Blood Fiend Soaring to the Heavens!

A horrifying figure, dragging a long fiery tail, approached at an incredibly fast speed. Each step it took caused the hundred-meter stretch of ground to violently tremble.

BOOM!

The figure abruptly stopped, the wind it carried akin to a category eighteen storm, forcefully tearing a layer off the ground.

"Running so fast?" Nie Biao licked his lips, his lantern-like, blood-red eyes rotating. He had immediately rushed over upon sensing the abnormal aura, yet he was still a step too late. Either the battle ended too quickly, or that person had an extremely strong intuition and escaped in advance.

Looking around at the devastated surroundings—scarred with burn marks, patches of ice, countless Talisman Script ashes, and a land oppressed by a formidable force—Nie Biao scratched his head. It seems it is likely the former possibility.

"Uh..."

Not far away, a charred figure lying on the ground suddenly let out a long wheeze as Fang Bai, presumed dead, sat up from the ashes. Holes the size of fists covered his body, densely packed and so gruesome that they made one's scalp tingle. The Dreadful Ghosts had been completely collected by Qi Xiu using Yama's Law Seal. The Thousands of Ghosts Accumulating Body that Fang Bai had painstakingly cultivated for hundreds of years, spending innumerable efforts, was now utterly ruined!

He sat on the ground, listlessly, until Nie Biao, with his chilling presence and skin-pricking aura, stepped forward. Only then did Fang Bai slowly come back to his senses.

"Defeated?" Gazing down at the distracted Fang Bai on the ground, Nie Biao bared his teeth.

"Utterly defeated." He never expected that he, a cultivator of Bloodstained Layer Five, would suffer such an overwhelming and crushing defeat to one of the First Heavenly Layer of Blood Stain. Fang Bai forced out a smile uglier than crying, "Looks like the matter of searching for the Dragon-Slaying Banner will have to rely on you guys now."

"Oh?" Nie Biao revealed a playful smirk and slowly crouched down. His burly, towering form was like a small hill, casting a shadow that engulfed Fang Bai entirely. "Tell me more about it."

Glancing at Nie Biao's curious eyes, Fang Bai paused and then recounted the details of his fierce battle with Qi Xiu. Nie Biao listened closely, asking several times about some details in particular.

"Why does this sound so familiar?" Digging in his ear, Nie Biao looked deep in thought. The young Daoist that Fang Bai mentioned in his story seemed oddly familiar to him. But when he mulled over it, he couldn't quite remember who it was.

"You did a good job." Unable to figure it out at the moment, Nie Biao didn't dwell on it. He cracked a fearsome, toothy grin and patted Fang Bai on the shoulder. Pain shot through his body from the pat, and Fang Bai instinctively struggled. But he had lost his Thousands of Ghosts Accumulating Body, his cultivation seriously damaged. Facing the notorious Golden Armored Corpse Demon Nie Biao, a pinnacle figure of the Bloodstained Realm, Fang Bai could only manage a weak smile, "We're all working for the Dragon King, as we should be, as we should be."

"But now with your cultivation greatly damaged, staying in this Dragon Prison is very dangerous." Pretending to ponder with concern, Nie Biao clenched his five fingers inward, firmly locking Fang Bai's shoulder and forcibly pulling him closer. "Moreover, you're so useless. You encountered an enemy, and you ended up getting beaten up. Someone like you, how are you fit to serve under the Dragon King?"

Hearing the abrupt change in Nie Biao's tone, Fang Bai suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of danger rising in his heart. Looking up at Nie Biao before him, Fang Bai saw the man's blood-red, sinister eyes glinting with terrible greed. A pair of sharp fangs already protruded from Nie Biao's lips, emitting a foul, fishy stench.

"Nie Biao, I am the Dragon King's... Ah!" Despite his ineffectual defiance and chilling fear, Fang Bai hurriedly invoked the Flood Dragon King's name for protection. But before he could finish, Nie Biao suddenly opened his mouth wide and bit down on his neck.

