"Prefatory note": As usual, to keep the plot flowing smoothly, there will be consecutive updates tonight. This is the first chapter; the second is still being written and should be posted around midnight. Tomorrow is a rest day, with no update. Readers are advised to wait and read both chapters together. The main text follows.
The firelight arrived in an instant and transformed into a tall, powerfully built man.
He stood eight feet tall, with thick, curly, shoulder-length hair, glossy black save for a touch of crimson at the tips. He looked strong and lean, around thirty or forty, with a broad nose, a wide forehead, and a somewhat dark complexion. His features were imposing, but the fiery crimson eyes in his sockets made him look particularly fierce.
Thanks to his family's heritage, Cheng Xinzhan also recognized at a glance that the man before him was a corpse cultivator-a Fifth Realm corpse cultivator. He also clearly bore demonic energy, so he probably had not attained the Dao from a human corpse. As for precisely what kind of demon he was, Cheng Xinzhan could not yet tell.
Fifth Realm corpse cultivators were rare throughout the world. Encountering one here in the North, his identity was not hard to guess.
The lord of Flame Mountain, Huo Wuwei, a legendary figure who had attained the Dao as a drought corpse.
When Gong Zhengyu saw that the reinforcement arranged by Blood God Child was actually Huo Wuwei, her expression immediately darkened.
These two lineages were an interesting pair. One traced its origins to the Daoist Sect, the other to the Unorthodox Sects, yet they had been at odds since their founding. It was easy enough to understand: one cultivated the cold of Great Yin and lived on the snowy plains; the other cultivated the