Tantai Wuji had never imagined that even with his demonic arts at full completion, there would come a day when he would be driven into such wretched, desperate flight — and to have been defeated at the hands of the same person twice at that. That madman who had forcibly seized his true body.
That lunatic, in order to inflict grievous damage upon himself, had not hesitated to use himself as bait, willing to lose eight hundred of his own just to deal a thousand in damage. He had drawn down heavenly lightning using the auspicious energy of that true body solely to wound him.
Fool. Madman.
Tantai Wuji was consumed by mingled shock and fury. Even though he had already severed all ties with that physical true body — as good as saying farewell to a former life — watching the body he had spent a thousand years cultivating, imbued with countless threads of auspicious fate and brought to such perfection, crumble to powder before his very eyes left him simultaneously seething with rage and racked with pain.
He raged because something he had cherished so dearly was rendered utterly worthless in another’s eyes. He grieved because that perfect true body, tempered across a thousand years, had crumbled to powder just like that — with no possibility of restoration.
Feng Ya had done this deliberately to humiliate him. He had used that very body to inflict grievous damage upon him, and while doing so, had not forgotten to show him what it truly meant to draw water in a bamboo basket — a complete waste of effort.
What he had schemed for — he could not hold onto it. What he had plotted — would it too come to nothing?
Why weren’t these madmen afraid of death?
What he did not know was that if not for the constraints of the laws of heaven and earth, Feng Ya could have leapt out from the void to throw one more jibe in his face: My soul hasn’t shattered yet!
Tantai Wuji let out a shrill, wild howl. His soul had been torn apart by that lightning strike imbued with the will of heaven and earth, and when he had fled, Feng Ya had struck him once more. His soul recoiled against him again, and his demonic energy showed every sign of collapse and dissipation.
He had no choice but to burn a portion of his foundational demonic core to protect his soul, suppressing the collapsing demonic energy of his original form. Inside the Blood Soul Lantern, he unceasingly cycled the cultivation techniques of the demonic scriptures, working to repair the grievous wounds he had sustained at Feng Ya’s hands.
But it was not enough — far, far from enough. That accursed heavenly star force blazed with dazzling brilliance, purifying the demonic energy throughout the world, awakening the consciousness of countless souls that had been eroded by demonic corruption. The negative, shadowy energy was weakening — which meant his sources of power were also weakening. The tide was turning against him. The foundations of his demonic path would eventually be purified and corroded. To achieve great ambitions under such circumstances would only grow harder and harder.
“Damn it all!” Tantai Wuji stared at the numerous cracks that had appeared across his body and the demonic energy leaking outward, his aura growing ever colder and more vicious.
He glanced up by accident and caught sight of his own reflection within the lantern — disheveled hair, a haggard and desperate appearance, his entire bearing wilted and diminished. Gone was the domineering presence of a demon sovereign.
Lang Jiuchuan. That villain. These two had ruined his plans again and again.
“You all deserve to die!” One defeat after another — Tantai Wuji had long since lost the calm composure with which he once plotted and schemed. His crimson demonic pupils brimmed with venomous hatred, resentment, and a thread of madness born of being driven to the absolute edge — a madness he forcibly suppressed.
They all sought to seal off every road before him. He would never allow it.
Tantai Wuji submerged his entire demonic core into the Blood Soul Lantern. The sky-high blood sea erupted with explosive force. He harvested without cease the essence, blood, and souls of people in the outside world, then frantically absorbed and cycled them all.
He would grind that treacherous disciple to dust. Only then could he vent the hatred burning in his heart!
Under the dark moon, the Eight Trigrams City — already a place of dead silence — grew ever more bone-piercingly cold.
In the sky, demonic clouds surged and churned, wrapped in a towering, sky-filling tide of blood energy, rolling toward the Eight Trigrams City. Even the full moon that had grown clearer in the sky seemed to have been tainted by wisp after wisp of bloody demonic energy, a faint reddish hue creeping over it — a hue that filled the heart with foreboding.
It was here.
Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze sharpened in an instant. The aura around her body turned fierce and cutting. Beside her, Jiang Che was the same. And the monks and Taoists who had gathered at Eight Trigrams City — every one of them wore grave expressions as they watched that dense, viscous mass of demonic clouds surging toward them, heavy with crushing Aura of Power.
A dark shadow hidden within the demonic clouds fell precisely beneath the full moon — wild hair whipping in all directions, sinister and ferocious, its form twisted and grotesque. Its demonic energy, mixed with viscous blood-laden force, was enough to make one nauseous.
