Little Duan Immortal sensed carefully and thought to herself, “These people are extremely powerful, but they have a strange aura inside them... Their methods are wrong. They aren’t normal humans. They are stronger than demons, and their degree of corruption is deeper!”
Her heart skipped a beat as she immediately realized the truth.
“These people are Cataclysm-level beings!”
She quietly slipped outside the temple door, standing behind Chen Shi’s head, and gazed into the distance. She thought, “There are two kinds of Cataclysm-level beings. One kind grows from demons, and the other evolves from cultivators. Although both kinds are demonic races, they can be considered different species. I wonder which kind they are?”
Demons were born from the entanglement of resentment and demonic energy between heaven and earth in the underworld. They were peculiar life forms born in the underworld, shapeless and formless, merely a cluster of demonic thoughts with vitality, without a physical body. Sometimes they attached themselves to flowers in the underworld, manifesting as demonic flowers, trying to enter the mortal world from the underworld to obtain a true form.
In many places in the underworld shrouded in Yin energy, one could often see such demonic flowers trying to cross the boundary between the two realms to pollute the mortal world.
Once in the mortal world, the demon would abandon the demonic flower and attach itself to a human body, giving birth to a Demon Seed, polluting the surrounding Heavenly Dao, assimilating and absorbing it, allowing itself to grow rapidly. Only when it reached its complete form could it be considered a true demon.
But Cataclysm and Catastrophe were different.
Demons didn’t have physical bodies at the beginning, while Cataclysm and Catastrophe often did.
When a demon gained a body and continued to grow, it could evolve into a Cataclysm, and when a Cataclysm continued to grow, it could evolve into a Catastrophe.
But there was another kind of Cataclysm that didn’t evolve from demons. Instead, it came from cultivators who, at the Ascension realm, unified with the Heavenly Dao, only to be polluted by Demonic Energy, undergoing a disastrous transformation directly!
Similarly, there was another kind of Catastrophe that came from the corruption of heaven and earth, causing immortals to undergo a Calamitous Transformation, becoming Catastrophes.
In Little Duan Immortal’s era, the sun had extinguished, the moon had been polluted, and many surviving immortals of the Black Bird Celestial Court couldn’t withstand the pollution, undergoing Calamitous Transformations one after another, turning into Catastrophes. She was one of them, but she was more decisive. When her Calamitous Transformation began, she actively shattered the Heavenly Dao she had unified with and sealed herself, keeping herself in a state of broken Dao, and so she didn’t undergo the Calamitous Transformation.
Later, during the True King’s Era, the True King’s court discovered the Bluestone Path at Qixia Taoist Temple, found her hiding in another broken world trying to return to the living, and suppressed her under the Moon-Embracing Hall.
Because if she left that broken world, she would involuntarily unify with the Dao and pollute the outside world, becoming a true Catastrophe.
Later, when she returned to the mortal world, she was attacked by the Nine Halls of the True King, seriously injured, and crashed into the underworld together with the Immortal Bridge Blessed Land. Unable to return to life, Chen Shi knocked her on the head and stuffed her into the small temple, causing her to unify with the small temple’s space when she returned to life.
The space inside Chen Shi’s small temple happened to be unpolluted, without any Demonic Energy, so she didn’t undergo a disastrous transformation or Calamitous Transformation. But because she had unified with the small temple’s space, she also fell from the Catastrophe level to the Cataclysm level.
Although Little Duan Immortal had experienced the Great Shang’s Calamitous Transformation incident and had some understanding of Cataclysm and Catastrophe, her knowledge was limited. She could sense that those people were Cataclysm-level demonic beings, but whether they were human or demon, she couldn’t tell.
However, demons, Cataclysms, and Catastrophes were no longer human. They were another race entirely, filled with Demonic Energy, their Dao Hearts brimming with demonic nature, and they were extremely dangerous!
Little Duan Immortal grew vigilant.
