Still, even if it didn't work, there were many more things to try. One of them in particular was his new ability, the one he developed the latest. The use of the soul spear through his will. As he decided to make use of this power, everything changed. This time, the attack hit correctly. They dealt real damage to the entity.

There was a very simple reason behind that. It was because the power of the will was intangible and directly influenced souls. Could the corrupted being protect his soul? No. Could he corrupt the will inside the spears? No. That was because the will didn't exist by itself but along with Jin. They were one and the same. As long as Jin was alive and not corrupted, his will would be incorruptible.

Try as he might, the being couldn't do much more than keep on tanking the attacks. However, this new ability of his opponent proved to be a problem. Its certainty to win the battle of attrition was no longer there for he didn't know how much of this ability Jin could use. Even the cultivators it previously absorbed only had vague notions of what this power was. But they had no idea how to counter it. This peculiar power felt weird. It wasn't like the dangerous element who could truly destroy his mass but it felt akin to something more primal that could affect its existence itself.

As the will manifested through the spears, many of the statues exclaimed in awe. It was quite rare to see youths with such potentials. While Jin wasn't clueless about the shape of will, he certainly was no expert. Unfortunately, Hae-Hyuk only gave him vague notions to work on whenever he tried to consult him in the past year after he found himself stagnating. To take the words of his Master:

"This was something unique to oneself and only you can comprehend your own will"

That had been nice and all at the time but, right now, he certainly wished Hae-Hyuk could have elaborated as this seemed to be the key to solving his current predicament judging by the monster's reactions.

Just because Jin wasn't aware of much pertaining to the shape of will didn't mean the spectators weren't. In fact, it was the opposite. Of course, the peak experts would know about it. There was a total of five states to the 'shape of will' that could be attained after reaching the 30th stage. The 30th was the starting point to the phase where one learnt about himself and one's will is part of it along with souls and emotions... Right now, Jin was using the simplest and first state of the 'shape of will'.

All states began with satisfying the requirement to will the creation of a shape inside one's soul sea. From there, one would work on comprehending this shape further and integrate his will in it. Once the comprehension attained a certain realm, the first state would be available to the cultivator.

It was the state of manifestation of will.

In this state, the will would take form outside the soul sea and embody the shape and the image that the cultivator had. For example, if the cultivator had an apple inside his soul sea, whenever he tried to manifest his will, whatever he used it on would feel what he considered the apple to be like. Most likely, it would manifest a 'taste' or a 'color' or a 'feeling'... In the case of Jin's spear, it manifests what Jin believes the spear to be like. And what is a spear? It is a weapon. It 'pierces' and 'stabs' and 'slashes' and 'cuts'... In the end, it 'damages' and finally 'kills'.

What he was manifesting was the thought that the spear could 'hurt' and 'kill' his opponent.

It was no longer a tangible effect produced here. It was something slightly different, more complex. No longer was it affecting the physical reality of the opponent attacked. It was targeting its very existence inside the reality.

From the moment the corruption became sentient after absorbing its first corpse of a cultivator, it earned awareness of its existence. And that was what was being attacked repeatedly by Jin. It wasn't something that an entity under the 30th realm could fight or defend against. That didn't mean it would die in a few hits either. An existence couldn't be erased so easily. But it did deal true damage to the being.

But the best of it all was that using his will wasn't relative to one's spiritual energy. Not at all. It was about the belief and the trust in the shape that had been willed to creation. Of course, it did mentally exhaust the user as time went on too but it was a separate power from spiritual energy at the same level as the elements.

Now, Jin could use the purification and light elements solely to defend while spiritual energy infused with his will was enough to damage the enemy.

That being said, the corrupted being wasn't a pushover. It realized quite soon that the tables had been turned and changed its approach. No longer was it going madly after Jin's rings. Instead, it was now fighting while using the martial arts he learnt from the cultivators it absorbed. Since it devoured their memories along, it knew how to fight. And it began to use techniques to dodge and counter Jin's own.

The change was abrupt and unexpected but Jin adapted quickly. From there, they exchanged many blows without a clear winner between them.

And after a moment, the corrupted being was no longer satisfied. Because it had understood that the new power was too dangerous in a battle of attrition and the fight was already moving towards this kind of fight.

Its entire form changed as he gave up on the humanoid appearance. It grew to a three-and-a-half meter tall giant with four legs and six arms. Then, it began to create itself weapons. Two of his arms both became bows while long swords were created and held in the four other hands.

Jin couldn't help but frown while still maintaining his offense.