Before his words had even faded, the young man's offensive abruptly turned fierce as a raging gale. Spiritual light and demonic qi collided madly, their exploding flames nearly illuminating half the sky. Wounds continued to multiply across Lan Jingqi's body—bone-deep cuts crisscrossed with charred marks—yet his gaze remained locked tightly on the young man.
From the moment the barrier had unfurled, he had noticed it—this man's aura had been changing all along.
At first, Lan Jingqi had thought it was merely an illusion born of fierce battle. The other party was only at the Nascent Soul Middle Stage; before him, a Nascent Soul Great Perfection cultivator, he was not worth mentioning.
But as time passed, the growth of that aura became increasingly obvious, increasingly impossible to ignore. It had now reached Nascent Soul Great Perfection and was still climbing.
After the barrier had opened, the other Demonic Cultivators' combat strength had risen as well, but only to a limited degree. Only this young man's power had surged explosively, making him exceptionally strange.
Lan Jingqi had no time to think further. The young man raised his hand. That hand was slender and pale, like carved jade, devoid of any living warmth. Dark-red liquid seeped from his fingertips, drop by drop, falling onto the ground.
It was blood.
But not ordinary blood. When it fell to the ground, it seemed alive. With the young man at its center, the dark-red blood spread in all directions, forming a blooming poppy.
The petals flowed like waves, tiny bubbles churning along their edges, exuding a sickeningly sweet stench of blood.
Lan Jingqi instinctively stepped back—blood had gathered into a domain. Skills like this were meant to be avoided if possible; there was no reason to take them head-on.
In the blink of an eye, the