The Immortal Sect's main stronghold materialized ahead of me like a fortress carved from the bones of titans—towering spires of white jade and spirit stone that should have gleamed with pristine cultivation energy.

Instead, the entire complex pulsed with sickly red veins of corruption, the pure spiritual formations twisted into something that made my enhanced senses recoil in disgust.

But it wasn't the corrupted architecture that made me slow my approach—it was the welcoming committee.

Sect Master Bai Zhengming stood at the center of the main courtyard, his usually immaculate white robes stained with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood.

Around him, twelve Nascent Soul elders formed a perfect circle, their auras linked in a formation pattern I didn't recognize.

The geometric precision of their positioning and the way their qi flowed in synchronized pulses indicated that this wasn't a desperate defense.

This was a trap.

I landed fifty feet away, my Great Vehicle aura unfurling like a pressure wave that made several of the weaker elders step back involuntarily.

The mountain peak beneath my feet cracked from the casual release of power, but my attention was focused entirely on the sect master.

"Zhao Tianlong," Bai Zhengming called out, his voice carrying an edge I hadn't expected. "The fallen emperor who thinks he can waltz into my sect and steal what doesn't belong to him."

I tilted my head, studying his face with growing curiosity. The man looked... different. His usually composed features were twisted with barely contained rage, but underneath that was something else. Desperation? Fear? And his cultivation base—

"Late Dao Integration," I mused aloud, "but fluctuating. Unstable. That's interesting." My eyes narrowed as I caught sight of a small vial in his hand, its contents glowing with malevolent purple light. "Tell me, Sect Master—is this some kind of trap?"

His laugh was bitter, almost hysterical. "Trap? Oh, Emperor, you have no idea what you've walked into."

Without ceremony, he uncorked the vial and drained its contents in one gulp. The effect was immediate and horrifying—his aura exploded outward as demonic qi began pouring from his meridians like black smoke. His skin took on a grayish pallor, veins bulging with corruption, but his power...

His power was ascending.

[System Alert: Target consuming Grade 9 Demonic Ascension Pills]

[Warning: Temporary cultivation boost detected - Late Dao Integration → Early Great Vehicle Realm]

[Duration: Estimated 30 minutes before fatal cultivation deviation]

[Threat Assessment: Extreme - Corrupted Great Vehicle opponent]

"Not much expected from a thrown-away discarded old man," I breathed, understanding flooding through me. "You've even fallen low to start draining the Draconic Spiritual Vine through demonic pills."

Bai Zhengming's transformation was completed with a sound like breaking chains. His aura blazed with corrupted Great Vehicle power, making the very air around him smoke and writhe. When he spoke, his voice carried harmonics that hurt to hear.

"Desperate times, fallen emperor. Once I kill you, I will make sure to kill those whores of yours too—"

The word "whores" hung in the air for exactly one heartbeat.

Then I moved.

The distance between us—fifty feet of cracked stone and corrupted qi—vanished in a blur of motion that defied mortal perception. My fist, wreathed in golden Great Vehicle energy, connected with Bai Zhengming's sneering face before he could even register that I'd moved.

But this wasn't just any punch.

'System,' I snarled internally, rage boiling through my meridians. Yet I didn't lose my composure knowing that it could be a trap to set me up. I went all out with this start to reinforce myself beyond my realm just in case they had set up something, 'drain everything. Every point of vitality I have. Channel it all into this one strike.'

[System Alert: Massive Vitality Expenditure Authorized]

[Drawing Power: 47,250 Vitality Points]

[Effect: Single Strike Amplification - Force Multiplier x50]

[Warning: This will leave Host severely depleted]

The moment my knuckles made contact, reality screamed.

The shockwave that erupted from the impact point wasn't just force—it was annihilation made manifest.

The twelve Nascent Soul elders forming their perfect circle were launched backward like leaves in a hurricane, their formation shattering as they crashed through pagoda walls, spirit gardens, and defensive arrays with bone-crushing impacts that left crater-shaped impressions in whatever they hit.

