Xichuan County City, Yang Family Residence.
Inside a spacious room, the Yin Wind whistled, and Ghost Mist rolled thickly.
He Yuancheng, clad in black and shrouded in dark energy, held a Wolf-Hair Brush, dipping it into Demon Blood as he drew a complex array upon the floor.
His Wanhun Banner stood upright at the array’s center, the swirling Ghost Mist spilling from the banner and diffusing through the entire chamber.
Several Yang Family members stood respectfully off to the side.
They held their breath, hardly daring to exhale, their eyelids lowered as they stood quietly in the corner.
Last night, they had accompanied He Yuancheng to Xiling Village, witnessing with their own eyes as he released dozens of Phantom Ghosts from the Wanhun Banner and slaughtered hundreds of villagers.
The villagers had been devoured by savage ghosts, their screams and wails still echoing in their minds like scenes from hell.
Afterward, when they went in to clean up the remains, dealing with the blood, flesh, and bones left behind, each of them had vomited uncontrollably.
In their eyes, He Yuancheng was like King Yama of the Underworld.
They dared not utter a single sound, fearful of drawing the attention of this Living Yama.
He Yuancheng traced the last line of the sigil, completing the array.
This array was called the Youming Blood Teleporting Phantom Soul Array; it could instantly teleport Phantom Ghosts he controlled to a place hundreds of li away to kill on his behalf.
When finished, the Phantom Ghost could immediately return to the array, allowing him to kill from a thousand li away and vanish without a trace.
It was by relying on this array that he had earned a fearsome reputation, which led to Yang Zhen inviting him to assassinate Lin Xue and reclaim the Foundation-building Pill.
He Yuancheng let out a breath, set down the Wolf-Hair Brush, and sat cross-legged at the array’s center, gripping the Wanhun Banner as he ordered the Yang Family members in the corner, “Begin.”
The Yang Family members acted at once, retrieving Spirit Stones from their storage bags and placing them on the key nodes of the array.
With the last Spirit Stone set, the entire array seemed to come alive, generating waves of spiritual energy.
He Yuancheng nodded in satisfaction and said, “Alright, you may leave.”
As if granted amnesty, the Yang Family members hurriedly exited, closing the door behind them.
He Yuancheng shook the Wanhun Banner, and four chilling specters drifted out.
These four ghosts were as insubstantial as mist, faces ashen, floating around the room to guard He Yuancheng at the center.
Next, a fearsome ghost appeared from the banner, taking its place beside He Yuancheng.
This ghost was tall, deathly pale, its face twisted with resentment, overflowing with Yin energy and wreathed in Ghost Mist.
This was the Main Soul within the Wanhun Banner—a soul of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.
He Yuancheng plucked a hair from his own head and split it in two. One half he tied around his finger, the other he tossed to the Foundation Establishment fierce ghost.
The hair vanished into the ghost’s body.
He Yuancheng faced the direction of Xixia Mountain, drew out a Blade, and sliced his fingertip, dripping his blood onto the array.
The Yin Wind in the room intensified, the wailing wind sounding like the cries of ghosts.
The Spirit Stones in the array pulsed with spiritual light, emitting an intense glow.
The fierce ghost instantly vanished from the heart of the array.
At the same time, several hundred li away before Xixia Mountain, a pale, ghostly figure gradually manifested atop a Spirit Stone half-buried in the soil.
This Spirit Stone had been secretly buried here by Yang Family members the night before as a teleportation marker to guide He Yuancheng’s Phantom Ghost here.
With the aid of this Spirit Stone, the Foundation Establishment fierce ghost was successfully transmitted to the foot of Xixia Mountain.
He looked up at the towering mountain, concealed his form, and drifted silently upward toward a mountain cave.
……
The battle before Luoyun Cave did not last long before becoming completely one-sided.
Shu Da, under the combined assault of Lang Qianxing and Lang Buping, was already gravely wounded.
His body was covered in injuries, his chest sunken, and one arm twisted at a grotesque angle—clearly broken.
His face was ashen, breath disordered, and the backlash from suppressing his meridians these past days was almost out of control, demonic energy raging within, the Serpent Core showing signs of imminent collapse.
His subordinates—more than a hundred loyal rat demons—were mostly Lesser Beasts who previously only performed menial tasks, their cultivation weak and rarely trained in martial arts.
Up against the burly, well-trained demon soldiers of Yellow Wind Mountain, they were instantly routed, beaten into disarray and fleeing in panic.
Other monsters in the cave, hearing the commotion, peeked out of the entrance.
But seeing the Yellow Wind Mountain horde charging in, and given that Shu Da had only ever favored his fellow rat demons after becoming Master of the Cave—treating the other monsters no differently than Hong Lao San had before—these Lesser Beasts all chose self-preservation, refusing to get involved and withdrawing back into the cave.
Shu Da was filled with alarm.
He knew if this continued, he would surely die.
Lang Qianxing, under the pretense of rescuing Hong Yanzhi, actually aimed to seize Xixia Mountain for the Lang Family.
Neither Lang Qianxing nor his father would let him or Shu Er live.
Shu Da made a snap decision: to fetch his younger brother and flee.
As long as the green hills remain, there will be wood to burn.
So long as he survived, he could one day rely on Wan Shu Chao Yuan to make a comeback.
Let the Lang Family take the cave for now!
Clenching his teeth, Shu Da abandoned his embattled rat demons and turned to flee into the depths of the cave.
He had left Shu Er recovering from his wounds in the cavern and planned to grab him and escape through the upper crevice.
The rat demons, who had been struggling to fend off the Yellow Wind Mountain soldiers, saw their Master deserting them and immediately scattered, dropping their weapons and fleeing into the cave.
