Dao

“Where are you going little bastard? Today I’m going to torture you a million times. Rip up your skins and burn out your soul so that you will never enter into reincarnation.” Xuan Zhen, with his surging speed, opened his arms wide and targeted right at Shiao Chen. At the same moment, he had already thought through numerous methods to torture Shiao Chen and to make him so painful that Shiao Chen would ask for death, but he wouldn’t do as Shiao Chen wished.

Yet, at this same moment, a sudden omen of danger rose from within his heart and made it skip a beat. When he looked up, he found the panic on Shiao Chen’s face had long gone. It was now replaced by sneer. In his hands were a pile of yellow talismans which, glistening with spiritual power, were cast right at him.

Although with no idea of the level of those talismans, the strong sense of death forced him to pat on his forehead without hesitation to summon up an earth-yellow small shield in the size of a few inches. He desperately input his spiritual power into the shield, an action that instantly turned it many times bigger than the original size into a one-meter huge shield in a second.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

This was a small talisman with densely intertwined cinnabar texture which nearly formed a huge net. As the talisman exploded, an invisible light ring appeared, tightly binding Xuan Zhen—Technique of Great Binding.

This talisman in burning red looked like, against the yellow paper, a cloud of leaping flame that roared ahead with waves of overwhelming heat. As it was suddenly lit up, a huge scarlet fireball as big as a human head appeared out of nowhere and thumped down with a bang before exploding—Technique of Great Explosion.

Lines on the talisman silently gave out mild breath. The winding and turning seemed to carry softness. Oozes of vapers were liquified automatically around it. As the input of spiritual power, the light blue lines suddenly emitted luster in sky-blue color. Though it seemed mild and plain, the sharpness aroused chilling terror in one’s mind—Technique of High-Level Water Needle.

…

…

In order to kill Xuan Zhen in one fell swoop, Shiao Chen spared no resources he owned. All of the high-level talismans were thrown out. Though of various properties, they were more than enough to kill any Gold-Core cultivator once the power was integrated.

In this regard, Shiao Chen was full of confidence.

Witnessing Xuan Zhen fall into the explosion core with a shield in his hand, Shiao Chen stepped thirty meters backward to avoid collateral harm, but he didn’t retreat too far away. This time, with the aim of killing this man, Shiao Chen had suffered heavy loss, so he was determined to make this trip fruitful. After all, Xuan Zhen was a late Foundation-Establishment cultivator as well as a survivor of a lately destroyed Sect, definitely a man with great wealth.

Rumbling sound of explosion lasted for a strong quarter before it died away. The spiritual power between heaven and earth within miles around turned chaotic by this ferocious blast, and the earth-shaking boom could be heard hundreds of miles away.

“Damn! He is still alive!” Shiao Chen screened with divine sense and infinite horror sprawled onto his face at once. Staying far away from the explosion site, he was still daunted by the overriding power from there. He never expected Xuan Zhen’s survival.

After flame and vapor faded away, Xuan Zhen’s figure gradually appeared. The defense shirt of spiritual tool level on him was now worn out, hardly concealing his body, and the meticulously groomed hair bun was now shattered down. Black patches on his face was supposedly caused by the exploding fireball, making him look pitiful. As for the shield in his hand, a crack stemmed from the middle to cross the whole shield. If the strength of the explosion ignited by talismans increased by five percent, Xuan Zhen couldn’t have emerged from the calamity.

“Little bastard, I’ll kill you!” Xuan Zhen was terrified this time because since his cultivation, he had never felt so near to death. The crazy explosion of the talisman kept echoing in his ears and horrible spiritual power was insanely tearing up his body as if at any moment he would be annihilated by it.

The sight of the huge shield in his hand almost drove him to cry. That was Thick Earth Shield most treasured by his sect and only became his after the sect was crashed. For a decade, the shield had helped him through many life-and-death moments, but now it should be damaged by Shiao Chen.

Rage. Roaring rage that seemed to be burning down heaven and earth made Xuan Zhen’s eyes bloodshot and triggered gusts of impulse to kill cruelly from deep in his heart. The unbound long hair was floating in the air even without wind, and the ragged gown rattled loud.

“Howl!” He bellowed like an animal while endless dark smoke began to rise from his face, twisting and twining like hideous earthworms. His long hair turned weird scarlet, and dark purple blood vessels on his neck swelled and popped up.

Demonization!

Xuan Zhen, with moods running up and down drastically as he went through the life-and-death, demonized in an instant under endless resentment and rage.

The demonization of a cultivator would go through infilling of demon spirit, burning out of spiritual power and divine sense, deprivation of divine intelligence and finally degradation to walking dead that desired nothing except for killing until annihilation.

Shiao Chen’s pupils violently contracted, and his shield shimmered around him in a high frequency as he desperately ran outward. He never wanted to fight with a horrible monster completely out of its mind.

“Roar!”

Now Xuan Zhen had a distorted face with bloodshot eyes and slightly open mouth from which drizzled ceaseless drops of saliva, a look that made him a real monster. However, the pressure of spiritual power from him soared again, unexpectedly reaching the Final Complete stage of Foundation Establishment, also commonly known as False Core stage.

The cultivation of a cultivator at this level couldn’t be promoted further. To continue to enhance cultivation, he had to face the first challenge in cultivating—core forming.

