Blood Bodhi

From the cave ceiling beyond the reach of the firelight hung fleshy tubes as thick as thumbs. They were deeply inserted into the corpses, pulsing as though they were drawing something out.

Deng Lun did not linger. He cast a cold glance at those who had once belonged to the Deng Family, carefully avoided the fleshy tubes, and strode swiftly toward the center.

But as he passed a certain corner, his steps still stopped of their own accord. After hesitating for a moment, he slowly walked over.

Looking at those familiar faces, even though he believed he had completely severed such feelings, his expression still darkened. "Father... Mother... Little Sister... I've come to see you..."

That was right. These three were his closest family, but they had also been the first people he had personally sent into this place!

"Father, Mother, didn't you always say that I was good for nothing, that you were unwilling to hand the Deng Family over to me?"

"This time, you can rest assured. As long as I obtain that thing, I will definitely restore the Deng Family to its former glory!"

"If you know of this in the underworld, you'll be proud of me too, won't you?"

The cold corpses gave no response. Deng Lun's low voice echoed through the hollow cavern, making it seem especially eerie and terrifying.

After taking one last look at the three of them, Deng Lun turned and left without hesitation.

At this moment, only one thought filled his mind: obtain that thing!

Deng Lun's footsteps grew faster, and his movements more violent.

He casually shoved aside the corpses blocking his way, his crazed gaze forcing its way toward the center.

The closer he got to the center, the thicker the fleshy tubes growing from the corpses became.

At the very innermost layer lay the corpses of disciples from the various martial halls, including those from Black Tiger Martial Hall!

And at the very center of those corpses, a gigantic heart hung suspended in midair.

Countless fleshy tubes coiled around it, ceaselessly delivering the mysterious substances they had absorbed into the heart. It looked both disgusting and bizarre.

"Although Master said that I must gather the heart's blood of forty-nine people of pure yang, there's no more time to wait." Deng Lun muttered to himself. He knew that once dawn came, what had happened here could no longer be concealed. This was his final chance.

No longer hesitating, he took a dagger from his clothes and slashed open his wrist.

Blood immediately gushed out. Deng Lun did not dare delay, carefully sprinkling his blood over the gigantic heart.

Strangely, the fleshy tubes surrounding the heart seemed to loathe the blood flowing from his body, swaying away from it one after another.

Thus, Deng Lun let blood while advancing, easily arriving before the heart.

Looking at the ugly, enormous heart before him, a blaze of desire flashed in Deng Lun's eyes.

Without hesitation, he cut his wrist wound again and smeared the spurting blood over it. As he did so, the heart's outer wall began to weaken. Vaguely, it seemed that within the giant heart lay another, smaller heart.

Yet the process was far slower than Deng Lun had imagined. Just as he began to fear that his blood might run dry, the outer wall finally vanished completely.

From where he stood, he could clearly see the heart within, slowly beating.

The heart was no larger than a fist, yet it seemed formed by heaven itself. With every beat, it appeared to radiate an uncanny power.

At that moment, Deng Lun seemed to be looking upon the most wondrous thing in the world, and he fell into a daze.

Fortunately, the blood-red threads on his body suddenly sent waves of piercing pain through him, jolting him awake.

By then, his entire upper body had already burrowed into the gigantic heart. Had he awakened even a second later, he would have fallen inside and been completely assimilated.

A trace of lingering fear flashed through Deng Lun's eyes. He hurriedly shifted his gaze away, not daring to look again.

He then took out a thin cord woven from golden threads. Relying on the position he remembered, he made several attempts before successfully looping it around the smaller heart.

Then he gave it a fierce pull, wrenching the entire heart out.

Squelch!

The instant the smaller heart left, the gigantic heart seemed to have fulfilled some sort of mission. The connected fleshy tubes snapped one after another, then withered in an instant and turned into a pool of blood.

Feeling the warmth in his palm and hearing its powerful, forceful beating, Deng Lun's face filled with wild joy. At last, he could not hold back his laughter.

"Hahaha... Finally... My sacrifices were not in vain. With this, from now on..."

But at that moment, a teasing voice suddenly sounded behind him, instantly making him feel as though he had fallen into an icy abyss.

"Haha, Brother Ling, just as you expected, this brat wasn't holding in anything good!"

Deng Lun stiffly turned around. Seeing the teasing Zhang Mu and the expressionless Ling Yun, his entire mind went blank.

"You... you..."

Pointing at Ling Yun and Zhang Mu with a trembling hand, he was so terrified that he could not even form a complete sentence.

Thud! Deng Lun suddenly dropped to his knees again, weeping and begging with tears and snot streaming down his face. "My lord, I really won't dare again. Just treat me like a fart and let me go."

"As long as you're willing to spare me, I'll give you anything you want!"

"Hehe, anything we want? Then hand over that thing in your hand!" Zhang Mu mocked. But as soon as he finished speaking, he looked at Ling Yun with a fawning smile. "Of course, whether we spare you or not depends on Brother Ling's mood."

However, upon hearing Zhang Mu's demand, Deng Lun lowered his head and fell silent. His shoulders occasionally twitched, and where the two could not see, he seemed to be doing something.

Just as Zhang Mu sensed that something was wrong, Deng Lun lowered his head and let out a chilling laugh.

"Hehe... hehe... hehehe..."

"One after another... one after another... every last one of you is the same. You all look down on me. You all think I'm a hopeless piece of trash!"

"I refuse to accept it, so I want power! Even if I have to give up everything for it! I'll make every one of those who looked down on me pay the price!"

As the words fell, Deng Lun suddenly raised his head.

His eyes were bloodshot, his lips stained crimson, and the bizarre heart he had been holding had vanished without a trace.

Given the circumstances, it was not hard to guess that this fellow had already swallowed the heart whole.

Seeing Deng Lun's hair flying wildly and his astonishing aura, Zhang Mu could not help swallowing. Things did not seem good.

If Ling Yun had not remained as calm as ever, he would likely have fled long ago.

But Ling Yun merely shook his head as he looked at the crazed Deng Lun, who was exactly like those characters in novels on the verge of a sudden explosive power-up. There was not the slightest ripple in his eyes.

This was not a novel, and Deng Lun was ultimately not some so-called protagonist.

Sure enough, just as his aura was about to reach its peak, everything came to an abrupt halt.

Deng Lun stared blankly at his body, which had begun to melt away, his eyes filled with confusion.

"Wh... why is this happening... Master clearly said..."

Ling Yun's indifferent voice sounded beside his ear. "You still haven't realized it? From beginning to end, you were nothing more than a pitiful chess piece."

Deng Lun's eyes widened. He wanted to refute him, but scenes from his memories began replaying in his mind.

"Kid, you're quite talented. Do you want to take me as your master?"

"If you want to accomplish great things, your heart must be ruthless. If you can't bring yourself to do it, you're destined to become a loser!"

"This is the secret art I devised for you. It can completely suppress Blood Bodhi's toxicity. When the time comes, you only need to..."

"So... that's how it was..." Deng Lun finally understood. After all the twists and turns, he himself had been the wedding garment prepared for another.

But it was already too late for realization. He could only stagger a few steps in a certain direction, stretching out a hand as though trying to grasp something. Yet the next moment, he dropped to his knees and instantly melted into a pool of blood.

Under Ling Yun's gaze, the blood began to gather toward the center. Then, a crystalline scarlet heart condensed once more!

This was the true Blood Bodhi.