When Chen Kuang shoved her away with his palm, Liu Qingcheng's mind was still completely blank, she couldn't think at all.
She was flung backward by the force of the blow, crashing through two walls before rolling over twice on the ground, finally coming to a stop.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Liu Qingcheng curled up, clutching her chest. Her face was deathly pale, the world spinning wildly before her eyes. She could hardly breathe from the pain engulfing her whole body.
It felt like every bone in her body had been shattered, like her internal organs had been knocked out of place.
At that moment, she could hardly move as a dreadful thought crept into her mind:
Was she about to die?
But fortunately, thanks to the power of that Pearl, along with the effects of the "Scripture of the Well and Pivot" protecting her heart and meridians, her injuries weren't as serious as they felt.
What she was experiencing was actually more illusion than substance.
However, even so, this was already the limit of what she could bear.
It wasn't that she'd never suffered before.
As a child, she wasn't particularly good-looking, thin, small, and born a half-demon, the daughter of a courtesan.
In a brothel, her fate had seemed sealed: a maidservant and nothing more.
No one looked up to her. Dirty work, heavy lifting, exhausting chores, she'd done it all.
In winter, her hands would split from frostbite; lifting things too often left her skin raw and bleeding; walking too much left her legs so sore she could barely stand... yet she endured it all.
Until one morning, while washing her face and brushing aside her bangs, she looked into the mirror..
And realized her face had grown so beautiful it was no longer something ordinary people could rival.
That moment, the girl, who had not yet taken the name Liu Qingcheng, resolved to change her life.
To no longer live at the mercy of others, subject to scolding and commands.
And she knew she could do it.
But much later, she realized all she'd done was step out of one cage... and into a larger, more dangerous one.
And when Chen Kuang appeared, she once again felt that sense of foreboding.
Truthfully, if she wanted to step into the world of demons, Liu Qingcheng had already prepared herself for a life of hardship. She had expected injury, perhaps even brushes with death.
But this moment had come too suddenly.
And the kind of pain and fear that came with being on the edge of death... was nothing like toil and hardship.
They were not even comparable.
Now, at last, she understood why Chen Kuang had looked at her with a half-smile when she said she wanted to become a demon.
Because... this wasn't something ordinary people could endure.
She didn't know how much time passed before she began to come back to herself, she suspected at least fifteen minutes had gone by, but in truth, it may have only been a split second.
When her vision finally cleared, she saw a large, snow-white tail swaying before her eyes.
No, two of them!
Whoosh...
The two tails, nearly two stories tall, swept above her head, scattering debris and dust in a wide arc.
For a moment, Liu Qingcheng was dazed, then someone helped her up.
At last, she clearly saw the owner of those tails: the very same old madam of Xuni Pavilion whom she saw every day, Yu Xiangsi.
But now, Yu Xiangsi's face held no trace of her usual fawning smile. Her brow was tightly furrowed, and in those copper-golden slit pupils burned a cold, austere gleam.
She said to Liu Qingcheng:
"Keep circulating your energy. Heal your injuries. Don't stop."
Even though Liu Qingcheng felt she had no strength left, she still forced herself to move the little bit of spiritual energy she had, letting it flow through her meridians to soothe her wounds.
She had already heard the chaos downstairs and knew that Yu Xiangsi, too, was a demon in disguise.
But now, seeing it with her own eyes, this person she had spent every day with suddenly revealing a completely different face, it was still hard to accept.
Unable to help herself, Liu Qingcheng stared at the two white tails behind her:
"Mama... you- you're a fox demon?"
Yu Xiangsi, still supporting her, drew back her tails immediately. Not daring to pause for a moment, she flew off into the distance.
She nodded and sighed softly:
"Yes."
Liu Qingcheng was stunned.
She had searched for so long to find a demon... only to realize, one had been by her side all along.
It wasn't until they were ten li away that Yu Xiangsi finally slowed and landed lightly on a rooftop.
All around them, civilians had fled; even those who came to gawk had scattered. No one noticed a thing.
