Inside the military camp.
Zhong Shenxiu gazed at the Heavenly Show System and murmured thoughtfully, "The Heavenly Show Points are full again. Looks like I managed to show off a little last time too..."
With a thought, rows of data surfaced:
[Would you like to consume 1 Heavenly Show Point to improve the Profound Yin Soul Control Fragment?]
"Yes!"
[Profound Yin Soul Control Fragment improved!]
[Profound Yin Soul Control Fragment: Second Layer]
This time, he had been prepared well in advance and endured the changes brought about by the Profound Yin Soul Control Fragment.
Even the Vengeful Spirit stirring restlessly inside him was suppressed.
Although he was confident he could summon the Vengeful Spirit, he could not control it very smoothly. There was little difference between that and losing control.
Zhong Shenxiu's mind stirred, and some of the hidden memories from the village back then surfaced.
"Sure enough... Tian Bufeng really was cursed by a jinx, and I accidentally butchered him. I can't release this Vengeful Spirit either. The moment I let it out, it goes berserk. While it's out of control, my memories become muddled too..."
This feeling of losing control was what he hated most.
This time, his Dao arts had reached another level, and he did not let the Vengeful Spirit seize the opportunity to cause trouble.
Instead, he had obtained quite a few fragments of memory.
At this moment, Zhong Shenxiu closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was sitting before a plain, ancient long table. On the table lay a parchment scroll.
"If the Felix Family wishes to endure forever, certain necessary preparations must be made... Some of the noble bloodlines must be hidden... Besides that, several treasures must be left behind..."
He picked up the quill beside him and began drawing a map on the parchment with single-minded concentration.
Suddenly.
The face of this legendary count twitched.
His entire body trembled as he stared into the darkness around him.
On the bookshelves, book after book seemed to come alive. They struggled incessantly, emitting all kinds of hoarse sounds.
In the darkness, faint, dense noises drifted over, as though tiny insects were writhing and crawling.
Then, one eye after another opened.
Some were cold and emotionless, while others were filled with madness.
At some unknown point, a crimson glow had shone in through the window.
"Our Lord..."
The count immediately fell to his knees. "I am guilty. I repent..."
His lips bubbled and muttered, producing a language unlike any spoken by humans. He repented of the struggle in his heart, as well as his fear of the nation's destruction.
"Great Gate of Ten Thousand Doors..."
Boom!
After Zhong Shenxiu understood the first line of the prayer, he abruptly awoke. His forehead was covered in cold sweat. "It's happening again—that feeling that if I continue, a great disaster will surely befall me..."
His body was almost incapable of moving. He had no choice but to regulate his breathing for a long while before recovering part of his mobility.
His thoughts seemed frozen as well.
It was not until half an incense stick later that he could gradually begin thinking again.
As for that "Gate of Ten Thousand Doors," he buried it deep in his heart and did not dare think about it again.
"That legendary count seemed to have sensed something and made certain preparations for the nation's downfall."
"Perhaps... he himself was even part of those preparations."
Zhong Shenxiu pressed a hand against his chest.
A living legend might not retain legendary strength after death.
But even if only part of it remained, it would still be enough power to turn the entire Fufeng Protectorate upside down.
Not to mention that the count had prepared other methods as well.
For example... some kind of special sacrificial ritual.
Ordinary prayers and invocations might not receive a response from such a Great Existence.
However, once someone with a specific bloodline took part, supplemented by a special ritual, the chances of attracting that existence's attention would increase greatly.
Such a ritual was extremely dangerous, but it would certainly yield something.
That was the capital on which the count's descendants could rise!
"I wonder whether those treasure sites have already been dug up. Otherwise, if I went and unearthed them, it would be a tremendous fortune..."
Zhong Shenxiu silently committed several locations to memory.
He gazed at the Twin Moons outside the window and pondered for a long while before finally Entering Samadhi to cultivate.
Before struggling for one's life, everything else was empty talk.
"The Second Layer of the Profound Yin Soul Control Fragment still can't do anything to that Vengeful Spirit... But compared to the First Layer, it has improved somewhat..."
Zhong Shenxiu sensed that although releasing that Vengeful Spirit now would still cause him to lose control, lose his memories, and unleash terror, he could still make slight use of its power within his body.
That Vengeful Spirit had been a Fifth-Rank Legend of the West when it was alive!
Although the systems and levels of strength in the East and West differed, a powerful Western Legend was generally equivalent to the Core Formation Stage in the Eastern cultivation system!
Of course, a dead Legend might not retain legendary strength.
"But even at a lower level, it still possesses the strength of the Third-Rank Gangsha, or even the Fourth-Rank Divine Ability!"
"Right now, I'm merely Xiantian. Converted to the Western system, I'd probably be a Second-Rank Plain Warrior?"
Zhong Shenxiu's mind stirred.
He looked inward at himself, and a patch of darkness suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Within the darkness, a figure emerged. It wore an ornate formal suit, with two rows of golden buttons running down its front, resembling an upper-class Western gentleman attending a banquet. Only... it had no head!
The Headless Count!
In reality, Zhong Shenxiu's skin grew faintly pale, drained of color. His entire body seemed to lose all vitality, turning into a corpse.
If this continued, he would release the Vengeful Spirit and begin killing indiscriminately.
Of course, there was a certain pattern to it.
Generally speaking, although he could not control it, Zhong Shenxiu's subconscious mind remained within it, so whoever ranked first on his hatred list would certainly be the first to suffer.
"This is also a trump card. If I'm forced into a dead end that day, I'll release it!"
"But for now, I can't continue!"
Zhong Shenxiu forcefully halted the transformation and switched to cultivating the Spiritual Turtle Breathing Technique.
When he entered Samadhi and looked inward, he could see a Spiritual Turtle Breathing Diagram centered on his dantian and constantly expanding outward.
Within the diagram, one glowing point after another seemed to correspond to the various acupoints throughout his body.
These were the thirty-six barriers that the Spiritual Turtle Breathing Technique needed to break through. Every barrier he broke through made his True Qi somewhat thicker. Breaking through thirty of them meant reaching the peak of the Xiantian realm.
Originally, with the thin Spiritual Turtle True Qi he had only just cultivated, breaking through even one or two acupoints would have been extremely difficult.
But now, Zhong Shenxiu mobilized the Vengeful Spirit's power. He felt a chill in his dantian, and with the Spiritual Turtle True Qi wrapped in the supernatural force, he broke through ten acupoints in a single breath!
This method of breakthrough was far too cruel and violent. In an instant, he felt a tearing pain in the meridians throughout his body.
But in the blink of an eye, because his body had already transformed into the cold, rigid corpse of a zombie, his meridians instead became stiff and resilient, allowing him to endure it.
Night gave way to dawn.
Zhong Shenxiu sprang to his feet and struck out with one palm.
A wisp of white qi appeared in his palm and shot three feet through the air before slowly dissipating.
"Xiantian True Qi extending three feet beyond the body. Did I reach the peak of the Xiantian realm in a single night?"
Before you continue