The sky above the battlefield was a chaotic tapestry of violence. Elemental spells, forged from the desperate spiritual energy of Demon Generals and human martial artists alike, converged on a single point like a crushing tide. Fire, ice, and wind screamed through the air, threatening to drown Luo Zhen in an oblivion of light and sound.
But just as the magical bombardment was about to make contact, the atmosphere shifted. The air grew heavy, thick with an ancient, suffocating dread.
Behind Luo Zhen, the fabric of reality seemed to tear. From the void emerged a phantom of impossible proportions—a Nine-Headed Giant Serpent. It was a monstrosity that defied logic, its spectral body trampling the earth while its nine heads scraped the ceiling of the heavens. Each serpentine head was as massive as a mountain peak, its eyes burning with a cold, primordial malice.
This was the projection of the Jiuying—the Nine Infants.
The moment the phantom fully materialized, a wave of ferocious pressure washed over the battlefield. It was a physical force, a gravitational well of pure terror. Under this oppressive aura, the incoming barrage of spells faltered. Fireballs dimmed, wind blades dulled, and the momentum of the attacks shattered, slowing to a crawl as if the very air had frozen in fear.
"What manner of beast is that?" a Demon General gasped, his voice trembling as he stared up at the nightmare obscuring the sky. "Nine heads… it has nine heads!"
"The pressure… It's suffocating!"
"A super-predator of the ancient era," a human scholar-warrior stammered, his face drained of blood. "Either the Xiangliu or the Jiuying. Legends made manifest."
"Who is this Demon General?" another cried out, backing away. "To summon such a horror… what is his origin?"
Panic, cold and absolute, gripped the crowd. Whether they were hardened monster commanders or elite human cultivators, their resolve crumbled. Knees buckled. Weapons clattered to the ground. They were ants standing in the shadow of a god.
Luo Zhen, floating calmly beneath the colossal specter, narrowed his eyes. At his mental command, one of the nine heads of the Jiuying phantom unhinged its massive jaw.
A low hum vibrated through the earth, followed by a cataclysmic roar. A torrent of golden energy erupted from the serpent's mouth, a river of destruction that shone with the brilliance of a thousand suns.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The golden flood didn't just counter the incoming spells; it erased them. It tore through the defensive lines with contemptuous ease, maintaining its terrifying velocity as it crashed into the gathered warriors.
Most never stood a chance. Suppressed by the Jiuying's aura, they were statues waiting to be smashed. The golden light engulfed them, and in the span of a heartbeat, they were reduced to nothingness.
The earth groaned under the impact. A mushroom cloud of dust and debris rose into the air, and when the light finally faded, the landscape had been permanently scarred. A crater, over a hundred meters wide and smoking with residual heat, replaced the battlefield. Inside, there were no bodies—only drifting ash.
From the carnage, only four figures emerged, fleeing in a desperate scatter.
Two were Demon Generals—Yellow Tiger and Black Bull. The other two were human cultivators at the peak of the Essence Dan Realm, one stout and the other gaunt. They were the elite of the elite, the strongest of the fourteen who had initiated the ambush. Through burning unique bloodlines or sacrificing precious defensive artifacts, they had managed to break free of the suppression just seconds before the impact.
They paused on the ridges of the distant hills, looking back at the smoking crater where ten of their peers had been instantly vaporized. The realization hit them like a physical blow: if they had hesitated for even a fraction of a second, they would be ash.
Terror eclipsed their greed for the Spirit Pool. They exchanged no words, only looks of shared horror, before turning to flee in four separate cardinal directions.
Luo Zhen watched their retreating backs, a cruel sneer touching his lips.
"You think you can run?" His voice was low, but it carried across the silence of the aftermath. "Nobody leaves."
The Jiuying phantom moved again. The same head that had unleashed the torrent opened its maw once more. This time, there was no massive flood. Instead, four thin, concentrated beams of golden light shot out with the speed of lightning.
They were silent assassins, cutting through the air faster than thought.
Thwip. Thwip.
Four screams echoed almost simultaneously, cutting short as quickly as they began. The golden threads caught the fleeing warriors mid-stride, piercing their skulls with surgical precision. Their bodies tumbled to the ground, momentum carrying them forward until they slid to a halt, lifeless.
Silence returned to the valley. The competition for the Spirit Pool was over. Luo Zhen was the last living soul.
