Volcanic Age

Blood dripped from the Blood Demon's mouth.

Unlike all the blood that had poured from him earlier, which seemed tied to some bizarre sorcery, this time, the Blood Demon was genuinely bleeding from a fatal wound.

Wiggle, wiggle…!

The Blood Demon's lower abdomen wiggled hideously as if worms were crawling beneath his skin. Despite his desperate attempts to summon strength from his core, he failed repeatedly.

"Qi Blood," Zhou Xuchuan said quietly, almost in a whisper. "That's your true identity, isn't it?"

To enter the Coruscant Realm, the absolute prerequisite was to manifest one's Path. Once a cultivator succeeded, they would gain something unique to them, based on their individual traits.

For instance, the Mount Hua Sect Master, Exalted Sword Immortal You Riwen's something was the sword.

He could control swords and wield countless techniques as if they were extensions of his own body, without expending much energy. This power was on an entirely different level compared to experts who could merely manipulate distant objects using qi.

As for the Evil Valley Sect Master, Zhou Xuchuan couldn't be sure yet, but the odds of it being "Domination" were quite high. Although his Hegemon Edict Art could be a major factor, there was a good chance that his version of the Manifestation of One's Path was the source of his incredible strength.

The story with Nangong Weiwu was less clear. Although, based on what Zhou Xuchuan had felt during the previous guidance session, he wondered if the Martial Alliance leader's Path could be 'the Heavenly Dome.'

As for the Blood Demon's Path, it was "Qi Blood," just like he had ranted about earlier.

Technically speaking, it was closer to "Blood" itself, though. Gaining enlightenment about the Manifestation of One's Path helped Zhou Xuchuan figure out the secret behind how the Blood Demon switched bodies.

"You use the Black Coffin to drive out a person's ego and replace it with your own, taking over their body. That's the secret behind your so-called immortality, isn't it?"

The Blood Demon had likely split a portion of his Qi Blood and hidden it inside the Black Coffin. With this backup body, the destruction of his current one wasn't a problem. He could use the Qi Blood to kill his next victim and claim their body.

That was what happened to You Riwen. The Blood Demon had shaped his blood into a human hand, stabbed it through You Riwen's chest, and dragged him into the Black Coffin in order to… devour him.

Even if it sounded absurd, this surreal power should still be possible with the power of mysterious sorcery plus the Manifestation of One's Path, which allowed the cultivator to surpass human limits and create laws through their will alone.

"That's why I've blocked your dantian to make sure you're not escaping this time. Although, it's a shame I couldn't destroy that Black Coffin behind you…"

Zhou Xuchuan's sword had pierced clean through the Blood Demon's torso, but it hadn't even scratched the Black Coffin strapped to his back. As befitting an artifact crafted during the Qin dynasty, its durability was simply extraordinary. So much so that one had to wonder if its base material was something like the Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron.

"Keh… kekeke…!"

A crooked cackle escaped the Blood Demon's mouth.

"Now I understand."

Despite the sword lodged in his abdomen, the Blood Demon had no issue ranting away.

"Now I know why they handed me this incredible power as compensation for killing… you!"

Without a doubt, having his name added to the list of One Hundred Experts Under Heaven at the mere age of twenty was an extraordinary feat. But was this enough reason to obsess over Zhou Xuchuan? To disrupt the balance of power and risk derailing the grand plan? The answer should have been a clear no.

Now, he knew the truth. He understood the Blessed Existence's concerns, obsession, and warnings. He even empathized with them!

"Did you claim the murim was dancing in the palm of your hand?"

The Blood Demon shouted sarcastically, his voice rumbling like boiling lava.

"Kah-hahahaha!"

He burst into a frenzied, maniacal laugh, his rotting face twisted into a grotesque expression. The sight was enough to give onlookers goosebumps, and the Martial Alliance's core fighters experienced the unnerving sensation of their hair standing on end, accompanied by a cold shiver that ran through their bodies.

I can't move my body at all!

Without a doubt, the danger before their eyes was no more. Even if the Blood Demon was one of the Ten Empyrean Overlords, he still wouldn't be able to move properly, never mind survive, after Zhou Xuchuan's sword had stabbed into his dantian.

However, his creepy laughter still suppressed them all. They couldn't lift a finger as if a gut-wrenching terror had completely paralyzed them!

A candle burns brightest before it goes out. Meaning, a person would become more lucid and energetic just before their death. That description matched the Blood Demon rather perfectly.

The eerie light in the Blood Demon's eye sockets grew even brighter, burning with a deeper, more ominous red hue, as if flames from hell were flickering inside them!

"Oh, the hero of the righteous faction! You truly are a monster!"

His words carried genuine admiration.

After all, hadn't Zhou Xuchuan reached a level that should have required decades of experience, effort, and enlightenment? And yet, he seemed to have achieved it with ease. No matter how profound his understanding, it should have been impossible for someone in their early twenties to organize and define their life experiences as if they had already lived a fulfilling life!