“So it’s Top Scholar Chen.”
Dou Qi was both surprised and delighted, shouting, “I’ve searched high and low, and now you’ve fallen right into my lap! In the past, you killed the Young Master, and we didn’t dare touch you because you were a court official! But now the Western Capital court is destroyed, and there’s no court to back you up. Your title as top scholar isn’t worth anything anymore! Today, I will avenge the Young Mas—”
Before he could finish the word “avenge,” a flash of crimson blade light shot past. Dou Qi froze, staring at the wound on his finger. His entire life force was uncontrollably flowing from that tiny cut on his finger toward the treasured blade in Chen Shi’s hand!
This wound was very small, but it was like a burst dam. Even his physical body, and even his Primordial Spirit, began to dissolve!
He rapidly withered, in the blink of an eye becoming like a dried corpse, then fell to the ground with a thud.
Chen Shi’s eyelids twitched, and he said grimly, “You can avenge the Young Master, but you cannot insult the reputation of our top scholar. This top scholar was earned through hard work, without a single drop of fraud!”
All around was silence.
Then a voice came from the crowd: “You didn’t take a single Literary Test. It was a minor official who wrote the exam for you...”
Chen Shi’s eyes blazed with killing intent. With one swing of his blade, the speaker, an official of the Fu Zheng Pavilion, raised his hand to cover his neck. Blood gushed through his fingers, he swayed twice, and his corpse fell to the ground.
“Kill him to avenge the Young Master!” Qin Su shouted.
“Avenge Young Master Ren Feng!”
The entire Ren family, boiling with rage, surged toward him. Cultivators raised their miniature shrines one after another, preparing spells, while others took out fire guns and thunder pellets.
Ren Xiao’s expression was gloomy. He didn’t act directly but mobilized his Primordial Spirit. His Primordial Spirit sat within the Realm of Emptiness, channeling all the power within that realm, preparing to probe Chen Shi’s strength and deliver a fatal blow.
When Chen Shi had killed the Young Master during the palace examination back then, he was only at the Spirit Transformation realm. Even if his cultivation improved rapidly, at most he would now be at Emptiness Refining. But that blade was too eerie, and Ren Xiao wanted to first see where this treasured blade came from to avoid being wounded by it.
Shui Xuanzhi also didn’t act, his eyes fixed on the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade in Chen Shi’s hand.
He too sensed that this blade was unfathomably strange.
But what shocked him even more was that Chen Shi had struck twice in quick succession, wounding people, yet he hadn’t been able to see how Chen Shi drew his blade or how he had injured Dou Qi and the other man!
He was a Great Ascension Realm freeholder and a member of the freeholder organization. Although he was obsessed with power and scheming, he had never neglected his cultivation. He considered himself, aside from the Sect Leaders of the Thirteen Great Clans and certain renowned elders, a match for anyone else in the world.
But those two strikes from Chen Shi had truly shaken him. He thought to himself that even he might not be able to withstand this blade if faced with it!
“Chen Shi’s strength couldn’t have increased this fast!”
His gaze then fell behind Chen Shi’s head. That Blood Sea Hell appeared only the size of a washbasin, standing behind Chen Shi’s head. But on closer inspection, it stretched for thousands of miles, hidden in the void, which was why it seemed small!
“This blood sea is actually another kind of Realm of Emptiness!”
Shui Xuanzhi’s heart pounded violently as a key realization suddenly struck him!
The Realm of Emptiness could only be created by cultivators at the Return to Emptiness realm. At the Great Ascension realm, one refined the Great Vehicle, allowing it to merge with the physical body and Primordial Spirit, achieving the state where the body itself was vast and boundless.
But the Realm of Emptiness wasn’t truly vast and boundless. In fact, at the Great Ascension realm, the Realm of Emptiness could at most span a thousand miles. It wasn’t impossible to surpass a thousand miles, but it couldn’t maintain a larger range.