With a thought, the massive hydra behind him began to fade, dissolving into motes of dark light that retreated into his body. The power of the summon, Luo Zhen noted, was tied directly to his own cultivation. At his current stage—the Late Essence Dan Realm—the phantom possessed the destructive output of a Late-Stage Demon King. It was overkill, but effective overkill.
Luo Zhen shook his head, clearing the adrenaline, and turned his attention to the prize: the Spirit Pool.
Despite his efforts to aim the golden torrent away from the treasure, the shockwaves had taken a toll. The pool rippled violently, and a significant amount of the precious liquid had sloshed over the sides, soaking into the thirsty earth.
"What a waste," Luo Zhen muttered, feeling a pinch of heartache.
This wasn't water. It was liquefied spiritual energy, so dense it had taken physical form. Every drop was worth a fortune in cultivation resources.
He wasted no more time. Extending a finger, he tapped the air.
The remaining liquid in the pool obeyed his will. As a creature with mastery over water-attribute spells, manipulating the fluid was child's play. The Spirit Water rose, twisting into a serpentine column that floated through the air toward him.
Luo Zhen opened his mouth, and the stream began to flow down his throat.
It didn't taste like water; it tasted like raw power. It was electric and cool, rushing into his stomach where it immediately exploded into warmth.
Ding.
The mechanical voice of the System chimed in his mind, a constant companion in his journey of evolution.
"You have devoured a mouthful of Spirit Water. Gained 10,000 Experience Points."
"You have devoured a mouthful of Spirit Water. Gained 10,000 Experience Points."
The notifications cascaded in his peripheral vision, a waterfall of text matching the intake of fluid. For any normal cultivator, drinking this much raw energy would be suicide—their meridians would burst from the overload. But Luo Zhen was different. The System acted as a flawless filtration unit, breaking down the violent energy into pure, usable experience.
He drank with the voracity of a starving beast.
When the pool was half empty, the System chimed with a notification he had been waiting for: "Experience threshold reached. Level up available."
Luo Zhen ignored it. He kept drinking. He wouldn't stop until the last drop was consumed.
Thirty minutes later, the pool was dry. Luo Zhen patted his stomach, burping softly. There was no bloating, no physical discomfort. The liquid had long since been converted into ethereal energy, coursing through his blood and bones.
"Host," the System prompted again, its tone almost impatient. "Your Experience Points have far exceeded the critical threshold. Do you wish to upgrade?"
Luo Zhen sat cross-legged, centering himself. "Yes."
"Deducting Experience Points. Upgrading..."
A warm current surged through his limbs, tempering his muscles and expanding his dantian.
"Upgrade Successful! Congratulations, Host. You have reached the Peak of the Essence Dan Realm."
He didn't stop there. The reserve of energy he had consumed was massive.
"Host, remaining Experience Points are sufficient for further advancement. Continue?"
"Yes," Luo Zhen commanded.
"Deducting Experience Points. Upgrading..."
"Upgrade Successful! Congratulations, Host. You have reached the realm of the Half-step Demon King!"
Two blinding pillars of light erupted from his body, piercing the clouds. As the light subsided, Luo Zhen exhaled a breath of turbid air. He felt lighter, sharper, deadlier.
He focused inward, visualizing his dantian. The golden Demon Dan—the core of his power—had changed. It was no longer a simple sphere. It had morphed, sprouting tiny, embryonic limbs and a head. It looked like a curled, golden infant.
The Half-step Demon King realm was the bridge. It was the stage where the beast's core began to mimic the human form, preparing to birth a true Demon Infant. Once that infant was fully formed, he would trigger the heavenly trials.
Thunder Tribulation.
To become a true Demon King, he would have to survive the wrath of the heavens. Failure meant death. But Luo Zhen smiled. He possessed the Blue Jade Spirit Body and commanded lightning himself. Let the heavens strike; he would only strike back harder.
He pulled up his interface, the glowing blue text hovering in his vision.
Name: Luo Zhen
Race: Flood Dragon Species (Tier 1 Sacred Beast — Green Scaled Flood Dragon)
Bloodline: Green Scale Bloodline (Sacred Tier 1)
Cultivation: Half-step Demon King
Experience: 2,780,000 / 5,000,000
"Five million to reach the Demon King realm," Luo Zhen mused, dismissing the window. "I'm over halfway there. I just need more resources."
