Inside the Faceless Hall.

Headmaster Saint Spirit Daoist slowly rose to his feet, retrieved a bundle of fresh incense sticks from a hidden compartment in the corner, lit them, and inserted them into the incense burner in front of the divine statue.

The mysterious inlays on the surface of the incense burner lit up with a faint silver glow.

A wisp of cool air, like a gentle breeze, wafted out from the incense burner, spreading to the surroundings.

This aura, as if alive, was quickly inhaled through the noses of the human faces on the walls.

Everything returned to silence once more.

Saint Spirit Daoist turned around, looking towards the doorway as if he had foreseen it.

The doors slowly opened again.

A handsome young man with a tall and slender figure slowly walked in, looking up at him.

"Teacher." The young man carried a long sword on his back, not placing his natal Crimson Feather Sword into a sword-nurturing pouch.

"What's wrong? Is the sword damaged?" Saint Spirit Daoist asked, his expression softening considerably upon seeing the young man.

"Yes. It needs to be repaired. I used too much force when beheading the subsequent two Six-Imprint demon kings." The young man was Huo Qingkong, who had just returned from the frontier mine outpost.

"Just put it down, and I'll help you repair it later," Saint Spirit Daoist said with a smile.

He paused, about to remind him about the demon clan, when his eyes suddenly froze.

"You've broken through again!?"

There was an irrepressible joy in his words.

"Yes." Huo Qingkong nodded slightly, revealing a smile. "I haven't failed your expectations. I have now officially crossed the first level of the Thousand Faces Sword Canon. The Nascent Divinity Sword has also been constructed."

The core of the Thousand Faces Sword Canon is to condense a unique sword-shaped Nascent Divinity using all one's own insights, realms, and knowledge, and then gradually perfect it.

For the Faceless Sword Sect, whose consciousness can directly materialize and interfere with reality, the power of the sword-shaped Nascent Divinity they construct with their consciousness will far exceed the Wisdom Sword of lower levels.

"Good! Truly, Heaven is blessing my Faceless Sect!" Saint Spirit Daoist spread his arms, feeling refreshed for a moment, even the backlash from his cultivation technique seemed to have lessened.

Among the four sects, the Thousand Faces Sword Canon is the first in terms of killing power.

And Huo Qingkong's aptitude is also geared towards extreme killing. If this continues, there will definitely be hope to easily overcome the Hundred-Year Calamity!

"The backlash on me is getting heavier... Now I need to stay in the divine hall most of the time, using cultivation to suppress the Nascent Divinity backlash.

The remaining six elders have also mostly reached their own limits. To dissolve the increasingly strong tribulation energy, one must reach above the fifth level of the Thousand Faces Sword Canon. It seems that you will definitely be able to enter this realm within twenty years. By then, the Hundred-Year Calamity should be able to be extended by another thousand years!" Saint Spirit Daoist said spiritedly.

"This disciple will certainly live up to your expectations!" Huo Qingkong clasped his fist and bowed, speaking in a clear voice.

"Remember, be careful when you're out. The future hope of our sect rests entirely on you! If you need any resources or medicines, feel free to take whatever is in the secret vault," Saint Spirit Daoist said seriously.

"Yes." Huo Qingkong nodded.

After putting down the Crimson Feather Sword, he chatted with his teacher for a while before turning and leaving the hall.

Walking slowly along the way back, all the sect disciples who encountered him respectfully yielded the road, bowing and saluting to him.

"Look over there, it's Senior Brother!"

"Senior Brother is the strongest!!"

"Those demon clan guys are no match for Senior Brother at all! He is truly the strongest genius of our Faceless Sword Sect in a thousand years!"

The immature voices from the distance were secretly transmitted to Huo Qingkong's ears. Although the junior brothers and sisters spoke very softly, his cultivation was too high, and he could easily hear them.

Huo Qingkong maintained a gentle smile on his face, walking forward, occasionally giving some guidance to the junior brothers and sisters who came forward to ask for advice.

