"Do what you have to do," the Patriarch answered, sheer anxiousness and absolute determination written all over his face.
No matter the price, if there was a way to correct this Qi deviation, he was willing to pay it. There was no way he would allow forty-five thousand years of cultivation to just go to waste because he was unwilling to pay the price.
"Alright," Mo Lingtian said as he lifted his hand into the air. The glowing mix of golden and red lines began to light up on his skin as they slowly extended from his body towards the spine meridian.
From the expanded domain, golden lines swiftly protruded, locking themselves together as they formed a spherical geoid structure over the entire domain.
"This... is this a true law domain..." the Patriarch muttered to himself as he stared at the glowing golden and red lines in shock.
"Devil Converging Seal, open!" Mo Lingtian yelled as the seal began to form line by line in front of him.
Suddenly, Mo Lingtian began to levitate, completely ignoring the flight ban formations the Patriarch had set up all over the underground space.
Both of them gasped in shock. Even Mo Lingtian didn't understand why he was suddenly able to fly, but he continued nonetheless.
What is the brat's origin? Every method he uses is always elusive... what is a Devil Converging Seal? the Patriarch thought to himself, watching the intricate seal form.
Then, using the principle of reversion, Mo Lingtian rotated the seal backwards, converting it into a Devil Diverging Seal.
"Go," Mo Lingtian whispered as he stretched his finger forward. The lines followed suit, effortlessly penetrating the spine meridian and bathing in the liquid gold contained within it.
Mo Lingtian continued to control the lines as they dived in further, until they also penetrated the parasite, reaching deep for its absolute source.
Once again, Mo Lingtian's consciousness was violently sucked into the parasite. He moved past thousands of layers of restrictions and shifting spatial dimensions within the creature, continuing to move down a reality-inverted tunnel until he finally burst out of it.
Now, he was in a pitch-black space swarming with millions, if not billions, of dark green phantom wraiths. In front of him was a massive dimensional ball of blue interstellar light, shifting with several colors just like the cosmic tree, except its main theme was blue instead of green. The wraiths seemed to actively avoid the intense light coming from the ball, covering the other half of the pitch-black space.
Mo Lingtian controlled the glowing lines as they slowly traversed the pitch-black void swarming with wraiths. Surprisingly, the wraiths retreated as the lines advanced, even braving the massive ball of blue interstellar light they had previously avoided in a desperate bid to escape the lines formed from Lingtian's death domain.
Why are these things so afraid of the death domain? Mo Lingtian thought to himself as he continued advancing the lines towards the ball of light.
As the wraiths pressed backward, the extending rays of light from the glowing interstellar ball quickly enveloped them, pulling them in by the millions. It seemed to actively feed off the existence of these wraiths.
Lingtian immediately halted his advancing lines when he saw the wraiths being reined into the ball of light. Instinctively, he tugged at his hybrid core, releasing the profound energy of death from his consciousness into the entirety of the pitch-black space.
As a result, the wraiths who were previously slowly retreating now took flight, running violently like mad dogs towards the ball of light as that single wave of death energy absolutely terrified them.
It's just like the first day I entered the death zone. The death phantoms reacted like this to my energy, except that time, it was the void energy from my devil core they reacted to. These ones are running from the death energy from the other half of my hybrid core, Mo Lingtian analyzed as he watched the wraiths rush into the ball of light.
"Then this ball of light... if these creatures are the source of the energy of the parasite, what is the ball of light..." Mo Lingtian muttered as the lines of energy resumed their advance towards the sphere.
Surprisingly, the ball of light showed no reaction as the lines slowly crept along it. The lines latched onto its solid, crystalline surface until the entirety was covered with a dense web of golden and red energy.
Then, Mo Lingtian arched his fingers as if commanding the ball of light to move forward. The lines instantly obeyed, stretching themselves taut as they pulled the massive blue ball of interstellar light directly towards Mo Lingtian, shrinking it in size the closer it came.
When the massive blue ball of light finally reached a stone's throw from Mo Lingtian, it had shrunk to about the size of a building, but its light remained ever bright, not dimming in the slightest bit. Mo Lingtian had to squint his eyes so they wouldn't get hurt by the blinding intensity of the light rays.
It seems like the death domain has several functions I do not know of yet, Mo Lingtian thought as the lines etched on his skin slowly extended from his physical body, latching themselves firmly to the ball of light in front of him.
Then, like traveling pulses of energy, the blue interstellar light pumped from the massive ball, surging through the extended lines directly into Mo Lingtian's death domain.
His death domain was actively feeding on the ball of light through the lines of the Devil Converging Seal.
The lines continued to drain the blue ball of light of its profound energy until its brilliance completely dimmed, leaving it looking like a scorched planet reduced to lifeless lumps of rock.
"Lingtian..." a voice suddenly echoed from Mo Lingtian's sea of consciousness.
"Senior...!" Mo Lingtian replied excitedly as he quickly retracted the lines from the drained, dead ball of light.
"Lingtian... what happened? Your sea of consciousness was sealed. I couldn't reach you no matter what I tried," the Chief Commander said, as all the commanding generals and vanguard soldiers lit up in excitement when they heard Lingtian's voice finally echo through.
"Chief, it's just like you guessed. He encountered another strange opportunity," one of the aides by her right side said, folding his arms as they observed the massive, drained crystallized ball floating in front of Mo Lingtian.
"Senior, that old monster used some kind of method to completely cut off any telepathic connection with my sea of consciousness," Mo Lingtian explained as he looked up at the green phantom wraiths retreating further into the depths of the pitch-black space.
"What is this place?" Si, the commanding general Mo Lingtian had named, asked as all of them looked around at the pitch-black space and the sheer multitudes of wraiths surrounding Mo Lingtian.
"I used the lines of the death domain and the Devil Converging Seal to go into the parasite living within the Patriarch's spine meridian. It turned out it wasn't Qi deviati—" Mo Lingtian answered before he was abruptly cut short by the Chief Commander's sudden exclamation.
"What? You used your death domain right in front of him?" the Chief Commander yelled in sheer fright.
"Your death domain contains a very unique law that even the Chief Commander hasn't seen in the fragments of memories she has from many eons before now. There is absolutely no way you are going to escape from that man's sight if he recognizes the unique law attribute of your domain," the aide by the Chief Commander's left side added, shaking his head disappointedly.
"I had no choice. The Qi deviation turned out to be something else. Although I knew the thing in his spine meridian wouldn't be normal deviant energy, I didn't expect it to turn out to be a living parasite," Mo Lingtian explained as he flew closer to the drained, massive ball of energy.
"The previous method I devised to solve it couldn't work, and there was no way he was letting me leave here alive without curing him. Even if I did somehow escape, there will be no safe haven for me in the wilderness anymore," Mo Lingtian concluded.