A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

Chapter 84: Return

Alex could be seen lying on the tiled floor inside the Azure Beastsman's palace. He was still unconscious. But the blood that seeped from his ears, nose and from the corners of his lips had stopped.

The control entity, in it blurry form looked at Alex and shook its head in awe. It was amazed by Alex's power. Right from the Red Lotus cave where he met Alex, Alex had always summoned physiques that had the power of a Saint-stage cultivator. It wondered how Alex was able to do that. He had a really special mind.

But it also wondered why Alex couldn't stay in his transformed state for longer. Then it began to make thousands of deductions in it head and arrived at a conclusion that Alex's soul was weak.

His body was the one that mutated, not his soul. Although it was made much more powerful as it could withstand soul-shaking attacks from peak-phase condensation stage and probably half-earth adept stage cultivator, it form wasn't altered or changed. It was only augmented to a shocking degree.

Like in the case of Nadja's soul attacks, others were seriously affected, but Alex was only slightly affected and even instantly recovered.

So anytime Alex transformed, it exerted an enormous pressure on his soul that after a while, he would knock out of consciousness. That was his only weakness.

The control entity then decided that it would make Alex cultivate soulforce energy. Only in that way would his soul be able to withstand the pressure exerting on it when Alex transformed his normal body into a super-powered body.

Then a pill appeared in front of it and using his telekinetic power, the pill floated in the air towards Alex's mouth and entered it. Once it entered, it turned into a large amount of healforce energy that began to heal up Alex's body.

When Alex's attacks and that of the saint-stage cultivators' clashed and towering, destructive waves of energy erupted, the entity brought Alex into the palace as his body had reverted from it armored form back to it delicate, fleshy form. If it didn't do that, Alex's body be reduced to pieces by the ravaging energy waves.

It would have come out to help Alex against the Saint-level experts, but it couldn't as it only had power inside the palace. The only two ability it had was to bring in something from outside into the palace through teleportation and can turn the palace into a flight-purpose treasure that can move through spatial layers.

When the healing energy surfaced in Alex's body, it began to work on the wounds Alex sustained in his battle against the Saint-stage experts. Near instantly, Alex's wound healed totally.

Then it waited for Alex to wake up. It didn't force Alex up. As a sentient being possessing great amounts of knowledge, it knew when this kind of pain could sometimes become a fortune for one. It hoped Alex gained a lot of benefit from this and that the benefit must be for his soul.

....

"So she's dead?" Micah asked the woman in front of him.

"Of course she is. I watched her turn to a rotting, irritating black mess. Haha. But she was pretty powerful. Her bones were extremely strong. They were powerful to the point that they enabled her throw a punch that could match the power of an attack that could be unleashed by a sage general stage expert. I felt this when I appeared in front of her to use my poison finger technique. If that punch actually met me, I wouldn't be here. My body would have exploded into a blood mist." the lady replied with slight fear. She still recalled that crushing tyrannical punch Jennifer sent out.

"Lady Poisonheart, thanks for helping us remove that obstacle." A man wearing a dark cloak said.

"Don't mention. It's your money that made my organization make a move to remove the threat you were facing. But what I don't understand is you are at the sage general stage too. You could have gone to kill her yourself. Why didn't you do that instead of paying us to do it for you?" Lady Poisonheart asked in a perplexed tone.

"I can't risk leaving very far from the academy. There's a powerful expert who is after me and is still on the track for my whereabouts. There is a massive formation I set up that would help me conceal myself from this expert. The lady I sent you to kill is too far away from the academy' s location. If I leave the range of the formation's concealment power, I would be exposed. I can't take that chance." The man replied.

"Oh. That's very sad. Well, pay us to do it for you. We have many powerful experts. Experts in cultivation stages many ranks higher than mine. Pay us and we'll do a clean job for you" Lady Poisonheart said with a smile.

"Thanks for the offer. But I would do it myself. I want to have my revenge. When I become stronger, I would go after the bastard" The cloaked man replied.

"Oh. Okay. Good luck with that man." Lady Poisonheart said.

"Yea. Now, I hope you know we paid you very well to help us eliminate that stubborn lady. Yes? I want the items you took from her." The man said.

Haha!

Lady Poisonheart laughed raucously.

"Well, that item is now mine already. It's my spoil of war. I can't believe you frigging bastard want it. Please, am done with you. Go away" she said.

The man's eyes turned evil.

"Okay. I have money. How much do you want in exchange for it?" He asked.

"Haha. Well, in exchange for it. Give me your pitiful, miserable life" The lady responded.

The man looked at her fiercely. Then he shook his head when he remembered he was in an organization that had powerful experts that would squash him like a bug.

"Let's go" He said to Micah. Then they both left the organization situated in an underground cave.

Via a spatial displacement array in the organization, they left the cave and appeared in a place that looked desolate. Then they flew towards the academy.