"Senior Brother!"

Suddenly, a little junior sister, no more than twelve or thirteen years old, with a fair and tender baby face, approached him.

"It's me, Zhao Yuan!"

Zhao Yuan, one of the Four Little Swords, had actually been taken care of by him when she was very young. When Zhao Yuan was still an infant, sometimes the master was not free to take care of her, so he would put her in the headmaster's attic.

Since the headmaster stayed in the divine hall all year round, only Huo Qingkong and a few servants lived in the attic.

So naturally, little Zhao Yuan often stayed with him.

"What's wrong? Yuanyuan," Huo Qingkong reached out and rubbed Zhao Yuan's chubby face.

"It's not a big deal. It's just that someone keeps saying bad things about Senior Brother, and I couldn't win the argument, so I fought with her, and as a result... I lost two moves." Zhao Yuan pouted, very unhappy.

"It's okay, after dinner tonight, we'll practice swords in the courtyard for a while, and I'll teach you a trick that will definitely help you win next time." Huo Qingkong gently rubbed her hair.

"Really? Won't it delay you?" Zhao Yuan's eyes lit up, revealing a longing and worried expression.

"It's okay... it's just a simple trick, it won't take long." Huo Qingkong had just finished speaking when he suddenly felt a pain in his chest.

He could suppress and resolve the backlash from the cultivation technique, but as the demon emperor said, the technique itself was in harmony with Old Ancestor Red Kite, and for others, no matter who, as long as they continued to cultivate and walk down this path, the higher their cultivation, the more contradictions and conflicts would arise, and the disharmony would become stronger and stronger.

Walking and talking with Zhao Yuan, he still had a smile on his face, but the throbbing pain in his heart was getting heavier and heavier.

'I must find a way to solve and suppress the backlash.'

The so-called backlash was actually that he did not vent the seven kinds of malice that the holy infant exuded.

He had understood very early on that venting malice through the holy infant could not completely solve the backlash from the cultivation technique.

On the contrary, it might even cause the holy infant to change, thereby escaping his control.

Therefore, he chose to forcibly suppress the malice in his body, condensing it into seven evil swords.

Normal consciousness condenses normal Wisdom Swords.

But the malice condensed seven evil swords that contained all his accumulated malice.

Originally, he thought he could suppress it until the Nascent Divinity Sword was completed, and then use the Nascent Divinity Sword to counter-slash the seven swords, perfecting himself.

Unfortunately, he didn't expect that he couldn't suppress it anymore after only reaching the first level of the Thousand Faces Sword Canon.

The pain grew stronger and stronger, without stopping for a moment, and the wrinkles on Huo Qingkong's brow also tightened.

Zhao Yuan's chirping voice beside him seemed to be gradually drifting away, becoming somewhat unclear.

Returning to his residence, bidding farewell to the little girl, the special effect of the wooden house helped him suppress the agitation of the seven swords in his body once again.

Sitting by the window, he picked up a pen and gently dipped it in the ink.

Huo Qingkong looked at the unfolded white paper in front of him, and the words the demon emperor had said before came back to his mind again.

His heart began to ache again, and seven strange auras were constantly roaming within his chest. Compared to before, these seven auras not only made him feel pain, but even began to deliberately chop at his newly condensed natal Nascent Divinity Sword.

Ding ding ding...

Subtle sounds that only he could hear rang in Huo Qingkong's ears.

His Nascent Divinity Sword of the Thousand Faces Sword Canon, which had just broken through, and his originally stabilized cultivation, under the collision and chopping of the Seven Evil Swords, actually faintly began to reappear with cracks, and his cultivation began to regress.

'Qingkong, you are the future hope of this sect!' His teacher's voice rang in his ears again.

"Originally, the teacher thought it would be difficult to escape the tribulation, but I didn't expect to meet you. I hope you will reach the fifth level within twenty years..."

