Sun Liang dragged himself to his feet, his bloodshot eyes burning with a madness that transcended human reason. The humiliation of being beaten like livestock had shattered something deep within his psyche. He spat a mouthful of blood and grinned, his teeth-stained crimson.
"I will grind your bones to dust," he hissed, his voice no longer human but the rasp of a cornered beast. "I will drink your blood to quench this humiliation. I will feast on your soul until nothing remains!"
As the words left his lips, his wounds began to knit together with sickening speed. His body swelled, muscles tearing and reforming into grotesque proportions. A crimson aura erupted from his pores, coalescing into a viscous mist that smelled of copper and decay. The aura pulsed like a heartbeat, and with each thrum, Sun Liang's features grew more feral.
From his back, two massive wings of stretched membrane and bone burst forth, tearing through what remained of his golden robes. They were the wings of a vampire bat, veined and translucent, dripping with condensed blood essence. With a single beat, he shot upward, leaving a sonic boom in his wake.
His hand closed around a sword that materialized from the crimson mist. It was a blade of compressed runes, each symbol writhing like a maggot, giving off an aura that made nearby cultivators gag with spiritual nausea.
"Blood God Sword," someone whispered in horror. "He's sacrificed his lifespan to the forbidden arts!"
Up on the cloud, Shen Xi leaned closer to Mu Chen, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "He's putting on quite a show. Do you think he'll last longer this time?"
Mu Chen fed Nibi another piece of fruit, the golden cat purring loud enough to drown out distant screams. "Four breaths," he predicted. "Maybe five if Xiao Diao feels generous."
Nibi flicked her five tails in what could only be described as skeptical agreement, then batted at Mu Chen's sleeve for more snacks.
"You're betting against your own companion?" Shen Xi laughed. "Well than, I bet for three breaths."
"I'm betting on his boredom," Mu Chen corrected. "There's only so many times you can swat the same fly before it stops being entertaining."
Below, Sun Liang shrieked and lunged, his Blood God Sword trailing crimson arcs that seemed to cut the very fabric of air. "Blood God Annihilation! Thousand Soul Devour!"
The technique was his clan's forbidden ultimate—an attack that sacrificed a thousand souls stored within the blade to create a localized hell of blood and screaming spirits. The sky above Azure City turned the color of old bruises as the sword descended.
Xiao Diao looked at the incoming apocalypse and let out a long, weary yawn.
Then, he roared.
The sound wasn't merely sound—it was a primordial command that forced every living thing within miles to acknowledge its place in the food chain. The air itself seemed to recoil as Xiao Diao's body exploded outward, his true form manifesting in all its terrible glory.
A colossal creature materialized between heaven and earth, its form wreathed in violet-black flames. The beast stood eighty zhang tall, its body covered in scales that drank the light and exhaled shadow. Two leathery wings, each large enough to shadow a village, stretched lazily as if waking from a nap. Runes older than human civilization pulsed along its arms like veins of liquid starlight. Its eyes—golden and pitiless—regarded Sun Liang with the mild curiosity of a cat watching a particularly energetic beetle.
This was the true body of the Heavenly Demon Mink.
Cultivators throughout the city collapsed to their knees, their spirits screaming in submission. A Mang clan disciple sobbed openly, clutching his dantian. "The four overlord bloodlines... that's a true descendant!"
"Heavenly Demon Mink... I thought they were extinct!" another gasped, crawling backward on broken hands.
The Blood God Sword struck Xiao Diao's forearm with a sound like a bell tolling in an empty temple. The blade shattered. The thousand souls it contained were released—not as weapons, but as wailing specters that fled in every direction, grateful for freedom.
Sun Liang stared at his broken sword, then at the mink's unscathed scales. "Impossible..."
Xiao Diao's claw descended—not fast, but with the inevitability of gravity. Sun Liang tried to dodge, his vampire wings beating frantically, but the shadow of that claw covered the entire sky. The impact drove him into the stone with enough force to liquefy his bones.
The mink pressed down with a single digit, pinning the broken cultivator like a butterfly in a collection.
"Blood God?" Xiao Diao's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "I knew your ancestors. They tasted like chicken. You..." He leaned closer, his breath hot enough to steam blood. "You taste filthy... pure taste much better"
He raised his other claw to end the farce once and for all.