The Blood Demon's assumptions weren't wrong. However, what he didn't know was that Zhou Xuchuan's true age wasn't what it appeared to be.

…He had experienced a bizarre phenomenon of regression, after all!

Yet, who would even suspect such a thing?

"Tell me, oh hero of the righteous faction! What will you become to the Central Plains? To the murim? To the heavens and the earth?! What will you show them?!"

The Blood Demon didn't care about his defeat or his impending death, he simply said what was on his mind.

"Blood Demon…"

Zhou Xuchuan also calmly threw a question in his enemy's face.

"You told me that the Coruscant Realm was all about surpassing the tradition of following others to find something new, or perhaps to create something new. And meld it together with your life experiences to create a concept that was uniquely yours before bringing it to reality. Didn't you?"

Zhou Xuchuan's expression was much more somber than usual.

"I agree with most of what you said. However, you've been wrong about one thing."

He lowered his voice, speaking so only the Blood Demon could hear.

"Learning from one's predecessors should also be part of the process."

Confusion filled the Blood Demon's glowing eyes.

"Unfortunately, poor old me never possessed a heaven-defying talent worthy of everyone's praise. All I did was follow the teachings of the old and stick to them. I lived my days admiring the heroes and chasing after their shadows. The truth is I'm no monster, Blood Demon."

"But, you…?"

Had death finally come for him? The Blood Demon thought he saw something strange. Rather than a youngster in his early twenties, he saw a feeble old man. Not only that, the man was of ordinary talent and had only just broken through the Harmony Realm!

"Without my efforts to follow the examples of others, I wouldn't be here now. If the Manifestation of One's Path truly requires one's life experiences, then shouldn't the effort of learning from the past count as well?"

The mysterious old man smiled warmly, as if satisfied with something.

"All disciples in a sect are bound to learn what has been passed down from their masters. That wisdom inevitably shapes their thoughts and actions. Cultivators aspire to become heroes, rely on them, and follow in their footsteps. That's my story too. Isn't that what it means to be human?"

No one knew where they had come from, but plum blossom petals began to dance in the air, slowly falling around them.

"What this insignificant old man saw at the end of emptiness, and what he confirmed once more at the entrance of the next realm was Imitation. And also…"

For a moment, the falling plum blossoms obscured the old man's face from the Blood Demon's view. When they cleared, he once again appeared as the young man the Blood Demon had been fighting all along.

"If anything is a little special about mine, then it would be… Regression!"

Zhou Xuchuan gave the Blood Demon a final glance filled with respect.

"Have a safe trip to the netherworld, Blood Demon. I will never forget this battle against you, one of the Ten Empyrean Overlords."

The light in the Blood Demon's eyes flickered for a moment, as if in stunned disbelief, before slowly fading away. Finally, the flames in his eye sockets vanished, leaving only emptiness, as though peace had come at last.

Zhou Xuchuan pressed his foot against the Blood Demon's chest and pushed, pulling his sword free.

The body that had once hosted two of the Ten Empyrean Overlords withered, turning into a desiccated corpse before crumbling into fine dust.

"Fuu-woo…"

Zhou Xuchuan let out a long sigh of relief, as though the deadly crisis had finally passed. He then lifted the Black Coffin high above his head, breaking the silence on the battlefield.

"Hear me! My fellow cultivators!"

Zhou Xuchuan's voice echoed thunderously.

As if stepping into the next realm had improved his use of internal energy, he didn't even have to shout loudly for his voice to reach everyone on the battlefield.

"The Blood Cult's unspeakably vile and immoral leader and one of the Ten Empyrean Overlords, Blood Demon, has been slain by the Exalted Sword Immortal You Riwen and I, Plum Blossom Order Sword Zhou Xuchuan! This Black Coffin and the shattered Death Yin Staff are the proof!"

To show the proof to everyone, Zhou Xuchuan used his qi to raise the shattered remnants of the Death Yin Staff and put them back together in the mid-air.

Of course, he wasn't repairing it, he was just putting the pieces back together temporarily.

"Seriously…?"

"The Blood Demon lost to Great Hero Zhou Xuchuan?"

The Martial Alliance stared in disbelief at the scene. Some openly doubted Zhou Xuchuan's victory.

Then again, how could they so easily accept the death of someone so strong?

"He's speaking the truth!"

Yun He, who had been blessed with quick wits, hurriedly shouted as if to serve as a witness.

"Your proof is the Blood Demon's absence! The great demon head of the Blood Cult is dead!"

Zhi Yiguang also came to Yun He's assistance.

The righteous faction martial artists who had survived and witnessed the battle between the Blood Demon and Zhou Xuchuan raised their voices in agreement to reinforce the claim.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

But the reaction was muted. Frustrated, Zhou Xuchuan prepared to shout again, only to be interrupted by a sudden, earth-shattering roar from the army.

Whaaaaaaaaah!

