Dark clouds churned, and scarlet blood filled the air.
On Wuxuan Mountain, corpses were piled as high as mountains, and blood flowed like rivers. It was a scene straight from hell.
The flourishing Mu Family of the Xuan Yun Continent had been annihilated overnight.
Above the sea of blood, a scarlet soul was bound in searing flames. It could only watch helplessly as its clansmen were slaughtered, their shrill, despairing cries ringing out.
“Chi Roushu, stealing my body would have been bad enough, but you used my identity to live alongside the Mu Family for ten years. How could you be so ruthless for the sake of a man I didn’t even want?”
“They treated you so well. Why did you still go to such lengths to find the Mu Family’s hidden domain and slaughter every last one of them?”
A woman with exquisite features stood below. Looking closely, one would find that she looked exactly like the soul in the flames.
“Why?”
Chi Roushu was filled with smug satisfaction. “Naturally, it was all for that special bloodline of the Mu Family—for your precious flesh and blood.”
“Fortunately, my Heaven’s Mandate Pearl was able to lock onto you. It had already locked onto your parents and elder brothers as well. The aura left behind by the Heaven’s Mandate Pearl was on them long ago, so no matter where they went, I could find out where they were!”
“But once your soul is scattered—”
She laughed smugly. “From now on, I will become you completely. I am the true Mu Guili. Your fiancé, Ye Chen, will also become my husband. As for these obtrusive members of the Mu Family, they naturally had to be eliminated completely!”
Mu Guili’s soul was on the verge of collapse.
The bloodline of the Mu Family was extraordinary, and every part of their flesh and blood was a treasure.
They had always lived in seclusion, unknown to the outside world.
Yet everything had been exposed by the divine artifact known as the Heaven’s Mandate Pearl, which Chi Roushu possessed.
Chi Roushu had even colluded with her fiancé, Ye Chen, and caused her family to be killed.
Her eldest brother’s blood marrow had been drained and refined into a powerful defensive artifact. In the end, it had become the blood-red gemstone pendant worn by Chi Roushu.
Her second brother’s blood and bones had become the cage, while his soul had become the spirit. After being refined in a forging furnace for eighty-one days, the divine weapon known as the Gentleman’s Sword had finally emerged. It became Ye Chen’s life-bound sword, allowing him to make a name for himself and enter the First Great Sect.
When the Ghost Domain Abyss stirred, it had taken the Qiankun Seal, condensed from the shattered bones of her third brother, to block the Ghost Gate that had opened wide.
Ye Chen had thereby become a hero of the continent. Because of this, Great Emperor Qiongxiao of the Sacred Palace had discovered that Ye Chen was his long-lost son, allowing him to return to his ancestral family.
Even her younger sister, who had vanished immediately after birth, had been found by Chi Roushu. She had been cruelly stripped of her tendons and skin while still alive, then refined into the Love Token Whip belonging to Chi Roushu and Ye Chen.
And yet Chi Roushu had survived under her identity. With the Mu Family annihilated, no one would suspect that the deed had been committed by Miss Mu.
These two treacherous lovers would trample on the blood and bones of the Mu Family and use the supreme treasures that had been bought with their lives to climb to the peak of power!
She hated the injustice of the heavens. She hated the ruthlessness of fate!
“Oh, that’s right.” Chi Roushu smiled coyly. “A-Chen will soon marry me. It will be on the day he takes the divine pill refined from your parents’ soul bones, breaks through to become a Supreme, and inherits the position of Great Emperor!”
“Ah—!”
The shattered remnant soul writhed in the sea of blood. Its resentment surged wildly, and its hatred soared to the heavens. It was nearly torn apart.
Chi Roushu turned around in delight. “A-Chen, you’re here! Her will has already been broken. We can finally eradicate her completely!”
A man in splendid robes appeared, gazing at her indulgently. “Lier really does have a way. Who knows where that wandering ghost came from? It actually dared to hide in Lier’s sea of consciousness. Fortunately, you discovered it early.”
As he spoke, Ye Chen raised his hand and seized the soul burning in the sea of blood, locking it inside a soul-destroying vessel.
Bone-deep agony, like a persistent parasite gnawing at the bones, swept over it. Its soul gradually dissipated, each word it uttered shrill and every cry piercing.