Without a qualitative improvement in cultivation, surpassing a thousand miles was impossible.
Yet the blood sea behind Chen Shi stretched for thousands of miles!
Clearly, in terms of cultivation, Chen Shi had far surpassed him!
“Escape!”
This thought suddenly flashed through his mind, and he indeed didn’t hesitate. He immediately soared into the air and took a single step. With that step, he shrank the distance to a foot, making the entire Bozhou city no bigger than an inch beneath him.
A Great Ascension Realm cultivator, the pinnacle of the current world, with cultivation and strength truly beyond measure. If a Great Ascension Realm powerhouse wanted to flee, no one could stop him. This was almost the consensus among all cultivators in the Western Ox New Continent!
Just as he soared into the air, blade light poured down like an ocean, and in an instant, everyone was caught in that ocean. Even Ren Xiao, a Return to Emptiness realm great expert waiting for the right moment to strike, never got his chance. He was drowned by the blade light!
Shui Xuanzhi looked down and saw the blade light overwhelming the city. The entire Bozhou city seemed flooded and had vanished.
“Good thing I ran fast!”
He had just thought this when he suddenly felt his cultivation rapidly draining. He quickly looked down and saw that somehow a shallow cut had appeared on his calf.
His blood and vital energy were frantically gushing out from this wound, flowing down toward Bozhou below!
“Just a scratch, it’s nothing!”
Shui Xuanzhi fled into the distance, channeling his cultivation to suppress the wound, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop it!
He was like a leak, and in just a short moment, most of his cultivation and life force had drained away.
Shui Xuanzhi swayed unsteadily, flying another hundred or so miles until he reached a moon. Finally, his life force was completely drained, his Primordial Spirit had dissolved into blood water, and he fell from the sky.
Before he died, he saw that this moon was only two or three miles in diameter. Standing on it were several oddly dressed people, watching him with a gleefully gloating expression.
His Primordial Spirit collapsed and disintegrated, and his soul flew out from it.
His soul struggled to grab hold of his physical body, but was pulled by a strange force, flying toward Bozhou along with the blood flow.
“Whoosh!”
His figure appeared in a vast blood sea, surrounded by the ghosts of hundreds of members of the Ren family and the officials of the Fu Zheng Pavilion.
They slowly rose from the blood sea, pinned in the air by some inexplicable force.
Chen Shi sheathed his blade, and the corpses of Ren Xiao, Qin Su, and the others fell to the ground.
“Excellent! They fell excellently!”
Chen Shi laughed. “You people don’t engage in production. You rely on force, sucking the blood of the common people. Usually, you act like great landlords, collecting rent, taxes, and money, debauching women, and occupying fertile fields. In times of disaster, you burn, kill, and loot, robbing grain. You deserve to fall under our blade!”
He walked out of the Ren family compound when suddenly his stomach growled like thunder. He laughed and said, “I’m a bit hungry.”
On the streets, people were watching, their faces gaunt. They all looked toward the Ren family compound. When they saw him come out, they hurriedly hid behind doors or in corners, not daring to meet his gaze.
Chen Shi raised his hand, and four or five people involuntarily flew toward him.
Their faces turned ashen.
Chen Shi asked, “Is there any food?”
One of the bolder ones complained, “Where would there be food? We’d be lucky to eat dirt.”
“Does the gentleman want to eat people?”
A woman trembled and said, “If you could spare some food for my child, I would give my life to you.”
Chen Shi dropped them and laughed. “Why would I eat you? I just killed all the Ren family with a single strike of my blade. The Ren family has plenty of grain, oil, rice, and meat. Go fetch some and cook for us. If it’s no good, then I really will eat people.”
The crowd was both surprised and delighted. They emerged from behind doors and corners one after another. An old man stepped forward, trembling, and said, “Hero, are the Ren family really all dead?”
Chen Shi glanced at him and said, “If you dare question me again, I’ll kill you too, old man!”
