Dark clouds churned as crimson light flooded the sky.
On Mount Wuxuan, corpses were piled as high as mountains and blood ran in rivers. It was a scene straight out of hell.
The Mu family, once among the most powerful clans on the Xuanyun Continent, was exterminated overnight.
Above the sea of blood, a crimson divine soul was bound within blazing flames, forced to watch helplessly as her clansmen were slaughtered, their shrill, despairing screams echoing through the air.
“Chi Roushu, seizing my body was one thing, but you lived among the Mu family under my identity for ten years. And for the sake of a man I had already cast aside, you did this!”
“They treated you so well. Why did you still go to such lengths to find the Mu family’s secluded refuge and slaughter every last one of them?!”
Below stood a woman with exquisite features. Upon closer inspection, she looked exactly like the divine soul above.
“Why?”
Chi Roushu smiled smugly. “Naturally, it was all for the Mu family’s special bloodline—and that precious flesh and blood of yours.”
“Fortunately, my Heavenly Fate Bead can lock onto you, and naturally, it had long since locked onto your parents and older brothers as well. The Bead’s aura had already been left on them. No matter where they went, I always knew where they were!”
“But once your soul scatters—”
She burst into triumphant laughter. “From then on, I will completely become you. I will be the real Mu Guili, and your fiancé, Ye Chen, will become my husband. Naturally, all these Mu clansmen standing in my way had to be eliminated!”
Mu Guili’s divine soul was on the verge of collapse.
The Mu family’s bloodline was special; their flesh and blood were treasures beyond measure.
For generations, they had lived in seclusion, unknown to the world.
Yet everything had been exposed by the divine artifact in Chi Roushu’s possession—the Heavenly Fate Bead!
Worse, she had colluded with Mu Guili’s own fiancé, Ye Chen, to murder her family.
Her eldest brother’s blood and marrow had been drained dry and refined into a powerful defensive artifact, eventually becoming Chi Roushu’s Bloodstone pendant.
Her second brother’s blood and bones formed the cage, and his divine soul became its spirit. The divine weapon known as the Gentleman’s Sword was forged in a furnace for eighty-one days before finally emerging. It became Ye Chen’s life-bound sword, and with it, he rose to fame and entered the number-one sect.
When the Ghost Domain Abyss stirred, it was the Universe Seal—refined from her third brother’s shattered bones—that sealed the wide-open Ghost Gate.
Because of this, Ye Chen was hailed as a hero of the continent. Great Emperor Qiongxiao of the Holy Palace then discovered that Ye Chen was his long-lost son, allowing him to acknowledge his ancestry and return to his clan.
Even Mu Guili’s younger sister, who had been lost shortly after birth, was tracked down by Chi Roushu. Her tendons were ripped out and her skin flayed from her body while she was still alive, and she was refined into the love-token whip shared by Chi Roushu and Ye Chen.
And because Chi Roushu was living under Mu Guili’s identity, once the Mu family was exterminated, no one would ever suspect that the deed had been committed by the Mu family’s eldest daughter.
That vile pair would rise to the summit of power by trampling over the Mu family’s blood and bones, wielding supreme treasures bought with her family’s lives!
She hated the injustice of the Heavenly Dao! She hated the cruelty of fate!
“Oh, right.” Chi Roushu smiled shyly. “A-Chen will marry me soon—on the very day he swallows the divine pill refined from your parents’ soul bones, breaks through to the Supreme realm, and inherits the position of Great Emperor!”
“Ah—!”
The shattered remnant soul thrashed in the sea of blood. Its resentment surged, its hatred soared to the heavens, and it nearly tore itself apart.
Chi Roushu turned around in delight. “A-Chen, you’re here! Her will has already collapsed. We can finally purge her completely!”
A man in magnificent robes appeared and gazed at her with doting affection. “Li’er, you always know what to do. Who knows where that wandering ghost came from, daring to hide inside your sea of consciousness? Fortunately, you discovered it early.”
As he spoke, Ye Chen reached out, seized the divine soul burning above the sea of blood, and sealed it inside a Soul-Destroying Artifact.
Bone-eroding agony swept through her like a malignant sore clinging to the bone. As her soul gradually dissipated, every word she screamed was shrill and piercing.
