The rain had stopped, leaving the cobblestones of the cursed township slick and gleaming under the sickly, emerald glow of the ritual candles. The air, heavy with the scent of wet stone and decaying life, felt like a shroud. High above, nestled against the oppressive, midnight sky, a figure lay in wait.
This was Jiang Dao, and tonight, he was not merely a man.
He was a weapon, a vessel of raw, untamed power, currently wrapped in a suppressive cloak of black fabric that barely contained the monstrous vitality humming beneath. He was perched on the tiled roof of Squire Liu's manor—a place where the very concept of peace had been violently extinguished, marked by the pitiful, swaying bodies of the slaughtered family hanging from the dead branches of a courtyard tree.
The sight, grim and macabre, was a stark reminder of the brutality inherent in this hidden world of cultivators and kings. These were the Yellow Springs Zhang Family, and they had come to harvest secrets and power, leaving a trail of common blood as an unfortunate byproduct.
Jiang Dao's focus, however, was not on the hanged. It was on the low, guttural murmur of voices emanating from the main hall below.
He had come to investigate the disappearance of a low-grade artifact. What he had found instead was a conspiracy unfolding in hushed tones, a secret so vast it threatened to break the very foundations of the local power structure. He pressed closer, his entire being—suppressed and taut—a perfect instrument of eavesdropping.
Inside, the green candlelight cast long, distorted shadows on the faces of seven figures. At the head of the table sat their leader, the Third Elder, a man whose features were sharp and predatory—a pinched chin, triangular eyes, and a perpetually downward curve to his brow that spoke of ancient, calculating malice.
Before him, a slain Celestial Dynasty agent—a spy from the legendary **Divine Might Sect**—lay in a pool of drying blood, his eyes two black pits crawling with white parasites. The gruesome detail sent a chill that Jiang Dao's internal heat barely registered. This was not the work of mere local thugs.
"Unbelievable, truly unbelievable..." the Third Elder began, his voice a low hiss, barely penetrating the thickness of the roof tiles. "We pursued a simple Sacred Artifact, but what emerged was... *that thing*."
Jiang Dao's mind raced. *That thing?* The word was used with reverence and terror. He had dismissed the mountain's rumored treasure as a standard Saint-grade artifact—perhaps Profound or Earth class. Now, the stakes had skyrocketed. The Third Elder's next words confirmed the gravity of the situation.
"This secret must be sealed. Absolute silence. The killing of a Divine Might Sect agent alone is enough to bring the wrath of the Celestial Dynasty down on the Yellow Springs Zhang Family, leading to our complete annihilation. But if the news of *that thing* gets out... it will ignite a war that engulfs the land."
The others, six of them, nodded with grim intensity. They were cultivators, powerful enough to terrorize a dynasty, yet they spoke of a threat that dwarfed their collective strength.
The Sixth Elder, restless and cautious, broke the silence. "Third Elder, I've erased our tracks, but we cannot obtain *that thing* ourselves. It will draw attention when it emerges. And we have the monsters of the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain to contend with. We must contact **that adult**."
Jiang Dao felt a surge of cold recognition. The Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain—a fallen but legendary Heavenly Mandate Royal Clan. And "that adult"—a shadowy patron whose power was apparently the only recourse against the mountain's ancient legacy. The simple search for a missing gong and hammer had devolved into a cosmic chess match.
The Third Elder hesitated, his avarice warring with his fear. "If we secured it ourselves... the Zhang Family could rise. We could become the second Heavenly Mandate Royal Clan."
The dream was tempting, the risk catastrophic. Elder Wu, the pragmatist, interjected. "Third Elder, we are mere mortals holding a pearl. It will only make us a target for every ghost and ghoul, including the Co-Demon Palace and the Mountain. Better to offer it to that adult. Loyalty brings its own rewards, perhaps a Sacred Artifact."
The internal struggle was clear in the leader's eyes, a flicker between grand destiny and cold survival. Finally, he slammed his hand down on the wooden armrest.
"Then it is settled. Contact the adult. Even without *that thing*, his favor is protection."
