Li Zheng clenched his jaw and glared viciously at Su Lingxi’s corpse, furious beyond measure.
Why couldn’t the body have belonged to a male disciple? Why did it have to be a female disciple?
Still, only disciples with a dark spirit root could accept a demon’s soul. He truly couldn’t ask for more.
He could only wait until his strength recovered, then search for another suitable body if he got the chance.
Li Zheng took a deep breath, sat down cross-legged, and began regulating his breathing in preparation.
……
Su Lingxi had never imagined that she would die such a miserable death.
She had yet to take revenge on Yuan Shu. She had yet to trample beneath her feet all those who had once looked down on her!
She had no idea where things had gone wrong. Clearly, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be!
There was an obsession buried deep in her heart: the person loved by her six senior brothers should have been her.
Yet, with the exception of her fifth senior brother, Ji Yunzhao, the others avoided her as though she were a venomous snake or scorpion!
Everything seemed to have changed after Yuan Shu entered the Cliff of Reflection.
She had fought back. She had worked hard. But none of it had made the slightest difference.
Even her own master had kept her at his side for the sake of personal gain.
After the immortal aura within her vanished, her master’s attitude toward her had taken a sharp turn. His former warmth and kindness were gone without a trace.
This shouldn’t have happened. So why had it happened anyway?
In a daze, Su Lingxi seemed to have arrived in the future. Her six senior brothers surrounded her, fussing over her and asking after her welfare.
Even her master treated her kindly because of her astonishing cultivation talent. In the end, he confessed his feelings to her.
She was the god who ruled over this world, enjoying everything beautiful that existed!
Su Lingxi suddenly jolted awake.
She remembered now. Things weren’t supposed to be like this. They couldn’t be like this.
She should have been the god of that world, an existence no one else could ever hope to reach!
Threads of divine-soul power gathered in Lu Guichen’s sea of consciousness, condensing into half of Su Lingxi’s body.
When she saw Lu Guichen’s manifested form, she cried out urgently and frantically.
“Master! Master, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! I am the ruler of this world! I’m the one who should be loved and cherished by everyone!”
“Master, my senior brothers obeyed my every word. You secretly loved me. Master, you would confess your feelings and ask me to become your Dao companion. Master…”
Lu Guichen frowned. Within his sea of consciousness, his manifested form turned its cold gaze toward the divine soul of Su Lingxi that he had absorbed.
He was surprised by the tenacity of this woman’s soul. Even after he had shattered and absorbed it, it had still managed to condense into half a body.
But what nonsense was she babbling?
He was a mighty cultivator at the Divine Transformation stage, the master of a peak in the Falling Immortal Sect—and, most importantly, her master.
How could he possibly confess his feelings for her or fall in love with her?
And what made her think she was the ruler of this world?
She was nothing more than a mere Golden Core disciple. If he gave her face, she was the personal disciple of Azure Cloud Peak. If he did not, she was nothing but a useless nobody by the roadside!
“Utter nonsense! What an absurdity! How noisy!”
Lu Guichen shouted coldly. His divine-soul power gathered, and in the next instant, it slammed toward the divine soul Su Lingxi had struggled to condense.
Bang!
This time, Su Lingxi truly died.
Even in death, her eyes remained wide open, filled with unwillingness.
Just as Su Lingxi completely vanished, the glimmer deep within the eyes of the rigid spirit ape lying on the ground also slowly faded away.
……
Dark-red spiritual power spiraled around the shadow. A moment later, it transformed into a dark-red whirlwind and poured entirely into Su Lingxi’s forehead.
Su Lingxi, who had been lying quietly on the ground, suddenly opened her eyes. Dark-red demonic energy surged within her ink-black pupils.
“It worked!”
Li Zheng leaped to his feet and clenched his fists.
He had not experienced this solid, tangible feeling in a very long time.
So this was what it felt like to move so freely!
Although this body left much to be desired, he could always change bodies again after his strength recovered.
“Congratulations. The fusion went rather smoothly.”
Lu Guichen looked Li Zheng up and down, his smile not reaching his eyes as he spoke.
Li Zheng snorted softly. “Don’t worry. I’ll use demonic cultivation techniques to help you increase your strength.”
“Good. For now, stay by my side under the identity of my disciple.” Lu Guichen gave him his instructions.
Li Zheng nodded, suppressing the joy in his heart.
A strange itch came from deep within his body, as if he wanted to do something, yet had no idea what it was.
Li Zheng frowned. He assumed that something had gone wrong with the fusion of his body and soul, so he carefully examined himself again. When he found nothing unusual, he paid it no further attention.
“Let’s go. The rear mountains of the Falling Immortal Sect are quite lively today. We might even come across some fresh corpses!”
Lu Guichen had already dealt with the two disciples’ corpses on the ground, leaving behind not the slightest trace.
……
After the two left, a spirit crane flapped its wings and drifted lightly down from the sky.
“Coo, coo…”
Before long, Ji Yun came riding the wind and landed beside the spirit crane.
Ji Yun closed his eyes and moved his fingertips. Threads of spiritual power spread outward, settling over the surrounding flowers, grass, and trees as he carefully sensed his surroundings.
A moment later, his brows drew together slightly, and he slowly opened his eyes.
“Demonic energy? And so incredibly dense? It seems Ji Qingyan was right. The Falling Immortal Sect really has become a nest of demons. Heh…”
Ji Yun let out a soft snort. Touching his toes to the ground, he swept lightly out of the woods.
……
“Whew! I didn’t think much of it when we were farther away, but now that we’re closer, I can finally see just how enormous this formation is!”
The astonished voice of Helan Zhao came from beside Yuan Shu.
She looked up. Her gaze fell upon the dark-golden formation in the distance, so vast that it seemed to blot out the sky. Yuan Shu was shaken as well.
The spiritual power required to maintain a formation of this scale was absolutely immense!
And as far as the eye could see, the source of the power the Earth Fiend Demon Race used to sustain the formation was actually ten Earth Fiend Demon cultivators!
Endless streams of dark-gray spiritual power surged from their bodies, pouring into the formation.
It was obvious that all ten of them possessed cultivation at the peak of the Void Refinement stage!
This time, the Earth Fiend Demon Race had truly spared no expense!
Just then, another formation, only a few square meters in size, appeared in the center of the great formation.
Spiritual power surged across it, rising in the form of formation markings and condensing into a dark-golden cage.
A streak of black light flashed. Surrounded by dark-golden formation patterns, a figure was suddenly sucked into the cage by the markings!
“It’s—it’s Helan Ying!” Helan Zhao cried out in shock.
Yuan Shu frowned. She had seen him as well.
Dark-golden formation patterns swirled around Helan Ying. The energy within the markings on the cage seemed to be one with the forbidden curse inside his body.
They transformed into several rigid chains of formation markings, binding his hands and feet before dragging him into the formation!
“Could he have known from the very beginning that he wouldn’t be able to escape, which was why he left in such a hurry?” Helan Zhao asked in astonishment.
“Yes.” Yuan Shu answered softly.
The moment she sensed the power of the forbidden curse belonging to the Earth Fiend Demon Race within his body, Yuan Shu knew that he would inevitably return to them.
Even if the Earth Fiend Demon Race intended to use him as a tool to open the Heavenly Gate, he still had to go back!
The power of a forbidden curse was not so easy to dispel. To untie the bell, one had to find the person who had tied it!
That was precisely why Yuan Shu had used the power rebounded by the Harmonious Bliss Divine Tree to help him increase his cultivation.
The stronger Helan Ying became, the greater his chances of surviving this struggle against the power of the forbidden curse!
