The atmosphere in the clearing had turned suffocatingly heavy, a thick, stagnant dread that settled into the marrow of Jiang Dao's bones. He stood motionless, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the gruesome scene before him. Something was wrong. The creature lurking in the periphery of this red-misted hellscape was far more formidable than he had calculated. Moments ago, a man had stood mere feet from him; now, that same man was nothing more than a shriveled husk, a desiccated shell of skin and bone. And the most terrifying part? Jiang Dao hadn't felt a thing. No ripple in the air, no spike in killing intent—just a silent, efficient harvest.
Jiang Dao didn't hesitate. He immediately funneled his internal energy, triggering the Innate Fire Demon Astral Qi and the Black Demon Malice Heart Sutra simultaneously. Within his body, a torrent of invisible, scorching power surged through his meridians, roaring like a subterranean tide. He pushed his spiritual senses to their absolute breaking point. His ears twitched at the molecular vibration of the mist, and his eyes pierced through the gloom with predatory clarity.
Around him, the remaining crowd was dissolving into a state of sheer, unadulterated panic. The sole surviving Corpse Demon from the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain stood at the center of the chaos, its hideous features contorted in a mask of rage. It scanned the darkness, its voice a grating rasp of iron against stone. "I don't care who you are!" it bellowed. "To cross the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain is to court a fate worse than death! Show yourself!"
The darkness offered no reply.
However, the silence was soon broken by a different kind of intrusion. Three figures stepped out from the swirling crimson fog like ghosts materialized from a fever dream. Leading them was an old Taoist in a weathered grey robe, his hair a chaotic mix of silver and charcoal. Following him were a young woman and a man in his thirties. The girl was a whirlwind of noise, her mouth moving at a mile a minute, seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the slaughterhouse they had entered.
Both the old man and the younger man looked as though they were on the verge of a migraine. Finally, with a sharp flick of his horsetail whisk, the Taoist sent a surge of energy that snapped the girl's mouth shut. She let out a muffled, indignant sound, her cheeks puffing out as she realized she had been silenced.
Xu Zifeng, the younger man, let out a long, weary sigh. "Zi Ling, for the love of everything holy, stay quiet. Your chatter has been ringing in my ears since the border. My head is splitting."
"A karmic debt," the old Taoist muttered, shaking his head with a heavy sense of resignation. "Truly, a burden from a previous life."
But the levity of the moment vanished the second they looked up. Atop the ancient altar, bathed in an unnatural light, sat the artifact.
"The Destiny Artifact," the Taoist whispered, his voice suddenly sharp and devoid of weariness. "It's real."
Xu Zifeng's hand drifted to his weapon, his eyes darting across the clearing. "Master, it's not just the Corpse Demons. Look... the Wenxian Dao are here too." His voice dropped to a frantic whisper as he leaned closer to the old man. "And Master, remember that Blazing Gang Leader I mentioned? The one who shouldn't be underestimated? He's right there. But... why is he standing with the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain? Has he been turned? Or is he being puppeteered by a Spirit Corpse?"
The old Taoist scanned the room, his gaze passing over Jiang Dao with the clinical indifference of a man who saw only ants. "Ignore them," the old man commanded. "They are nothing—trash beneath the Nightmare level. The restriction on the artifact is fraying. I have to move now."
Unlike the others, the Taoist didn't believe in the crude efficacy of blood sacrifices. He was a man of the spirit, a practitioner of divine resonance. But resonance took time and preparation. If he didn't establish a psychic link before the barriers fell, he would have to fight ten times harder once the others started pouring blood over the relic.
As the Taoist trio began their advance, Xu Zifeng couldn't shake the feeling of a cold needle pricking at the back of his neck. He kept his eyes locked on Jiang Dao. His master might dismiss this man as a nobody, but Zifeng's instincts—honed by years of narrow escapes—told him that Jiang Dao was the most dangerous variable in the room.
Jiang Dao watched them with a faint, chilling amusement. He felt Zifeng's eyes on him and felt a flicker of irritation. That looks again, Jiang Dao thought. The look of someone who thinks they've seen through me. He shifted his weight, his muscles coiling like spring steel beneath his skin. Fine. I'll kill him first when the time comes. In fact, I'll kill them all. If I take the Destiny Artifact and word gets out, I'll be hunted by every sect from here to the horizon. The only way to keep a secret is to ensure there's no one left to tell it.
