The heat radiating from the furnace was not merely physical; it was a spiritual pressure that weighed heavily on the air, distorting the space around it like a mirage over asphalt. Jiang Dao stood before the roaring structure, his gaze fixed on the molten heart of the fire. With a deliberate, practiced motion, he forced the blood from his veins.
It didn't drip; it hissed.
The moment his blood—rich with the terrifying potency of the Extreme Yang—struck the flames, the furnace roared. A shockwave of thermal energy blasted outward, sending the temperature skyrocketing. Inside the crucible, the three artifacts sat bathed in fire: a copper gong, a heavy hammer, and an intricate command token. As Jiang Dao's blood coated them, they began to shed their metallic luster, darkening into a sinister, ominous crimson.
His blood was the catalyst. It was no ordinary fluid; it was fuel for the supernatural.
Soon, the sound of footsteps broke the rhythmic roaring of the fire. Xiang An, Yan Wushuang, and Guo Dutian arrived, leading a procession of the Flame Gang's elite. These were men who had been personally touched by Jiang Dao's power, their inner fires ignited by his own. One by one, they stepped up to the furnace. There was no hesitation, only the grim efficiency of a cult devoted to survival. They sliced their fingers, feeding their own blood essence into the hungry flames.
The fire turned a bewitching, unnatural shade of violet-red. Inside, the artifacts drank it in, their surfaces pulsing with a dark, rhythmic glow.
For four days, this ritual continued. It became a pilgrimage. From the high-ranking Hall Masters down to the lowest foot soldiers, the members of the Flame Gang streamed into the compound. Tens of thousands of men, a river of humanity, arrived to offer a drop of vitality before rushing back to their posts. Jiang Dao remained a sentinel throughout, eating and sleeping by the warmth of the forge, his eyes rarely leaving the transformation within.
Gathering the blood was easy; the Flame Gang ruled these lands. The challenge was the logistics of time. But as the fourth day bled into the evening, the transformation was complete.
A strange sound began to emanate from the furnace—a sizzling, crackling noise, like meat searing on a skillet. The gong, hammer, and token had turned a deep, blood-clotted red. Even the flames seemed to bow to them, turning a uniform scarlet.
"It's melted! Gang Leader, the structure has finally yielded!" Guo Dutian shouted, his voice cracking with exhaustion and triumph.
Jiang Dao's eyes snapped open, reflecting the crimson light. "Pull them out. We work now."
Guo Dutian was prepared. Donning thick deerskin gloves and wielding massive iron tongs, he braved the blistering heat to extract the glowing artifacts. They were impossibly heavy. Ordinary smiths would have crumbled under their weight, so the labor fell to the martial elites. Under the supervision of master casters, Guo Dutian, Du Feng, and Yan Wushuang took up the hammers.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The rhythmic pounding echoed through the compound, the sound of will being imposed upon metal. Jiang Dao watched the copper distort and reshape, finally letting out a breath he felt he'd been holding for days.
He turned to the wizened figure standing beside him. "Daoist Priest, I've put you to much trouble this time."
Old Daoist Linghu shook his head, his eyes fixed on the glowing metal. "No trouble, Gang Leader. No trouble at all."
"Tell me," Jiang Dao asked, his voice low. "Once these things cool, will they revert to common iron?"
"Far from it," Linghu replied, stroking his beard. "The material remains rare and exotic. The blood essence merely softened its spiritual resistance to allow for forging. Once shaped into blades or armor, they will retain their structure. In fact, they will gain a thirty percent increase in malefic aura. They will be weapons of slaughter."
"Excellent." Jiang Dao nodded.
He didn't care about malefic auras or spiritual implications. He cared about durability. He needed weapons that wouldn't shatter when he smashed them into the skulls of ghosts and Evil Gods. Too many times, his weapons had crumbled like toys in his hands, corroded by dark energy or snapped by brute force. He needed steel that could keep up with him.
"By the way, Daoist," Jiang Dao said, shifting the topic. "What is the news from the outside world? Have any more Evil Gods awakened?"
The question hung in the air, heavier than the smoke from the furnace.
Daoist Linghu stiffened. He took a long moment to compose himself, the lines on his face deepening. "Resurrections on the scale of Tianshi Mountain… we likely won't see those for a while. But the silence is deceptive. I fear the world is becoming something far more bizarre."
"More bizarre?" Jiang Dao frowned. "How so?"
"I have been in contact with survivors from Tianshi Mountain," Linghu whispered. "After the disaster, the Night Watchmen scattered. They walked the earth, spilling their own holy blood to seal the fissures. They covered the Great Yu, the Great Ye, and the smaller kingdoms. It is said that dozens died simply from blood loss. Rumor has it… the order is extinct. The last Night Watchman has bled out."
Jiang Dao remained silent, absorbing the gravity of this.