And when that blood energy dyed the full moon an even deeper red, the weight upon every heart grew heavier still.
Lang Jiuchuan’s demon-slaying formation had been maintained for two full days now. No small amount of demonic energy had been purified — yet this villain’s power seemed utterly unaffected, as though it hadn’t diminished in the slightest. Was it because he had harvested enough lives? Looking at that blood energy — fresh and thick — word had it that all across the land, factions were declaring themselves rulers in the scramble for the throne, fighting like madmen, you strike me and I strike you. Many had died — all of them fellow subjects of Dahan, compatriots of the central plains. Why had it come to this?
The great calamity that had befallen Dahan had to end here. Otherwise, all living beings would be in peril.
Every person present brimmed with fighting spirit, gripping their spiritual treasures tightly.
Tantai Wuji had to kill Lang Jiuchuan — to make her the sacrificial offering that would summon the Demon Ancestor’s descent, thereby shaking the world with his overwhelming might. And so he had come — bringing with him a madness that sought to destroy everything.
Succeed, or perish in the attempt.
He and she — when kings at last come face to face, one must die.
He loomed beneath the full moon, now gradually stained with blood energy, gazing at the formation within Eight Trigrams City that had shifted into a new configuration — feeling the vast, upright, and overwhelming power it emanated. His eyes grew even more crimson. He fixed them upon Lang Jiuchuan, who likewise stood suspended in the air, and the corner of his mouth curled into a sneer of mockery and cruelty.
“Treacherous disciple — you see your master before you. Why do you not bow?” Tantai Wuji’s voice scraped like iron grinding against iron, ear-splitting to the extreme. “You and these ants have repeatedly ruined your master’s plans. Such flagrant defiance — you have truly disappointed your master.”
As he spoke, his overwhelming aura descended like a great weight and took shape as an enormous demonic claw that came crashing down upon the righteous practitioners below. “These ants are an eyesore.”
That demonic claw was entwined with countless wailing fresh resentful souls, carrying a chilling Aura of Power capable of corroding the soul itself. It shrieked as it raked toward the monks and Taoists below.
“Fellow companions of the Dao — form the formation, slay the demon!” The head of the Gong Family issued a sharp command and was the first to summon his own life-bound spiritual treasure.
They had to give their all to destroy this demon lord without reservation — leading with his own life-bound treasure from the first move. Many shared his resolve, and one by one, they summoned their spiritual treasures as well.
In an instant, brilliance blazed across the sky.
Tantai Wuji let out a cold snort. His aura swelled, and countless resentful souls wrapped in blood-demonic energy transformed into demonic spawn that lunged and bit at them. He fixed his gaze coldly on Lang Jiuchuan. “With nothing but your scurrying and jumping about, you’ve set up one grand formation — and you think it’s enough to stop me from claiming the supreme throne? What wishful thinking.”
His Aura of Power surged like a rainbow, pressing the mountains low and silencing every sound beneath heaven.
Lang Jiuchuan’s face bore neither sorrow nor joy — only calm. She merely swept a glance toward her fellow companions of the Dao, raised her hand, and formed an ancient, intricate seal.
“Who said anything about stopping you?” She locked eyes with Tantai Wuji, her gaze ice-cold. Her voice was not loud, yet it rang out clear and bright — as though carrying within it a tide of vast and righteous energy that resonated through all of heaven and earth. “This is your execution.”
The moment the words fell, a magnificent, blinding light erupted from every inch of her body — like the light of stars, brilliant enough to sear the eyes.
It was not merely the spiritual energy of her own true essence. It was her life’s cultivation, her awakened Dao-body, her living soul’s very foundational source — all of it burning. It was the most utterly pure, utterly Yang, utterly righteous auspicious energy blazing skyward.
That radiance poured into the pillar of light that had been continuously communing with the will of heaven and earth. In an instant, the pillar erupted — its color shifting from pale gold to blazing white, as bright as ten million stars burning at once.
“Heaven and earth, the Great Expanse — the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper, mountain and marsh in communion, the Eight Trigrams turning in opposition… Command the people of heaven’s measure, return to truth and know your destiny.” With every phrase Lang Jiuchuan chanted, the formation’s might surged another level upward.
The sneering contempt on Tantai Wuji’s face vanished in an instant, replaced by disbelief and furious alarm. “You — you’re using your own body as a sacrificial anchor for the formation!”