North of the city, the abandoned "Red Star" Machinery Factory.
Pale moonlight struggled through the shattered dome, casting mottled patches of light across the oil-stained, rust-littered floor.
The air was thick with the smell of rust, the sour stench of rotting engine oil, and a... cloying sweetness of fresh earth mixed with heavy blood.
Dead silence. Absolute silence. Even the rustling of rats had vanished.
Fang Gang carried the Bronze Battle Halberd over his shoulder, his dark-golden bald head like a moving searchlight cutting through the darkness deep within the factory.
His footsteps echoed through the empty ruins, painfully clear.
The Resentful Eye imprint on his left arm sent out a constant, icy tremor.
It was not greed, but a blood-tinged warning—the feeling of being locked onto by a venomous snake.
"Have you come?" Fang Gang stopped, his voice carrying through the dead silence.
The answer was a shrill, miserable flute note, like bones scraping against glass!
"Wooo—!!!"
Like water dripping into boiling oil, the flute note instantly detonated the silence!
"Rumble... crack, crack, crack..."
All around him, countless piles of scrap covered in tarpaulins suddenly exploded!
Figures upon figures... densely packed shapes crawled out from within!
They were no longer the solitary ghosts from Lost Alley or Fu Shou Yuan Cemetery.
This was a tide of corpses!
Over a hundred corpses! Some wore tattered work uniforms and were clearly missing factory workers; others wore cheap casual clothes; there were even broken figures clad in Special Affairs Bureau uniforms!
Their shared trait was this: their skin was an unnatural dark red, as if soaked in blood. Their muscles were grotesquely swollen and bulging, while the exposed veins writhed like twisted earthworms!
Their eyes were cloudy and yellow, filled only with the most primal greed for the flesh and blood of the living!
Blood Corpses! Refined through evil rituals, immensely strong, bloodthirsty, and crazed!
Every single one radiated a vicious aura far beyond ordinary White Stiff Corpses or Green Stiff Corpses! They were at the peak of Grade D, and a few had even reached Grade C!
"Grrr... roar... meat!"
The corpse tide let out chaotic growls. Thick, foul drool dripped from their grinning mouths, forming a nauseating "rain curtain."
Like piranhas catching the scent of blood, they surged from all directions in a filthy dark-red wave toward the only source of light in the area—Fang Gang!
The ground shook beneath countless heavy footsteps! A foul wind slammed into him!
At the highest point of the factory, atop a broken steel beam, a withered figure silently appeared. He was wrapped in a loose dark-red cloak that looked as though it had been dyed with congealed blood. Beneath the hood was only a shriveled, skull-like face painted with bizarre colors.
In his gaunt hand, he held a bone flute, deathly white and carved from the leg bone of some enormous creature. Strands of black-red bloodlines wound around its body.
One of the Nightmare Twelve Priests—the Blood Sacrifice Priest!
"Heh heh..." He let out a wheezing laugh, his shriveled fingers lightly brushing the bone flute. "Fang Gang? I heard your bald head... is very hard? I wonder whether it can withstand my 'Hundred Skeleton Grudge Bone Flute' and the tearing bites of these... hundred Blood Corpses?"
He suddenly raised the bone flute to his lips!
"Wooo—!!!"
The second flute note rang out! Sharper and more miserable than the first! It carried a wicked power that pierced the soul!
As the sound spread, the surging corpse tide below underwent a terrifying transformation!
All the Blood Corpses' eyes suddenly lit with blinding red light! Their already bulging muscles expanded further, and the veins beneath their skin squirmed madly like living creatures!
Their speed, strength, and ferocity surged in an instant! Their hisses turned into frenzied roars! They had completely entered a berserk state!
The Blood Sacrifice Priest's flute was like a combination of stimulant and berserk spell, transforming these already bloodthirsty monsters into genuine killing machines!
"Tear him apart! Use his flesh, his blood, and that shining head as an offering to the Sacred Eye!" The Blood Sacrifice Priest's voice was filled with cruel fanaticism.
The corpse tide completely swallowed the moonlight and lunged at Fang Gang with the force to destroy everything!
Facing this terrifying tide of corpses that would make even Grade B cultivators' scalps tingle, Fang Gang's eyes did not waver in the slightest. There was only cold battle intent and a trace of... disdain.
"No matter how many pieces of trash there are, they're still trash."
He casually drove the heavy Bronze Battle Halberd into the hard concrete beside him, burying it to the shaft!
The next second, he moved!
No dodging, no maneuvering! Like an arrow loosed from the bow, he advanced rather than retreated, crashing head-on into the most ferocious vanguard of the corpse tide!
The blazing yang blood and vitality of his perfected Nine Yang erupted! Golden-red lava coursed beneath his skin!
His entire body seemed to transform into a miniature human-shaped sun! His dark-golden bald head shone even brighter beneath the glow of his blood and vitality!
"Eight Extremes! Prison-Shaking!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The air exploded beneath the force of his fists! The five or six berserk Blood Corpses rushing at the front were like they had been struck head-on by a speeding heavy truck!
Their swollen dark-red bodies could not hold out for even half a second before the terrifying force and blazing yang fire struck them together, causing them to burst apart like overinflated balls!
Thick dark-red flesh, shattered bones, and foul bodily fluids sprayed everywhere like a torrential downpour!
Yet before the filth could touch the ground, it was instantly ignited and incinerated by the Nine Yang True Fire wrapped in his fist wind! It turned into ash that drifted through the air, carrying a burnt stench!
Fang Gang did not stop! His fists became two violent golden-red storms! Every punch unleashed a dull sonic boom!
With every punch, one or even several Blood Corpses were smashed apart and incinerated! He was like a red-hot branding iron thrust into congealed lard, utterly unstoppable!
