Slay!!!

Frost formed within the Dragon Bone.

The temperature was visibly dropping.

Evil Qi came howling toward him.

"How interesting!"

That bastard Hundred-Eyed Devil had delivered himself right to his door again.

He never learned his lesson!

Su Qingqiu found it rather amusing.

The Evil Snake followed close behind the chill.

After devouring dozens of Small Spiritual Snakes, its body now stretched over eight meters long. Its scales were pitch-black, Evil Qi coiled around it, and its eyes were bloodred. It was clearly no easy opponent.

The Evil Snake spotted Su Qingqiu coiled at the base of the Dragon Bone and was plainly taken aback. It seemed not to have expected this newly advanced Spiritual Python to be so enormous.

But the benefits of devouring him were obvious, too. Seeing that Su Qingqiu made no move, the Evil Snake let out an excited hiss.

Red light flashed in its eyes, and the Evil Qi surrounding it surged toward Su Qingqiu.

The moment the Evil Qi touched him, a tingling sensation spread through his flesh.

"Hm? It's similar to that Giant Rat's ability from before. It doesn't just erode bone and turn flesh to blood—the Evil Qi also has a potent dissolving effect."

Su Qingqiu's thoughts stirred. He instantly realized that this Evil Snake, formed from rats fused together, was similar to the Giant Rat he had devoured before—the one that had refused to stay dead.

No, to be precise, they were one and the same.

Could those so-called Giant Rats also be controlled behind the scenes by Hundred-Eyed Devil? So that bastard had also plotted to seize the Human Race's food during the great drought?

"You do have some tricks, but that only makes you even more deserving of death!"

Thinking of all that delicious grain... No, that wasn't right. He was thinking of the poor common folk who had starved to death because there wasn't enough food. Su Qingqiu's expression darkened.

His enormous tail suddenly shifted, and the great snakehead that had been coiled in the inner circle slowly rose.

Golden scales, traced with mysterious Spiritual Patterns, suddenly burst with boundless Spiritual Light.

The Crimson Fire Horn on his forehead blazed with towering flames, raising the air temperature inside the Dragon Bone to more than three times its former level in an instant.

A torrent of flame shot straight from the Crimson Fire Horn.

The Evil Snake had no time to dodge. It fell straight into the flames, as if dropped into a vat of boiling oil, and its Evil Qi began to seethe.

"What's going on? You..."

"A horn on your forehead... Damn it, what kind of Spiritual Python are you?"

Human words rang from the Evil Snake's mouth, filled with disbelief and unbearable pain.

It was going mad!

All these years, horned Spiritual Snakes had appeared only in the ancient records of the various sects. Who had ever seen one in the real world?

Could it really be transforming into a dragon?

Its Giant Rat's Tendon-and-Bone-Splitting art and the flesh-dissolving power of its Evil Qi were both completely useless. Was this strange python's body made of iron?

At that moment, the Evil Snake's muddled mind grew even more confused.

Su Qingqiu paid it no heed. Watching the Evil Snake writhe, he felt not a trace of emotion.

"Let's see whether you're a snake or a rat!"

With that, the flame Spiritual Light within his reverse scales poured ceaselessly into the Crimson Fire Horn. The immense Spiritual Light flooded it, making the Crimson Fire flare another threefold.

Screee!

The Evil Snake let out a series of screams beyond words. Its appearance kept changing: snakehead, Giant Rat, old man, young boy.

At last, its features settled into a gigantic eye, identical to Hundred-Eyed Devil's twenty-fifth soul fragment from before—except that this eye bore the number seven!

The eye had only just taken shape and had yet to open, but it was already trembling violently. A sense of danger flashed through Su Qingqiu's mind.

The Eyes of the Spiritual Snake were warning him!

He absolutely could not let that eye open.

With that thought, he lunged into the flames and bit down on the demonic eye. Then he swallowed the Evil Snake's body whole along with it.

Whatever danger it posed, he'd swallow it in one bite and be done with it.

[Devoured Hundred-Eyed Devil · Zi Shu Soul Fragment]

[Exorcism and Blessing in Progress...]