However, the journey toward core formation was strewn with obstacles, requiring not only high cultivation but also great opportunity. Overcoming the obstacles promised the journey to Gold Core with more life of five hundred years, unlimited spiritual power and being enlisted as one of the high-level cultivators. Yet, failure meant annihilation of the body and the hundred-year cultivation by thunder punishment.

Xuan Zhen, though reaching Fake Core stage at the moment, would at last be annihilated and forbidden from reincarnation because his current cultivation was gained through demonization.

Since this person would perish in the end, Shiao Chen didn’t want to mess with him. After all, now Shiao Chen was no match of Xuan Zhen whose power had skyrocketed. Yet, Shiao Chen’s intention to leave didn’t mean Xuan Zhen also wanted the same.

The very reason why Xuan Zhen was demonized was Shiao Chen’s interfering. But for this, now Xuan Zhen must have captured Li Xiaoyi and very likely have gained thirty-years more life, a guarantee towards the journey to Gold Core. But for Shiao Chen, he wouldn’t have ended up like this. Therefore, at the sight of Shiao Chen’s leaving, the demonized Xuan Zhen, though having lost his mind, felt destined to kill him.

With a raging roaring, Xuan Zhen gave off smoldering demon spirit, turning himself into a dark shadow and chasing right after Shiao Chen.

Feeling the rampant intention of slaying behind, Shiao Chen’s face turned gloomy at once. His speed had been lower than Xuan Zhen who now got demonized with power soaring to the Final Complete stage of Foundation Establishment, Fake Core, and had even higher speed. Shiao Chen would likely to be chased down soon.

“Damn, although Xuan Zhen got demonized, lost his divine intelligence, and turned to a demon that knows nothing but killing, he is clear that I’m the reason for his demonization. I’m afraid though he is a demon now, he has a strong subconscious motivation to kill me and won’t let it go until my death.”

“Xuan Zhen was a cultivator of late Foundation Establishment level. Even if he is now demonized, his cultivation could support him for mad killing for many hours, too long for me to escape from his slaying.”

“One Finger Devourer!” Shiao Chen bellowed. As he pointed backward, a crystal finger made up of spiritual power appeared at once, falling down instantly upon Xuan Zhen. In movement, spiritual power was constantly absorbed, and the spiritual pressure of the Finger got more and more overwhelming.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” Growling came out from Shiao Chen’s mouth. Xuan Zhen didn’t even try to avoid it. In rolling demon spirit, he made a punch which instantly formed a huge pitch-dark arm, slapping the Finger away in one wave.

Boom!

Violent thunder came over. Powerful as One Finger Devourer was, Shao Chen’s cultivation reached just the fifteenth level of Qi-Refining period, far weaker than the primary stage of Foundation Establishment. Therefore, the power combined by his cultivation and the Finger could only form a rival to a cultivator of middle stage Foundation Establishment. However, Xuan Zhen at present reached Fake Core stage and his cultivation was fueled up by demonization, so the Finger could resist him for just a moment before being shattered down into pieces by the pitch-dark arm.

Shiao Chen’s expression turned even more distressful. At this moment, the distance between the two was pulled nearer as short as twenty meters.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” With continuous growl, Xuan Zhen started to spat out demon spirit which was as dark as ink and as if had divine intelligence of its own. It twisted and intertwined, forming weird faces one after another, man or woman, young or old, all looking extremely miserable.

Whir! Whir! Whir!

The rolling demon spirit turned into a huge face that aimed at swallowing Shiao Chen. Careful examination would reveal that this huge face was composed of many distorted faces that merged with one another and reshaped to form new ones, sending out bursts of chilling whining.

Shiao Chen’s face was as gloomy and emotionless as still water. He suddenly turned around and tapped on his forehead to summon up the pitch-dark little sword, one he got from Black Ghost, that was as powerful as a spiritual tool of top-level.

“Speedy!”

Shiao Chen took a bite at his tongue and spat out essence blood onto the sword which, after absorbing its master’s blood, began to buzz and gave out waves of blood brilliance as its power surged. At the same time, the spiritual power within Shiao Chen’s Dantian rushed out desperately. In a second, half of his spiritual power was infused into the sword. It also got bigger to a thirty-meter strong sharp sword that seemed to be able to prop up the sky.

It took long to describe the process, but all happened in an instant. Shiao Chen made a hard waving, and a sword light thirty-meter long appeared out of nowhere, thumping down directly towards the demon face.

“Crack!”

As the sword spirit and the demon faces crashed into each other, Shiao Chen spat out a mouthful of fresh blood and his face turned pale immediately. In an instant, the demon face was dissipated into numerous micro faces to seamlessly wrap up the sword light. Each and every of the faces had its mouth wide open, tearing and devouring and swallowing desperately. Just in a second, the sword light was nibbled out and totally disappeared.

Terror appeared in Shiao Chen’s eyes. He took out several elixirs and swallowed. Surprisingly, he forged ahead instead of stepping back, rushing madly to Xuan Zhen. Meanwhile, the rest of his spiritual power insanely flooded into the ring in his hand. With the spiritual power’s infusing, the ring didn’t display any change but looked even dimmer, a sight that, even though caught by others, wouldn’t arouse their suspicion.

The distance between the two was only twenty meters. At the moment, Shiao Chen rushed in the opposite direction in his flashing light shield, so in a second, he reached near Xuan Zhen, toward whom he took a hard shove with his fist.

You only have an opportunity to rebirth when you’re cornered to near death. Since he wouldn’t be able to escape, Shiao Chen decided to fight head-on against Xuan Zhen. Probably, there was a chance to win back his life.