had teleported to this world, his sense of smell had been working only intermittently. But when he cupped the blood, it kicked in again. He caught a distinct scent within the blood, and through that scent, he saw an image of a giant serpent being worshiped as a god by countless people kneeling in devotion.
"To drink or not to drink?"
This was the first time Yu Xian had encountered blood so extraordinary.
It was likely the highest grade of blood he had ever obtained. Even Pangu's Blood could not compare to this serpent's blood. After all, the so-called Pangu was merely a fake created by a Forbidden Fruit, not the true Great God Pangu of myth.
After a second of hesitation out of respect, he decisively chose to drink. When Heaven handed you an opportunity, you had to step up and make it count.
Otherwise, the heavens would shove your head down and curse: *I gave you a shot, and you were too useless to take it!*
Parting his lips, he bared his fangs and gently punctured the bead of serpent blood, then sucked it in with all his might. The blood held no impurities whatsoever, but it was horrifyingly viscous; drinking it actually felt like snorting mucus.
Once the bead of blood was drained dry, a violent shudder ran through his body. Dense fractures began splitting across his skin, as if his flesh and blood were trying to force their way out from beneath.
It was overwhelmingly stuffed.
The nutritional potency of this blood was too terrifying—he couldn't handle it!
Suddenly, the skin at his shoulder split open. A tumor sprouted from the raw flesh, and immediately afterward, a seam cracked across the growth, revealing an eye that rolled restlessly within the slit.
The vertebrae along his spine thrust outward, splitting open in another fissure, from which an eye large enough to cover his entire back emerged.
Just as his flesh was mutating into an aberration, the Dragon Shield core inside him suddenly began absorbing his blood. At the same time, it rapidly swallowed the alien power from the giant serpent like a whale gulping water.
His body swiftly returned to normal.
After a moment, he panted heavily in huge gasps. Aside from his torn school uniform, which had burst at the seams, it was as if everything that had just occurred had been nothing more than an illusion.
"That power... divine power?"
Yu Xian touched his shoulder, thinking in lingering dread.
In truth, the giant serpent's blood itself was only a tier or two above that of a perfect creature, but it contained a unique power. That power was something he couldn't digest, so it had acted directly on his body, bringing him within a hair's breadth of turning into a monster covered in eyes.
Fortunately, while he couldn't digest it, the Dragon Shield core could.
The moment that alien force spread toward the Dragon Shield core, the core automatically absorbed it.
The core, originally red, now took on a dreamy, ethereal sheen. With a thought from Yu Xian, dragon scales manifested around his body. The once solidly physical dragon scales now drifted between real and illusory, veiled in a hazy mist.
He raised a hand and poked at a dragon scale, but his finger passed right through it, as though the scale did not exist. Then he changed his mind and poked it again; this time, the scale turned completely solid and tangible.
"Falsehood Divine Power!"
"The true within the false, the false within the true, shifting at will, unpredictable and boundless."
A spark of comprehension dawned on Yu Xian. Pinching a dragon scale between his fingers, he watched it suddenly morph into a flower petal. With another flick of his mind, the petal became a gold coin.
With a chuckle, he flicked the coin.
It immediately gave a crisp chime, spinning swiftly through the air before dissolving into bubbles and vanishing.
The giant serpent possessed two Godheads in total: its primary Godhead was the Godhead of the Fire God, while its secondary Godhead was the Godhead of Falsehood. The former focused on offense, whereas the latter was geared toward defense.
In reality, the Martial Ultimate Zombie King had never truly harmed the serpent's true body from beginning to end.
All the scales that had been shattered were nothing more than illusions. Once the battle concluded, the serpent could simply channel a bit of Falsehood Divine Power to restore them automatically.
Only Asonis had truly reached the serpent's reality and crushed it effortlessly.
Put simply, the giant serpent was wrapped in a mantle of falsehood. Any attack that failed to destroy this mantle could never reach where the serpent truly was, and naturally could not inflict any genuine injury.
Only now did Yu Xian understand the true meaning behind the appraisal description: *Only those of steadfast mind may touch its reality.*
Because the Dragon Shield now also possessed this mantle of falsehood, as long as an enemy's power did not surpass the upper threshold that this portion of Falsehood Divine Power could sustain, they had no way to inflict true harm upon the Dragon Shield or him.
"What a massive haul!"
Having thoroughly grasped the changes to the Dragon Shield, Yu Xian couldn't suppress the grin spreading across his face.
If his previous defense was 100, his current defense was 1,000—and 900 of that 1,000 was a special defense that required meeting specific conditions just to chip away at it.
Without a steadfast mind, attacking him was completely useless.
Sure enough, when Heaven practically spoon-fed you a feast, you absolutely had to make it count.
Whistling cheerfully, Yu Xian continued searching for more of the giant serpent's blood. The serpent had coughed up blood earlier like heavenly maidens scattering blossoms, so there were bound to be more blood beads scattered across this land.
When it came to such precious blood, he could never have too much. He almost wished the serpent had spat out every drop of blood in its body back then.
Scavenging once was a blast; scavenging nonstop was pure bliss.
Before long, Yu Xian spotted another bead of blood. The serpent's blood rejected every speck of dust and possessed astonishing mass, completely refusing to seep into the soil, which made it extraordinarily conspicuous.
He hurried forward, scooped up the blood, and without a second word opened his mouth to drink.
Delicious!
A vampire truly had to drink blood.
The next instant, Yu Xian's body went haywire, immediately covered in dense cracks. Yet he didn't panic at all, instead observing the sites of his bodily mutation with keen interest. An eye, for instance, had just sprouted on his knee.
Then the Dragon Shield core absorbed the serpent's Falsehood Divine Power once more, and the abnormalities across his body rapidly receded.
Having vaguely grasped the knack of it, he willed an illusory current of power to be drawn out from the Dragon Shield core and channeled it into his own body. In accordance with his thoughts, his form quickly swelled into a three-meter-tall, one-eyed monstrosity.
It was merely an illusion.
In reality, his body had undergone no change whatsoever.
It was only draped in a mantle of falsehood. Yet as long as someone could not see through this mantle, it could also be real.
"I see. Conviction is the core of this power. That's why the first mutation felt the most real, whereas just now, because I was confident and had peace of mind, it seemed less convincing." Yu Xian pinched his cyclopean face, muttering to himself.
Falsehood Divine Power could also be infused with conviction.
When one's conviction grew strong enough, what was false could become real, and what was real could become false.
Only through the sensation as the bodily mutations vanished did he discern another layer of Falsehood Divine Power's nature. Evidently, it was even more miraculous than he had imagined.
Falsehood Divine Power possessed five distinct attributes: bizarreness, terror, dreams, wickedness, and beguilement!
Yu Xian reverted from the monstrous form to his original appearance, then wiped his hand across his clothes. The school uniform that had previously burst open from the expansion of his body quickly restored itself to its original state.
He seemed to have caught on to how to wield this power of 'bizarreness.'
As for terror, dreams, wickedness, and beguilement, those four attributes would still take time to slowly figure out.
Chapter 123