CRACK-BOOM-RUMBLE!

The main courtyard didn't just crack—it exploded. Stone slabs the size of houses launched skyward as a crater opened beneath us, spreading outward in concentric rings of destruction. The mountain peak itself groaned, avalanches cascading down distant slopes as seismic waves rippled through the earth for miles in every direction.

Ancient defensive formations that had protected the sect for millennia simply ceased, their spiritual matrices overwhelmed and burned out by the raw overflow of power. Entire buildings collapsed as their foundation stones were pulverized, creating a cloud of dust and debris so thick it blotted out the sun.

I stood at the epicenter, chest heaving from the massive vitality expenditure, my body screaming warnings about dangerous depletion levels. The system's alerts were going haywire:

[Vitality Used: 47259/1500000 remaining]

[Due to channeling maximum output of the vitality through the host's body, he would not be able to channel more as it could take a load on him.]

'Hah..' Clearly that limit of my body to channel vitality was still the same, showing how the vitality wasn't linked to my strength but rather it was linked to my life force, which for me was like an ocean, but an ocean with just a tap.

By linking with my wives, I could pour out more of it, but still, right now my body could only utilize a maximum capacity of around 50,000.

Through the settling dust cloud, I peered toward where Bai Zhengming should have been—should have been nothing more than a red smear on the obliterated stone.

No cultivator, regardless of their power level, should have survived a direct hit from nearly a thousand points of concentrated vitality enforcing my strength.

But as the debris cleared, a figure emerged from the devastation.

Bai Zhengming stood in the center of his own smaller crater, one hand raised to his face where my fist had connected.

His robes were shredded, his skin split and bleeding from a dozen wounds, but he was upright. Still breathing. Still smiling.

"Is this all you have?" His voice carried clearly across the ruined courtyard, that same mocking tone despite the blood trickling from his mouth. "Huh?"

[A variable detected. The sect leader of the Immortal Sect had just died.]

My eyes went cold as Arctic winter.

The demonic enhancement hadn't just boosted his cultivation—it had fundamentally altered his physical composition.

Where my fist had struck, his flesh was already regenerating, corrupt qi knitting bone and muscle back together with unnatural speed.

The purple veins beneath his skin pulsed brighter, and I could sense something else now.

He wasn't just channeling the Draconic Spiritual Vine's energy through those pills.

He was connected to it directly, using the massive spiritual construct as a secondary dantian to fuel his corruption.

And it appeared that corruption had just killed him and now was replicating his memories and body.

[System Analysis Complete: Target displaying characteristics of Demonic Avatar]

[Warning: Subject has formed a parasitic bond with a major spiritual artifact]

[Threat Assessment: Revised upward - This opponent may match Host's capabilities by utilizing Qi stored in the Draconic Vine.]

"Interesting," I murmured, my stance shifting as I prepared for a real fight. "So that's how you survived. You're not just borrowing the Vine's power—you've made yourself into its puppet."

Bai Zhengming's laugh was like grinding stone. "Puppet? No, Emperor. I am the god who allowed a puppet like you to rule."

And then came the voice, like a glitch reverting, as if many people were speaking at once, belonging to the energy of this land, on which I ruled once, as if all that had become the intellect of this land corrupted.

And given how, as he held my fist, I could feel his body holding my affinity—though corrupted—clearly showing that while doing a sanction, when I released the shockwave of vitality to announce my arrival, it appeared this land also absorbed so much of it, awakening its intelligence.

By the fullness of Bai Zhengmen, that intelligence finally got the chance to hijack his mind.

His aura exploded outward again, but this time it carried the weight of eons—not his own power, but the accumulated spiritual energy of thousands of years of sect cultivation, all of it twisted through the Vine's corruption into something monstrous.

The air between us began to warp from the conflicting energies as two Great Vehicle realm powers clashed.

Before I twisted and gave a sharp kick, I could feel the shockwave of it destroying the land beneath. Miles of the land instantly plummeted as he was thrown. And then I lunged forward again.

"You better hold your ground well, Parasite."

BOOM!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.