The sound of snapping bone was like dry kindling caught in a forest fire. Jiang Dao's massive, calloused arms didn't just strike; they enveloped, crushed, and erased. Between his biceps, the Spirit Corpse—a creature that had terrorized the countryside with the cold indifference of an ancient plague—was reduced to nothing more than a slurry of biology. As Jiang Dao stepped back, the thing sloughed off his frame like wet mud, hitting the scorched earth with a sickening, wet thud. It wasn't just dead; it was disintegrated. Every meridian, every vital organ, and every ossified bone had been pulverized into a formless heap of twitching meat. Even in this state, the creature's supernatural resilience flickered, its flesh pulsing with a rhythmic, dying spasm.
Jiang Dao landed heavily, his boots cratering the dirt. He didn't look at the remains. His eyes—burning with an unnatural, predatory light—were locked on the Destiny Artifact. It lay several yards away, a heavy, ornate glove forged from metals that shouldn't exist in the waking world. It pulsed with a rhythmic, crimson light, a heartbeat of pure Yin energy that made the very air around it feel frigid and heavy. Sensing its master's demise, the artifact didn't simply lie still. It shivered, levitated, and attempted to bolt toward the horizon, trailing a streak of ghostly red light like a dying comet.
But Jiang Dao was faster. With a low grunt, he expanded his Fire-Poison Domain. In an instant, the atmosphere transformed. The air didn't just get hot; it became an invisible cage of pressurized, toxic heat. The glove slammed into the boundary of the domain as if hitting a wall of solid glass. It shrieked—a high, metallic sound that pierced the ears like a needle—and doubled back, only to find itself ensnared in Jiang Dao's Fire-Poison Qi Net. The shimmering web of heat and malice tightened around the artifact, suffocating its independent will.
The glove fought back, its Yin energy lashing out in desperate, jagged bursts. It had fed on blood recently, but it was nowhere near a state of full awakening. Against the sheer, overwhelming brutality of Jiang Dao's internal power, its resistance was a joke. Jiang Dao reached out, his hand now a monstrous claw of rippling muscle and obsidian-dark scales, and closed his fist around the artifact.
The struggle was visceral. The glove's malevolent consciousness surged through his arm, trying to rot his spirit. Still, Jiang Dao simply condensed his Fire-Poison Domain into a singular, blinding point of focus within his palm. He ground the artifact's will beneath his own, a clash of supernatural forces that sent sparks of black and red light flying between his fingers. Finally, with a sharp crack of energy, the glove went limp.
"A Destiny Artifact," Jiang Dao murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to shake the ground. A cold, dark smile touched his lips. "So this is what the world is willing to bleed for." He stood there, a titan amidst the wreckage, as waves of heat rolled off his skin, turning the surrounding grass to ash.
A few yards away, the silence was broken by the sound of frantic sobbing.
"Master! Don't leave us! Master, please, wake up!"
Xu Zifeng and Zhao Ziling were huddled over the crumpled form of the old Taoist priest. It was a grotesque sight. Jiang Dao's earlier palm strike had flattened the old man's head into a horrifyingly thin line, a silhouette that defied the laws of anatomy. And yet, the old man wasn't dead. His spiritual core was still spinning, desperately pumping life through a body that should have been a corpse. As his disciples wailed, the priest's head began to pulsate. With a wet, sucking sound, the flattened skull started to reinflate like a crushed bladder, his features slowly and agonizingly popping back into a semblance of a human face.
Nearby, the Corpse Demon—previously paralyzed by the priest's seals—was seizing its moment. It scrambled backward, its eyes wide with a terror that only a sentient monster could feel. It had watched Jiang Dao pulverize its kin, and it wanted no part of the aftermath.
Jiang Dao's gaze drifted toward the mangled heap under his feet. The Spirit Corpse he had just crushed was trying to reform. Black, oily blood bubbled from its throat as it tried to speak, its jaw hanging at a broken angle.
Jiang Dao's brow furrowed. His patience, never a vast reservoir to begin with, had run dry. "Why is it always like this with you things?" he asked, his voice dripping with genuine annoyance. "Why can't you just die when you're killed? Why do you insist on being so tedious?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He lifted his massive leg and brought it down. Crr-ack. The stomp didn't just finish the job; it erased the Spirit Corpse's head and chest from existence, burying the remains deep into the subsoil. He then turned his attention to the fleeing Corpse Demon. In a blur of movement that belied his massive size, he closed the distance and drove a clawed hand through the creature's back. It didn't even have time to scream before its heart was vaporized by a surge of fire-poison.
The battlefield fell quiet, save for the priest's ragged, wet breathing. Jiang Dao walked toward the trio, each step sounding like the tolling of a funeral bell. He loomed over them, his massive shadow extinguishing the last of the evening light.
"Brother Xu," Jiang Dao said, his voice booming. "I don't care about our history anymore. I don't care about your prejudices or your petty grievances. But today, you saw things that the world isn't ready for. I'm a man of my word, and I don't enjoy slaughtering the innocent, but I can't leave loose ends. For that, I'm truly sorry."
"Gang Leader Jiang, wait!" Xu Zifeng yelled, his voice cracking with desperation.
Zhao Ziling collapsed into the dirt, her face a mask of tears. "I don't want to die! Please! I've always admired you. I'll never say a word, I swear! Just let me live!"
"Cough... wait..." The old priest's voice was a rattling whisper. He coughed up a thick glob of clotted blood. "Gang Leader... I can... I can help you."
Jiang Dao paused, his hand hovering over the hilt of his weapon. "Help me? What could a dying man possibly offer me?"
The priest's chest heaved like a broken bellows. "The Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain... their Spirit Corpses... they aren't just monsters. They are a virus. You killed one, yes, but you've been marked. It's a spiritual brand. You can't feel it yet, but the moment you leave this place, every creature on that mountain will know who you are. I can help you remove it. I can hide you."
