The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well – Day 2
The valley was filled with a strange, rhythmic humming sound, like a hive of bees trapped in a jar.
Dugu Bo sat on his stone bench, one eye open, watching the boy work. He had expected Arthev to pull out a pot and start brewing potions like a traditional apothecary. He expected boiling liquids, crushed roots, and fires.
Instead, Arthev was doing something... industrial.
Arthev sat cross-legged near the boundary where the extreme heat of the Yang spring met the absolute cold of the Yin spring.
Floating in front of him were twenty stalks of Dragon Saliva Grass and a handful of Snow Silkworm Leaves.
They weren't being boiled. They were being roasted by a hovering ball of pale blue fire.
"Temperature regulation," Arthev muttered to himself, his eyes narrowed in surgical concentration.
'Matatabi, reduce thermal output by 4%,' Arthev projected internally.
'We need to vaporize the water content instantly without denaturing the cellulose structure.'
'Adjusting,' the Two-Tails replied coolly. 'Plasma density lowered.'
The blue flame flickered, turning a shade paler. The plants shriveled instantly, turning into a fine, dry powder suspended in the air.
Then, the blue fire vanished, replaced by a swirling sphere of water. Isobu took over.
The powder was sucked into the water, which began to spin rapidly like a centrifuge.
"Separation of solids," Arthev noted aloud for his audience.
Dugu Bo watched, mesmerized despite himself. "He controls fire and water simultaneously without a ring skill? Is that... spirit manipulation?"
Arthev extended a finger. A faint magnetic pull, courtesy of Shukaku, emanated from it. He drew tiny, dark impurities out of the spinning water mixture.
"Extraction complete."
Arthev stood up, holding a stone bowl filled with a thick, emerald-green gel. It didn't smell like medicine. It smelled like nothing, pure, sterile emptiness.
He walked over to Dugu Bo.
"This is the solvent," Arthev explained, placing the bowl on the table.
"It is highly absorbent. We will inject this into your meridian points. It will travel to your bones, bind with the accumulated toxin, and then we will bleed it out."
Dugu Bo looked at the green slime. "Inject it? Into my meridians? If you block my energy flow, I could explode, boy."
"We aren't blocking it," Arthev said, pulling out a set of twelve long silver needles from his belt.
"We are flushing it. This gel has zero resistance. It flows faster than blood."
He looked at the Titled Douluo, his expression serious.
"This will hurt, Senior. It will feel like I am scrubbing the inside of your bones with steel wool."
Dugu Bo scoffed, ripping open his green robe to reveal his chest. The skin was pale, crisscrossed with faint purple veins.
"Boy, I have lived with poison eating my marrow for forty years. I have forgotten what hurt feels like. Just do it."
Arthev nodded. "Lie back. And whatever you do... do not circulate your spirit power."
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The Procedure
Arthev worked with the speed of a phantom.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Twelve silver needles pierced Dugu Bo's chest in a specific geometric pattern around his sternum.
"Phase One: Meridian Access," Arthev intoned.
He dipped his finger into the green gel. He didn't use a syringe. He placed a glob of gel onto the end of each needle and tapped them.
Zip.
The gel was sucked into the needles via capillary action and shot directly into Dugu Bo's body.
"GNNNH!"
Dugu Bo arched his back, his eyes bulging. A guttural roar tore from his throat, shaking the dust off the nearby rocks.
It didn't feel like steel wool. It felt like someone had poured liquid nitrogen into his chest cavity, followed immediately by molten lead. The gel rushed through his calcified poison channels, scouring the walls of his meridians, ripping the toxins loose.
"Do not fight it!" Arthev commanded sharply, his voice cutting through the pain.
"If you circulate your power, the gel hardens! Surrender control!"
"Surrender..." Dugu Bo gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face. It went against every instinct of a high-level cultivator to let a foreign substance rampage inside them.
But he forced his soul power to go dormant. He lay there, vulnerable, trusting a boy he had met three days ago.
Ten minutes passed. It felt like ten years.
Arthev watched Dugu Bo's skin. The purple veins were darkening, turning almost black. The toxin was being pulled from the bone marrow and gathering near the surface puncture points.
"Phase Two: Drainage."
Arthev pulled the needles out.
Hissssss.
Black, foul-smelling blood sprayed from the wounds. It hit the ground and sizzled, burning holes in the rock. The smell was acrid, enough to kill a normal human instantly.
Arthev didn't flinch. He let the blood flow until it turned from black to a deep, healthy red.
"Stop," Arthev whispered. He pressed his hand over the wounds. A light of vitality sealed the skin instantly.
Dugu Bo collapsed back onto the stone bench, panting heavily. His chest heaved.
He waited for the familiar burn in his ribs. The burn that had been his companion for decades.
It wasn't there.
He took a deep breath. The air went all the way to the bottom of his lungs without catching. The numbness in his fingertips was gone.
"The shadow..." Dugu Bo whispered, looking at his hands. "It's gone."
"Not gone," Arthev corrected, wiping his hands on a rag.
"Reduced. We removed about 30% of the accumulated toxicity. We will need two more sessions to clear the reservoir completely. Then, we can implant a permanent Soul Bone filter to manage future buildup."
