In the northeastern corner of the Blood Clan's city-state stood a luxurious thousand-mu manor, enclosed by hundred-meter-high black-and-red metal walls and a moat equally wide. Grand halls, exquisite gardens, upturned eaves, rockeries and flowing water, along with dozens of towers, rose in profusion throughout the estate. From any angle, this manor rivaled one of the most famous ancient palaces of the East.
Large numbers of young men and women dressed in crimson robes bustled about the manor, carefully familiarizing themselves with and tending to the estate. Dozens of squads of fully armored Yin Clan Warriors patrolled the surroundings, while countless tamed Demonic Beasts darted back and forth, guarding the manor so tightly that not even a drop of water could pass through.
This manor was the residence Yin Tianjue had ordered bestowed upon Yin Xuege. It had a very fine name: Blood Show Palace.
Blood Show Palace, Moon Radiance Hall—this was the residence Yin Xuege had chosen for himself. It was an exquisite hall located on an island in the middle of a lake and surrounded by lush greenery. Its three-layered courtyard layout was more than spacious enough to accommodate Yin Xuege and more than a dozen personal maids.
In one corner of Moon Radiance Hall stood a three-hundred-meter-tall stupa. A permanent formation that gathered the spiritual energy of heaven and earth—the Great Yin Moon Radiance Array—had been placed upon the tower. On nights when the moon was out, the Great Formation could draw in all the essence of the moonlight within a radius of six li. Cultivating at the top of the stupa was more than ten times as efficient as cultivating elsewhere. This formation was also the origin of Moon Radiance Hall's name.
Eight middle-aged men and women in scarlet robes stood solemnly at the tower's entrance, each raising their head to gaze at the moonlight blazing atop the tower. A half-moon hung in the sky, and watery moonlight spilled down. All the moonlight within six li had been drawn toward the tower, leaving every other place pitch-black. Only this tower bathed in splendor, countless ripples surging through its radiance.
These eight middle-aged men and women came from branch lines of the Yin Clan. Their seniority was twice that of Yin Jihuang and Yin Jiwu, and all of them were experts of the Yin Clan's "Wu" generation. Four of the men were named Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon, while the four women bore the titles Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum. The eight came from the Yin Clan's four halls of real power and were all chief stewards of those halls, each holding a measure of authority in their hands.
People like them could not match the individual authority of clan scions such as Yin Jihuang and Yin Jiwu, who occupied the position of Hall Master. But once the authority in their hands was gathered together, the combined force was enough to make even Yin Jihuang and Yin Jiwu keep their distance in respect!
With them assisting Yin Xuege—or rather, acting as his "stewards"—and with the orders issued by Yin Tianjue, Yin Xuege had now clearly formed a faction of his own within the Yin Clan. He no longer feared the malicious suppression of Yin Jiwu and the others.
At the summit of the stupa, Yin Xuege sat cross-legged on a blood-colored cushion.
This Blood Flame Cushion had been woven by the Yin Clan's elders from Blood Soul Thread refined from an extremely rare Earth Fiend Blood Silkworm Silk and the Essence Blood of ten million people. The cushion was incomparably sinister, but as the saying went, when yin reached its extreme, yang was born. Precisely because it was supremely yin and supremely evil, it had instead nurtured a strand of grand, righteous, sun-bright and blazing Innate True Yang Fire.
When cultivating on this cushion, ordinary inner demons would be blasted apart by the cushion's own utmost-yin and utmost-evil aura. Unable to withstand the corruption of the sinister energy, they would be reduced to ashes before they could run amok. Even truly powerful fiends and demonic thoughts could not resist the refinement of that strand of Innate True Yang Fire. They would be born and extinguished in an instant, all their thoughts smelted into a strand of tenacious mental power that continually merged into the cultivator's soul to replenish its expenditure.
This was an extremely sinister spirit artifact, yet its effects were wondrous and powerful beyond compare. Whether in the East or the West, only a few elders of the Yin Clan could refine the Blood Flame Cushion. Other forces could forget about obtaining such a wondrous treasure, which could refine fiends and demonic thoughts and instead nourish its owner.
Even within the Yin Clan, there were no more than twenty Blood Flame Cushions. Had Yin Tianjue not spoken up and forcibly taken this one from an elder of the "Di" generation, Yin Xuege would never have had such a treasure to assist his cultivation.
Sitting cross-legged on the cushion, Yin Xuege was enveloped by an aura of utmost yin and utmost evil. The moment those tiny, chaotic thoughts began to form, the sinister energy blasted them into pieces. Meanwhile, a strand of pure and vigorous flame swayed gracefully within Yin Xuege's brow. If some powerful fiend invaded, or some powerful obsession or stray consciousness arose within him, the flame would merely sweep over it, turning every fiend and demonic thought into streams of clear, limpid divine sense that Yin Xuege's soul continuously absorbed and digested.
Cultivating on this cushion, even if countless distracting thoughts filled his mind, even if all kinds of fiends attacked without end, Yin Xuege only needed to operate his cultivation art with abandon and could completely ignore the disturbances. His soul naturally grew stronger and larger, and his cultivation proceeded as smoothly as sailing with the wind, without the slightest obstruction.
Within his heart, a drop of Farnburg's Essence Blood pulsed softly. At the core of this Essence Blood, which resembled a glazed jewel, an Archaic Demonic Script flickered faintly. From time to time, an ancient, desolate aura from the immemorial wilderness spread outward.