Yu Xiangsi gently set Liu Qingcheng down, then staggered, her face going pale, and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Mama, are you okay?!" Liu Qingcheng exclaimed.
Yu Xiangsi shook her head and took a deep breath. She forced a smile:
"I'll live."
When Tong Shi unleashed that punch earlier, Yu Xiangsi had been right in the line of fire.
She'd had no idea a second Grandmaster was hiding in the dark, and had been forced to take the blow head-on.
But Yu Xiangsi was only in the Sea-Cleaving Realm, early stage, at that.
She couldn't even beat that Wang Yangbo, let alone take a direct strike from a Grandmaster.
Of course she couldn't withstand it.
However, she was a descendant of the Nine-Tailed Fox Clan.
And although she had only cultivated three tails so far, she still possessed a life-saving Divine Ability:
"Tail Substitution for Death."
The strike had already cost her one tail, and destroyed an entire cultivation stage.
Now, she had fallen from Sea-Cleaving Realm down to Tower Ascension Realm.
Seeing Yu Xiangsi's familiar smile, Liu Qingcheng felt a weight lifted from her heart.
But then, a thunderclap of fist energy boomed in the distance.
Her heart leapt in her chest.
Chen Kuang had shoved her away but he'd stayed behind!
And then... she remembered: Lian Mi.
The pain surged through her chest, her breath nearly stopped.
In the Xuni Pavilion, Lian Mi had been her closest family.
When Liu Qingcheng had just turned sixteen, she'd chosen Lian Mi, who'd just been sold into the brothel by her foster parents, to be her maidservant.
Back then, Lian Mi had looked only five or six years old.
Malnourished and covered in grime, she looked like a stray kitten someone had dragged in off the street.
Liu Qingcheng had known at the time: the so-called "foster parents" were likely just traffickers.
The Pavilion rarely accepted children with unknown backgrounds, so they'd pretended to be her guardians.
If Lian Mi hadn't been sold to the brothel, she would've ended up in a far worse place.
Liu Qingcheng, recalling her own fate, softened, and took Lian Mi in.
That was eight years ago.
There were times she'd considered sending Lian Mi home but the girl couldn't remember her origins.
The traffickers who had sold her had changed hands so many times that it was impossible to trace where she was even from. They claimed she was the daughter of a barbarian tribe from the Northern Plains, wandering south with her parents.
But her features were undeniably those of a Central Domain native.
It didn't add up. None of it did.
So in the end, it had always just been the two of them.
Like sisters.. Like mother and daughter.
But now...
A sudden surge of grief welled up in Liu Qingcheng's chest. Tears burst from her eyes, blurring her vision, and the tightness in her throat churned into a bitter metallic taste.
Yu Xiangsi crouched down and gently patted her back, her expression somber as she looked toward the now-ruined district.
"Boom! Boom! Boom-rumble..."
Within the rising dust, the shadow of a lion flickered faintly.
Fist after fist was hammered down, each strike causing the ground to quake.
Within a visible three-li radius, the earth was sinking, forming a colossal crater.
Let alone the sword auras that had split the ground like canyons, the residual winds of those blades alone were already sharp enough to shear through rooftops and eaves by the dozen.
Two Grandmasters from the Royal Court attacking together...
What an overwhelming show of force.
Yu Xiangsi inhaled deeply.
She didn't know who that man truly was, to draw such firepower from the royal estate.
But she knew that with Wang Yangbo dead here today, the Department of Shennong would not let this go easily.
The Jingnan Prince might be spared their wrath, they would likely lift their hand only to let it fall lightly, but the ones who'd bear the brunt of retaliation... would be the demons in Zangfeng Prefecture.
No matter the outcome of today's battle, the Mountain-Sea Alliance's presence in Zangfeng Prefecture would undoubtedly be swept by the purges of the Department of Shennong.
The tense standoff that had lasted years was about to collapse completely.
Gods go to war, and mortals suffer.
It was precisely this kind of catastrophe.
Liu Qingcheng also knew this was no time for sorrow. She struggled to her feet and looked toward that apocalyptic battlefield.