"Brother Qingkong, mother consort has recently been rewarded by the imperial father again. It's all because you are getting better and better in the Sword Sect." This was the voice of his imperial sister.

"In a while, there will be the Four Sects Grand Competition. The first-place prize this time is Heavenly Silk Silkworm Molt, which is a mind-calming treasure that can weaken the teacher's backlash. The teacher's current situation is quite bad, please be sure to get it, Senior Brother!" This was the voice of his junior brother.

One voice after another constantly overlapped, causing the pen in Huo Qingkong's hand to tremble slightly.

"Painful?" Suddenly, an eerie voice rang in his ear.

"!!?" Huo Qingkong slammed his pen down, heavily dotting a black spot on the white paper.

This was the voice of the Demon Emperor!!

How could he!??

"Just a wisp of spiritual sense, no need to be so alarmed... How is it? Have you thought about it? The biggest mistake of that old Red Kite was to forcibly separate malice to purify himself. Little did he know that there are no boundaries between good and evil, and evil is also a part of his nature."

The Demon Emperor chuckled, "I have a method here, called the Seven Faces Yuan Body Method, which can absorb all malice into oneself. With your comprehension, you will surely be able to reach the land of Yin extremity and Yang birth quickly, thereby stepping into great perfection and integrating good and evil... reaching a greater transcendence than Red Kite."

"Get out!" Huo Qingkong snorted coldly. Expelling the Demon Emperor's spiritual sense from his heart, he once again focused his mind on cultivation.

His Thousand Faces Nascent Divinity Sword rapidly recovered from its cracks at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming even more stable.

Such a cultivation speed could only be achieved by the direct disciples of the same level after months of painstaking cultivation.

And he only spent a few breaths.

*
*
*

Inside the Kui Ling Pavilion.

In the room where Li Cheng Yi lived.

"This is my brother!"

Squirrel Volcano pointed to a tall, muscular black squirrel next to him, introducing him in a gruff voice.

"His name is Huo Huo!"

"Hmm." Li Cheng Yi stroked his chin, sizing up Huo Huo, who had just been called over by Volcano.

Both were from the same clan. Volcano's cultivation, according to the division of demon beasts, should be Four-Imprint, that is, four ascensions.

Demon beasts were different from humans. Their ascension imprints were fixed. To be precise, the improvement of demon beasts was called evolution.

They could not change their imprint routes at will like humans, but their strength lay in the fact that each evolution imprint granted them more improvement than humans.

Huo Huo's cultivation was Three-Imprint, which was a bit worse, but considering that the two were from the same clan and easy to communicate with, it was an advantage.

Volcano seemed fierce, but was actually quite honest, and had been getting along well during this time.

"Okay, it's him." Li Cheng Yi was too lazy to change to another demon beast.

Different demon beasts required different break-in times and methods. Rather than finding other demon beasts, it was better to stick with these two brothers.

"Thank you, Master!" Volcano was overjoyed.

Only after following Li Cheng Yi did he understand that his master was different from the others.

He did not really treat them as slaves, nor did he discriminate against them as naturally as others, but rather regarded them as people equal to himself.

Not only did he provide food and drink, but also cultivation techniques! And cultivation resources!

Compared to other cultivators who only remembered to use demon beasts as latrines when there were side effects and backlashes, it was simply heaven and earth.

To be precise, Volcano's feeling was correct.

Li Cheng Yi was indeed not used to seeing them as slaves. He simply saw himself as the boss, treating them with the attitude he had towards his previous team members.

Although he often exploited them.

But that was enough to make Volcano grateful to him.

Now that the selection was confirmed, Li Cheng Yi stood up and pointed his index finger, seemingly slowly but actually quickly, at Huo Huo's forehead.

Chi!

Streams of invisible consciousness suddenly poured into Huo Huo's mind.

The consciousness contained a lot of information about the Saint Spirit Technique. All of it was a simplified version of the Saint Spirit Technique.

(End of chapter)