Lang Qianxing saw Shu Da slipping away and sneered.
So, you wanted to seize the Master’s seat? You think you deserve it?
He commanded, “After him!”
Lang Buping waved his fan, ready to lead the demon soldiers in pursuit.
Suddenly, the world changed dramatically.
A fierce gale erupted. On the platform before Luoyun Cave, dust and leaves whirled, sending the monsters reeling and unable to open their eyes.
The dense spiritual energy around Xixia Mountain surged toward the cave entrance, forming a massive, visible vortex—like an inverted funnel.
The funnel’s tip pointed straight into Luoyun Cave.
A chilly Rainwater poured down from the sky, landing on the heads of the Yellow Wind Mountain monsters.
They all stared in shock at each other, not knowing what was happening.
Lang Qianxing, after over a hundred years of experience, recognized the sign.
At a glance at the spiritual vortex, he realized it was the phenomenon of a human cultivator successfully establishing a foundation.
He cried out in astonishment, “A human cultivator building foundation in this cave?”
Lang Buping was also dumbfounded. “Could it be that Shu Da has truly colluded with a human cultivator?”
Lang Qianxing regained his composure and sneered, “So what? That cultivator has just built their foundation. Shu Da is at the end of his rope—even with a cultivator’s help, he can’t stand against us father and son. After me!”
The father and son of the Lang Family led the Yellow Wind Mountain demon soldiers straight into Luoyun Cave.
Lesser Beasts along the way gave way.
To them, it mattered little who the Master was—be it Hong, Shu, or Lang.
Whoever the boss, work was work. Why risk their lives for it?
……
Drip. Drip…
Rainwater fell on Zhang Zongnian’s face.
He opened his eyes, awakening.
Raising his head, he found himself lying in a vast cavern, surrounded by piles of rat corpses.
Above was a fissure in the rock through which the sky was visible.
Rainwater dripped through that crack onto him.
Zhang Zongnian stood up, feeling a strange sensation in his abdomen.
He used Nei Shi to peer inside and found, to his shock, a grain-sized droplet of liquid in his Essence Core, morphing constantly and exuding demonic energy.
Zhang Zongnian was stunned.
A Serpent Core?
Have I become a demon?
He wondered if he was seeing things.
Withdrawing his Nei Shi, he took several deep breaths and looked inside again.
It was indeed a Serpent Core.
Though tiny, about the size of a grain of millet, it was unmistakably a Serpent Core.
He was now a beginner-stage rat demon.
Zhang Zongnian was overjoyed.
How could I be so lucky? I randomly possessed a rat and it turned out to have a Spiritual Vein?
Is this Heavenly Favor?
Perhaps the heavens themselves took pity on me, unwilling to see me sink into oblivion.
Filled with delight, he sensed the faint demonic energy in his meridians and tried to absorb the Heaven and Earth Essence around him.
Yet, to his shock, he found he could not sense the Heaven and Earth Essence at all, much less absorb it.
Zhang Zongnian was baffled.
By common knowledge, as long as a demon beast has a Spiritual Vein, they should be able to sense and absorb Heaven and Earth Essence.
Only by absorbing this essence can one cultivate.
Yet, he could sense nothing.
There could only be one explanation:
He had no Spiritual Vein.
Zhang Zongnian’s mind was a mess.
If I don’t have a Spiritual Vein, how did I form a Serpent Core and become a demon?
How was this Serpent Core formed?
He recalled what had happened.
His mind still held scattered, blurry memories. He remembered being controlled by a powerful spiritual force, and along with other rats, biting at a tiger demon, tearing off a chunk of flesh and swallowing it.
That meat contained faint demonic power.
He remembered, almost instinctively, running through the Beast Refinement Codex in his mind, trying to digest that demonic power.
What happened after was unclear.
Zhang Zongnian came to a conclusion.
It seemed that the tiny Serpent Core in his Essence Core was thanks to the Beast Refinement Codex.
He suddenly realized something: both he and Lin Xue had been mistaken before.
They had thought that only by possessing a spirit beast with a Spiritual Vein could the Beast Refinement Codex be used to become a demon.
Now it appeared that as long as one’s intelligence was awakened, any beast could use this technique.
Since only those with Spiritual Veins could, by chance, absorb a bit of Heaven and Earth Essence and awaken intelligence, this had led to the mistaken belief that only such beasts could use the codex.
Having possessed this little rat, his soul was human and already intelligent, and he was well-versed in the Beast Refinement Codex.
By chance, under Shu Da’s control, he ate a piece of demon flesh containing demonic energy, and his body, acting on its own, activated the codex, forming a small Serpent Core and becoming a rat demon.
But, lacking a Spiritual Vein, though he had become a demon, he could not cultivate on his own and could only increase his power by devouring other demons’ flesh or Serpent Cores.
Understanding the reason, Zhang Zongnian was still rather happy.
He’d thought he’d spend the rest of his days as a gutter rat, but now a twist of fate had made him a rat demon.
Though he could not cultivate on his own, if Lin Xue helped him gather a few Serpent Core fragments, he could quickly grow stronger, reach mid-stage body training, and even take on human form!
The road ahead suddenly looked bright.
Zhang Zongnian, heart full of joy, prepared to look for Lin Xue.
But at the thought of Lin Xue, his face changed dramatically.
He remembered that the reason he’d possessed a rat and become what he was, was because Shu Er was about to advance to Greater Demon, threatening Lin Xue.
He’d done everything to get the technique to Lin Xue.
He wondered if she had succeeded in building her foundation.
Now that Shu Da and Shu Er were missing, he didn’t know if Shu Er had advanced or not.
Zhang Zongnian’s heart tightened.
He quickly scurried on his four short legs toward the cave’s entrance.