She wiped her blood-stained sleeve across her cheeks and asked, her voice trembling:
"Will he... survive?"
She didn't dare hope.
When Chen Kuang had shielded her from that blow, she had already realized the enemy might be one even he couldn't overcome.
Yu Xiangsi shook her head, but what she said next caught Liu Qingcheng off guard:
"He will survive."
Yu Xiangsi's gaze grew more focused:
"I didn't sense killing intent from either of those Grandmasters. They're not trying to kill him, they're trying to capture him, or contain him."
No killing intent?
Liu Qingcheng found it absurd.
In just one instant, how many people had died? Probably too many to count.
If this was what not trying to kill someone looked like, then what would it be like with killing intent?
Yu Xiangsi could see her doubt and sighed.
"When you step on ants, is it because you feel malice toward them? No. You just crush them, no more, no less. There's no deeper meaning."
"Those two Grandmasters only want to seize that man. The life or death of anyone else simply doesn't factor into their concerns."
She added quietly:
"But for a demon... being captured is sometimes far worse than dying."
She wasn't certain whether Chen Kuang was a demon, but she knew Liu Qingcheng had been seeking something.
And for her to be willing to risk herself to help this man escape, he must have shown her some great kindness... or hope.
In that case, he was likely demon-kind as well.
Yu Xiangsi lowered her eyes and thought:
"If he can survive, I'll introduce him to the demon elders. The Mountain-Sea Alliance would welcome him now, treat him as a guest of honor. But the odds... they're slim."
Liu Qingcheng's heart tightened at her words.
She knew well the fate of demons caught by the Department of Shennong.
And if the prince's people captured him, it surely wouldn't be much better.
She stared toward the distant ruins, but all she could see was choking dust.
Then suddenly, her pupils contracted.
A bloom of dazzling pink filled her vision.
Yu Xiangsi, sensing something, also jerked her head up.
For an instant, she thought she was hallucinating.
In the sky above, a massive twin lotus bloomed like fireworks, like the final glow of sunset.
It stretched across the dimming sky, glowing with an eerily bewitching light.
Its petals were soaked in blood, dripping with scraps of flesh, scattering a mist of gore in all directions, spreading open like a monstrous blossom unfurling its limbs.
It was vast and magnificent, its falling petals like clouds blotting out the sky.
Visually, it was utterly overwhelming.
It looked as though it could blanket the entire city in bloom.
It lasted only for a moment, far too fast to react to.
But in that moment, the world fell silent.
Heaven and earth stilled.
It was as if nothing remained but the sound of the flower blooming.
When Yu Xiangsi could finally see clearly, she couldn't help but gasp sharply.
Her spine went cold and her hands and feet numbed.
That twin lotus hadn't bloomed in the air out of nowhere.
It had roots and soil.
The roots were planted in flesh.
The soil...
Was the shredded remains of those two Grandmasters.
When Chen Kuang accepted the twin lotus from the flower-granny's hands, he had understood instantly:
This wasn't just a flower.
It was a Divine Ability.
It was named: "Blooming Offering to the Lord."
Its function sounded simple, there were only three words "let it bloom."
But the flower that bloomed came from the flower-granny's own Demon God Flower, and the soil it bloomed in... had to be the flesh and blood of the one to whom it was "offered."
In a way, the name was a dark joke.
A borrowed flower, offered to the honored guest, but at the cost of the guest's own flesh and blood.
And this Divine Ability, was simply... overwhelmingly powerful.
Chen Kuang could feel it clearly, that this technique was already brushing the edge of Dao.
This flower-granny was at least half a step into the Profound Realm!
He remembered the time he'd borrowed that death-named "Ferrying" Dao Domain from Wen Si.
The feeling in the depths of his soul was... exactly the same.
But that power was one he couldn't replicate.
His current Wujian Between couldn't support the duplication of a Dao Domain.
Yet "Blooming Offering to the Lord" was different.
Because its strength came from the flower-granny herself.