CRUNCH!

Blood spurted out as his cervical vertebrae were violently snapped in half. Fang Bai's agonizing screams soared to the heavens as he instinctively struggled, but Nie Biao grabbed hold of his limbs.

CRACK! CRACK!

Fang Bai's hands and feet were violently torn off and tossed aside.

GULP. GULP. The sucking sounds were unnervingly unsettling. With eyes bulging blood-red, Nie Biao frantically absorbed the essence of Fang Bai's qi and blood.

"Let go of me! Let go…" Weakly twitching and jerking, Fang Bai's voice became fainter, his gaze growing lifeless. Nie Biao's gaping mouth seemed like a bottomless pit. No matter how Fang Bai's Immortal Blood Body tried to recover, it couldn't match the speed of his absorption. Gradually, Fang Bai's body became more and more shriveled, and the light in his Ancestral Aperture also faded.

「Several hours later.」

Fang Bai, sucked dry, transformed into a mummified skeleton. His soul in the Ancestral Aperture was taken by Nie Biao using a bronze bell-like Magic Artifact. Wiping the bloodstain from the corner of his mouth, Nie Biao stood up.

"Hmm…." A guttural tremor rumbled from his throat. "It's been a long time since I've eaten my fill like this. So, it turns out I should thank that little Daoist. This Five Ghost Daoist lacked ability, but his arsenal of Magic Artifacts was indeed troublesome. Especially that Thousands of Ghosts Accumulating Body—it was extremely fierce. The little Daoist ruined his Five Ghost Bag and the Blood Horse Buddhist Pagoda Lock. He even took away his Thousands of Ghosts Accumulating Body. If I hadn't eaten him after all that, it would have been a sheer waste!"

Having drained Fang Bai of all his blood essence, Nie Biao's aura swelled to its limit, exuding an eerie blood mist from his pores, malevolent beyond compare. His eyes, filled with scarlet gleams, rotated as he flared his nostrils, sniffing the scent of the air.

"Found it," he muttered. Nie Biao slowly turned to look at a position over his left shoulder and shrugged, the heavy golden armor on his body clanging sonorously. "I hope your flavor is a little better."

He took a step!

BOOM!

Nie Biao's figure suddenly turned into a swift, crimson afterimage, the terrifying force of his charge instantly ploughing a trench tens of meters wide into the ground.

Not long after Nie Biao had left, a dozen pure white moles pushed through the earth. Their tiny, crystal-clear eyes focused on the direction Nie Biao had disappeared, revealing a glimmer of contemplation that was eerily human.

「…」

"Nie Biao? It's true what they say, enemies are bound to cross paths," Qi Xiu mused, twirling the Golden Cry Jade Beads. He had seen Nie Biao through the moles he had left behind. It was no surprise to him that Nie Biao appeared. Back at the Nu River Palace, this Golden Armored Corpse Demon had served under the Flood Dragon King, nearly costing him and Cheng Junie their lives. It was only normal for it to show up in the Dragon Prison.

"If there's a chance this time, I might look for an opportunity to take him down." While Qi Xiu was no vindictive villain, he did not consider himself magnanimous enough to overlook an enemy who had once driven him to death's door. Nie Biao was a great cultivator at the Pinnacle of the Bloodstained Realm, powerful and formidable in battle. Moreover, as a deviant who had attained enlightenment, defeating him would require a well-thought-out plan.

"But before I trap and kill this corpse demon, I might as well devour this pie that fell from the sky first."

Deep underground, nearly a kilometer down in the dim, earthy layers, Qi Xiu sat cross-legged on a high altar formed of water from the Heavenly River. To prevent any accidents, he had already summoned over a hundred paper ghost minions to scatter in all directions across this shattered land. The Dragon Prison forbade flight, not allowing the use of Escape Skills. By the time Nie Biao found a hundred paper ghosts, the year would have ended.

