Chapter 316: Grand Deception! Feigning Death and Returning to Life! Unlocking a New Move! Killing Intent Soars!

By the faint light it was possible to see that it was a pale-skinned young man with his face sallow as if from excessive debauchery.

He was wearing a burial shroud, and he panted heavily with his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Li Yanchu, who was hacking at the flesh-born monster.

His gaze was filled with boundless malice.

“Damn it! If Heaven and Earth truly reject me to this degree... I was only one step from completing the ritual!” the shroud-clad youth muttered, his voice impossibly hoarse and ancient.

His eyes were muddied and world-weary. It was not the look of a young man at all, but of a cunning, vicious old fiend.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, then hissed in hatred, “You slaughtered my Xinyi Dao disciples, ruined my sacrificial platform, and wrecked two generations’ worth of plans! I will slaughter everyone you love, destroy everything you care for and make your life worse than death!”

The shroud-wrapped youth was none other than the Xinyi Daoist leader who had been hiding and cultivating inside the painting, Daoist Bichen!

Now reduced to this ghastly visage, he had hurriedly possessed the body of a consumptive youth who had died from indulgence. Seeing that the flesh-born monster’s failure was already sealed, he glared at Li Yanchu one last time and then turned to leave.

Xinyi Dao specialized in scheming, and they were even more troublesome than the Thousand Illusion Sect, who were masters of transformations.

His heart was filled with nothing but hatred. He swore he would make Li Yanchu understand exactly what it felt like to be hunted by an advanced second realm Yin Spirit cultivator!

“Eh!? The hell!?” Daoist Bichen couldn’t help but cry out.

Even a crafty old schemer like him felt a ripple of shock. Behind the tree stood a graceful, strikingly beautiful woman. She wore a plain green dress, and her hair was done up in a neat bun. A string of prayer beads hung from her wrist. Without a doubt, she was a stunning, alluring woman.

Her wide, glistening eyes stared at Daoist Bichen in terror. Seeing this, Bichen felt utterly vexed and a little rattled.

“Who are you!?” he demanded coldly, though inwardly he was uneasy.

At this moment his strength had not fully recovered. He needed at least three more breaths before he could completely fuse with this body and wield the power of his realm again.

The woman in the green dress with the neatly coiled hair bun seemed frightened out of her wits. She said nothing, pressed her rosy lips together, and watched Daoist Bichen warily.

Time ticked by, and Bichen finally gained full control over the borrowed body. Murderous intent surged in his eyes.

Delay would only bring complications. He resolved to kill the woman immediately and then leave this place without a trace. With his cultivation, the fact that he hadn’t noticed this woman earlier struck him as odd.

Could it be that she was simply too weak to register?

A surge of dense black qi gathered in his palm, and he struck directly at her!

The terror on the woman’s face only deepened, and she instinctively took a step back as a golden radiance flared across her body. That soul-devouring palm strike was effortlessly blocked.

Daoist Bichen froze. What trick was this? Buddha’s light!?

A cold gleam flashed in his eyes. With a step forward, he instantly appeared before the woman and struck again.

This time, a black rune flared within his palm. Soulshatter Seal!

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Bang!

But the next instant, Daoist Bichen staggered and pitched forward onto the ground. A sharp pain lanced through the back of his skull. His head spun and rang with dizziness.

Lady Yun, still pale and shaken, pressed a trembling hand to her chest. In her other hand, a pure-gold scepter radiated divine light. It was the Dragon-Tiger Scepter!

Bichen pushed his elbow against the ground, flipping himself upright. His expression was a twisted blend of shock and rage as his hands blurred through incantation seals, and a blood-colored trigram began to form beneath his feet.

Bang!

Before the Blood River Trigram Formation could take shape, another heavy blow slammed into the back of his skull. He stumbled forward again, nearly falling flat. The strikes were brutal, but not quite fatal.

To Daoist Bichen, this was the height of humiliation.

“You wretched creature, just who are y...”

Bang!