A chill ran down Xiao Diao's spine—not fear, but the instinct of a predator sensing another hunter. Behind him, space tore open like a wound, and a withered hand emerged gripping a dagger of absolute silence.
"You vile beast," the Dao Protector hissed, his eyes hollow with grief and rage. "You will die for your insolence!"
Sun Liang's ruined face twitched, a glimmer of desperate hope sparking in his crushed eyes. "Elder... save..."
The dagger fell, aimed with surgical precision at the mink's neck.
And then, it stopped.
Green lotus petals materialized from nothing, spiralling between the blade and Xiao Diao's neck. Where they touched, the dagger's killing intent dissolved like morning mist. The petals expanded, forming a barrier of living light that pushed the Dao Protector back three full steps.
Shen Xi stood upon a blooming lotus platform, her green dress fluttering without wind. . She looked at the Dao protector who was at mid nascent soul, around him air was distorting just from presence but Shen Xi eyes that held no fear, only terrible certainty.
"Your opponent is me," she said softly.
The Dao Protector's expression was grave as he sized up the girl before him. She was giving him a feeling of dread.
The major four clans who were watching this were shocked by the sudden change.
Mu Yan said, "Sun Clan even sent their second elder as Dao Protector for Jiang."
Meng clan disciples said, "Well, he is the genius of their clan who is a once-in-a-century talent, so of course they would guarantee his safety."
Qin clan disciples said, "But I didn't expect that girl is also Nascent Soul, and judging from how easily she defended, she is no weaker than the Dao Protector."
Mu Yan's expression was serious as he looked up toward Mu Chen. Being a branch clan member, he himself was strong, and even his allies were strong enough to rival main branch patriarchs and elders.
Mu Chen, who was sitting on the cloud, gathered Nibi into his arms. The cloud beneath his feet descended lazily, carrying him to the surface where he stepped onto cooling stone. Nibi, apparently dissatisfied with the show's pacing, had fallen asleep in his embrace, her five tails draped over his shoulder like a living scarf.
Mu Chen looked ahead—Shen Xi facing an elder, Xiao Diao pinning a broken genius, hundreds of cultivators cowering in worship and terror. He scratched Nibi behind the ears until she let out a tiny, irritated squeak.
"Looks like he couldn't hold anymore," Mu Chen observed, his voice carrying the mild disappointment of a spectator whose entertainment had ended too soon. "I had four breaths."
Shen Xi, still facing the Dao Protector, called back without turning. "You owe me wine. I said three."
"Did you?" Mu Chen frowned slightly, then shrugged. "I'll pay you in preserved meats instead. Mother made extra for the journey."
"That's not the same thing at all!"
"It's better," Mu Chen insisted. "Nibi agrees with me."
The cat, still deep in her slumber, twitched one golden ear in what might have been approval—or perhaps total dismissal of the conversation.
The Dao Protector's voice cut through their casual banter, dry and desperate. "Fellow Cultivator, how about we all take a step back? We will hand over the key to the treasure, and in exchange, you let the Young Lord go alive. There is no need for further bloodshed between us."
Shen Xi looked over at Xiao Diao, who still wore a bloodthirsty, jagged smile. The mink was clearly in no mood to release his prey; it had been thousands of years since he had been able to hunt in his true form, and he wasn't finished.
She turned back to the Dao Protector. "I don't think he would be leaving."
Hearing this, the Dao Protector's expression turned serious. "Then I suppose we must fight."
Shen Xi nodded. "Well then, let me see the strength of this continent."
The Dao Protector moved first. His hands blurred through ancient seals, and the air around him screamed as spiritual energy condensed into visible form.
"Sun Clan Secret Technique—Solar Devouring Flame!"
A pillar of white-gold fire erupted from his palms, expanding outward with terrifying speed. The flame wasn't merely hot—it was hungry, devouring the spiritual energy in the air to fuel itself. The heat distortion was so intense that the world seemed to bend around the pillar, reality itself wavering like a mirage.
Shen Xi didn't move. She simply raised one hand, and a lotus bloomed in her palm—not a spiritual construct, but a physical flower with petals of jade-green light. She blew gently across it.
The petals detached and drifted forward, spinning lazily through the air. Where they met the Solar Devouring Flame, they didn't burn. They absorbed. Each petal drank the fire like a sponge, growing brighter and more vibrant until the entire pillar of flame had been reduced to nourishment for a garden of floating lotuses.
