Difficult Slaying! Bonus Chapter for the Rewards from Jiuyeye and Buzhi Chunlai Jige Qiu

The Corpse Ghoul's cultivation realm had been fixed from the moment it formed, but that did not mean its strength had been fixed along with it.

A cultivator's strength did indeed depend heavily on cultivation, but that was not everything.

Divine abilities, spells, artifacts, Secret Treasures—these could all greatly enhance a cultivator's strength.

A Nascent Soul Early Stage cultivator, if equipped with a full set of top-grade High-Grade Sixth-Tier Artifacts and versed in many powerful divine abilities, might still be unable to defeat a Late Nascent Soul Stage cultivator. Yet it would also be very difficult for that Late Nascent Soul Stage cultivator to kill them.

The Corpse Ghoul had already lived for over ten thousand years. During those ten thousand years, though it had been sealed and suppressed and could not obtain spiritual materials from the outside world to refine artifacts or cultivate divine abilities, it had not lived those years in vain.

Over those ten thousand years, it had not only tempered its zombie body to the utmost limit, but had also painstakingly refined a Ten Thousand Year Corpse Pearl.

Corpse Pearls were treasures that only high-level zombies might nurture within their bodies. They possessed some of the qualities of demon cores, yet differed from demon cores.

A demon beast's demon core was something tied to its very life, no less important than a cultivator's Golden Core.

But a Corpse Pearl was different. To a high-level zombie, it was merely a treasure that could enhance its strength, somewhat akin to a cultivator's Natal Artifact. Losing the Corpse Pearl would only weaken the zombie; it would not kill it.

Within the Ten Thousand Year Corpse Pearl refined by the Corpse Ghoul was stored Corpse Fiend essence it had painstakingly condensed to the utmost limit over more than ten thousand