“Chi Roushu, Ye Chen, even if I fall into the Inferno and my body is burned by baleful flames, I will crawl back out and make sure you die without a burial place!”
Ye Chen ignored its shouting and gently pulled Chi Roushu into his arms.
Of course he knew who the woman in his embrace really was, but he did not care. After all, he was the one who benefited.
The two of them left in an intimate embrace, walking down the road that would lead them to stand at the pinnacle of the continent.
Only Mu Guili remained, trapped in the flames of hell, burning until her soul was completely scattered.
Faintly, the sound of a bell seemed to ring out from the distant ancient past.
No one heard it.
“Junior Sister Mu, if you want to blame anyone, blame your own lowly fate. A good-for-nothing like you would only be wasting this body. Only in my hands can it display its greatest value…”
A familiar voice entered Mu Guili’s ears.
She abruptly opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying on the grass, covered in blood. Beside her lay the corpse of a demonic beast.
The familiar scene made her understand.
She had truly returned to the day her body was stolen!
That voice had not deceived her after all!
In order to search for their missing daughter, her parents and several elder brothers had spent years away from home.
Thus, after losing contact with them, she had secretly left Wuxuan Mountain as well and been admitted to Sacred Heaven Academy.
However, because her strength was weak and her grades were at the bottom, she was disliked by everyone. Only her senior sister, Chi Roushu, had been close to her.
This time, too, Chi Roushu had invited her to Youlin Forest to gather spirit plants. They had encountered a demonic beast there, and Mu Guili had suffered severe injuries while saving Chi Roushu. She had never expected that everything had been a scheme by Chi Roushu to steal her body.
The recollection had taken no more than an instant. Chi Roushu’s fingertip had already touched Mu Guili’s spiritual platform.
That icy fingertip brought a bone-chilling cold.
If kindness was useless, then what harm was there in using evil to restrain evil?
Mu Guili no longer hesitated. She bit through her fingertip and, trembling, squeezed out her faint spiritual power, using her blood to draw in the air.
Chaotic yet mysterious lines gradually formed a talisman.
Faint black energy flickered, carrying an ominous aura.
Drawing a talisman with blood was a forbidden curse.
At the instant Chi Roushu relaxed her guard, certain that victory was in her grasp, Mu Guili waved her hand and sent the talisman flying.
A shrill scream rang out, followed by a booming explosion.
As if devoured by an evil ghost, Chi Roushu’s beautiful face was instantly destroyed. Half of her body, from flesh to skin and bones, was blasted into a mass of mangled flesh.
“What kind of talisman is this?”
Chi Roushu screamed in disbelief. She had never expected that a good-for-nothing Soul Warrior at the third rank would possess such means.
But in the next moment, greed appeared in her eyes.
She had already exposed herself, so what did it matter? As long as she could seize Mu Guili’s body, all of this would belong to her anyway.
Chi Roushu did something unknown. Light flashed, and in the blink of an eye, flesh had grown over half her body again. She reached toward Mu Guili.
“Your body must be mine!”
She even possessed the ability to bring the dead back to life and restore flesh to white bones. The Heaven’s Mandate Pearl she possessed was indeed formidable.
But the moment Mu Guili thought of how the Heaven’s Mandate Pearl had located her family and caused the entire Mu Family to be annihilated, a surge of hatred welled up inside her.
Today, even if she had to betray the principles of the righteous path, she could not allow Chi Roushu to successfully steal her body!
Mu Guili swallowed the blood in her throat and quickly began drawing a forbidden formation on the ground with the blood in her palm. Wounds split open all over her body, and fresh blood flowed from them, yet she did not stop.
With blood as the formation and yin energy as its bones, baleful energy swept outward. Chi Roushu could not even approach.
Fear flashed through her eyes. She was just about to forcefully activate the Heaven’s Mandate Pearl.
But Mu Guili had already spoken coldly:
“With my blood, merge with my soul. The supreme evil between heaven and earth, be driven by me!”
In an instant, the forbidden formation spread open, and a vast, overwhelming pressure descended from above.
Under the crushing force of the hurricane, great swathes of trees were ground into fragments inch by inch. The demonic beasts in Youlin Forest suddenly let out terrified howls.
A black shadow was summoned in the blink of an eye.
Chi Roushu raised her head toward the sky, her eyes suddenly filled with terror.
“What is that?!”