The roars soared through the skies. They were so loud that even the experts flinched in surprise.

The righteous faction martial artists hugged each other in celebration as if the war was finally over in their favor.

"Oh, you cultists who dare go against heaven's will and lose yourselves to demonic nature! And tried to sow chaos in the Central Plains with your evil, vile religion!"

Zhuge Xiuluan raised her voice, extending her hand forward, a fan clasped in her slender fingers.

"It's not too late. Surrender! If not, the Martial Alliance will…"

"Haah? What the hell is she blabbering about?"

A Demon Head among the Blood Cult's army rudely interrupted Zhuge Xiuluan.

"Blood Claw Ghost!" Xue Song muttered, his expression stiffening.

"Listen here, you horse-faced Taoist swindler! Don't come here spewing nonsense when all you did was run away with your tail between your legs!"

"Obediently surrender and get on your knees, Blood Claw Ghost! If you do, I'll do my best to kill you as painlessly as possible."

"Nonsense!"

"Your cult leader is dead!"

"Kya-hahahaha! You sure are a typical horse-faced Taoist swindler, aren't you?! Look at you, spouting all this nonsense like an idiot!"

Blood Claw Ghost threw his head back, laughing uproariously.

"Who gives a damn about the death of the cult leader? That's meaningless to me!"

Pah-shu-shu…!

Crimson lights glowed on his fingertips before solidifying into claw aura.

"Kya-rrrrrrk!"

The enemies' responses didn't end there, however. The jiangshi froze momentarily after the Blood Demon's death, only to rampage even more violently than before. They were completely out of control now, more destructive than they had been under the Blood Demon's command.

"Hahahah!"

"Die! Die!"

The rest of the Blood Cult believers began attacking their surroundings indiscriminately after madness had completely taken over them. Their targets even included their own allies!

"Hey, where is my arm?"

"You idiot! That jiangshi over there bit it off earlier, didn't it?"

"Oh, really? Ehehehe!"

The battlefield was consumed by a storm of blood and chaos, fueled by madness.

"How is this possible?! With the sorcerer, Blood Demon's death, shouldn't the jiangshi have stopped moving, too?" Zhi Yiguang asked, a deep scowl on his face.

"No, it's the other way around," Xue Song replied with a helpless shake of his head. "Once turned into a jiangshi, the victim will continue to move until they are destroyed. Now that the sorcerer controlling them has died, these jiangshi will only become even more destructive."

"We have to destroy them all. That's the only way this ends," said Hong Gao, stepping forward.

"Young Lady… Zhuge?"

"Young Master Zhou!"

Zhuge Xiuluan froze when Zhou Xuchuan's voice sounded weak. Looking closer, she saw his pale complexion—it was almost sickly.

"How many… of our forces still remain?" Zhou Xuchuan asked.

"It's slightly over two thousand," Zhuge Xiuluan replied urgently. "We've already lost half of our forces. Besides that, are you alright?"

"Honestly? I'm not."

Having fought the Blood Demon head-on, Zhou Xuchuan, despite his miraculous victory, was far from unscathed.

"How many enemies are still there?"

"About four thousand…"

Hong Gao scowled. "I cannot believe it! Are you saying we've only managed to bring down one thousand enemies so far?"

The Blood Cult's army might be formidable, but the Martial Alliance's own forces weren't pushovers. They fought desperately and killed as many enemies as they could. Their job was made somewhat easier thanks to many of the Blood Cult members recklessly charging into the battle.

Zhou Xuchuan explained the situation. "It's the Death Yin Staff. Even while fighting against me, the Blood Demon kept reviving the dead. Many might have died, but just as many returned as jiangshi."

The Martial Alliance forces sighed in frustration.

The Blood Demon had been absurdly strong. His sorcery, in particular, was nothing short of a natural disaster!

"Their cult leader has died, yet the enemy's morale hasn't weakened at all. No, the enemies are going even wilder than before," said Zhou Xuchuan. "Our morale has improved, but many of us are too exhausted to continue. Strategically, we need to retreat."

"I understand. We'll prepare to withdraw," Zhuge Xiuluan said. "But please, stop speaking for now. Your condition is worsening," Zhuge Xiuluan carefully caressed Zhou Xuchuan's cheek.

Ugh… My eyes are closing. Worse still, the enemy's Demon Headsare still alive. At this rate, retreating might not even be possible.

As Zhou Xuchuan's vision blurred, negative thoughts began creeping in.

Is there any way to overturn this si… Mm?

"Senior Brother!"

As the dangerously dire situation threatened to spiral out of control, a voice sharp enough to snap him back to focus suddenly reached his ears.

Zhou Xuchuan turned his head urgently, his gaze locking onto the Martial Alliance's flags flapping on a distant hill.

What caught his attention most, however, was the sight of Luo Xiaoyue and the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, led by one of Mount Hua's five high elders, the Plum Blossom Sword Captain.