Three years earlier, in Yanfeng Nation, one of the Ten Nations.

The Kundun Region.

Snow had fallen without pause for three years. Unlike Zhaoyang Country, where drought had persisted for three consecutive years, the cold in Yanfeng Nation had lasted a full nine years.

Each year, only two or three months were relatively warm; the rest were bitterly cold.

In such an extreme climate, food had become the most important thing in Yanfeng Nation—and the most valuable.

For this reason, the Child God Sect, the great sect in Yanfeng Nation's Kundun Region, had announced a rule to the whole world: Spiritual Rats could be exchanged for money and grain. For a time, people from the Ten Nations and Twelve Veins flocked there, as did barbarians from the far northwestern wastes and islanders from beyond the East Sea.

One day, a man in a dark blue scholar's robe, with a three-foot sword at his waist and a feather fan and scholar's cap, arrived with an enormous caravan of grain to exchange for Spiritual Rats...

Memories of all kinds surfaced in Su Qingqiu's mind.

These rats had been bought by Hundred-Eyed Devil from Yanfeng Nation, one of the Ten Nations. And the buyer was Hundred-Eyed Devil's seventh soul fragment:

Zi Shu Mo!

"These must be the Evil Rats controlled by Zi Shu Mo. Which means he can't be far from Dragon-Raising Temple."

"Let's see where that filthy rat is. I can test the Crimson Fire Horn's power while I'm at it."

Su Qingqiu's thoughts stirred.

A wisp of consciousness attached itself to the Spiritual Light, then slowly flowed into the Crimson Fire Horn.

The next moment,

light swirled within him. The Crimson Fire Horn aimed at the sealed entrance above, then suddenly opened its eye. The surrounding air temperature soared, and a streak of crimson shot through the entrance at lightning speed.

Muna, guarding the sealed entrance, didn't notice a thing.

Outside, the sun shone brightly beneath a clear sky.

The Major Rain Accumulation Technique activated!

More than nine thousand wisps of Spiritual Light—equivalent to nine thousand years of Daoism Cultivation—surged into motion. In an instant, dark clouds blanketed the area within a hundred miles of Dragon-Raising Temple.

Only a moment earlier, the sky had been clear and bright, but now dark clouds seemed ready to crush the city.

The heavens changed their face so quickly that everyone stood there dumbfounded.

Muna, guarding the sealed entrance, abruptly looked up. His fingers unconsciously tightened around his prayer beads.

In Dragon-Snake Hall, Yuanhui pressed his palms together, his body trembling slightly.

In East Temple, Yuanming jolted awake from meditation. He looked up at the sky, his expression changing dramatically.

In Chiyang City, the abbot of Dragon King Temple, Fang Wenshan of the City Lord's Manor, and the Daoist nun Chuchen, reciting scriptures at her temple...

At that moment, as they watched the power of this Heavenly Tribulation, they were all plunged into utter shock.

The heavens could truly transform in the span of a single breath!

Deep within Snake Abyss, Su Qingqiu had unleashed all the Crimson Fire Spiritual Light, and with no seal to hinder it, he finally understood just how monstrous his Major Rain Accumulation Technique was.

More than nine thousand wisps of Spiritual Light—more than nine thousand years of Daoism Cultivation—an accumulation of energy within his body that was simply unrivaled beneath the heavens!

The Crimson Fire Horn stood proudly upright, pointed at the empty sky. Countless Crimson Flames silently merged into the dark clouds overhead.

Within the clouds blanketing a hundred miles, it seemed that a dragon of molten fire was rising and surging. It looked as if a True Dragon had descended upon the world, pressing down on heaven and earth.

"Found you!"

Su Qingqiu's eyes lit up!

The next moment,

"Slay!"

At the same time, a cold, emotionless voice suddenly rang out from within the clouds.

In that very instant,

Daylight plummeted, and blazing fire came hurtling from the sky. A gigantic Fire Meteor tore from the clouds, racing toward an unnamed mountain fifty miles from Dragon-Raising Temple.

Rumble!

Heaven and earth changed color.