The Patriarch didn't reply to him. He simply smiled, knowing exactly what he meant, as he sat cross-legged at the center of the jade platform.
"Look at the old buildings and materials you left for your sect members to use up there," Mo Lingtian said again, pointing upward. "And look at how beautiful and elegant your cultivation ground is. You really know how to spoil yourself," he continued as he too sat cross-legged, directly opposite the Patriarch.
"Let's get started," the Patriarch said as blue flames slowly enveloped him, burning his robe completely off his body, leaving his chest bare and exposed.
"Alright," Mo Lingtian said as he carefully observed the Patriarch's body. Although the man was over forty-five thousand years old, his physical form bore the look of a bulky, youthful cultivator. His muscles and bone mass were perfectly chiseled, giving his upper body a sculpted, flawless look. Along the pores of his skin lay faint, intricate tattoos of flames, all emanating a soft, blue candescent light.
Mo Lingtian slowly raised his arms as all forty-three of his golden needles gracefully emerged from the sleeve of his robe. With a fluid movement of his left fingers, the needles quickly arranged themselves, arching their sharp tips towards the Patriarch, who closed his eyes and succumbed to deep meditation.
"Senior, it's time," Mo Lingtian said as he channeled void energy from the devil half of his hybrid core directly into the golden needles.
The Patriarch hummed in reply. Controlling a gentle gust of wind to slowly swirl around his body, he rotated in mid-air so that his back directly faced Mo Lingtian, positioning himself for the extraction to begin.
"Senior, this will be very painf..." Mo Lingtian began, before he was abruptly cut short by the Patriarch.
"I know. Just start already," the Patriarch commanded, his face tightening as he prepared to bear the excruciating pain of his body being torn open and his spine meridian extracted.
Mo Lingtian quickly got to work. As his hands slowly approached the mid-section of the Patriarch's back, one of the golden needles resonated. It drifted just in front of his forefinger, arching its tip towards the Patriarch's back and its rear towards Mo Lingtian's finger, mirroring every gesture and command his finger made.
Then, with a slight, calculated push of death energy, he pressed the golden needle against the Patriarch's back to slice open the exact section housing the spine meridian.
"Senior...!" Mo Lingtian gasped softly as the needle was violently repelled, sending it flying backward, deep into the jade platform they were seated on.
"Sorry, I forgot..." the Patriarch said as his eyes fluttered open. He had forgotten to dispel the final solid layer of protective energy tightly knitted to his skin.
"Senior, for me to be able to tear through to the spine meridian, you need to fully retract your golden body," Mo Lingtian emphasized as he summoned the golden needle, pulling it out of the jade platform and back to his forefinger.
"That wasn't my golden body. I had already dispelled it..." the Patriarch clarified, consciously relaxing the protective energy around his skin. "Sovereign Immortals possess a second layer of protective energy cleaved closely to their skin in case their golden body is breached. If my golden body was what triggered the repulsion just now, your needles wouldn't have been the only thing flying," the Patriarch continued, slowly shutting his eyes once more.
Even the unprotected body of a Sovereign Immortal is this hard to breach. If he truly wanted to kill me, there is absolutely nothing I could do to stop him, Mo Lingtian thought to himself as he approached the broad back again, the golden needle's tip floating just inches in front of his forefinger.
With a slow, deliberate downward movement, he forcefully opened the Patriarch's back. Instead of tearing cleanly as it parted, the skin cracked. It constantly resisted the parting force from the tip of the golden needle until it finally, stubbornly gave way. Facing the other side of the jade platform, the Patriarch tightened his expression, gritting his teeth so hard they nearly chipped as the needle tore through his body.
But that was just the beginning. The actual extraction of the spine meridian had yet to start.
The Patriarch quickly infused the insides of his now hollowed back with his gentle blue flame energy, desperately soothing the intense pain and raw, stinging sores.
