"Jiang Dao, die!"
The scream tore from the throat of the Spirit Child Palace Master, a sound less human than the shriek of tearing metal. His eyes bulged, capillaries bursting with the strain of his killing intent. Empowered by the ominous Heavenly Demon Heart-Crushing Claw, his physique underwent a grotesque acceleration. He didn't just move; he vanished, transforming into a bolt of black lightning that scarred the air. He was a reaper from the deepest hell, a blur of motion driven by a singular, sky-toppling desire for murder.
Jiang Dao's eyes narrowed into slits. He could feel the pressure against his skin, a physical weight that demanded total focus. There was no room for arrogance here. The muscles beneath his skin coiled tight, snapping into the ultimate defense of the Extreme Way Heavenly Demon Body.
Instantly, his internal energy roared to life. The Fire Poison Gas Net materialized, weaving layer upon layer of toxic, superheated webbing across his skin. Beneath that, the internal energy of the Regimen Manual solidified, forming a thick, invisible plate armor that shielded his vitals.
Firelight danced in his palms. He slammed his hands together with the force of a thunderclap, compressing his Fire Poison Field into a dense, volatile shield of flame.
Then, he charged.
Jiang Dao's terrifying bulk surged forward, meeting the Spirit Child Palace Master head-on. It was not a clash of men, but a collision of two catastrophic meteors.
Boom!
The impact shook the earth's foundations. The sound was not a thud, but an explosion that shattered the ambient silence of the ruins. Two diametrically opposed forces slammed into one another at center mass. The energy shockwave spiraled upward, forming a chaotic tornado that whistled with an ear-piercing scream.
One aura was cold, gloomy, and saturated with infinite malice. The other was scorching, masculine, and laced with a virulence that could rot stone.
Pfft!
In the first fraction of a second, the disparity in weaponry became clear. The Heavenly Demon Heart-Crushing Claw was a Saint Weapon, an artifact of immense power. It tore through Jiang Dao's compressed Fire Poison Field as if it were wet paper, shattering the defensive flames into sparks. The claw's momentum didn't falter. It continued its vicious trajectory, stabbing straight toward the invisible armor of the Regimen Manual.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The sound of barriers failing was rapid, like a string of firecrackers. Layers of internal energy dissipated into mist. In the blink of an eye, over ten layers of defense were breached. The claw tore through the final barrier and struck the Fire Poison Gas Net clinging to Jiang Dao's skin.
The net flared, burning fiercely as the dense grid tried to entangle the intrusion. But against the absolute sharpness of the Saint Weapon, it was futile. The strands of energy snapped and tore.
Finally, carrying a payload of terrifying kinetic energy, the black claw slammed into the center of Jiang Dao's right palm.
Clang!
Sparks erupted in a blinding shower. The sound was harsh, vibrating in the teeth, like a sledgehammer striking a great brass bell.
A wave of cold, gloomy power—carrying an indescribable piercing quality—drilled into Jiang Dao's flesh. It sought to travel up his arm, intent on vibrating his internal organs into a slurry.
But Jiang Dao did not retreat. He roared, a sound that rivaled the initial impact. He engaged every fiber of his physical strength, his muscles locking down like steel cables. For a moment, his fleshly body seemed to transcend humanity, fully embracing the constitution of a Heavenly Demon.
Bang!
A muffled thud echoed through the clearing. Jiang Dao's massive frame swayed teeteringly, like a tower in an earthquake, but he did not fall. He had forcibly, through sheer physical density and grit, withstood the strike of a Saint Weapon.
The cost, however, was high. His right arm was a ruin. The skin had detonated outward, revealing withered, blackened flesh where the necrosis of the weapon had touched him. Streams of scarlet blood gushed freely. Yet, even as the blood fell, his Regimen Manual energy rushed to the wound, forcing the muscle fibers to wriggle and knit together, accelerating hemostasis in real-time.
Jiang Dao's eyes were glacial. He looked at the creature before him with contempt.
"A strike from a Saint Weapon," he rumbled, his voice thick with adrenaline. "Is nothing more than this!"
"You…"
The Spirit Child Palace Master's eyes nearly split their sockets. His mind couldn't process the reality before him. This human had caught a Saint Weapon with his bare flesh and lived?
Jiang Dao gave him no time to process.
"Black Demon Evil Heart Palm!"
The shout was a thunderclap. Jiang Dao's left hand, uninjured and charged with apocalyptic power, swung forward. With a sickening boom, it connected squarely with the Spirit Child Palace Master's forehead.
It wasn't just a physical strike. It was an injection of terrifying baleful energy, virulent poison, and scorching flame, all driven straight into the creature's brain.
Crunch!
The sound was wet and final. The Spirit Child Palace Master's skull collapsed inward like a crushed tin can. A miserable, high-pitched scream erupted from his throat as his body seemed to ignite from the inside out.
But Jiang Dao was not a man who left things to chance.
