Zhuyong wiped the blood from his lips, stood up, and sneered viciously. “You said it yourself, that was a hundred years ago! When my Temple Master returns, the Mortal Realm will flow with blood, and the first place I’ll trample will be your Fuxi Mountain!”
He threw his arms wide with a roar. The hideous corpses surrounding them shook and stood up, faintly forming an encircling pincer attack.
Rain pelted his face chaotically, slightly rousing Li Weiyi on the ground who was on the verge of unconsciousness.
He had read the lore on the Evil Nightmare Temple. Demons and Devils weren’t always scattered. Demons had the Demon Suppression Tower, and Devils had the Evil Nightmare Temple. As for the Malevolent Will guided by the Blood Jade, it was rumored to be the very Temple Master of the Evil Nightmare Temple.
Definitely a major villain!
Fu Mingxia smiled playfully. “Driving corpses and controlling dead bodies—truly a Devil Path technique. It’s just a pity your Temple Master, suppressed beneath the Southern Miasma Sea, probably won’t be coming to save you.”
“Insolence!”
At Zhuyong’s command, the Walking Corpses lunged forward. Fu Mingxia’s ink dots shot out, hitting the corpses, but could only momentarily slow their advance.
Just as the corpses were about to pounce, a white light blazed through the rain!
Then, a youth’s clear voice descended with the saber light.
“Mad Saber: First Stance, Shield Break!”
The saber moved too fast to see, only the light, a blaze of saber light that instantly forced the corpses back several steps.
“Mad Saber: Second Stance, Rising Momentum!”
Rainwater converged along the saber light, forming a roaring dragon. Will gathered into form!
“Mad Saber: Third Stance, Dragon Assault!”
One stance split into several forms. Dragons attacked from all sides, piercing through all the Walking Corpses’ bodies in a flash!
What kind of person shouts out their technique names while attacking?
Two kinds.
Players who love to show off, and obnoxious NPCs.
Saber sheathed, he landed!
The young man wore narrow-sleeved black robes, dark with crimson accents, and a black, gilt dragon belt cinching his lean yet powerful waist. A long saber rested in his right hand, its blade slanting toward the ground. Though unstained by blood, it had already thoroughly slaughtered all the corpses!
Seeing his grand technique instantly broken, Zhuyong’s eyes nearly split from rage, his bloodshot glare fixed on the black-clad youth before him. “Fuxi Mountain… what a fine Fuxi Mountain! I’ve long heard Fuxi Mountain took in a young man three years ago, entering Dao as a cripple… bearing ten thousand sword cuts, Spiritual Light Unsealing with such force, immediately achieving Bright Hall… In just three years, nearing the Golden Core realm! Even snatching the limelight from that training maniac, the Number One Genius of Fuxi, Qin Jinghan!”
He stared at the sharp blade in the youth’s hand, grinding his teeth. “Didn’t expect it would be you coming from Fuxi Mountain today. Losing to you, I count myself unlucky!”
Fu Mingxia: “Stop talking.”
Zhuyong sneered: “What, afraid I’ll know who you are and seek revenge later?”
Fu Mingxia sighed: “I’m thinking of your wellbeing.”
Zhuyong turned, fixed his eyes on the black-clad youth before him, and laughed maniacally: “But I will say it! Duan Nanyun, right? So what if you kill me? Can you alone stand against the greatest power of my Devil path? If you have the guts, never leave Fuxi Mountain for the rest of your life! Oh, I forgot, you might not even live to walk out of this City Lord’s Mansion! After killing you, I’ll refine this little girl into medicine!”
The young man stood his ground, his sharp features contorted with fury.
In the rain, his back stood ramrod straight, like a blade of sharp, bitter cold, so formidable that even the night rain avoided its edge, falling elsewhere.
Only Fu Mingxia, expression natural, opened an oil-paper umbrella over her head, blocking the night rain, seemingly prepared.
“Did you really think I liked chatting with you about those topics? I was just biding time to activate the array! Now, the death array I spent decades laying here is activated. Within this array, you cannot kill them—”
As Zhuyong’s words fell, a bloody light blazed throughout the entire City Lord’s Mansion, and the dismembered corpses on the ground began to reassemble and stand!
Now confident, Zhuyong continued his taunts. “What genius cultivators? You two are nothing special after all. Mere little children, stalled by me for time. Now, await your deaths!”
The youth’s grip on his saber tightened further.
Hearing this last line, he finally exploded with fury.
“ARE YOU BLIND, OR CAN YOU NOT SPEAK? My name is Qin Jinghan! YOU’RE surnamed Duan! Everyone in your whole damn family is surnamed Duan!!!”
“HE uses a sword, I use a saber, you can’t even tell sword from saber, and you’re out here eating people? GET LOST!!!!!”
Saber out! Saber slashing! Saber rising! Saber falling!
Following the youth’s enraged shouts, the cold rain turned into a rain of blood. Corpses became minced meat, flying everywhere, filling the sky.
“If you can’t speak properly, then SHUT UP! JUST DIE!!!!!”
“Can’t even recognize people, and you’re here chatting nonsense like an old acquaintance!!”
Mad Saber! Mad Saber! Mad Saber!!
Slash! Slash! Slash!
The entire courtyard was filled with minced flesh. Zhuyong was nearly cleaved in half by the furious saber techniques, frantically throwing out a chain of defensive magic treasures. Then, not daring to look back, he pulled out a rare life-saving Earth Escape Talisman and fled in utter panic.
It was true, the corpses couldn’t be killed; the dismembered remains could still rise. But this ground full of…
Li Weiyi, covered in a spray of blood and minced flesh: …
He wiped his face with his hand, just barely managing to open his eyes.