As the old Taoist reached the inner circle, the remaining Corpse Demon didn't wait for an invitation. With a guttural roar, it lunged, its claws glowing with a sickly, necrotic light. "You think you can just walk in here, you old corpse-dodger? This is our prize!"
The Taoist didn't even blink. His hands danced in an intricate blur of mudras. With a sudden, violent snap of his sleeve, a cyclone of white, silken energy erupted, lashing out like a hundred hungry vipers. In less than a second, the Corpse Demon was cocooned, bound so tightly that the white strands began to bite into its armor-plated skin.
Without sparing a second glance, the Taoist leaped into the air, soaring toward the altar. But he wasn't the only predator in the sky. The seven-year-old Spirit Corpse and the Little Fox, who had been locked in their own lethal dance, suddenly broke off. Recognizing a common threat, they turned as one and pounced on the Taoist.
The old man met them with a blast of gale-force wind from his sleeves. "Why interfere, children?" he asked, a thin, patronizing smile on his lips.
"The Celestial Master Mountain thinks it can play God?" the child-like Spirit Corpse hissed, its voice echoing with the weight of a thousand years. "You're just a Ritual Elder. You're out of your league."
The Little Fox giggled, its narrow green eyes flashing with a predatory light. "He talks of deliverance while eyeing the gold. How typical."
"The Way is balance," the Taoist countered, his voice rising in power. "You offer blood to a god-slaying weapon. I offer it a purpose. Stand aside, or be balanced."
"Empty words!" the Spirit Corpse roared. Suddenly, its small, porcelain-like frame began to distort. With a sound like wet leather tearing, it expanded. Clothes shredded as black, obsidian-like scales erupted from its flesh. Within seconds, it had transformed into a three-meter-tall juggernaut of death, wreathed in a miasma of black corpse qi. This wasn't a rotting zombie; this was a perfected engine of destruction, its skin as hard as tempered steel.
It struck with the force of a falling star. One massive claw sent the Little Fox tumbling through the air, while the other smashed through the Taoist's defensive barriers. The old man's sleeves disintegrated as the death qi slammed into his chest, sending him spiraling backward into the dirt.
"Master!" Xu Zifeng screamed, rushing toward the fallen elder.
Then, the world turned red.
A rhythmic thrum—like the heartbeat of a titan—shook the altar. The Destiny Artifact erupted in a blinding flash of crimson light, a miniature sun that turned the mist into a sea of blood. The barriers were gone. The race had officially begun.
The Spirit Corpse laughed, a sound like grinding gravel. It grabbed a handful of nearby Spirit Removers—men who had traveled across provinces for a chance at power—and tossed them toward the artifact as if they were nothing more than firewood. Their bodies hit the artifact's aura and detonated into mist, their blood being sucked greedily into the glove.
The old Taoist, bleeding and battered, forced himself up. He couldn't let the ritual finish. He and the Little Fox launched a desperate, coordinated assault, hoping to take the monster down before it could bond with the artifact.
The chaos was the perfect shroud.
The Spirit Corpse, sensing victory, ordered the survivors to throw their blood spheres. As the crowd moved, the Taoist unleashed his final trump card: his own robe flew off, expanding into a shimmering green net that trapped the remaining cultivators, pinning them to the ground.
Enraged, the Spirit Corpse split itself in two—a forbidden technique of the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain. One half kept the Taoist and Fox at bay, while the other dove down to harvest the trapped cultivators. It worked with terrifying efficiency, snapping necks and tossing bodies until it reached the very last man in the pile.
It reached out to grab the man's throat, but its hand stopped dead. It was like trying to lift the world itself.
Jiang Dao looked up, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face. "Finally," he whispered. "I was wondering when you'd get around to me."
Before the Spirit Corpse could react, Jiang Dao's hands—now the size of sledgehammers—slammed into the creature's temples. The sound was like a cannon blast. The creature's head, despite its obsidian scales, crumpled like wet parchment. Blood sprayed from its eyes and ears as Jiang Dao's fingers buried themselves into its skull. With a guttural growl, Jiang Dao reached into the creature's chest and tore it in half, discarding the remains like trash.