He stood up, ready to leave the area and hunt for more treasures in the Secret Realm.
"Host, wait!"
Luo Zhen paused. The System's voice carried a rare note of urgency mixed with excitement.
"What is it?"
"I detect a treasure. A massive energy signature," the System said, vibrating with digital avarice. "It's directly beneath the Spirit Pool. Dig. Dig now!"
Luo Zhen raised an eyebrow. He walked to the edge of the dried-up basin. It looked like ordinary mud, but as he concentrated, he felt it—a subtle, rhythmic pulse of spiritual Qi rising from the deep earth.
"Good eye," Luo Zhen muttered.
He summoned his Thunder Cloud Knife. Gripping the hilt, he channeled his new strength into the blade. Lightning crackled along the steel, turning the air ozone-sharp.
He slashed.
BOOM!
A crescent of lightning tore into the pool's floor. The earth, hardened by centuries of pressure, crumbled like wet cake. The strike gouged a massive trench, and immediately, the concentration of Qi in the air spiked.
Luo Zhen's eyes lit up. He slashed again. And again.
He worked for half an hour, carving a pit nearly a hundred meters deep. Finally, his blade hit something that didn't crumble.
He cleared the dust and gasped.
Beneath the pool lay a massive, sprawling vein of white crystal. It was blindingly bright, pulsating with a pure, white light. It was raw, unrefined spiritual power in solid form.
"A Spirit Vein!" the System practically shouted. "This is the heart of the Secret Realm! The pool above was just the condensation of the energy leaking from this vein."
Luo Zhen swallowed hard, greed flickering in his reptilian eyes. If he consumed this... the Demon King realm wouldn't just be a possibility; it would be a certainty.
"Host," the System interjected, its voice turning wheedling. "I have a proposition."
"I'm listening."
"I need to consume this vein. Not for XP, but for my own system integrity," the AI explained rapidly. "If I devour this, I can upgrade. I'll recover corrupted memory files, unlock new function modules, and be of significantly higher utility to you. Let me eat it first?"
Luo Zhen hesitated. The XP was tempting. But the System was the foundation of his rise. A stronger System meant better analysis, better crafting, and better survival odds.
"Fine," Luo Zhen conceded. "But leave some for me. Don't be a glutton."
"Deal! You won't regret this, Host!"
Luo Zhen opened his mouth, and a beam of azure light projected from him, washing over the crystalline vein.
Usually, when Luo Zhen devoured energy, it felt like a warm bath. This time, he felt nothing. He acted merely as a conduit. The azure light dissolved the solid crystals into liquid energy, which rushed into his body—and vanished instantly, intercepted by the System before it could touch his meridians.
The vein began to shrink. The blinding light dimmed.
Luo Zhen watched as meters of crystal evaporated. "System? That's a lot of energy. Are you done yet?"
"Not yet! Just a little more! Keep the channel open!" The System sounded frantic, like an addict getting a fix.
Luo Zhen frowned but held the connection.
Ten minutes passed. The cavern was growing dark. The massive vein, once the spine of the earth, was gone. Every last scrap of crystal had been dissolved.
Luo Zhen shut his mouth, cutting the azure light. He stood in the dark, empty pit.
"I'm done," the System announced. Its voice sounded sluggish, thick, almost intoxicated. "You... hic... You can have the rest, Host."
Luo Zhen looked at the empty dirt where the treasure used to be. "The rest? You ate the entire thing! There's nothing left but dirt!"
"Ah... is that so?" The System slurred. "My bad. Put it on my tab. I'll make it up to you... next... time..."
The voice faded into a static hum, followed by silence. The System had gone into hibernation to process the upgrade.
"Unbelievable," Luo Zhen sighed, shaking his head. He climbed out of the pit, dusting off his robes.
He wasn't truly angry. He and the System were symbiotic; its strength was his strength. But standing there, in the desolate crater of a destroyed landscape, having wiped out a squad of elites, drained a holy pool, and strip-mined the realm's core, he felt a strange sense of finality.
He had essentially gutted the Secret Realm. Without the Spirit Vein, this place would wither. The lush plants would die, the ambient Qi would fade. It would take ten thousand years for this land to recover, if it ever did.
Luo Zhen adjusted his collar and picked a random direction. He still had time left in the Secret Realm, and if there was one thing a Half-step Demon King needed, it was more treasure.
Leaving the ruin behind him, the serpent walked on.