Jiang Dao had heard enough. This was no longer a matter of retrieving lost property. It was about preventing a celestial-level power shift that would end with countless innocent deaths and, most importantly, expose his own deeply guarded secrets.
He thought of his transformation—the monstrous, bone-armored, eight-meter-tall manifestation of raw vitality and Blazing Sun power. That form was his ultimate secret, his failsafe. If any of the factions mentioned—the Royal Clans, the Divine Might Sect, or 'that adult'—ever got wind of its existence, they would hunt him relentlessly.
*Total elimination.* That was the only path forward.
His mind was already made up, but the Third Elder spoke one last, critical sentence. "Also, deal with those evil spirits you brought. Keep them contained. If they stir up trouble, especially with the local Spirit Exorcists, it could bring us unnecessary attention. Remember the Blazing Flame Gang incident."
The Sixth Elder chuckled. "Just a few mortals killed, Third Elder. I'll personally silence the spirits shortly."
That sealed it. Not only were they plotting inter-faction annihilation, but they were also the cause of the recent local killings. Jiang Dao had a moral imperative, and now, a perfect window.
---
A sudden, sharp instinct—the kind that screams in the mind of the truly powerful—caused the Third Elder to snap his head up.
"Who!"
*CRACK!*
With a terrifying burst of spiritual energy, he ripped the ornate armrest from his seat and hurled it upwards like a projectile of wrought iron.
Simultaneously, Jiang Dao ceased all pretense of concealment. The black robe flattened against him, not with the wind, but with the sheer force of his own erupting energy. His eyes snapped open, blazing gold within the shadow. The suppression was off.
The armrest hit the roof, but before it could shatter the tiles, a massive, crimson-tinged hand caught it mid-flight.
*BANG!*
Five fingers, long and claw-like, closed. The spiritually charged wood exploded into splinters and dust.
The transformation was immediate, violent, and complete.
Jiang Dao's body *inflated*, his muscles and bones growing at a breakneck speed, tearing the confining black cloth into ribbons. His height soared past five meters, then seven, finally stabilizing at over eight meters. His skin was instantly replaced by thick, jagged bone armor, crisscrossed with dense, red hair. A massive, spear-like bone tail erupted from his spine, striking the roof with a sound like a thunderclap.
The seven figures below, already airborne and rushing toward the roof, froze in collective, gut-wrenching shock. Their faces, seconds ago set in expressions of ruthless determination, now displayed pure, unadulterated horror.
*What manner of monster is this?* they thought, their minds screaming the question.
Jiang Dao—now the monstrous entity known only to himself as the Extreme Dao Form—responded not with words, but with an immediate, earth-shattering sweep of his arm.
*WHOOSH!*
The crimson-horned hand, tipped with sharp, bone-white claws, tore through the air. The combined forces of Extreme Poison, Extreme Malevolence, and Blazing Sun True Qi churned at its core. It was less a strike and more a catastrophic force of nature.
The five elders closest to him were thrown back instantly, their defensive spells dissolving like smoke. Jiang Dao's target, however, was still the hall below. He focused on the only thing that had been a momentary constraint: the strange wooden puppet that had momentarily bound him earlier.
In a terrifying display of speed and power, Jiang Dao's colossal form flashed, a blurring crimson-and-black shadow. The two immense, twin blades he wielded materialized, their edges sharper than thought.
*CRASH!*
The first giant blade, like a divine butcher's cleaver, swept across the puppet, reducing its wooden, ritual-bound form to two smoking halves. Before the pieces could attempt to re-knit, Jiang Dao's Blazing Sun Field—a suffocating aura of pure, white-hot energy—descended upon them, gripping the shattered wood like a colossal, invisible vise. The remnants of the evil artifact hissed and smoked, unable to reform under the oppressive heat.
His attention immediately snapped back to the elders, now recovered and attacking.
The burly white-haired elder, fueled by terror, screamed, "Blood Coffin Burial Technique, Combine!"
