Lang Jiuchuan had never expected that Princess Zhao’an would suddenly show such vitality — even regaining clarity — and so decisively sever the fetus within her own abdomen. It was only when she saw the whites of the princess’s eyes slowly turning black, and yin corpse energy seeping out from her body, that she suddenly understood.

What had been protecting that last breath of vitality in the princess was the corpse energy that the jiangshi had transferred to her — yet it had also meant she was no longer a living person, but one of the living dead.

Princess Zhao’an drove the bone spike savagely into her still-writhing abdomen. The writhing stopped. From inside came what sounded like the ghastly, piercing shriek of a demonic infant, wailing and crying out. She mustered every last ounce of her strength to wrench it about inside, then violently yanked it out, and drove it into her own throat.

She could not survive!

From the moment she had learned that her prince consort had died at the hands of those evil spirits, she should have been dead long ago. They had refused to let her die, keeping her alive so that her body could carry that evil spirit’s fetus — forcing her to drink those medicines mixed with blood, leaving her dazed and in a stupor day after day, unable even to take her own life.

She was cowardly. She was helpless. She knew she would fall into the deepest hell.

Yet just now in that one moment, the excruciating pain from the spasm in her abdomen had been like a ray of pure Yang light piercing through solid ice, awakening her mind for one brief instant.

Why should this evil spirit fetus dirty someone else’s hands? It was only right that she — a person burdened with so much sin — should be the one to kill it!

Yes — every mouthful of those blood medicines she drank to nourish this evil spirit fetus added another measure of sin to her. If that was so, then what was one more sin of killing her own child?

Princess Zhao’an fell backward onto the altar. Black blood spurted from her throat with each pulse. Her lips murmured: “With my soul, I offer this sacrifice to Heaven — I curse the Cong Family to have their line severed, their roots cut off, adrift with no footing…”

Her limbs trembled, yet her eyes revealed a thread of relief — the relief of someone finally freed. Soon she stilled entirely. Her soul flew out, transforming into tiny points of light that disappeared into the night sky.

This sudden turn of events startled Lang Jiuchuan, but it was over in an instant. Cong Gui’s yin essence soul had already arrived before her with the force of thunder, carrying a murderous aura capable of destroying heaven and earth.

Vast black mist rose up from below the ground. Corpse energy surged skyward. Blood stained the full moon.

“Lang Jiu, be careful!” Gong Qi called out with great urgency.

Lang Jiuchuan pulled off the Dizhong Bell and gave it a mighty shake: “Heaven and Earth without limit, the great law of Qian and Kun — Suppress the Evil!”

The Dizhong Bell flew from her hand, bearing down upon Cong Gui’s yin essence.

The magnificent divine power, through the talisman patterns engraved on the Dizhong Bell, transformed into ten-thousand rays of golden light blazing down upon the yin essence.

Beneath the ten-thousand-zhang golden light, Cong Gui screamed to the heavens, spreading both arms wide. The white bones of the corpse mountain behind it clattered and clanked toward this direction, bringing with it the dark, lightless yin malice resentful energy, as countless yin souls howled miserably from the corpse pit. Their sharp, bristle-like shrieks pierced people’s eardrums and made the blood seep from the seven orifices of all who heard.

“Jiangche — you and Gong Qi hold it back.” Lang Jiuchuan took out the wish book and small clay figurine, placed them on Princess Zhao’an’s body, rapidly formed hand seals with both hands, summoned the Panguan’s talisman brush, and used the blood from her fingertip as an offering of sincerity, intending to draw the Divine Descending Demon-Slaying Talisman of the Infinite Heavenly Venerable.

This talisman used the Infinite Heavenly Venerable’s honorific title as its divine inscription, bearing its own righteous divine power. To complete it, one had to possess a heart of ultimate devotion — fearless, willing to sacrifice oneself for all living beings. Once the talisman was completed and the divine power descended, it had to be deployed at precisely the right moment. There was only one chance.

Hundreds of years ago, the Dharma Master Luole had completed such a talisman, and she had studied his understanding of it.

Lang Jiuchuan’s mind was focused entirely on drawing the divine talisman, her full spirit engaged. Cong Gui’s yin essence soul finally began to feel fear — intense unease like waves crashing upon it.

Stop her — she must be stopped!

This fierce desire caused the resentful energy throughout the corpse mountain to surge to its peak. The yin energy on Cong Gui’s spirit soul shot out like poisoned arrows from all four directions at once toward Lang Jiuchuan.