Another crushing blow landed on the back of his skull! His eyes rolled white, and he nearly blacked out. He barely managed to steady himself, only to realize that Lady Yun’s figure had vanished.

A terrible premonition rose in his chest.

Bang!

Sure enough, another muffled crack rang out. Bichen’s primordial spirit was left hazy and dazed from the unique effect of the Dragon-Tiger Scepter. Yet somehow... Lady Yun seemed to have unlocked a brand-new way to use it, a technique that was extremely difficult, but also frighteningly effective.

Her movement was so swift that she could slip behind him again and again, hammering the back of his head with brutal precision.

Then, Bichen roared with fury. With a single thought, a black barrier of light enveloped him.

Seven Fiend Defense Art!

But a slender, fair hand clutching the golden Dragon-Tiger Scepter pierced right through the barrier and smashed down on the back of his head with full force.

Bang!

His eyes rolled back completely, and this time, he collapsed in total unconsciousness. In that instant, Bichen made a ruthless choice. As the youth’s body in its funeral robes fell, his primordial spirit ripped free. The cost was immense.

He feigned death to return to life, pulling off a grand deception. Unlike ordinary ghosts that simply possess a body and would have been annihilated by the first bolt of divine lightning, his secret art was rooted in the Great Dao of Life and Death itself.

But the price was steep beyond measure. By forcing his way out of this body in defiance of heaven, his primordial spirit was savaged by backlash.

And worse, he would never again be able to possess another body. That was the irreversible cost!

“You mad woman, I will tear you apart alive, smash your bones to dust, and let your soul suffer eternal damnation!” Daoist Bichen’s voice seethed with venom, as if the most vicious curse from the deepest pits of the eighteen-layer hell itself had spoken.

Lady Yun still wore that frightened, timid look, which was a stark contrast to the ruthless way she had just bludgeoned him into unconsciousness.

“You’re wrapped in karmic guilt and weighed down by grave sins. I think you’re the one destined for the eighteen layers of hell,” she said. “No, you defy heaven itself. You’re bound for the Avici hell and its endless torments!”

Lady Yun stared at him, thought for a moment, then spoke earnestly. Her tone was not harsh, more like correcting an omission in his speech.

Hearing this, Daoist Bichen fell silent. Suddenly he transformed into a six-armed great demon god. His hulking body was wreathed in demonic flame, and his expression was grim and arrogant.

“How dare you offend me? You’re asking for death!” the six-armed demon god said coldly.

A rolling tide of demonic qi rose around him and his voice crashed like thunder.

Seeing this, Lady Yun gripped the Dragon-Tiger Scepter tightly; her pale face showed nervousness.

The six-armed demon god’s eyes were like cold lightning as they fixed on Lady Yun. Then, unexpectedly, his eyes flicked away. A stern-faced young Daoist stepped between him and Lady Yun, holding a saber in his right hand and a hideous monster’s severed head in his left.

Bang!

He hurled that monstrous head heavily to the ground, and seeing this, the six-armed demon god’s face drained of color in alarm.

“What did you just say? I didn’t hear clearly,” Li Yanchu said, frowning with a cold smile.

For some reason the demonic Dharma form before him looked oddly familiar.

The six-armed demon god fell silent, and the whole place went deathly quiet. The great demon god, who had just been upholding the air of a high master, now averted his gaze.

“Five-Lightning Pure Yang, the True Law of Heaven and Earth, you evildoers and heretics dare to mouth such blasphemies!?” Li Yanchu’s voice boomed like thunder.

His aura swelled grandly. The six-armed great demon god was cowed by the crushing, world-shattering edge of his radiance and actually chose to fall back.

Li Yanchu had just slain the flesh-born abomination; his state of mind was at its peak. A towering, sunlike phantom rose behind him, moving in perfect unison with his own form. He brought the saber down in one stroke, pouring all his murderous intent into that cut. His killing intent rose and surged.

The six-armed great demon god’s Dharma form was shattered by that domineering saber qi.