Mysterious Yin Devil Moon

"Good and evil" in Demon-Subduing City changed every three days.

Anyone who "did evil" would most likely be besieged by all the city's demon-subduing mechanisms, along with the other cultivators.

Hu Mang himself wasn't even sure whether he was a "good person," so how could he boast that he could bring a burden along?

Besides, according to old man Chen, "evil people" couldn't enter the areas where the "remnants of the divine dynasty" were eligible to go.

So if he was unlucky enough to draw that lot, the plan could only be postponed for three days.

Adding the previous three days, that made six.

He wondered how many more missed calls from his mother he would have by then.

Hu Mang sat atop Thunder God's Shrine with his hands behind his head, silently pondering as he watched thunderclouds roll across the sky.

Although there was practically no distinction between day and night in this city, the passage of the sun and moon outside still seemed to affect it.

At night, for instance, the dark clouds grew considerably darker.

And perhaps because a downpour was approaching, the sky was especially dark tonight.

That didn't affect Hu Mang's vision, though. He was holding his survey map, silently matching it against the various "spiritual power pipeline routes."

More than a dozen "important spiritual power nodes" had also been added to the map.

Old man Chen had marked them for him: the so-called demon-subduing grounds and devil-suppressing sites.

If the Devil Suppression Tower is equivalent to a first-tier spiritual power node, then these "landmarks" are probably equivalent to second-tier nodes. Thunder God's Shrine is a spiritual power outlet, so this line should be drawn like this...

Under the night sky, Hu Mang's dim yellow eyes stood out, like the gleaming beastly eyes of a fox badger crouched in the grass deep in the mountains and forests.

In fact, not only did he have "night vision," but he also slept very little at night, possibly because of his fox demon bloodline.

Sometimes he was especially alert and felt a strong urge to go out for a stroll.

Back when he was in school, this particular talent had gotten him hauled out of bed by Mama Hu in the middle of the night to do extra schoolwork more than once.

It had been miserable.

That talent had contributed greatly to his admission to a first-rate academy in Heavenly Gate.

...Looking at it this way, there should be nine "thunder network hubs" in this city.

Hu Mang marked three circles on the "routes" where he suspected the "thunder network hubs" were.

He had already confirmed three of them.

The routes on the survey map had grown so complicated that an outsider couldn't make heads or tails of them.

After putting the map away, Hu Mang pulled out a small booklet: the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique he had obtained earlier.

The manual had made a round trip and ended up back in his hands.

Without observing the precepts and staying at a monastery, he really couldn't cultivate the monk's arts. But he still wanted to study this devil path Cultivation Method and see how it differed from the overseas Devil Cultivation Method he practiced.

"The great void lies in darkness, the black sea has no shore. Gather my soul and forge my devil form. At the farthest reach of sight, a lone moon hangs. Its color is like ink, its substance like lead. Its radiance sheds no light, its chill seals the heavens. Draw the moon into the eyes, through the brain and into the abyss."

Hu Mang leaned against a corner of Thunder God's Shrine's eaves, his surroundings stirring without wind as he casually traced shapes with one hand-

"The great void lies in darkness, the black sea has no shore. Gather my soul and forge my devil form. At the farthest reach of sight, a lone moon hangs..."

As the Mnemonic took effect, a black halo as viscous as ink emerged around him. It wasn't violent; rather, it was as docile as a layer of flowing night, wrapping him from head to toe.

In a daze, Hu Mang's consciousness sank into that boundless black sea.

Here, there was no distinction between the four directions, nor any boundary between heaven and earth.

Looking up, he saw a moon hanging high in the sky. It was the so-called "Mysterious Yin Devil Moon."

It was also the core of the Mysterious Yin Body-Refining Instruction.

Its light wasn't silvery white, but a deathly pallor that made the heart tremble. It was cold to the bone, as if it would drain the last trace of warmth from the world.

To an ordinary person, this was the most Yin place in heaven and earth, and that bright moon was the source of the Three Yin's power.

Beneath the moonlight, Hu Mang's seven emotions and six desires were being erased bit by bit.

Through a perception from the Unseen, his gaze passed around the false layer of moonlight and fell on the deathly still black sea beneath his feet.

In this peculiar, emotionless state, a realization suddenly dawned on Hu Mang.

When ordinary people cultivated the devil path, they looked up at the lone moon high in the sky and begged for a trace of its falling, icy light, like beggars asking for alms. Thus, they faced nine deaths for one life, and their meridians were utterly destroyed.

However-

To be without emotion was to be without a moon.

"The essence of Mysterious Yin lies not in the heavens, but in the abyss."

With a thought from him, the immense Devil Moon buried deep beneath the black sea seemed to open hundreds of millions of eyes. No light shone out; only an absolute will to "devour" erupted with a roar.

The next moment, the entire black sea boiled—or rather, it contracted.

The false Devil Moon hanging high in the sky shattered in an instant, becoming countless black devil path runes. They merged into the black sea below, then all poured into Hu Mang's body.

The moon in the sky shattered; the moon in the sea rose.

The body became the abyss; the soul became the sea.

There had been nothing in the void above his head, but now a small patch suddenly collapsed—a sign that space had been frozen by extreme cold.

A miniature Devil Moon no larger than his palm, dark as ten-thousand-year-old black iron, was "plucked" from the void by him without any resistance.

"Huh?"

Hu Mang's eyes snapped open, and a glimmer of dim light flashed through them.

Within the Crimson Palace of his middle Dantian, where the Golden Core was guarded, a dark crescent moon had risen.

"It worked just like that?!"

Hu Mang stared blankly for a moment.

He visualized it again and only became truly certain after confirming that his middle Dantian was bathed in moonlight.

Wasn't that a bit too fast?

