In the villa’s basement, the LED tubes cast a cold white light.
Pained growls filled the room. Zhou Su was bare from the waist up, every muscle roped and taut rather than bulky—like tightened steel cables.
Fresh blood suddenly seeped across his skin—that was because the muscles inside his body were being slowly torn.
Capillaries ruptured. Dark-red tracery surfaced beneath the skin, like tiger stripes crawling along the vessels.
This was the effect of swallowing Tiger-Strength Pills—the body first tears and then heals, a near-masochistic method to strengthen itself.
At first Zhou writhed in agony, but he adapted quickly.
After all, this kind of pain-tolerance task played out every time he refined the “heart-demon elixir.”
By now his pain tolerance far exceeded the ordinary.
“Is my adaptability to all these states also part of my ability?” Zhou couldn’t help but speculate.
The villa’s basement had originally been abandoned. Zhou had cleaned it out and rearranged everything.
Thick rubber mats covered the floor. Training equipment lined the walls in order: a dusk-black squat rack, heavy cable machine, barbell plates of varying weights…
He hadn’t gone back to the gym. He chose to train at home.
Because his strength was rising too fast!
To avoid exposing Tiger-Strength Pills and inviting unnecessary trouble, he could only forgo the gym.
Besides, he’d learned what he needed about training methods; what remained was sustained, disciplined work.
Once he’d adjusted to the pain, Zhou walked to the specially hung heavy bag at center.
He whipped a fist into it. The violent motion tore the muscles further; his arm flushed blood-red, but he ignored it and punched again.
In the cold gleam, the huge bag swung hard. The thudding booms were unbroken, like war drums—fists slamming home.
Zhou hammered wildly, cycling through every punch: straight, hook, jab, uppercut…
Fist-shadows merged into a sheet, like thick ink flung through the air.
To train better, he’d squeezed in some kickboxing fundamentals. Maybe because power mechanics overlapped with saber work in places, he picked it up extremely fast.
Zhou suddenly roared, gathered his full-body strength, and blasted a final rear-hand straight.
With that punch thrown, a wash of ease flooded his body.
A blood-hued mist steamed from his skin—that was the Tiger-Strength Pills rapidly digesting, medicinal force saturating his frame.
The heavy bag, smashed dead-center, swung high and slammed the ceiling. The tough canvas split; yellow sand hissed down.
“Actually punched the bag open!”
Feeling the power cording through his muscles, Zhou couldn’t suppress his delight.
Four days had passed since he’d gotten the Tiger-Strength Pills.
All eight pills were gone—two a day, morning and noon.
Time was tight; the next Blood Moon rule would drop any moment. He had to digest the medicinal force at the fastest pace.
But he also didn’t want to waste large portions of the potency, so he’d worked out this method:
Swallow, then immediately push into high-intensity physical training.
“At last, the body’s short plank is somewhat patched.” Zhou exhaled heat, eyes bright and alive.
Across these four days, besides absorbing the pills, he hadn’t slacked on saber drills. He kept digesting saber-memory, kept studying saber theory…
Ever-sharpening blade work plus a body no longer dragging him down—his combat power was no longer what it had been.
He even began to look forward to the Blood Moon rule’s arrival.
“Tomorrow the third Blood Moon rule drops. Don’t get cocky.”
Zhou took a deep breath and set his mindset straight.
After washing off blood and sweat, evening had come. As usual, Zhou proceeded with the day’s Dusk Power cultivation.
Within the mental space, Zhou sat level within the black sun, eyes closed, a strange mask on his face.
The mask’s base was moon-white; under reflected radiance, cyan patterns surfaced. Its stylized paint split two ways—a fox with a flame tail on the left, a ferocious demon on the right.
This was the Fox-Ghost Mask—light as a cicada’s wing yet remarkably tough.
A wisp of ghostly green flame rose and wavered at the mask’s brow, as if answering the black sun at Zhou’s back.
That was the “soul-power heart-flame,” which increased soul-power condensation speed.