His hand shifted into a knife-hand strike. He moved with blinding speed, leaving trails of afterimages in the air. The killing intent rolling off him was thick enough to choke on.
Mad Demon Slash!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The air detonated repeatedly. The sky and earth seemed filled with the terrifying pressure of his blade-energy.
He delivered a full three hundred and sixty slashes in the span of a breath.
Splat!
With the final strike, the structural integrity of the Spirit Child Palace Master failed completely. The body exploded in mid-air, a shower of gore and dark energy. The remains flew backward, smashing into the distance as a heap of unidentifiable, rotten meat.
From the ruin of the corpse, a black object was dislodged. The Heavenly Demon Heart-Crushing Claw, beaten out of the host body by pure brute force, soared into the sky. It landed with a heavy, metallic clang some distance away, immediately leaking wisps of Yin energy.
Jiang Dao finally ceased his motion. He stood amidst the carnage, his body radiating heat like a furnace. He gasped for air, his lungs sounding like broken bellows, every vein on his body standing out like twisted worms.
His right arm was still a mess. The bleeding had stopped, but the flesh was grey and withered. Yet, compared to the pile of meat that used to be a Palace Master, a maimed arm was a low price to pay.
"It seems I am the stronger one…" Jiang Dao muttered to himself.
His gaze shifted to the artifact. The Heavenly Demon Heart-Crushing Claw, now separated from its host, had turned a matte jet-black. It had shrunk to the size of a human hand and lay near Han Ming, who was cowering in the corner.
Han Ming's face was the color of ash. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth—collateral damage from the shockwaves. He was staring at the claw with a mix of hypnotic fascination and abject terror, as if he wanted to pounce on it but feared it would bite him.
"You want it?" Jiang Dao's voice was indifferent, cutting through Han Ming's trance.
Han Ming shuddered violently, snapping back to reality. "I don't want it! I absolutely don't want it!"
He scrambled backward, pressing himself into the debris, putting as much distance between himself and the artifact as possible. In his eyes, Jiang Dao had ascended past the realm of a warrior and become a monster. He had physically beaten a Saint Weapon user into paste.
Jiang Dao strode forward, his expanded physique rapidly compressing back to his normal—though still imposing—stature. His skin glowed with a dull red heat, like cooling iron. He bent down and retrieved the claw.
It felt like holding a piece of black jade, heavy and impossibly cold. The chill didn't stop at the skin; it drilled into the marrow. Jiang Dao could feel a pulse within it, a dense, concentrated baleful energy. It felt less like a weapon and more like a prison for a dormant demon.
Curious, Jiang Dao extended a tiny wisp of his internal energy to probe the artifact.
Snap.
The moment his energy touched the baleful aura inside, it was pulverized into nothingness.
Such strong baleful energy, Jiang Dao thought, his eyes narrowing. That brief contact told him everything: the evil spirit sealed within this object was leagues above the Spirit Child Palace Master in power.
"Han Ming," Jiang Dao asked without turning around. "Is it true that the more blood sacrifices this thing receives, the greater its power?"
"Yes! Yes, my Lord," Han Ming stammered. "All Saint Weapons share this trait. The more blood they drink, the stronger they become. This claw… It's only a Yellow Grade Mid-Rank Saint Weapon!"
"Yellow Grade Mid-Rank? Implying there are many tiers above it?"
"Correct. But Saint Weapons are incredibly rare. I've only ever seen two. This claw, and the Mountain-Splitting Soul-Slaughtering Axe the Tuoba family borrowed from the Thirteen Blood Demon Mountains."
Jiang Dao stared into the obsidian surface of the claw. A dark, intrusive thought bubbled up from the depths of his mind.
What if I fused this into my own body?
He crushed the thought immediately. The risk was astronomical. With an evil spirit of this magnitude inside, fusion could lead to possession. At best, it would warp his mind; at worst, he would become a puppet.
No. Do not touch this lightly.
He pocketed the item and turned his gaze to Han Ming. His eyes were hard to read.
"The Spirit Child Palace is gone. The Master is dead," Jiang Dao mused aloud. "Is there any reason to keep you alive, Han Ming?"
Han Ming's blood ran cold. He recognized the look in Jiang Dao's eyes—the pragmatic calculation of a killer.
"My Lord! Don't kill me!" he shrieked, falling to his knees. "I am useful! I know the lay of the land, I know the factions! I will serve you like a horse, like an ox! Please!"
Jiang Dao squeezed out a terrifying semblance of a smile. "Good. Be obedient, and I won't kill you."
He turned and walked toward the wilderness. "I need to heal. This claw left something nasty in my arm."
Han Ming collapsed against the wall, drenched in cold sweat, before scrambling to follow the monster he now called Master.
Minutes turned to hours. The sun dipped below the horizon, and the ruins of the villa fell silent.