Wide, blood-soaked planks materialized around Jiang Dao, reeking of death, and slammed together with deafening force, attempting to form an iron-tight, crimson coffin. Simultaneously, two green-robed figures appeared, slapping the surface with black talismans that rapidly expanded, covering the coffin in intricate, binding seals.
Inside, chains erupted from the wood, wrapping around Jiang Dao's colossal limbs, locking him into a helpless crucifix pose. The blood coffin began to heat, black flames—the pure, destructive fire of an ancient curse—erupting inside, licking at his bone armor.
*A desperate tactic.*
Jiang Dao roared, a sound that shook the very foundation of the manor. His muscles swelled further, the bone spikes on his body growing more pronounced. With a violent, all-encompassing jerk, the black chains snapped like threads, scattering fragments of spiritually charged metal.
*BOOM!*
His monstrous body exploded out of the confines, the blood coffin tearing apart in a cataclysm of wood and blood mist. Shards of the defeated coffin scattered like shrapnel.
He was fast. Too fast. He moved with the precision of a master duelist and the irresistible force of a falling mountain. His twin blades were everywhere at once.
One blade became a spear, thrusting through the jaw of the nearest green-robed elder.
*PFFT!*
The blow was so forceful that it cleaved his head in half. The green-robed figure didn't even have time to scream. The sheer quantity of Blazing Sun True Qi injected into the wound instantly incinerated his life force, rendering his Heavenly Mandate vitality utterly meaningless. He fell—a dead, smoking husk.
"Hand over the gong and the hammer!" one of the remaining elders screamed, his face contorted with rage and fear, now more focused on their mission than their immediate danger.
"If you value your lives, you will all die here," Jiang Dao's voice, a guttural, roaring wind, responded.
The dual blades spun, executing a blinding horizontal sweep. The blades were massive, but his control was absolute.
*SLAASH!*
One unfortunate soul was sliced cleanly in half at the waist. Before the top half could fall, the second blade crashed down, splitting his head, ensuring instant, total annihilation.
The white-haired elder attempted to buy time, conjuring three massive blood coffins as shields. Jiang Dao's colossal bone tail, thick as an oak trunk, surged out like a striking serpent. It struck the shields not with a slice, but with a pure, overwhelming *impact*.
*CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!*
The shields exploded into splinters. The bone tail, undeterred, smashed into the elder's arms, which he had crossed in a desperate attempt to block.
A sickening *snap* echoed across the courtyard. The elder's arms were pulverized, his bones shattered, black blood spraying. He was sent flying backward, a broken doll.
Jiang Dao followed with terrifying immediacy. A single stomp of his monstrous foot launched him across the ground in a blink. The giant blade descended.
"NO!" the elder screamed, finally understanding the futility of his resistance.
*BOOM!*
The blade struck, smashing the elder into the earth. It had not just cleaved his body but had driven a colossal wave of Blazing Sun energy into his core, consuming him from the inside out. He issued a final, horrifying shriek before his body went limp, utterly destroyed.
Only three remained, including the Third Elder and the Sixth Elder, who had controlled the puppet.
The Sixth Elder, pale with shock and recognizing the absolute disparity in power, screamed, "Young Master, flee! His power is beyond anything we predicted!"
He grabbed the petrified Third Elder and attempted to flee, a swift, desperate leap towards the nearest wall.
Jiang Dao, however, was not about to let his secret walk away. His massive form moved with the speed of an ignited comet, a devastating fire-beast tearing through the manor. The ground cracked beneath his feet, tiles and stone exploding into the air.
He would leave nothing behind. Every member of the Yellow Springs Zhang Family who knew of the Divine Might spy, of the Thirteen Corpse Demon Mountain, and, most crucially, who had seen the **Extreme Dao Form**, was marked for immediate and total erasure.
The Butcher of the Blazing Sun had made his move, and the night would only end when the slaughter was complete. This small, dark corner of the world was about to be cleansed, violently, in a torrent of crimson light and bone. The larger war for *that thing* would have to wait; first, the loose ends had to be cut, severed cleanly and irreversibly.