When True Lord Chongyuan received this explosive piece of news, he immediately sought out Zhou Yanxi to discuss countermeasures. After all, a matter this serious—if handled poorly—could easily lead to public backlash.
So, the moment Zhou Yanxi and her group returned to the temporary camp set up by Haomiao Sect, she received a spiritual voice transmission from her father.
Zhou Yanxi had no choice but to put aside her original plan of organizing her spoils of war. On the way there, she already had a feeling—it must be about that issue, which was why her father was being so urgent.
As soon as she arrived, the door to True Lord Chongyuan's cultivation room opened automatically. Upon entering, she saw her father's face full of worry. The once-handsome features were now clouded with bitterness and concern.
Seeing his daughter come in, True Lord Chongyuan forced out a smile—one that looked more painful than crying.
Before Zhou Yanxi could speak, her father explained his decision:"Xier, the matter of us having the Expelling Demon Pill will come to light sooner or later. If word leaks out from the wrong hands, we'll be forced into a completely passive position."
"So I plan to offer one Expelling Demon Pill to the four great sects' alchemists for joint research. No matter who asks, just say I got it by chance."
Zhou Yanxi hesitated. "But doesn't True Lord Wuchen know about it too? What if he spills the secret?"
"Don't worry about that at all. That old fox is clever—if he says anything, then his own pill won't be safe either."
True Lord Chongyuan had prepared for the worst: if any of the three of them were infected with demonic energy and took the pill, it would instantly arouse suspicion. Better to offer one up now and gain goodwill than be caught later.
In the end, Zhou Yanxi accepted her father's plan. After all, she wasn't strong enough yet. If she were at her master's level, this wouldn't even be a concern.
Still, her father made sure to secure proper compensation from the sect for the pill.
Eventually, the four major sects purchased that single Expelling Demon Pill at 10% above its market value.
As for the reward, True Lord Chongyuan handed it all to his daughter—on top of that, he also gave her a large number of defensive array disks he had refined himself.
What he didn't tell her was: if this matter ever got exposed, he'd take the blame—to ensure his daughter's safety.
After finalizing everything with her father, Zhou Yanxi dragged her exhausted body back to her cultivation room.
She was utterly drained—physically and mentally. Not only had she fought on the front lines for a full day and night, but she had also been dealing with the pill situation ever since returning.
Right then, the system came online:
"Host, don't forget your spoils of war!"
Hearing that perked her up instantly. She could worry about the future later—checking out her loot came first.
To safely handle her finds, Zhou Yanxi had bought a pair of Ice Cicada Gloves from the sect. These gloves were resistant to fire and water, and could also protect against poison and sneak attacks.
Opening the storage pouches of the demonic cultivators, she found them full of miscellaneous items:— A large number of demonic spirit stones, which she couldn't use herself, so she handed them over to the system store.— Several evil-looking weapons tainted with dark energy, clearly not good stuff. She originally planned to sell them, but in the end, she felt it was better not to let harmful items circulate.
Unfortunately, Zhou Yanxi didn't possess any Heavenly Flame, so she couldn't destroy the demonic weapons with ordinary fire spells. She decided to set them aside for now.
What disgusted her most was discovering that demonic cultivators liked to fuse the bones of cultivators into their weapons. The sight made her scalp tingle.
For the rest of the items, after the system confirmed they weren't dangerous, she handed them over for processing.
No wonder the sect didn't allow disciples to keep demonic storage pouches—most of the contents were useless or harmful.
Lower-ranked demonic cultivators didn't carry cultivation techniques, so the sects had no problem letting disciples go through their belongings.
Meanwhile, although True Lord Chongyuan had publicly donated his only Grade-7 Expelling Demon Pill, it would still take a long time before a proper substitute could be developed.
In the meantime, the array masters, working day and night, developed a new type of defensive array disk that could resist demonic energy below Golden Core level. It was considered a decent success.
Actually, this new mutation of demonic energy was part of a deliberate plot by the demons. They had extracted toxic blood from Poison Demons to create Heart-Controlling Pills, which they then fed to low-level demonic cultivators.
The demonic royal family didn't care if these servants died—they just wanted to use these poisoned pawns to slowly weaken the human cultivators' strength.
Even with the new array disks, many cultivators were still getting tainted by high-level demonic energy, especially from Golden Core level enemies.
Currently, the front lines were in a deadlock. Both sides had taken heavy casualties, and the major sects were urgently calling in reinforcements—even disciples in the Qi Refining stage were being deployed.
The four great sects had received spy reports from within the demon realm: due to the prolonged battle, the demon side was now recruiting Qi Refining cultivators to launch wave attacks.
So when Zhou Yanxi and her team got the latest dispatch, three new Qi Refining disciples were added to their group.
Originally, their team had ten people. But after half a year of battle, one had died and two were severely injured, leaving space for new members.
Among the new arrivals was a familiar face—Li Haochen.Zhou Yanxi hadn't expected that in just half a year, he had already advanced to the late Qi Refining stage.