"This sacrifice created a stalemate," Linghu continued. "The ground is soaked in their blood, preventing the sealed Evil Gods from breaking out or absorbing faith as they once did. But these entities are immortal. They adapt. Since they cannot break the seals physically, they are finding new ways to manifest. They are merging with Evil Spirits. They are sharing bodies."
"Merging?" Jiang Dao's brow furrowed. "A ghost possessing a ghost?"
"Precisely. And yes, their power is terrifying. They are the Gods among Ghosts."
"But why now?" Jiang Dao asked, suspicion coloring his tone. "Every Evil God I've fought was arrogant. They wanted their own bodies, their own worship. Merging with a lesser spirit seems beneath them. Why didn't they do this covertly before?"
"Pride," Linghu sighed. "To an Evil God, a common spirit is a beggar. They would never deign to share a vessel unless forced. The Night Watchmen have backed them into a corner. This is an act of desperation."
Jiang Dao understood. Desperation made enemies dangerous. He had barely mastered the Extreme Yang Divine Fire to the point where he could ignore lower-level threats. Now, he was facing 'Gods among Ghosts.' He would need to push his body even further.
"And the Great Yu Dynasty?" Jiang Dao asked. "What of the political landscape?"
Linghu hesitated, glancing sideways at the warlord. "Chaos. The Dynasty is fracturing. The imperial mandate is a joke. Spirit Removers have formed alliances, ignoring the throne entirely. There is a coalition near the border called the 'Heavenly Spirit Prefecture.' They are led by ancient families—the Old Buddha Temple, the Wang Clan, and the Bai Clan. They are powerful."
Linghu paused, then added softly, "Gang Leader, perhaps you should consider aligning with them. The world is ending. A lone wolf, no matter how strong, may not survive the coming winter."
"Is that so?" Jiang Dao mused. "Let me think on it."
He knew the truth of it. The Southern Region was a piece of fat meat, and the wolves were circling. In this Jianghu, you were often swept up by the current regardless of how strong you swam.
The Village of Echoes
The sun dipped below the horizon west of Qianyuan City, casting long shadows over the iron mine. The day shift was over.
Despite the biting cold and the crumbling economy, the atmosphere at the payout line was cheerful. The Flame Gang was brutal, yes, but they paid on time. While other gangs slashed wages to twenty-five coins, the Flame Gang held steady at thirty. To a laborer, those five coins were the difference between a full belly and a gnawing hunger.
Guo San, the mine foreman, counted out the copper coins, his breath misting in the air. "Alright, you got your cash. Why are you all still standing here?"
The workers shuffled their feet, looking at the ground. A burly man named Liu laughed nervously. "Foreman Guo... when are you leaving? We thought we'd walk back with you. You know... safety in numbers."
Guo San sneered, though his eyes darted toward the darkening road. "Still scared of the rumors from Zhang Family Village? Let me tell you, on Flame Gang territory, ghosts don't dare show their faces. Besides, I reported the issue. The Managers are here."
He gestured to a stone house nearby. "Manager Wang and Manager Sun. Real experts. They're going to sweep that village clean tonight."
Relief washed over the miners. The Flame Gang's "specialists" were legendary—men with blood like fire who hunted the things that went bump in the night.
Moments later, the door to the stone house opened. Wang Long and Sun Yue stepped out. They were giants of men, radiating a palpable heat that kept the evening chill at bay. They were Jiang Dao's disciples, infused with the Extreme Yang.
"The wages are done?" Manager Wang asked, his voice gravelly.
"Yes, sir," Guo San bowed, his smile obsequious. "We are ready to move."
"Good. Take us to this haunted village. Let's see what trash is haunting our production lines."
The village was a tomb of rotting wood and gray mist.
It sat in a valley of silence, yet as the group approached, the air filled with a cacophony of noise. It sounded like a bustling market day—screams, laughter, haggling, crying. But the streets were empty. The windows were dark.
The miners, terrified, sprinted through the main road, not daring to look left or right until they were half a kilometer past the village limits. Guo San ran with them, his heart hammering against his ribs. He stopped at a safe distance, panting, looking back into the gloom.
"The Managers... they went in," Guo San whispered.
Inside the village, the bravado of Wang Long and Sun Yue was beginning to fracture.
They gripped their steel blades, their knuckles white. The auditory hallucinations were relentless. They walked past empty courtyards and heard the distinct sounds of life replay like broken records.
"Drink! Keep drinking until you die!"
"Daddy, look at me! Look at the wooden horse!"
"Cough... Son, stop wasting money on medicine. Bury me in the hills before the neighbors see..."
The voices were layered, overlapping, suffocatingly real. Cold sweat trickled down Wang Long's spine.
"This isn't a normal haunting," he muttered.
Just as they turned to retreat, a light flickered in a two-story pavilion ahead. A window creaked open.