Immediately they left Lady Poisonheart's place, she brought out Jennifer's treasure-sword from her spatial ring and looked at it.

She was amazed when she looked at it well this time. It gave the feeling it was made of perfect and excellent-quality materials. She concluded that it was these materials that made the sword a peerless-grade sword.

But what made her more amazed were the number of sockets in the sword. There were four of it. Every weapon she had come across only had a maximum of two sockets, but these had four.

Besides, when she removed the voidstones to look into them. She could detect powerful energy-producing arrays. They were all Tier-7 arrays; Grand-arrays. These produced vast amounts of energy very quickly and the energy crystals in the arrays were pure. These were not created or synthesized by any expert that would have impurities in them, thereby lowering the quality of the energies. These were formed directly by nature; by natural processes and were astonishingly large in size.

She deduced that even if one abused the amount of energy that is released by the gigantic energy crystals, It would take several thousand years for it to totally get exhausted before the arrays become non-functional. This is until they get another energy source.

She wondered where Jennifer got all these. But she was glad she now had a powerful weapon. She looked at the sword for sometime and then kissed it beautiful, shining flat surface.

"Baby, your other mama is dead as she is weak and useless. But this mama is way stronger and is gonna take very good care of you. No one would take you from my hands." she said and kissed it again.

Then she returned it to her ring. She was pleased that the organization gave her the mission or she wouldn't have come across such a wonderful, marveling item.

She laughed blissfully.

...

Jennifer at the moment could be said to be dead as she had no vitality again. But she still had a spark of life which she held onto. There were two things preventing that spark of life from going into oblivion. These were the divineforce energy circulating in her body and the image of Alex that refused to vanish from her mind.

The divineforce energy, produced by the melting of a pill, formed from the blood essence of a divine-class expert in her body fought back the poisonforce energy that seemed to want to corrode all of her cultivated energies.

The poisonforce energy tried to destroy all of Jennifer's energies but it couldn't. The divineforce energy was overpowering, keeping all of her energies from being contaminated and toxified by the ruining poisonforce energy.

Slowly, it was being expelled from Jennifer's body. This granted Jennifer the ability to move albeit slightly. She hadn't regained one percent of her movement ability.

While the image of Alex which was clear in her mind prevented that spark of life she had left from dying. She still hadn't seen him and so could not end up like this. She wanted to see him and if she couldn't, she wanted to see his corpse.

When the thought that Alex was probably dead as she couldn't find him flashed in her mind, a great fury manifested in her heart. If this fury were flames, it could burn the entire world she was in to a crisp. That was how wrathful she became.

Then that spark of life that seemed to be fluctuating; glowing and dimming, suddenly gained strength. From a spark, it grew into a small fire and into a towering, raging flame. Literally.

The instant her will to live to came back and this time stronger, the energies circulating in her body began to move faster along her energy channels. And in the process, the rate of ejection of the poisonforce energy in her body increased.

Many seconds later, colour returned to Jennifer's body. Not actually her body, just the pieces of flesh hanging around on her silver skeleton. But she had regained her movement. With a thought, she produced all the healing pills in her spatial ring and swallowed them all. She didn't care if it was excessive.

Very quickly, the old flesh fell off and new flesh began to appear around her body. New blood vessels surfaced within her new body and her organs formed.

Her hair which had completely fallen off regrew and her face which had turned black regained it color and texture appearing beautiful and spotless.

Her bewitching, flawless beauty returned. This time, more mesmerizing as she had casted away her old skin.

She looked at the small pool of black blood on the ground and shook her head. She was glad she survived through it.

But she knew it was not by her power, it was the divineforce energy circulating in her body that helped her energies push out the desolating poisonous energy in her body.

The divineforce energy at this point in time had totally left her body. Her body couldn't retain it the way Alex's did. His body was like a sponge, absorbing energies and retaining them.

Her beautiful gown was ruined by her blackened blood. She decided to wash up first and change into another outfit before she left for the academy.

There was nothing in her heart now except fury which she wanted to unleash at Micah and the principal. Especially Micah, she hoped she would meet him there.

She was ready to tear him apart. Her eyes shone with a high degree of ferocity that if cultivators with a higher cultivation stage looked in her eyes, they would quickly back up. The anger in her eyes was type that depicted she wanted to destroy everything her path.

.....

Alex from where he laid on the ground suddenly sneezed, then his eyes abruptly opened. He remembered all that happened and quickly looked around, he saw that he was at the bottom of a crater.

Then he saw two unconscious, heavily injured bodies far in the distance. He recalled who those two were. Then he quickly stood up. He didn't know if they would wake anytime soon. So he decided to quickly leave the deep crater he was in.

But he stopped and looked back at them. He felt that he must kill the two men. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had never killed before and felt bad thinking about it.

Alex who had begun looking pale just from the thought that popped in his head knew he had no choice than to do it. It was better to not leave future problems for himself. 