The old man was overjoyed and hurriedly ran toward the Ren family compound, but he tripped on the steps and fell. He scrambled up, rolling and crawling, and rushed inside.
After a moment, the old man came running back out, jumping for joy and waving his arms, shouting, “They’re dead! The whole Ren family is dead!”
The people of Bozhou cheered and rushed into the Ren family compound. Some cried, some laughed, some carried grain, some carried meat, some led livestock—it was like a festival, bustling and lively.
There were children sitting on the ground, holding a white flour bun, stuffing it desperately into their mouths, choking until their eyes rolled white. Their mothers ran over and fed them two sips of water before they recovered.
Chen Shi gripped the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade tightly, looking displeased at these people, men, women, old, and young, celebrating like it was a holiday. He calculated that if they didn’t cook for him soon, he would send them all down to the Blood Sea Hell for reformation and make them good ghosts.
Suddenly, the old man who had first rushed into the Ren family stumbled over to him. He fell to his knees, pulling at the hem of his clothes.
“Great philanthropist!” the old man said, tears streaming down his face.
Many people put down their grain and knelt to Chen Shi. “Great philanthropist!”
Chen Shi held the Tianluo Blood-Transforming Divine Blade, somewhat at a loss.
Just then, some cooks began clattering about, making rice and dishes. Women helped on the side, lighting fires, washing vegetables, and preparing food.
A few young women invited Chen Shi into a nearby restaurant to rest, massaging his shoulders and pounding his back. A scholar-like man came to serve him tea, attending to him with kind words. From time to time, men and women with children entered the building to kneel and pay respects to their benefactor.
Chen Shi sat there awkwardly, thinking to himself, “Have I fallen into demonhood? Am I really controlled by my good brother? Am I not ferocious enough?”
Little Duan Immortal sat at the temple entrance, resting her chin on her hands, watching this scene. A faint smile appeared on her face, and she thought, “He’s controlled by the demonic blade, yet he did a great good deed. It seems he’s not deeply fallen into demonhood. There’s still hope.”
A few Ginseng Grass Dolls tiptoed out of the small temple from behind her, twitching their noses, sniffing the aroma of food coming from outside.
One of the Ginseng Grass Dolls plucked a Ginseng Grass Fruit from its head and offered it to Little Duan Immortal ingratiatingly.
“I don’t eat it, but thank you.”
Little Duan Immortal refused. The Ginseng Grass Doll held its own fruit, looking as if it might cry, not knowing what to do with it. She had no choice but to accept the Ginseng Grass Fruit, eat it, and then went into the temple to gather the essence of the sun and moon from the ancestral court. In no time, she refined some dew and sprinkled it on the ground in front of the temple.
The spirit herbs took root in front of the temple again, growing even better.
“I’m idle in the small temple anyway. From now on, I can often refine some dew and water them with it,” Little Duan Immortal thought.
Chen Shi was terribly uncomfortable being waited on like this. He wanted to play the villain and turn hostile but couldn’t. Fortunately, the food was soon ready. People brought it up, set the table, and invited Chen Shi to dine alone.
Chen Shi held the blade in his right hand and chopsticks in his left, which was inconvenient, so a girl stepped forward, took a bowl and plate, and fed him carefully.
“It’s hard to kill people like this,” Chen the Great Philanthropist thought to himself.
His right hand gradually loosened, as if he was about to set down the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade.
This atmosphere was too peaceful, too full of human warmth. The worldly smoke and fire of the mortal realm was more effective than any Buddhist dharma for suppressing demonic nature or Daoist method for refining it away. Unconsciously, it diluted the demonic nature and killing intent of the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade, calming his heart.
Suddenly, Chen Shi gripped the Blood-Transforming Divine Blade tightly again, staring at the entrance of the restaurant.
At the restaurant entrance, a monk, a Daoist, and a Confucian scholar simultaneously stepped through the door and walked toward him.
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