Jiang Dao's eyes narrowed. A mark? He looked down at his arms, his chest. He felt nothing but his own surging power. "I don't see anything. If this is a lie to buy a few more minutes of life, I'll make your end much worse than your disciples'."
"I'm not... lying," the priest wheezed. His recovery was agonizingly slow. His head was still misshapen, his speech slurred by the blood filling his mouth.
Jiang Dao sighed. "You're taking too long." He reached out and grabbed the priest's head. With a casual squeeze, he compressed the skull again—this time, instead of a line, he molded it into a bizarre, symmetrical square. The priest let out a muffled shriek as his nose and jaw were relocated by sheer force.
"Master!" the disciples screamed, but they were too terrified to move.
"Don't waste my time," Jiang Dao growled, releasing the man's head. "Talk."
The priest gasped, his eyes rolling in their sockets. He knew he was dealing with a monster in human skin. "The news of the Destiny Artifact... it will travel. Everyone will know it's gone. Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain will seek its revenge for the lost Spirit Corpse. Even if you kill us, they will find you through the mark. But if you let us live, I can weave a narrative. I can tell the world that I took the artifact. I can draw the heat of the Celestial Master Mountain and the Great Yu Dynasty onto myself. You can disappear. You can keep the prize without the target on your back."
Jiang Dao leaned in, his face inches from the priest's. "And why should I trust you? The moment I let you out of my sight, you'll sell me to the highest bidder."
"I'll swear a Soul-Blood Oath!" the priest cried. "If I betray you, my soul will be torn apart by the very spirits I've spent my life hunting!"
"Oaths are for the weak," Jiang Dao dismissed him. "They mean nothing to me. If I want security, I'll find it in the silence of your graves."
"Wait! There's more!" the priest shouted, panic finally breaking through his stoicism. "Not a soul oath—a Blood Poison Curse. It's a physical manifestation of a contract. We will bind ourselves to silence. If we even think about revealing what happened here, our blood will turn to acid and consume us from the inside out. It is foolproof. It is absolute."
Jiang Dao stopped. He looked at the two disciples. Their faces had gone from pale to translucent at the mention of the curse. This wasn't a bluff.
"The Blood Poison Curse?" Jiang Dao mused. He knew little of the esoteric rituals of the Spirit Exorcists, but he had a way to verify the truth. He turned his gaze toward Zhao Ziling.
The girl flinched as if he had struck her. "Please," she whimpered. "Don't eat me... I'm not... I haven't even washed today..."
Jiang Dao didn't respond with words. He reached out and snatched her up by the collar, lifting her off the ground as if she weighed nothing. His eyes began to glow with a dark, swirling miasma. This was one of the secret techniques from the Black Demon Malice Heart Art: Aura Soul-Seizing. It was a brutal form of hypnosis, an intrusion of his will into the fragile psyche of another.
"Tell me," Jiang Dao's voice sounded as if it were coming from a thousand miles away, echoing inside Zhao Ziling's skull. "What is this curse? How does it work? Is your master lying?"
Zhao Ziling's eyes went dull. Her body went limp, her consciousness suppressed by the sheer weight of Jiang Dao's malice. In a flat, monotone voice, she began to speak. She explained that the Blood Poison Curse was a self-inflicted spiritual parasite. It grew with the host, ensuring that no matter how powerful they became, the contract remained binding. One word, one secret shared, and the host would dissolve into a puddle of black ichor.
Satisfied, Jiang Dao dropped her. He turned back to the priest. "Fine. Cast the curse. If you want to live, you'll become my silent partners."
The ritual was grim. The three of them struck their foreheads, drawing blood and chanting in a language that sounded like the scraping of metal on bone. When they finished, they looked like ghosts, their energy drained, their faces hollow.
"It is done," the priest whispered. "Now... the mark." He gathered his remaining strength and traced a series of sigils in the air, pressing them into Jiang Dao's back.
Jiang Dao felt a sudden, icy chill spread across his skin. For a moment, he saw a vision of thousands of tiny, translucent white worms writhing beneath his flesh—the spiritual parasites of the Spirit Corpse. Then, with the priest's seal, the sensation vanished, masked by a layer of neutralizing energy.
"That's it?" Jiang Dao asked.
"No," the priest panted. "I've only hidden it. To remove it entirely, you need the Purple Spirit Flower. It grows only in the Yellow Wind Valley. The mark is alive, Gang Leader. If it isn't purged in three months, it will consume you. You won't just die; you'll become a new Spirit Corpse, a vessel for the monster you just killed to be reborn."
Jiang Dao's eyes flared with cold fury. "And I suppose you just happen to have this flower?"
"I don't," the priest admitted, a bitter smile on his lips. "But I have something else. A token. The Yellow Wind Valley is a fortress of Spirit Exorcists, and they guard that flower as their most sacred treasure. They have a Dragon-Rank expert there—someone whose power dwarfs the Spirit Corpse you fought. You can't take it by force. But with this token, you can infiltrate. You can find your own way."
Jiang Dao took the token, a cold piece of carved jade. He looked at the paper dolls scattered on the ground—the remains of the "Little Fox's" entourage—and then at the three broken people before him.
"You're coming with me," Jiang Dao commanded. "Back to the Blazing Flame Gang. You'll stay under my watch until I decide what to do with you. And if I find out this flower is a myth... well, you've already seen what I do to things that refuse to die."
He turned and began the long trek back, the Destiny Artifact heavy in his hand, a new war brewing on the horizon of his mind. The hunt for the Purple Spirit Flower had begun, and for the first time in a long time, Jiang Dao felt the cold breath of a clock ticking against his soul.