Seven li beneath the earth, all was silent.
[Status: entangled by causal karma]
A line of small letters, scarlet as blood, had appeared in his status panel at some unknown point, radiating an ominous aura that seeped deep into his bones.
Causality? Karmic retribution?
Zhao Hao's mind buzzed.
He had hidden deep underground, cut off from the world. How could something so mysterious have latched onto him out of nowhere?
Could it have something to do with that Ten Thousand Soul Hall disciple I killed ten days ago?
Damn it!
But I cleaned up everything! I even used the system to destroy the Soul-Chasing Seal. How could this still happen?
A chill shot from the soles of Zhao Hao's feet straight to the crown of his head. This feeling of being utterly powerless was a hundred times more terrifying than any enemy he could see!
No. I have to go out and take a look!
He cast the Earth Escape Art, slipping silently through thick layers of rock and soil before returning to the surface.
His first order of business was to visit Blackstone City.
Half an hour later, when Zhao Hao emerged from the soil several dozen li away, he could already see numerous birds circling above Blackstone City.
No cooking smoke. No human voices.
Dead silence.
He swiftly approached, stopping one li from the city gates before cautiously extending his spiritual sense into the city.
The next moment, even though he had grown accustomed to the Demonic Sect's bloodshed, his stomach churned like an overturned sea.
Not a single person in the city had survived.
Street vendors had collapsed in the very poses they had held while hawking their goods, their eyes still open.
In the restaurants, diners lay scattered across the floors, wine still sitting in the cups on their tables.
Having witnessed the Extreme Yin Sect extract souls before, Zhao Hao understood that everyone's soul had been ripped away.
"What a lunatic..."
Zhao Hao's voice was somewhat dry.
After failing to find him, that pursuer from the Ten Thousand Soul Hall had actually gone mad and slaughtered an entire city!
Those were tens of thousands of lives!
At that moment, he finally understood exactly where the bloody line on his system panel-[entangled by causal karma]-had come from.
He was no bleeding heart, nor had he ever considered himself a good man.
Yet tens of thousands of living beings had died because of their connection to him. Having that heavy burden of blame pressed onto his shoulders still left him struggling to breathe.
But that was not the main issue.
The real problem was that this karma, representing a slaughter of monstrous proportions, might get him struck dead by a heavenly tribulation when he advanced in his cultivation!
"Fuck!"
Zhao Hao cursed under his breath, his frustration and fury threatening to erupt.
"He killed them, and the karmic retribution lands on my head? Is there any fucking justice left in this world?"
After a moment's thought, he placed the Yin Soul Nail spell into the enhancement slot. Sure enough, karmic retribution was available as an option in the material slot.
He tried selecting karmic retribution. The next moment, an enhancement success rate as high as a million gave Zhao Hao a fright.
This karmic retribution is actually something good. Keep it for now. Keep it for now.
He could not remain in Blackstone City.
He no longer dared fly toward Ten Thousand Immortal City as originally planned. Heaven only knew whether that Golden Core demonic cultivator had left any traps along the route.
After a little thought, he changed direction and flew toward the territory controlled by the Thousand Buddha Temple.
He had now replaced all his cultivation methods, and his body held pure li fire power, without the slightest trace of the Demonic Sect's sinister chill. Heading into righteous territory might actually be safer.
Three days later.
A large market named Qiandu bustled with voices.
Wearing a mask and suppressing his cultivation to the seventh level of Qi Refining, Zhao Hao mingled with the crowd and entered a cultivators' restaurant.
He needed information.
He had barely found a seat in a corner when the conversation of several cultivators at the next table reached his ears.
"Did you hear? That 'City-Destroying Demon' has finally been slain!" A burly man with a thick beard took a great gulp of wine and lowered his voice, though he could not hide his excitement.
"Really? That demon was a Golden Core powerhouse!"
"Absolutely! Master Wuxiang, the Thousand Buddha Temple's Buddha Son, dealt with him personally!"
The bearded man's face filled with reverence. "My brother-in-law was right there in Anyang City. He saw it with his own eyes!"
"Black clouds bore down on the city that day, with ghosts wailing and spirits howling. Everyone in the city thought they were doomed!"
"Then Wuxiang Buddha Son descended from the sky, a hundred-zhang vajra guardian behind him, and shattered that demon's soul with a single palm strike!"
"Glory to the Buddha Son!"
Cheers filled the restaurant.
Holding his teacup, Zhao Hao perked up.
The City-Destroying Demon? Sounds like a scourge. Better off dead.
He pricked up his ears and kept listening.
As the conversation at the neighboring table continued, one appalling massacre after another was pieced together.
Over the past fortnight, a Golden Core demonic cultivator had gone mad for some unknown reason, traveling west from the border of the Northern Lands and slaughtering seven mortal cities and two cultivation markets along the way. The lives lost at his hands numbered well over a million!
Wait...
West all the way?
Zhao Hao's heart lurched.
Why does that route seem to overlap with the one I planned before?
The karma on his panel was so red it was almost black, as though blood might drip from it. Slaughtering the mortals of a single city could never have produced this much. Unless...
Unless the karma of those million lives has been pinned on me too!
At that thought, even Zhao Hao's hand holding the teacup grew unsteady.
"Thank heavens. At least he's dead. At least he's dead..."
He could only comfort himself this way. As long as the greatest threat was gone, he still had room to maneuver.
Yet no sooner had that thought arisen than an even more fatal problem made goosebumps erupt across his skin.
The Buddha Son... the Thousand Buddha Temple...
I've come running into the Thousand Buddha Temple's territory with karma so thick it's practically solid. How is that any different from walking straight into the line of fire?
What if I run into another eminent monk of the Buddhist Order? He takes one look and thinks, well now, here's a walking mass of a million lives' worth of karma, then purifies me with a "Great Might Heavenly Dragon" without another word. Who could I possibly appeal to then?
No! Absolutely not!
The Thousand Buddha Temple's territory is more dangerous than a dragon's pool or a tiger's den right now!
Zhao Hao instantly overturned his previous decision.
The only place left to go was Ten Thousand Immortal City, now that there was no Golden Core demon blocking his way!
That neutral immortal city, where righteous and demonic cultivators lived side by side under the protection of a Nascent Soul patriarch, was his best refuge instead.
There, as long as you had spirit stones, nobody cared whether you shone with Buddha's light or were entangled by karma.
Having made up his mind, Zhao Hao tossed down a few spirit stones, rose, and left without lingering another moment.
Meanwhile.
Outside a vast city even grander and more prosperous than Anyang Market.
Ten Thousand Immortal City.
Crowds streamed through the city gates.
Righteous cultivators, mighty figures of the demonic path, rogue cultivators doing hard labor-people of every description gathered here, yet all obeyed the place's sole rule: private fighting was forbidden within the city.
An ordinary-looking young cultivator, wearing the most common sort of blue magical robe, slowly entered the gates with the crowd.
He looked barely twenty, and his cultivation had only just stabilized at the Foundation Establishment early stage. Nothing about him stood out.
He paid the entrance fee and received a temporary identity token, silent and compliant throughout the process.
Yet when he raised his head to look at the towering building within the city, the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, a flash of bone-deep venom and hatred suddenly crossed those clear eyes that should have belonged to a young man-utterly at odds with his identity and age.
"You bastard Zhao..."
"Those bald asses at the Thousand Buddha Temple..."
Li Mingyuan, reborn through possession, uttered those two names one word at a time, in a voice only he could hear.
He withdrew his gaze, buried all his hatred deep within, and merged into the crowd. His figure soon vanished amid the prosperity of Ten Thousand Immortal City.