Demon-kind's Divine Abilities were inherited through bloodline.
If the original creature wasn't present, no one else could use it.
The flower-granny had given Chen Kuang a part of her own body, meaning she had granted him a share of her Divine Ability.
And thus, he could recreate it in the real world.
The twin lotus erupted from within the bodies of Han Shan and Tong Shi, exploding outward in a single instant, obliterating their physical forms entirely.
The petals, supposed to be soft, were sharper than even blades.
They pierced through bone, muscle, and flesh, slicing apart arms, legs, chests, and bellies alike.
The blossoming petals churned like the blades of a meat grinder, rotating clockwise and shredding everything in their path.
The two Grandmasters became nothing more than raw meat upon the butcher's block.
Such power, exploding from within, could not be resisted.
Not even by Grandmasters.
Now, Han Shan and Tong Shi were hoisted in the air by a thousand petals.
There was barely any whole flesh left on their bodies.
Their limbs and organs were all but disassembled.
In fact, the total surface area of each man had increased at least threefold...
A gory rain of blood and flesh erupted amid the dazzling lotus bloom.
"Shraaaash!"
With no more fist force or sword wind barring its way, a portion of the Rouge River water that had been blasted to the crater's edge now flowed back toward the center, rising to Chen Kuang's calves and knees.
Chen Kuang staggered to his feet in the water's heart, gasping for breath. He coughed twice and felt that his throat had already healed.
The rest of his body had likewise been fully reborn, completely intact.
Because he had been forced to push his physical power to its utmost to resist, he was now in his demonic form.
Waves of pale blue scales, like flowing seawater, extended from the side of his face across his entire body, forming a seamless, natural-looking coat of armor.
He had already lost track of how many times he had regrown his body.
Even though this was not his original physical form, his mind involuntarily recalled the thought experiment of Theseus's Ship, if every part of the body has been replaced or reborn, is it still the same body?
Of course, that question held no real meaning.
As long as the consciousness remained Chen Kuang, then the body was nothing more than a vessel.
"It feels like... my healing's gotten faster again."
Chen Kuang frowned thoughtfully.
He was acutely aware of the state of his body. This wasn't just a feeling, it was a fact.
Under prolonged, extreme pressure, it seemed he was forcing his passive skill "Flesh Reishi" to evolve.
Which, for him, was unambiguously a good thing.
Chen Kuang took a deep breath, looked up at the sky now obscured by the enormous twin lotus, and clenched his fists as he circulated his rapidly recovering Spiritual Energy.
Ripples spread through the water, wave after wave.
"Destruction and Rebirth" had triggered four times.
His current demonic body had already climbed to the fifth level of the Tower Ascension Realm.
That already surpassed the fourth level of his former, original human body.
Which meant, just now, during that torment, those two Royal Court Grandmasters had nearly killed him four times.
Demonic bodies were far more resilient than human ones.
Even at Tower Ascension Realm Level One, it had already been equivalent to his old human Level Four body, only with the help of passives could he endure even one Grandmaster's punch.
Now, Chen Kuang estimated that his current physique had reached Level Seven or even Level Eight of the Tower Ascension Realm in raw power.
But that still wasn't enough..
He looked toward the edge of the lotus petals.
Han Shan and Tong Shi's faces were twisted in sheer agony. Veins bulged across their foreheads as they let out low growls and tried to force their shattered flesh back together.
As Grandmasters, their bodies were incomparably resilient. Even without Chen Kuang's freakish healing factor, such injuries, while fatal to mortals, were just "serious wounds" to them.
Especially as they were trained from childhood as Royal Court deathsworn.
But the Demon God Flower's Divine Ability was no trivial matter.
All the minced flesh on them was being consumed by the delicate-looking pink petals. The massive bloom seemed to come alive, trembling and pulsing, as if proudly displaying its full splendor.
The twin lotus finally fully bloomed.
At its heart gleamed a brilliant snow-white stamen, nearly holy in its purity, a deathly contrast to the eerie allure of its outer petals.
