The night was pitch-black.
Oppressive gloom filled the air.
From time to time, strange sounds unheard in daylight drifted through the silent night.
They sounded like someone whispering softly, like children crying, and like wild cats howling in low voices, enough to make one's hair stand on end.
In the vast Jiang residence, aside from a few bold guards gathered together to watch over key areas,
everyone else stayed in their rooms, not daring to step outside.
Inside a room,
Jiang Dao was repeatedly practicing the Life Nurturing Art he had obtained.
A full three hours had passed.
It had been nearly the third watch since he returned to the Jiang residence!
At last, he cultivated the faintest trace of qi sensation from the Life Nurturing Art.
A new line of small text instantly appeared on his panel.
Life Nurturing Art (Beginner) can be modified.
Jiang Dao slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, his eyes flickering.
"Just as I thought!"
Internal cultivation methods differed from external martial arts. One had to cultivate a sense of qi before they could appear on the panel.
External martial arts, meanwhile, only required someone to explain them once or demonstrate them in full before they could appear directly on the panel.
Jiang Dao stared at the panel and immediately focused his thoughts, lightly tapping the words behind the Life Nurturing Art.
Whoosh!
The entire panel blurred, and the words upon it began changing rapidly.
Ten years!
Twenty years!
Thirty years!
It continued rising until it reached sixty years.
At that moment, Jiang Dao clearly felt a warm current emerge from his lower abdomen. It began quietly flowing through certain designated meridians, then returned to his lower abdomen after making a full circuit.
These warm currents were not thick, roughly as slender as the wire of an earphone from his previous life.
Yet every circuit left him feeling invigorated, instantly reducing his fatigue and drowsiness by a fraction.
"So this is internal qi..."
Jiang Dao carefully sensed it, and countless dense streams of information soon appeared in his mind.
They were all insights gained from cultivating the Life Nurturing Art for sixty years.
In short, this Life Nurturing Art was not an offensive internal art. Its main effects were twofold: first, it could let one live longer; second, it possessed a certain healing ability.
Ordinary people in this world lived for around fifty years. Yet he could now live to at least a hundred without ever falling ill.
As for its healing ability, that was even easier to understand.
No matter what kind of injury it was, circulating the Life Nurturing Art could accelerate its recovery.
It even granted a certain degree of immunity to poison.
Ordinary poisons could no longer kill him at all.
Beyond those two effects, this internal qi could also strengthen his power to some extent.
It simply was not as obvious in enhancing strength as other internal arts.
Even so, Jiang Dao was quite satisfied.
"After sixty years of cultivating the Life Nurturing Art, it already has so many effects. If I cultivate it for 120 years, or 200 years, becoming immune to all poisons may not be a dream!"
Jiang Dao muttered to himself.
The Eerie Youth he had seen during the day had placed enormous pressure on him.
Especially that calmness of his—it made Jiang Dao feel as though thorns were pressed against his back.
It showed that from beginning to end, the other party had never regarded the Jiang Family as worthy of notice. Perhaps they were no more than ants to him, to be crushed beneath his foot only after he had toyed with them enough!
Moreover, with a casual brush of his hand against the wall, the entire wall began to rot. What kind of method was that?
His palm clearly contained a terrible poison!
The night was silent.
Like a demon's shadow, it shrouded heaven and earth.
The maid Bi Yu rose from her bed on tiptoe, awakened by an urgent need to relieve herself.
Yet after getting out of bed and seeing the dense darkness outside, her little face turned pale, revealing traces of terror.
"The young master is next door. It should be fine, it should be fine..."
Bi Yu comforted herself inwardly.
As a bedchamber maid, her bedroom was connected directly to Jiang Dao's, separated only by a folding screen.
However, to keep the air fresh, maids like her were not permitted to keep chamber pots or similar things in their rooms.
Thus, they could only go outside when nature called at night.
But now that Malevolent Spirits were causing havoc and strange forces had their eyes on the Jiang residence, it was obviously far more dangerous.
Her heart pounded as she kept comforting herself. She put on a thin gauze robe and quietly climbed down from the bed, unaware that Jiang Dao opened his eyes at that exact moment.
The instant Jiang Dao noticed Bi Yu's movements, he understood what she intended to do. He frowned slightly and secretly kept watch over her, lest a Malevolent Spirit kill someone right beneath his nose.
Bi Yu gently opened the door. The night wind outside was biting, carrying a faint stench of decay.
It was as if, in some pitch-black corner, a pair of eerie eyes were watching her with mocking amusement.
She shuddered instinctively, lit a lantern, and headed toward the end of the corridor.
"Young Master, protect me, Young Master, protect me..."
The little maid kept murmuring.
Tap!
Suddenly, a heavy footstep sounded behind her without warning.
Bi Yu froze, her heart trembling as nervousness welled up within her.
"Young Master, is... is that you?"
The sound behind her vanished.
There was no response at all.
Bi Yu swallowed, gathered her courage, and slowly turned to look behind her.
There was nothing there. Not a single figure.
Bi Yu was even more horrified. Her body swayed, and she nearly fell.
She kept reassuring herself that perhaps the wind had blown something down. It should not be a Malevolent Spirit. The young master was in the room, and no matter what happened, he would know.
Holding the lantern, Bi Yu continued forward.
But that eerie footstep sounded behind her once more.
It seemed that for every step she took, that strange footstep followed one step closer.
Tap, tap, tap...
The darkness was thick, and the footsteps came one after another, increasingly hurried.
Terror overwhelmed Bi Yu's heart, and tears nearly spilled from her eyes.
Ah!
A scream echoed through the darkness.
Jiang Dao's eyes flashed like lightning. Without a second thought, he grabbed the long blade beside his bed and, with a boom, smashed straight through the door. His terrifying body carried a savage aura as he tore through the night wind and charged toward the source of the scream.
He saw the maid Bi Yu being dragged by an eerie black shadow, streaking rapidly into the darkness in the distance. The strange shadow reeked of rot. Its emerald-green eyes turned back toward Jiang Dao, revealing a terrifying smile.
The little maid Bi Yu had long since fainted, her face deathly pale and utterly motionless.
"How dare you!"
Jiang Dao let out a thunderous roar. Every muscle across his body bulged into view, his frame swelling as veins stood out. His speed abruptly increased severalfold, and like a humanoid giant beast, he charged wildly forward.
"Die!"
Whoosh!
He brought down a Blood Shadow Soulchaser Blade strike over its head.
A bloody aura filled the air as the shockwave split apart, its momentum terrifying. The blade hacked viciously toward the eerie black shadow.
The eerie black shadow instantly raised the maid before itself as a shield. A black, rotting palm reached out from behind the maid and slammed viciously toward Jiang Dao.
Yet Jiang Dao did not even look. His blood-red blade continued hacking down in a frenzy.
Splurt!
The maid's head split into two. Before that black palm could land on Jiang Dao, the Blood Shadow Soulchaser Blade in his hand had already hacked fiercely at the space behind the maid.
Crack!
The illusion before him shattered, and the maid vanished.
Aah...
An eerie figure covered in rot was struck squarely by Jiang Dao's blade. It released a shrill, piercing scream of agony, its eyes filled with venom as it transformed into a gust of yin wind and hurriedly retreated at high speed.
Boom!
Jiang Dao instantly pursued, his long blade bringing forth layer upon layer of blood shadows. Slash after slash, he bombarded the eerie figure, every strike driving his power to its limit.
Every blade strike chased the soul!
Boom boom boom boom!
The eerie figure shrieked resentfully again and again, struck repeatedly amid Jiang Dao's lightning-fast blade technique.
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