But the silence was soon broken. Shadows flickered across the broken walls as four or five figures descended. They were experts from the Tuoba family, moving with the grace of predators.
They scanned the area, their expressions tightening when they saw the corpse of Tuoba Longteng nailed to a wall.
"Second Elder!"
"The Spirit Child Palace Master did this?" one of them hissed. "That creature dared to kill a Tuoba elder?"
"We will not rest until the Spirit Child Palace is dust," a middle-aged man swore, his teeth grinding.
"Third Elder… look."
A young disciple tugged at the leader's sleeve, pointing a trembling finger toward a crater in the ground.
The group moved closer, and a collective gasp sucked the air from the clearing.
It was a slaughterhouse scene. A pile of mashed flesh lay scattered, the bones pulverized so thoroughly they were indistinguishable from the meat. Next to the carnage lay a head—or what remained of one. It was caved in, twisted, barely human.
But the Tuoba experts knew the face.
A chill went down their spines, raising the hair on their arms.
"This is the Spirit Child Palace Master?"
"It… it was killed? Beaten into mud?"
"How is this possible?" the young disciple cried out, his voice cracking. "It had the Saint Weapon! Who could kill it?"
The Third Elder stared at the gore, his internal ocean churning with shock. Even the Tuoba Patriarch hadn't been able to kill this creature. Yet here it lay, dismantled like a cheap toy.
"The energy residue…" another man noted, crouching down. "Intense fire. Virulent poison. The killer is a master of fire and toxins."
"Report to the Patriarch immediately," the Third Elder commanded, his voice grave. "The situation has changed."
Miles away, in a secluded, hidden cave.
The air shimmered with heat. Waves of terrifying, poisonous gas rolled out of the cave mouth, creating a zone of death. Within a radius of several hundred meters, the grass turned black, and birds fell from the sky, their bodies rotting before they hit the ground.
Han Ming stood at the very edge of this death zone, watching the cave with awe.
It had been a full day. The cave acted like a volcano, venting pressure.
Inside, Jiang Dao sat cross-legged. He watched his right arm, the color slowly returning to the pale skin. He exhaled a long, scorching breath.
The Yin energy from the claw had been like maggots burrowing into his bone. It had taken a full day of circulating his Fire Poison internal energy to burn it out. The floor around him was stained with thick, black blood—the physical manifestation of the expelled corruption.
"Terrifying," Jiang Dao whispered. "One hit did this. If I had taken three, I would be dead."
He flexed his hand. The Regimen Manual energy flowed through the limb like warm water, soothing the trauma.
Satisfied, he pulled up his internal interface.
[Modifications Available: 2]
The kill had rewarded him. Currently, only four of his skills can be upgraded: Regimen Manual, Primal Fire Demon Kang, Black Demon Evil Heart Art, and Wind-Thunder Poison Sand Palm. The rest were capped.
Jiang Dao didn't hesitate. He focused his mind on the foundation of his strength: the Regimen Manual.
Upgrade.
The text on the floating screen blurred and shifted.
[Regimen Manual: 860 Years of Cultivation] became [980 Years of Cultivation].
Whoosh!
A surge of power, thick as a finger, erupted within his core. It roared through his meridians, a river of vitality that washed away the fatigue and the lingering pain. His body, previously overheating from the poison expulsion, suddenly felt cool and refreshed, as if bathed in a spring breeze.
Jiang Dao stood up. His joints cracked with the sound of snapping timber. He walked to the cave entrance, the toxic fog parting around him.
"Han Ming," he called out. "Prepare to leave. We return to Qianyuan City."
Back at the Tuoba estate, the atmosphere was heavy.
In a bright courtyard, the elites of the family gathered around the shattered head the Third Elder had retrieved.
"Patriarch," a middle-aged man asked, looking toward a slender man with deep, intelligent eyes. "Do you know who could have done this?"
The Tuoba Patriarch stroked his long beard, staring at the skull. "I know every expert in the Southern Daye Dynasty. But a man who can brutalize a Saint Weapon user like this? I have no name for him. And more importantly… the weapon is gone."
The silence in the room deepened. If the killer had the weapon, they were now exponentially more dangerous.
"We cannot pursue this blindly," the Patriarch decided. "We risk provoking a monster we do not understand."
"Patriarch," interjected Tuoba Guang, the fourth elder. "We've lost contact with the team sent to Qianyuan City. And I've heard news from Anyang… the Xie family's decade-long plot was uprooted. Their eldest son was killed. The South is becoming chaotic."
"The Xie family is already moving to Nanzhou?" The Patriarch's eyes sharpened. "Good. Tuoba Guang, go to them. Propose an alliance. We have no conflict with the Xie clan. I have confirmed that a Mystic Grade High-Rank Saint Weapon will appear in Nanzhou soon. We need the manpower."
He paused, his expression darkening.
"And find Qin Qingqing. Her importance cannot be overstated. We must find her before anyone else does."