The stamen shivered, then a vast cloud of pollen burst into the air, dispersing among the petals.
Naturally, the pollen drifted over Han Shan and Tong Shi's mangled bodies as well.
"Splurt! Splurt! Splurt!"
In an instant, the pollen burrowed into their exposed flesh, sprouting roots.
More twin lotuses began to grow, inch by inch, petal by petal, across every inch of their bodies, densely packed.
The two men were transformed into flower puppets.
And once the roots took hold of their flesh, their bodies were no longer under their own control.
"Heh heh..."
A pair of overlapping voices, one aged and kind, one youthful and seductive, chuckled faintly at their ears.
"I Borrowed a bloom for your sake, my dear, did you know?"
Han Shan and Tong Shi were drenched in cold sweat. Their faces were stricken with terror.
Their bodies were completely ruined.
The roots had invaded every meridian and channel, cutting off the flow of Spiritual Energy. Their honed physiques were now no better than those of mundane martial artists.
But these two were not ordinary Grandmasters.
They were deathsworn.
As long as their mission was achieved, even death held no fear.
The two exchanged a glance, and without words, came to the same conclusion:
They would abandon their bodies.
Yes, at Middle Third Grade, especially once one reached the Master Realm, the destruction of the body was not true death.
As long as their souls survived, there was still a path to resurrection.
Of course, this path was far more dangerous than that of reincarnated sages or the karmic clarity of Pure Lands.
But to complete their mission, this was the only road left.
"Crack! Crack!"
Their bodies, already shredded, went limp as their heads dropped, dead.
The twin lotus greedily drank every last drop of blood in their corpses, its pink hue darkening to a vivid crimson.
It gleamed more brilliantly in the sky than ever.
But this was the bloom's final blaze of glory.
Without soil, without a source of energy, the Demon God Flower could not continue as its roots began to rot and wilt.
From within Han Shan and Tong Shi's ruined bodies, two spirit projections drifted upward.
One took the shape of a sword.
The other, a lion.
In the surrounding haze, their features flickered in and out of view, recognizable, yet blurred.
These were their souls leaving the body.
Han Shan's spiritual form drew a sword, slashing straight at Chen Kuang from the front.
Tong Shi's soul appeared behind him, thrusting forward with a palm strike.
Their coordination remained impeccable. In the blink of an eye, they struck from both front and back.
Their victory was assured.
After all, their opponent was just a Tower Ascension Realm cultivator.
Even if his body could endlessly revive, his soul could not.
And a soul at this level was a flickering candle in the wind, easily snuffed out.
And as expected, Han Shan's sword easily pierced into Chen Kuang's forehead.
But the next moment, he was met by Chen Kuang's calm gaze.
And a smile.
Chen Kuang was smiling.
Unexpectedly, effortlessly.
Han Shan's soul trembled as a terrible premonition rose in his chest, a suffocating fear that couldn't be suppressed.
"What a shame," Chen Kuang said quietly.
"Had you chosen to die fighting in your bodies, I might've found it more troublesome."
"But this... this is a first."
"No one has ever voluntarily entered my soul."
Han Shan understood exactly what that meant.
Through Chen Kuang's demonic body, he saw it.
Suspended in his sea of consciousness hung
a long, ancient sword that had begun to tremble with anticipation.
"Hummmmmm-"
A piercing sword cry echoed, it cut down souls as easily as weeds.
...
Elsewhere.
Yang Kingdom, Ancestral Temple.
Prince Wen Zhai knelt at the steps of the ancestral hall, body fully prostrated in the grandest salute.
He had remained like this for a long time, all to request an audience with Lady Wangshu.
Just when he thought he would leave empty-handed, a hand gently pressed to the top of his head.
A soft, elegant voice spoke:
"What is it, little grandson? It's been decades since you last came to see me. Why now?"
She paused briefly.
"You didn't inform your brother. He's already quite upset. You had better give me a reason."
Wen Zhai bowed even lower, reverently and feverishly.
"Grandmother Wangshu, I've found it..."
"The Elixir of Immortality!"