“Chi Roushu, Ye Chen—even if I fall into purgatory and karmic flames burn me to ash, I will crawl back out and leave you with no place to be buried!!”
Ye Chen ignored her shrieking curses and gently wrapped an arm around Chi Roushu.
Of course he knew who the woman in his arms really was, but he did not care. After all, he was the one benefiting from everything.
The two left in tender intimacy, setting out on their path to the pinnacle of the continent.
Only Mu Guili remained behind, trapped in the flames of hell and burned until her soul scattered completely.
Faintly, a bell toll from the distant ancient past rang out, unheard by anyone.
“Junior Sister Mu, if you must blame someone, blame your worthless fate. Trash like you would only waste this body. Only in my hands can it realize its greatest value…”
A familiar voice reached her ears.
Mu Guili’s eyes snapped open. She found herself lying on the grass, her body covered in blood, with the corpse of a demonic beast beside her.
The familiar scene made her understand.
She had truly returned to the day her body was seized!
That voice really had not lied to her!
Her parents and several older brothers had been away from home for years, searching for her missing younger sister.
Because of this, after losing contact with them, Mu Guili had secretly left Mount Wuxuan and gained admission to Shengtian Academy.
But because her strength was weak and her results ranked at the very bottom, everyone disliked her. Only her senior sister, Chi Roushu, treated her kindly.
This time as well, Chi Roushu had invited her to the Dark Forest to gather spirit plants. There, they encountered a demonic beast, and Mu Guili was gravely injured while saving Chi Roushu. She had never imagined that everything was part of Chi Roushu’s plot to seize her body.
The memories flashed through her mind in an instant. Chi Roushu’s fingertip had already touched her spiritual platform.
The icy touch sent a bone-deep chill through her.
If kindness was useless, then what was wrong with fighting evil with evil?
Mu Guili no longer hesitated. She bit open her fingertip and, trembling, forced out her meager spiritual power as she traced lines in the air with her blood.
Chaotic yet profound lines gradually formed a talisman.
Faint black qi flickered across it, carrying an ominous aura.
A talisman drawn in blood was a forbidden spell.
At the very moment Chi Roushu relaxed her guard, confident of victory, Mu Guili flung the talisman at her.
A shrill scream rang out amid a thunderous boom.
As though she had been devoured by a vengeful ghost, Chi Roushu’s beautiful face was instantly destroyed, and half her body—flesh, skin, and bone alike—was blasted into mangled pulp.
“What kind of talisman is this?!”
Chi Roushu screamed in disbelief. She had never expected that a piece of trash who was only a third-stage Soul Soldier would possess such a technique.
But greed quickly surfaced in her eyes. She had already exposed herself anyway. As long as she could seize Mu Guili’s body, wouldn’t all of this become hers?
Chi Roushu did something, and light flashed. In the blink of an eye, half a body of flesh and blood had regrown, and she reached out to grab Mu Guili.
“Your body must be mine!”
She even possessed the power to revive the dead and regrow flesh on bare bones. The Heavenly Fate Bead in her possession was truly formidable.
But the thought that it was the Heavenly Fate Bead that had locked onto her family and led to the extermination of the entire Mu clan filled Mu Guili with seething hatred.
Today, even if she had to turn her back on the principles of the righteous path, she would not let Chi Roushu seize her body!
Mu Guili swallowed the blood rising in her throat and swiftly drew a forbidden formation on the ground with the blood from her palm. She did not stop even as gashes split open across her body and blood poured from them.
With blood as the formation and yin qi as its bones, baleful energy swept outward, preventing even Chi Roushu from approaching.
Fear flashed through Chi Roushu’s eyes as she prepared to activate the Heavenly Fate Bead by force.
But Mu Guili’s cold voice had already rung out. “With my blood, fuse my soul—supreme evil between heaven and earth, heed my command!”
In an instant, the forbidden formation unfolded, and an overwhelming pressure descended from above.
Under the crushing force of the hurricane, vast stretches of trees were ground to dust inch by inch, and the demonic beasts in the Dark Forest suddenly let out terrified shrieks.
A black shadow was summoned in the blink of an eye.
Chi Roushu looked up at the sky, and terror suddenly filled her eyes.
“What is that thing?!”