Dugu Bo sat up slowly. He felt lighter. He felt... younger. His soul power, usually sluggish and heavy with poison, was circulating with a speed he hadn't felt since he was a Soul Saint.
He looked at Arthev. The suspicion was gone. The arrogance was gone. In their place was a look of profound, terrified awe.
"You did it," Dugu Bo said, his voice rough. "You actually did it."
"It is just chemistry, Senior," Arthev said, sitting down on the opposite bench to rest.
Dugu Bo shook his head. "No student knows these things. No student has eyes that look like they've seen the end of the world."
The Poison Douluo leaned forward, his green eyes intense.
"You saved me. You saved Yan-yan. Ask for it."
"Ask for what?" Arthev replied calmly.
"The payment," Dugu Bo waved his hand at the garden.
"You can have anything here. Gold? Herbs? My support? Or do you want me to kill someone for you? Name it."
Arthev looked at the garden. He saw the rare herbs. But then his gaze drifted past the garden, toward the dark, dense tree line to the South of the valley.
"I will take some herbs later," Arthev said. "But right now... I want information. About this forest."
"The Sunset Forest?" Dugu Bo frowned.
"It's just a forest. Soul beasts. Poison fog. Nothing special compared to Star Dou."
"Not the forest," Arthev corrected. "The anomalies. You said earlier that this Well is the only safe zone because the rest is corrupted."
He pointed South.
"What is down there, Senior? My senses tell me the energy density there is... wrong. It feels like life, but twisted."
Dugu Bo's expression changed instantly.
The gratitude vanished, replaced by a deep, primal wariness. He looked South, and for a second, the Titled Douluo looked afraid.
"You have good instincts, kid," Dugu Bo muttered. "That is the Flesh Pit."
"Flesh Pit?"
"I don't go there," Dugu Bo said seriously.
"And neither should you. It isn't a place for Soul Masters. It's a cancer."
"Explain," Arthev pressed gently.
Dugu Bo sighed, rubbing his chest. "Ten years ago, I chased a 30,000-year Dread Bear into that sector. I hit it with my strongest venom. The bear melted. It died."
Dugu Bo's eyes darkened.
He took a moment before speaking. Not to think. To decide whether to.
"But then…" he said, voice flat, "the flesh started moving."
A small pause.
"It did not rot. It wailed."
His gaze drifted, unfocused.
"The muscles pulled themselves back together. Not healing. Just… assembling."
"They pushed into the ground. Like roots."
He exhaled once, slow.
"When it came back up, it was not a body anymore. Just a lump. Flesh that kept changing shape."
"It tried to eat me."
Another pause. Shorter this time.
"My poison kills nerves, Arthev."
"It should have ended it."
Now he looked at Arthev, steady, almost tired.
"But the things down there…"
A beat.
"They do not have nerves."
His voice lowered, not out of fear, but certainty.
"They only have hunger."
Arthev did not interrupt. On the surface, he stood still. Inside, his thoughts moved fast.
'Regeneration that bypasses cellular death,' Matatabi said. 'Biological immortality without consciousness. Cancerous growth.'
Arthev's gaze stayed on Dugu Bo. "Is there a ruler?"
Dugu Bo hesitated. Just a fraction.
"There is… a Guardian."
The word sat heavy. He did not seem to like it.
"I call it the Iron Spider." He shook his head once. "But it is not a beast."
A brief pause, like he was deciding how much to say.
"I saw it once."
His eyes narrowed slightly, recalling.
"No scent. No heartbeat."
"It moved… with a clicking sound."
He exhaled quietly.
"It completely ignored my poison ."
"What does it do?"
"It prunes," Dugu Bo shuddered.
"It treats the corrupted beasts like weeds. It cuts them apart. And buries them."
A brief pause.
"To feed the soil."
His gaze lowered.
"It makes… fertilizer."
Arthev's eyes narrowed. "A gardener."
Dugu Bo shook his head once.
"A gardener from hell."
"And at night... if you listen closely... you can hear the Pulse."
"Pulse?"
"Thump. Thump," Dugu Bo mimicked a slow, heavy heartbeat.
"Like the world itself is hungry. It drives men mad. I stay here, by the Well, because the extreme Yin and Yang energy masks the sound."
Arthev looked South. He didn't hear the pulse yet, but the Blue Pendant under his shirt felt warm against his skin.
'Undying flesh. A guardian that prunes. A pulse that drives growth,' Arthev thought.
The Sunset Forest has... something.
"Thank you, Senior," Arthev said, standing up. "That is valuable information."
"Don't get any ideas," Dugu Bo warned, grabbing Arthev's wrist.
"Curiosity kills cats, Scholar. That place is a grave that doesn't let you die. You stay here. You cure me. You leave."
"Of course," Arthev lied smoothly, his black eyes unreadable. "I am just a researcher. I prefer my specimens dead."
But inside, Arthev was already planning the expedition.
'Shukaku,' Arthev projected. 'Are you hungry?'
'Always,' the One-Tail growled.
'Good. Because we are going to find a beast that feeds the world... and we are going to break it.'
To be continued.....