Sage also got the opportunity to test out another technique in real combat for the first time. The Order of Blood’s Cursed Embrace, which he’d tested against Demonic Beasts on the Inner World, but now it was time for a real test. With no danger on the Inner World, tests were very sterile and what he would consider ‘unproven’. The old man had already been fighting for a few minutes and had been ‘bitten’ a few times already. Since the fight was constantly moving, Sage simply walked over to where the old man was fighting after the most recent bite and one of the large ‘heads’ of the tree swung down and separated a portion of itself containing some blood.

The old man was sufficiently fierce and vicious now, and Sage was curious what effect that would have. Cursed Embrace had a hidden downside which now came into play. Sage lifted the little fleshy ampoule and ripped it open, tipping it over and pouring the contents into his mouth. Drinking the blood of one’s enemy was pretty disgusting, but how else could he get the enemy’s blood into his body? It would be even worse if Cursed Embrace required him to inject the blood into his own.

Cursed Embrace found that foreign blood in his stomach, throat, and mouth, drawing it into his body and pulling some sort of unseen energy from it as well as his own blood. He had no way of sensing this special resource other than to gauge the strength that he gained from Cursed Embrace. The main weakness of Cursed Embrace was that it couldn’t ever be stopped. It was a ‘Passive’ and ‘always on’ style of ability. As soon as the ‘evil’ blood entered his body it was used as a power source. It was also why it was deemed forbidden. The user’s own blood would constantly be damaging them with no way to be stopped. Sage had no idea how blood could carry ‘evil’ energy, but he could feel the boost in strength as soon as he consumed the blood.

The Sacred Banyans were giving the old man a hard time, though given the circumstances, Sage realized it was more appropriate to think of them as Infernal Banyans. As the old man got more and more demonic, he was better able to resist the attacks of the trees as he started taking more and more risks. Being more and more ruthless to himself, the old man would attack viciously, choosing to use offense as defense. Instead of protecting himself, he’d accept a smaller wound to destroy one of the trees. A willingness to put one’s life on the line to come out on top was not a bad thing, but it was certainly outside the man’s original nature. There wasn’t anyone else around or else Sage was sure those people would have been sacrificed for the old man’s benefit.

Calling these traits ‘evil’ was a very gray area to Sage, but that was how the technique referred to it and there was no denying that this strange energy existed and was empowered by Infernal Qi.

With the boost from the old man’s blood, Sage’s strength was boosted and he rushed into the fight first hand. He smashed a fist into the man’s face and knocked him back into the embrace of one of the Infernal Banyans. The wolf jaws clamped onto him from many different angles, the thick tree boughs had become fleshy necks and heads while the small branches had taken the form of sharp fangs, stabbing into the man’s body. Tigerbriar flicked out, extending from under Sage’s sleeve and wrapping the man up. Tigerbriar’s innate ability was infinite growth which it used to encircle the man’s body over and over again, wrapping him up in a layer of fleshy barbed wire. Even the artifact wasn’t spared from the appearance warping power of the Infernal Qi and it tied up the old man, piercing him with its many thorns. At the same time, it acted as a conduit for Sage’s poison and the old man was turned helpless in just a few moments.

As this was happening, the ‘forest’ of Infernal Banyans was rapidly receding, the outer perimeter shrinking down towards the spot Sage was standing on. He was recovering as much of the Infernal Qi as he could, not because he needed to save it, but because he aimed to leave as small of a mark behind as possible. Tigerbriar separated into two pieces, leaving a large vine tying up the old man while also freeing itself and sliding back up Sage’s sleeve. Then the old man disappeared into thin air and in his place was a pile of talismans purchased from one of the shops in the capital.

Sage tossed the talismans, scattering them over the air and then he took off running. The corners of the decorated paper slips ignited, crackling like strangely shaped fuses. Just as Sage left the area they completely burned up and all the energy stored within them was released. Flames poured outwards, splashing over the whole area that had been previously ravaged by the Infernal Banyans. Even though he’d collected all the remnants of Infernal Qi, Sage still bathed the whole place in flames to further cover his tracks. At this time he wasn’t even touching the ground, using Cosmic Traction to step on thin air. He changed directions multiple times before disappearing into the Universe Ring, which was now concealed inside a tree branch, and floating downstream on a river.

Unlike the other debtors, the old man was sent to the Inner World, and a place he’d never return from. After capturing so many Chain Ocean Palace members, they’d had enough time to analyze every method the palace used to keep track of its members. They put the old man into a specially prepared Formation Array which severed the link between the old man and the tracking methods of the Chain Ocean Palace. They lost not only the link between the old man’s Messaging Jades, but also the tracking feature of his identity token and even the connection to a Soul Candle. That said, Sage didn’t know if the Chain Ocean Palace had Soul Candles, but they used a similar device which the array dealt with.

A Soul Candle was a quite expensive Magic Device, and reserved for the most affluent of Cultivators. When lit, it formed a connection with a person’s soul and as long as that soul existed, it would continue to burn. The candle and the Cultivator’s lives would be snuffed out at the same time. It was usually used by very powerful Cultivator’s to link to their children and then bragged about to other parties. If the Soul Candle was flickering weakly, the parents would know they were in mortal danger and they could rush to their aid. Also, it meant they would have time to use certain tracking techniques to catch their children’s killers. Most of these techniques had time restrictions, needing to be used before all the residual energy dissipated. This was also why Sage’s Timeless Eyes were only treated as valuable and not irreplaceable by Twilight at the Clear Sky Academy: other techniques could also achieve similar results in different ways.

As for Chain Ocean Palace, it seemed they were rich and powerful enough to have a similar item linked to each of their members. The link had been carefully investigated with each of the previous captures of their members and now they were confident of breaking it. Normally, such a thing should be nearly impossible. Even Hidden Realms only dimmed Soul Candles, but they took this into account and created a Formation Array that used the time dilation of the Inner World to their advantage. The Formation Array was a soul shielding array, altered to have a very small area of effect and also to activate itself over and over again at a very low level of power. Instead of a single strong shield, it was a very weak pulse over and over again. This didn’t really do anything to the unconscious old man, nor would it do much to anyone else with even a modest amount of Cultivation. It was only the Soul Candle’s link to the old man’s soul that was affected. These weak pulses weren’t much really, but because of the time dilation, they were basically happening a thousand times faster, at least from the perspective of the Soul Candle.

The researchers slowly altered the time delay and intensity of the pulses until they found the correct wave pattern to resonate with the link to the Soul Candle and shatter it.