On paper, +5% didn’t seem like much, but the felt effect was worlds apart.
It was a sensation of “leaping”—like an average student suddenly finding the keyhole into the top-student realm.
The reason Zhou judged the Fox-Ghost Mask an artifact was that it provided a fixed increase—useful even late-game.
Right now his soul was still small, and condensation was slow—but once the soul grew strong, everything would be different.
After all, 5% of one thousand and 5% of ten thousand are not the same concept.
“Didn’t expect progress this fast!”
Zhou exited meditation and looked down at his right arm. The entire arm had already solidified.
At a normal pace, he’d be able to solidify at most a single finger by now.
Hitting this speed—both the “heart-demon elixir” and the Fox-Ghost Mask deserved major credit.
With Dusk Power cultivation finished for the day, the busy Zhou entered the blood domain.
The Headless General’s shadow clung to him like taffy.
Zhou watched the shadow. There was no fear left in his eyes—only the look one gives a treasure.
Compared to before, the shadow had thinned a great deal, like concentrated ink diluted.
“If I absorb it completely, my soul-body should solidify to about two-thirds.”
An image flashed in Zhou’s head: after he became a powerhouse, a reporter asked how he’d set foot on that path.
He could only reply, “If I can stand where I am today, I owe it all to the Headless General’s staunch support!”
Zhou drew his gaze from the shadow. He didn’t plan to refine it today.
The flood of memory shards during refinement would burrow into his mind and seriously affect combat power.
With the Blood Moon rule about to begin, he wasn’t about to do something so foolish.
A black torrent rolled from afar. Zhou stood with blade in hand and waited quietly.
The yaksha ghost legion no longer had its former momentum—their numbers had been cut in half, after all.
Zhou’s saber skill could rise so fast in no small part thanks to them.
Saber work is the art of killing. Without targets to kill, where does rapid advancement come from?
These yaksha ghosts were the perfect “sparring partners”—no complaints, no fatigue, not a peep even when their heads were lopped off.
And “sparring partner” was only one benefit. Cutting yaksha also charged Tang Dao: Ghost Hong—a pure win.
The slaughter began again. Zhou sank into it completely, losing any sense of time.
A heavy yaksha ghost toppled. Zhou drew the blade from its skull; black-mist remnant soul surged into the blade, and the Tang Dao rang a crisp note.
Before Zhou could figure out what happened, the next second his soul-body was pulled into the blade.
A colossal dead tree appeared in his sight. There was no crown—only six gnarled trunks thrust straight toward the sky, like six arms holding up the firmament.
“This is the world inside the blade?” Zhou paused a moment and then understood.
He lifted his head to the sky-bracing dead tree. In a blur he felt that what stood before him wasn’t a tree but a giant. He felt the tree’s gaze.
Its bark wasn’t normal lengthwise cracking—more like black-gold armor scales, sheening with metallic luster.
“This tree should be the source of Tang Dao: Ghost Hong. I wonder what it has to do with ‘Emperor Hong’?” Zhou thought to himself.
“Emperor Hong” was the blade’s final ability, but he’d never found a lead—didn’t even know its effect.
At the tree’s base grew broad swathes of unknown shrubs, their leaves bright as fresh blood.
Zhou’s gaze snagged. In the brush he found a strange fruit—teardrop-shaped, patterned all over, radiating dense soul power.
“A soul fruit?” Zhou intuited.
The fruit was soul power made solid—the elements composing it were the remnant souls the blade had devoured.
Zhou recalled the black-flame blade light he’d slashed that day and couldn’t help rubbing his hands in excitement.
That blade light was actually Spirit Radiance, Ghost Hong’s second ability.
For Spirit Radiance to be that strong, it obviously wasn’t something you just flung out. The condition of use was consuming soul fruits.
The more fruits consumed, the stronger the Radiance; the minimum requirement was one soul fruit.
“That’ll do for a bottom-of-the-chest ultimate.”
Zhou’s face lit up. Facing the imminent Blood Moon rule, his confidence grew even firmer.