“Vile creature, how dare you still harm people!” Gong Qi stepped in front of Lang Jiuchuan to help shield her from the yin energy — not knowing that his own eyes were slowly turning red, a dangerous fury rising from his body. Looking at the yin essence, he actually felt a sense of excitement.

Again!

Jiangche was alarmed by the change in Gong Qi.

Especially when he swung out the Crimson Flame Soul-Hooking Chain toward Cong Gui and charged forward: “Evil cannot overcome righteousness — Heavenly Venerable grants power, I command thee, bind!”

Cong Gui let out a long howl to the sky, not retreating but advancing to meet him head-on. Bone-eroding yin cold blood malice dispersed from its spirit soul and crashed toward Gong Qi.

Over these hundred years it had absorbed the pure yin refined blood and original souls of countless people. The yin essence it now possessed was the most extreme yin — most venomous — most evil. Even as mere yin energy, merely touching it was poison. Struck by that force, Gong Qi immediately felt a bone-eroding cold all through his body, as though he had been placed in ten-thousand-year ice.

“Seventh Brother!”

“Little Seven!”

Gong Tinglan rushed over and reached into his robes to pull out an ancient seal, flinging it toward Cong Gui: “Heavenly Master’s divine authority, slay the evil and banish the curse — Edict!”

Cong Gui, blocked again from the outside, was greatly alarmed. It drew the malice energy behind it inward, using the corpse malice energy to condense into armor plating, using corpse malice to shield its soul, blocking the blow from the Heavenly Master’s seal.

The dense, darkened yin resentful malice energy enclosed around Lang Jiuchuan. Her face had gone ashen, the hand gripping the talisman brush trembling — yet she clenched her teeth and bore down on the final stroke.

The divine talisman was complete.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at Princess Zhao’an’s body and murmured: “Forgive me!”

She picked up Cong Jingnian’s green sword, split open Princess Zhao’an’s abdomen, drew out the placenta and fetus, and placed it beside the body, then formed hand seals with both hands and called out: “Cong Gui — come!”

Cong Gui’s yin essence soul saw that Lang Jiuchuan had actually drawn out the fetal infant, let out a roar, and like thunder burst through Gong Tinglan’s Heavenly Master’s seal’s net spread across the sky — plunging into the fetal infant’s spirit palace.

Hell has no gates, yet you came crashing through.

Walking right into the trap.

Lang Jiuchuan formed the intricate hand seals, and at the moment the placenta began to struggle free of the amniotic sac and its eyelids began to twitch, she struck the divine talisman upon it: “Heaven clear, Earth bright, the ten-directional world, the void above and below — with my refined blood as offering, I reverently invoke the Infinite Heavenly Venerable to descend — divine fire and crimson flame, slay the evil and destroy its form — Edict!”

A thread of blood flew from her fingertip, transforming into a mist of blood, reaching upward to invoke the divine sovereign.

The fetal eyelids twitched ever more violently. In the very instant they snapped open, a divine fire surging with tremendous, imposing pressure burst from the Heavenly Venerable’s divine talisman.

Boom.

The righteous crimson divine flame blazed open, burning the placenta, Princess Zhao’an’s body, and the small clay figurine all together. A sharp, piercing infant’s cry was swallowed by the divine fire.

Where the divine fire descended, the righteous law exterminated the evil.

The blazing righteous force caused the blood malice resentful yin energy around the altar to retreat at speed, as though it had encountered its natural predator. The white bones, deprived of the resentful yin energy’s support, collapsed back down, shattering with a resounding crash.

Lang Jiuchuan watched the fetus in the fire make one last movement, then unhurriedly summoned her innate jade-bone talisman brush, called up the Book of Life and Death, opened a single page, and stroke by stroke rewrote the birth date that this demonic evil should have had upon descending into the world.

Dawn broke. At the horizon, the sky turned the pale color of a fish’s belly.

Lang Jiuchuan set down the final character. With an unwilling screech, the divine fire leapt to its highest and then fell silent forever.

Order was restored. Heaven and Earth turned back to their proper course.

When the divine fire was extinguished, on the altar, Princess Zhao’an and the fetus had long since turned to ash. A gust of yin wind blew through, scattering that ash all across the ground.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Lang Jiuchuan spat out a mouthful of dark blood, her body completely spent of strength. She fell back against the altar, eyes closing, and the corners of her lips curved into a smile.

Infinite Heavenly Venerable — great goodness!