"You!"
Gu Junshi waved her hand, her pure white and flawless robes transforming into a dark night black one. Her long hem swayed in the wind, and her aura instantly blended with the surrounding environment, creating a harmonious dark and enchanting style.
"Demon race, wouldn't it be better for you to live well in your abyss?" she asked him calmly.
The true demon roared, "I, the Lord of True Demons, will definitely descend upon this realm, and all of you will die then!"
Gu Junshi found this amusing. Her bright eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you think you can dominate the twenty-eight heavens by releasing the demon race? I think, since you feel they are not suited to live in the abyss, I might as well find them a new place..."
Gu Junshi's gaze drifted to her surroundings: the oppressive and gloomy sky, the lifeless, silent land, and the enchanting, bright crimson of the Higanbana. It was the only vibrant color, yet it still represented ill omen and death. Everything seemed like a colossal cage; once entered, no one could escape its perfect confinement.
Her eyes were as dark and deep as the abyss. She spoke faintly, "For example... the eighteen levels of hell in the Underworld. No soul has resided there for over a thousand years. Perhaps housing some of the dead souls from the demon realm would liven things up a bit."
Wasn't that a curse upon their demon race!
Ziying's body twisted and bulged under the strain of the true demon's demonic energy. She screamed in pain, her male and female voices mingling into a shrill wail: "We, the demon race, will trample this realm! I, the revered Heavenly Demon, will slaughter the Six Realms—"
*Bang—*
As the true demon's soul was annihilated, Ziying's body also exploded from the overwhelming demonic energy.
No living beings existed in the Underworld. Even if Ziying hadn't died, she would have been a stiff corpse by now.
"It seems the habit of villains making threats before they die is the same in every world," Gu Junshi chuckled, unmoved.
Ziying had not been sacrificed. Her soul manifested in the Underworld, but it was so faint, almost transparent, due to the true demon.
She looked at Gu Junshi with a vacant stare.
Newly deceased souls were usually dazed for a period. With Ziying's damaged spirit, she would likely be a simpleton even if reborn.
Gu Junshi had seen Ziying's entire life.
Ziying was not from a noble background. Her early life was fraught with hardship and familial suffering, causing her to be consistently humble and cautious, learning to wear a mask.
Later, the true demon discovered her peculiar fate and tempted her to fall into demonhood. As they say, one wrong step leads to countless more. The Heavenly Dao's intended female protagonist in the Dragon-Sovereign's story ultimately became a pawn for a villainous demon, meeting a tragic end.
It could be said that half of Ziying's unfortunate fate stemmed from her connection to the Dragon-Sovereign, and the other half was due to her overly calculating and greedy nature.
"When a person dies, their lamp goes out. However, the karma and debts you have incurred must be repaid. The Ten Halls of Judgment shall award the good and punish the wicked, cleansing everything before you depart for reincarnation."
Gu Junshi waved her hand, sending Ziying's soul into the sea of Higanbana. Within the flowers, her body gradually coalesced. Then, dazedly and slowly, she began to walk step by step towards the River of Forgetfulness...
—
Outside the Underworld, Fengdu was once again thrown into chaos by the true demon's sacrifice to the Six Realms. All the latent demons in the twenty-eight heavens and their manipulated followers received an order: they were about to launch a desperate counterattack.
They had been planning this for a long time, each stationed in a specific location, awaiting the command from their superiors to launch a massacre, eradicating all the imprisoned, guarded, and widely wandering souls in an instant.
The souls accumulated over a thousand years were collected and amassed by the demon race. They quietly planned to subvert the Three Realms one day.
If souls naturally perished, a large amount of spiritual energy would feedback into the realm. This power was used by the Heavenly Demon to break free, and during confrontations, if these souls were innocently killed, perishing between heaven and earth, the concentrated resentment would form extremely cold and malevolent Yin energy.
The generated Yin energy of resentment formed a massive black vortex in the sky, and the spiritual energy in the realm would be drawn into these vortices.
Concurrently, the earth began to dry up, flowers, birds, grass, and trees all withered. The land was scarred. In the abyss of the Boundless Sea, the tsunami split apart, and the sea tides, like a thunderous army, surged across the land. As the barrier sealing the passage between the demon realm and the cultivation realm shattered—
The demonic energy on the sea surface surged like a tempest. Black energy howled, and with an unstoppable force, it crossed the coastline, mountains, and forests, rapidly attacking all living beings and towns. A large number of demons, with ferocious laughter and war cries, emerged brutally—
At the Pagoda of All Beings, a Buddhist cultivator with white eyebrows spurted out a mouthful of blood.
"The demon realm, the seal of the demon realm is broken. This day has finally come..."
On the other side, Cheng Hong, who was meditating, suddenly opened his eyes. "The ancestral guardian of the realm has sent an order: the demon race broke the sealing barrier from the Boundless Sea—" he said hoarsely and heavily, "I fear the human-demon war of a thousand years ago will repeat itself."
At this moment, a shadow emerged from him. "He" said, "Perhaps my arrival is precisely to bring this all to an end. This life is very different from my previous one. All changes will affect the outcome."
"Your previous life... what was its outcome?" Cheng Hong couldn't help but ask.
"He" fell silent, then re-entered his body.
"Your outcome in this life will absolutely not be that."
—
Meanwhile, in Fengdu, the Ghost Emperor Shufang was continuously pushed back during his fight with Liu Jiang Fusheng. He even felt his strength weakening inexplicably. Although his ghostly energy remained vigorous, he felt as if he had been hollowed out.
Noticing the problem, Bei Tang Lin said with satisfaction, "Cultivating a blood demon technique with inherent flaws is your path to self-destruction!"
The Ghost Emperor Shufang refused to believe it. This blood demon technique was obtained by Gu Ye Jin for him from Mu Junshi. Had Gu Ye Jin betrayed him?
The inner turmoil and suspicion drove him into a complete frenzy. The veins on his forehead and cheeks bulged, his eyes shot out red light, and he charged towards Liu Jiang Fusheng like a beast unleashed from its cage.
Purple light shot out from beneath his feet. Wind and clouds churned, and more than a dozen tiger-axe blades appeared, hacking towards Liu Jiang Fusheng's surroundings.
Liu Jiang Fusheng, sensing the movement, shifted his position in advance. The threads behind him were connected to over a dozen people from the Wushang Mansion. This was a secret technique called Spiritual Infusion, where the power of the masses was poured into one person, allowing them to exert abilities beyond their own cultivation.
"Ughhh—I am the Ghost Emperor, the ruler of Fengdu!"
Seeing that he had gone mad with frenzy, Liu Jiang Fusheng raised his hand to the sky. A surging, roaring golden light spread out. The immortal sword let out a clear cry, and the golden light ascended like phoenix feathers falling, scattering golden fragments everywhere, dense like stars.
"Starfall, Annihilation Slash—"
As the Ghost Emperor Shufang charged forward, he split into dozens of figures, each imbued with a killing blow.
Dozens of them leaped and descended, surrounding from all directions.
Liu Jiang Fusheng's long, fair, and well-proportioned hands gripped the sword firmly.
Those golden starlight immediately transformed. The airflow in the atmosphere blasted open a hundred miles with a roar, like a dazzling display of fireworks. Countless golden rays pierced the sky in streaking lines, like meteors, and all of them pierced into the Ghost Emperor Shufang's body—