The moment True Person Corpse Heart finished speaking, Zhao Hao felt an indescribable will descend from the seat of honor.
The voice had not been loud, yet it was like countless icy steel needles driving viciously into the depths of Zhao Hao's soul, bringing his thoughts to an instant halt.
"Ninth."
True Person Corpse Heart turned his desiccated face toward him, two ghostly flames flickering faintly in his hollow eye sockets.
"In two months since joining us, you have gone from a mortal straight to the fourth level of Qi Refining. Your talent is indeed decent."
His voice held no emotion, yet it riveted everyone's gaze onto Zhao Hao once more—cold, scrutinizing, and utterly undisguised.
"But cultivation piled up with pills is ultimately a castle in the air. True cultivators carve their way out through blood and fire."
His tone shifted.
"Your eldest senior brother, Guo Fan, will lead the main force to engage the enemy head-on. You will stay by his side and use the blood of those hypocrites from the Heavenly Sword Sect to hammer that flimsy cultivation of yours into something solid!"
At these words, Third Senior Brother Shi Lei and the others looked startled.
He was sending a newly initiated disciple at the fourth level of Qi Refining onto the front lines with their eldest senior brother?
Their eldest senior brother had already reached the late stage of Foundation Establishment, but what if he failed to keep an eye on Zhao Hao and the boy ended up as cannon fodder?
Zhao Hao's heart clenched.
Placed right under the nose of their strongest senior brother, he would have nowhere to hide his every move!
Yet the shock on his face lasted barely a tenth of a second before it was replaced by delighted surprise at being "looked after."
Thud!
Zhao Hao slammed both knees into the floor, his body shaking violently with "excitement," his voice brimming with fervor.
"Thank you for nurturing me, Master! I will not disappoint your expectations! I will fight valiantly and slay our enemies on the battlefield, proclaiming the divine might of our Corpse Refining Lineage!"
Before his words had faded, he smashed his forehead against the hard black stone floor.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Three heavy impacts echoed through the deathly silent hall.
When Zhao Hao lifted his head, his forehead was red and swollen, yet his face still shone with the joy of having a powerful backer take him under his wing.
Anyone watching this performance, staged at the risk of his life, would only have seen a rash young fool whose "favored" status had gone to his head, leaving him desperate to prove himself.
From the corner of his eye, Zhao Hao caught an unnatural twitch in the muscles of Elder Jia Ren's stiff face.
"Mm."
True Person Corpse Heart gave a nasal grunt of ambiguous meaning, then ignored him and continued assigning the remaining tasks.
Only Eldest Senior Brother Guo Fan's brow creased slightly.
After the meeting, Zhao Hao followed behind the crowd and left the Ten Thousand Corpse Hall with his head lowered, keeping his entire body in a state of excitement as though he were still immersed in overwhelming joy.
But beneath his lowered eyelids lay a frozen, deathly stillness.
Three days!
He only had three days!
In three days, he would be marched onto the battlefield and placed right under the nose of a late-stage Foundation Establishment expert!
Instead of returning to his cave abode, Zhao Hao headed straight for the Scripture Repository, using "sharpening his spear before battle and practicing spells" as his excuse.
The Scripture Repository was as eerie as ever.
The black-robed elder guarding it sat behind the counter like a statue unchanged for ten thousand years.
"Elder, I would like copies of some spells to study so I can do my part in the sect's war!" Zhao Hao feigned hotheaded enthusiasm as he placed a pile of jade slips on the counter.
The black-robed elder raised his eyelids, swept his gaze over the mountain of jade slips, and tapped his withered fingers lightly against the counter.
He looked at Zhao Hao as though he were a fool who knew neither the height of heaven nor the depth of the earth.
Only when Zhao Hao took out exactly one hundred and twenty low-grade spirit stones and displayed the "lineage master's personal disciple" status on his token did the elder give a measured grunt.