The charge of the corpse tide? Like paper before him! The biting and clawing of the Blood Corpses? They could not even leave a white mark on his perfected Vajra Indestructible Body, and were instead shaken until their bones broke and tendons snapped!
Strength! Strength refined to its purest extreme! Defense! Impenetrable defense! Speed! A straight-line charge that crushed all resistance!
This was the dominance of a body cultivator! This was the true meaning of breaking ten thousand techniques with one force! Let there be mountains of corpses and seas of blood—I would shatter them with a single punch!
"Roar!" An especially tall Grade C Blood Corpse roared as it lunged at him, its arm muscles knotted like iron and its black nails sharp as blades!
Fang Gang did not even look at it. He struck out with a backhanded palm! Golden-red flames gathered in his palm, and the phantom of a great sun faintly emerged!
"Great Sun! Demon Incineration!"
"Bang!!!"
The Grade C Blood Corpse was like it had been struck by a red-hot cannonball. Its entire upper body instantly carbonized and collapsed!
Its remaining lower half was blasted backward by the violent palm force, knocking over seven or eight of its kind behind it!
Ding! Grade D/C Blood Corpses killed... Evolution Points gained +1... +1... +1... +5...
The system notifications rang densely in Fang Gang's mind like beating war drums! But he heard none of it. His eyes held only destruction!
Fists and palms alternated as golden-red light rampaged through the corpse tide. Every eruption cleared an entire area! His dark-golden bald head stood amid the firelight and blood rain like the mark of an undying war god!
"Trash! A bunch of trash!" The Blood Sacrifice Priest on the beam watched until his eyes nearly split! He had never expected this bald man's body to be so overwhelmingly powerful! A hundred berserk Blood Corpses were no more than chickens and dogs before him!
Bloodlight burst from his eyes as his withered fingers slid rapidly over the bone flute! An even shriller, more sinister flute note became invisible steel needles that stabbed viciously toward Fang Gang!
"Woooow—!!!"
The spiritual assault within the flute note, mixed with the resentful wails of a hundred dying corpses, formed a foul torrent of mental force! This attack was more direct and violent than the Phantom Nightmare Priest's illusions! It targeted the soul itself!
Within Fang Gang's sea of consciousness, that clear and resilient heart mirror (Mental: 30!) shone brilliantly! The minor mastery True Mirror Still Water Heart Sutra operated at full force!
"Buzz!"
The foul torrent of mental force slammed hard into the heart mirror! The mirror surface shook violently, rippling with countless waves, but remained as steady as a mountain! It firmly blocked the wicked sound and resentment outside! Fang Gang's movements did not slow in the slightest!
"What?!" The Blood Sacrifice Priest cried out in horror! Even his spiritual assault was ineffective?! This bald man's mental defense was this monstrous too?!
At the very instant his mind was thrown into turmoil!
Below, Fang Gang suddenly looked up! His cold gaze was like two tangible sharp swords, piercing through the chaotic battlefield and locking precisely onto the Blood Sacrifice Priest on the beam!
The Blood Sacrifice Priest's entire body stiffened, as if an ancient ferocious beast had fixed its gaze upon him!
The ground beneath Fang Gang exploded! His entire body became a golden-red meteor that tore through space! He was fast beyond measure! Ignoring the remaining corpses below, he had only one target—the flute player!
"Stop him!" the Blood Sacrifice Priest shrieked in terror, frantically blowing the bone flute!
The remaining dozens of Blood Corpses seemed to receive the harshest command. They leaped up without regard for their lives, forming a wall of flesh and blood in Fang Gang's path!
"Get lost!"
Fang Gang roared, golden-red flames condensing to the limit around both fists! The power of the Barbaric Elephant Holding Up the Heavens erupted without reservation!
"Rumble—!!!"
A thick golden-red pillar of fire erupted from his fists like flames burning down a city! It instantly swallowed every Blood Corpse blocking his way, reducing them to drifting ash!
The fire pillar did not lose momentum. Like a roaring furious dragon, it blasted violently toward the Blood Sacrifice Priest on the beam!
The Blood Sacrifice Priest was scared out of his wits! With a strange cry, the dark-red cloak around him suddenly exploded and turned into a thick blood mist that shielded him! At the same time, his boneless-looking body retreated rapidly backward!
"Boom!!!"
The golden-red fire pillar smashed into the blood mist! A deafening explosion erupted! The blood mist churned violently and evaporated, letting out sizzling screams! The terrifying impact even blew the steel beam into fragments!
"Wah!" The Blood Sacrifice Priest's miserable scream came from within the blood mist. A gaunt figure was blasted away like a rag doll, smashing through the factory's broken window and vanishing into the boundless night!
Only half a charred cloak fragment and droplets of thick black blood remained.
Fang Gang landed atop the broken remains of the steel beam, the golden-red flames around him slowly withdrawing. His dark-golden bald head looked like a burning sun amid the smoke and firelight.
He glanced over the devastated battlefield below. The hundred Blood Corpses had all become ash and charred remains. The heavy smell of blood mixed with burnt stench, making one want to vomit.
"A rat got away." Fang Gang's gaze was cold, but he was not particularly surprised. The Twelve Priests were indeed not so easy to kill.
He pulled the Bronze Battle Halberd from the ground and rested it on his shoulder.
The Resentful Eye imprint on his left arm sent out a faint pulse carrying the scent of blood, as if it had devoured some kind of power that had escaped during the battle.
"A hunting order?" Fang Gang looked toward the direction where the Blood Sacrifice Priest had disappeared, a sharp curve rising at the corner of his mouth. "This is only the beginning."
Carrying the halberd, he strode out of the bloody ruins.
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