Yin Xuege seemed to see an endless land where mountains ten thousand li high stood everywhere. Countless savage birds and beasts, ferocious beyond compare and possessing tremendous strength, slaughtered one another in the mountains, their blood splashing as they fought until the ranges snapped, the rivers rolled backward, and the earth split open with countless enormous cracks.
Suddenly, a Purple Gold Bat with a wingspan of more than a thousand li descended from the heavens with an overawing, invincible majesty. Following a profound and mysterious trajectory filled with the beauty of heaven and earth's rhythms, the Purple Gold Bat swept over layer upon layer of mountains. Wherever it passed, the ten-thousand-meter-tall beasts shrieked and howled miserably, all the Essence Blood within their bodies spurting uncontrollably from their pores and pouring through the air into the bat's gaping maw.
Blood filled the sky. Countless blood waterfalls flew from the ground into the heavens, while countless enormous dried corpses fell heavily to the earth and shattered into countless fragments. The Purple Gold Bat let out a shrill cry, and in the blink of an eye, every living creature within tens of thousands of li had withered of its blood energy and died. It lightly flapped its wings, stirring up dozens of horn-shaped vortices ten thousand li high. Wrapped in the winds and clouds of ten thousand li, they howled straight into the Ninth Heaven and vanished into the boundless horizon in the blink of an eye.
Powerful, majestic, evil, terrifying!
Amid the layers of illusions, the Purple Gold Bat's boundless pressure crashed over him. Even though it was only an illusion, it still suppressed Yin Xuege until the bones throughout his body nearly shattered one by one. Sweat poured from him like rain, and the acupoints within his body surged wildly like a tsunami.
The drop of Farnburg's Essence Blood silently dissolved, transforming into countless points of dark-golden radiance that seeped into Yin Xuege's blood.
The blood throughout Yin Xuege's body suddenly congealed. The endless moonlight essence from outside continued pouring into his body, while his bone marrow reproduced new, viscous blood plasma with abnormal vitality. The newly produced blood contained power several times greater than before.
The new plasma filled the blood vessels throughout his body, causing every vessel to swell. His aura grew scorching enough to sear others, and the hot breath he exhaled left streaks of visible white vapor in the air. Yet within that searing breath also lurked the distinctive cold, sinister aura of the Blood Demon Clan. With every breath he exhaled, the temperature around his body quietly dropped another notch.
The abundant plasma within his body underwent wondrous changes. The various blood cells grew tougher, and the energy limit each cell could contain increased by more than double. The cyan radiance in his blood grew ever denser. As his heart beat powerfully, cyan energy circulated throughout his body, and Yin Xuege could clearly sense his bodily functions undergoing earth-shaking changes.
This was the precious Essence Blood of a Blood Demon Duke. It contained not only immense power, but also the complete experience of an ancient Blood Demon Duke in forging the body and controlling strength. Yin Xuege's body was evolving toward a higher and more perfect Blood Demon form. Or rather, his bloodline was rapidly recovering, returning toward the ultimate form of that golden bat.
With a soft drip, the enormous cyan blood pearl within Yin Xuege's heart collapsed inward. Its originally pale-cyan radiance suddenly intensified, turning deep cyan with a trace of mysterious blue light. Drop after drop of deep-cyan Essence Blood began to form within his heart: ten drops, twenty, fifty—then, in the blink of an eye, it broke through a hundred!
Two hundred, three hundred, five hundred!
Having just digested a drop of Duke's Essence Blood, Yin Xuege's heart produced a full thousand drops of deep-cyan Blood Demon Essence Blood. Each drop was crystalline and translucent, as clean and lustrous as a jewel, containing powerful vitality and blood energy.
With every beat of his heart, the thousand drops of Blood Demon Essence Blood flowed lightly through the blood vessels throughout Yin Xuege's body. Wherever the Essence Blood passed, his body grew hot. Crisp sounds of muscle and bone growth rang from within him. His slender body gradually grew fuller and more robust, and amid the itching and aching sensations spreading from every joint, his height visibly increased by roughly an inch.
Yet the wondrous power contained in this drop of Duke's Essence Blood had only just displayed less than half its might. The formation of a thousand drops of Blood Demon Essence Blood containing even greater power meant that Yin Xuege had successfully attained the peak strength of a Moon Warrior. But before he could adapt to his skyrocketing strength, stimulated by that drop of Duke's Essence Blood, the thousand drops circulated through his body in nine great cycles before returning to his heart.
The thousand drops of deep-cyan Essence Blood fused into one, transforming into an enormous deep-cyan blood pearl that spun rapidly.
Yin Xuege's heart continually absorbed the vitality and blood energy within the deep-cyan blood pearl, gradually becoming more robust and more powerful. Every strand of muscle fiber now contained several times its former vitality.
The powerful sound of his heartbeat rang out without end. Dark-gold and crimson blood radiance gathered from all around his body and instantly surged into the deep-cyan blood pearl.
His heart beat three hundred and sixty times in rapid succession. With every violent beat, large amounts of grayish-brown, viscous sweat poured from Yin Xuege's body. The cold, bone-piercing sweat was thick with a strong stench, and large amounts of gray-black impurities, like dust, could even be seen mixed within it. (To be continued.)
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