As he tossed the copied jade slips to Zhao Hao, his knife-sharp gaze scraped across him.
Not daring to linger, Zhao Hao hurried away with the jade slips and headed straight for his cave abode on Ten Thousand Corpse Mountain.
Rumble!
The stone door closed, and every restriction activated.
All the excitement vanished from Zhao Hao's face in an instant, leaving only iron-hard gravity.
He immediately sat cross-legged and summoned the system panel.
[Spell: Mystic Corpse Spirit Control Art (Beginner 0/100)]
He focused his mind on the twenty-five freshly copied spell jade slips, frantically memorizing and comprehending their contents.
Only after four hours, once he had gained an initial understanding of every spell and the system had recorded them all, did the sacrificial enhancement begin!
Time trickled past.
Then the final enhancement succeeded.
[Ding! Enhancement successful! Mystic Corpse Spirit Control Art proficiency increased to (Perfection)!]
Boom—!
An unimaginably vast torrent of information surged into his mind in an instant!
It was not a gentle infusion, but the wrenching clash of two utterly different sensations!
Zhao Hao let out a muffled groan. It felt as though an enormous gash had been torn into his soul, then forcibly stuffed with a cold, colossal foreign mass steeped in death!
Meanwhile, his memories of those twenty-five spells were uprooted and turned into nourishment, vanishing completely from his mind.
Immediately afterward, a vast wealth of corpse-refining and corpse-control experience and techniques became red-hot branding irons, searing themselves into his soul!
Secret methods for refining first-, second-, third-, and even fourth-tier refined corpses!
Exquisite techniques for simultaneously controlling over a hundred refined corpses in battle formations!
There were even vicious methods for tempering his own body with corpse qi, yin qi, and death qi, as well as breeding corpse poison!
In that moment, he seemed to have become an old devil who had steeped himself in this path for centuries!
Enduring the agony in his soul, Zhao Hao spent the entire night barely managing to digest all that knowledge.
Three days later, at dawn.
At the foot of Ten Thousand Corpse Mountain, a massive flying vessel fashioned from unknown spirit wood, countless precious artifact-refining materials, and unidentified white bones hovered silently in midair.
Dressed in the close-fitting black attire of the Corpse Refining Lineage, Zhao Hao silently boarded the Bone Boat.
He immediately spotted the people standing at the bow.
The young man at their head was tall and had an ordinary face, yet his mere presence silenced every disciple taking part in the battle like cicadas in winter. They even instinctively softened their breathing.
It was their eldest senior brother, Guo Fan!
Beside him stood Third Senior Brother Shi Lei and several other senior brothers and sisters in the Foundation Establishment realm, each radiating a cold aura that warned the living to keep away.
Guo Fan merely cast Zhao Hao an indifferent glance before looking away, as though he were an insignificant piece of luggage.
Zhao Hao's heart sank slightly. Knowing his place, he found the farthest corner and stood there, eyes lowered to his nose, attention turned inward, reducing his presence to the bare minimum.
Soon, every disciple taking part in the battle had boarded.
Guo Fan wasted no words. The flying vessel gave a dull roar, turned into a streak of black light, and shot into the sky.
The vessel flew at tremendous speed, and the atmosphere aboard was oppressively tense.
For the next three days, Zhao Hao never once left his corner. He kept his eyes closed in "cultivation," playing the timid, cautious newcomer to the very end.
Just as the vessel was about to come within a hundred li of the frontline camp on the Soul-Severing Plain—
Buzzz!!!
Without warning, a piercing shriek rang out, sharp enough to cleave metal and split stone!
The sound seemed capable of piercing their eardrums and striking straight into their souls!
Every disciple aboard looked up in horror.
An incomparably fierce azure sword light tore through the sea of clouds like divine punishment descending from the nine heavens, trailing a long blazing tail and carrying the momentum to annihilate everything...
It slashed savagely down at the vessel's bow!