What had happened to the fabled nine deaths for one life?

And the part about it being passed only to a True Disciple?

He had simply looked at it, his mind sinking into a certain state of its own accord, and by the time he came back to himself-

The Mysterious Yin Devil Moon had already formed.

He still found it hard to believe.

So he immediately recited the Sha-guiding method of the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique.

"Corpse Qi lies heavy, death Qi lingers. Borrow your flesh to blunt my edge. Let the Devil Moon guide and the corpse serve as medium. Let Sha recede three parts and Yin Qi return to its place. The Three Yin converge, the Five Qi return to the origin."

At that very instant, the Devil Moon in the Crimson Palace seemed to turn slightly; a stream of Profound Yin Black Sha, black as ink and substantial as liquid metal, emerged from the void and entered his flesh through the Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian, one of the Three Yin Meridians.

A bone-deep chill covered his entire body in an instant.

"Hum-"

Hu Mang's body shuddered violently.

Almost at the same time, a thin shell of ice formed over his skin.

At the same time, a current of extreme Mysterious Yin cold spread from the Jueyin to the Foot Taiyin Spleen Meridian and the Foot Shaoyin Kidney Meridian.

There was at least one thing old man Chen had been right about!

This was a ruthless path devoted purely to body refining. The moment the Profound Yin Devil Qi entered his body, ninety percent of his meridians seemed to freeze over, causing his Qi and Blood to stagnate and subjecting him to pain worse than death.

Hu Mang was just about to disperse the technique when a bloody light suddenly flashed in his eyes. The essence blood cultivated through the second layer of the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art began surging through his major meridians and blood vessels, his heart pounding like a pump.

In less than half an incense stick's time, the outer shell of ice melted, and wisps of steam rose from the top of Hu Mang's head.

At the same time, faint blood-red markings began to form on his skin, rather like a tattoo, though they formed no particular image.

Hu Mang had originally planned to disperse the technique.

After all, his progress had been so fast that he could hardly understand it.

But just before dispersing it, a sudden idea struck him, and he activated the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art while circulating the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique.

This overseas Devil Cultivation Method followed a path of reversing creation and fusing essence Qi into blood. It could boil the blood in his body into a bloody mist, granting him all manner of tremendous strength and even allowing him to contaminate Law Techniques and Law Artifacts.

Once activated, his whole body became like a furnace of Qi and Blood.

But while the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique was guiding Sha, his meridians were as cold as ice.

Hu Mang had wanted to see whether he could use Blood Qi to warm his meridians.

But when he tried it, his body instantly entered a world of both ice and fire.

In this state, not only did the Mysterious Yin method advance rapidly, but the overseas Devil Cultivation Method he practiced also seemed to show faint signs of breaking through the second layer, where he had been stuck for so long, and reaching the third layer, the realm of Pierce Blood to Form a Sword.

That was already the highest realm in this incomplete overseas Devil Cultivation Method.

According to Zheng Qingbo, the big boss who had given him the Devil Cultivation Method back then, there was no subsequent technique, because the rest had all been burned to ashes by the "Martial Emperor," the supreme leader of the old Heavenly Gate.

That was the so-called "burning books and burying devils" incident.

And so he cultivated through the night.

Only when the sky began to brighten and much of the black had faded from the thunderclouds overhead did Hu Mang open his eyes. He looked over his body; he was dripping wet, as though he had just been pulled from the water.

Mentally, however, he felt exceptionally good.

"I succeeded in visualizing the Mysterious Yin Devil Moon, took my first steps into the Profound Yin Body Refining Technique, and the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art is showing signs of breaking through to the third layer. Circulating both Devil Cultivation Methods at once even lets them transform seamlessly into each other. Unbelievable!"

Hu Mang was more puzzled than pleasantly surprised.

"Could I really be a genius at cultivating Devil Cultivation Methods?"

A Cultivation Method wasn't something one could simply take up and practice, then use as soon as one had practiced it.

For example, in his first year of college, an expert from the civil engineering department had taught him the Dragon-Subduing Pile Method. But it wasn't until after graduation, when he went overseas and took part in underground life-and-death arena fights, that he fully mastered it and integrated it into his own system of offense and defense.

From beginning to end, that had taken him seven years.

And the fact that he had fought his way to the title of Heavenly Blood Python was proof enough of his talent for combat.

Even so, it had taken him seven years.

Last night, on the other hand, he had merely acted on a sudden idea, intending to disperse the technique at the first sign that anything was wrong.

After all, he hadn't even gotten started with the Mysterious Yin Sha-Guiding Instruction, so there were no aftereffects to worry about.

Yet he had encountered not the slightest obstacle while circulating two Devil Cultivation Methods at once.

There was only one explanation-

He really was a genius at cultivating the devil path!

And not just any ordinary genius, either; he was at least on the level of someone with an Innate Earth-Wood Holy Body.

But when he thought of the devil path's reputation in Heavenly Gate, his face darkened.

In Heavenly Gate, saying someone cultivated the devil path was an insult, roughly equivalent to calling them a fucking brain-dead idiot.

Then what did that make him?

Someone with an innate brain-damaged holy body?

As he was left speechless, everything suddenly went black before his eyes again. For the second time, he saw the divine figure of lightning holding a lightning awl, which thrust straight at his forehead.

"Hiss~~"

Hu Mang instinctively pressed a hand to his temple.

When he came back to himself, he couldn't help smiling.

"Not bad luck."

Once again, he was a good person.

"Haha, this old man really was born honest and kind. I am a good person through nine lifetimes."

The moment he entered Thunder God's Shrine, he heard old man Chen boasting.

Zhou Yu and Xu Qing's faces, however, had turned black.

After all, evil people had black faces.

One unexpected person, on the other hand, had been handed a "good person card."