To conceal his aura further, Qi Xiu had also used the Supreme Purification Bell to call upon creatures of an alien race known as the Earth Burrower Tribe, who used the Earth Walking Skill to bring him down to this deep subterranean layer. All was ready; he had set up multiple layers of defenses and measures.

Qi Xiu slowly closed his eyes. Having taken charge in the Hunyuan Palace, his mind sank into the Ancestral Aperture at the center of his forehead. Within the Ancestral Aperture, in the Verdant Forest Sea, the white-robed Taiyang Daoist supported the Yama's Law Seal—now transformed into the Black Gold Imperial Seal—examining it closely. Sensing the arrival of his Original Body, he looked up, and his gaze met Qi Xiu's.

"It seems that the effect of Human Path Merit increasing one's destiny is deepening. No sooner were you fretting over a deficiency in Divine Soul Force, than these numerous restless souls were sent right to your side. This must be what they call 'favored by destiny' in the tales and legends," the Taiyang Daoist said jokingly, offering the Black Gold Imperial Seal to Qi Xiu with a smile.

"Favored by destiny? If I were truly favored by destiny, I should ascend to the Initiate Realm within a year, attain the Bloodstained Realm in two, the Dao Body in five, and the Primordial Spirit within ten. Instead of toiling day and night for three hundred sixty-five days a year, struggling for twenty or thirty years—my liver almost petrifying with the effort—and only just managing to attain the Bloodstained Realm," Qi Xiu remarked with a humorless smile, taking a seat beside the Taiyang Daoist.

"Success comes step by step; a diligent genius is still a genius," the Taiyang Daoist countered, shaking his head in disagreement with Qi Xiu's viewpoint.

"That may be true, but the current situation allows no time for step-by-step progress. I have a feeling. This war between the Human Race and the Demonic Evil Cultivators is just the prelude to a colossal disaster, a minor ripple before the storm. The real catastrophe has not yet fully descended. Being in the Bloodstained Realm might rank me among the strong, but in the face of Dao Experts and Primordial Spirit Bosses, I am nothing but an ant that can be obliterated with a single breath." Having witnessed firsthand the irresistible might and terror of Dao Experts and Primordial Spirit Bosses, this was the source of Qi Xiu's inner burden, the reason he pursued cultivation every day without daring to slacken.

"In the path of cultivation, focus and willpower are paramount. Pressure is good, but don't let it choke you. Instead of lamenting the difficulty of the journey, it's better to start marching right away. Original Body, do not let events that have yet to occur become a burden upon your Dao Heart." Compared to the Daoist of the Taiyin, the Taiyang Daoist's temperament was indeed steady, calm, and magnanimous. It was this very disposition that made him content to reside within the Ancestral Aperture, without any urge to compete with the Daoist of the Taiyin for a chance to go out.

"Hmm, you do have a point," Qi Xiu nodded in agreement, giving a formal gesture of respect to the Taiyang Daoist.

Although, in essence, both the Daoist of the Taiyin and the Taiyang Daoist were facets of Qi Xiu himself, due to the Dual Heart Mirror, their modes of thinking and temperaments differed greatly from Qi Xiu's. If he, as the Original Body, did not exert control, they could effectively be considered three separate individuals.

After exchanging a few words with the Taiyang Daoist, Qi Xiu took up the Black Gold Imperial Seal, which contained the sealed Thousands of Ghosts Accumulating Body. His soul was still a step away from reaching the Yin Spirit Perfection Stage. And these fierce ghostly souls had arrived just in time. Once he could unite his spirit and flesh and invoke his physical body's Star Absorption Skill, by absorbing all these fierce ghostly souls, he would definitely reach the Yin Spirit Perfection Stage.

At that point, once Yama's Golden Chapter broke through to the Second Realm, he could seize the opportunity to overcome the barrier between life and death, and achieve Divine Soul True Spirit!

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