Hope

In the Netherblood Sect's dungeon, Hongwu sat cross-legged on the damp stone floor, his eyes closed.

His heart was full of worry.

If the Blood Butcher Old Fiend truly uncovered the secrets of Primordial True Blood, the billions of living beings across the Nine Provinces would become fodder for the Demon Sect and fall into utter despair.

Delay him. I have to keep delaying him. Hongwu gritted his teeth.

He knew his life had long since ceased to belong to him.

The only glimmer of light left in his heart was the news he had heard a few days ago—

Lu Zhen had taken first place in the Supreme Unity Mystic Sect's special training, leaving everyone else far behind!

Lu Zhen, the fate of the Nine Provinces rests on your shoulders. Hongwu thought that every extra day he could buy would give Lu Zhen more time to grow, and the Nine Provinces another sliver of hope.

He opened his eyes slightly and swept his gaze across the dim, damp dungeon.

In this lowest tier of cells, a hundred and twenty cultivators like him were imprisoned as "great medicines."

By the Blood Butcher Old Fiend's rules for pill refinement, one person was taken away every three days and thrown into the Blood Pill furnace, never to return.

Hongwu had quietly calculated it all.

Even if that Demon Sect witch's "special taste" kept him alive and placed him last in line to be refined into a Blood Pill...

A hundred and twenty people, one every three days.

Even counting every possible day, he could delay things for a year at most.

One year.

That was the absolute limit of what he could win for Lu Zhen and the Nine Provinces by staking his old life!

Suddenly.

Clang! The heavy Darksteel cell door