Phantasmal Devourment didn't work exactly as I expected it to.
I'd shoved it in some corner of my mind a long while back as the only time I even considered using it was way back in the day on Lao Shun, who promptly rejected it, saying he wanted to deal with the matters of his demon by himself.
Since then, it's been sitting around--as have a lot of things, admittedly--collecting dust... until now.
The description of Phantasmal Devourment was relatively simple--it said that it could devour ongoing Heart Demons of any Martial Artist, even if they were not my Disciple, and that it may require spending some sweet Creation Points if the demon was particularly strong.
That was why I was kind of hesitating even trying; by all accounts, Han Yimu was one of the most talented people I've ever met in my life, and whatever hell swims inside his head can't have been 'cheap' to fix. I honestly expected the cost to run in at least five-digit area, but when the prompt showed up... it left me a bit baffled.
[--target for Phantasmal Devourment assessed][Conditional use is possible][Analysing...][...][Several restrictions must be implemented][Target has to do the following: Forgo their current Cultivation Method, completely abandoning it; similarly, they must purge themselves of all their current Martial Arts, noting that practicing any of them again will likely resurrect the Demon; the target must renounce their Dao Title, and seek to forge a completely different one in the rethread; the target must demolish their bodily structure of cultivation, regressing back to the Spirit Manifestation Realm--they will retain their achievements and unique aspects up to that point; they must endure the pain of having their body slowly undone][A note: target's Heart Demon stems from the depths of their soul; though Phantasmal Devourment will purge it, the psychological root of it will remain. While the exactly same Heart Demon will never surface, if the root causes aren't handled, there is a chance another Demon might blossom from them][...][Creation Points Cost: 0][As the target is paying the full price, Host needn't use any Creation Points][Would you like to use Phantasmal Devourment on the target, Han Yimu?][Y / N]
I waited for a bit before he confirmed it, and pressed yes.
... it was uneventful. I expected it to be a harrowing thing where I watch the young man be absolutely obliterated by a pain, but it was a blimp.
[Phantasmal Devourment has successfully purged the target's Heart Demon and regressed their cultivation realm]
I thought that was the end of it, especially after he went to his knees and swore to me his undying fealty and such, and was about to try and think of an excuse as to why he didn't 'suffer in incomprehensible agony' when it happened.
He tried to stand up, but his knees gave out.
At the same time, the woman gently flicked her fingers as a soundless curtain of white emerged around us, like a sheen to hide us from the world. Well, to hide him from the world.
What followed was a scream that froze the blood in my veins.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
But before I could even process the first one, the second follow.
And then the third.
Blood began to literally ooze out of him as though he were a red sponge being squeezed, pooling beneath him as he began to writhe, his body contorting in ways that seemed to defy logic.
His eyes pulled back and his tongue lashed out and his skin began to melt like candlewax, and I could only sit frozen in my chair and stare aghast at the sight so horrid it made me want to cry.
I suddenly felt a somewhat rough hand on my shoulder as it pulled me back to reality; glancing up, the woman was standing above me, staring past me and at the body, her eyebrows scrounged up.
"... it's his test," she said. "Heart Demons are... elusive things, little Daoist. They creep up invisibly, silently, until one day you're wrestling with the notion that the next step toward reaching immortality is instead certain death. The more one harbors them, the more all-consuming they become. If it is a choice between death and a chance... every cultivator with the mind of an immortal would take the latter."
Though she said that, if even she showed sign of discomfort... then none of this shit was normal.
I do occasionally forget that the system is, well, a system. Whatever the root cause behind it, whoever its originator is, wherever it came from, ultimately, it's a cold, apathetic, unfeeling thing that simply lays out the facts of the land and rarely anything else. To it, 'demolishing body structure' is enough, as it describe the physical occurrence that will take place, but this goes well beyond that.
More than the body, I have a feeling, it was the inferno within that was difficult to contend with. Especially once I caught glimpses beyond the melting skin, where some of his organs were literally melting just like the skin, and some were rotting like a carcass in a desert, and some were being eaten by an invisible maw.
I saw countless images within him flash--traces of Dao leaving like flurries of arrows. Though I didn't have the intimate knowledge of them, I could infer--such as when I watched an entire world collapse, a cataclysmic vanishing obliterating it completely. That must be the 'Inner World' breakthrough. The Demigod one must have been his body or organs melting... I think?
Then came the Void Transformation.
It was... it was the most brutal, I think. Dimensions warped his body in ways that caused him to cease being human; his body was twice elsewhere and nowhere, limbs splayed within and without, head craned and turned and twisted, looking everywhere and yet nowhere; I felt genuine fear watching it. If I touched the spatial discordance around him, I would die. I don't know how I knew it, but I just... did.
"Dao at its rawest," the woman commented. "A single touch of it would obliterate even me. This is what we all yearn for, little Daoist, the ultimate expression of embodying Dao. There have been Emperors of Space and even Time before, but none with the ability to do this. To fold dimensions like table cloth, bending realities through the prism of destruction."
... alright, her looks have fooled me for a little while, but she's no different than those other old geezers, yapping away in riddles to sound immensely clever and such. I'm fairly certain she didn't even use 'prism' correctly there, but even if I knew for sure, I wouldn't dare correct her.
[--immense Heart Demon has been purged][A reward has been triggered][...][Crimson-Tipped Spear (Spirit) -- though it started merely as an ordinary, iron-forged spear, through the baptism of blood in the countless battles, it manifested a living spirit within its cold confines, elevating it above the mere mortal weapons. It can consume blood to temporarily restore one's health and even Qi, though the force will trigger a backlash][--suggestion triggered][Host's Surging Spirit Art, as well as an item in your possession, in combination with Crimson-Tipped Spear can completely remove and even reverse the side-effects, possibly triggering another special effect in the process]