According to that old demon's book, the spine meridian and the heart meridian are the most distinct, important, yet delicately fragile out of all the meridians in a cultivator's body, Mo Lingtian reminded himself. He resonated with the death energy he had infused into the remaining forty-two needles, seamlessly separating them into two equal parts - twenty-one floating on his left side, and twenty-one on his right.
Typically, when treating ordinary demon cultivators for spine injuries, wounds, or illnesses, the connection points of the spine meridian to other meridians must be temporarily sealed. Since it serves as the ending point of all the meridians in the body, any changes made to it without sealing would result in a continuous, destructive loop of uncontrollable effects across the rest of the meridian network, Mo Lingtian continued analyzing.
With precision, he controlled the batch of golden needles on his right, guiding them deep into the Patriarch's hollowed back. He pinned twenty-one of the spine meridian's connection points under a replicated form of the Devil Converging Seal, utilizing it as a powerful sealing formation.
But this method is strictly applicable to the normal spine meridians that mortal demon practitioners possess. This... this one is the meridian of an Immortal, a Sovereign Immortal, Mo Lingtian thought, his eyes narrowing as he closely observed the volatile shifting golden colors and terrifying energy trapped inside the Patriarch's translucent spine meridian.
Then, with a swift shift of his left hand forward, he controlled the second batch of golden needles, sinking them meticulously into the torn back of the Patriarch. He temporarily sealed the remaining twenty-one connection points of the spine meridian under the same replicated Devil Converging Seal formation.
With a slight, forceful press of his fingers forward, he commanded the forty-two needles to sink even deeper into the connection points.
At this point, the Patriarch couldn't hold it in anymore. He let out a loud, soul-rending cry, involuntarily dispelling violent torrents of chaotic blue flames all over the ethereal cultivation space.
"Now..." Mo Lingtian muttered through gritted teeth. Wrapping the exposed spine meridian in a thick layer of void energy, he slowly began lifting it up from the Patriarch's back. Simultaneously, the golden needles sank even lower into the flesh, firmly sealing and pinning the connection points in place to prevent a catastrophic energy collapse.
The spine meridian of a Sovereign Immortal did not resemble ordinary tissue. As it was slowly, uncleaved from the bone of his spinal cord, it looked like a translucent, crystalline river pulsing with thick liquid gold and raging blue fire. Ethereal, glowing threads of demonic energy that naturally bound the meridian to the inner walls of his back snapped and tore with visceral, painful cracks.
As Mo Lingtian dragged it out further, blood seeped from the severed connections, instantly vaporizing into the air with a sharp hissing sound upon contact with the extreme heat. It was an otherworldly, terrifyingly beautiful sight, the meridian of a Sovereign Immortal, a literal god-like power, being violently uprooted from its organic vessel.
The Patriarch's entire body convulsed uncontrollably. His chiseled muscles bulged dangerously as thick, energy-gorged veins threatened to burst right through his skin. With every excruciating millimeter the meridian was forcefully lifted away from his spinal cord, his hoarse, soul-rending cries echoed violently through the cavern.
The majestic blue flames erupting from his pores grew wildly destructive, scorching the very air and causing the supposedly indestructible jade platform beneath them to tremble with jagged cracks forming on it.
"Senior, calm down...!" Mo Lingtian yelled over the roaring fire. He continued to gently, yet firmly, pull the meridian upward while simultaneously channeling immense energy into the forty-two needles, ensuring they kept the connection points firmly sealed amidst the Patriarch's deafening screams and the violent bursts of blue flames ravaging the space around them.
With one final, calculated pull, the remaining energy threads holding the spine meridian to the Patriarch's spinal bone snapped, severing the meridian completely from his body.
Instantly, the terrifying tension broke. The Patriarch immediately slumped forward, his heavy, exhausted sigh echoing across the vast underground space.
Panting heavily, the Patriarch slowly reined in the violent burst of blue flames. With meticulous control, he guided the cool, ethereal fire back into his torn back in a desperate bid to soothe the scorching, relentless pain that still lingered deep within his 45,000 year old bones.