Two colored lights flashed and two spears appeared in Alex's hand. Then he went to where the bodies of the unconscious men laid in. 

Puchi! Puchi! 

Those were the sounds produced as Alex drove the two spears into the hearts of the two men. 

The instant he drove the two spears into their soul, blood gushed out like a fountain, splashing on him and dying the soiled clothe he wore red. 

Alex then knelt beside them. 

Killing the two men took a toll on his mental state of mind. 

'It just had to be done' He said inwardly after a long time. 

He stood to his feet and removed the spears stabbed deep into their bodies. Then he put them back into his dad's spatial necklace.

.....

The entity returned Alex's body to the crater since he would soon wake. It was going to speak to Alex later concerning cultivation of soulforce energy to increase soul power which includes the durability and stamina of his soul.

It couldn't take Alex out of the crater since it was still weak, it hadn't regained much of its energy. Only a little amount. Using that small amount gained to power the large treasure-palace to move would quickly exhaust its strength.

Alex looked up and complained in his heart. "Damn! So far"

Then he employed his wind manipulation power. His eyes turned cyan and a large mass of air came in from a far distance into the crater.

When it got to the depth Alex was, it surrounded his figure and then windforce energy began to flow into his body unceasingly at a high speed.

This caused his body to glow brilliantly in cyan as a large quantity of windforce energy permeated his entire body.

Alex was utilizing the Wind Elixir technique of the Wind Trinity methodology he studied. This enabled Alex to have boundless amount of wind-controlling energy for his use. Well, for as long as he can maintain the technique which consumed mental power.

Then because of his special body constitution, he ejected the windforce energy from his feet at a high velocity using the Human Rocket technique in the methodology. This was impossible for a lot of cultivators at any stage as some could only discharge energy from only their hands.

Swoosh!

Because of the high rate of release of the windforce energy from his feet, he shot upwards like an arrow, cutting through the air at an astonishing speed.

If one looked closely, It was like cyan flame was expelling from Alex's feet. This was the cyan-colored windforce energy gushing out of his feet in massive amounts.

Alex wasn't worried over the shocking amount of energy he was wasting to achieve this terrifying speed as he could endlessly recharge himself. He had access to fathomless amount of energy for his use using the Wind Elixir technique, for as long as he could sustain it.

Just a wisp of this energy, when it left a foot, transformed into a super-fast air current that propelled Alex up at an extreme speed. It had this velocity because of the divineforce energy that was incorporated into it.

Many moments later, he came out from the crater. Looking all bloodied, he went to find a place to wash himself and change his clothes.

Fortunately, he got one when he deployed his powerful sense of hearing. He could hear the sound of water flow. Then he traced this sound to a small stream.

Few minutes later, he finished washing his body. Then he changed his clothes. When he saw he was neat and looking good, his leg muscles started to emanate a golden light, resembling metal in appearance. These soft golden glows emitted by them was because they had been infused with strengthforce energy.

Flit!

Then he shot towards the Sky Trident city at a great speed.

Since he knew the direction they were moving in with the beast-drawn carriage before all these happened, it was easy for him to trace his way to the city.

Moving at a speed that could be probably three hundred times the full speed of a cheetah, he left numerous after-images behind and a large cloud of dust far in the distance. Not very long, he arrived at the city.

"Finally"

He said excitedly in his heart. He couldn't wait to see Jennifer. He recalled the dazzling image of Jennifer in his mind and smiled. He even had a plan that would surprise her.

Then he took a carriage that would convey him to the academy. This time around, he entered a carriage that had more powerful beasts.

They looked like they would be able to move fast as their muscles seemed bigger and denser. This carriage was a high-grade one and was very expensive.

Of course, notorious and greedy eyes looked in his direction. But when they saw that he paid the carriage to convey him to the Black Dragon academy and seeing how expensively dressed he was, they backed. He seemed like a kid from a wealthy, powerful family as only he paid to use a carriage for ten people.

Alex did this and without fear because he knew they wouldn't be able to do anything to him when they calculated in their heads the amount of money he would pay to singly use the carriage. And that he was heading to an academy. Only rich kids of powerful cultivating families could afford cultivation institutions.

The carriage set out and in a few minutes, he would reach the Black Dragon academy.

....

Jennifer at this point in time had arrived at the academy. Anger could be seen blazing in her eyes. She was ready to wreak havoc.

Floating in the air above the school's gate, her voice boomed out.

"Micah! You vile spawn! If you are in there. Come out now!"

Everyone wondered which female had the audacity to come make a scene at their school. Classes abruptly ended as instructors flew out of the lecture blocks to go see who that was when they saw Jennifer. They became shocked.

"Jennifer, wha-what are you doing here? We were told that you have resigned and that you have gone to another continent" Jane who had flew out with the other instructors asked in shock.