Inside sat a figure. It was shaped like a man, but where a head should have been, there was only a ragged stump. The figure's hands were busy on the table before it, groping blindly.
"Where is it? Where is the head?" the figure mumbled, the sound vibrating from its chest. "Do I want the young one today? Or the old one?"
On the table sat a dozen severed heads. They were preserved perfectly, their eyes blinking, their mouths twitching. As Wang Long and Sun Yue froze in horror, the heads on the table swiveled to look at them. They grinned. They winked.
The headless figure grabbed the head of an elderly man and jammed it onto its neck. The flesh sealed instantly. The old man's face animated, eyes glowing a sickly, oily green.
"You two," the creature croaked, smiling wide enough to show too many teeth. "Do you want to swap heads, too?"
Fear, primal and overwhelming, shattered the Managers' discipline. Their Extreme Yang blood, usually boiling, froze in their veins.
Run.
They turned to flee, but the world betrayed them. The ground became the sky. Gravity inverted. A force they couldn't see, couldn't fight, swept across their necks.
Two heads flew into the darkness.
An hour later, Guo San was pacing back and forth on the road, wringing his hands.
"They should be back," he muttered. "I should report this."
Just as he turned to leave, two silhouettes emerged from the mist. Wang Long and Sun Yue walked side by side, their gait smooth, their expressions serene.
Guo San nearly collapsed with relief. "Managers! You had us worried. Is it... is it done?"
"Rest easy," Wang Long said, his voice smooth. "The village is clean. Let's go home."
"Thank the heavens," Guo San laughed. He signaled his two assistants, and they turned to lead the way back to the city.
But as he walked, a nagging thought scratched at the back of Guo San's mind. He glanced over his shoulder.
Wait.
Manager Wang was the shorter of the two. Manager Sun was the tall one.
But now, looking at them in the moonlight, Wang towered over Sun.
Guo San stopped. The cold in his gut had nothing to do with the wind. "Managers... your heights..."
The two men stopped. They smiled. It wasn't a comforting smile.
"What are you doing?" Guo San whispered, watching their hands rise slowly, hovering toward the heads of his assistants.
"Nothing," Sun Yue chuckled. "Just testing your reflexes."
"Right... right," Guo San stammered, turning back around, forcing his legs to move. Just walk. Just keep walking.
Behind him, Wang Long and Sun Yue exchanged a glance. Their eyes flashed green.
Simultaneously, they reached out. They didn't strike; they grabbed. They gripped the heads of Guo San and his assistants and pulled.
There was no spray of blood. Just a wet, tearing sound like velcro.
The three heads popped off. The bodies remained standing.
In a blur of motion, the creatures shuffled their heads. Guo San's head was jammed onto his assistant's body. The assistant's head went to the other. The swap was chaotic and messy, yet when the heads settled, the flesh knit together seamlessly.
The three men—or what was left of them—stood there for a moment. Then, slowly, their lips curled upward. It wasn't a human expression. It was a rictus of pure, alien delight.
"Hehe."
"Hehehe."
Laughing softly, the new monsters walked into the night, heading for Qianyuan City.
The Evolution
Morning light filtered through the paper windows. Jiang Dao sat cross-legged on his bed, exhaling a breath of white steam that lingered in the air like a dragon.
He opened his eyes. The world seemed sharper, clearer.
He summoned the interface that only he could see. The translucent blue panel hovered in his vision. The eight modification points he had earned from the slaughter at Tianshi Town were gone, spent during the night.
[Name: Jiang Dao]
[Strength: 98]
[Speed: 88]
[Spirit: 20.8]
He scanned the martial arts list. Most remained unchanged, locked in their terrifying efficiency. But under the Extreme Dao Fire Dragon Fist, a new line had appeared.
Extreme Yang True Qi.
Jiang Dao clenched his fist. He could feel it—a river of liquid fire coursing through his meridians, distinct from the brute force of his muscles or the raw heat of his previous Yang energy. This was refined. This was concentrated. It was the best of both internal cultivation and external hardness.
"Ten times stronger," he muttered, gauging his own power. "I am solidly in the Second Transformation of the Dragon Level now. Perhaps at the peak."
In this world, the gap between levels was exponential. A Rank 2 was a god to a Rank 1. But Jiang Dao was walking a path no one had walked before. He was building his own ladder to heaven, one corpse at a time.
He stood up, the floorboards groaning under his dense muscle mass. He headed for the door, eager to test the new weapons from the forge.
But before he could cross the threshold, Xiang An came running, holding a thick envelope.
"Gang Leader! A letter for you."
"For me?" Jiang Dao frowned. He took the letter. The paper was heavy and expensive.
He tore it open.
It was from the Heavenly Spirit Prefecture.
Jiang Dao's eyes narrowed. The wolves weren't just circling anymore. They were knocking at the door.