He still didn’t know who Duan Nanyun was, but this Qin Jinghan was definitely a lunatic.
Beside him, Fu Mingxia had already retracted the umbrella used to block the bloody rain, still perfectly clean, and clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Jinghan, I told you not to be so impulsive. What if you scare someone else like this?”
Qin Jinghan sheathed his saber, scoffing coldly. “That Devil Cultivator had a foul mouth.”
Li Weiyi glanced at the floating descriptions beside the two.
Before him, both were Origin-Returning Cultivators.
The classifications for lower-stage cultivators start with Spiritual Light Unsealing.
This step is the most difficult. Only those with Spiritual Roots have a chance to Unseal their Spiritual Light and enter the path of cultivation.
Similarly, if one’s Spiritual Roots are broken, naturally, one cannot continue cultivating. Zhuyong was such a case; hence, he resorted to the Devil path and evil ways, absorbing the blood and souls of others to boost his own power.
The Spiritual Light step isn’t hard. As long as you have a Spiritual Root and enter an immortal sect, someone will guide and protect you during the Spiritual Light Unsealing process, aided by spiritual pills and wondrous medicines. This is the advantage of the great sects.
However, the earlier one Unseals their Spiritual Light, the better. Attempting Unsealing after twenty carries a high failure risk, even life-threatening danger.
An ordinary person often needs several years after Spiritual Light Unsealing to open their Bright Hall. Then, depending on individual aptitude, it takes anywhere from several to over a dozen years to establish their Foundation. As for Reaching Origin Return, that might take a few decades at best, or an entire lifetime at worst.
Whether one can Return to Origin is the greatest dividing line on the cultivation path. Failing to cross it means remaining a lower-stage cultivator for life. Crossing it allows one to, with time, form a Golden Core. Those with sufficient luck and talent can even enter the Spirit Silence Realm and charge toward even higher realms.
Lower stages: Spiritual Light, Bright Hall, Foundation Establishment.
Middle stages: Origin Return, Golden Core, Spirit Silence.
Middle-stage cultivators see a massive increase in lifespan, whereas lower-stage cultivators can only live two to three hundred years.
High-stage cultivators are beings who can pursue longevity and Ascension.
But be it Qin Jinghan, Fu Mingxia, or Duan Nanyun, the name mentioned earlier by the villain, none of them were normal and couldn’t be measured by ordinary cultivation progress.
Such people have a special title—genius.
Both were born into immortal cultivation clans and were ahead of others from childhood. Qin Jinghan Unsealed his Spiritual Light at five; Fu Mingxia Unsealed hers at three.
The difference was, Fu Mingxia was born with a Spiritual Body; she was practically cultivating with every breath and could advance just by lying around.
Whereas Qin Jinghan was a famous training maniac, doing nothing but training day in and day out, known as Fuxi’s Little Involution King, long dominating the number one spot on various leaderboards in the Cultivation World.
Until Duan Nanyun appeared, shattering all of the Involution King’s records.
—Fastest Foundation Establishment, fastest Origin Return, his advancement speed was terrifying. The Cultivation Daily featured him on the front page every day.
From then on, Duan Nanyun’s fame spread throughout the Cultivation World, even reaching the ears of Demons and Devils.
Because he also wielded a sharp weapon and was of a similar age, Qin Jinghan was repeatedly mistaken for Duan Nanyun.
This matter, alongside having all his records broken by Duan Nanyun and being unable to catch up, ranked second among the Top Three Things He Hated Most in Life.
Qin Jinghan was already an exceedingly rare genius, a once-in-a-century talent. But Duan Nanyun, in just three years, matched Qin Jinghan’s cultivation progress, becoming the new “number one.”
And this person, when he first arrived at Fuxi Mountain three years ago, was just a dying man. His meridians were shattered, his entire body, save for his face, had not a single unblemished spot. He couldn’t even hold anything, let alone a sword.
He had crawled up Fuxi Mountain’s thirty-three thousand three hundred steps, dragging his crippled body by hand.
Until the thirty-three thousand two hundredth step, he saw a figure sitting on the stone steps above.
He crawled another hundred steps before reaching near her.
With his last ounce of strength, Duan Nanyun lifted his head. Sunlight showered her form, the warm light dazzling, so bright he couldn’t open his eyes.
He lowered his head, collapsing in the shadows cast by a pine and cypress tree beside him, clinging to his last breath. Behind him stretched a terrifying trail of blood, fresh wounds and old scabs from blades covering his entire body.
After resting long enough, he finally made another effort to lift his face and look at her.
She also clearly saw the appearance of the half-dead person on the ground.
The young man’s face was as pale as snow, yet his features still held a breathtaking handsomeness. Blood stained his lips, adding a touch of demonic allure. His eyes, an unusual light shade, were not like an ordinary person’s.
He finally managed to ask a single question.
“What are you looking at?”
“Seeing how long you can crawl.”
A faint smile touched his pale features. “Not much longer. I’m about to die.”
She finally stood, walked a few steps, and hopped down several stone tiers, crouching before him. She reached out to wipe the blood trail from his lips.
She seemed completely unbothered—that doing so would stain her long sea-green sleeves.
Fu Mingxia: “You won’t die.”
He squeezed out two words from his hoarse throat,
“…Why?”
“Because this is Fuxi,”
the young girl’s smile was clear, “The Number One Immortal Sect of the Righteous Path.”
April’s Bright Vermilion Summer, South Wind Eases One’s Ire.
Duan Nanyun was the name the Fuxi Sect Leader later gave him.
Before that, he was a person without a name or surname.
The world called him, Malevolent Will.