The Dao Protector's eyes widened. He had seen many techniques in his centuries of cultivation, but never one that treated the Sun Clan's ultimate flame as fertilizer.
"Impossible..." he breathed, his voice trembling.
Shen Xi smiled. "Your turn."
She pointed a single finger. The lotuses that had absorbed his flame suddenly reversed their petals, and from their centers, beams of emerald light lanced outward—not fire, but life so concentrated it became lethal.
The beams struck the ground around the Dao Protector, and where they touched. It grew—explosive fungal masses bursting upward, crystalline vines wrapping around his legs, cancerous mineral tumors swelling to trap his arms.
The Dao Protector roared, his mid-Nascent Soul aura erupting to shatter the growths. But for every vine he broke, three more erupted. The life force Shen Xi commanded wasn't merely growing things—it was compelling them to exist, to multiply, to devour space itself.
He tore free with a desperate surge of spiritual energy, leaving strips of his robe and patches of skin behind. He stumbled backward, his composure shattered, only to hear a scream.
"Aaah, no!"
He turned. Xiao Diao had picked Sun Liang up by the throat, the broken genius looking like a bug under that massive claw.
Xiao Diao called out, his voice carrying across the silent, ruined city: "Take a good look, everyone. This is what a pathetic bug looks like."
He reached into Sun Liang's dantian with a single sharp claw and pulled out a shimmering Golden Core. The core pulsed once, twice, and then was tossed into Xiao Diao's mouth and swallowed whole. The lifeless, empty body was thrown into the crater like trash, landing with a wet, final thud.
Deathly silence.
A Meng clan disciple whispered, "Looks like Sun Clan and Mu Clan are going to clash after this."
A Qin clan disciple replied, "If they don't, they would lose face."
Mu Yan made no comment, but he felt a desperate need to go back soon and inform the clan patriarch.
The Dao Protector, seeing his young lord's death, found no reason to continue. He knew he couldn't avenge him, and if he fought, he too would die. The clan patriarch would punish him, but it would not be death—as every Nascent Soul expert was a valuable asset for a major clan. Even the clan patriarch was only at peak Nascent Soul.
He took a step back, his head bowed. "Fellow Cultivator... I accept defeat. There is no reason to continue."
Seeing the Dao Protector stop fighting, Shen Xi nodded and lowered her hand. "Very well."
She watched in silence as he moved toward Sun Liang's broken body to collect the remains.
Mu Chen looked to where the central platform once stood—but now only a deep crater remained, everything pulverized. Suspended in the air, a heavy stone pedestal carved with intricate, interlocking rings remained without any damage or scratch. It floated, waiting.
Mu Chen took a slow step toward it. The ground below him, which was fissured, joined back together. The craters filled themselves until they were even to his steps. The platform and stairs whose concrete had been reduced to nothing more than dust found themselves turning into pebbles, then fragments... until they placed themselves where they once belonged.
Mu Chen's pace didn't even slow. He climbed the stairs, came closer to the pedestal. Xiao Diao, who had turned back into a tiny floating creature, and Shen Xi landed near him.
Xiao Diao took out the teardrop-shaped key and looked at his companion. "Mu Chen, it's finally time to check what lies within this thing."
Shen Xi joked, her eyes dancing, "Is the key even necessary for you?"
Mu Chen paused, looking at the lock. "No, but since we have it, it would be a waste not to use it."
He inserted the key. The rings began to turn, ancient mechanisms groaning awake after centuries of slumber. A brilliant light began to spill from the keyhole, and the air grew heavy with the anticipation of a primordial treasure.
Nibi, who had been asleep through the entire battle, the negotiation, and the reconstruction of the city square, suddenly cracked one golden eye open. She looked at the glowing pedestal, then at Mu Chen, and then let out a small, distinctly unimpressed sneeze.
The force of that sneeze—tiny, casual, and barely a breath—shook the pedestal so violently that the mechanism jammed. The key popped out of the lock and clattered noisily to the ground.
Nibi closed her eye again and went back to sleep, her five golden tails draped over Mu Chen's shoulder as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Mu Chen looked at the key on the ground. He looked at the sleeping cat. He let out a long, weary sigh.
"Four breaths," he muttered. "And now this."
Shen Xi laughed, her hand covering her mouth. "I think she agrees with me, Mu Chen. The key was definitely unnecessary."
Xiao Diao groaned, reaching down to pick up the key from the ground. "I swear... I hate this family."