In the sky, the original Spirit Corpse let out a scream of sympathetic agony as its clone was obliterated.
Jiang Dao didn't wait. He moved with a speed that defied his massive frame, appearing behind the old Taoist in a blur of displaced air. He swung a demonic claw, wreathed in fire and malice.
Boom.
The Taoist was gone, sent skipping across the ground like a stone across a pond. Jiang Dao pivoted, his leg lashing out in a roundhouse kick that caught the Little Fox in mid-air. The Fox tried to unleash a mental blast, a tidal wave of psychic agony, but Jiang Dao's sheer, burning malice acted as a shield. His foot connected with its skull, and the creature's head imploded before it even hit the ground.
Now, only the original Spirit Corpse remained. It was terrified, backed into a corner by a man who looked more like a demon than anything from the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain. In a fit of desperation, it lunged for the artifact, hoping to claim its power before Jiang Dao could close the distance.
But as the creature's hand touched the glove, it realized its mistake. The artifact wasn't a tool; it was a predator. A wave of bone-chilling Yin energy surged into the Corpse Demon, freezing its blood and shattering its internal organs. It screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated suffering.
Jiang Dao landed on the altar, his presence alone cracking the stone. He reached for the artifact, but as his fingers brushed the surface, a coldness unlike anything he had ever felt raced up his arm. It was a sentient frost, a malevolent will that tried to rewrite his mind, to turn him into a puppet of the glove.
"You think you can own me?" Jiang Dao roared, his voice a thunderclap. He unleashed his Fire Poison Astral Qi in a massive burst, the heat of his soul clashing with the ice of the artifact. For a second, the two energies locked in a stalemate, then Jiang Dao wrenched his hand back, his arm numb and grey, but his mind still his own.
He turned, sensing a new presence.
From the shadows behind him, a nightmare emerged. It was the hidden Evil Spirit that had been stalking them from the start. It was a mass of pale, water-logged flesh with eight long, spindly arms. It moved with sickening fluidity, wrapping its limbs around Jiang Dao's massive torso like a parasitic vine. Its head, bloated and wrinkled, rested on his shoulder, its breath smelling of stagnant water and old graves.
"Hehehe..." it hissed, its teeth grazing his neck.
Jiang Dao didn't flinch. He just smiled. "I've been waiting for you to get close enough to touch."
Suddenly, a massive, spiked tail—burning with the heat of a forge—erupted from Jiang Dao's lower back. It drove straight through the Evil Spirit's chest, pinning it to his own body. The spirit shrieked as the fire poison began to cook it from the inside out.
Then, Jiang Dao began to grow.
This was the Extreme Yang Tyrant Body. His muscles swelled, his skin turning into a living armor of bone and fire. He grew to a towering six meters, his upper body twisting a full 180 degrees to face the spirit pinned to his back. He grabbed the spirit's head with one hand and twisted. The sound of vertebrae snapping filled the clearing. With one violent tug, he ripped the head off and tossed it aside.
The remaining Spirit Corpse watched in paralyzed horror. It had finally managed to get the glove on, but it was being eaten alive by the artifact's power. It swung the gloved hand at Jiang Dao, a desperate, final strike.
Jiang Dao didn't dodge. He crossed his arms, taking the hit head-on. The shockwave leveled every standing structure within a hundred yards, but Jiang Dao didn't move an inch. The bone spikes on his arms shattered, but the flesh beneath was untouched.
He looked down at the trembling monster. "Is that all?" he asked, his voice a rumbling earthquake. "All that talk, and you can't even wield the prize."
Jiang Dao reached out and pulled the Spirit Corpse into a crushing bear hug. He didn't use a technique. He didn't use a weapon. He simply squeezed.
The sound was wet and final. The Spirit Corpse's armor shattered, its ribs turned to dust, and its internal organs were forced out through its pores. As the life faded from its eyes, Jiang Dao reached out and plucked the Destiny Artifact from its mangled hand.
The clearing fell silent. The red mist began to thin, revealing a landscape of total annihilation. Jiang Dao stood alone amidst the ruins, the artifact heavy in his hand, the undisputed king of the slaughter.